Murder at the Castle (3 page)

He went on up to the stateroom, where they had a balcony. He opened the door and went out.

There was a good deal of shouting on deck, which increased John's anxiety by another notch. The crew on a luxury cruise ship did not shout. He could see nothing amiss, except that the ship seemed to have stopped, but on reflection, he went back into the room and quickly changed from his dress suit into slacks and a warm sweater. Then he went to the closet and, feeling more than a little foolish, took out two life jackets.

He wished Delia would come. Probably she'd be there in a few minutes.

He stepped across to the stateroom door, and stumbled. Surely there had been a bit of a lurch? That was odd. They weren't moving.

But they
were
moving. John watched as the carafe of ice water slid slowly across the bedside table, stopping against the low barrier that edged the table.

An alarm sounded, a hideous electronic noise that penetrated to his very soul. After a moment it stopped and a voice came over the public address system.

‘This is the captain speaking. All passengers are to bring life jackets and report to the boat deck immediately. Repeat: all passengers report to the boat deck with life jackets immediately. Do not put on your life jacket until you reach the boat deck. This is not a drill. Repeat: this is not a drill.'

Feeling disoriented and somehow empty, John took one more look from his balcony. The crew members were still shouting, but this time their shouts were purposeful. They were removing the covers from the lifeboats and preparing to launch them. And as John watched, the boat gave another lurch. It was now noticeably listing to port.

Where was Delia? Frantically he tried to decide what to do. Wait here for her? Take her life jacket and try to find her?

She had heard the announcement. Would she come back here or head straight for the boat deck? There were extra life jackets, weren't there?

Another lurch made him realize there was no time to waste. He took the pad by the bedside table, wasted precious moments searching for the pen, which had rolled off, and quickly scribbled: ‘Delia. Gone to boat deck. Have your jacket. Come at once!'

He affixed it to the door with one of the brooches from her jewel box and hurried to the stairs.

He thought he'd never get down to the boat deck. The metal stairs from his deck were in truth little more than the ladders they were officially called, and they were jammed with people. Many had ignored instructions and donned their life jackets, and were having trouble manoeuvring the bulk through tight places. It didn't help that the treads were tilting markedly, and many of the women still had on their high heels.

Stewards did their best to keep the crowd moving, but now that high note of hysteria was beginning to sound clearly.
God help us
, John said under his breath, not certain whether it was exclamation or prayer.

‘I can't!' It was a shrill scream, coming from the woman in front of him. She was, he saw, the woman who had spoken with him at the party. She was at the head of the ladder down to the boat deck, and she was paralyzed with fright.

‘Here, I'll help you,' he said, with all the calm he could muster. ‘Take off your shoes. It'll be easier. And I'll be right behind you. I won't let you fall. Is your life jacket fastened securely? Then I'll hold on to the back straps. You won't fall.'

It meant he had to put on his own. He couldn't carry it, hold the railing, and hold the woman at the same time. It also meant he must drop Delia's life jacket.

He gave a despairing look around for her, but the scene by now was utter chaos. The crew was having trouble lowering the lifeboats on the starboard side, with the ship now listing heavily to port.

He took a firm grasp of the woman's life jacket and followed her, cajoling, soothing, talking her down the ladder.

Once on the deck, he was at a loss. The passengers were being loaded on to the boats as fast as it could be managed. Many were refusing to board. The boats certainly didn't look very safe, hanging as they now did against the side of the ship. How could they be safely lowered to the water?

And he couldn't board yet. He must find Delia.

‘This way, sir.'

‘I can't. My wife—'

‘Someone will look after your wife. There's no time, sir! She's going down!'

‘You don't understand! I must—'

And then the lights went out.

Screams. Panic. The press of bodies. The stink of fear. Then . . . nothing.

‘H
ow would you like to go to a Welsh music festival?'

‘An eisteddfod? Or however you pronounce it. I find the Welsh language even more difficult than most Celtic tongues.'

Nigel grinned. ‘Well, you're close, except that double d is pronounced
th
and the
f
is a
v
.' He pronounced it correctly.

