Cate wasn’t sure whether it was a bright light creeping through the long crack in the velvet curtains that had woken her, or the throbbing head that came with a rotten hangover. Whatever it was, she was awake and she groaned as she sank her head back into the downy pillow. It might be Christmas Day, but she needed another half-hour’s sleep before she would feel vaguely human again. But then she froze. She was sure she had heard the quiet squeak of the floorboard, the sound of someone’s breath on the air. Feeling a little apprehensive, she rolled over to face the door.
‘Cate, it’s only me,’ whispered a voice, croaky with sleep and the effect of drink. Her eyes struggled open until she could see Nick standing there, trying to tiptoe across the floor. His white dinner shirt from last night was open at the neck and not tucked into the waistband of his trousers. There was the suggestion of stubble on his chin and a pink-tinged bleariness about his eyes.
A feeling of love, lust and hopelessness whirled in the pit of her stomach as she looked at him. She remembered the events of the previous night and cringed. What was she doing inviting him to stay over? Linking her arm with his as they watched the fireworks? Flirting with him. Yes, she had definitely flirted. So there had been that moment in the Orangery. She could have sworn he was about to kiss her before Serena had barged through the door. But nothing had happened then, or during the rest of the evening. She had made a promise to herself that if she and Nick didn’t get together at the ball, she wouldn’t waste another minute thinking about what might happen, regardless of the first-edition fairy tales or the teasing near kisses. The Nick Douglas book was now closed. Finally. But what was he doing here now?
Nick edged closer to the bed and Cate pulled her white cotton sheet further up towards her chin.
‘Thought I’d better be off,’ he said, smiling gently. ‘I can hear noises already coming from downstairs.’
‘Already? People will have been cleaning downstairs since straight after the party. Daddy hates coming down and finding it looks like Hiroshima,’ she grinned. ‘Anyway, I hope you had a good time last night.’
‘I had a great time.’ Nick edged nearer to the bed before sitting stiffly on the edge of the mattress.
‘I did, too. Thanks for coming.’
Somehow Cate could sense that he didn’t want to go.
‘So,’ he said hesitantly, ‘will I see you before New Year? When are you coming back to London?’
She felt a flutter. Did he want to see her before New Year?
‘I usually stay here for Boxing Day,’ she said guardedly. ‘If you wanted to meet up, maybe give me a ring after then.’
‘I will.’
‘Goodbye then.’
‘Bye.’
He leaned forward, stretching out over her body, his lips directed towards her cheek.
Cate stretched up to kiss him on the cheek and, as she did so, the sheet fell from her chin, the thin strap of her nightdress slipping off her shoulder to expose a square of creamy flesh. At that moment, Nick seemed to change direction. His eyes locked with hers, the target of his mouth swerving from her cheek to her lips. She was stunned, but the softness of his lips drew her in like a tractor beam and she reciprocated hungrily.
‘I wanted to do that all last night,’ he smiled, his voice soft and underpinned with embarrassment.
‘So why didn’t you?’ she grinned, thinking her Christmas presents had all come at once.
Nick’s finger stroked her cheek. ‘Well –’
Suddenly a scream pierced the air. A bloodcurdling, guttural scream that at first sounded hollow, then rose and curdled as it filled with terror.
Nick scrambled up with a jolt. ‘Jesus, what the hell was that?’ he said, running over to the window.
Cate leapt out of bed, grabbing her dressing gown. ‘It sounded as if it was coming from behind the house,’ she said anxiously, instantly forgetting the moment they had just shared.
They both ran out into the hall. Camilla emerged from her room opposite them, for a second looking both surprised and amused to see them tumble out from Cate’s room half dressed.
‘Did you hear that?’ asked Camilla.
‘Couldn’t miss it,’ said Cate, still struggling to pull on her slippers.
Another bedroom door opened and Venetia joined them to see what was happening. By the time they had reached the top of the stairs, the front door had swung open, letting in a cold, frosty draught. Standing there, framed by the stark white of the day outside, was Serena, her face pale, one hand on her chest, trying to control her breathing.
‘Christ, what’s the matter?’ called Camilla from the top of the stairs, taking them two by two until she reached her sister. As she got closer, Camilla could see that Serena’s top lip was quivering, little diamond-shaped tears escaping from her eyes onto her cheeks.
‘Call an ambulance,’ she said between shallow gasps. ‘It’s Daddy. His body. It’s in the moat. He isn’t moving.’
The moat, only partly excavated, ran around the back of the house. Everyone ran outside, bare feet freezing cold on the light layer of snow that had fallen in the night.
Lying face down in the black icy water was a body. Only the back of its head was visible, but it was definitely Oswald.
‘Nick,’ screamed Camilla, running to the edge of the water. ‘Help me, quickly.’
