In the Crypt with a Candlestick Page 18

  ‘For God’s sake,’ muttered Egbert. He turned back to his Mail on Sunday.

  Mad Ecgbert, still standing by the door, pointed an angry finger at Hamish, turned to India and demanded: ‘Seriously. What is that creep doing here again? I thought we’d all seen the back of him. My mother’s dead, you silly bastard. We all hate you. Why don’t you fuck off?’

  Hamish snickered and stretched across the table for another triangle of brown toast. He didn’t offer a reply, and it seemed that Mad Ecgbert wasn’t expecting one. He pulled out a chair – beside India, opposite Hamish, and slumped into the seat.

  ‘By the way, somebody needs to pay the cab driver,’ he added. ‘He’s in the Great Hall. With that insane Christmas tree. Where’s this famous kedgeree then?’

  ‘I asked Mrs Carfizzi to take it away with her. I’ll ask her to bring it back again,’ India said. ‘Unless,’ she added hopefully, ‘you want something else? Wish I hadn’t mentioned it now. Are you sure you don’t want eggs?’

  Behind him, the door opened again, and in came Alice.

  ‘Morning all!’ she said. ‘Sorry I’m a bit late—’ A pause. Quite a long one. She had stopped still. When she next spoke she didn’t sound herself. Ecgbert hadn’t turned, so she addressed the back of his woolly head. She said:

  ‘Hello Ecgbert. Long time no see.’

  He spun round, wide eyed. There was a triangle of toast hanging out of his mouth. But even so – and greatly to her surprise – Alice’s heart missed a beat. She gave him a flat, sad smile. It had been almost forty years, and life had taken its toll on them both. She felt the weight of the years, but also – mostly – the triumph of the fact that here they were, still standing. To Alice, who usually felt so little, the emotion of the moment shot through her like a horrible electric pulse: a physical pain from her fingertips to the top of her head, centring – or stopping – with a massive punch in her heart, as if, for a moment, her heart had stopped. She had no idea, not the slightest inkling, that the sight of him would have had such an effect.

  ‘… YOU!’ he said. It was not friendly. The toast fell to the table. He leapt to his feet. (She had forgotten how tall he was.) ‘What are you doing here? What’s going on?…’ He turned from Alice to Egbert, and then to India. And then back to Alice again: ‘Sorry about your Ma,’ he said.

  Alice shrugged. ‘Long time ago now.’

  ‘Still…’ He gazed at her.

  ‘… Yep…’ Alice said.

  ‘… I’m an orphan as well, by the way. Now. Just like you.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘Mind you, at least your mother got the chance to do herself in,’ he added.

  ‘That’s true,’ Alice said. ‘That’s a very positive way of looking at it.’

  ‘My mother was done in, as you probably know.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think she was “done in”,’ Alice said, automatically, lazily.

  ‘What’s that?’ he snapped.

  ‘I said—’

  ‘Oh you don’t think so? Maybe that’s because you did it! It could have been you.’

  Alice gave him a thin smile. She sounded quite calm again. She said: ‘Why would I have “done her in”, Ecgbert? I don’t have any reason—’

  ‘You think I did?’

  ‘No. I didn’t say that—’

  ‘How?’ he shouted.

  ‘Well, I didn’t actually—’ Alice began.

  ‘You haven’t got an answer! Because there isn’t an answer! Of course I didn’t. What a stupid idea!’

  His rudeness annoyed her. She said: ‘It’s not that stupid, actually. Now you mention it.’

  They eyeballed one another, and then Mad Ecgbert lunged towards Alice. At the far end of the room, Egbert, in his biking gear, leapt to his feet to protect her. But there was no need. Alice didn’t flinch. She looked into Ecgbert’s eyes as he flew towards her: and then, as abruptly as he began, he stopped, and they both giggled.

  ‘Mad as ever, I see,’ Alice observed.

  He ignored that. ‘I knew you’d come back here eventually. You had to. But you should have come and seen me… I was waiting. Why didn’t you?’

  ‘Like you came and saw me in London?’

  ‘But I didn’t,’ he replied, confused. ‘… Carfizzi tells me you’re living in the Gardener’s House.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘You realise it’s haunted? Ma didn’t realise, either. She used to be furious when I mentioned it.’

  ‘Guys,’ interrupted India, feeling excluded, ‘I’m getting neck ache following all this madness. Come and sit down.’

