Chapter Five

She’d planned to take the afternoon off before the Ghost Walk. The vicar’s cosy mystery was top on her relaxation to-do list. But she hadn’t reckoned on Jimmy Tolliver trick-or-treating. He jumped out of the minibus parked by her gate and scampered up the path behind her.

“Trick or treat?”

“Treat.” She didn’t dare choose trick. “And what’re you doing here?”

The back doors of the minibus slid open and a large brown box with legs climbed out. She recognized the legs just as Jimmy said, “I’m here with my dad.”

For a startled moment, she could not speak.

“And I’m not his dad.” Bram lowered the box onto her front doorstep. “Treats are on top. Least I could do. And Emma wants a favour. Will you scan these papers for her?”

She opened the door and gestured for him to put the box in the hall. “Why? What am I looking for?”

“She says proof to nail the killer. We’ve each got a box to go through.”

“Treat,” Jimmy reminded them. “Then I’ve to meet my dad. He’s doing the garden next door.” The gardener. Of course.

Bram handed over a bag filled with sweets. “Off you go, monster.”

Maggie watched the child saunter into her neighbour’s yard and hoped he was telling the truth. “I thought you brought him.”

“Simply acquired him by dint of coming here. Shall we start on the boxes inside? Or lunch first? I brought a picnic.”

With a guilty start, Maggie remembered her murder investigation lists still in full view on the kitchen table. “Picnic,” she said decisively and shooed him back out. “But first I need a quick word with Jimmy’s dad.”

She found him clearing the late autumn leaves and tidying her elderly neighbour’s flowerbeds. “Jimmy in trouble again?” he said but hardly looked concerned.

“Not at all. I just wanted to ask why you visited the vicar the other day. Did he seem ill to you?”

“He asked me to come—wanted to know about Lady Eleanor’s plants in the deathly garden and who was looking after them. Some were really rare, you know, imported under licence. But I’d no answers. His lordship sacked me when she went.”

“The deathly garden?”

“Lady Eleanor had ideas of a special garden devoted to deadly plants—like they have up north to bring in the tourists—but she disappeared before we could get it finished. Sad. Then Nora died, and everything went to pot.”

“I wondered if Lord Donnal and she were, well, involved, and that was why Lady Eleanor left.”

“Nora hated him, if you want to know, for what he did to Lady Eleanor. Cheated her out of the manor, she said. She only stayed to try to find proof. She texted me to say ‘Last Day.’ I thought she’d done it. Now we’ll never know.”

“Did the vicar ask anything else?”

“No. Just nodded. And looked disappointed.”

Bram had waited for her by the gate. He collected the wicker hamper from the minibus, and they strolled to the viewpoint on the cliff top. A slight breeze ruffled the clouds, but the sky and the sea were Mediterranean blue. They settled on a wooden bench with the hamper between, and Bram popped the catches.

“I thought it would take longer for you to make up your mind.” He eyed her quizzically over his smoked salmon sandwich. “You didn’t even ask what I’d brought to eat. What’s up?”

“It’s all such a mess,” she burst out. “It was you playing the ghost at tech rehearsal last night, wasn’t it? And where did you get the goblet?”

“Guilty as charged.” He bit into his sandwich and did not look the least repentant. “Had some idea of finding the killer through acting out the play. A Hamlet-and-his-ghost idea.”

“And his goblet.”

“Funny thing. I found it there, and it’s just ordinary glass. The vicar wanted to be sure of drinking from his own cup, I suppose.”

“I don’t know who you are, who anyone is, anymore.”

“And you thought you did? In a few short weeks?” His laugh was more of a bark. “I know Emma told you about the…accident.”

“Accidents happen.”

“I wasn’t drinking, if that’s what you think. But I can’t remember a thing after turning into Manor Hill Lane and hitting that car. I thought a man slid out of the driving seat and ran away. But I can’t be sure of anything…”

She stared at him, incredulous that his account differed from what she’d heard from Lord Donnal and Pam. Doubly incredulous that she longed to believe him.

“Once a teacher, always a teacher. You don’t approve of me. You have me labelled as the class troublemaker. And teachers are always right.”

The accusation was unfair. Her parents were both teachers. They had guided her into teaching, introduced her to her future husband—also a teacher. Only lately had she begun to question their values. Their innate sense of moral superiority allied to their social climbing would ensure their approval of Lord Donnal. They would not approve of a penniless guitarist at all. And not so long ago, she would have agreed. But crossing to the Island, having to make her own way on the strength of who she was rather than what she was, had changed her. Knowing Bram had changed her.

She was making heavy work of explaining her feelings until he took the wind out of her sails. “Would it help,” he said, “if I told you I’m Lady Eleanor’s son?”

The implication was she was only interested in his social standing. And she resented it. They parted politely but stiffly, the easy camaraderie lost.

****

When he’d gone, she found herself too restless to lie about and read. She took out her bicycle and, without conscious decision, followed the final stages of the route Pam had described Bram driving. Flying downhill on Manor Hill Lane, she took the steep bend more or less cautiously. The bicycle brakes squealed as she slowed her descent. Then she was freewheeling down past the manor.

And nothing made sense. If this was the route Bram had taken, he could never have hit a car waiting to turn or coming uphill after turning from the manor. For a collision to take place, someone had to have been on the wrong side of the road. Had Nora pulled into the centre of the narrow lane as she turned from the manor gates? Had Bram come wide through the sharp corner and also crossed the centre line? She understood how a head-on collision was possible. The bump on his head had disoriented him, planted false memories.

She pedalled home subdued and unexpectedly sad. She had so wanted to believe him.

****

The pageant went off without incident. Crowds poured in from across the Island, attracted by a new event and the clear starry night. Kyle excelled himself in the vicar’s role, and the children epitomized the collective noun—a real “fright” of ghosts.

But Bram was notable by his absence. And despite all the praise and congratulations, Maggie felt curiously flat. She’d always lived for her job, but suddenly now that felt sadly empty.