The Earl Maid

By Susannah Donim

Rob is a shy and reserved young man, but an unexpected inheritance suddenly makes him the centre of attention. His wife helps him find a way of hiding in plain sight.

Chapter 7

Martha and the Countess face an enraged Beckett – and the aftermath. Will the Earl be exposed - or killed?

The sound of breaking glass came from the back of the house.

We leapt to our feet. I slipped mine into my shoes and made for the door, but before I could get there, Jack Beckett burst into the room.

He stopped and looked at me more carefully. I really didn’t like the look on his face.

“It was you, wasn’t it, you old bitch?” He was boiling with anger now. “You put the police on to me! I thought I recognised you in that hideous yellow car of yours. You were in my house on Wednesday morning! Spying! What did you take? Who did you tell?”

Of course – the Polo! He must have seen it at the Hall on one of his visits to see his sister. I tried to think what a helpless woman would do in my position, so I started screaming for help. Susie quickly joined in. It was hopeless of course; there was no one around for miles, but Beckett didn’t necessarily know that. From his point of view, Estate workers might hear us, even at this hour, and come running.

Meanwhile I started backing away. He was intimidating enough, but my main reason for reversing was that every pace he took to get at me moved him further away from Susie. I hoped she would soon have the opportunity to run from the room.

If we could stall him, Empire’s security men would have time to get here, or maybe the police. But he accelerated suddenly and grabbed me roughly by the arm. I felt the shoulder of my dress give.

A stupid thought pushed itself into my mind: if he carried on like this, we would shortly find out whether the Transformations prostheses really were good enough to fool someone when you were naked.

I struggled to wrench myself free. I could feel my uniform ripping. To stop my screaming he struck me hard across the face with the back of his hand. My cap flew off and I lost several hairpins. It hurt a lot, but I wondered why he didn’t hit me properly. Was it some thug code? You don’t punch a helpless middle-aged woman?

I staggered but managed to stay on my feet. I stole a quick glance at Susie. She should have been edging toward the door, but she wasn’t. Surely she wasn’t thinking of coming to my aid? She must know I would want her to escape.

I hitched up my dress and kicked out at him as hard as I could. I was aiming for his groin, but my skirt and one-inch heels were too much of a handicap. He was too quick for me. He turned sideways and my kick to the balls was reduced to a glancing blow at his hip. His eyes blazed and he punched me in the chest as hard as he could, with all his weight behind it.

“Get away from me, you stupid woman!” he yelled. “Or I’ll really hurt you!”

Just the momentum of the blow was enough to knock me off my feet. I heard Susie gasp with horror.

He turned back to her, obviously assuming that one solid punch in the chest would be enough to end any interference from an overweight female. Indeed, from his point of view it might have felt like a satisfactory punch in my breast, thanks to the astonishing realism of the Transformations prosthetics, but it didn’t it feel like that to me. The padding that I had been resenting on and off for the last month enabled me to shrug off his blow. No force penetrated to my chest, concealed and protected as it was by my bra and breast forms.

But I knew I couldn’t best him in a fair fight. He was nearly six inches taller than me and probably thirty pounds heavier, if you didn’t count my false feminine curves. Also he was surely much more experienced at fighting, fair or unfair. I looked around desperately for a weapon. I spied the antique poker and tongs in the fireplace, purely decorative but potentially solid weapons. Unfortunately, he was between me and them.

I made a snap decision and launched myself at him from behind, shoulder barging him side-on. All I meant to do was stop him from assaulting Susie, but I knocked him in the direction of the fireplace.

I was just in time. If I had let him take one more pace, my charge would have landed us both on top of Susie. As it was, I caught him completely by surprise. No doubt he’d written me off, assuming that I would be cowering semi-conscious with pain from his assault on my most sensitive feminine parts.

He tripped over the fireplace surround and lost his balance, falling head-first into the mantlepiece. There was a nasty cracking sound, which didn’t register with me at first. Focused on my goal, I grabbed the poker and went to smash him over the head with it.

“Stop!” screamed Susie. I managed to restrain myself just in time. “He’s not moving!” she said. “I think he’s out cold.”

We approached cautiously, in case the slimy bastard was shamming. Then we saw the blood oozing out of the side of his head.

There was no running away from this. Everything was going to come out now.

I put the poker back in its stand. Then I reached for the phone and dialled.

“Emergency. Which service?”

“Police and ambulance,” I said. “I think I may have just killed someone.”

I had used my Martha voice out of habit. Afterwards I wondered why.

* * *

Susie was barely holding it together. I got us both a double brandy and sat her down in the library. Better for her to try to recover her wits without having to stare at the lifeless body in the fireplace.

We had lots of visitors in the next hour. The first time the doorbell rang I had the presence of mind to mutter to Susie, “I’m Martha until I tell you otherwise, OK?” before I went to answer it. We might as well try and keep my secret for as long as possible.

The police were first to arrive – two uniformed coppers, one in his forties, the other possibly twenty years younger. They were concerned when they saw the damage to my uniform and the disarray of my hair, but I assured them that I was fine. I showed them into the drawing room first to view the body, and then into the library to meet the mistress of the house.

They could see that Susie was badly shaken, so to begin with they addressed their questions to me, the maid. I told them what had happened: we had to defend ourselves from a violent intruder, and he met with an accident.

I didn’t describe our history with the Beckett family. That could wait until the plods were replaced by CID. I had barely started when the younger one got on his radio. He used all those complicated codes for describing the situation, but the gist of it was clear. This was well above their pay grade.

“He broke in through the kitchen,” said Susie, making a worthy effort to gather herself. “Well, you can hear the alarms, can’t you? And the lights came on outside when he got through the gate or over the fence or something.”

“Can I switch the alarms off now?” I asked.

The two policemen looked at one another. They would obviously have preferred the scene to remain exactly as they had found it until CID arrived.

