An Invisible Murder (10 page)

An old woman stood at the end of the garden, tying up runner beans. She had Elsie’s scowl and stooped, overworked stance. Jenny wondered how much the old lady relied on her daughter’s wages, and had a fair idea that she didn’t grow so many vegetables simply as a hobby, and vowed to send Elsie home with something nourishing in a pot every day from now on.

She saw the old lady notice her and stiffen. ‘What do you want then?’ she challenged gruffly.

Jenny smiled and approached her, careful not to bruise any of the cabbages growing right up against a narrow grass path. ‘I’m the new cook up at the castle,’ she began, and saw the old woman pale in fright. ‘I just wanted to stop by and say hello, and tell you what a wonderful helper your daughter is, and what a good job she’s doing,’ she added hastily.

Miss Bingham relaxed. ‘Ah, Elsie’s a good worker. Always was. Want a cup of tea?’

Jenny accepted, knowing it would have been a gross insult to refuse. She followed the old woman into the dark, sparsely furnished cottage. The tiny kitchen boasted two hard-backed chairs and Jenny took one, watching the old woman as she set about making the tea. ‘Take milk?’ the old lady asked abruptly.

‘Yes, please.’

‘I suppose their nibs are glad to have another cook at last,’ Miss Bingham finally said, taking the other chair, which wobbled alarmingly. Looking down, Jenny could see where two of its legs had been crudely mended.

‘Yes, they are,’ she responded mildly. ‘I must say though, it’s been rather awkward, starting a new job only to have something so awful happen.’

The old woman’s hands closed around her mug in a compulsive movement that made Jenny’s eyes widen.

‘I dare say,’ she muttered, something so neutral in her voice that it had almost the opposite effect of making it sound furtive.

‘The police, of course, are being such a nuisance,
questioning
everyone,’ Jenny carried on carefully. She had an idea that once Miss Bingham clammed up, there’d be no prising the old lady’s lips apart again. So she mustn’t scare her. ‘They do keep on and on about things.’ She sighed heavily.

‘Well, we ain’t got nothing to worry about – Elsie and me, we’re all right,’ the old woman said firmly. And couldn’t have made it more obvious that she was almost sick with fright.

‘I know a little bit about the way the police work,’ Jenny said, then seeing the old woman’s eyes sharpen in alarm, added quickly, ‘We had a robbery once at a restaurant where I worked. They just poke and pry and dig into everyone’s backgrounds and learn things that don’t have a thing to do with the crime in question,’ she continued craftily. ‘I was so
embarrassed I had to leave. Still, to be fair, I don’t suppose they can know what’s important and what isn’t, so they have to check out every little thing. Trouble is, all us innocent ones suffer too, just so they can get to the guilty.’

Miss Bingham paled even further, but said nothing. Jenny took a sip of tea, desperately trying to think of a way to move things forward.

‘I dare say that’s so,’ Miss Bingham said heavily at last, and then glanced up at the cook, her eyes small and dark, and reminding Jenny of those of a chicken. A chicken with a sharp beak – a chicken that would do anything, and tackle anyone, who threatened her chick. ‘You say you like my Elsie?’

‘Yes I do, I admire her very much,’ Jenny said, honestly. ‘She’s a hard worker, which is rare these days, and I think she’s probably had a hard life. She confided in me about, well, how things haven’t been easy for you either.’

‘She did, did she?’ the old woman said, obviously surprised. ‘Well, I suppose it was bound to come out. There’s folks in this village old enough to remember….’

‘Remember what?’ she asked gently, holding her breath as the old woman seemed to hesitate.

‘Hmm? Oh, to remember who it was who got me into trouble all them years ago. He were a local lad, should have married me, but he didn’t. He weren’t already married or nothing like that, and his dad was a farm worker, just like mine. But he had big ideas, did Basil. Even then. And I suppose you have to give the devil his due, he made all his big ideas come true.’

