The Dead of Winter Read online

  ‘No, there’s nothing wrong,’ she reassured him. ‘I just felt the need to chat with someone back in the civilized world.’

  ‘Frantham? The civilized world? I’m not sure it’s made it into the twentieth century yet.’

  ‘Quite,’ Rina said. ‘How is everything back at home?’ she asked rather wistfully.

  ‘Missing you and planning celebrations. Anyone would think you’d been on a year long expedition to unknown climes, not ten days in Manchester. So, what can I do for you?’

  ‘You can Google a question for me, if you would. Mac, this is a strange place, and my fellow guests are no less odd. Nice enough, I suppose, but . . .’

  ‘But?

  ‘Oh, just but. Do you have a pen and paper? Right. Can you just do me a quick background check on the following? Who they are and what they do and that sort of thing. I’ve been told the basics, but I do like to be properly briefed.’

  ‘Are you investigating, Rina?’ Mac was laughing at her.

  ‘No, not exactly. Mac, you know that feeling you get when everything looks all right, but there’s something that doesn’t add up. Something that’s just off?’

  ‘All too well. Rina, is everything all right up there?’

  ‘So far as I can tell, I suppose it is.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘So far it is just a “but”. Humour me, Mac?’

  ‘Always, you know that. I’ll give you a call if I come up with anything I think you need to know, otherwise I’ll drop the notes in on Sunday morning.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Rina said. ‘You’re definitely coming up early then?’

  ‘We may as well. Neither of us can settle, so Miriam’s looked out some places of interest up that way. We’ve decided to drive north tomorrow, take in some sights, and we’ve booked a bed and breakfast in a village about five miles from where you are. You know snow is forecast?’

  ‘I guessed as much.’ Rina smiled as she said her goodbyes, suddenly feeling much better at the thought of Mac and Miriam being close by. She got up and wandered over to her window. The light from the room blocked the scene outside and merely showed Rina’s reflection.

  ‘You’re looking old,’ she told herself. ‘Old and tired and bored. You need a challenge, Rina Martin. Something more than retirement by the seaside.’

  She dropped the curtain back into place and sat down on the side of the bed, a sudden unexpected wave of loneliness sweeping over her. True, she had some wonderful friends and a busy life, but it had been dawning on her for the past few months, ever since it became obvious that Joy and Tim were really serious about one another, that something was missing. True, that particular something had been missing for many years, since her beloved Fred had been taken from her after only five years of happiness. She slowly took the watch from its place on her wrist and studied it, stroking the little gilt face and the rather worn leather strap. Fred had given this to her, and though she had another, everyday, watch, this was still her treasured possession, worn on those occasions when a little extra nerve was required. She wasn’t sure why she’d felt that need tonight, but she had, and the talisman had worked its usual magic, calming and reassuring her.

  There was something no one in her little household knew about, not even Tim: something that accounted for the sudden surge of anger when she had discovered what he had landed them in the middle of.

  ‘Seance indeed,’ Rina snorted, and then closed her eyes and blinked back a stray tear.

  When Fred had died, she had fallen apart. The man she loved had gone, taken not by some great drama but by a simple bout of flu which had turned to pneumonia and not responded to anything the doctors had to offer. A few weeks after the funeral she had been walking aimlessly through town and seen an A-frame advertising a visiting medium. It had seemed so obvious that she should go in and see if her Fred could talk to her. Rina had never bothered with such a palaver before, but, sometimes . . .

  So she’d gone along to the temperance hall that evening, and she had watched the woman on the little stage as she searched the audience for someone who could ‘take the initial M’ or who ‘had an auntie recently passed who liked violets’ and she had hoped that something would come to her. And as she had watched, she had grown angry and then enraged. It wasn’t that Rina was against religion or against those who claimed to be able to speak to those who had ‘passed over’.

  Died, Rina thought. They had died.

  It was the randomness of it all; the blandness or meaninglessness of so many of the pronouncements. Surely, she thought, if you wanted to transmit a message to a loved one via some talented stranger, then you’d make bloody sure the message was particular enough to be unequivocal and not just something that would have been quite at home in the most platitudinous of greetings cards?