‘Damn,’ he murmured under his breath, knowing he was going to have to get in. Glancing momentarily at Cate, he jumped into the moat, the thick, oppressive coldness hugging his body. Weed clung to his jacket; ice water stung his eyes.
He grabbed Oswald’s arm and his body turned sluggishly, sodden and saturated with the freezing water. Suddenly the body rolled back from the water, only inches away from Nick as he pulled him to the edge.
‘Shit,’ he gasped, as Oswald’s purple, frozen face stared back at him, grotesque eyes and mouth open.
‘You’d better go and get Maria,’ said Cate to Venetia, and together they tried to haul the body onto the grassy verge.
‘Did anyone phone for the doctor? The ambulance. Quickly.’
Cate helped pull Nick out of the moat. No one needed to take a pulse to confirm what they were all thinking.
‘Too late for an ambulance,’ grimaced Nick as he hunched over the lifeless body. He looked up with a stony face towards the sisters. ‘He’s dead.’
The local police in Huntsford village rarely saw any action at any time of year, let alone a high-profile death on Christmas Day. With the last big seasonal incident in the village being the theft of a goose three years earlier, the most that Sergeant Danner could hope for over the Yuletide season was being called to a minor disturbance at the village pub or a small house fire caused by the overcooking of a chipolata. Frankly, the constabulary were expecting to spend Christmas with their feet up, so Danner was not at all amused to have to climb into the station’s only squad car and head over to the castle to inspect a body. At least his colleague PC Browning was looking forward to seeing Serena Balcon; after all, her picture was pinned up in his locker.
‘Looks like one for the CID in Lewes, this,’ said Sergeant Danner, scrunching up his thin, weaselly features as he walked to the edge of the moat where Venetia had put a blanket over her father’s body.
‘CID?’ asked Serena, concerned.
‘Procedure,’ he said tersely. ‘Accidental death. Suicide. Impossible to tell at this point. We’ll have to get the boys in. Have you called the doctor?’
‘Yes, Dr Tavistock,’ replied Camilla. ‘Should be here any minute.’
Camilla wrapped her dressing gown around her tightly and looked at him suspiciously. Police college was such a distant memory for Sergeant Danner that she doubted he’d have a clue what procedure was in cases like this.
When he finally arrived, Dr William Tavistock, also miffed that he’d been disturbed from his Christmas family breakfast, revealed that he thought Oswald had drowned, which, as Nick pointed out, any of them could have diagnosed without the benefit of twenty-five years of medical experience. ‘Can’t be sure though until an autopsy,’ he added dismissively.
It was only with the arrival of Detective Chief Inspector Paul Cranbrook an hour later that the sisters began to think that the death of their father was finally in the hands of someone competent.
Altogether more impressive than the members of the local force, Cranbrook had been fast-tracked to Inspector after police college and could have been no more than thirty-five years old. His girlfriend read the celebrity magazines voraciously, so while he could have done without trekking out to Huntsford on Christmas Day, it was worth it to have a nosy around Huntsford Castle and meet the famous Balcon girls.
Inside the house, the atmosphere was as deathly as the body now being photographed by the forensic team. Everyone else had gathered in the drawing room. Cate was staring out of the window, her face expressionless, while Nick perched on the arm of her chair, gently rubbing her back. Collins hovered around the door, unsure of what to say or do, while his wife wept in the corner. Serena was occasionally emitting a loud sniff while Camilla and Venetia were both sitting upright on a velvet sofa, as if they were in a doctor’s waiting room. The loudest noise in the room came from the direction of Maria Dante, who was weeping into a tapestry cushion. ‘Mio caro, mio caro,’ she moaned over and over again, her voice totally muffled by the fabric.
Aware that no one had spoken to her in twenty minutes, Cate went over to sit beside her. ‘Come on, Maria. It’s OK,’ she said softly, placing a compassionate hand on the woman’s knee.
‘OK?’ spat Maria, suddenly rounding on Cate with a fury. ‘The death of your father might be OK for you, but it is certainly not all right for me.’
The sisters turned round to look at Maria, shocked by the strength of her venom. ‘Cate didn’t mean it like that,’ replied Camilla, firmly springing to her defence. ‘She was only trying to be sympathetic.’
Maria was in no mood to be pacified. ‘Go ahead. Defend her. You girls always stick together. It was you against your father. Now it is you against me.’
Although Maria clearly had a grip on the girls’ dysfunctional relationship with Oswald, Camilla felt suddenly protective of the father – daughter bond. ‘How dare you!’ she snapped, also angered by the implication that Maria had somehow replaced him in the dynamics of the family.
Cate held a hand in the air to try and diffuse the atmosphere. ‘Hang on a minute, everyone. Maria is just upset. We all are.’
‘Really?’ accused Maria.
Now even Cate was furious. ‘Maria, you’re in our home. Don’t insult us.’
