Cherringham--The Secret of Combe Castle
Read Cherringham--The Secret of Combe Castle Online
Authors: Neil Richards
- Cover
- Cherringham — A Cosy Crime Series
- The Authors
- Main Characters
- The Secret of Combe Castle
- Copyright
- 1. A Shocking Event
- 2. Now What?
- 3. A Consultation with the Detective
- 4. The House on the River
- 5. The Scene of the Crime
- 6. More than Meets the Eye
- 7. Comparing Notes
- 8. Truth and Lies
- 9. City Slicker
- 10. Long Memories
- 11. The Hidden Legacy
- 12. A Table by the Fire
- 13. Jack’s Plan
- 14. Into the Castle
- 15. Madness at Midnight
- 16. A Winter’s Night on the Goose
- Next episode
“Cherringham — A Cosy Crime Series” is a series made up of self-contained stories. A new episode is released each month. The series is published in English as well as in German, and is only available in e-book form.
Matthew Costello
(US-based) is the author of a number of successful novels, including
Vacation
(2011),
Home
(2014) and
Beneath Still Waters
(1989), which was adapted by Lionsgate as a major motion picture. He has written for The Disney Channel, BBC, SyFy and has also designed dozens of bestselling games including the critically acclaimed
The 7th Guest
,
Doom 3
,
Rage
and
Pirates of the Caribbean
.
Neil Richards
has worked as a producer and writer in TV and film, creating scripts for BBC, Disney, and Channel 4, and earning numerous Bafta nominations along the way. He’s also written script and story for over 20 video games including
The Da Vinci Code
and
Starship Titanic
, co-written with Douglas Adams, and consults around the world on digital storytelling.
His writing partnership with NYC-based Matt Costello goes back to the late 90’s and the two have written many hours of TV together.
Cherringham
is their first crime fiction as co-writers.
Jack Brennan
is a former NYPD homicide detective who lost his wife a year ago. Being retired, all he wants is peace and quiet. Which is what he hopes to find in the quiet town of Cherringham, UK. Living on a canal boat, he enjoys his solitude. But soon enough he discovers that something is missing — the challenge of solving crimes. Surprisingly, Cherringham can help him with that.
Sarah Edwards
is a web designer who was living in London with her husband and two kids. Two years ago, he ran off with his sexy American boss, and Sarah’s world fell apart. With her children she moved back to her home town, laid-back Cherringham. But the small town atmosphere is killing her all over again — nothing ever happens. At least, that’s what she thinks until Jack enters her life and changes it for good or worse …
Matthew Costello
Neil Richards
CHERRINGHAM
A COSY CRIME SERIES
The Secret of Combe Castle
BASTEI ENTERTAINMENT
Digital original edition
Bastei Entertainment is an imprint of Bastei Lübbe AG
Copyright © 2015 by Bastei Lübbe AG, Schanzenstraße 6-20, 51063 Cologne, Germany
Written by Matthew Costello and Neil Richards
Edited by Victoria Pepe
Project management: Lori Herber
Cover illustration: © shutterstock: Ulrich Mueller/Darius Daubaras/Nando Machado
Cover design: Jeannine Schmelzer
E-book production: Urban
SatzKonzept
, Düsseldorf
ISBN 978-3-7325-0846-4
“Oswald!”
Oswald FitzHenry was about to pull off his wellies, still slimy wet. The mucky pools that always formed in the castle dungeons after a heavy rain were — if anything — getting worse.
Not that there was anything he could do about it.
Sealing up all that stone?
With their cash flow?
With receipts at the ‘Combe Castle Heritage site and House of Oddities’ plummeting?
No wonder the bank wants its pound of flesh at the end of the month,
he thought.
Regular trips to London and dining out had long been sacrificed just to keep the place running and get food on the table regularly.
He sighed and turned to face his wife, Edwina. She sat propped up on pillows, clutching a hot water bottle, peering at him over the top of her reading glasses.
She had barked at him in a way that Oswald imagined would cause a stag to freeze in its tracks, ready for a welcome blast to the head.
Anything better than
that
voice aimed at you.
Oswald knew exactly what was coming. He was about to be rebuked for coming to the draughty bedroom in the castle ‘tower’ with his wet wellies.
“Just what on earth do you think you are
doing
?”
He smiled haplessly.
One thing Oswald had learned in his long years of wedded bliss was that it was not wise to use sarcasm in any riposte to his spouse.
“I was about to,” he said as if it was the wrong answer in a quiz, “take my wellies off. Still so bloody wet down there —”
“Oswald! Language, please! This is my
boudoir
.”