“They’re giving me a terrible headache,” Susie said.

So the older copper nodded and I took the younger one with me to find the off switch in the old pantry. I left the outside lights on, as we were expecting many more visitors. I showed the policeman the broken glass in the window panel of the back door, which was wide open.

The ambulance was next to arrive. They’d been warned that the subject was almost certainly deceased, and that it was a suspicious death, so for the moment their role was limited to verifying that life was extinct. They would have to wait before they could remove the body. It had to remain where it was until the Crime Scene Investigators and detectives turned up, photographs were taken, and so on.

Bizarrely, I found myself taking everyone into the kitchen, where I made tea. Maid first, murder suspect second, I suppose.

The Forensic Pathologist came next with the CSIs. At this point the policemen moved Susie and me back to the library. The younger one stayed with us on guard, although I don’t know where they thought we might go. Perhaps they were afraid that, as the maid, I might try and clean up all the blood in the drawing room. And weirdly that did indeed cross my mind. I was afraid my mistress would be very cross at the mess I had made. I was thinking like a real maid. I must have been in shock.

Eventually two plain clothes police officers, a man and a woman, appeared in the library. The man was tall and thin as a rail, with receding grey hair and glasses. He was clearly the older and senior and he did the introductions, addressing the Countess, obviously.

“I’m Detective Inspector Giddings, My Lady,” he said, “and I understand you’ve met my colleague, Detective Sergeant Sharpe?”

Susie nodded.

“Good evening, My Lady,” said the woman. “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon, or under such circumstances.”

She was mid-thirties, I guessed. She wore a short waterproof jacket over black nylon trousers like mine, and a floral top that flattened her bust and really didn’t suit her. She looked more like a housewife than a police officer.

“Indeed, it’s all most unfortunate,” Susie said. She turned to Giddings. “I’m sorry, Inspector. I’m Susan Marsham, and this is my housekeeper, Martha Manners.”

I managed to suppress the instinct to stand up and curtsey. The two police officers now seemed to become aware of my existence for the first time. Noticing the damage to my uniform, DS Sharpe expressed concern regarding my well-being. I reassured her.

Somewhat impatiently, Giddings returned to questioning my mistress.

“May I ask how you were acquainted with the deceased, Ma’am?” he asked.

I noticed he didn’t ask if Susie was acquainted with the deceased. Obviously, he already knew that, which wasn’t lost on her. She stole a quick look at me. I tried to look non-committal but encouraging. The combination was too difficult and I probably failed.

“He was the brother of my predecessor as mistress of Hadleigh Hall,” Susie said carefully.

“You mean his sister was the previous Countess?”

“Not exactly. My husband’s father never married her.”

“So the Beckett family lost possession of the Estate when the old Earl died?”

Giddings had clearly been doing his homework.

“They never had possession. Eleanor was only my father-in-law’s mistress, so she and her son were what you might call ‘long-term guests’. And Jack Beckett never lived here at all, as far as I know. The old Earl couldn’t stand him.”

“Nevertheless, I imagine he and his sister were resentful,” Giddings insisted. “They must have had… expectations from the old Earl’s will?”

Susie glanced at me again. I nodded, hopefully in such a way that Giddings and Sharpe wouldn’t see.

“They had no legal claims on the Estate, but that didn’t prevent Beckett from coming here demanding money… with menaces,” she said.

“Really?” Giddings perked up. “Did you report this to the police?”

“To what end?” Susie said bitterly. “He was too careful to leave any evidence behind. He just wanted to show us that he could get in at any time. You couldn’t keep watch over us indefinitely, could you? But he could hurt my husband and me whenever he wanted. That’s why we spent all that money on the security system…”

“Yes, I noticed the cameras outside. We will need access to the footage, please.” Susie nodded. “I saw there was a camera in the drawing room too,” he continued. “Was that running?”

“No, I’m afraid not, Inspector. It is motion and sound activated but we only turn it on at night when we’ve gone to bed. You can start it at other times using a remote, but neither of us had time to get to it when Beckett burst in.”

Was that good or bad? If I’d managed to start the camera recording, we’d have proof that Beckett’s death was an accident and I’d been acting in defence of myself and my wife. On the other hand, the police would have a permanent record of the Earl of Hadleigh dressed as a housemaid, or at least of someone impersonating a woman who had been twenty miles away and six months pregnant at the time.

“And where is your husband, Lady Marsham?” Giddings asked.

“I’m sorry,” she sighed. “I can’t tell you that. Not without his permission.”

“Can you contact him?”

She sighed again and looked at me helplessly.

“I can, but I won’t,” she said.

“Well in that case, I’m going to have to ask you both to accompany me to the station and…”

I interrupted.

“Please, Inspector,” I said, maintaining my Martha voice for the moment. “Lady Marsham never laid a finger on Beckett. I am entirely responsible for his death. I will gladly accompany you to the station and answer all your questions. With Her Ladyship’s permission, I promise I will tell you everything. If you aren’t satisfied with what I have to say, you can interview My Lady later.”

Giddings considered. He obviously couldn’t see how the maid would know details of Lord and Lady Marsham’s private lives. On the other hand, loyal family retainers are often the best sources of information.

“I have to agree with Martha, sir,” put in DS Sharpe unexpectedly. “Her Ladyship was very open and helpful with me yesterday. She does seem to have been the victim here.”

“Fair enough,” he said, after a moment. “I don’t want to be unreasonable. This must have been a terrible experience for you, Ma’am. Try and get a good night’s sleep if you can. I will have more questions for you, but they can wait till tomorrow.” He turned to me. “Let’s go then, Martha.”

Susie looked at me miserably. I smiled as reassuringly as I could.

They allowed me to put on an outdoor coat and collect my handbag. Then I followed DS Sharpe out to their car, glad that they had decided that handcuffs wouldn’t be necessary.

