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Authors: Tanya Landman

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BOOK: The Will To Live
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A piece of paper was poking out of a side pocket. I pulled it free but it was too dark to read what was written on it. Then a flash of lightning lit up the whole room.

In my hands I held a certificate, signed by a registrar in the presence of two independent witnesses, which clearly stated that a Mademoiselle Camille de la Tour had married a Mr Lancelot Strudwick three months ago.

HIDING EVIDENCE

I
didn’t exactly mean to pocket the marriage certificate, but Lancelot and Julian were both heading across the room towards me. They carried lighted candles, which threw sinister shadows on to their faces, and I panicked.

“Whad are you doing?” demanded Lancelot.

“What have you got there?” asked Julian.

Their attention was on the bag, not what was in my hand, so I pulled the rucksack free and threw it to them.

Lancelot caught it. “Whad’s dis?”

“It’s that Frenchman’s!”

“Led me see!”

“You’re not tampering with anything in there!”

“And you’re nod planding anyding!”

While the two cousins were tussling over Toulouse’s bag – spilling hot wax over it and each other in the process – I hurriedly stuffed the crumpled certificate into my pocket.

“Julian! Lancelot! You’re behaving like spoilt children!” Jennifer tried to make peace between them. She failed.

“I want to see what’s inside!”

“You can’d!”

“What is it? What are you fighting over?” asked Jennifer.

“It’s the Frenchman’s bag. I’ll bet there’s some incriminating evidence in here about that mysterious marriage,” growled Julian.

“Only if you pud id dere,” snarled Lancelot. “You’d do anyding to stop me inheriding, wouldn’d you? Bud id won’d work.”

“For heaven’s sake!” exclaimed Jennifer. She sounded tired. “If it really does belong to that poor Toulouse fellow, I suppose none of us will rest until the contents are examined. Let me see it.”

“There’s nothing to stop you shoving something in there yourself, cuz.” Lydia stepped into the fray. “Let me do it.”

“No!” Jennifer’s eyes narrowed. “I wouldn’t put it past you to destroy something important.”

The cousins had reached deadlock. It was Gethin who eventually broke it, clearing his throat and saying quietly, “The most sensible thing to do would be to hand it to a third party, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Well, that’s not you!” snapped Lydia.

“No, I realize that. I thought that perhaps the vicar could do the honours?”

Reverend Bristow seemed embarrassed to be drawn into the argument, but manfully he stepped up to the job. Prising the rucksack from Julian and Lancelot’s reluctant fingers he began to remove the contents: a wallet, a passport, a washbag, two pairs of smelly socks and three pairs of underpants (no one wanted to look too closely at those), a crumpled T-shirt, a damp towel and a pair of grubby jeans.

I suspected that the most important thing from the bag was now stuffed in my pocket. I thought about confessing the theft, but then I recalled those spears mounted on the wall upstairs and the savage expressions on Lancelot and Julian’s faces a few moments ago. And I remembered Toulouse, lying dead in the outside toilet. I promised myself that I’d keep the certificate nice and safe in my pocket until we escaped from the manor. Then I’d take it to a nice, secure police station, and show it to a nice, kind policewoman.

The vicar had now reached the bottom of the bag. He up-ended it and two more items dropped out: a torn section of newspaper and a postcard.

The newspaper was a Canadian one. It gave a brief account of the accidental death of a female tourist in the Arctic Circle – she’d been on an ill-equipped hiking expedition and had died from exposure and loss of blood. It didn’t mention the woman’s name or that she’d been on honeymoon so it hardly counted as evidence of the secret marriage. Lancelot began to look slightly smug.

The postcard was more interesting. There was a photo of a polar bear on the front and on the back was a Canadian stamp postmarked three months ago. A message had been scrawled in French.

“I’m sorry,” said the vicar, scanning it quickly, “I’m a bit rusty. Not sure I’m up to translating this.”

“Here, let me.” Joe smiled. “I’m French Canadian – bilingual,” he explained to the crowd that had gathered around as the rucksack drama unfolded. “It says:

My dearest brother, I have a big surprise for you – I’m married! Don’t be angry with me for not telling you sooner – it happened so fast I can scarcely believe it myself. I’ll tell you everything when I next see you and then you can meet my darling husband. But right now we’re on a polar bear safari! You would laugh to see me wearing walking boots, sleeping in a tent, washing in a puddle – in fact, you probably wouldn’t recognize me. I hardly recognize myself. I’m so happy!

