Death Plays a Part

‘All family-owned. Have been around for generations. A B&B too. If you’re looking for a place to stay.’

‘I have a place to stay. I’m going to work at the castle, cataloguing the book collection.’

‘You don’t say.’ The woman looked her over as if trying to fit her appearance with the task she was hired for. ‘You’re with the historical society then, I suppose? They’ve been doing a lot at the castle lately, also for this trial re-enactment.’ She nodded at the wall where a rack held tourist information. The same blue flyer Guinevere had accepted at the train station took centre stage.

The woman put Guinevere’s bun in a napkin and handed her the change. ‘It’ll bring some life to the castle. It can use it. The whole island can.’

She gestured to the baskets with bread that were still quite full even though it was almost the end of the day. ‘There’d be more tourists out here, you know, if the castle was open to the public. Maybe not all the rooms, but a few. To give people an idea of what life was like there in the old days. There’s so much beautiful furniture inside – and paintings. A shame when nobody gets to see them but his lordship.’

Guinevere didn’t know what to say to that. Lord Bolingbrooke was her employer, and she didn’t want to criticize him, even unintentionally. Word of it might get back to him, and it would be a bad start to her summer experience. She asked quickly, ‘Can I just walk up to the castle? Is there a path?’

‘Oh, yes, between the houses. Just turn right from here, and you’ll see the pole with the signs on it. You can’t miss it.’

‘Thank you, and good day.’

The woman replied with a greeting in Cornish that Guinevere didn’t understand. To prepare herself she had gone online to look for some easy words and phrases to use, like good day, how are you?, I’m new here, et cetera.

But it had turned out that even the simplest things looked quite complicated to her untrained eye. Especially the frequent combination of consonants that seemed enough to put her tongue in a twist, and she had decided she wasn’t going to insult the locals by mutilating their language to their faces. Unless she found someone who could teach her to speak it with ease it was best to stick to what she knew.

Outside the bakery Guinevere bit into the bun and relished the combination of fresh lemon and sweet heavy dough. Dolly looked up to see if a bit of it was forthcoming, but Guinevere had a strict ‘no human food for dogs’ policy. Her friends at the theatre had never stuck to that rule though, and Guinevere was certain that as soon as Dolly made friends here on the island, she would get her treats as well. She was just too cute to resist.

Like the woman in the bakery had said, a sign on a wooden pole directed them to the path that led up to the castle. All kinds of plants grew here, some wild, others clearly cultivated, forming an inviting sloping garden up to the castle walls. Bright colours contrasted with the endless blue skies overhead. The sense of freedom was intense, and if she hadn’t been carrying a heavy suitcase, Guinevere might have thrown her arms overhead and whooped out loud.

The overfull streets of London seemed far away, and even missing her friends was less painful as the beauty of this new world invited her in. There was life everywhere: bees and bumblebees humming about, butterflies landing on the path in front of her resting a moment before taking to their wings again, and even something flashing away into the undergrowth that could be anything from a mouse to a lizard.

Through a closely planted grove Guinevere reached the castle walls, towering over her with their archer slits and holes where canons had poked through in the past. Right in front of her was the large entry gate. In the tall, wooden doors decorated with metalwork was a much smaller door, used in the old days to get in and out without having to open the huge doors. It stood ajar.

As Guinevere didn’t see a bell beside it and guessed that knocking wouldn’t bring somebody out of the huge structure, she pushed the door open and stepped into the yard.

To her surprise it wasn’t an empty, barren affair but a warm, welcoming courtyard full of wooden baskets filled with small orange trees and blossoming plants. Opposite to her position were a few metal chairs around a table that held a large lantern. Braziers full of half-burned wood suggested people sat out here at night. With little artificial light around, you had to have an amazing view of the night skies, all the stars overhead.

As Guinevere walked across to the door into the main building, she caught a flash of reflected sunlight to her left. There between all the natural beauty was a big chunk of metal.

The motorcycle that had passed her on the causeway.

She was sure it was the same one, as the silver helmet the driver had worn lay on the leather saddle.

Guinevere grimaced remembering the noise and exhaust fumes. Could the owner of the castle be fond of motorcycles? It seemed at odds with what she had expected of Lord Bolingbrooke: an older bookish man with a passion for history and plants and the beautiful island he lived on.

