The Body at Auercliff Read online

  Suddenly she gasps, and her whole body becomes tense. I grab hold of her shoulders, but she seems to be going into some kind of seizure.

  “Aunt Emily!” I shout. “You have to stay with me!”

  She lets out a faint, low gurgling sound, and I quickly realize that she must have swallowed her tongue. Forcing her mouth open, I reach my fingers inside and fumble for the tongue's root, and sure enough I find that it has twisted back toward her throat. It takes a moment, and my fingers slip several times on the tongue root, but finally I manage to clear her airway, although she immediately lets out a series of rasping gurgles that seem to be coming from the very back of her throat.

  Climbing onto her, I check her pulse again and then finally I start chest compressions.

  “You're going to be fine,” I tell her, “I promise. I'm not going to let anything happen to you.”

  ***

  Ten minutes later, I finish the latest set of compressions and then lean down, hoping against hope that she might finally have started breathing. I check her pulse, but there's still nothing.

  “Come on,” I whisper, starting again. “Come back to me.”

  ***

  By the time I finally accept the inevitable, I've been working to save her for almost half an hour. I check for a pulse one final time, and then I hold the back of my hand against her face in case there's any hint of breath, and then I climb off her and look down at her dead eyes.

  She's still staring at the same spot, as if there's someone behind me.

  Reaching out, I close her eyes and then I sit back on the grass. My whole body is trembling, and I feel as if my chest is impossibly tight. The first tear trickles down my cheek. Checking my watch, I make a mental note of Aunt Emily's time of death.

  1:53am. Just like the stopped grandfather clock in the hallway.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Bright morning sunlight streams through the window of Uncle Martin's study as I make my way around the desk and take a seat. With the ambulance having left just a few minutes ago, taking my aunt's body away, I'm now all alone at Auercliff, and I feel like I'm going to lose my mind if I don't get some answers.

  I start going through the drawers, and I quickly find a set of old black notebooks. Turning to the first page of one, I find that Uncle Martin seems to have been working on some kind of family history, and for the next few hours I sit silently flicking from page to page, reading but not really understanding all the notes he left in his spidery handwriting. Somehow the process feels strangely calming, and I'm relieved when I find an envelope containing a stash of old photos.

  I can lose myself in these for hours.

  “Verity, aged seven,” I read out loud from the back of one of the photos, before turning it around and seeing the smiling face of a little girl with a prominent cleft lip.

  The next photo shows a group of people I don't recognize at all, but Martin has helpfully written the names Roger, Reginald, Mary, Harriet and Jonathan on the back. One of the people is a very old man, and I vaguely remember seeing in one of the notebooks that Uncle Martin's grandfather was named Jonathan, and that he was the son of Sir Charles and Lady Catherine. I set the photo down, while making a mental note of all the family connections.

  Another, larger photo shows a group of people standing on the steps at the front of the house. Most of them appear to be members of the aristocracy, but there are a couple of women who appear to be members of staff. Turning the photo over, I see a list of names, followed by another note in Uncle Martin's handwriting.

  “Matilda Granger,” I read out loud. “I cannot explain it, but she is the woman I saw at Doctor Farrah's office.”

  Remembering some mention of an incident at the doctor's office in town, I grab the notebooks and flick through them again, quickly finding the relevant section.

  “I would have made the most terrible mistake that day,” Uncle Martin wrote, “had it not been for the intervention of a woman I had never seen before, and have never seen since. She seemed almost to be waiting for me at Farrah's surgery, and she persuaded me that I should not try to deal with my grief by killing the man. Not a day goes by that I do not thank the Lord for that woman's intervention, but I have never been able to understand who she was, or how she happened to know what I was planning. Lately, however, I have seen a photograph of a woman who was once in my great-grandfather's employment, a woman named Matilda Granger. And though Matilda Granger died more than half a century before I was born, I swear she is the woman I encountered at the doctor's surgery that day.”

