Once Worthington had left, I caught Bud’s eye and said, “He’s telling us Sasha’s death wasn’t a suicide, but that he can do nothing about it, right?”
John and Bud exchanged a glance. They both nodded.
“Don’t mind me out here,” called Vinnie, “I’m just the kitchen skivvy I know, I know…but don’t go making any plans without your boy here being brought in on the case.”
Bud moved to my side and hugged me. “We need to…” We drew apart as Renata presented herself.
I said, “I think your tea’s cold, by now, Renata. Sorry. I poured it, not realizing you’d be away so long.”
She cleared her throat. “A call came through while I was in the bathroom. Private. Confidential. I took it there. Cold tea will be acceptable.” She spotted the mug I’d perched on a side table, and took the seat beside it.
Charles and Felicity were chattering as they made their way down the stairs; I was amazed the two of them always managed to find something to giggle about.
“Ah, Renata, were we expecting you?” Charles’s greeting wasn’t as pointed as the one he’d given Bud and me earlier on, but it was hardly hearty.
“Piers needs some paperwork,” replied Renata, and she picked up her mug.
“And what Piers wants, Piers shall get,” said Felicity. “But why are you here, not his girl?”
“She’s poorly. Head cold,” replied Renata.
“Lucky thing,” remarked Felicity. “She’s well out of all this mess. I bet you don’t mind though, do you, dear? What will you do now Sasha’s gone? You’ve been with her a long time, haven’t you?”
“She took me to Tavistock and Tavistock from Townsends. I’ve been Sasha’s PA since before she and Piers were even a couple, let alone business partners. They shared me after the start-up, then I was hers alone again.” Matter of fact. No anger. No sense of loss. Odd.
Spotting a point of connection I said, “As I mentioned last evening, I used to work at Townsends, too. When exactly did you join?” I had no recollection of Renata at all.
“After you’d left. Sasha spoke of you sometimes.” Renata looked up at me, over her mug of cold tea. “She wasn’t very pleased when you threatened to sue one of her clients. She thought it was personal – they were difficult clients at the best of times, but were incandescent when they discovered you used to work for Alistair Townsend. They fired the agency not long after that. Which turned out to be a good thing for Sasha, because that was when she realized she had a real chance to pick up some of his clients for herself. So, for her, that was the chance for a new beginning.”
I wanted to say so much – but realized I, too, had found a new start because of the actions of that newspaper; no migration to Canada would have meant no Bud and me. So there was that…which is everything. I looked at Bud, and bit my tongue.
“It’s uncanny how small the world seems, don’t you think?” Felicity was twirling a curl at her throat; Charles had done a good job with her hair, as she looked as lustrous and radiant as she had the night before. I wondered how many hairdressing tools and products he kept at Beulah House.
“Hello everyone, have I missed anything…oh, Renata, you’re back.” Bella entered the front door and shook an umbrella all over the floor. “It’s snowing again – wet stuff. Oh dear, look what I’ve done…how silly of me…”
John moved to her side, took the umbrella and said, “Don’t worry, I’ll sort out mopping up the floor. You go on in and join everyone. Do you feel a little warmer now, my love? You look…wonderful.”
Bella beamed and smoothed her emerald velvet skirt, which she’d topped with an amber sweater. She kissed John’s cheek, then came to claim her seat beside the fire while John disappeared toward where I now knew there was a wardrobe, and cleaning supplies.
“Yes, I agree with you that it’s quite surprising how incredibly small the world is, Felicity,” said Renata, calmly, “but that’s a wonderful thing, you know.” Odd.
Vinnie gained everyone’s attention by calling from the kitchen, “Who’s for veggie soup and sandwiches? I’ve found everything I need. I can have it ready in an hour. Good enough?”
Charles grinned. “Fine by me, I’m starving.”
The rest of us nodded.
“Might there be a salad?” Felicity was pushing it, I thought.
“I’ll be long gone by then, of course,” said Renata. “Do you think I could go up to see Piers now? He impressed upon me that only he was to be given these papers.” She stared vacantly at the briefcases and backpack.
Charles shrugged, Bella flapped her hands, Felicity said, “Why not?” Her tone dripped with disdain, which didn’t surprise me, given Piers’ actions toward her earlier on.