* * *

It was nearly one o’clock in the morning now. The interview room was a grubby olive green, with condensation running down the walls. It was cold because it was late October, and in police stations, like all government offices, they don’t put the central heating on until the first of November. The steel-framed canvas chair certainly wasn’t designed for comfort, but the thick soft padding on my backside always made me feel like I was sitting on a cushion anyway.

The Inspector and his Sergeant regarded me quizzically. That was fair; I must have looked a sight. I’d lost my cap and most of my hair pins in the fight, and the permed greying hair of my wig was awry, large tufts floating wide. My dress was torn at the left shoulder, showing my bra strap. My apron was ripped and turned half way round my hips. My skirt had a gash from the hem almost up to my waist, revealing a long ladder in my tights.

“So, Madam,” the detective said, clearing his throat. “Despite your appearance, you maintain you are not the maid and housekeeper of Hadleigh Hall, but the Earl himself in disguise?”

He sounded incredulous, as well he might.

“That’s right, officer,” I said, in what I hoped was my normal voice, which I hadn’t had the opportunity to use for some time. It didn’t come out as deep as I would have liked, probably due to the shouting and screaming I’d been doing to call for help for myself and my mistress, I mean, wife. Nevertheless, it was clearly deep enough to give him pause. He leaned forward to take a closer look at my face.

“I really don’t see how that can be,” he said. “You look exactly like this photograph I have of you – that is, of Miss Martha Manners.”

He paused. My bizarre claim had momentarily thrown him. He gathered his thoughts and started again.

“But whoever you are, you’re here to answer some serious questions, so that we can decide whether to charge you with murder or just manslaughter.”

I hoped that was just designed to intimidate me.

“It was self-defence,” I pleaded, in what had suddenly become a very small voice, whether masculine or feminine. Surely that was obvious, wasn’t it?

“I think I’d better hear the whole story, don’t you?” he said. He sounded a little smug. He obviously thought his threats had scared me. “First, Sergeant Sharpe will take a DNA sample from you, please.”

I nodded. There didn’t seem much point in refusing to cooperate. The Sergeant opened a little box she had brought in with her and extracted a swab. I let her run it round the inside of my mouth. It made me think back to the first time I’d donated my DNA. That sample had led directly to my current position. I sighed.

“I don’t suppose your – that is, Lord Marsham’s – DNA is on file anywhere, is it? Just in case I need you to prove your story?”

“It is, actually. My solicitor has it. I had to take a paternity test to prove my right to inherit.”

I gave them Smythe’s details.

“Are you sure you don’t want Mr Smythe to join us?” Giddings said.

“Not for the moment,” I sighed. “Look, Inspector, I’d like to keep this just between the three of us if possible – for obvious reasons. Suppose I tell you everything, but with no recordings and no other witnesses? If you’re not satisfied, we can go the whole arrest and formal interrogation route later.”

He considered. He might possibly have been thinking that, if I was telling the truth, pissing off a local bigwig might not be a great career move. And wigs don’t come much bigger in this neck of the woods than the Earl of Hadleigh. For all he knew I might play golf with the local Police and Crime Commissioner. (I didn’t even know who that was, and I don’t play golf.)

“Well, it’s a bit irregular,” he said eventually, “but I suppose if you really are the Earl your situation is about as irregular as it gets.” He came to a conclusion. “All right then. I like a cooperative witness.” He picked up his notebook and a biro, which he then pointed at me sternly. “But this had better be good…”

So I told them everything.

* * *

I didn’t bother with the stuff about my parents, or my childhood, or our ‘dressing up games’ which started all of this, in a way. I also didn’t tell them about Transformations. They had done nothing illegal in my case but as I understood their business practices, they might have done so – unknowingly or otherwise – for some of their other clients. I really didn’t want to put them out of business. They had saved my life – perhaps literally.

Otherwise, I made a clean breast of everything (as it were). When I came to the Pink Ladies Society, I just described what they did to me as a state-of-the-art make-up demonstration. I threw in a mention of the Army sergeant and the Police rugby player. I suddenly realised I had been indiscreet when I saw a little flicker of recognition in Giddings’ eyes. He probably knew the cross-dressing copper, or could work out who it was from what I’d said.

When I got to the part where I ‘borrowed’ the shredded paper from Jack Beckett’s waste basket, DS Sharpe looked up from her notebook. She had realised early on that we had been employing Treacher. Now she saw where he had got the information he had passed to her. I was concerned that Giddings might open the question of whether stealing someone’s garbage was against the law, but it seems he was a totally pragmatic copper. He didn’t look gift horses in their mouths.

“That’s a very interesting story, your lordship…” he said.

“Call me Rob,” I said. Force of habit, really. No way he would do that.

“…Obviously we’ll have to check a few things out. Your disguise is truly amazing and I’m very curious how you did it.”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to keep that as a trade secret for the moment,” I said.

“Well, that may not be good enough,” he said sharply, “but I’ll let it go for now. I can still hardly believe you are who you say you are under it all, but I suppose it’s the most likely explanation for everything. Occam’s Razor, and all that.”

He paused for thought, tapping his biro against his teeth, which I noticed were far from pearly-white. DS Sharpe waited patiently.

“My colleague and I just need to have a private word outside,” the inspector continued eventually. He turned to her. “We have a few loose ends to tie up, don’t we, Sergeant?” She nodded. “We’ll try not to keep you waiting too long, Miss… I mean, Your Lordship.”

That was obviously a deliberate error. He chuckled.

I sat back in the uncomfortable chair, which was probably designed that way to add to the pressure on a suspect. I suddenly realised how tired I was. I checked my little watch. It was ten to three in the morning. I’d been up since seven and had cleaned two houses today – three, if you included the work that I did at the Hall in the afternoon. The happy times on the job with Fleur seemed like another lifetime now.