  I take another look at the photo, but my attention is quickly drawn to the face of Lady Catherine Switherington. In all honesty, I don't think I've ever seen a woman with such crazy eyes. She looks absolutely insane.

  “Granger,” I whisper suddenly, realizing that I've heard that name before. “Matilda Granger. What if -”

  Before I can finish, I hear the sound of a car approaching the building, stopping outside on the gravel driveway.

  Figuring that someone has come to pay their condolences, having heard about Aunt Emily's death, I head out of the study and into the hallway. I can hear footsteps now, approaching the door from the other side, and I take a deep breath before pulling the door open.

  And that's when, for the first time in five years, I come face to face with my mother.

  “Your brother told me you were here,” she says sourly, clearly unimpressed as she removes her gloves. “Well, where's batty old Emily, then? Have you been having fun here with my sister?”

  ***

  I watch as she raises the glass of whiskey in her trembling hand and takes a sip. As much as I hate my mother, I can't deny that I feel a little sorry for her right now as she stares out the window. After all, she just learned that her sister is dead. She looks shocked, pale, perhaps a little haggard. I've never seen her look anything other than strong before, even if at times I cursed that strength and wanted her to crumble.

  “Did she suffer?” she asks finally.

  “It was very quick,” I reply, figuring that it'd be as well to avoid going into details.

  “That's not what I asked,” she continues, turning to me. “I asked if she suffered.”

  “There was no -”

  “Don't talk to me like a fucking doctor,” she snaps, “talk to me like a...” She pauses, eying me with a hint of suspicion. “I'm just asking you if she suffered.”

  “I don't think so,” I lie. “I mean, she seemed confused...”

  “Well there's a newsflash,” she says with a sigh, before downing the rest of the whiskey and immediately pouring herself another. Once she's set the bottle back down, she freezes for a moment, as if her entire body is tensing with grief. “The woman spent most of her life confused,” she adds, taking another sip. “Perhaps it was her way of abdicating responsibility for everything around her.”

  “Maybe you should slow down,” I reply.

  “Maybe you should try -” She stops suddenly. “I hope you realize your aunt was completely out of her mind,” she continues, watching me with a hint of caution. “Anything she might have said over the past few days should be taken with a pinch of salt. The woman's marbles all rolled out of her hears a long time ago, you cannot trust or believe a word she might have said.”

  “I think she was suffering from dementia,” I tell her.

  She rolls her eyes. “I could have told you that years ago. Your brother said you were worried about her and -”

  “I found a dead body in the house,” I add, interrupting her.

  “Your -” She pauses. “Your aunt's body, yes, you already -”

  “No, another. It had been there for a while. It was in one of the spare rooms, off in the western wing. Aunt Emily didn't seem to know anything about it.”

  This seems to shut her up for a moment, and I watch as she downs the rest of whiskey and pours herself yet another. I swear, she suddenly seems a little paler.

  “Do you know who it might have been?” I ask.
/>   I wait, but the news seems to have shaken her and her hands are trembling more than before. In the space of just a few seconds, she looks several years older and frailer.

  “Any ideas?” I continue. “Why are you here, anyway? You haven't been to Auercliff for more than a decade, you swore you'd never -”

  “Can't I decide to drop in and visit my dear sister?” she replies a little defensively. If I didn't know her better, I'd swear she's close to tears. “Perhaps I just felt charitable and wanted to make sure that she was okay. Is that so hard to believe, or do you think I'm a complete monster?”

  “Do you know of anyone else who might have been in the house with her?”

  “What did she say when you asked her?”

  “She was incapable of giving a sensible answer.”

  “Well, there you go.” She pours another whiskey, but her hands are shaking worse than ever. “How am I supposed to know what that mad old bat was getting up to? Rattling around all alone in this big old house, she -”

  “But that's the point,” I continue, “she wasn't alone so -”

  “Why does it matter, eh?” she adds. “Emily's dead, the other person in the house is apparently dead, so what's the point of raking it all over? Maybe your aunt had a secret or two that she wanted to keep. I think she should be allowed that privilege, don't you? The past is bullshit anyway.”

