Cherringham--Mystery at the Manor (2 page)

But he kept on going, even when he heard someone, distant and garbled, calling out for him.

‘Dad!” Then again, “
Dad
!” Ignoring the voice, Victor kept climbing. There were only a few steps to go, then another door and then a light switch to be found. He’d be there soon. In the distance he could hear more sounds from below: sirens, the fire engines had arrived.

Victor stood at the door and though dizzy with the climb, he was able to turn the knob and enter the room. He blindly batted at the right side of the wall with his hand, and somehow smacked on the light switch.

He stepped into the room. A splinter jabbed into his right foot, but he ignored it.

Up here, the sounds from below had been reduced to just a faint murmur. In the quiet room he looked around, forgetting for a moment where to look, confused because it had been so long since he had been up here.

Where was it? The bright light blinded him and created great long shadows.

“
Where?
” he asked
,
scared by his own desperation.

The shadows took on a greyish tinge and he found himself coughing. Then a corner of the great attic seemed to vanish in a fog which he quickly realized wasn’t fog at all. He had been followed up here.

The smoke rose up beside him, snaking its way into the room, climbing around his legs as he coughed again and again.

The firemen had to be up here by now, they would be looking for him in his bedroom. But how long until they came up here?

The coughs constant now, he bent over, an ancient hand covering his mouth. He fell to his knee and then, as whole parts of the room disappeared, there was nothing left for Victor but the fog.

Sarah looked over at Hope Brown, whose eyes were fixed on the young vicar of St James Church as he once again checked his watch. She shivered, regretting having left her winter coat at home. But then she hadn’t planned on coming to a funeral this afternoon.

Only a few people stood around the coffin raised near an open grave, in the very corner of the ancient churchyard. A few women, church regulars who probably came to every St James event. They were hardy, these women, thought Sarah. Although the old church was in the centre of the village, the autumn winds seemed always to find it, and the big old yew tree rustled constantly.

“For God’s sake,” the man next to her muttered under his breath. Sarah knew him of old: one of Victor Hamblyn’s sons, Dominic. In his early fifties, Dominic had a long reputation in the village as someone who splashed the cash.

At the height of the boom he’d been all champagne and fifty-pound notes. From the slightly orange tone of his face, thought Sarah, these days it seemed he concentrated on his tan…

Next to him, his wife Vanessa — co-owner of Coole Solutions, the village’s supposedly trendy and certainly pricey interior design shop. She wore the wide-eyed look of someone who would explode if she spent another minute here.

On the opposite side of the grave from Dominic and his wife, Sarah saw Susan Hamblyn, wearing a crisp grey suit, looking every bit the tough accountant. During the brief church service Sarah had been amazed to see her using her phone, probably writing emails.

And next to Sarah, the last member of the little cluster around the grave — her own friend Hope. Sarah caught her eye and Hope rolled her eyes as if to say
see what I have to put up with?

At the last minute, Sarah had volunteered to accompany Hope, Victor’s carer, to the old man’s funeral.

Hope had checked in on him three times a day and had grown to like the old man.

“He was strange, odd in his ways, you know?” she’d once told Sarah. “But there was something sweet there, too.”

On the subject of his offspring and their infrequent visits, Hope had nothing good to say.

Hope, Sarah knew all too well, didn’t easily indulge in judgements. But her silence now spoke volumes.

Another gust of wind blew swirls of leaves through the weathered gravestones. Everyone was now waiting for offspring number three.

Hope gave Sarah’s left hand a quick squeeze. “Thank you for coming, Sarah.” She said quietly. “Didn’t know we’d have such a long wait.”

“No worries,” Sarah replied. At least the day was cooperating — just. Clouds threatening rain but so far it was still dry.

Finally, Reverend Hewitt shook his head.

“I’m afraid, well, we really can’t wait any longer. I have a wedding at East Charlton so … Best, I begin, yes?”

The vicar, all thick glasses that matched his black hair tousled by the wind, was as exciting in making this decision as he was when Sarah heard him sermonizing.