The old woman sighed. ‘But it was terrible hard. Me dad threw me out when he heard I was in the family way, and I had to have our Elsie in one of them women’s shelters. Then his lordship, the old lord this would be, he let me have this
cottage for a peppercorn rent. I used to work at Miltons, the factory in Bicester. Worked there for years I did, till it closed down. Just made enough to keep us both going. Then Elsie left school and they took her on as a kitchen maid up at the castle, and she’s been there ever since. But all this time, Basil was living it up in leaps and bounds. Did really well for himself without a wife and kiddie tying him down,’ she added bitterly. ‘But the thing is….’ The old woman suddenly reached across and grabbed Jenny’s hand in a fierce grip, her eyes wide with fear and begging for understanding.

‘Elsie took it all so very hard. She found out when she was working up at the castle who her dad was. I never talked about him, see. She was about twenty when she found out. I talked her out of going to see him – I knew he was a selfish sod, and wouldn’t want to know about a grown up daughter – especially one who was nothing more than skivvy. I told her it would do no good. Basil was always a hard man, even when he was a young’un. Oh he was a charmer all right, I wasn’t the only girl he managed to sweet talk into giving him what he wanted. But, as he got older, I reckon he got meaner. You could ask Mr. Meecham and his daughter about that,’ she added, making Jenny blink in surprise.

Then the old woman shook her head. ‘But there, that’s not for me to talk about. I got troubles of my own,’ she said, dampening Jenny’s hopes of getting yet more information from her. ‘If them coppers find out who Elsie’s dad is, well, they might get the wrong end of the stick, mightn’t they? Then what’ll we do?’ she wailed, suddenly looking very old and frightened indeed. Instinctively, Jenny tightened her own grip on the old woman’s hand comfortingly.

But she needed to get things clarified. She hadn’t wanted to interrupt Miss Bingham when she was speaking, but now she had no choice.

‘But why should they get the wrong end of the stick, Miss Bingham?’ she asked gently. ‘What has Basil to do with the murder up at the castle?’

Miss Bingham stared at her as if she was stupid. ‘Because Basil was
her
dad too.’

And then, suddenly, Jenny understood. She felt a cold, nasty feeling in her stomach and swallowed hard. ‘You mean, Basil was…?’

‘Basil Simmons,’ Miss Bingham said heavily and nodded. ‘Him that owns that fancy art gallery.’

And Jenny could now see the old woman’s predicament. Ava Simmons’s father was also Elsie’s father. They were sisters – well, half-sisters to be precise.

And Elsie must have known it.

But had said nothing. Because Jenny was sure, looking back on her brief time spent with Ava when she was alive, that the governess had had no inkling that Elsie was of her own flesh and blood.

J
enny began to puff as she climbed the hill. Above her, the castle towered and glowered, blocking out the light and casting her in its shadow.

Miss Bingham’s words were still ringing in her ears. According to the old lady, the fact that ‘that girl who got herself killed’ was Elsie’s sister, didn’t mean ‘my Elsie had gone and done it’.

No, it didn’t, she mused. But it certainly gave her a motive, Jenny thought, pausing by the side of the road to catch her breath. Here, she took the opportunity to look around her. Spread out below her was Upper Caulcott. Beyond the village a winding river cut through meadows of wild flowers, planted barley, and grazing black and white cattle. Willows lined the river, and birds flitted and dashed, busy raising chicks. It all looked so beautifully pastoral, and the castle itself, so utterly British.

And yet something, somewhere, was utterly rotten.

Jenny sighed wearily and continued her climb, for the first time feeling reluctant to go back to the castle. The perfect job of less than three days ago was already becoming a burden on her shoulders.

But it could all come right again – or so she hoped – with her usual optimism. Once this murder was solved, the castle would soon recover its warm, friendly atmosphere. Life
would gentle itself down. The years would pass, and she could settle like sediment in the first, truly permanent job of her career. It was probably time for her to settle down. But first things first. She sighed, and forced her mind back to the matters in hand.