  “But the truth -”

  “Oh grow up!” she snaps. “There's no such thing as truth. There's fact, and there's opinion, but truth is just some juvenile obsession that most people are over by your age.”

  She raises the glass to her lips, but this time she doesn't quite drink. Instead, she seems locked in thought once again. I've seen that look in her eye before. She's planning something.

  “I don't get why you're suddenly pretending to care, anyway,” she continues finally, as the familiar waspishness returns to her voice. “I thought you'd absolved yourself of all interest in the family a few years ago. No calls at birthdays or Christmas, no replies to messages.” She sighs. “In fact, you might as well fuck off right now, I can deal with everything here. Don't worry, Rebecca, nobody expects you to help them, or to comfort them, or to be there for them. You can go off to your lovely selfish life and pretend that the rest of us don't exist.”

  “That's not fair,” I reply, shocked by her words.

  “Isn't it?” she snaps. “I haven't heard from you in -”

  “I'm not doing this now,” I say firmly, feeling as if I need to get the hell out of this room before Mum and I end up in another huge slanging match. “I found some of Uncle Martin's old papers in his study, so I think I'm going to go look through them for a while. And I have to look in some of the rooms upstairs, too, to see if Aunt Emily left anything. I just want to go through the history of her family, so...” My voice trails off. “I don't know what you want to do, but I've got my plan.”

  With that, I turn and head out of the room before she has a chance to offload any more vitriol in my direction. By the time I get to the hallway, however, I feel as if my chest is about to implode, and I have to stop and lean against the wall. My mother has long had this effect on me, and she seems to be in overdrive today. I guess nothing has changed there. If I spend too much time around her, I always end up with this pounding, sickening sensation in my gut. Perhaps I felt sorry for her when I had to tell her about Emily, but that moment has already passed.

  Maybe I'm just an awful person.

  Finally I hurry up the stairs and make my way to Aunt Emily's bedroom. Once I'm safely inside and I've shut the door, I head over to her bedside table and open the top drawer. Sure enough, I find several more notebooks and old letters inside, so I sit down and start sorting through them all. After a few minutes, I'm even able to drown out the sound of my mother storming about downstairs.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  “Esmerelda,” I mutter, turning the faded old scrap of paper over and taking a look at the other side, where the same name has been scrawled several more times in my aunt's messy handwriting. “Who the hell was Esmerelda?”

  I can't make sense of half the sentences on this pieces of paper, and given my aunt's dementia it's quite clear that there's little sense to be made at all. Sitting here on the edge of her bed, I feel as if I have all the pieces of a vast puzzle, but no clue as to how to put them together.

  But Esmerelda seems to be the key. She seems to have been almost obsessively writing notes about someone named Esmerelda, as if the matter occupied her every waking moment. I've spent enough time around dementia patients to know that there was quite likely a grain of truth trapped somewhere within her thought processes, but I've never heard the name Esmerelda mentioned in my family. If I can find out who she was, I can use that as a way in.

  Sighing, I realize that there's something else I have to do.

  I have to go down and find my mother, and I have to apologize. She's just lost her sister, and I should be more supportive, even if the thought makes my skin crawl. This isn't the right moment to bear grudges.

  Feeling my phone starting to buzz, I slip it out of my pocket, desperately hoping that it's Scott calling to let me know he's on his way. Instead, I feel a flash of concern as soon as I see Detective Johnson's details flashing on the screen.

  “Hi,” I say cautiously as I answer the call. “Is there any news?”

  “Where are you right now?” he asks, rather abruptly. “Are you at Auercliff?”

  “Yes, I'm in my -”

  “I'll be over soon.”

  “But -”

  “I need to speak to you about something,” he continues, “and I think it should be in person. I'll be there in about half an hour.”