But maybe he was eccentric or tried to maintain his youth by blasting around the countryside?

The door into the main building did have a bell, and after she had rung it a couple of times, an old man in a simple pullover and dark trousers opened the door. He held a stack of paper cups in his hand. He looked her over with a hitched brow. ‘I thought it was an early arrival for the rehearsal but I’m sure we’ve never met before.’

‘I would like to speak to the owner of this castle,’ Guinevere said. ‘Lord Bolingbrooke.’

‘Do come in.’

The hallway was formal with lots of wood panelling along the walls. She saw antlers and a mounted pheasant in a corner, a large wooden trunk with metalwork on it at the foot of the stairs, upon which sat an enormous brass pot with a flower arrangement. Probably from the castle gardens. Guinevere recognized the same yellow roses she had seen outside.

A door to her right stood open, and inside that room a long table was covered with a cloth and plates stood ready, cutlery in a basket, sandwiches on a tray covered with plastic wrap. Preparations it seemed to receive guests. For this rehearsal the butler had mentioned?

The butler took her to the foot of stairs. ‘You can leave your suitcase here. His lordship is upstairs in the library. You can’t miss it.’

He was the third person to tell her that she couldn’t miss something, so maybe it was the local way of putting things. But as Guinevere came to the top of the stairs and saw the two corridors leading away from it, she wondered how on earth the man could be certain she wouldn’t pick the wrong door. There were so many, all looking exactly the same. Oak panelling with a metal bar in the middle and a metal doorknob. It seemed to be shaped differently though for each door. She discerned a seal, a beaver – or otter perhaps; a swan in flight, its long neck stretched out; and another bird with a long neck, maybe a stork or a heron?

Then she heard the voices.

Yelling voices it seemed.

Dolly also turned her head in that direction and whined. She never liked a tense atmosphere. The doggy put her ears flat against her head and lowered her rear to the floor, reluctant to push on.

Guinevere hesitated herself, then walked in the direction of the yelling, half curious what it could be.

The door with the swan head door handle flew open, and a man stepped into the corridor, calling into the room, ‘… be happy to see me, but you need not give me this.’

‘You can take your trust and stuff it,’ a voice from inside called and, to accompany the latter words, something flew out of the open door and almost hit the man in the corridor. He managed to jump out of its path at the last instant, and the object shot past him and hit the wall, falling to the floor and spinning in circles.

It seemed to be a …

Metal thing, round, with a hole in it …

Guinevere cringed as another object flew from the room and hit the wall with a deafening clang.

The man had now spotted her and came in her direction. ‘Yes?’ It sounded curt, not surprising when you were caught in the middle of a fierce argument like this.

The man was tall and muscled with a suntanned face, blue eyes, and short blond hair. He wore a grey T-shirt with faded jeans and trainers on his bare feet. He looked her over as if he was trying to remember where he had seen her before.

Guinevere said, ‘I’m here about cataloguing the books.’

‘Aha. Let me announce you before dear Father breaks even more ancient armour.’

‘Armour?’ Now Guinevere realized that the metal object with the hole in it was the helmet of an old knight’s armour. It had been joined by a piece of shin plating.

The man called into the room, ‘Here’s Guinevere Evans to see you about the books. Cataloguing the whole lot, you know, getting it into a computer for posterity?’

Guinevere was surprised that he knew her name without her having told it to him.

The man pressed, ‘Don’t throw anything at her when she comes in, OK?’

There was no reply from inside of the room.

The man nodded at her. ‘Give it a try. But be careful.’

His wry tone didn’t sit well with her, but she didn’t have time to think about it. From the room a voice roared, ‘Show your face to me, girl. Don’t dally.’

Chapter Two

Guinevere pulled Dolly along, who contrary to her usual impetuous nature didn’t want to go in first this time.

They both peeked around the doorframe into the room.

Close to a big fireplace a man stood, in his sixties, his arms spread wide, holding a large map. He had his feet planted apart on a beautiful multicoloured rug. On that rug two dogs lay. They immediately perked up when they spotted the intruder. Not the human one, but the canine one.