‘Your home? Oswald was my fiancé.’
Camilla and Venetia looked at each other. What was she implying?
Serena glared over from the window, her general dislike and suspicion of Maria bubbling over into open hostility. ‘Yes, Maria. Our home. Not yours. Ours.’
The air crackling with resentment and the conflict between Maria and the girls, Nick shifted awkwardly on the arm of the chair. ‘I think I’m going to get off,’ he said, looking across to DCI Cranbrook, ‘unless you want me here? I just think it’s a time that the family should be together alone right now.’
Cate nodded without even looking at him. ‘Yes, you’d better go.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, stooping down to give her hand a squeeze. ‘Call me if you need anything.’
‘If you’re going to London, I want you to take me, Nicholas,’ snapped Maria, standing up suddenly.
‘That’s probably for the best,’ said Serena sharply.
Nick looked uncomfortable, but after a few seconds he nodded.
Cranbrook stopped him at the door. ‘Before you two go, I’ll need an address and telephone number for you both for follow-up enquiries. We need to take statements from everyone here.’
‘Why? Why do you persecute me?’ wailed Maria. ‘My fiancé is dead and you make me feel like a criminal.’
Cranbrook stifled a sigh. ‘Just procedure, madam.’
‘Procedure? Have you no heart, no soul? I need time to grieve, to mourn, not to be interrogated.’
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ Nick said to Cranbrook, taking a card out of his wallet and scribbling on the back.
‘I’ll be back in a few days,’ sniffed Maria. ‘I need some time alone.’
After they’d gone, Cranbrook turned to the sisters.
‘So, what happens now?’ said Venetia, exhaling slowly.
‘I’m afraid I need statements from you ladies as well. I know you had a party last night. We’ll have to get the names and addresses of all the guests and any catering staff. It’s important I speak to as many people as possible. Detective Constable Lane here will help – he’s part of my team.’
Venetia motioned towards the grounds where some more policemen were climbing out of a van. ‘How long will all this take?’
‘I’m afraid we’ll have to wait until the pathologist comes down from London. He’s on his way, so it shouldn’t be too long, and it looks as if the SOCOs have arrived too.’
‘SOCOs?’ asked Venetia.
‘Scene-of-crime officers. They take prints, samples. Help us build up a picture. Bloody snow hasn’t helped us, though,’ he said, looking at the thin carpet of white outside. ‘They’ll have difficulty getting what they want in this weather.’
‘Can we get on with these interviews, please?’ asked Venetia, suddenly unsettled by the talk of pathologists and fingerprints. She led Cranbrook through to the library, switching on a couple of lamps to make the room look a little less forbidding, then sat on a leather Chesterfield sofa, ready for his questions. Cranbrook flipped open his notebook. He was used to dealing with the dregs of society – criminals, junkies, thugs; he had to admit he was slightly unnerved to be sitting in the luxury of Huntsford Castle facing this refined, but quite fragile-looking woman.
‘So,’ began Venetia anxiously, ‘do you have any idea what happened yet?’
Cranbrook almost smiled. ‘That, I’m afraid, is a slightly premature question. First of all, my team need to find out as much about last night as possible: your father’s movements, the last time he was seen alive. Then the autopsy, which should be done tomorrow or the day after, will give us a clearer picture of what we’re investigating.’
‘In what way?’
‘Our aim is to find out what happened. It will help if we can determine whether we’re dealing with accidental death, suicide or foul play. I take it you haven’t found a note?’
‘To be honest, Chief Inspector, we haven’t really looked,’ replied Venetia, rather taken aback. ‘We all assumed it was an accident. That’s why I’m a little shocked with all this talk of statements and scene-of-crime officers. You don’t think this is in any way suspicious?’
Aware that he was talking to a grieving daughter, Cranbrook tried to be as sympathetic and patient as possible.
‘Everything we’re doing is standard procedure when we’re dealing with a sudden or violent death.’ He didn’t like to add that this was bound to be a high-profile case, possibly a career-maker, and that he was determined to do things by the book.
‘Anyway, I imagine you’re fairly familiar with the process?’
‘I’m sorry? What do you mean?’ asked Venetia, looking a little startled.
‘Your husband, Miss Balcon. He died in a fire a few months ago, didn’t he? I’m sure the procedure was similar then.’
Cranbrook noticed that Venetia’s face had gone even more ashen. He hoped he hadn’t sounded too accusatory: he didn’t want to upset the Balcon sisters and have them running to one of Daddy’s friends high up in the force. Besides, he had to handle this one especially carefully, he thought. He’d read that the inquest into Jonathon von Bismarck’s death had returned a verdict of accidental death, but part of him couldn’t help but think that Venetia had suffered almost too much bad luck in the space of a few months. It could be a coincidence, but no smoke without fire, and all that. He had to suppress a smirk at his unconscious pun. In front of him, Venetia simply nodded and brushed something away from her knee.
