In the Crypt with a Candlestick Read online

  ‘We haven’t really talked too much yet. But I like the look of her very much,’ he said.

  ‘Well that decides it then. I’ll see you later. I’ll ask Alice to be with us by eight. Assuming she’s free. Which she probably will be.’ India giggled. ‘At least I hope so. Not sure I can face the evening if she isn’t.’

  CHAPTER 33

  Mr Carfizzi served them dinner in the Red Dining Room. India drank much more she usually did, mostly out of boredom, and by the main course was already quite drunk. Everybody drank, mostly out of boredom – except for the vicar’s wife, who didn’t drink at all, and Egbert, who was in training for a high altitude triathlon, scheduled to take place in Chile in the spring: ‘Our spring, their autumn, of course,’ as Egbert was always quick to clarify to anyone who showed the slightest interest, and sometimes to people who didn’t.

  The vicar’s wife, aged fifty-eight, with a neat white bob of shiny hair and clean white fingernails, was exceedingly polite, and dull, and inexplicably bitter. It was obvious to Alice that she was jealous of India, disapproved of Dominic, didn’t think much of Alice or of her own husband, but was keen as mustard on young Egbert. She listened with twittery solicitude as he bored on about his fitness targets and the dangers of protein deficiency in stamina-dependent, oxygen-deficient situations.

  After a while, India groaned, and said to the vicar, ‘We have entered the Egbert Tode High Altitude Triathlon Portal. Somebody change the record. I swear he’ll never shut up!’

  She pulled a face at Dominic, who chortled encouragingly. ‘Egbert, darling, have pity,’ she shouted. ‘People are falling off their chairs around you: they’re literally dying of boredom.’

  Egbert was mortified. ‘Oh God, am I doing it again?’ he said. ‘You’re quite right, Munch. I’m an intolerable bore.’ He turned to the vicar’s wife. ‘I’m so sorry…’

  ‘Not at all!’ cried the vicar’s wife, sending India a small, hygienic hate vibe. ‘I’m finding our conversation most absorbing. I’ve never been a great one for fitness regimes, speaking personally. I’m just happy walking my dog, enjoying all this gorgeous countryside. But I’m fascinated by triathlons…’

  India rolled her eyes in her head, her head on her shoulders, and then, feeling that even this wasn’t quite enough, pretended to fall off her chair.

  ‘Are you all right?’ cried the vicar.

  ‘Oh she’s fine!’ Egbert laughed. ‘Come on Munch. Give me a break!’

  The vicar’s wife glared at the empty chair. ‘I’m sorry you don’t find your husband’s interests worth learning about, India…’

  India returned to her seat. ‘Just mucking around, Penelope!’ she beamed. ‘Anyway, never mind triathlons. Are we ready for pudding?’ She rang the bell, and in came Mr Carfizzi to clear the plates. It being a dinner party, he had banished his wife to the kitchen. He’d changed out of the tanner’s apron, washed the mausoleum grime from beneath his fingernails and put on his butler’s gear. He always wore his butler gear when Dominic came to dinner.

  ‘What’s for pudding tonight then?’ Dominic asked him playfully. ‘Has Mrs Carfizzi done us her marvellous chocolate profiteroles?’

  ‘Unfortunately not,’ Carfizzi replied. He shot a killer stare towards India, who was busy refilling her glass and didn’t notice. ‘Mrs Carfizzi and I were only made aware that you and Mrs Liddell would be dining with us shortly before dinner. So it was rather difficult—’

  ‘Ya-ya. I apologised to your wife already, Carfizzi,’ India said irritably. ‘She was perfectly OK with it. And by the way, since she’s actually the cook…’

  ‘As you know,’ Carfizzi interrupted her midstream. He was looking at Dominic. ‘Mrs Carfizzi always prepares her profiteroles when she knows you are coming.’ He fussed about with the plates, taking them one at a time to the sideboard. ‘But unfortunately nobody informed us you were coming,’ he said again, ‘until it was much too late.’

  India shrugged. ‘Whatevs, Carfizzi. I’m sure Dominic will survive without his profiteroles just this once. Anyway, he needs to watch his weight a bit, at his age. Don’t you Dom?’