Giddings and Sharpe were back in less than ten minutes.

“Very well, Sir, I am satisfied for the moment. It’s too late to do anything else tonight, but tomorrow would you draft a statement for the Earl to sign, please, Sergeant? And the same for the Countess? Oh, and get that DNA sample to the lab and ask Mr Smythe for access to His Lordship’s for comparison.”

“Yes, sir.” She was obviously quite used to Giddings delegating the paperwork to her.

He turned back to me.

“Now, it’s fairly obvious that you have been the victim of an attack. My next job will be to compare the pathologist’s report with your description of the altercation. If he agrees that Beckett died from accidentally bashing his head against the mantlepiece, then I will be prepared to concede that you’re only guilty of defending yourself and your mistress, or wife, or whatever, from a vicious attack by a known felon. You could hardly have wielded the mantlepiece as a murder weapon.

“Mind you, I will still have to report the sequence of events to the Crown Prosecution Service, but I doubt they’ll want to waste time or public money on a prosecution if all the evidence tallies with your statement. They’ll probably keep the file open till after the inquest, of course, but in the meantime, I can’t see there’s anything to be gained from detaining you or the Countess.”

“Thank you, Inspector,” I said. “So am I free to go?”

“A few conditions first,” he said. He started ticking them off on his fingers. “One: you don’t leave the area without checking with me. Two: you surrender your passport; that is, Robert Marsham’s passport. I don’t think I need the real Martha Manners’ passport. I suspect you’d be caught at security if you tried to leave the country as her…” He paused to consider, inspecting me closely again. “Maybe not though…”

“I don’t have her passport anyway,” I said.

“Well, I’ll contact her and tell her not to let it out of her sight.” He resumed ticking off his stipulations. “Three: if you want me to remain discreet about your… cross-dressing, you’ll have to stay in your Martha disguise for the moment.”

“What? Why?”

He had to be kidding! I couldn’t be Martha any longer. I was already starting to experience ‘identity drift’, as Susie had happily pointed out. I was beginning to think like a maid and cleaning lady.

“Well, it’s entirely up to you of course, but for the moment you’re a key witness in a suspicious death, not to mention attempted extortion and demanding money with menaces. Lots of people saw you as Martha tonight – I mean, last night. We may want to see you again – either here or at the Hall. Other detectives from the Task Force may want to interview you about your visit to Beckett’s place. You’ll need to talk about things you saw as Martha. If you turn up to an interview as Lord Marsham, the cat will be out of the bag, won’t it?”

That was hard to deny. Worse was to come.

“Of course, if you need to give evidence in court, it will have to be as your real self, and that means you will have to come clean about spending the last month or so disguised as your own housekeeper. Quite honestly, I can’t see you being called in any criminal trial concerning the robberies. Mr Treacher might be, but you weren’t directly involved, were you? Does he know about… any of this, by the way?”

He meant was Treacher aware that the Martha he knew was really Robert, Lord Marsham.

“No,” I said, although privately I suspected he might have guessed. After all, why did we first meet him at the Transformations offices?

“So if you stay as Martha, we may be able to keep everything unofficial,” Giddings continued. “I appreciate you were partly forced into this disguise, and I don’t see any need to embarrass you if that can be avoided.”

“Well thank you for that, Inspector,” I said. “It’s very decent of you.”

It was, and no doubt many other policemen would have been delighted to expose a cross-dressing Earl.

“But I’m afraid it’s odds-on you will be called to testify at the inquest in the Coroner’s court,” he said. “You and the Countess will have to describe how Beckett met his death.”

That’s it, I thought. I’m doomed.

“Does that mean I’d be testifying in front of a jury?” I asked, terrified – as usual – of appearing as myself in public. It would almost be worth showing up as Martha so that Robert Marsham could continue to hide behind her.

“Probably not,” he said. “Since the Coroners Act 1988, a jury only has to be convened when the death occurred in prison, police custody, or in circumstances which may affect public health or safety.” He was obviously quoting, but he knew his law, this Inspector. “If he wishes, the Coroner can choose to convene a jury in any investigation, but it doesn’t happen very often. Too much trouble – and too expensive.”

Small mercies, I thought. Cold shivers were still running down my spine. But the Inspector had stopped to think for a moment.

“Of course, there’s no reason why the Coroner should ask how you were dressed when it all happened, is there?” he said. “And the only other person who knows is your wife. You might be able to answer all his questions as Lord Marsham without giving yourself away or committing perjury.” He laughed again. “Good luck with that.”

That was true, wasn’t it? The way things panned out didn’t depend on Beckett thinking I was a frail, middle-aged woman. He was much bigger and stronger than I was, and he would have been just as contemptuous of Robert Marsham’s chances of stopping him as of Martha’s. He just would have hit me harder, and with his fist, not the back of his hand.

The pathologist would confirm what I had told them about the incident, but I wasn’t out of the woods yet. I had a nightmare vision of having to stand up in the Coroner’s court, dressed as Martha, and admitting to being the Earl of Hadleigh.

“Of course, that’s all assuming the CPS agrees not to bring criminal charges against you,” Giddings summed up. “Then I’d have no choice but to put the whole thing on the record.” He turned to the Sergeant. “DS Sharpe, could you arrange a car to take… Martha back to Hadleigh Hall?”

“Yes, sir,” she said. “I’ll do it myself. It’s on my way home.”

“Good – you can arrange to get hold of the footage from the outside cameras while you’re there. Oh and we’ll need all the clothes she’s – he’s – wearing now for forensics, though hopefully we won’t need to keep them for long. Can you go in with him and bag them?”

“Yes, sir.”

The Inspector made for the door.

“By the way,” he said, “you and the Countess need to stay out of your drawing room for the moment. I realise that as the maid you’ll be desperate to clean up the mess, but that will have to wait. It will remain a crime scene until all the reports are in.”