So Elsie had always known that Ava Simmons was her half-sister. But Basil Simmons had married Ava’s mother, whereas he’d rejected her own. Ava had had a fine education, and had become tutor to a Lord’s granddaughter. She looked, spoke, and acted like a lady of some standing. Ava got to call the kitchen maid Elsie.

Elsie, on the other hand, had been labelled a bastard all her life. She’d have been taunted by the children at the local primary school, and ostracized by their parents. She’d have left school and gone straight into the most menial work
available
. Elsie was old before her time. She had had to work like a horse, forced to call her own sister Miss Simmons. And a thing like that could eat at the soul. The injustices of life had been known to drive people to the brink of madness. How Elsie must have resented the new governess! Seeing every day in Ava Simmons what she herself had missed in life. What she herself could have been, had Basil Simmons married her own mother. People would have called
her
Miss Simmons. Instead she had to scrub the kitchen floor. Wait on everyone. Fill the slot of the lowliest maid in the castle. How could she stand it? And had she finally, in a burst of resentment and hatred, killed her own sister?

Jenny hoped not. Jenny very
fervently
hoped not. But one thing was for sure: Inspector Bishop would just have to find out about Elsie’s parentage for himself. Until she had some genuine proof of guilt, she was not about to go and add to her kitchen-maid’s misery.

When Jenny returned to the kitchen, Malcolm Powell-Brooks was washing out some little glass jars in the sink. Janice, Meecham and Gayle were all sitting down to their tea break and finishing off the walnut and coffee cake. No doubt the vicar and his lady wife had left, their curiosity finally satisfied.

‘I hope those are not oils, or anything poisonous, Mr Powell-Brooks,’ Jenny said sharply, watching bright
azurestained
water slide down the drain. ‘I do have to prepare food here, remember.’

‘Oh no, nothing like that,’ Malcolm assured her, rinsing out a mint-green stained jar and standing it on the sideboard. ‘It’s watercolour. See how easily it washes out? A good spurt from the tap,’ – he demonstrated on a jar of sickly yellow – ‘and it’s gone.’ He presented the clean glass jar for her inspection.

Jenny nodded dubiously. She didn’t approve of strange goings on at her sink. She poured herself a cup of tea out and sat down opposite Janice, who glanced at the art tutor’s back and grinned.

Leaning closer to the cook, she lowered her voice. ‘Don’t you believe it, Miss Starling. He washes out oils too. I saw him only last week cleaning out a jar so thoroughly he used an old knife to delve down around the bottom of the inside rim. He even used some bleach, and was cleaning it for a good ten minutes. No way
that
could have been watercolour.’

Jenny sighed. ‘Well, whatever the old cook let him get away with, he won’t get away with it now,’ she said firmly, and resolved to keep a careful eye on the art tutor in future.

Elsie chose that moment to come up from one of the cellars. She was carrying a huge sack of potatoes. ‘You said you was doing shepherd’s pie,’ she said, dumping them over by the sink, unceremoniously shoving the art tutor to one
side. Her bulk and surliness meant Malcolm didn’t even sigh in protest. ‘Their nibs likes their pie with lots of spuds,’ Elsie added, grabbing a cup and sitting down heavily.

Jenny, with her new knowledge, looked at her sharply, and what she saw gave her cause to think. Elsie’s eyes were
red-rimmed
and sightly swollen, so she’d obviously been crying. Crying for her dead sister perhaps? It had probably only just now hit her – she had lost a sister, and it wouldn’t matter that that sister had not even known that she, Elsie, had existed. Losing a relative, no matter what the circumstances, was bound to tell on you sooner or later.

Jenny was glad to see the tears. But they proved nothing.

‘Well, I’d better take these back to the minx,’ Malcolm said, picking up the clean little jars and putting them in one of his painting smock’s many pockets. ‘Janice, did you get me that red paint that I asked you for on—’ he broke off as he realized that it had been the day of the murder. ‘Oh, forget it. I’ll get some more myself. I have to go into Bicester later on.’