  She had listened to the fifth or sixth assertion that Uncle So-And-So was happy and at peace and seen the looks of gratitude, the undoubted comfort the grieving had received, and had felt nothing but anger. Had heard the exhortation that a bereaved parent should ‘finish the bottle of pop’ their dead son had neglected to drink and, unlike the rest of the audience, not been overwhelmed by the fact the medium had known about the remaining soft drink so much as consumed by outrage that anyone, dead or alive, should waste time on such banality.

  Rina had left before the rage broke free and became words; it wasn’t in her nature to be cruel or derisive of those who so clearly needed and wanted such contact. After all, hadn’t she thought she was one of them; hadn’t she gone looking for such comforts?

  Leaving as quietly as she could, she stood outside the hall and sucked deep breaths of cool air. It had rained, and she drew into her lungs damp wind that carried the tang of sea salt, despite the fact that she was at the time a good fifty miles inland, and, bemused and wondering, tears had begun to flow as she recalled how Fred had always loved the sea.

  And then the voice in her ear, close and clear as though he stood beside her: ‘What do you want to bother with all that for, lovely? You and I, we can chat anytime you like.’

  Rina had spoken to no one about that moment, but she knew it had been her Fred talking to her. It had not been some desperate self delusion; neither had it been imagination. Fred had been there, and Rina had felt both comforted and newly bereaved.

  SIX

  Aikensthorpe, 1872

  Elizabeth breathed slowly and deeply, preparing herself before the others in the party joined her in this little panelled room. They had met here, for the same purpose, many times, but tonight was different, the preparation was different and her performance would be faultless.

  She patted the diamonds back into place and smoothed her hair, then took her seat at the round table, facing the door. Elizabeth knew that she looked spectacular. ‘Ethereal’, Albert had said, ‘perfect’, and she felt a sudden surge of affection for her fond, foolish husband and reflected on the strangeness of the fact that a man so ruthless and efficient in his business dealings should be so easily manipulated in his emotional ones. Had he not been so obviously happy to have won her, then she might even have felt a little guilt.

  The door opened and the company trooped in, quiet now, anticipation palpable. They took their seats. Albert to her right; Dr Pym and Mrs Francis directly opposite her with Mr Francis, her lawyer husband; then Mr Weston, Aikensthorpe’s Estate manager, and, of course, the Reverend Overton. The Reverend seated himself directly next to Elizabeth and smiled conspiratorially. She looked away rapidly. Stupid man, Elizabeth thought. He could give the entire scheme away, just because he couldn’t keep control of his emotions.

  Her old friend, Miss Esther Grimes, had taken her place at Dr Pym’s left, and between her and Albert was the object of this exercise, the Reverend Spinelli.

  Odious man, Elizabeth thought, but tonight she would finally see him brought down, and how she would enjoy his disgrace.

  Spinelli caught her eye and smiled, inclining his head in a little bow. ‘An atmospheric setting, Mrs Southam. I am sure th
e evening will be invigorating.’

  Elizabeth returned the bow and then closed her eyes, focusing. She heard the two servants they had selected as neutral observers come in and stand in the corners closest to the door, and the heavy door was closed and the room darkened, lit now only by a single candle nestled in the heart of the rose bowl placed at the centre of the table. A slight shuffling of feet betrayed the nervousness of the maidservant, and Elizabeth could imagine the sharp look that Banks, the butler, would cast in her direction. The shuffling ceased, and a close silence descended.

  The servants had been a last-minute addition. ‘We should employ some observers,’ Spinelli had stated. ‘Eyes of those that are not involved in the proceedings.’

  Albert had reluctantly agreed. Elizabeth had some qualms about involving Pym in this; he was an honourable man and was not going to take kindly to being involved in such trickery. Spinelli though – now, he was the object of it all, a man truly deserving of being cut down to size, and Elizabeth was the mechanism by which this odious little creature would be destroyed, his reputation tattered and crushed. Justice would be done.