They both rose and started barking. They were so tall they would tower over poor Dolly. One was a mastiff, the other a Great Dane.

Guinevere reached down instinctively and gathered the dachshund up in her arms. Dolly glanced down at the dogs and pulled up a lip as if to challenge them from her safe position on high.

Lord Bolingbrooke snapped his fingers at the dogs who sank back on their rears but kept watching her intently. ‘They don’t bite,’ he barked at her. ‘Come closer, girl, so I can see you better.’

He stood tall in the painfully straight way of someone who’d had a nanny who always poked him in the spine with a fingertip to ensure he didn’t slouch.

Keeping her eyes on the map in his hands, Guinevere walked on, clutching Dolly to her chest. ‘Lord Bolingbrooke? Pleased to meet you.’

‘Yes, yes, delighted I’m sure, but don’t make a fuss about titles. The days they meant anything are past. I know because they’re writing me letters most every day trying to wean my property away from me.’ He gestured at a stack of paperwork teetering on a desk in the corner. ‘The insolence.’

‘I can imagine you don’t want to give up on it. The castle is amazing.’

Bolingbrooke looked pleased. ‘It’s rather nice, isn’t it? You haven’t seen it before? No, I didn’t think so.’ He raked a hand through his wild grey hair, making it stand up even more. ‘Come closer, have a seat. Never mind the dogs. They look fierce, but they’re really as meek as lambs.’ He patted the mastiff’s large head, and the dog immediately licked his hand.

‘This is Rufus,’ Bolingbrooke said. ‘The other one’s called Nero. Yes, after the Roman emperor. Fortunately he doesn’t compose bad verse. What’s her name?’ He nodded at Dolly.

‘Dolly. She showed up at the theatre one day, just sneaked in through the back entrance and ran onto the stage during the performance. Old Carter, our prop man, had to get her off again. But the audience loved it. They all clapped for her. We brought her out on stage with us when we took the final bows. Since then she’s been with us. But she couldn’t live at the theatre of course, so I took her in. She can’t stand being alone. She follows me everywhere I go. I hope you don’t mind.’

While talking, Guinevere sank on the nearest chair, keeping Dolly in her lap. Rufus and Nero seemed to calm down now that she was sitting quite still.

Bolingbrooke ignored her latter remark and said, with a probing look, ‘You’re not from the island.’

‘No, I live in London. I came here to help out with your books. You’re cataloguing them, right?’ She glanced around at the stacks on the floor, the piles on the long table, the overfull shelves. There had to be hundreds of them in this room alone, and there might be more in others. This would be an epic task.

Bolingbrooke waved a hand. ‘I asked Meraud for help, but the stubborn woman doesn’t want to come up here. She’s still concerned about that old feud.’

‘What feud?’

Bolingbrooke folded the map he had been holding. ‘Let’s just say not all Bolingbrookes were pleasant, easy-going fellows like me.’

Pleasant and easy-going, huh, when you threw armour at your own son …

Guinevere tried to smile. ‘I see. Well, I’m not related to anybody on this island or anyone for miles in the distance so …’

‘An uninvolved party. Excellent. Just what we need.’ Bolingbrooke slapped the folded map on the edge of the table, creating a whiplike sound. ‘How would you like a room in the west tower? Has a great view of the sea.’

‘That sounds lovely.’ Guinevere was still working through the information he had so carelessly revealed. ‘But if you wanted to work with this Meraud, won’t she be upset that I’m here now?’ She didn’t fancy meeting someone who felt like her summer job had been stolen away from her by a complete stranger from the city.

‘Nonsense. She had her chance; she didn’t take it. Fine with me. And don’t you listen to anything she tells you about me. She’s prejudiced. Why don’t you come and stay here to see things with an open mind? The castle, the books, me, Oliver.’

‘Oliver?’ Guinevere queried.

‘My son. As he’s back from one of his trips and planning the next one, he has no place to stay. He doesn’t own anything besides that beastly machine of his. When I hear its engine roar down the causeway, I know I have to prepare myself for warfare. Figuratively speaking of course.’

Guinevere gestured to the door. ‘I can’t call throwing helmets around figurative warfare.’