He chuckled. The only thing worse than a policeman with a sense of humour is a policeman without a sense of humour.

* * *

DS Sharpe was chatty in the car on the way back.

“He’s a pretty decent guy, Inspector Giddings,” she said.

“I realise that,” I replied. “A lot of people in his position would have taken great pleasure in exposing me.”

“Well he still might have to, but I think you can be hopeful. You’ve probably realised that he’s also on the Robberies Task Force, and thanks to you and Frank Treacher, we’re well on the way to cracking that. You found Beckett’s storage units for us. We probably would have got there eventually, but time was of the essence. In a couple more weeks he would have been able to fence all the stolen goods and move them out.”

“So you searched the storage units and caught him red-handed?” I asked.

“Not at first,” she said. “We couldn’t get a warrant, so we were preparing to stake them out. That could have taken ages. But then Frank put us on to Gopal at Empire Security Solutions – acting on your information. We were already suspicious of them, but again we had nothing to back it up. You were the only householder to have changed your alarm codes from the ones that Empire had set. So when Beckett or his accomplice tried to get into your place using the old codes, the leak had to have come from Empire.”

“And Gopal set up the codes when he led the installation at our place,” I finished. “No one else at Empire saw them.”

It also explained why Gopal had asked so many questions about the value of stuff at Hadleigh Hall.

“He might still have brazened it out,” she admitted, “but he actually folded quite quickly. He was a ‘loose end’ and he was terrified of Beckett. So we struck a deal. He would serve a little time under a false name somewhere far away, then enter witness protection when he was released. Even that may no longer be necessary now…”

“…now that Beckett’s dead, you mean?”

“Right. We got the warrant easily on his testimony. The two units were crammed with the proceeds of the recent robberies. So we moved to arrest Beckett, but he obviously realised we were onto him and there was no sign of him at his home or office. We don’t know why he ran to Hadleigh Hall. Perhaps he intended to hide up there until he could arrange a way out of the country.”

“Actually, it might have just been about revenge,” I said. Sharpe looked puzzled. “He recognised me – that is, Martha – last Wednesday when I went to clean for his mother. He probably guessed that something I took from there led to you finding out about his storage units.”

“Ah, I see,” she said. “I suppose that would explain it.” She paused to think it through. “Anyway,” she resumed, “we’re fingerprinting all the stolen goods and rolling up all of Beckett’s known associates. The Chief Inspector thinks we’ll get everyone involved in the robberies eventually.”

“You don’t need to put the part about me cleaning Beckett’s house in your report, do you?” I asked.

“I shouldn’t think so,” she smiled. “We don’t really know what was going through his mind when he broke into Hadleigh Hall, do we? It’s only guesswork, isn’t it?”

We were off the highway now. Sharpe steered the car quickly and expertly down winding country lanes. There were no street lights, and all the houses and cottages around us were in darkness. Silence fell between us. Eventually I broke it with a question that had been on my mind.

“So how do you know Frank Treacher?”

She hesitated. “He’s my ex,” she said finally. “We joined up together; went to Hendon together.”

I knew that was the police training college in London.

“He’s a good man,” she continued, “but he was thrown out of the Force for decking a superior officer. Bastard deserved it, and everyone knew it, but Frank couldn’t hope to stay in the Job after that.”

She fell silent. I wondered if she might have been the reason why Treacher hit a superior. There was obviously a lot more to the story, but we were pulling into the driveway at Hadleigh Hall. Susie had obviously reset the security system when the last of the police and ambulance service personnel had left, but the gate recognised the signal from the RFID transponder in my handbag and swung open. The retractable teeth in the ground retracted. Most of the house was in darkness, but there was a light on in our bedroom. As we approached, the outside lighting activated. The alarms didn’t come on because the gate had opened properly. I checked my little watch again in the sudden flood of light. It was after half past three in the morning.

By the time I had opened the front door, Susie had appeared, stunningly beautiful (as always) in nightie and negligée. She hurried toward me, relief evident on her face. Then she saw I wasn’t alone, decided it didn’t matter, and threw her arms around me anyway. She didn’t bother asking questions. She knew I’d tell her everything soon enough. For now, she just wanted to be held.

DS Sharpe gave us a moment then cleared her throat gently.

“The Sergeant has come in to get the security footage and bag my clothes,” I said. “She and the Inspector have been very kind.”

“OK,” Susie said, letting go of me. “I’m going to make three cups of tea for when you’ve finished.”

“Oh I don’t think…” Sharpe began.

“You don’t have to drink it, but it will be there if you want it.”

With that she turned and walked briskly toward the kitchen. Knowing my wife as I did, I knew she was on the verge of breaking down with a mixture of shock and relief, and she didn’t want Sharpe to see that.

“We’ll go up to the maid’s room, if that’s OK,” I said. “I can strip off there more easily.”

“I won’t need your coat,” Sharpe said, getting some large polythene bags out of her briefcase. “You weren’t wearing that when you were fighting with Beckett, were you?”

I suppose you could say that me getting hit twice constituted a fight…

Sharpe blew inside a pair of disposable latex gloves to stretch them out and wriggled her hands into them. I led her up to the maid’s room on the second floor at the back of the West Wing.

I kicked off my shoes and untied my apron, handing both to her for bagging. I reached behind me to begin unzipping my dress.

“Here, let me help,” she said. “The gloves will prevent cross-contamination, but to be honest this whole exercise is pretty pointless anyway. It’s just to show that no one else’s DNA, and no fibres from anybody else’s clothes, are on the body.”

I stepped out of my dress and handed it to her. She put it in yet another bag. I now stood in bra, knickers and tights in front of a woman who wasn’t my wife. Probably better than a man. I noticed that she was staring.

“Do you need my underwear?” I asked.

“Better had,” she said. “I can’t believe how realistic all your… curves are!”