  She allowed herself a little smile at the thought. ‘If everyone would please join hands,’ she said quietly. ‘I feel the spirits are with us and ready to begin.’

  SEVEN

  They knew they had to move the body before the weather really got too bad for it to be possible. Simeon Meehan had been shifted twice already: once into an outbuilding, and then into the boot of the car belonging to the Aikensthorpe Estate.

  It was late, rain still fell intermittently, and the journey down the gated road was a nightmare of slipping and sliding and spinning wheels and anxiety that the noise of wheels and revving engine would carry

  The journey back was yet another trauma, and it was after four in the morning when they returned to the house, entering via the rear door and disposing of wellingtons in the boot room.

  ‘It’s done now,’ he said, and his companion nodded uneasily. ‘We’ll move the car later. If we get the chance. If we don’t, it doesn’t matter, we’ll be long gone.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  He cast a suspicious look at his companion. ‘Don’t let me down,’ he said. ‘You know what I do to people who let me down.’

  EIGHT

  Morning brought the promised coachloads of attendees – mostly male, Rina noted with amusement – and it also brought the first flurries of snow.

  ‘Bet the buses had fun coming through the gated road,’ Joy said. ‘Look at the mud.’ The pair of them had taken up residence on the stairs, sitting halfway up the first flight so they could people-watch. They could see the new arrivals through the wide-open doors. Melissa had laid down big rubber mats, but even so the polished wooden floor was now mired in black clay and wet with melting snow.

  Rina nodded. The trackway wasn’t much more than rutted earth for the most part. Closer to the house, a few tons of gravel had been spread about to give the impression that the cart track was in fact a drive, but the section from the road crossing the fields left a great deal to be desired.

  ‘I wondered about that,’ Rina said. ‘Don’t you think it odd? A big house like this usually has an impressive entrance-way. There’s a coach house, which presumably housed coaches, and yet—’

  ‘No convenient way in or out,’ Joy said, nodding. ‘I find a lot of things odd about this house. It has a sort of not quite finished feel to it. Almost as though after Albert Southam died everything stopped. Did he finish the drive, do you think? Or was that just another job he didn’t get around to?’

  ‘Another job?’ Rina was intrigued.

  ‘I read some more of Viv’s notes. Apparently, formal gardens were laid out just after he and Elizabeth got married, but all work stopped after she left. He had plans to install more bathrooms and better plumbing, but that stopped too – and the improvements Elizabeth urged him to make to the workers’ cottages? He never finished them either. It’s like life was just frozen off after she had gone, and I still can’t figure out why she left when she did. As suddenly as she did.’

  ‘She was gone before they discovered poor Dr Pym’s body,’ Rina said, nodding. ‘It’s an odd event all round. The man who rented this place after Albert died sounds very strange too.’

  ‘Oh, the mad scientist.’ Joy laughed. ‘Some of his books are in the library; I found them this morning. There wasn’t much he wasn’t into: he wrote volumes on electricity and microscopy and he had a telescope on the roof. Maybe he liked to be well away from the rest of the world so it didn’t matter that guests had to trek across three counties if they wanted to visit. Who are all these people?’

  ‘Apparently, a mixture of stage magicians, psychical researchers and special-effects people. Melissa says it’s quite unusual to have them in the same place, and I think she would love to stage a regular event here.’ Rina paused to study the new arrivals; the demographic was largely male, white, thirty to fifty, she would guess. Most were deep in conversation, some looking around with interest, a few pausing on the threshold as though to assess the atmosphere before deciding to commit.

  ‘Good morning, did you sleep well? When do we get breakfast?’ Terry Beal loped up the stairs and plonked himself down beside Joy.

  ‘Surprisingly well, thank you,’ Rina told him. ‘You?’

  ‘Oh yes, and I’ve been for a run already. I’m starving now.’

  Joy laughed. ‘Where did you run to? You must have looked like a mud wrestler by the time you got back.’