The sad, poignant last message to her brother was signed simply “Camille”. There was no surname; no husband’s name: nothing whatsoever to incriminate Lancelot. He was off the hook and he knew it.

“I dold you,” he said to the room in general. “Id’s god nuding to do wid me.”

Joe handed the postcard back to Reverend Bristow. “It’s kinda strange,” he said, more to himself than anyone else but Julian pounced on his words.

“What is?”

“Oh … well, this Camille woman going to look for bears at that time of year. Why not wait until later? They gather round Churchill in the fall, waiting for the sea to freeze. They’re a dime a dozen then. In the summer, mostly all you’ll see if you go walking is bugs. The mosquitoes are enough to drive you crazy! Can suck a man dry if he’s not careful.”

No one replied. The fire crackled and the candles flickered. Thunder pealed and lightning flashed and silence reigned in the drawing-room.

But then the vicar looked at me and said awkwardly, “I hate to intrude, but didn’t you have something in your hand just now? I thought I saw a piece of paper.”

“Erm … yeah… Sorry. I forgot.” There was no point denying it. Feeling literally hot under the collar I pulled the certificate out of my pocket and shamefacedly handed it to the vicar.

He examined it by candlelight and held it out for the cousins to see. After that all hell broke loose.

“You did marry her! This proves it! That’s your signature!” Julian yelled at Lancelot.

“Bud I didn’d sign id! I never med her! I’ve never even been do Canada!”

Lancelot was beside himself, laughing hysterically at the absurdity of Julian’s accusation, ready to thump anyone who believed it. He had no alibi, he admitted reluctantly. He’d been away from home at the time of Camille’s death: hill walking in Scotland, he said. No, he couldn’t produce any witnesses. But he didn’t need to! The certificate was a forgery, a fake, he insisted; it was all one big con. He turned on Julian. On Jennifer. He even accused his own sister of setting him up.

The more he blustered, the more he stormed and raged about the unfairness of it all, the more he convinced everyone in the drawing-room that he was lying.

REFUGEES

LANCELOT’S
fury blew itself out eventually but the sulky silence that followed was even worse. The storm passed over, the thunder and lightning faded and died, but the wind carried on screaming and the rain went on steadily beating down. People sat obsessively trying to check the latest weather reports but soon there was no signal to be had in any part of the house. Some gadgets failed altogether, screens dying with an apologetic blip as batteries drained. Even the consolation of electronic contact with the outside world had faded into nothing.

By 8 p.m. it was obvious to the Strudwicks’ guests that they were going to have to spend the night in the manor with two dead bodies. I don’t know if it was the corpses or the sub-zero temperature upstairs that influenced their decision, but they all chose to camp out in the drawing-room rather than sleep in the spacious bedrooms that were offered to them.

Sally was determined to prevent Graham and me from getting involved in another murder case so she ensured we were kept Fully Occupied at All Times. The result was that we didn’t get to talk to each other about what was going on, which was horribly frustrating. We did all the fetching and carrying of pillows and quilts and bedspreads and mattresses and inflatable lilos and cushions and anything else that could be remotely useful in making people comfortable. By the time we’d finished, the drawing-room looked like a refugee centre.

“Reminds me of the war,” said Major Huwes-Guffing cheerfully. “We used to hunker down in the Anderson shelter during the air raids when I was a boy. Frightfully cosy, really. Bit of an adventure, you know. We thought it was terrific fun. As long as a bomb didn’t land on you, of course.”

At about 9.30 p.m. the family – who were presumably used to the near-freezing conditions – retired to bedrooms upstairs, leaving their guests, the vicar and us to our own devices.

Sally had opted for the safety-in-numbers option of the drawing-room and insisted that Graham and I sleep on either side of her. By 10 p.m. we were all cocooned in musty-smelling blankets and eiderdowns, and one by one the guests started to drop off. By now I was dying to talk to Graham but there was no way we could have a good chat. I lay there, eyes wide open, staring at the shadows the firelight threw on the ceiling and willing Sally to fall asleep.

