Dead on Cue (6 page)

‘Only you will know the answer,' Ricardo answered softly, and kneaded the top of her spine rhythmically.

At precisely that moment Nick Lawrence was crossing the delightful small bridge which led to the great oak door of the moated manor. He was on a random parochial visit and, though he knew that Ekaterina was Russian Orthodox by faith, had hopes of somehow encouraging her to become part of the Lakehurst community, though to be honest he could hardly see her arranging flowers. Or, for that matter, joining the WI. In fact as he pulled at the long iron lever that worked the bell he could hardly think of any attractions that the village might offer that would suit Ekaterina.

There was a long silence after it rang sonorously in the house's depths and Nick was just about to turn away and recross the bridge when the front door opened. A young man in a white top stood there.

‘Can I help you?' he asked, his accent extreme Italianate.

‘Er, yes. Is Mrs Harlington in?'

‘She is presently getting dressed.' At the look of surprise on the vicar's face, Ricardo added, ‘I have just given her a massage.'

‘Oh. Oh, I see. Well I was only here on a parochial call. I'll come another time.'

‘No, no. If it is Mr Lawrence, then you are to stay,' called a feminine voice from within, and Ekaterina appeared a few minutes later dressed in a stunning pair of silken palazzo pants with matching top, her blonde hair swept up in a comb from which many artless curls descended.

She really was ravishing looking, thought Nick, turning his panama hat in his hands.

Ekaterina flashed a brilliant smile. ‘Now, would you like tea or a drink, Mr Lawrence?'

He grinned awkwardly. ‘Do you have any lapsang souchong?'

‘Of course,' she answered. ‘We stock practically everything here. And what about you, Ricardo?'

‘Coke, please. Sugar free, of course.'

Obviously extremely short of servants Ekaterina went to the kitchen herself and came back with a tray clinking with glasses. She found both Nick and Ricardo standing in silence at different windows watching the two swans skimming the waters of the moat.

‘They're lovely, aren't they?' she said.

‘Beautiful. Were they here when you came?'

‘Oh yes. I love them but Gerry wants to get rid of them and fill the moat with fish.'

‘Surely you won't let him?'

‘They go over my dead body,' answered Ekaterina firmly. ‘He's a philistine. Come and look at what he's done to the round room.'

They followed her into the place where Gerry worked and Nick was aghast to see full-length photographs of the actor hanging alongside tapestries, precious with antiquity.

‘My husband,' said Ekaterina with a non-amused laugh, ‘would like to get rid of the wall hangings and paint the walls pea green.'

‘You cannot be serious,' said Ricardo but Nick shook his head and added, ‘But that would be sacrilege. You should add more tapestries if anything. Where did you get these by the way?'

‘My father picked them up in an auction somewhere or other.'

‘Was he a dealer?' Nick asked, interested.

Ekaterina grinned and said, ‘Sort of.'

They returned to the tea cups and the vicar broached the reason for his visit.

‘I've come to see if I can interest you in any village activities.'

She pulled a wry face. ‘Frankly, I would rather go to London for my amusements. As you know I have a fast car and if I don't feel like driving I can take the train from Oakbridge. Talking of which, how is the Son et Lumière proceeding?'

Nick gave what he hoped was a gallant laugh. ‘Well, your husband has one or two ideas for modernizing the show.'

‘Oh dear. I'm sure they haven't gone down too well.'

‘No they haven't I'm afraid.'

‘Has he suggested that he does a hip-hop routine?'

‘Not exactly.'

Ekaterina sighed. ‘He will, you can bet on it.'

‘Perhaps you could have a word with him.'

She gave an exquisite shrug. ‘It would make no difference, I assure you. Gerry has always been a law unto himself.'

Ricardo spoke up. ‘I'm sorry but what is this Son et Lumière you are talking about?'

Nick answered, ‘It's the history of Fulke Castle, which is near here; an historic castle built in 1067. I think it is going to be awfully good.'

‘That is if my husband doesn't muck it up.'

‘When is it coming off?'

‘In four weeks' time. Why? Are you coming to see it?'

