The field was deserted. There wasn’t even a cow in sight. I scanned the horizon, but other than a large country house perched on the top of a hill in the distance, there was no sign of Mr. Brown.
Looking on the bright side, he obviously hadn’t been hurt and was most likely making his way on foot for help. I pulled out my mobile. There was no signal—no surprises there.
I looked at the Volvo. The front headlight was smashed and there was a nasty scrape of green paint all down one side. The narrow lanes in Devon were notorious for close encounters—made all the more hair-raising by the speed at which the locals drove because they knew every inch of the countryside.
It was only when I happened to glimpse inside the passenger seat that I noticed the Black & Decker box. I couldn’t believe it! Mr. Brown had completely forgotten to take the doll—and, even more alarming, the car was unlocked! There was no way I was going to leave her there. Grabbing the box, I returned to my car.
I had no idea where Mr. Brown lived, but at least I had his phone number logged into my mobile. I made it a habit to always keep a record of all new clients. Mr. Brown had called from a landline, not a mobile. My hunch that he must have walked to East Chiveley for help was probably correct. It was unlikely that I’d catch up with him, but even so, as I set off again, I kept my eyes peeled.
Finally, I got a signal at the top of the next hill and pulled into yet another gateway.
After five rings, an answering machine picked up. It was a woman’s cheerful voice that threw me slightly.
I was in a bit of a dilemma. Mr. Brown had acted so strangely I didn’t feel I should mention the doll on the answer machine.
“This is Kat Stanford,” I said. “I have something of Mr. Brown’s that he left in his car. Please can he call me so we can make arrangements to return it? Thank you.”
Satisfied, I disconnected the line, confident that if I didn’t see him walking along the road he would call me.
As I rounded another bend, I thought I saw him. A man was walking slowly along the road with a donkey jacket slung over his shoulders. He pressed himself against the hedge to allow me to pass.
Perhaps he’d seen Mr. Brown. I slowed down and opened my window.
The man didn’t look very well. He was sweating and his complexion had a sickly grayish tinge. Large dark circles surrounded bloodshot eyes. Close-cropped hair was at odds with salt-and-pepper stubble.
“Excuse me,” I began.
“No thanks. I appreciate it,” he said curtly. “I like the walk.”
I hadn’t planned on giving him a lift—in fact, it had been engrained into me since childhood never to accept a lift with a stranger or even consider offering one. I detected a brummie accent. Edith had mentioned that the Skirmish would attract a variety of people from all over the country. It would seem that she was right.
“I just wondered if you happened to see a man in his seventies on foot?” I pointed vaguely in the direction I had come. “There was an accident a mile or so back there and I wanted to make sure he was okay.”
The man nodded. “Yeah. I wondered what the noise was. I heard a car horn and then a crash.”
“Did you see anything?”
“I was on the other side of the valley.” He started to cough. It was a wretched, hacking cough.
He really shouldn’t be walking in this heat, but I didn’t want him in my car, either. Even so, I heard myself say, “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah. Never better.” And with that, he touched his forelock and I drove on.
I spent the next half an hour combing the country lanes, but there was no sign of Mr. Brown—and finally circled back to the Volvo. It was still there with its nose stuck in the hedge.
There was not much else I could do except wait for Mr. Brown to call me and pick up the doll.
I passed the scruffy man with the cough once more on the outskirts of Little Dipperton. He was climbing over a wooden stile. I’d walked that way myself many a time. The public footpath ran along the boundary of a cow field and came out at the rear of the Hare & Hounds.
I had a thought. Perhaps Mr. Brown had decided to cut across the fields and had not walked the lanes at all.
Checking my watch, I realized I had left it far too late to go riding now, so I headed straight to Mum’s.
As I swung into the cobbled courtyard I was struck at how pretty the Carriage House looked now. When I’d first seen her new home I’d been horrified. Although the two-story redbrick building had been covered in swathes of wisteria and Virginia creeper, it couldn’t hide the crumbling brickwork, cracked and broken windows and a slate roof full of gaping holes.
Thanks to my mother’s vast royalty checks that came in regularly, only to be squirreled away in an offshore account in Jersey—the details of which I really did not want to know about—Mum had enlisted her stepbrother, Alfred, to help smarten it up.
Windows had been replaced and the roof and skylight that ran the length of the old carriageway had been repaired and cleaned. Alfred had painted the arched double carriageway that spanned both stories, all the trim and even the timber cupola beneath the ogee dome a pale blue. He’d also removed the old horse weather vane and burnished it until it shone once more. Now the sunshine caught the trusty steed as it gently swung in circles to catch the afternoon breeze.