  But the sound of her voice brought Ecgbert back into the room. It seemed to awaken his fury again. He pointed at the smirking, kedgeree-munching Hamish Tomlinson. ‘I will die,’ Ecgbert declared, his long, lean finger quivering, ‘before I sit at the same table as that shit! Did you kill Ma, Hamish Tomlinson? You probably did. After you had sex with her. You probably fucked her and then killed her, like one of those spiders—’

  ‘Easy does it, Coz,’ mumbled Egbert. ‘Bit much. It’s only breakfast.’

  ‘Well it was probably “only breakfast” when he fucked Mummy and then killed her!’ Mad Ecgbert cried.

  Hamish frowned in mock confusion. ‘I don’t know what breakfast has to do with all this. But then again…’

  ‘Oh shut up,’ snapped India. ‘Both of you. Ecgbert, for Christ’s sake, please don’t dump your Oedipal weirdness on us this morning. We’ve all got hangovers and we’re trying to have a nice, peaceful breakfast. So either join in, or bugger off.’

  ‘Bugger off?’ repeated Ecgbert, outraged. ‘I’ll have you know, Miss India whatever-the-fuck you call yourself, from Wandsworth. This is my dining room. And nobody – nobody tells me when to bugger off in my own dining room. Comprendi? And where is my fucking kedgeree?’

  Mrs Carfizzi saved what might easily have turned into a nasty moment by just then popping her smiling face through the interconnecting kitchen door.

  ‘Ah! Sir Ecgbert!’ she cried. ‘I think I hear you! You home again! Very good, very good.’

  Mad Ecgbert, mollified by her warmth, forgot about the fight. He crossed the large room and hugged her.

  She bustled off to pay the waiting cab driver and fetch the kedgeree, and the crisis passed. Or it would have passed. But Hamish hadn’t quite finished. He waited until Ecgbert sat down, and then he said:

  ‘So – did you?’

  Mad Ecgbert said: ‘Did I, what?’

  ‘Did you kill your Mama? I wouldn’t blame you if you had. Nobody would blame you. She was vile to you. I often used to tell her so…’

  India was only half listening. Her mind was spinning. Had Emma Tode and Hamish Tomlinson been lovers too? Was there any man in Yorkshire Emma Tode hadn’t got to before her?

  And then Ecgbert started shouting again.

  ‘You think I killed her, Hamish? Well that’s funny because I think you killed her. That is, I think you would have killed her, if you’d had the imagination to think of it. How dare you come slinking into my house, with that disgusting smirk on your face, telling me who killed my mother, when I know perfectly well who killed her, and it wasn’t me?’

  Hamish said: ‘Sorry to break it to you, old man, but it’s not actually your house. It belongs to your cousin Egbert. The fellow over there, who’s sitting at the head of the table, paying your taxi fares. See? It’s not your house.’

  ‘Come on, Hamish,’ said Egbert. ‘It’s really not necessary…’

  ‘Eggie’s right,’ India said: ‘Shut up, Hamish. Apologise to Ecgbert. Apologise to him, or leave. Go back to – wherever it is you live.’ She couldn’t remember. Not London. He’d had to move out for financial reasons.

  Hamish held up his hands: still smirking, but beginning to sound peevish. He said: ‘Sorry, India. But I seem to be getting abuse left and right this weekend. First Dominic, then Ecgbert. You have to admit—’

  ‘Forget about Hamish,’ Mad Ecgbert shouted over hi
m. ‘He’s an idiot. Don’t give him another thought. I actually need to talk to Carfizzi. I only came here to talk to Carfizzi. And Mellors, obviously. I must talk to Mellors. I’m pretty sure he knows what’s what. On the murder front. Because Ma used to tell him everything. I’m actually quite surprised she didn’t leave him all her dosh… Has anyone apart from me actually bothered to read Mummy’s will yet? Maybe they should. More importantly, where’s Mellors?’

  Young Egbert had had enough. Whether his mad cousin did or didn’t kill his mother, frankly: whether anyone did – it was a matter for the police and certainly not a matter for Sunday breakfast. Nor, come to that, was the very delicate matter of Lady Tode’s will which, it so happened, had only yesterday landed on his – and presumably Ecgbert’s – desk. The time had come to take control.

  ‘Ecgbert, my cousin and friend,’ he began.

  ‘Fuck off. I’m not your friend.’