‘However, we have discovered one unusual thing already,’ said Cranbrook slowly. ‘The door leading up to the ramparts was locked from the inside of the house, which makes me wonder how on earth your father could have accessed the area he fell from.’
‘There’s no mystery there,’ replied Venetia. ‘It’s usually locked after the firework display. You know, so drunken people don’t go up there alone and fall off …’ She stopped herself, aware of the irony.
‘However, there is another way up; a servants’ corridor weaves up through the house and you can bypass the door that way. My father would have known that way up.’
‘Who else would have known?’
‘The family; the house staff.’
Cranbrook made a brief note in his book. ‘And when was the last time you saw your father?’
‘I saw him on the ramparts at midnight, watching the fireworks with everyone else. I think he was standing with my sister Camilla. After that, everyone filtered back down into the house. I must have last seen him at about one in the morning, talking to Maria. Then I went to bed. The next thing I knew was this morning when Serena had found his body in the moat.’
‘Was your father drinking heavily last night? Acting unusually? Did he argue with anyone?
Venetia was certain she should not tell him about her quarrel with Oswald by the kitchen. ‘My father was a difficult, argumentative man, Inspector Cranbrook. He liked everything to be just so at his social events and there would almost certainly have been cross words with members of staff at some point. But that was his way. I’m not aware of anything out of the ordinary. And yes, he was almost certainly drunk. The drink flows freely at a Huntsford party.’
Venetia looked up and noticed that Cranbrook was gazing at her intently.
‘Was he depressed?’
‘Absolutely not,’ she replied flatly. ‘Far from it, in fact. He had recently become engaged to Maria; Maria Dante, the opera singer.’
‘And how do you and your sisters feel about Miss Dante joining the family?’
‘Fairly ambivalent to be honest,’ she answered cautiously. ‘As you can imagine, no one can replace our mother, but if Maria makes him happy …’
‘I read recently that your father may have had financial problems,’ said Cranbrook, still writing in his notebook. ‘Is it true?’
Venetia nodded slowly, thinking about the musical evening.
‘There were some cash flow problems yes, but surely you can’t be suggesting he committed suicide?’
‘Right now, I’m not entirely sure how your father died. In the meantime please do not leave the house without telling me, Miss Balcon.’
Christmas Day disappeared in a flurry of snow, tears and strange activity. Scene-of-crime officers tramped round the ramparts and the moat in their white overalls collecting soil samples, looking like spacemen against the snow. Cranbrook completed his questioning. A black mortuary van came to take Oswald’s body away. The phone had been ringing off the hook with journalists. Cate switched on the television for two minutes to see that her father’s death had been promoted to the third lead story on News at Six. A sombre-looking reporter was interviewing a local who claimed to have been at last night’s party.
‘Why, oh why?’ grumbled Serena, pressing the remote control with a manicured finger. ‘You’d think the Pope had died or something.’
‘Christmas Day: slow news day,’ replied Cate.
‘I want to go home,’ moaned Serena, sitting on the window seat in the drawing room. ‘All this stress can’t be good for me.’
Cate looked sympathetically at her sister. ‘I’m sure it isn’t, Sin, but I think we should all stay put until we hear back from the police.’
Mrs Collins entered the room. ‘Miss Cate, there’s a call for you. Do you want to take it, or should I take another message?’
‘Who is it?’
‘David Loftus. He says it’s important.’
Cate frowned. ‘I’ve never heard of him.’
‘He comes round sometimes,’ said Mrs Collins. ‘Came round,’ she tailed off. ‘He came to see your father.’
Cate wandered out to the hallway, rather bemused. She pressed the old-fashioned receiver to her ear.
‘Hello, Cate Balcon speaking.’
‘It’s David Loftus. A friend of your father’s. Firstly, I’d like to pass on my sincere condolences.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Secondly, I wanted to arrange a time when I could come and see you. All of you.’
‘As you can imagine, Mr Loftus, this is a difficult time for all of us,’ said Cate firmly but politely. ‘For the moment we are spending time alone, as a family.’
‘I really think we should meet.’
She cleared her throat, irritated. ‘It really isn’t very –’
‘Don’t brush me off, Miss Balcon. I thought you might want to know why I need to see you.’
Cate was beginning to feel a little freaked out. There was something rather creepy in his voice. ‘OK. So what do you want to meet us for?’
‘To talk to you about your father’s death,’ said Loftus coolly. ‘As you might know, I’ve been writing his memoirs for the last few months. I think I know why he’s dead.’
She felt her heart leap. Her palms began to sweat as she gripped the telephone tightly and spoke quietly into it. ‘In that case, Mr Loftus, you’d better come round.’