Knee-high weeds dotted with buttercups, thistles and ragwort had been replaced with red, pink and white geraniums flowering in the window boxes. Wooden planters filled with roses sat on the steps of the stone mounting block. Wild honeysuckle wrapped around the wishing well and wisteria tumbled over the walls of the semi-derelict outbuildings that ranged around the courtyard.
The only thing that marred the scenery was the rear entrance to Eric Pugsley’s scrapyard. Even though the corrugated iron gate topped with razor wire was partially shrouded by unruly elderflower bushes, the ominous warning TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED: POACHERS WILL BE SHOT spray-painted in crimson lowered the tone—at least that’s what Mum was always grumbling about. I can’t say I blamed her.
I drove through the double doors and into the carriageway beyond. It was easy to imagine what this place would have been like in its heyday when there was room for four horse-drawn carriages.
All the original fixtures remained. A row of stalls stood on either side accessed through redbrick arches bearing the family crest of arms and motto, ad perseverate est ad triumphum—To Endure Is to Triumph. Judging by what I’d learned of the history of the family, they’d certainly endured.
Alfred had made a start on clearing up the interior as well. Just stripping the invasive ivy that had crept under the rafters had taken him two whole weeks. I wasn’t sure of my mother’s long-term plans, but there had been talk about using the stalls again and having some of Edith’s horses here.
They had discussed leaving the iron railings, newel posts and dividers—and the original bite and hoof marks—alone. Also the triangular water troughs and iron hayracks. Only the metal name plaques attached to each stall door would be replaced by ones with the names of the new residents. The old ones would be moved to the tack room along with the ancient saddles and bridles that Edith insisted on hanging on to out of sentimental value. Sometimes I wondered what would happen to them when she passed on. Would her successor honor Edith’s wishes?
The entrance to the living area was rarely locked. I trooped upstairs to Mum’s office and rapped smartly on her door.
“I’m busy!” came the terse reply.
“Did you eat lunch?”
“No. And don’t slice the cheese so thick. And don’t bring that dog in here!”
“We left Mr. Chips with Alfred,” I said, and returned to the kitchen to rustle up a quick cheese and pickle sandwich for my mother.
Moments later I was in her office, tray in hand. “Whatever happened in here?”
Mum’s office was in complete disarray. There were piles of fabric on every available surface. A bolt of blue velvet was draped over the wing back chair. A mound of lace was heaped on the floor. Costume reference books that she had taken out of the library were open on her roll-top desk. Saucers of pins and reels of cotton were lined up on the windowsill.
Mum was sitting at her sewing machine that she had set up on a collapsible table that Dad had used to eat his “TV dinners.”
“Oh—Dad’s table,” I said, feeling an unexpected pang of nostalgia, but Mum didn’t seem to hear me. “Did you volunteer to make costumes for the entire Royalist army?”
“I did not volunteer,” she said haughtily. “I am being paid, thank you very much.”
“What’s this?” I spotted a dark-green doublet hanging from the standard lamp. It had lace cuffs and braided buttons. The stitching was exquisite and barely visible. “This is beautiful.”
Mum smirked. “That’s for his lordship. Lavinia’s gown is behind the door.”
I turned to see an elaborate creation in deep burgundy. It was still in the pinned-up stage, but I could see it was going to be stunning. “She’ll be happy with that.”
“I’ve just got to finish the hats and red sashes—and all by three-thirty.”
“Why red?”
“The Royalists wore mostly red and the Roundheads a rather ghastly tawny orange to match their leather tunics.”
“And this stuff here?” I pointed to bolts of brown, cream and beige cloth that stood in the corner.
“Camp followers,” said Mum. “I agreed to do Muriel, Violet and Doris from the pub, but that’s about it. The rest of them can wear sacks for all I care.”
“What about your old friend Peggy Cropper?”
“Over my dead body.” It would appear that my mother had still not forgiven the cook for that other business in February.
Mum presented me with a miniature version of Rupert’s outfit. “For Harry.”
“It’s adorable!” I said. “You are clever. And what about us?”
Mum looked blank. “Us?”
“Well, aren’t we going to have to wear something? Get into the spirit of the thing?”
“I suppose so,” Mum said grudgingly. She gave a heavy sigh.
“What’s the matter?”
“I can’t understand why I haven’t heard from my new editor about Ravished.”
“I thought you had,” I said. “I thought that was why you have been so cheerful.”
“I’ve been putting on a brave front,” said Mum. “Clara St. James called me a high-maintenance author.”
“You?” I laughed. “High-maintenance? Whatever next!”
“She wants me to do personal appearances, and of course I can’t. I wish Graham hadn’t died.”
“Why don’t you call her?” I suggested. “Isn’t Ravished supposed to be out in time for Christmas? That’s in six months!”