  ‘But you are my cousin.’

  ‘In name only.’

  ‘Well – no. You actually are my cousin. Look the point is – I am sorry, but you really do have to leave, now. We have a houseful of very important guests, and much as I love your visits, and I really do…’

  ‘Pah!’

  ‘I do, Ecgbert. Believe me. I am always pleased to see you. But on this one occasion, I really do think—’

  Mad Ecgbert cut him off. He turned to Alice. ‘Trudy, I’m sorry I accused you of killing Ma. I obviously didn’t mean it. You know that, don’t you? You look well, by the way. Did I say that? You look scrumptious, Trudy… Truly scrumptious.’ He smiled at her. Trudy. (Her heart skipped. It’s what he called her when they were children.) ‘Perhaps you and I can have a drink when all this is over…’

  She didn’t know what he meant by ‘all this’. She didn’t even know if he’d murdered his mother. But at that instant, she didn’t care.

  ‘That would be lovely, Ecgbert,’ she smiled at him. ‘You know where to find me.’

  CHAPTER 44

  India had decided to serve Sunday lunch up at Africa Folly. There were tables and chairs kept there for the purpose, and she’d asked for a fire to be laid in the grate. The Folly wasn’t normally used in winter, as Mrs Carfizzi tried to explain. But India was set on the idea. It’ll be fun, she said.

  Not much fun for Mrs Carfizzi, with a husband sick in bed and twenty-four people to cater for, but India had managed to persuade Kveta to work extra time, and now Alice had been roped in to help, too. Egbert said he would give her a lift up there on his way to fetching the children at the riding stables.

  * * *

  First, Alice stopped by the Gardener’s House to fetch her phone. She’d meant to rush in and out, but then there was Geraldine at the kitchen table, waiting for her, determined to waylay her.

  Geraldine was wearing an emerald green turban, satin pantaloons and a Chinese embroidered jacket, and looking, Alice noted, even more magnificent than usual. One day, when there was more time, she might ask Geraldine where, in that tiny sugar pot, she stored her magnificent wardrobe. But for now she had more pressing concerns – the whereabouts, for example, of her mobile phone.

  ‘Where did you go?’ Geraldine asked her irritably. ‘You sidled off. I’ve been waiting for you all morning.’

  ‘Oh. Hi, Geraldine. Good morning. I’m in a bit of a hurry, actually. I’ve only come back to fetch the phone. But guess who turned up to breakfast? Your grandson, my old friend Ecgbert! At last! He burst into the dining room this morning, mad as a—’

  ‘Eccentric,’ Geraldine corrected her.

  ‘Eccentric. You’re quite right.’

  ‘And half-witted, obviously. Not mad.’

  ‘Either way – I haven’t even laid eyes on him since I was fourteen. If you don’t count the first night when he broke in and – I don’t count it because I didn’t even see his face. It was…’ Alice paused to consider how she felt – which, in itself, was unusual.

  But then she spotted her phone. ‘I should go,’ she said, picking it up. ‘India’s insisting on everyone having lunch at the Folly. Carfizzi’s ill in bed, Lottie and Lisa have both got colds, apparently. Kveta’s agreed to help but she’s sulking about it… Et cetera, et cetera… And Egbert’s waiting for me.’

  Geraldine said: ‘Dominic dropped something on the doorstep this morning. Did you see it?’

  Alice hadn’t. She wanted to know when he’d dropped it. He was meant to be half way to London. But Geraldine had no real concept of time. She couldn’t tell Alice when the object had been dropped; it might have been in the middle of the night. In any case, she’d seen him, stumbling through the darkness. He’d put a shopping bag on the doorstep, and then stopped and returned to it, and moved it. He’d left it propped behind a garden pot on the terrace.

  ‘Do go and get it,’ said Geraldine. ‘One finds oneself beyond curious.’

  ‘I can’t… I’m meeting Egbert in three minutes,’ Alice said, peering through the window onto the terrace.

  ‘Just quickly, Alice. Be sweet. Please.’

  ‘I really can’t…’ Alice said. ‘I can’t see it, Geraldine. I’ll fetch it later.’