Janice watched him go, biting her lip and fingering her ridiculous brooch. Then she too jumped up, muttering something about dusting, and gave the brooch a final tweak. Jenny wished she would stop it. It was getting on her nerves.

When the door had closed behind her, Elsie too made a move. ‘I’d better go see old Seth. You want some tomatoes out of the hothouse?’ she asked.

Jenny did. Tomatoes did wonders to pep up minced beef. The cook watched her go then turned to look at Meecham. ‘I went to see Miss Bingham this morning,’ she said quietly. ‘I think she’s worried about Elsie.’

Meecham cut himself another slice of the delicious cake and wondered where Henry was. He worried when he couldn’t keep an eye on that reptile. One more incident like this morning’s and his heart wouldn’t stand it. Thank
goodness only his lordship had noticed his blunder.

‘Oh?’ he murmured, vaguely aware that the cook was waiting for a response. ‘I don’t think she need worry.’ Suddenly he stopped slicing and looked across at the cook. He paled slightly. ‘You mean, does she think there might be another murder? That one of us might be killed?’

Jenny quickly shook her head. ‘Oh no. Not that. No, I don’t think there’s a madman on the loose in the castle or anything. I think she was more worried that the police might get it in into their heads to arrest Elsie.’

‘But that’s silly,’ Gayle chimed in with a small, nervous laugh. ‘Why should they do that? Elsie had no reason to kill Miss Simmons.’ She reached for the sugar bowl and spooned in a level teaspoon, her hands shaking slightly.

So they know who her father is, Jenny thought accurately. They’d always known.

‘No, perhaps not. But she seemed to think someone else at the castle might have reason to, well…disapprove of Miss Simmons,’ she continued, watching them both carefully.

She had not forgotten Miss Bingham’s quickly cut-off hint that the Meechams themselves might have a skeleton of their own in their closet that they’d be anxious to keep concealed.

Meecham swallowed and glanced across at his daughter. Gayle was staring at the cook with a level, assessing glance that made Jenny want to shift uncomfortably in her seat. She did no such thing, of course, but gazed back, equally coolly.

‘You
have
been busy, haven’t you, Miss Starling?’ Gayle said finally. But there was no malice in her voice; just the hard, heavy ring of reality. ‘I’ve been doing my homework too, as it happens. I thought the police were treating you a little differently from all the rest of us. And it couldn’t only have been because you were so new here.’

‘Gayle!’ Meecham said, aghast.

‘So I went into town myself this morning,’ Gayle continued, ignoring her father’s reproof, ‘and went to the newspaper office. I asked around, made a phone call or two to a reporter friend of mine and, guess what? Your name rang a bell. In fact, it rang several bells.’

‘Gayle, what are you saying?’ Meecham asked, looking at the cook in some alarm.

Jenny took a sip of tea, and placidly let Gayle get on with it.

‘It seems, Father, that Miss Starling is something of an amateur detective. In fact, you have three solved murders to your credit, don’t you, Miss Starling?’

Jenny sighed and nodded. ‘I have been able to help the police on the odd occasion,’ she agreed modestly.

‘And you’re helping them now, aren’t you?’ Gayle continued, still in the same, flat monotone. ‘I daresay Lady Vee wants some eyes and ears below stairs.’

‘Now that’s enough,’ Meecham said. ‘You won’t speak about her ladyship in that way.’

Gayle reached across and patted her father’s hand
reassuringly
. It was almost, Jenny thought, as if
she
were the parent, and Meecham the child. ‘No, Father. But Miss Starling has been busy. You know about Elsie, don’t you?’

Jenny nodded. There was no point in denying it.

‘And you won’t stop digging until you know everything about us, will you?’ she added fatalistically.

‘Gayle, I really don’t think….’ Meecham began nervously, but Gayle again patted his hand, effectively silencing him.