  “My mother's here too,” I tell him. “She arrived about an hour ago.”

  As if to underline that point, there's a loud bump from downstairs. I don't know what the woman is up to, but she certainly seems to be keeping herself busy.

  “My aunt died last night,” I add.

  “I heard. I'll be there soon.”

  “Can't you just tell me what's wrong over the phone?” I ask.

  I wait.

  No reply.

  “Detective?” I say after a moment, realizing that he seems to have fallen silent on the other end of the line. “Are you still there?”

  “I am,” he replies, but now there's an edge of concern in his voice. “I'll be there as quickly as possible. I need to talk to you about a matter of some urgency.”

  I pause, feeling as if something might be wrong. “Please, can't you tell me over the -”

  Before I can finish, I spot a few wisps of smoke curling past the window. I freeze for a moment, telling myself that there's no reason to be concerned, but the smoke seems to be getting thicker as it rises up into the clear blue sky.

  “I'll see you when you get here,” I stammer, before cutting the call and hurrying over to the window.

  Sure enough, more and more smoke is filling the air, although from this angle I can't quite see the source. Opening the window, I lean out and look along the side of the building, and I quickly realize that something seems to be burning around the next corner, out on the lawn.

  And there are tiny fragments of charred paper caught in the smoke.

  “What the hell?” I whisper, turning and hurrying out of the room, and then scrambling down the stairs. “Mum!” I call out, trying not to panic but filled with the sense that something must be very wrong. “There's smoke outside! I think maybe -”

  Stopping suddenly, I see that the door to the study is wide open, and that the place looks to have been ransacked. Making my way over, I look through and realize to my horror that not only have the drawers been pulled out of the desk and emptied, but books have also been taken from the shelves. In fact, it's almost as if every item from Uncle Martin's study has been removed. All the notebooks, all the photos, all the journals.

  In the distance, flames are starting to roar.

  ***

  “What the hel
l are you doing?” I shout, racing across the lawn as I see the bonfire up ahead. “Stop! You can't destroy those!”

  By the time I get closer, however, I can see that it's already too late. All the notebooks, letters and other documents from the study have been piled up on the grass, and now they're burning fast, sending plumes of ever-thicker, ever-blacker smoke high into the morning sky. I stare in horror for a moment at the awful sight, before slowly turning and seeing my mother standing nearby, watching the flames with a calm, almost relieved look in her eyes.

  “What are you doing?” I stammer, my heart pounding as I step closer to her. I can feel the heat from the bonfire on my face. “Those were Uncle Martin's notes about the history of the family!”

  “History is a crutch,” she replies, still watching the flames, “for people who are too timid or too stupid to make their own way forward in life. Nobody cares about the history of these weak-blooded aristocratic toffs. I should probably burn those horrible paintings in the hallway, too, although perhaps some of them are worth a bob or two.”

  “Nobody gave you permission to do this!” I shout, stepping over to her and barely suppressing the urge to push her away. “You have no right!”

  “Oh, who gives a fuck?” she mutters, rolling her eyes. “Nobody's here to stop me, either. Face it, Rebecca, there was nothing interesting in those notebooks anyway. Martin was always a dull man, nobody else could possibly have cared about the history of -”

  “I cared!” I shout, filled with rage. “I told you I was going to go through them all!”

  “Well, then,” she replies calmly, with a hint of a smile, “it looks like you were too late, doesn't it?”

  Turning, I stare at the flames and see that they're already starting to die down. Soon there'll be nothing left except a pile of charred paper, and everything Uncle Martin wrote has already been lost.

  “There's no point getting sentimental,” Mum announces suddenly, as she steps around me and heads back toward the house. “I'm sure there's plenty more garbage where that came from. Besides, I doubt very much that your aunt ever bothered to get a last will and testament made, so more than likely the entire house passes to her next of kin, which would be me. So you see, I rather think I do have the right after all.”