  The comment landed. Alice, who watched and learned, and said very little, noticed Dominic Rathbone tightening his grip on his water glass. She noticed contempt – repugnance, even – flitting across Carfizzi’s clean-shaven, sweet-smelling face; and around Egbert, at the head of the table, a gentle dipping in spirits.

  Alice said: ‘I suppose we all have to watch our weight, really, don’t we? I used to run a cookery course before I came here. It was all anyone wanted me to teach them: how to make food that wouldn’t make them fat.’

  ‘Ah! The Holy Grail!’ replied Dominic, gratefully.

  ‘Too right!’ said Egbert. ‘If anyone could come up with food that tasted good and didn’t pile on the pounds, well they’d probably turn out to be richer than God! By which I mean—’ He glanced apologetically at the vicar: ‘Obviously I don’t mean God, God – I mean: what’s the name of that chap who owns Microsoft?’

  ‘Bill Gates,’ said the vicar.

  ‘That’s the one,’ Egbert said. ‘As rich as Bill Gates.’

  After that, after pudding (which turned out to be baked apples with sultanas and vanilla-flavour easy-scoop ice cream on the side) the party removed themselves from Red Dining Room to Chinese Drawing Room, where Mr Carfizzi had put out the coffee.

  India, having had more than enough polite conversation with the vicar and his wife for one night, took care to place herself as far away from them as possible. She parked herself onto a sofa closest to the fire, slipped off her shoes and patted the seat beside her.

  ‘Alice!’ she said. ‘We’ve hardly spoken all night. Come and sit next to me. I want to hear all the gossip.’

  ‘I’m not sure I have any,’ said Alice, settling beside her.

  Dominic and Egbert were left to entertain the vicar and wife. Both men rose valiantly and affably to the challenge. Conversation flowed so smoothly that when, at length, the couple returned to their vicarage, they would agree with each other that it had been a very nice evening, despite the odd hiccup, and that Egbert Tode was proving to be ‘a wonderful thing’ for the estate. They wouldn’t mention India. It wasn’t nice to be nasty and in any case there was no need. On this, they knew they were united. India was a dreadful woman.

  And so, while Dominic and Egbert listened to the vicar’s wife’s observations regarding the nesting habits of pintail ducks on the Upper Lawn Lake last spring, India confided in Alice some of her ambitions regarding Dominic, whom she felt was being ‘under-exploited as Tode Hall’s resident celebrity’.

  Alice asked India how she thought he might be better exploited. India glanced across at him, chatting so nicely with her husband and the vicarage duo. She said: ‘He’s gorgeous isn’t he, though? As well as being quite famous. We should organise a coffee theme-day, you know? A grand coffee tasting; a coffee expo… What do you think? People LOVE coffee – and people LOVE seeing famous people. And we do happen to have the most famous face-associated-with-coffee-drinking, probably in the whole world, right now, living and working on the estate. We should be exploiting that. Don’t you think?’

  ‘Sounds like a good idea,’ said Alice, even though it didn’t. ‘Maybe we could—’

  ‘I know. We definitely need to think more about it,’ India said. ‘We can do it later. Seriously Alice, what do you think about Carfizzi?’

  ‘Sorry. What do I think about—’

  ‘I just – he is driving me insane. Egbert thinks we couldn’t survive without him but I think he’s wrong. I know he’s wrong. We’ve got to get rid of him… Both of them, actually. But specially him. I actually can’t stand being in the same room as him anymore.’

  ‘Yes. You make that pretty clear,’ Alice said.

  ‘Do I?’ India looked surprised. ‘Well I don’t think he likes being in the same room with me, either, frankly. We can’t stand each other.’

  Since their encounter at the mausoleum
this afternoon, it happened Alice didn’t much like being around him either. ‘He’s a strange man, isn’t he?’ Alice said. ‘Lots of silent fury, I get the feeling.’

  ‘Because he’s still in love with bloody Emma, just like everyone else around here…’

  ‘Yes I’d heard that…’

  ‘Sometimes I catch him looking at me like he… I don’t know…’ She let out a burst of unhappy laughter. ‘… I swear, it’s almost like he thinks I was the one who killed her!’

  ‘But no one “killed” her,’ Alice said quickly. ‘Surely – you don’t think that?’

