Death Plays a Part

Guinevere thought that, if Leah was like this in real court cases, she had to win a lot. But then she wasn’t even sure what Leah’s part in her father’s law firm was and what kind of cases they handled. Maybe it was just settling disputes and mediating between people? Nothing as big and dramatic as this old trial. It seemed like tension grew with every line, filling the room up to the shadows in the rafters overhead.

‘It is high time I hear the accused speak his own mind.’ Oliver rose slowly from his seat. ‘I will go to him in his place of …’

He consulted his cheat sheet again. ‘Confinement. Looking at this poor woman who suffered such loss, he will not be able to lie. I will see in his face if he speaks the truth.’

He looked around. ‘Is that the way they did it those days? Just take the villain’s word for it that he hadn’t done it?’

Bolingbrooke exhaled as if the delay was getting on his nerves. ‘Apparently. As Branok was influential, his word was worth a lot. And what else do you suggest to get at the truth? Torture?’

Oliver waved the broomstick. ‘All right, I get the point. Let’s go down into the dungeon then. Did the whole group come?’

‘Yes, of course. How else can we have another altercation between the accusing and defending parties?’

‘But during the re-enactment you actually propose to take the audience down there? There’s not much room.’

‘I guess that we might have to bring Branok up then and do it here anyway. However, I like the dramatic setting of the dungeon and the sort of … sense of impending doom it has. The presence of death.’

Tegen, who didn’t have to speak in this section, gave a little shriek.

Oliver shook his head at his father. ‘You lay it on too thick.’

Guinevere said, ‘We could build a stage version of the cage in the dungeon right here in the room. That way you could have Branok in his cell present in the proceedings.’

‘Rattling his chains at us and shouting abuse.’ Oliver grimaced.

‘Very funny,’ Leah said with a pinched expression.

Oliver exhaled as if he wanted to apologize for what he had said, then his expression tightened and he just snapped, ‘Follow me.’ To Guinevere he said, ‘Dolly had better stay here. We’ll be back up in ten minutes.’

‘Stay, girl.’ Guinevere gave the doggy a quick pat on the head. She sat down and watched them with her inquisitive little eyes, her tail wagging across the floorboards.

Carrying the wand of office like it was a sword he could use to hack at invisible enemies, Oliver led the way into the dungeon. Guinevere was in the back of the group making its way down there and entering into the flickering light of the tea lights in the lanterns.

Her eyes strained to see the figure of Haydock sitting at the table. She remembered that he had specifically requested a table and chair be brought in to make it easier for him.

Kensa called out, ‘Arthur! What’s wrong? Arthur!’ She pushed forward.

Guinevere felt a shiver go up her spine as if she suddenly felt what Bolingbrooke had just put into words. Impending doom.

The presence of death.

Oliver said, ‘Haydock, that’s not funny. You’re giving us all a heart attack.’

Leah gave a shriek. ‘Maybe he really had a heart attack? Look at his face.’

Something fell to the ground. Being in the back, Guinevere still couldn’t see what the commotion was all about. Her heart beat fast. Was Haydock on the floor? Looking like he was unwell?

Oliver was at the cage already, pulling at the metal bars. ‘Where’s the key?’

‘I have it,’ Bolingbrooke said and handed it over.

Guinevere stood on tiptoe and craned her neck to see what had caused the alarm.

Haydock seemed to be down on the floor, on his back. One hand was grasping at his chest. Had he really had a heart attack, like Leah suggested, or had he merely fainted?

Was there bad air in here? Lack of oxygen?

Or was it an act like Oliver had suggested? Haydock’s way to make the re-enactment a little more exciting than just ending with a non-conviction and an accused who had drowned in the sea at night.

Oliver opened the door and went in. He knelt beside the body to feel the face and the neck.

Guinevere waited for his reassuring words that Haydock was fine and just pulling their leg. He’d rise to his feet laughing and cause another row with Bolingbrooke, who would blame him for his insensitivity.

Then Oliver inched back. ‘He’s dead. And there’s a knife in his chest.’

Tegen shrieked again.

Guinevere found herself saying, ‘What? That can’t be.’ Her mind refused to grasp the meaning of the word ‘dead’. There had to be some misunderstanding. Haydock had staged this somehow, for dramatic effect.

Oliver repeated in a curt tone, ‘There’s a knife in his chest. His hand is curled around it as if he wanted to pull it out again, but he didn’t manage.’

He looked up, straight at his father.

Bolingbrooke looked back with a blank expression. ‘A knife? How can that be? There are no knives here in the dungeons.’

Oliver said, ‘Somebody brought it in here and stabbed him.’