“All detachable,” I said, “with the right solvent.” I grinned. “You probably won’t believe it, but I’m actually quite thin and weedy under all this lot.”

I sat down on the bed and started stripping off my tights.

“Don’t you want to… I don’t know… go in the bathroom, or something?” she said, clearly embarrassed.

“Why? You won’t be seeing any of Rob Marsham’s private parts. They’re well hidden. There’ll only be the same sights you’d see in any female changing room.”

I unhooked my bra and pulled my panties down. I was quite enjoying the Sergeant’s obvious embarrassment. I tossed her all my lingerie, which she hurriedly bagged.

I reached for a plain nightie and a ladies’ dressing gown. (A maid doesn’t have an exotic negligée like her mistress.) I slipped my feet into a cheap pair of mules.

I caught sight of myself in the mirror. My hair was a mess. I tutted, sat down at the dressing table, and started brushing it. For some reason it didn’t occur to me just to remove my wig. When it was in some sort of order, I pulled it up into a tidy bun and stuck some hairpins in to hold it.

“Are you sure you’re not a woman?” Sharpe asked, with a smile.

“I’m not sure of anything just at the moment,” I admitted ruefully. “I know I was Robert Marsham, Earl of Hadleigh once. Hopefully I’ll be him again one day.”

We went down to the kitchen and joined Susie for a cup of tea. I offered something to strengthen it but they both declined.

“Actually, My Lady,” Sharpe said, “it will save time for both of us if you could describe what happened tonight in your own words. I’ll type it up as a Witness Statement tomorrow and bring it round for you to sign.”

So Susie began to recount the whole ghastly experience from her point of view. While she was doing that, I went into the control room to get the security footage. I browsed for the MPEG files that had been created that night. There were very clear HD pictures of Beckett arriving at the garages behind the house and smashing a glass panel in the back door. He must have come over the fence from the farm lane. The lights didn’t go on till he arrived in the stable yard. I went back to ask the Sergeant for her email address so I could send her the files.

To my mortification Susie was praising her husband’s courage in defending her. She even used words like ‘manly’ and ‘heroic’ with no embarrassment at all. She paused and looked at me, a totally feminine image with my grey bun, ladies’ dressing gown and slippers, my bulbous breasts poking out of the low-cut nightie where the gown didn’t quite close. The contrast with her tale of ‘manly heroism’ made both of them giggle.

“Thank you for that, My Lady,” said the Sergeant, draining the last of her tea and getting to her feet. “Your statements are completely consistent, so there should be no problem.”

I thanked her again and saw her to her car. It was nearly half-past four. I went back to the kitchen and as soon as the monitor showed the gate closing behind her, I reset the alarm system and went upstairs.

Susie was waiting, desperate for details. I updated her on everything that had happened, including DS Sharpe’s revelations in the car. I also repeated the Inspector’s instructions and his reasoning.

“So I’m stuck as Martha until all the police are satisfied,” I concluded.

Susie didn’t seem too concerned.

“Well at least I don’t have to advertise for a new maid,” she said, yawning.

We got into bed and turned off the lights. Dawn was breaking.

* * *

Before we went to bed Susie had texted her secretary explaining that we’d had a break-in and an accidental death, and therefore she would not be in the office that morning. I had texted Sally Jackson to say much the same.

When we eventually surfaced at around eleven, I saw that Sally had texted back to tell me not to worry. She would find someone to fill in for the day. Her assistant, Maria, was usually available at short notice, and she and Fleur had worked together many times. Fortunately, Mrs Beckett had cancelled her early cleaning slot for that morning. She didn’t say why.

Sally said she hoped to talk to me later to hear more. I would need to tell her whether I intended to carry on with J & J. It still seemed sensible not to change our routine, but now because the police might be watching us, rather than Beckett. We didn’t want anyone other than Giddings and Sharpe to see anything suspicious.

Anyway, for some reason I found I didn’t want to give up being a charlady. I tried to rationalise it. I realised I liked both parts – the ‘char’ part and the ‘lady’ part. What on earth was happening to me? I might have to see a shrink when this was all over.

* * *

The police forensic team had done all the time-critical work the night before while I was at the station with Giddings and Sharpe. They returned in the morning to take some measurements and collect more samples of paint, carpet fibre, dust, etc. (Dust? Cheek! They wouldn’t find any dust in a house I cleaned!)

They must have been instructed not to bother us too early. They appeared at about eleven-thirty demanding access to the ‘crime scene’, as their CSIs insisted on calling it. That was worrying, as we thought it was accepted that this was an accidental death. I hoped that it was just another example of one hand not knowing what the other was doing. In any case they spent more than an hour crawling all over the drawing room. When they eventually departed, they declared the room available to us again, so that I, the maid, could begin tidying up. Thanks.

I fetched my cleaning materials. Removing the mark where Beckett’s head had hit the mantlepiece was easy enough, and the fireplace tiles just wiped clean, but I had no idea how to get spatters of his blood out of the carpet in front of the fireplace. It would have to be replaced. I wondered what the insurance company would say.

At around noon Bill telephoned. Susie answered and put him on ‘speaker’. He’d seen the police cars and the ambulance in the distance the previous night and wanted to make sure we were all right. Susie told him everything that had happened and assured him that we were both fine now.

He asked about me; that is, the Earl. Susie explained that I was still away but that she expected me home soon. He was much too tactful to say anything specific, but I got the impression that he disapproved of the Master of Hadleigh Hall leaving the Mistress and her maid to face marauding villains. Quite right. I disapproved too.

Susie asked Bill if he could check the perimeter for her. We still didn’t know how or where Beckett got in and this morning’s police visitors didn’t seem to be interested. We could call Empire, but they were probably in some disarray today, following Gopal’s arrest. They would be fielding irate calls from customers demanding explanations and wanting their entry codes reset. Anyway, there would probably be a call-out charge.