‘I like to underline my point,’ Bolingbrooke said without blinking. ‘I like to be taken seriously, especially by Oliver. Because he has travelled the world and because he’s in the prime of his life, he thinks he can tell me, his old father, what to do. But he had better think twice about that. I’m still able to make up my own mind. And if he doesn’t tread carefully, I’ll throw him out completely. Out of the castle and out of my will.’

Guinevere gasped at the idea of losing access to this beautiful heritage. ‘Does he know that?’

‘If he ever listened. I’ve told him countless times what this property means to the family. He is a Bolingbrooke as well, whether he likes it or not. Since his brother married and moved to Singapore, Oliver is all I have left. He would make such a good keeper of the castle, you know. He could repair so many things that I don’t have the strength for. He’s good with money too. He could have any degree he wanted. But no, he wanted to travel, is always off after some beast on the edge of extinction. Leaving his family heritage to fall apart.’

‘Beast on the edge of extinction?’ Guinevere repeated. ‘He’s into wildlife conservation?’

‘Guinevere doesn’t want to be talked to death.’ Oliver stood in the door opening. The expression on his face suggested he had overheard some of the things his father had told her about him, his lifestyle, and his choices.

Oliver said, ‘Coffee, tea, and sandwiches are ready downstairs. I suppose you’re hungry after your journey out here. I’d better remove your suitcase from the hallway before the guests arrive for the rehearsal and break their necks over it.’ He continued to his father, ‘Where are you putting her up?’

‘In the west tower,’ Bolingbrooke said. ‘You’d better show it to her. I’ll go down to play host.’

‘Just stay out of Haydock’s hair. Last time you two were in a single room, he threatened to sue you for assault.’

‘I barely touched him.’

‘Well, this time don’t touch him at all. A lawsuit is the last thing this castle needs.’ Oliver gestured to Guinevere. ‘Follow me.’

Guinevere carried Dolly out of the room and then put her down. The dachshund seemed excited to explore the castle and dashed ahead of them, up the steep winding stairs inside the tower.

Despite the suitcase Oliver was carrying for her, he took the steps two at a time, and Guinevere had trouble keeping up. Sweat formed on her forehead and between her shoulder blades as she laboured up one broad, worn step after another. There didn’t seem to be an end to them. How much higher still?

She called out to Oliver, ‘Your father … doesn’t like … this Haydock?’ The mention of Haydock threatening him with assault charges suggested they had come to blows. Bolingbrooke’s casual remark that he had ‘barely’ touched him wasn’t very reassuring, given his obvious inflammable temper.

Oliver didn’t seem to have heard her question, or pretended that he hadn’t.

When Guinevere reached a landing, she was positively panting. A door stood open, and muffled sounds came from inside the room. ‘Oliver?’ she called. ‘Are you in there?’

‘Yes.’

She stepped to the door and peeked in. Oliver was brushing his hands over several surfaces, blowing away dust and kicking something under the bed. Dolly scooted after it and dragged it out again, shaking it. It was a woman’s slipper, dark blue with embroidered roses on it. It was covered with dust that scattered under Dolly’s shaking.

‘Give that to me, girl.’ Guinevere rushed to extract the slipper from the dog’s mouth and put it on the old dressing table in the far corner. A velvet-covered chair sat in front of it, while the wall beside it was covered with a wall tapestry showing a hunting scene full of hounds and horses. A cherrywood side table held a marble statue of a deer on a pedestal and a tall mirror in a brass frame. The metal had gone dim but Guinevere bet that with a little polish it would shine again.

In fact, her fingers itched to give this entire room a good cleaning and restore all these beautiful items to their former glory. Put together like this, they formed an odd mix of different periods and different styles, but judged individually, they were all well preserved and had stories to tell.

Guinevere held her breath at the possibilities. The woman at the bakery had been so right: opening up but a part of this castle would pull in the tourists in droves. Oliver could take photographs for a brochure, and she could write up the text. They could also work on a website together.

Together.

Hmmm, as if Oliver would want that.

If his father could be believed, Oliver was dead set on selling off the castle or at least handing over the care for it to a trust or some other kind of organization while he travelled the world to protect wildlife. He wouldn’t want to put time or energy into a plan to keep the castle in the family and still make money off it.