A gentle man, with a quiet owl-eyed wife who ran the Christmas pageant; they were as mild and meek as one could ask for.

“Yes,” Dominic said, catching matching glares from his sister and wife. “We all have things to
do
. And Terry, well you know Terry …”

Then, as if on cue, Terry walked over.

In fact he wobbled, obviously having fortified himself for his father’s internment with an early liquid breakfast at the Railway Arms.

And he’d even dressed for the occasion, with a black-and-white Metallica T-shirt stretched over his expansive belly.

Sarah guessed that Terry’s wardrobe choices back at his caravan were limited.

But now that he had arrived, it was time for the final act of the show to start.

First Susan. “So
good
of you to come, Terry.”

Dominic also showed an inability to restrain his commentary on Terry’s late arrival: “Can’t even be on time for your own father’s bloody funeral?”

Terry swayed slightly as if the rebukes were wind gusts sending him bobbing left and right. Then he recovered his stance.

“Right. Sure.
You’se
lot … as if you cared for the old sod … one …” he paused, perhaps that the vicar was watching, missal in hand. Sarah looked at Hope, thinking that the sweet nurse probably hadn’t bargained on a show like this.

But then, maybe she had seen similar, or even worse, when Victor’s family gathered at the decrepit manor.

“… not one …
bit
.” Terry continued. “Just got your greedy damn eyes on the Manor, the property, huh, huh?” He looked around wildly at his siblings.

“Please.” Reverend Hewitt held up a hand as if he might part the waves of acrimony now surrounding the shiny wooden coffin. “Out of respect,” he said, looking at the remaining Hamblyn members.

Hope looked over at Sarah; perhaps, Sarah thought, she was suddenly feeling that this was too much to ask of a friend. But Sarah gave her a bright smile back. And thought:
I decided to come back to the village, to live a village life. And this, standing with a friend, is part of that.

Despite the vicar’s plea, Terry had one more riposte. “Nothing to say, do
you
? Nothing!” Then Terry Hamblyn straightened up as best he could and gave the vicar a drunken wave of his hand signalling that the ceremony could finally begin.

Reverend Hewitt nodded. His white surplice flapped in the wind. He opened up the missal and then, with a gentle clearing of his throat, began …

“Dear friends, family — a reading from Isaiah 25 … ‘He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from all the earth: for the Lord hath spoken it!’”

And then — the first drops of rain.

It, too, had waited long enough.

“Sarah, thank you
so
much for coming.”

Hope, ever resourceful, had brought a large enough umbrella to shelter them both from what had turned into a steady downpour.

Over her friend’s shoulder, she could see workmen with shovels preparing to cover up the grave.

“No worries. I got to see the Hamblyn family in action, didn’t I? They are
quite
the family.”

Hope nodded, looked away, and then back at Susan.

“There’s something I wanted to mention to you.” Hope chewed her lips and Sarah couldn’t imagine what had her looking so serious.

“Of course.”

“I mean, I know you’re friends with that American, from New York.” A pause. “The detective.”

“
Retired
detective.”

“Yes. But here’s the thing, Sarah …”

It helped that they huddled under the umbrella, making the conspiratorial whispering look not so conspiratorial. “The night Victor died …”

Sarah nodded.

“You see, they found him in a room that he told me no one was ever to enter, way up in the attic. No one,
ever
. He said that if any of his family visited and I was in the house, I had to make sure they never went up there.”

With a small smile, Hope looked over at the grave to where Victor’s children had just been standing.

“Though how I was supposed to do that was anybody’s guess.”

“A forbidden room, then?” Sarah said.

“Yes.”

“And do you know what secret was in that room?”

“No. You know me, Sarah. Never asked and he never told. But I have to tell you this …”

Hope’s umbrella, the size of a small tent, was doing a good job of keeping the heavy rain off them.

“I never —
ever
— in all my years looking after him so much as saw him look at the door leading up there. Only — once in a while, especially if he’d sneaked an extra sherry or two — he’d stare right at me and repeat that no one must ever go up there. I’d say, of course, you told me …”

“Did he mean … even after he died?”