Renata stood. “I wonder if someone could give me a hand?” She looked helplessly toward John who was returning from his cleaning duties; he immediately bent to pick up the briefcases. “Thanks,” she said, sounding anything but thankful.
The two of them headed upstairs, and I realized I was stuck with a room full of people I wished would disappear, because I desperately wanted to talk to Bud about what Worthington had said before he’d left. But I couldn’t think of an excuse to be alone with him, nor where that might happen.
“Fancy a turn around the garden, Cait? Before the snow really comes in. I saw something in the summer house I think you’d like – you know, for our garden back home. It’s a great idea…” Bud walked toward me, grabbed my arm, and steered me toward the French doors. “See you all in a bit,” he said.
I was so pleased he’d thought of a way for us to have a quiet chat and was congratulating him when we heard John’s shout.
We turned, to see him run into the salon, his phone to his ear. “Bud, Vinnie, Charles, come with me…yes, that’s the correct address…chaps, Piers is unresponsive, on the floor in his room…yes, Beulah House, that’s right, as I said.” John held up his hand, to stop everyone who wanted to, asking a question. He spoke into his phone. “Yes, unresponsive. Blue lips. Ragged. Irregular. Diazepam. No idea, sorry. About eighteen stone. Around sixty. Not that I know of. Yes, I’m getting someone to help me do that right now. Good. Thank you.” He shoved his phone into his pocket. “Bud, Vinnie, with me. Charles you too. We need to get Piers upright, to the extent that we can, and keep him that way until the ambulance gets here. If we can get a response, we have to try to keep him alert. Come on, it’ll take all of us…he’s no lightweight.”
Bella was on her feet, wailing. “Oh Piers, not Piers too! This cannot be happening to me. What’s become of my family?”
John was clearly torn. “Darling…we’ll do all we can for him, I promise. Cait? Cait, could you…?” He gestured toward Bella, then joined the other men running upstairs.
I stepped up and tried to calm Bella. “Come on now – he’s in good hands.” I felt as useless as she obviously did.
“This place is a madhouse,” said Felicity. She looked at her watch. “I don’t think I’ll stay for dinner – if dinner there will be.”
How can you think like that, at a time like this? Was what I wanted to ask the woman. “How long will it take for an ambulance to get here, do you think?” was what I said.
Bella wailed, “What if they can’t find the house? Lots of people can’t find the house – it’s so well hidden. Do you think I should go out onto the road to wave at them when they come?”
“Only your dozy friends can’t find it, Bella,” snapped Felicity. “Everyone else can because they use GPS, you know? Your lot are all out of the ark – too involved with ancient ways of refining gold in your hovel out there, or hammering bowls and chalices and so forth to know what day of the week it is, let alone how to use a GPS system. This house has been here for hundreds of years – it’s on every map ever drawn of the area since the year dot. Of course an ambulance driver will be able to find it. Besides, they’ve only got to come from Forest Hill or Croydon – hardly the far side of the moon.”
Renata came downstairs, looking flushed and sucking her bottom lip. I took this to be a sign of great distress on her part.
“How is Piers?” I asked.
Renata looked blank. “I don’t know,” she replied. “They didn’t seem to think he was breathing. Vinnie was giving him the kiss of life, John was making some more phone calls – I don’t know who he’s phoning though.”
“This is all so terribly shocking,” said Bella. “Cait – brandy. We all need brandy, don’t you think?”
You lot must go through gallons of the stuff if you fall back on it every time there’s an emergency, I thought. “I’ll sort it, now,” I said.
It was clear that – before she’d headed off to attack Felicity that morning – Julie had cleared away the trolley of drinks that had been set up in the salon the previous night. I looked around, but couldn’t see anything that looked like a drinks’ cupboard.
I asked, “Any hints as to where I might find some?”
Bella did an impersonation of a fish, as Felicity stood. “Over here…I’ll show you. They hide it all in a seventeenth-century cabinet, thereby making it seem more glamorous when it emerges. That said, they do usually keep a very good brandy here. I’d better have a drop myself – it’s been a trying day.”