  This was a bitter pill for Geraldine. She was not accustomed to being told ‘No’. Not before she died, and not since she’d befriended Alice, either. Thin curls of vapour began to seep gently from the base of her neck and a most noxious smell filled the room. Alice bit her cheeks to stop herself from laughing, but then – something about Geraldine’s helplessness made her hesitate. It was a Sunday, after all. Fun Managers weren’t supposed to work seven days a week. And in any case – she was quite close to beyond curious herself. What could he have left for her?

  Egbert would have to wait.

  CHAPTER 45

  Outside, a blustery wind had picked up. There were pots and plants and garden equipment strewn across the terrace and Geraldine couldn’t be very specific about where, exactly, Dominic had hidden the bag, so Alice took a while to find it. As she bent to look beneath a wheelbarrow, she thought she heard something or someone approaching from behind. She yelped. It was unlike her: uncharacteristically jumpy.

  Inside, Geraldine’s booming voice demanded to know what was happening.

  ‘Nothing!’ said Alice. ‘… Just the wind, I think. Here it is! I’ve found it!’

  ‘Hurry up!’

  The bag had been tucked behind a laurel bush that grew right up against the wall of the house. It was the same bag – the Molton Brown shopping bag that Dominic had been carrying first, when she bumped into him outside the Long Gallery, looking like a scarecrow, and again, when she found him roaming in the garden, what now felt like a lifetime ago. She took the bag back into the kitchen and opened it, with Geraldine looking on.

  There was a sealed envelope inside, addressed in flowery pen to ‘Alice Lydell’ (spelt wrong), and with it a pot of face cream, just as he had claimed the last time: not just any face cream, either. It was a massive, 250ml pot of Crème de la Mer.

  ‘What the hell…?’ Alice muttered.

  ‘What is it?’

  Alice held it up. ‘… only Crème de la Mer!’ she said. Apparently this stuff was magic: worked like no other moisturiser in the world. She opened the pot, dipped in a finger… marvellous, rich texture, she thought.

  ‘What is it?’ snapped Geraldine. Impatience was causing her to distort again, very slightly. Her head was stretching, and there were wisps of smoke appearing from her left ear. ‘What have you got there? For goodness sake, Alice. What is it?’

  ‘Amazing!’ muttered Alice. ‘Geraldine, this is probably the largest pot of what is probably one of the most expensive face creams in the world…’

  ‘How peculiar,’ said Geraldine. ‘Why’s he left it here?’

  Alice sniffed the open jar. ‘Smells good. Smell it.’

  Geraldine Tode put her nose to the jar and pretended to sniff. She said nothing.

  ‘You can’t smell?’

  Geraldine looked straight ahead and Alice, sensing her
faux pas, quickly moved the jar away again. ‘There’s a letter. Shall I read it aloud?’

  Geraldine nodded. ‘Please.’

  Alice put the jar aside and opened the letter. Sat down. Cleared her throat.

  ‘My dearest Alice,’ she began. ‘By the time you read this I shall be gone…’

  ‘Oh, my dear,’ cried Geraldine. ‘It’s a suicide note!’

  ‘I have a flight to catch, and I need to pack…’

  ‘A flight? Where the devil is he going?’

  ‘… I have left Tode Hall for ever. Something I should have done a long time ago, and I would have done, if only I had been able. But I had fallen in love with Emma. For the past twenty odd years, until she died, I was caught up in the most wonderful love affair. Why am I telling you this? I am telling you about my love for Emma Tode because it is important for you to understand this before I tell you what I am about to tell you next…’

  ‘He’s very repetitive,’ Geraldine complained. ‘I thought he had an airplane to catch?’

  ‘… When Emma died, my world stopped.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I dare say.’

  ‘… You were there when the news arrived. Do you remember? Of course you do. When Carfizzi told us, my heart broke in two. Of course it did. But do you remember how India took the news? Try to picture it, if you can.

  ‘We were standing together, she and I. I was judging the Tintin & Dogmatix costume award, and beside me India was haranguing me to hurry and announce the winner… Can you picture it, Alice? On some level I think I have known this all along – only I couldn’t allow myself to acknowledge it. But when Carfizzi arrived to tell us that my darling Emma was lying dead in the mausoleum, it is quite clear to me now, that India already knew. She knew what had happened to Emma before Mr Carfizzi had uttered a word. She grasped hold of my arm and she said – at the time I thought I had misheard her. She took my arm and she said: “They’ve found her…”’

  ‘Tommy rot!’ exclaimed Geraldine. ‘Balls and bunkum! Well, Alice? Did you hear India say that?’