“I know and I haven’t even got the notes back yet. She also threw out my idea for the next in the series,” Mum grumbled. “She said there were too many Viking stories on the market.”
I drifted over to the window that looked out over Cromwell Meadows. The chassis of Eric’s caravan remained where it had been felled surrounded by pieces of plywood and metal sidings. A white tent and a white screen had been erected over and around the grave.
“Do we refer to the skeleton as a body or remains or what?” I wondered aloud.
Mum joined me at the window. “Who was she?”
“Edith said something interesting.” I went on to relay my conversation with the dowager countess on our way to the railway station.
“No one of importance!” Mum scoffed. “I’m sure she had a family that thought she was important.”
“Apparently all the Honeychurch ancestors are accounted for and are in the family mausoleum at St. Mary’s church. But she did say that the Parish registers might still be in the Parish chest.”
“I wish I had known about those,” said Mum. “It would have saved me a lot of work, not to mention all the hours I’ve been spending in the library and with the Devon History Society.”
I thought for a moment. “But Edith did think the presence of the dagger—if it really is a Honeychurch dagger—was unusual.”
“Maybe we should get Alfred on the case,” said Mum. “Ask him to do a bit of channeling.”
I groaned.
“Groan all you like, but Alfred has been extremely successful.”
“Won’t he be too busy tailing Rupert?” I said drily.
Mum picked up a long brown serge skirt and settled back at the sewing machine. “Talk to me whilst I hem.”
“You won’t be able to hear me above the noise of the machine,” I said, but moved a pile of fabric and sat in the wingback armchair all the same.
“Then you’ll have to shout.”
“I did a really strange valuation today,” I said loudly, and went on to fill my mother in on the details of my meeting with Mr. Brown. “Far from being thrilled, he was freaked out. Rude, in fact.”
Mum paused and spoke through a mouthful of pins. “In what way?”
“In the end he didn’t even want the valuation. Just threw twenty pounds at me, ‘for my time’—”
“Twenty pounds! How insulting!”
“I know. And he couldn’t get out of the pub fast enough. He didn’t even eat lunch.”
“Skipping lunch won’t hurt you and it definitely won’t hurt your figure.”
I could feel myself bristling.
Mum eyed me shrewdly. “I suppose I could put in an elasticated waist—”
“If you are going to talk about my weight again, I’m going to leave.”
Mum grinned. She knew exactly how to push my buttons.
“Sounds like your Mr. Brown has a guilty conscience,” she went on. “I bet the doll wasn’t his. Maybe it fell off the back of a lorry.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so. I assumed it belonged to his late wife.” I then told my mother all about finding Mr. Brown’s Volvo nose first in a hedge. “If he had stolen it he would hardly have left it in the footwell of his car.”
“Where is the doll now?”
“In mine.”
“How much is this doll worth?”
I shrugged. “At least ten thousand pounds.”
“Does he know you have it?”
“Not exactly. I left a message on his answer machine asking him to call me. It was a woman’s voice on the recording, so I didn’t get into the specifics.”
“Why didn’t you say so?”
“He was so secretive, Mum. I just thought being vague was better.”
“Oh dear,” said Mum. “Women can be funny things. She might think he’s having an affair.”
“You’ve got affairs on the brain!” I exclaimed. “Anyway, he was in his seventies.”
Mum shrugged again. “Look at Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones!”
“What about them?”
“There are twenty-five years between them and we know how much you prefer older men.”
“I do not prefer older men. David just happened to be older.”
“That poor policeman didn’t even get a look in.”
I got to my feet. “Okay. Enough. I refuse to discuss my non-existent love life with you. And for your information, poor Shawn is not interested in me any longer. We’re just friends.”
Fortunately, the telephone rang and stopped all further conversation.
“Pick it up, dear,” said Mum.
So I did. “Hello?” I answered. “Let me find out.” Then, covering the mouthpiece, I hissed, “Quickly. It’s your editor asking for Krystalle Storm.”
Mum spat out the pins, threw the skirt aside and leapt to her feet. She snatched up the phone. “Hello? It’s Krystalle here. How are you, Ms. St. James?”
Slowly, the color drained out of my mother’s face. She could hardly speak. Words just didn’t seem to come out at all. Even I could hear the tone of Clara St. James from Goldfinch Publishing on the other end of the line, and it was not friendly.
Finally, Mum managed to say, “Of course there must be a mishap somewhere. What about your mailroom?” Ms. St. James chirped an answer. “Yes. Yes. I will find out straightaway. Thank you. Yes. Good-bye.” Mum replaced the phone and looked at me as if her entire world had come to an end.
“Didn’t she like the manuscript?” I said.
“She never had a chance to like it,” Mum whispered. “The manuscript never arrived. My career is ruined!”