  ‘Too right, I did. I ran back down what they laughingly call the gated road and then cut across towards the wood. To be honest, I didn’t do the miles I usually do this morning. I was sliding about all over the bloody place, fell twice. I could just imagine my agent’s face if I had to ring and tell her I’d broken my leg after slipping on a cow pat. If Melissa really wants to make a go of this place, she needs to install a gym at the very least. Maybe even a sauna.’

  ‘I’ve never really fancied saunas,’ Rina said.

  ‘Me neither,’ Terry Beal agreed. ‘The one time I tried one I came out looking like a beetroot and feeling sick as a dog, but my wife loves them so we installed that and a hot tub last year.’

  ‘What does your wife do?’ Joy asked.

  ‘She’s an artist,’ Terry said, and they could hear the pride in his voice. ‘We met at school, lost touch for a while, and then ran into one another fifteen years ago. I was doing voice-overs and adverts and anything I could blag my way into; she had just had her first solo show. We’d neither of us got any money and not much in the way of prospects either, and we started off sharing a flat with another girl we’d been at school with. Anyway, one thing led to another, and we got married six months after that and I made the first Matt Bianco film the following year. The rest, as they say . . . I meant to ask last night, how do you both feel about this spiritualist stuff? Only, I’ve got to admit, I’m not really looking forward to it.’

  ‘No?’ Joy was intrigued. ‘What bothers you?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. It’s all a bit . . .’

  ‘Contrived, artificial, nonsensical?’ Joy suggested.

  ‘Not a believer then?’ Terry was evidently amused.

  ‘Well, from what we’ve been told, we don’t need to be. The ghost is invented, the company are a bit weird, to say the least, and I’m really only agreeing to do this to be supportive of Tim.’ She paused, head on one side as she thought about it all. ‘I went to one of those psychic evenings they do at the local pub. Mum wanted to go.’

  Rina was surprised. And then not surprised. Bridie Duggan was not a woman to leave any stone unturned when she went looking for answers, and she had, after all, lost both a husband and a son in the past twelve months.

  ‘And? What was it like?’ Terry seemed genuinely interested. ‘I’ve thought about it, you know, but it seems . . . Anyway, I’m a bit too recognizable to go down to my local pub to hear a medium. Can you imagine the tabloids?’

  �
�Do they know you’re here?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure the agency publicity machine will make sure of that – after the event, at least. Of course, it all depends what happens tonight. If we all go stark staring mad then I guess it’ll be a quiet trip to some exclusive health farm and a distinct lack of comment from the studio. Though if something interesting happens, well, I’ll be talking about my preparation for the new role on every chat show between here and LA.’

  ‘That would be good publicity for Aikensthorpe, I imagine?’ Rina said.

  ‘I expect so.’

  ‘Are you scared?’ Joy asked bluntly, and for a moment Rina thought she might have offended the action star – then he nodded.

  ‘Actually, yes. It’s like a mix of stage fright and that feeling . . . You know, when you’re a kid and there’s some old house or bit of the wood or park or something that no one wants to go near and then someone dares you and . . . Well, you get the picture. I feel like I’m about nine again and scared stiff of Mr Howard’s dog.’

  ‘Yeah, I know what you mean,’ Joy said. ‘I’m not happy about the idea of being filmed, either, though I suppose that won’t bother you?’

  ‘Less than it might, but it’s still different. When I’m making a film, I know what I’m doing. It’s scripted, and if I get to the point where I really don’t want to do that stunt – or my insurance won’t cover me for it – there’s always a stuntman. This is me tonight, and it feels just a bit weird, if I’m honest.’

  ‘But isn’t it you when you give the interviews?’ Joy asked him.

  Rina laughed.

  ‘Ah, Rina knows it’s not, don’t you, Lydia Marchant? No, it’s still not fully you – there’s a persona you adopt, even without realizing it, that’s sort of in-between the character you’re playing on stage or in the film and the real you. It’s like a compromise person: one that only talks about certain things and keeps others very private and still has that little bit of glamour about them from the role. At least, that’s the way it is for me. How was the psychic evening you were telling us about?’