Guinevere swallowed. Her stomach squeezed at the idea that a man had died right under their feet.

Kensa said, in a thin voice, ‘That stupid castle. Arthur never could stop talking about it. How much he wanted it. And now he’s dead for it. Now …’ She pointed a finger at Bolingbrooke. ‘You killed him! You killed him so he couldn’t take Cornisea away from you.’

Bolingbrooke glanced from Kensa to Oliver and back. ‘Are you all out of your minds? I? Kill for the castle? When I locked him in here, he was sitting at that table, alive and well. I even asked him if he was all right and he said he was fine. The door to the cage was already closed so I only turned the key in the lock. I never went near him. I couldn’t have stabbed him.’

‘But,’ Oliver said, ‘you’re the only one with the key to this cage. If you locked him in when he was still alive and well, how did he die? Nobody else could get in here to get at him.’

‘Through the air hole?’ Guinevere suggested. She had found her voice again and, to stop the light feeling in her head, she had to think rationally, discover how it had been done.

Oliver shook his head at her suggestion. ‘It’s too small to throw anything through with enough speed or strength so it would embed itself into his chest. I’m no expert but I think this stab wound has been delivered face to face, in close proximity.’

‘Then it’s clear,’ Kensa said. ‘Bolingbrooke did it to save the castle.’ Her voice was steady and her expression almost calm. Only her eyes showed a little too much white. Maybe she was in shock and didn’t know what she was saying?

‘The constable has to come and see this,’ Leah said. She hugged herself tightly. ‘He can determine what to do next.’

Tegen scoffed, ‘Eal? He couldn’t catch a killer if he bumped into him still carrying the bloody knife.’

Kensa poked her with an elbow to make her shut up.

‘I’ll call Eal right away.’ Oliver reached below the robe he wore for his mobile phone. He kept an eye on all present. ‘Nobody moves from this spot until he’s here.’

Kensa said, ‘Why? Can’t poor Leah leave? The girl must be frantic with her father dead in front of her.’

Leah made a soft, suppressed sound in her throat. With her loose hair and the dark garment she suddenly looked like she was already mourning.

Tegen was staring at her mother. Her eyes were narrowed and questioning as if she was trying to work something out.

‘Leah can stand back,’ Oliver said, ‘but she can’t leave. This is a crime scene and we can’t run the risk of anything being disturbed here. Eal will have to collect evidence.’

‘Evidence?’ Kensa echoed. ‘In here?’

‘Yes.’ Oliver looked straight at her, a cold hard look. ‘You just accused my father of this murder. But it’s not the Middle Ages any more. We have fingerprints now and DNA traces. The killer must have left some proof behind that will point him or her out to us. It’s only a matter of time until we know the truth.’

In the silence his words seemed to linger, like a knell of death.

Guinevere’s arms were full of goose bumps, and she ached to hold Dolly close and feel the dachshund’s reassuring licks on her face.

Only a matter of time until they knew the truth.

But what would the truth be?

Who had hated Haydock enough to kill him? To stab him in the chest, face to face?

Chapter Four

‘What a day to arrive here.’

Guinevere didn’t turn her head to Oliver’s voice. He had come up to her without making a sound. Or maybe she had missed the sound as she had stood there, staring up at the skies that were so full of stars. Once upon a time, Gran had pointed them all out to her, telling her their names and the stories connected with them. Guinevere had felt small standing under the canopy, thinking about the universe out there and the places far away where the stars were born. But at the same time she had felt totally safe, with Gran’s arm around her shoulders, totally loved and in place, part of her own little universe in which Gran was the sun around which everything revolved.

Those memories, and Dolly’s warm body against her, drove away the cold of their forced stay in the dungeon with the dead body until Constable Eal arrived. Kensa’s harsh accusations against Bolingbrooke still echoed in her ears. Would her new employer really get into trouble now? Would his guilt be readily assumed? Oliver had earlier said that a lawsuit was the last thing the castle needed. He had then referred to one for assault. Would it now be one for murder?

Oliver looked up at the night skies as well, his hands folded at his back. ‘You should be in bed by now.’

‘What did the constable say when he left?’

‘That he’ll tell us when he has more. What else can he say?’

‘But what do you think that he thinks?’ Guinevere glanced at Oliver. His expression was blank, but there were lines of fatigue around his mouth. ‘I don’t know anything about the police around here, but Tegen suggested that Constable Eal can’t catch a killer even if it was obvious that he had committed the crime.’

Oliver sighed. ‘Eal has never had much to do here. Just keep an eye out for people poaching, for illegal fishing, for fires made on the beach at night. He also collects the money people have to pay for putting their boats in the harbour. Cornisea hasn’t had any big or shocking crime since he started work here. And he has been here for decades.’