It was the hard
th
as in
them
and
there
. ‘Ice-teth-vawd,' I imitated tentatively.

‘Yes, well . . . anyway, this isn't a real eisteddfod I'm inviting you to. They focus on solo competitions, largely, and include a good deal of poetry reading. Usually in Welsh.' He grinned again, more broadly, at the expression on my face. ‘No, this one is much more to your taste, I'd think. There'll be music of all kinds, solo and ensemble, but it isn't a competition, just a festival. It's in aid of the RNLI—'

‘What's that?' I interrupted.

‘Sorry, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. You know, the ones who do sea rescue.'

‘Okay, yes, I just didn't know what they were called. And I still find it odd that that's a charity here. Back in the States the Coastguard does that. But go ahead. A festival to raise money for the RNLI . . .'

‘
And
it's to be held in a castle, an honest medieval castle, not one of your Victorian fakes.'

‘Well, that seals our fate,' said Alan. ‘Dorothy is totally unable to resist castles. When is this extravaganza to take place? We'll need to decide what to do about Watson.'

We were sitting in our parlour after dinner, Alan and I, Nigel Evans, his wife Inga and little Nigel Peter, our godson. Rising three, he had been almost too active throughout our meal, but was now contentedly asleep on the hearthrug, guarded by Watson, our mostly-spaniel, and the two cats Samantha and Esmeralda. The fire, which had kept the blustery February night outside where it belonged, had died down to pleasantly glowing coals, and I was feeling cosy and comfortable.

Inga responded to Alan. ‘It's not until June, but we need to reserve seats for you now, if you plan to go. Oh, I do hope you will! You see, there's to be a selection of opera scenes, not staged, of course, but a concert version. And Nigel won't tell you himself, so I have to say it for him, he's to be the tenor soloist.'

‘Oh, Nigel! Congratulations!'

Colour rushed into his face. Nigel may have inherited his formidable musical ability from his Welsh father, but his colouring and his temperament sprang mostly from his English mother. ‘It'll be fun. Now, it's for a week, and I'm afraid Watson can't come. We'll all be staying at a perfectly lovely B&B called Tower Wales, quite near Flint Castle where the festival is being held. The Wynne-Eytons, who own the place, have several dogs of their own, and one never knows . . .'

‘Indeed.' I hesitated. ‘Maybe we should find a place where we could take him?'

‘You'd have to leave him behind all day, Dorothy,' said Alan sensibly. ‘One can hardly take a dog to a concert. Particularly one that sings along.'

For it was Watson's occasional habit to show his appreciation of music by howling loudly. Nigel cleared his throat, took a deep breath, and launched into
Nessun dorma
, perhaps the most famous tenor aria of them all. Neither the baby nor the cats paid the slightest attention. Watson stirred, cocked an ear, opened his eyes, and gave voice.

‘Nigel, stop! Between the two of you, you'll wake the baby!' Inga's indignant voice stopped Nigel mid-note.

‘Okay, okay, you've made your point,' I said, laughing. ‘So tell us what this place is like.'

‘You'll like it, Dorothy.' Inga took Nigel's hand to show she forgave him for showing off. ‘You Americans are all potty about old places, and Tower is over five hundred years old. It's a fortified border house, if you know what that is.'

I turned to Alan.

‘They go back to the days when the Welsh and the English were on rather unfriendly terms,' he began. ‘You know about Edward the First and his campaigns?'

‘No, but I'll look it up, or you can tell me later. Give me the pared-down version.'

Alan sighed histrionically. ‘Very well. The Welsh living along the border in troubled times built strongly fortified houses, to defend themselves against the rapacious English. I had thought that most of them were ruined long ago.'

‘They were,' Inga replied. ‘Almost all except this one, which is perfectly preserved. It really is quite interesting. The walls in the oldest part, the tower itself, are five feet thick. You can't use your mobile or Wi-Fi! And the great hall has a nice grisly bit of history. The house is not far from Chester, on the other side of the border, and in some century or other there was a little disagreement with the mayor of Chester, who was promptly hanged in the great hall.'