I suggested Bill start at the old gate to the farm road, as it seemed Beckett had come in at the back of the building. He came to report at about one o’clock, so I laid out a buffet lunch on the dining table in the drawing room for him and my mistress. Then I retired to the kitchen, as I still didn’t feel confident being Martha with Bill. I sat in the pantry, shamelessly listening in to my betters’ conversation via the security system.

Bill had found a tall step ladder next to the fence, a few yards from the farm gate at the back. He removed it and put it in the garage workshop. It meant that Beckett had already prepared to breach our defences before the police got onto him. He just had to put his plan into action a little earlier than he expected, and alone. We always knew the fence wasn’t really high enough. It was more of a deterrent than a genuine obstacle to a really determined intruder. Hopefully that wouldn’t matter anymore now that Beckett was dead – now that I had killed Beckett, I suppose I should say…

* * *

A Detective Constable appeared at the Hall two days later with copies of our statements to sign. Fortunately, Susie had arranged to work from home for the rest of the week, so she was able to receive him. She was working in the library as the drawing room smelt strongly of cleaning fluid.

I took the DC in to see her. She was on a video call with a client. She waved the policeman to an armchair by the window while she finished up. I stood primly between them, my hands clasped in front of me over my apron.

When she finished her call, the constable explained his mission and handed her a typewritten form which he said he hoped was an accurate record of her statement to DS Sharpe. She read it carefully, signed it with no further comment, and handed it back.

The DC thanked her and extracted a second document.

“Er, is the Earl available to sign his statement, My Lady?” he asked nervously.

“I’m afraid His Lordship is unwell, Officer,” Susie said, thinking quickly. “But he may be up to signing it. Martha, would you take this up to His Lordship’s chamber and ask him if he is able to read and sign his statement?”

“Yes, M’Lady,” I said, with a curtsey.

I took the paper and left. It seemed sensible to actually go up to our bedroom in the West Wing, in case my footsteps across the Great Hall and up the stairs were audible from the Library.

When I got to our room, I sat on the bed and read the statement through carefully. Sharpe had done an excellent job. It contained everything I had told her and the Inspector. Every fact in it was precise, and precisely true. It made no reference to how I was dressed or the role I was playing. It didn’t mention Beckett calling me ‘an old bitch’. Mind you, I hadn’t told them that, so it was hardly surprising. The picture the statement painted was of Beckett breaking in to Hadleigh Hall and confronting Lord and Lady Marsham as they were preparing to retire, not of the Countess cuddling with her maid on the sofa. I signed it ‘Hadleigh’ in the boldest, most masculine version of my handwriting that I could manage, just above my typed full name, Robert, Lord Marsham, Earl of Hadleigh.

I took the paper back down to the Library. I knocked; waited for the ‘Come in’; curtseyed; and handed the paper back to the DC.

“Thank you, Martha,” said Susie. “Please show the gentleman out. I must get back to work.”

“Yes, M’Lady,” I said. “This way, Officer.”

And I must get back to my cleaning.

* * *

The fateful night’s events didn’t make the national news. There was a brief flurry of articles in the local press, but their emphasis was on the achievements of the Robberies Task Force. Beckett was identified as a key figure in the gang and a notorious fence. The last article merely said that he had gone on the run when he realised that the police were after him, and that he had broken into a house and died in an accident after a scuffle with the householder. I suspected I had Giddings and Sharpe to thank that the press didn’t make more of it. Unfortunately, the article did include the date for the inquest – in six weeks. I hoped the fuss would have died down by then.

It did, at least to some extent. But I was still called as a witness.

* * *

Sharpe telephoned the following week to say that they had compared my DNA sample against that held by Smythe’s firm, and it checked out.

We didn’t see her or Giddings again but more policemen appeared at the Hall over the next few weeks. There were two separate visits, both prearranged. In each case I opened the gate from the control room when they identified themselves, met them at the front door, bobbed a little curtsey, and conducted them to the drawing room where the Countess was waiting to receive them. I then retired to the kitchen (and the surveillance equipment in the pantry) to wait until I was called. Refreshments were not offered. We didn’t want to encourage them to linger.

Susie was quizzed over Beckett and Tank’s first visit, and over our family’s relationship with his. They asked to see the Earl, which was a scary moment, but Susie deflected their enquiries brilliantly. He wasn’t in when Beckett had called the first time and threatened her, so he would have nothing useful to offer. Neither she nor her husband had ever met the Becketts before, apart from at the will reading. Our tenure of the Estate didn’t overlap with theirs at all. She didn’t mention that her maid was present at either of Beckett’s intrusions, and the policemen didn’t ask. No doubt they assumed that the highly intelligent and articulate solicitor-Countess would give them all the information that was available from this quarter. The ignorant and uneducated housemaid would have nothing useful to add.

I went back to work for J & J on the Monday of the following week. First ‘Brusque’ Mrs Battersby, then the ‘Welsh Comedienne’, Myfanwy Griffiths. (We cleaning ladies give our clients nicknames so we can distinguish between them easily.)

At lunch Fleur was agog to hear about all the excitement. My story was well-practised by now and I managed to get through it without lying to her. Since the key events took place at 10.30 at night, Martha the maid wasn’t around. Beckett had only seen Lord and Lady Marsham. I let her assume, without actually saying so, that I was back at my little cottage in the village when all the excitement was going on. I had taken the rest of the week off from J & J because my mistress was badly shaken by the experience and needed me.

“Quite a coincidence that Beckett broke into the house where you were the maid less than a week after you and I were cleaning his house, don’t you think?”

She was watching me carefully.

“Yes, now you mention it,” I said. “That hadn’t occurred to me. Eerie, isn’t it?”

“What did the police make of that?”

“I’m not sure they knew.”

“Shouldn’t you tell them?” she said.