‘It’s better if it comes from us, Father,’ Gayle said with a sigh. ‘Besides, the police are bound to find out sooner or later. You see, Miss Starling, we weren’t always tour guides, or even butler and maid. My father and mother once owned a farm. Oh, it was a small farm, and not very prosperous, but
it was theirs. They owned the land, they farmed it, and were well respected by their peers. This was to the west of here. Near the Gloucestershire border. I lived on the farm until I was eight.’

Gayle paused to glance at her father, who was staring down at his uneaten cake, his face a picture of misery.

‘We had a bad winter one year. Lost too many sheep. We had to take out a bank loan.’

Even when she was eight, Jenny thought astutely, it was ‘we’. Not ‘Mum and Dad’, but ‘we’. Gayle must have had to grow up very quickly, the cook thought, bracing herself for the tale of woe to come. And there must be one to come. Farmers and landowners didn’t become servants by choice.

‘For a while, it looked as if things would pick up. But then there was a second bad winter.’ Gayle sighed, obviously remembering it all very well indeed. ‘My mother was the daughter of a local factory owner. It wasn’t a big factory, not a nationally known one or anything like that, but it had done all right in the past. Her father gave my mother a painting as a wedding present. Oh, it was not by Turner, or Constable, like they have around here, but one of the minor Victorians. It was a pretty picture of a girl with long blonde curly hair cuddling a red-setter dog. Very pretty. Very popular.’

Gayle picked up a spoon and began to stir her tea. ‘We decided to sell it in order to pay off the bank and keep the farm. We took it to an art dealer we knew. He’d just opened a new shop in Bicester. We’d seen it written up in the newspapers.’

Jenny felt her spine tingle. ‘This art dealer…?’ she prompted, her voice bland, but she already knew the answer.

Gayle nodded. ‘Basil Simmons. He told us that the painting wasn’t worth much. This was before the Victorians became so popular. He said nobody wanted ‘chocolate box’
pictures much. Said the painting wasn’t even that well painted, and that it wasn’t by a very well-known artist. But he said he’d buy it, if we were really desperate.’

‘And of course, we were,’ Meecham spoke for the first time, his voice bleak with remembrance.

‘My mother managed to get the price up high enough to pay off the bank. Just. So we sold it, paid the bank, and returned to the farm.’

‘But we didn’t have enough money to buy more sheep to cover those we’d lost. Also, the cost of feed and grain had soared,’ Meecham added, sounding for the first time like the farmer he had once been.

‘You lost the farm,’ Jenny said flatly, with some effort managing to keep her heart-felt pity out of her voice.

‘Yes,’ Meecham echoed sadly. ‘We lost the farm. We moved to Banbury, into a poky little flat. I got a job in a hardware store. My wife had to take on any odd job she could find. Working part-time, for a pittance. By then, her own father had died and her brother had inherited the factory. He had seven children of his own; he couldn’t help us. The heart just seemed to go right out of Judith,’ Meecham said, his voice trembling as he remembered. ‘Within a year we’d lost her.’

He glanced up as Gayle took his other hand and held onto it fiercely.

And so Gayle had taken her mother’s place, Jenny thought shrewdly. At, what? Ten, eleven years old? Cooking, cleaning, and probably taking over the family finances.

‘I finally took on a more permanent job as butler to one of the local families,’ Meecham continued the story of his life. ‘The old man who’d been the butler there for years and years, taught me all he knew about the job before he left, and I found I was good at it. Then, I came here, about, oh, eight years ago. And since then, we’ve been really happy, haven’t
we, Gayle?’ he asked anxiously.

Gayle nodded quickly. ‘Oh yes, Father. I love it here,’ she assured him. ‘I took over as her ladyship’s maid when the old one left. Not many girls can say they are maids to a real lady these days,’ she said, her voice deliberately excited. ‘Princess Diana made all that seem so glam.’