With nothing to do but sip our drinks, we four women sat huddled beside the fire, all straining to hear the sound of an approaching siren. At least, I was – and I had to imagine the others were, too, because it would have been utterly heartless to not be. Finally, I thought I heard something, and ran to open the front door. Sure enough I could hear the ambulance approaching, and it finally made its way into the drive. The paramedics ran up the stairs two at a time, then I returned to my brandy, since there was nothing to do but wait. Again.
Bud was the first down the stairs. I didn’t need to ask him how Piers was doing – his grim expression told me everything. He approached, and stood beside Bella. “I’m sorry, it was too late. They couldn’t save your brother-in-law’s life. Vinnie did his best to try to revive him, but he was past help, I’m afraid.”
Bella let out a little squeal, and clapped her hand over her mouth. “My father, my sister, and now Piers. Why? Why?” She put both hands over her face and shuddered.
Bud spoke softly to Bella. “John will be down soon.” He put his arm around my shoulder, and kissed my cheek. “John’s called Worthington. He’s on his way,” he whispered.
“Now there’s only John left to look after me,” said Bella quietly. She seemed to have forgotten she still had a brother – even if he was only a half-brother.
“And he will,” said Bud, sounding his most reassuring self. “He just has to answer a few questions the paramedics have for him. They might want to speak to you, too, Renata.”
“Why me?” Renata sounded genuinely puzzled.
“Because you and John were together when you found Piers,” replied Bud. “It’s just a formality.”
Renata sipped at her brandy. “I’d better make a phone call. In private,” she said, then drained her glass, stood, and took herself off to the garden, closing the French doors behind her.
“I wonder who she’s calling,” I whispered to Bud.
He shook his head.
“Was Piers already dead when you got there?” I asked, quietly enough that Bella couldn’t hear.
Bud nodded. “Looks like an overdose, though I’m no expert. Paramedics seemed to think so. Could have been something wrong with him none of us knew about, I guess.”
“But his doctor saw him this morning, Bud. He’s the one who gave him the medication. Did John mention diazepam?”
Bud nodded.
“Tricky stuff. Did you have a chance to see if he’d taken too many? Might this be Piers’ way out, having killed Sasha?”
Bud hugged me. “Back to that idea again? Look, time enough to find out,” he said, and kissed my cheek. “I hope John comes down soon; Bella looks as though she needs some attention.”
Indeed, Bella was staring into the fire as though it held the answer to every question in the universe. Her head snapped up at the sound of John’s voice.
“Darling,” he said, and rushed to her side.
Her expression put me in mind of John William Waterhouse’s painting of the Lady of Shallot as she faces her fate – vulnerable, wistful, and tragic…which reminded me that Bud and I had planned to visit the Tate the next day…and that in turn reminded me of Millais’ depiction of Ophelia, singing her way to madness and death as she floats downriver. I wondered how much more Bella could take – she seemed close to the edge, psychologically speaking. I hoped John’s warmth and love would be able to comfort her.
As if to answer my unasked question, Bella rose, and wrapped her long arms around John. He responded, and the couple held each other in front of the crackling fire for several moments. Felicity shifted in her seat, looking away from them, taking her turn to study the flames. It took Renata’s arrival to break the sombre mood.
“Sir Simon Pendlebury will be here in an hour or so. Piers had told me only he himself, or Sir Simon, were allowed to take possession of the papers he asked me to bring here. Sir Simon’s private jet just landed at Farnborough. He’ll stop off here to take the papers from me on his way back to Central London.” Renata spoke quietly, drawing no reaction from Bella other than a nod.
“Thick as thieves, Piers and Simon, since school. It’ll have been a shock for him to hear the news. How did he take it, Renata?” Felicity’s tone suggested a certain amount of unpalatable interest.
“He was a little upset, I’d say.” If Bud was sometimes the master of understatement, I judged Renata to be its queen.
“I dare say Sir Simon will be glad to have a chance to pay his respects,” observed John, largely to Bella. He turned. “Bud, old man, we all might have to stick around a little longer than any of us had planned. Of course I’ll stay here another night, but I have a feeling Worthington will want a chat with us all. He won’t be long; he hadn’t even made it back to his office, it seems.”
Bella actually stamped her foot. “Why have you asked that man back again? He’s quite horrid.” She spoke with the vehemence of a six-year-old.