Luckily Graham’s mum had had a very long and exceedingly stressful day. She couldn’t stay awake for ever. The moment her breathing deepened, I crept out from under the covers and tiptoed across the room. Thirty seconds later, Graham followed. I waited for him at the foot of the grand staircase and then we felt our way along the dark corridor towards the kitchen. It was pitch-dark but we knew our way well enough by now. The Aga would still be warm and it seemed the safest place to talk.

We opened the Aga door and stirred up the fire – the faintly glowing embers gave just enough light for us to see each other’s faces.

“So Lancelot was lying,” said Graham. “He was married all along.”

“It certainly looks that way. But earlier, when he was having that argument with Toulouse, I had the feeling he was telling the truth.”

Graham looked at me. We both knew that I’d had that kind of Deep Down Gut Feeling once before, and on that occasion I’d ignored it. It had nearly resulted in both of us having our throats torn out.

“Do you have a theory?” asked Graham.

“Yes, I do.” I’d had plenty of time to think it through. “If Lancelot is telling the truth, there’s only one explanation: somebody framed him. There were no photos of that wedding as far as we know – Toulouse didn’t have a clue what Lancelot looked like, that’s why he asked me to point him out. Anyone could have pretended to be Lancelot. Stolen his passport. Forged his signature. It would have been fairly easy if you knew what you were doing.”

“I suppose so. But it’s very odd.”

“You’re right. And I’ll tell you another thing that’s odd – when Toulouse kept accusing Lancelot of marrying his sister, he said he was going to find proof. But why say that if he had the marriage certificate? Why didn’t he just pull it out? If he had it, why not use it?”

“I have a feeling you’re going to tell me…”

“Because he
didn’t
have it! Someone planted that certificate in the bag
after
Toulouse was electrocuted. I’ll bet it was the same person who told him to use the outside toilet in the first place.”

“What?” Graham looked bemused.

“Think about it. Toulouse needed the loo. He wouldn’t have known where it was. What do you do if you’re in a strange place? You ask for directions. Someone sent him out there – and whoever it was knew that the wiring was dangerous. I bet Camille’s ‘accidental’ death was murder too.”

“And the point of all this would be…?”

“To make sure Lancelot didn’t inherit! It’s all to do with this codicil thing.” I paused, then asked, “What is a codicil, anyway?”

“It’s a wording added to a will explaining or altering the contents. Lord Albert Strudwick…”

“The Nazi?”

“Yes, him. From what we overheard this morning, I think we can deduce that he added a clause to his will stipulating that whoever inherits the estate has to marry a British partner from a ‘good’ family, whatever that means.”

“Talk about snobbish! OK, well, Julian’s ruled himself out by marrying Joe. And this whole set-up with Camille seems to be designed to cut out Lancelot. So who benefits? Who would the estate go to if neither of them can inherit? Jennifer? Lydia?”

Graham considered my question. I detected signs of Deep Thought, so I sat still and waited. “I don’t think so,” he said at last. “Lord Albert Strudwick seems to have had very old-fashioned ideas about class and tradition and that sort of thing. I would assume therefore that the estate would be handed down through the male line.”

“But there aren’t any other male Strudwicks.”

Graham raised an eyebrow. “You’re forgetting why we’re here.”

“The christening? But Marmaduke’s a baby… He can’t have had anything to do with it!” In the soft glow of the embers our eyes met. “Ah… I see… Marmaduke couldn’t…”

Graham finished my sentence for me. “But his parents could.”

“So what do we think?” I said after a while. “That Jennifer planned the whole thing?” I answered my own question, continuing my train of thought. “She’d know all about the will and probably what Lancelot’s signature looks like. She seems nice enough, but I guess she could be protecting Marmaduke’s interests. She could have got Gethin to pose as Lancelot and marry Camille.” I sighed. This was where the theory started to fall down. Gethin was a big, strapping, rugby-playing sort. He’d kept well out of the Strudwicks’ arguments, only wading in when his own family background had been attacked, and even then he had been straightforward about it – he’d said what he meant, no messing about. Either it was a very good act or he wasn’t capable of impersonating his wife’s cousin, marrying a perfectly innocent woman and then murdering her.

His wife’s brother, on the other hand, was a different personality altogether. Julian had married Joe in secret. Maybe he was just a very private person – or maybe there was more to it than that.

BOOK: The Will To Live
2.49Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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