‘I would rather be in it,' Ricardo answered surprisingly.

Both Ekaterina and Nick turned on him an astonished stare.

‘Well, we are still rather short of men,' the vicar ventured.

Ricardo explained. ‘I am giving Mrs Harlington a course of massage and am also going to help her to find a suitable health club. So I have booked into The Great House for a month. I would very much like to find something to do in the evenings.'

‘Then please come to the next rehearsal. I'm sure you would be most welcome,' said Nick.

Kasper had managed to buy himself a small but beautiful cottage in Arrow Street. It was three hundred years old, had a small garden at the back in which he could sit out, and was ideally suited to his bachelor existence. Tonight, however, he was having a small dinner party and was busy in the kitchen preparing Polish food. He had invited Nick and the owner of Fulke Castle, Sir Rufus Beaudegrave, whom he had met socially at a boring little drinks party given by Colonel and Mrs Babbs who lived in The Maze. The colonel had dressed in ginger tweeds and his wife worn a worsted plaid bias-cut skirt. The whole event had been extremely hearty and dull.

Kasper hummed as he worked and decided that this evening would be the complete opposite of dreary with plenty of vodka to drink and wild Polish dishes that he hoped the others would like. Fortunately he was a good cook and highly organized and so had a quarter of an hour to spare during which he washed and changed his shirt and wished Olivia would come back from her world tour. There could be no doubt that he liked her enormously and it would not take much persuading for him to fall totally in love. But he had competition and of that he was highly aware.

The leader of the rival faction, Nick, knocked on the front door exactly five minutes later and was seated, vodka in hand, when the knocker went again. The vicar stood up, anxious in several ways to get a look at Sir Rufus Beaudegrave, the owner of Fulke Castle.

He was a tall man, standing well over six feet, and broad of shoulder into the bargain. He had bright-red hair, rather like the smouldering remains of a log fire, strongly marked features and a very fine well-proportioned nose. His eyes were remarkable; amber pupils with tawny flecks in them. Nick thought that put a helmet and chain mail on him and he could quite easily pass for one of his ancestors.

The fourth member of the group was a girlfriend of Sir Rufus's and was vapid with a well-bred face exactly like a million others that one could see at upper-class parties. She wore her hair straight and had the habit of flicking it back with a movement of her head about every five minutes or so. She had a very short skirt on and black leggings beneath. Nick stared in fascination at her feet, which were adorned by a massive pair of red shoes with five-inch heels, a platform sole and a welter of florid red bows down the front. He had quite literally never seen anything like them. She looked down and said, ‘Do you like my shoes?' in a very posh voice.

Nick gulped, not wishing to lie but conscious of the fact that to tell the truth would be hurtful. ‘They're not quite what I'm used to,' he said.

‘I gathered that,' she answered with a cold look and turned her head away to talk to Rufus, who was making it quite clear that she and he were just good friends.

Nick had looked Rufus Beaudegrave up on Wikipedia before he came out and had discovered that the man had been married and divorced, leaving him with the custody of four little girls. He had then looked up a copy of the
Daily Express
relevant to the divorce and learned that the wife had run off with the gamekeeper and was living in a small two-bedroomed cottage in a nearby village.

What extraordinary lives some people lead, he had thought. And looking at Rufus now as they took their seats at the dinner table, he could not imagine why any woman would want to bolt from him. He supposed the answer lay in good old-fashioned sex.

Rufus was speaking. ‘Have you heard about the Son et Lumière thing they are doing at my castle?'

‘Yes,' said Kasper, while Nick replied, ‘I'm in it actually.'

‘Are you, by Jove? Then you'll have witnessed the trouble at first hand.'

The vicar decided to be honest and said, ‘There isn't any real trouble, Sir Rufus.'

‘That's not what I heard. In fact the local solicitor has been to see me and asked me to intercede.'

Nick looked at him blankly.

‘He's in the damned thing. Name of Paul Silas. Models himself on Donald Sinden . . .'

‘Oh, I know who you mean.'

‘Well, he made an appointment to call on me and did nothing but grumble about the new director who is apparently a third-rate American actor who starred in the Wasp Man films.'