Alan raised his eyebrows. ‘I trust he does not disturb the present occupants?'

‘I've never heard any stories,' said Nigel, with that casual acceptance of the idea of ghosts that I find so typically British, ‘and we've neither seen nor heard him when we've stayed there.'

‘Darn,' I said mildly. ‘A ghost would have made it perfect, but I guess we'll just have to do without. Give us the dates, and get us festival tickets, and we'll make arrangements about the animals.'

Nigel and Inga kept us apprised of the festival programme as it developed, and in April gave us copies of the beautifully printed brochure. ‘Good heavens,' I said, scanning the cover page. ‘Sir John Warner! Nigel, I'm even more impressed that you're a part of this. You never told us he was the organizer.'

‘We wanted to save that for a nice surprise,' he said.

For Sir John was in the very first rank of English choral conductors, right up there with Stephen Cleobury and John Rutter. His knighthood was recent, but I had gathered that, among his fellow musicians, he was felt to have earned it long ago. ‘He's amazing. After that terrible accident, when he lost his wife and nearly died himself, to come so far . . .'

‘He is the most sensitive conductor I've ever worked with,' said Nigel with enthusiasm. ‘And a truly fine person to boot.'

‘I didn't know you had worked with him. You never sang with the Camerata of London, did you?'

‘No, but I knew him at King's, and he's been guest conductor for a few concerts with choral societies here and there. I've sung with him twice. He knows exactly the sound he wants, and knows how to get it. Firm but so good that one doesn't mind being bossed.'

‘And I suppose you soloed for him, and that's how you got picked for this festival.'

‘Not at all! At least, yes, I did a solo or two, and he did mention that the festival was coming up and a quartet was needed, and told me about the auditions. But the auditions were blind. I mean, he didn't just choose singers he liked . . .'

He trailed off, in danger of saying something that sounded like self-praise. The English half coming out again. I tactfully went back to the brochure. ‘Oh, they're doing the “Lord Nelson Mass”! That's one of my favourites. I do love the Haydn Masses. And ending with a real barn-burner,
Carmina Burana
. And the opera bits, let's see . . .
Lucia
,
Barber
,
Butterfly
,
Traviata
,
Carmen
– an embarrassment of riches! And that wonderful chorus from
Nabucco
, too. I think that's one of the loveliest bits of all opera. Haunting.'

Nigel began singing it softly. ‘
Va, pensiero
. . .' And I, whose Italian is limited to terms like
al dente
, hummed along happily until he stopped in the middle. ‘This is where it goes into parts, and I'm afraid I know only the tenor, which sounds rather strange by itself.'

‘You really are a wonderful singer, Nigel. Are the other soloists as good as you?'

‘Oh, I'm sure they're splendid. I've not met any of them yet, but they all have great reputations.'

I looked at the names, none of them familiar to me. ‘Well, if they're all that good, the festival must have a pretty healthy budget.'

Nigel turned slightly pink and muttered something about the money not being the important part, from which I gathered that his own stipend might not be terribly impressive. Well, he was an amateur, after all. Very talented, and well trained at King's College years ago, but a computer specialist, not a professional singer who made his living that way. I let the subject drop. ‘Will Sir John bring his wife and family, do you think?'

‘The twins are a bit young for concerts, only Nigel Peter's age, and I don't know that Lady Cynthia will want to leave them with the nanny for a whole week. Then there's her own career. She's a pianist, you know, and is off doing her own thing quite a lot of the time. I think the family sometimes do travel with him, but they stay out of the limelight. She might come for a concert or two. You'd enjoy meeting her, I think. She's very pleasant.'

‘Then we'll hope she can come.' I went back to perusing the programme of delights that would be in store in a couple of months.

June came at last. We'd had a cold, wet spring, and I'd despaired of summer ever breaking through, but when it came, it came in splendour. ‘“What is so rare as a day in June?”' I declaimed as we packed the car with luggage for a two-week stay in Wales.