  ‘Hm? No! No, of course I don’t. I’m talking crap. I just think Carfizzi thinks – never mind. Who cares what he thinks? It doesn’t matter, does it? I’ve drunk too much. I probably shouldn’t be saying all this anyway…’ India fell silent for a moment. She looked at the fire, and then across the room at the men. ‘… He really is gorgeous, though, isn’t he?’

  ‘Egbert?’

  ‘Dominic! He must be thirty years older than me at least. Seriously, how pervy is that?’

  ‘It’s not “pervy” being older than people.’

  ‘No!’ she whispered. ‘It’s pervy how much I fancy him.’ She giggled. She put a finger to her lips. ‘Shhhhh!… By the way I’ve decided to take your advice and have a media-people house party. It’s going to be a “murder mystery” theme. Otherwise they won’t have anything to do except sit around talking crap. It’s going to be MEGA, Alice.’

  ‘A house party?’ Alice was tired. Much as she generally enjoyed India’s company, she’d had enough of it for the night. She wanted to go to bed. But she smiled anyway. ‘Did I advise that?’

  ‘Egbert thinks we ought to wait until after the inquest. But it’s a bit late for that. He should have said it before I sent the invitations out.’

  ‘You’ve sent invitations out already?’

  She giggled. ‘Egg’s a bit peed off tbh. Turns out it’s literally the weekend before. The inquest’s on the Monday… So. Anyway,’ she looked gloomy for a microsecond, and in the next microsecond, remembered what a blast it was going to be, and brightened up again. ‘I don’t even know them, Alice!’ she said. ‘I just made a list of all the most famous, glamorous media-type knob-heads I’ve ever met, got hold of their emails and thought, why not? Let’s get this house back on the map! Half of them won’t have the faintest idea who I am. But they’ll recognise the house, won’t they? If they Google it. How many of them do you think will accept?’

  ‘Well it depends…’

  ‘No it doesn’t! Remember? Don’t you remember what you said? It’s going to be hilarious, Alice. They’re all going to suck up massively, because I live in this crazy house.’ She laughed her precarious laugh and Alice wondered if India was more unwell than anyone realised.

  ‘Anyway,’ India added, suddenly serious. ‘Enough chitchat. You look exhausted. And I’ve definitely had enough of today. I’m going to bed. We’ll talk about the Big Media Murder Weekend in the morning, OK… We’re going to need the biggest Xmas tree in the world, Alice. But Ollie Mellors can probs organise that… And Dominic doesn’t know it yet but he’s going to be the star – He’s going to show off his acting skills to all those big media fuckers, and they’ll be stuck here for the weekend and they won’t be able to get away!’ India touched her nose, and winked. ‘I’m going to make Dominic a star again! See? Big Plans!… Contrary to popular opinion, I’m not just a pretty face!’

  CHAPTER 34

  It transpired that Geraldine Tode had only needed the one ferocious polishing, followed by a couple of desultory rubs, to liberate her into the big wide world again. She was now able to escape her sugar dispenser at will. This was good and bad. Good for Geraldine, who could wander the estate at her leisure. Not so good for Alice, because it meant Geraldine was almost always around. There were times when Alice found her quite irritating.

  ‘Call it whatever you like,’ she said to Alice, one night, a couple of evenings after the vicar’s dinner, and apropos of nothing much, ‘but you’re only employed here, really, as a “companion”, to keep that silly girl out of trouble. Nothing more than that. It’s very old fashioned.’

  ‘Well I’m not sure I’m doing a particularly good job at it,’ Alice replied.

  ‘She seems to keep you amused.’

  ‘She’s funny. I like her.’

  ‘Well then, don’t complain.’

  ‘I wasn’t.’

  ‘Sounded to me as if you were.’

  Not for the first time it occurred to Alice how much Geraldine, Lady Tode reminded her of her grandmother. She’d commented on it once, but it had made Geraldine livid, because of the class divide. Sometimes it was difficult for Geraldine, knowing that her chief companion – her only companion in the world – was the granddaughter of her former lady’s maid. Sometimes she would feel the need to assert to Alice the differences between them, and she would spiral off into boastful stories from her past, about all the smart people she used to know, and how much they used to admire her. On these occasions Alice thought her companion was a sad, unlikeable figure. She would gaze out of the window and let the old dame run with it, just as she used to when her grandmother got the wind behind her.

  She told Geraldine she thought India might be having a fling with Dominic Rathbone.

  Geraldine said: ‘I’m not remotely surprised.’