The girl, whose name was Davina Booth-Lyle, said, ‘What can you expect with amateur dramatics? Everybody is out to put down everyone else. My sister was in a production where they cast a forty-year-old as Juliet. She turned out to be the wife of the director. How ridiculous can you get?'

‘I tend to agree. But I must admit this show is going to be pretty terrific. I think it will be utterly spectacular when it is done in Fulke Castle.'

‘So when is your first rehearsal in the castle?' This from Rufus.

‘Tuesday night.'

‘I'll come and observe.'

‘I think we'd appreciate that very much.'

‘Including the Wasp Man?' Rufus asked.

‘Yes, if he's got any sense.'

The conversation veered away to the food, which everybody was enjoying – excepting Davina who picked at her helping with a disconsolate expression. Kasper enquired if she would rather have something else but she said no in a wispy voice. After that the men tended to ignore her.

The evening over, Rufus roared away in a large four-by-four but Nick walked up Arrow Street, quiet and deserted at this hour of the night, and back home along the High Street. As he drew alongside The Great House he stopped dead in his tracks. Even through those great Tudor walls a voice could be heard.

‘Geez, you're asking me if I know Brad Pitt. Well, let me tell you sumpin. I knew Brad when he was just starting out on his career. In fact it was I myself who had a little whisper in the director's ear. Wolf, I said . . .'

Some uncouth youth let out a baying howl at this but was shushed by the others. It was obvious that Gerry had gathered quite an audience.

‘Wolf, give the kid a chance. He's got the looks and I believe he's got the talent. Give him a break. I'll stake my life on the fact that he won't let you down.'

There was a kind of mock cheer, which led Nick to the conclusion that they, his audience, were collectively taking the mickey.

And what else does he deserve, thought Nick in an uncharitable way. He was beginning to think of the Wasp Man as a self-opinionated little squirt and just hoped that in some way or other he could not ruin the grand concept of the Son et Lumière.

F
ulke Castle had been named after its builder, the great Norman warrior Fulke Beau de Grave, who had fought mightily at Hastings alongside his cousin Guillame, anglicized to William, the Conqueror. As a reward he had been granted great swathes of land on one of which, in 1067, he had started to build a moated motte-and-bailey castle. A stone keep was added as the original buildings were not strong enough to withstand attacks from marauders and it was still possible to walk around the immense twelfth-century walls with its ramparts providing a magnificent view of the castle complex. During the English Civil War it had been the only remaining Royalist stronghold in the south-east of England and it was besieged by Cromwell's troops for three years before the chatelaine, Lady Marguerite Beau de Grave, had finally conceded. To repay her in kind, Cromwell had ordered the removal of the castle's roofs. But the restoration of Charles II had seen the repairs undertaken and Lady Marguerite had planted an oak tree in the courtyard to mark the end of the castle's warlike past.

Peace had indeed returned to Fulke Castle. To the right of the old fortifications, looking at the buildings from the drawbridge – now replaced by an eighteenth-century bridge that could be crossed on foot – the Tudor Beau de Graves had built a large set of additional rooms and a great feasting room, which could be reached by a covered passageway that spanned the moat and contained two arches through which the water flowed peacefully. Added on to these were the graceful Georgian buildings and these had finally been extended by a compact Victorian dwelling, complete with tower from which Rufus flew the Beau de Grave flag bearing the family coat of arms. It was in this part of the castle that he continued to live.

Nick, arriving early so that he could look round the place, felt unbelievably excited. It was so exquisite that it made him gasp out loud and he was glad that there was nobody around to hear him. At the same time he felt an enormous admiration for the family that had kept it going by a great effort of will. Rufus, so he had been told, hired the place out for films and TV, did weddings, ghost walks, public admittances, balloon rides, old-car rallies, etc. He had even converted a few rooms in the Tudor block for rich Americans to stay in luxury and be hosted to a feast in the great dining hall. The one thing he had drawn the line at was bed and breakfast for passing strangers. At the same time as all this was going on he was raising four small daughters single-handedly. Nick raised his metaphorical hat to him.