He nodded.
Of course it was. This was the only room that had heating on a dependable basis, the only room they could afford to heat.
He mumbled. “Sorry dear.”
“I mean, what in heaven’s name are you doing with those sopping wet boots anyway? You weren’t thinking of taking them off here, actually
leaving
them there, were you?”
Now Oswald searched his memory bank for the answer least likely to produce another vocal volley.
“Don’t know really, dear, I suppose … I forgot. I can—”
Now Edwina leaned forward, her head and shoulder supported by the mound of pillows.
“Well you can jolly well take them straight downstairs again. Which is just as well, because I do believe I didn’t hear you check ‘the rooms’ tonight.”
He nodded.
He knew she would ask about that, about checking ‘the rooms.’
By ‘rooms’ he knew she meant …
The Odditorium.
His pride and joy.
The warren of chambers devoted to the castle’s long and honourable history of incarceration, torture, and execution.
The rooms also featured the only bit of wiring that really needed to be checked each evening.
To confirm that things were indeed shut down.
They hosted the castle’s grisly electric displays during business hours. But at night it was a hell of a lot safer to have them totally off — if a fire broke out the whole building was a death trap.
“Did you forget?”
He shook his head as if disappointed in his own lapse.
“I — don’t know dear. I think I got caught up down in the dungeons, and …”
“Well, what a stroke of luck you’ve still got your wellies on. Now go and check that the displays are properly shut down, timers, lights — everything.”
Oswald watched her fall back onto the pillows, her work done. “And then perhaps I can try and get some sleep. Though quite how, I really don’t know.”
Oswald knew what was worrying her.
He had shown her the latest notes that had come in the post.
Grubby things,
he thought.
In fact — grubby people who keep sending them.
People who either didn’t like the castle or simply wanted them to sell up so that something less grisly could take its place.
Something less grisly,
he thought,
and probably less entertaining!
A shopping mall! Retirement homes! Or worse — what did they call ‘em these days …? Social housing!
Contradiction in bloody terms that was. Anti-social housing they should call it!
He raised a hand in the air, finger pointed to the turret roof of their bedroom — a sign of commitment.
“I shall go and check now.”
He knew those notes had really upset Edwina. So double-checking that the place was all shut down, nice and tight, would be even more important to her tonight.
Although — rather like removing the wet wellies — he didn’t quite share her concerns to the same extent.
They were only nasty notes after all. Sticks and stones …
*
Oswald made his way slowly down the stone spiral staircase.
He brought the big torch that was always plugged into the bedroom socket. Charged and ready in case of a power cut, which these days seemed to strike the castle with alarming regularity.
“You need to re-wire,” Todd Robinson had told him. “The whole place.”
Instead, Oswald had asked Todd to apply a bandage to the system to get power back on. “This whole set-up … bloomin’ illegal if you ask me,” the electrician had said.
Oswald had nodded. A summons for defying the great God of Health and Safety was the least of his worries.
The bright torch made the curving steps ahead glow as if on fire, and with those below hidden, shadowy as if someone might be waiting in the lurch.
Finally, he hit the flagstone bottom, and the damp corridor that led to ‘the rooms.’
He stared down that corridor.
And though he knew what to expect, what was ahead, he still felt a tinge of … what? Apprehension?
It was one thing to see crowds of people — well, maybe not crowds, but whatever number of customers they got — walk through here, nervously enjoying being spooked before they hit the big, grim displays …
But to do it on your own?
Lights off?
Even knowing the layout of the Odditorium so well, it was definitely rather scary.
He came to the first room.
The Witches’ Cell.
Here, back in the 1600s — according to legend or, Oswald guessed, the bullshit of some previous entrepreneurial ancestor — the Mabb sisters, witches were detained before being taken to Oxford and summarily hanged.
There were no lights on in the room now to send the usual sick green glow onto their wild-eyed faces.
Oswald didn’t aim his torch into the room.
Could do without seeing those hags,
he thought.
Then onto the next room.
The King’s Torture Chamber.
Another bit of family legend traced the FitzHenry line all the way back to Henry V.
Or in some stories, Henry IV.
Anyway, one of the Henrys.
‘Royal blood in our veins!’ was the family cry, even though paying the utility bills in a timely manner often proved difficult for the FitzHenry royals.
Here he looked in, his torch scanning the display.
A great chair held a wax life-sized dummy, fashioned decades ago from some rubbery plastic, now well cracked, making the torture victim look even more pathetic.