“Possibly. Some hope with his fine lot of kids prowling over the place.”

“Interesting,” Sarah said. “I can imagine they’re all itching to scour the house.”

Another mystery,
she thought. Old Cherringham was turning to be more mysterious than she would have ever expected.

But she also sensed as Hope stood there, her face set, eyes narrow, a worried look — that there was more.

“Sarah, I think there’s something wrong here. The fire, Victor going upstairs when he should have been trying to get out of the house, going up where I never saw him go.”

Hope took a breath.

“Something’s
wrong
.”

Sarah, not sure she agreed, nodded.

Things happened in life.

She knew that well. Married with kids one day, the next a single mum back in the home village. Life is full of surprises …

Hope reached out and grabbed Sarah’s free hand.

“Can you ask your friend? To look into it.”

“Gosh Hope — I don’t …”

A squeeze. “Please, Sarah. You know I’d never normally ask but Victor was such a sweet old man. A little strange perhaps, a bit poor — but I just feel like something’s not right here.” A gust of wind sent rain flying in under the protection of the umbrella.

“Can you?”

Sarah looked at the grave in the far corner, the workmen shovelling heavy black earth. Victor Hamblyn just another resident in a place where — what was her father’s corny joke? — everyone’s dying to get in.

Victor Hamblyn was gone. But if Hope was right, a mystery remained.

“Okay. I’ll talk him, and see what he thinks.”

Now, a full on smile from Hope. “Thank you. I won’t forget this Sarah.”

Another gust, more rain spatters. “And we best get indoors. Do you want to come up to the office for a cuppa?”

Sarah nodded, and together they walked round the corner and into the village square.

Sarah knocked on the door of the ‘Grey Goose’, Jack’s river barge. A gentle rap at first, but then harder.

“Jack? You in there?”

She hadn’t seen much of him, what with the past few weeks being so busy — just a quick hello as they passed at Gramley’s Market or the newsagents. Jack had gone back to being the quiet, invisible ex-pat.

Then a louder rap. “Jack?”

Finally she heard a growl — his dog, Riley — and then steps.

Jack opened the door dressed in rumpled cargo shorts and a frayed Hawaiian Smokin’ Joe’s T-shirt. A volcano sat above words that promised ‘air-conditioning and the best place to return any cursed lava rocks you might have picked up’.

Guess the volcano gods weren’t to be trifled with.

Though mid-morning, Jack had obviously just woken up and Sarah found herself wondering whether it was because he’d had a late night, or whether he’d stayed awake thinking about the past.

She should drop in more, she thought. People, even former NYPD detectives, can vanish into their own hidey-holes.

“Sarah, um …”

“Sorry for waking you.”

Jack smiled, the lines on his face receding. “No — um — worries. Should have gotten up earlier. Stayed up a bit last night. Reading.”

Sarah nodded. Jack could be quiet, and she knew best not to dig deep.

“Got a minute? Something I’d like to talk to you about.”

His smile broadened. “Oh, do you? Let me guess, is something, as your great Mr Conan Doyle might write,
afoot
?”

“Could be.”

“Then let me get the kettle on — see, I am picking up the ways of you natives here — and we’ll talk.”

But Riley stuck his snout in the door, and looked left and right.

“Er, Jack — maybe Riley needs a walk first.”

“Right. Okay … walk the dog, then the kettle. Going to be a bit mushy out there.”

Jack reached to the side of the open door, grabbed Riley’s leash, and clipped it to the dog’s collar before pulling on his boots. The dog led the way out to the meadow that sprawled from the riverfront, away from the barges and boats.

Jack soon let Riley run free through the meadow. An occasional gull swooped down, and dog and bird almost seemed to be playing a game of tag.

Stayed up reading?
Jack thought …

True, he loved to get lost in his history books but last night, there was too much Brooklyn, too much Katherine, too many memories floating around to get lost in his new history of Stalingrad.

But now the morning air felt good, clearing cobwebs.

And seeing Sarah? Always good. Although she had two devoted parents right in the village, Jack felt something he could only describe as fatherly concern for her. Raising a family on your own was always tough …