SARA ISN’T AT BREAKFAST THE next morning, but Mrs Castle is.
‘We need to talk,’ Mrs Castle says, when Tom and Lily enter the room. They’re about to sit opposite her when she gestures to Tom. ‘Not you, son. Off you pop.’ She tosses him a piece of toast which he catches with some bafflement then leaves.
‘Why can’t Tom stay?’ Lily says. ‘He shouldn’t be on his own with what’s going on.’
‘Less he knows, the less danger he’ll be in.’ Mrs Castle scrutinises Lily’s face. ‘You haven’t told him owt?’
‘Only about why Aunt Lil asked me to come. The stuff about Mum.’
Mrs Castle sighs and helps herself to a bap and tears it open, letting out the steam. She dollops on a spoonful of loganberry jam. ‘That was not a good move, Lily.’
‘I thought you were supposed to be impartial.’
‘I was employed to keep my counsel, serve you food and sonnets and stay out of the way. I’m under strict instructions not to interfere. But we are stuck in this house with no sign of the snow letting us out. Three people dead. You and Tom are lucky to be alive. And the one person who looked likely to be a killer is currently in the chapel, mourning her brother. So I’m not so worried about sticking to my contract.’
‘You could leave,’ Lily says. ‘Like Rachel and Holly.’
‘Hmm,’ Mrs Castle says, taking a big bite of bap.
‘What is it? You sound suspicious.’
‘We’ve only got that note to say that they’ve left. Is it definitely Rachel’s handwriting?’
Lily thinks back to when they were little and Rachel’s scrawled signature. She doesn’t think she’s received so much as a Christmas card since. ‘I don’t know. Sounded like her.’
‘What if it isn’t? What if they are still on the grounds?’
‘You don’t think they’re dead?’ Lily asks, holding her heart as she pictures all the places that bodies could be kept on a snowy estate. They still haven’t searched the outhouses in the back fields, the stables, the smokehouse, the old cottages or—
‘I hope they’re not, and I hope I’m wrong, but there’s another option. What if one of them is the killer?’
Lily shakes her head. ‘No way.’
‘Or they both could be working together with Sara. They killed Gray, but she didn’t know. They’ve gone rogue.’
‘Can’t see Rachel being capable of that. And Holly? Absolutely not.’
‘And you’re such a good judge of character, are you?’
Lily thinks back to some of her friendships and relationships. She says nothing. Maybe she just doesn’t want to think of Holly like that.
‘Didn’t think so,’ Mrs Castle says. ‘Best plan, I think, is for you to tell me everything you’ve found out so far. Any suspects for Mariana’s murder I should know about. Or clues?’
‘What kind of clues?’ Lily asks.
‘Alleged prints on a . . . I don’t know, a glass? What else do you find in mysteries?’’
‘Why would I tell you all that?’ Lily says.
Mrs Castle grabs Lily’s hand and squeezes it. ‘So, I can help you, daftie.’
Lily would love to sit down with this woman who seems to know how life works, who has a history with her family that she’d love to unravel, for her to guide Lily and tell her what to do with all the information that’s mulling in her head, like those other strong women tried to, to show Lily how to be a mum.
But that would be incredibly selfish. Enough people have died. ‘You said yourself that the fewer people know about it the better for them. Keeping you in the dark will keep you safe.’
‘I’m not rhubarb,’ Mrs Castle replies. ‘I’ll not be forced into darkness, thank you very much, missie.’ She takes another bite of berried bap and looks at Lily, weighing her up. ‘Why do you think I took the job, really? Because, I tell you, it wasn’t for the money.’
‘Peace and quiet in the countryside? The company of such pleasant people?’
‘Your aunt had a sarcastic tongue, just like you and Sara.’
‘You still haven’t said much about you and her,’ Lily asks. ‘Please, I’d like to know.’
Mrs Castle looks like her drawbridge might be lowered for the first time. Then it slams shut. ‘You’ll have to figure that out yourself, like everything else.’
