Death Plays a Part

Guinevere felt a shiver go up her spine as if she suddenly felt what Bolingbrooke had just put into words. Impending doom.

The presence of death.

Oliver said, ‘Haydock, that’s not funny. You’re giving us all a heart attack.’

Leah gave a shriek. ‘Maybe he really had a heart attack? Look at his face.’

Something fell to the ground. Being in the back, Guinevere still couldn’t see what the commotion was all about. Her heart beat fast. Was Haydock on the floor? Looking like he was unwell?

Oliver was at the cage already, pulling at the metal bars. ‘Where’s the key?’

‘I have it,’ Bolingbrooke said and handed it over.

Guinevere stood on tiptoe and craned her neck to see what had caused the alarm.

Haydock seemed to be down on the floor, on his back. One hand was grasping at his chest. Had he really had a heart attack, like Leah suggested, or had he merely fainted?

Was there bad air in here? Lack of oxygen?

Or was it an act like Oliver had suggested? Haydock’s way to make the re-enactment a little more exciting than just ending with a non-conviction and an accused who had drowned in the sea at night.

Oliver opened the door and went in. He knelt beside the body to feel the face and the neck.

Guinevere waited for his reassuring words that Haydock was fine and just pulling their leg. He’d rise to his feet laughing and cause another row with Bolingbrooke, who would blame him for his insensitivity.

Then Oliver inched back. ‘He’s dead. And there’s a knife in his chest.’

Tegen shrieked again.

Guinevere found herself saying, ‘What? That can’t be.’ Her mind refused to grasp the meaning of the word ‘dead’. There had to be some misunderstanding. Haydock had staged this somehow, for dramatic effect.

Oliver repeated in a curt tone, ‘There’s a knife in his chest. His hand is curled around it as if he wanted to pull it out again, but he didn’t manage.’

He looked up, straight at his father.

Bolingbrooke looked back with a blank expression. ‘A knife? How can that be? There are no knives here in the dungeons.’

Oliver said, ‘Somebody brought it in here and stabbed him.’

Guinevere swallowed. Her stomach squeezed at the idea that a man had died right under their feet.

Kensa said, in a thin voice, ‘That stupid castle. Arthur never could stop talking about it. How much he wanted it. And now he’s dead for it. Now …’ She pointed a finger at Bolingbrooke. ‘You killed him! You killed him so he couldn’t take Cornisea away from you.’

Bolingbrooke glanced from Kensa to Oliver and back. ‘Are you all out of your minds? I? Kill for the castle? When I locked him in here, he was sitting at that table, alive and well. I even asked him if he was all right and he said he was fine. The door to the cage was already closed so I only turned the key in the lock. I never went near him. I couldn’t have stabbed him.’

‘But,’ Oliver said, ‘you’re the only one with the key to this cage. If you locked him in when he was still alive and well, how did he die? Nobody else could get in here to get at him.’

‘Through the air hole?’ Guinevere suggested. She had found her voice again and, to stop the light feeling in her head, she had to think rationally, discover how it had been done.

Oliver shook his head at her suggestion. ‘It’s too small to throw anything through with enough speed or strength so it would embed itself into his chest. I’m no expert but I think this stab wound has been delivered face to face, in close proximity.’

‘Then it’s clear,’ Kensa said. ‘Bolingbrooke did it to save the castle.’ Her voice was steady and her expression almost calm. Only her eyes showed a little too much white. Maybe she was in shock and didn’t know what she was saying?

‘The constable has to come and see this,’ Leah said. She hugged herself tightly. ‘He can determine what to do next.’

Tegen scoffed, ‘Eal? He couldn’t catch a killer if he bumped into him still carrying the bloody knife.’

Kensa poked her with an elbow to make her shut up.

‘I’ll call Eal right away.’ Oliver reached below the robe he wore for his mobile phone. He kept an eye on all present. ‘Nobody moves from this spot until he’s here.’

Kensa said, ‘Why? Can’t poor Leah leave? The girl must be frantic with her father dead in front of her.’

Leah made a soft, suppressed sound in her throat. With her loose hair and the dark garment she suddenly looked like she was already mourning.

Tegen was staring at her mother. Her eyes were narrowed and questioning as if she was trying to work something out.

‘Leah can stand back,’ Oliver said, ‘but she can’t leave. This is a crime scene and we can’t run the risk of anything being disturbed here. Eal will have to collect evidence.’

‘Evidence?’ Kensa echoed. ‘In here?’

‘Yes.’ Oliver looked straight at her, a cold hard look. ‘You just accused my father of this murder. But it’s not the Middle Ages any more. We have fingerprints now and DNA traces. The killer must have left some proof behind that will point him or her out to us. It’s only a matter of time until we know the truth.’

In the silence his words seemed to linger, like a knell of death.

Guinevere’s arms were full of goose bumps, and she ached to hold Dolly close and feel the dachshund’s reassuring licks on her face.

Only a matter of time until they knew the truth.

But what would the truth be?

Who had hated Haydock enough to kill him? To stab him in the chest, face to face?

Chapter Four (#ulink_39bfa789-ec39-50c3-90e1-7881df801744)

‘What a day to arrive here.’

Guinevere didn’t turn her head to Oliver’s voice. He had come up to her without making a sound. Or maybe she had missed the sound as she had stood there, staring up at the skies that were so full of stars. Once upon a time, Gran had pointed them all out to her, telling her their names and the stories connected with them. Guinevere had felt small standing under the canopy, thinking about the universe out there and the places far away where the stars were born. But at the same time she had felt totally safe, with Gran’s arm around her shoulders, totally loved and in place, part of her own little universe in which Gran was the sun around which everything revolved.

Those memories, and Dolly’s warm body against her, drove away the cold of their forced stay in the dungeon with the dead body until Constable Eal arrived. Kensa’s harsh accusations against Bolingbrooke still echoed in her ears. Would her new employer really get into trouble now? Would his guilt be readily assumed? Oliver had earlier said that a lawsuit was the last thing the castle needed. He had then referred to one for assault. Would it now be one for murder?

Oliver looked up at the night skies as well, his hands folded at his back. ‘You should be in bed by now.’

‘What did the constable say when he left?’

‘That he’ll tell us when he has more. What else can he say?’

‘But what do you think that he thinks?’ Guinevere glanced at Oliver. His expression was blank, but there were lines of fatigue around his mouth. ‘I don’t know anything about the police around here, but Tegen suggested that Constable Eal can’t catch a killer even if it was obvious that he had committed the crime.’