Guinevere nodded. ‘I already thought so. The way he questioned me … He didn’t try very hard to get anything relevant out of me.’

‘Maybe, as you’re an outsider, he didn’t think you could know anything worthwhile?’

‘That’s nonsense. I was there tonight. I saw everything play out. The way people looked at each other, what they said. There was a lot of tension. And not just between your father and Haydock. The way Leah and Kensa went at each other during the re-enactment. There was so much genuine emotion in their statements. As if Leah was really defending her father against Kensa, not some vague medieval figure against a made-up charge.’

Oliver shrugged. ‘I don’t know why Leah wouldn’t like Kensa. Outside of the historical society they have nothing to do with each other. Besides, Eal won’t ask such deep and profound questions. He sees the obvious. It doesn’t look good for my father. He had motive; he had opportunity.’

‘Eal did ask me if I knew for sure where the others were before it started, when you and I were lighting the lanterns and were rehearsing your part. But I couldn’t tell him. I only saw Leah carrying the robe for her father to the dungeons. I suppose she stayed with him while he put it on. He also wanted to put on this ring he had, right? An old ring that was supposed to have a link with Cornisea.’

‘Right, it was on his finger when he lay there dead. I saw it clearly.’

‘Haydock acted like it was something very special but he never told us why.’

Oliver nodded. ‘You’re right. I didn’t have a close look at it but it shone like gold. It also had a signet with engraving. A coat of arms or something.’

Guinevere gestured with her hand. ‘There you go. Maybe it’s significant. You told me Haydock was after the castle. And he turns up here with a ring with a coat of arms on it. Maybe he believed he had discovered something important about the rights to Cornisea? Maybe Kensa was in the know? Why else would she be so sure your father had a reason to kill Haydock? And what did her remark to Haydock mean, about hurting children being the worst thing in the world?’

Oliver shrugged. ‘She referred to the Branok trial. Him being accused of causing the lethal fire.’

Guinevere shook her head. ‘There was more to it. She meant actual children. Her daughter Tegen? Had Haydock somehow hurt Tegen, and was that a reason for Kensa, or for Tegen herself, to get back at him?’

Oliver grimaced. ‘I don’t really want to see my father accused and in trouble, but to go pointing fingers at a schoolgirl … This is a murder case. We’re looking at a long stint in prison.’

‘Even so we must be objective. What do you know about Tegen that can help figure out what really happened tonight?’

Oliver looked her in the eye as if he wanted to ascertain something. ‘Are you serious about this?’ he asked slowly.

‘Of course. We can’t just sit around and wait for your father to be accused. You told me the castle is under threat from people who want to buy it or change it. Your father is the only one who stands in their way of succeeding. What if the murder has something to do with that?’

‘An attempt to frame him?’

Guinevere shrugged. ‘He was the only one who had access to the cage, so someone wanted the police to conclude that he did it. Someone used this re-enactment tonight to set up the murder and your father as the most likely suspect.’

‘The knife was on the table for the taking. Can’t it have been a crime in anger? Grab the knife, go down to the dungeon where Haydock was all alone …’

‘And how to get into the cage?’ Guinevere held Oliver’s gaze. ‘We had the same thing in Well-mannered Murder, the play we are rehearsing. A locked-room mystery. Someone dies in a room that is closed off so how did the killer get in and out? The thing is: there is always a way into the locked room. You just have to figure out what it is.’

Oliver sighed. ‘I don’t feel like playing detective.’

‘Well, with your father under suspicion, we might not have a choice.’

Oliver walked away from her and sat down on the steps leading to the entry door. He rubbed his face with both of his hands, then pulled them away and faced her, as if he had come to some decision. ‘I did see something. Before we started the re-enactment. Something between Tegen and Haydock.’

‘Aha.’ Guinevere came to sit beside him, Dolly still in her arms. The dachshund looked up at Oliver with her head tilted as if waiting for his revelation.

Oliver said slowly, ‘There have been rumours, for years, that Haydock isn’t faithful to his wife.’

Guinevere looked at him. ‘And you think he was betraying his wife with Tegen? He’s old enough to be her father!’

‘I know. And I never believed it before. But tonight there was something between them … Almost like an understanding.’

Oliver frowned. ‘I can’t put a better word to it. She looked at Haydock and he looked at her and … at some point I think Haydock passed her something.’

‘Passed her something?’

‘A note maybe. Something made of paper, I think, but I didn’t look too closely. I don’t want anything to do with his tricks.’

‘If you’ve been away from here for years, only dropping by for occasional visits, you can’t have known much about him.’

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