‘And I’ll say the same to you,’ Lily says. ‘Telling people secrets is dangerous. Look what’s happened here. You should leave now and take your chances in the snow. All I want to do is keep you safe.’
‘Back at you, love,’ Mrs Castle says. She finishes the last bit of her bap with one bite. ‘But if I die first, make sure you eat this jam, won’t you? If I say so myself, it’s delicious.’
*
The next sonnet doesn’t appear till just before dinner. Mrs Castle had charged Tom with making everyone pre-dinner old fashioneds, and he found the clues wrapped around sugar cubes.
Let’s call a truce, what do you say? Will no
One agree? Put our quarrels to one side –
It’s Christmas after all. Go with the flow,
And other sayings, it’s all cut and dried
And in the past. Isn’t it? Mix my gin
And tonic on the rocks and call it quits
While I muddle up your old fashioneds in
Cut glass mixers that would not cut your wrists.
This house is sick, its roots twist. Cold compress
On its roof won’t help, it’s gone past that point.
Maybe it can be saved. Withdraw. Confess
What you have been told. You could all conjoin,
You know, melt into just one winning team,
Pool key resources, or is that a dream?
Sara sits in the corner of the orangery where Gray liked to roll his cigarettes. She swirls the sphere of ice in her glass. Her face looks like it’s sunken in on itself. Her sonnet is on the table, unread.
Lily walks over, still halting slightly, although her ankle has improved. ‘I’m so sorry, Sara,’ she says.
‘So you said yesterday,’ Sara replies.
‘I wish I’d got to know him more, before . . .’ Lily trails off. She knows there’s nothing she can say that will help. ‘I’m here, if you want to talk.’
‘I told you. Stay away.’
Lily walks over to the sofa, where Tom is trying to light the end of a twist of orange peel. ‘You’re supposed to let it smoulder and burn to release the orange molecules in the skin,’ he says. ‘Then you smell it, and the drink tastes different.’
‘You don’t need to tell me about the potency of smell,’ Lily says. ‘Pregnancy turns it into a superpower. Although I don’t know how I’d use it to further humankind.’ She looks over towards Sara. ‘I can’t even comfort her.’
‘I tried earlier,’ Tom says. ‘She wouldn’t even look at me.’ He leans forward and lowers his voice. ‘Is it really hypocritical and awful that I’m itching to work out the clue with you?’
‘Maybe a little insensitive,’ Lily says. ‘But understandable.’
‘I like to see you playing detective. Taking on crime at Christmas. You remind me more of Grandma Violet all the time.’
‘Why thank you.’ Lily takes a bow.
‘Now I’ve fed your ego,’ Tom says, ‘can we go and find the key? Please?’
‘Fine,’ Lily says. She picks through the poem. ‘But I can’t find an anagram that will help. This one isn’t going to be easy.’
‘All I know,’ Tom says, ‘is that there’s lots of cutting involved.’
‘Cutting wrists,’ Lily says. ‘We know what that’s referring to.’ She sees Tom looking worried and quickly says, ‘Don’t worry, I’m fine. It’s saying that Mum didn’t. It’s all good, I promise.’
‘I’m going to sit here drinking while you use your other superpower.’ Tom picks up his old fashioned and rattles the remains of the ice against the bevelled glass. ‘Ice melts quickly when drowned in booze.’
‘Say that again,’ Lily says, picking up her pen and leaning it on the poem.
‘Ice melts—’
Lily draws a circle round the final couplet of the poem. ‘Ice “melts”, it “pools”.’ She taps the pen further up the page. ‘You “cut” ice, ice can be “dried” and ice “flows”. And what are spirits served on?’
‘“On the rocks”,’ Tom says. His celebratory grin fades. ‘But that means I know where we’re going.’
Lily circles the line that says, ‘This house is sick’. ‘The ice house,’ she says.
‘And we’re the winning team,’ Tom says.