John’s expression told me he was surprised by Bella’s reaction. “He’s a sound man, Bella, and his involvement with…well, with everything that’s happened to this household over the past twenty-four hours means he’s bound to want to take a look at how Piers died.”
Bella pulled her hand away from John’s, to wipe away a tear. “He must have taken too many of those silly pills Dr. Swain gave him. I warned him they were nasty things, but he said he needed to sleep. Unfortunately, Piers always thought he knew better about everything than anyone – he probably took more whenever he felt like it, and they accumulated in his system. That would be Piers all over. It was his nature to believe that too much of something was never a bad thing. Always wanted more gravy, more wine, more everything. It looks as though that’s what’s finally finished him off.”
Felicity looked taken aback, “We don’t even know that’s how he died, yet. Though…maybe he felt badly about what he’d done to me. Flying at me that way. For no good reason.”
“Mr. Tavistock was a hard-working, thoughtful person. He’ll be missed terribly by everyone who knew him.” Renata almost whispered. “He was so kind to me when my father needed my attention, toward the end. I’ll never forget that.”
“We all know you’ll miss him a great deal.” Felicity stood, smoothed down her blue leather skirt and added, “I dare say it’s alright if I pop upstairs to powder my nose?” She was addressing Bud.
He shrugged, “I don’t see why not, though you might find it’s a bit busy up there still. And I’d allow the paramedics to do whatever they need to be doing.”
Felicity’s eyes swept Bud from head to foot. “Why on earth would I want to get in their way? I only want to use a decent bathroom. And to get away from all this…” She waved her arm, indicating our assembled number, then flounced off, taking her over-large handbag with her.
“We’re cursed, John. This family is cursed, I told you before you shouldn’t marry me. Now I know that’s true,” said Bella melodramatically. We all gave her our attention.
John held her shoulders, and bobbed his head about, trying to get her to lift her eyes to his. “Come along, darling, I know you’re upset. We all are. But this is not the time to be making snap decisions. We talked about this for hours last night. I’m sure that Sasha, and even Piers, would have wanted our wedding to go ahead as planned. What’s to be gained by postponing it?”
Tears ran down Bella’s cheeks. She looked up, her eyelids puffy. “But I’m not a strong woman, John…I don’t know that I can go through with it. My heart is broken…”
John’s expression as he glanced toward me and Bud was a silent cry for help, which Bud gave. “John’s right, Bella. I have some understanding of grief. You might not know this, but my wife died about three and a half years back. That might sound like a long time to some, but I can tell you this…there’s not a day goes by that I don’t think of her. But there is more life, after death…look at me and Cait. We’re happy. Truly happy. We’re just coming up to our second wedding anniversary, and we’re both so glad we did what we did, when we did it. The start of your marriage to John might be tinged with tragedy, but it’s a tragedy that will still be there whether you marry him or not…so why not do it? Make the commitment to each other you know you want to right now, when things are tough. Because that’s what marriage is about – telling each other, and telling the world, that two people have agreed they’ll be there for each other whatever happens.”
I couldn’t have been more proud of Bud, and I could see the light in Bella’s eyes change as he spoke. He was getting through to her.
“If you lost a wife, you know how I feel,” she said…which I thought an odd response, given she’d lost a sister and brother-in-law, rather than a spouse. “There’s always going to be a void in my heart where they each had their place, but I suppose you make a good point.”
John rallied. “Yes, listen to Bud, Bella. He knows what he’s talking about. We can have what he and Cait have. Sasha and Piers aren’t…well, I hate to say it, but they weren’t ever going to be central to our lives, were they? We were planning on finding our own place, moving away, and moving on. We could still do that…”
Bella looked around the vastness of the salon, kitchen, dining room, and entry hall. “It was always too much for just me. But, maybe, you and I could move into this house, John? It’s the sort of house that consumes a person if they’re alone in it.”
As she spoke, her eyes grew round, and I noticed the fire was dying to embers. The whole place seemed to get a little darker, despite the fact all the lamps were lit.
The now-familiar jangling of the bell caught us all off-guard again, and there was a communal shudder at its sound.
“I’ll go,” said Bud.
As he marched toward the door I wondered what it would open to this time – and if the house would be pleased to greet this new arrival.