She wasn’t even sure Bolingbrooke himself would be open to that. He didn’t seem a big fan of change.

Frowning, Guinevere walked to the window. The view with its bright colours hit her in the gut again. It was so intensely alive and inviting, whispering to her that this summer had amazing things in store for her.

Keeping her back to Oliver, she said softly, ‘You wrote the acceptance email to me, right? You are O. Bolingbrooke.’ That was how he had known her name.

‘My father doesn’t touch computers. He thinks they might bite him.’ Footfalls betrayed Oliver was pacing the room. ‘Meraud didn’t want to come here. She has her hands full with her bookshop so she asked her brother to recommend someone. And he recommended you.’

Guinevere turned to him in a snap. ‘You mean …’ Her mind whirled. ‘Mr Betts is actually related to someone here on the island?’

‘Apparently.’ Oliver surveyed her. ‘Didn’t he tell you?’

‘No. So there was never any advertisement in the paper either.’

‘What?’ Oliver asked.

‘Your father didn’t advertise for someone to come help him.’ Bolingbrooke probably didn’t even know how all of this had been set up behind his back. By Oliver, the son he didn’t see eye to eye with.

The son also who had other plans for the castle than his father did.

Had Oliver set this up with Mr Betts, hoping he could persuade his father to sell?

But why would Mr Betts be a part of something like that? She couldn’t imagine him letting himself be used.

Or using her.

Guinevere felt an unpleasant wriggle of worry in the pit of her stomach again. The surprised responses of the locals to Bolingbrooke accepting a stranger to his keep now took on new meaning. And she wasn’t quite sure what part she was supposed to play in all of this.

Slowly she said, ‘Mr Betts did give me a letter I should read once I was settled in.’

Oliver hitched a brow. ‘Sounds mysterious. Why would a girl like you spend her summer holidays here anyway on an island in the middle of nowhere?’

Guinevere shrugged. ‘I grew up in the countryside. And I love books. Your father has an amazing collection, I heard. Besides, there wasn’t anything to do for me in London, with the theatre closing for renovations. I hope I can also help out with the re-enactment. Mr Betts must have known about that and sent me here for that reason as well. I read in the leaflet about the re-enactment – that the tale is a very old one and an important part of Cornisea history?’

She pulled the blue leaflet out of her bag and read aloud, ‘The trial against Branok the Cold-hearted is legendary. He was the steward at the castle many centuries ago. He was cruel and he oppressed all the people under his rule. His master chose not to see what he did. Then one day Branok burned down a house to set an example and it turned out there had been two young children in it who died in the fire.’

Guinevere shivered. ‘How terrible.’

Oliver said, ‘It was never proven he had actually set fire to the house. Fires happened a lot in those days as houses were often made of wood and thatch. Burned like dry tinder. And people all had open fireplaces inside. The fire Branok was accused of may simply have started from a spark or a lamp falling over.’

‘So he wasn’t convicted?’ Guinevere asked.

‘No, he never was,’ Oliver said. ‘He was made to leave the island. On the night he left the sea was wild and he never reached land. He must have drowned.’

He held her gaze. ‘But some say he didn’t drown. Some even say he lives until this day …’ he lowered his voice to an exaggerated whisper ‘… to haunt the beach at night with his lantern in his hand, cursing everyone who comes in his path. Locals don’t dare go near the beach.’

‘I’m no local. I want to take long walks and see the sunset.’

Oliver shrugged. ‘I won’t stop you. Just saying that Cornwall has a lot of ghost stories.’

‘So did Devon, and it never kept me from going out at night to listen to the owls or count moths.’

‘Count moths?’

‘Yes, if you put out a sheet and a little light shining on it, they flock to it and you can see all the different species.’ As a biologist, or whatever he was, he should know how to do that.

Oliver hitched a brow. ‘And your parents let you?’

‘I grew up with my grandmother. I had a lot of freedom.’ Studying the leaflet in her hands, Guinevere frowned. ‘Why re-enact a trial of a man who wasn’t convicted? Couldn’t they make it stick?’

‘Maybe the judge was bought? I don’t know the details. I only have to chip in tonight because Jago Trevelyan, who plays the judge, can’t make it for this rehearsal. I just hope I remember my lines.’