  Alice fell silent.

  ‘Well don’t be coy,’ Geraldine snapped. ‘How do you know? And how long have you known? Have you actually seen them at it?’

  Alice said, ‘Of course not.’

  ‘More importantly, do you suppose India knows she’s retreading old ground? Do you think she has the slightest inkling that he and Emma were involved for all those years? She’d be furious, wouldn’t she?’

  ‘Probably,’ agreed Alice.

  ‘Well? Do you think she knows? Seriously, Alice. We’ll likely have another murder on our hands if she ever finds out. Daventy women are narcissists and nymphomaniacs. A dangerous mix, believe me. She’ll kill him if she works out she’s only a rebound.’ Geraldine gave a chilly laugh. ‘Especially when she discovers from whom…’

  ‘Well,’ Alice said, blandly, ‘with any luck she won’t find out. There’s no reason she should.’

  ‘Excuse me, there are a million reasons why she should,’ said Geraldine. ‘I’m astonished she hasn’t already.’

  Geraldine’s voice grated. Her snobbery grated. Her gleeful, ungenerous spirit was giving Alice a headache. Outside, it was a cloudless night, and through the window she could see the moon shining bright. Suddenly she didn’t want to sit there listening to her anymore. She didn’t want to spend the rest of the evening discussing Daventy narcissism.

  She’d been at Tode Hall for less than a month and already her feelings towards the land outside her window were changing. She was warming to it – literally. She didn’t feel the cold the way she once had. And when she looked out at the garden – it didn’t all merge into a smudge of green and brown. There was, for example, a beautiful winter-flowering clematis she had noticed and admired in the Rose Garden; and a robin redbreast she thought she recognised, which often appeared on a branch by her kitchen window. Small things perhaps, but big for Alice. She told Geraldine she needed to go outside.

  She put on coat and boots, and left Geraldine at the kitchen table with her stone cold tea, tutting, and telling Alice she was a fool.

  The Rose Garden was peaceful without the tourists, and spectacular in the moonlight. Alice thought of her grandmother and how much she would have loved to be living here, and missed her; she thought of her triplets, and the mess they made, and missed them, too; and it occurred to her that she felt more contented, here at Tode Hall, living alone with an irritating ghost, than she’d ever been before. It was an unusual moment in Alice’s life, brought on by fresh air and moonlight (and a very small spliff); a moment when her battered heart seemed perhaps to be considering the possibility of kicking back to life
, just a little bit. She realised how much she had always loved this place.

  The moment was rudely interrupted by a noise on the other side of the hedge: slightly unnerving, as noises when alone in a dark place must always be. At first Alice assumed it was a fox. But then it grew louder, drew closer…

  ‘Hello?’ she called out. ‘Is someone there?’

  She wrapped her coat a little tighter around her and stepped towards the noise. There was an archway cut into the hedge. Beyond it was a pathway to the village. She poked her head around the archway and found Dominic Rathbone standing there, grinning like an idiot. He was wearing a cowboy hat and carrying a vaguely familiar string-handled shopping bag from Molton Brown.

  ‘Dominic? Is that you?’

  ‘Certainly is!’ he said. ‘Hello there! I’m so sorry. Did I frighten you? I didn’t mean to. Actually, if it’s any comfort,’ he laughed, ‘you frightened the bejaysus out of me!’ For some reason he said it in an Irish accent.

  ‘What are you doing out here?’

  He said: ‘Well, I was coming to see you, Alice. Actually I thought I might fulfil my promise to you, and drag you to the pub. What do you think? Are you busy?’

  She clearly wasn’t busy. Alice cast around for another excuse. Didn’t find one and settled for the second least exhausting option that presented itself. She invited him in for a drink.

  ‘What a marvellous idea!’ said Dominic. ‘Thank you Alice, I would love that.’

  As they approached the house, Alice prayed Geraldine would hear them coming and disappear into her pot. Not that Dominic would have been able to see her. But it would be awkward if she insisted on sitting there, tutting and sneering and pretending to sip tea. So Alice spoke loudly as she opened the door.

  ‘I don’t know if I’ve got much in the house in the way of spirits,’ she shouted. ‘That is, unless you count my resident ghost, ha ha ha. I know I don’t have whisky. BUT I MIGHT HAVE SOME GIN.’