“Oh, I think they’ve got enough on their plates, haven’t they?” I said breezily. “Anyway, how could the two things be connected?”

She had no answer to that.

“Come on, eat up,” I said. “We’ll be late for Mrs Hanson.”

* * *

So I stayed as Martha for the moment. I still went to Transformations every second Saturday morning to have my prostheses removed and my face and body inspected for rashes. On the bright side, Vera’s ‘mild hormone lotion’ seemed to be doing its job. My beard growth was now very light and the waxing much less painful. She offered to arrange to have all my body hair removed permanently, but I wasn’t ready for that.

Somehow I always felt more comfortable after Vera had replaced my disguise. I felt vulnerable without my bra and knickers on now, even though my male body didn’t need lingerie.

Finally in mid-December, I gave my notice in to Sally Jackson. Martha the cleaning lady was going to retire. Fleur and I had a tearful parting. (I put my tears down to Vera’s ‘mild’ hormone cream.) I promised to keep in touch – another lie, sadly.

On the last Saturday before the inquest, I went back to Transformations to have my prostheses removed permanently. Vera was very professional, but I couldn’t help feeling it was a sad occasion. She dabbed the solvent on as usual; peeled the fake flesh off gently; washed all the pieces carefully with detergent; and rubbed me down with soothing lotion.

But this time she packed all my prosthetics away in archive boxes when they were dry, rather than reattaching them. This time I took Rob Marsham’s clothes out of my suitcase and put Martha’s back in. Rob’s shirt, socks and underpants felt coarse against my skin, which was still hairless even though I had undergone no shaving or waxing.

The only remaining sign of my tenure as Martha were my thick lips. I had asked about having the procedure reversed, but it sounded like it would be more trouble – and more painful – than it was worth.

When fully dressed in a crisp white shirt (I’d ironed it myself) and blue jeans, I examined my reflection in the mirror. It was three months since I had last seen Rob properly. I realised I had lost weight – working as a cleaning lady was slimming, apparently – but it didn’t look good on me. My clothes were baggy. I looked… wasted. But I had lost more than weight along with my Martha disguise. I was afraid I might have lost an important part of myself.

Annie and Ingrid came to see me off. They were glad that our difficulties with Beckett had been resolved, and that they had been able to help. I thanked them for connecting us with Treacher, and they thanked me for not telling the police how my disguise had been arranged. They didn’t need any attention from that quarter. Vera said she would keep my prosthetics for a while, just in case.

* * *

On the day of the inquest Susie and I arrived at the Coroner’s court early and took our seats while it was still empty. I didn’t want to engage in conversation with anyone. I was confident that no one would recognise the sad little man in the baggy suit, but that was about the full extent of my confidence. In any case people might deduce who I was from the fact that I was sitting next to the beautiful and increasingly well-known Countess of Hadleigh. But we were left alone, which was just as well because if someone had come to talk to us, I was so nervous I would probably have run away screaming.

I looked around the court. It was virtually empty. I had expected to see Eleanor or old Mrs Beckett or both, but Jack had been exposed as a criminal by now. They had obviously decided they didn’t want to be associated with him even after his death.

I was glad to see none of the policemen or paramedics who had attended on the fateful night, apart from Giddings and Sharpe. The only other witness would be the pathologist, whom I hadn’t met as either Martha or Rob. The Inspector had explained that no one was challenging the forensic evidence anyway, so the pathologist’s statement would be short and sweet. His office was in the same building so he would be called when he was needed.

The seating area marked ‘PRESS’ was also empty, which I found a little strange. I took it as a hopeful sign. I suppose the papers can’t send a journalist to every inquest. Perhaps the editors expected this one to be routine, despite the involvement of the nobility. They could get the details later from the court record when it was published, and then follow up if something interesting came to light. Maybe their lack of interest was something else I had to thank Giddings for.

While we were waiting for the Coroner, DS Sharpe came over to say hello. She couldn’t help but stare at me.

“Yes, Sergeant, this is my husband, the Earl,” said Susie with a smile, realising that Sharpe didn’t know what to say.

“Thank you, My Lady. Inspector Giddings sent me over to check. We’re supposed to have interviewed His Lordship several times after all, but neither of us would have recognised you.” She lowered her voice. “Your disguise was amazing, My Lord. How on earth…?”

Fortunately, the Coroner arrived at that moment. We all had to rise, and Sharpe had to scurry back to her seat.

* * *

Susie went into the witness box first. The Coroner, who looked like an elderly academic with a shiny bald head and glasses, began the questioning.

“I understand that the occasion of the late Mr Beckett’s death was actually his second visit to your house, My Lady?”

“Yes sir,” she said. “He and a… er, colleague broke in about three weeks earlier.”

“Broke in?”

“Oh I’m sorry. I mean that they weren’t invited in. They rang the doorbell, but then they pushed past my housekeeper when she answered the door.”

“What did they want?”

“Money, sir. Beckett believed his family were entitled to compensation because his sister had been my father-in-law’s mistress for many years but had received nothing in his will.”

“And how did you respond?”

“I refused.”

The Coroner waited, an eyebrow raised. He clearly expected her to expand.

“They had no legal right to anything of course,” she continued, “and the Hadleigh Estate has very little to spare. The old Earl was not exactly careful with money and he did nothing to enhance the Estate’s revenues. Even now it is barely meeting its expenses. I might have been sympathetic to Beckett’s sister’s situation, but I was assured that she faced no hardship. Our solicitor believed she had, er… ‘put aside’ a substantial sum from the Estate over the years.”

She enunciated the quotes around ‘put aside’ clearly. That could be taken as slanderous against Eleanor, but Susie had been very careful with her words. She had said ‘our solicitor believed’. The Coroner took the point. Of course this was establishing that there was ‘bad blood’ between us and Beckett, and therefore that we had at least some motive to kill him. But we had agreed that it would be foolish to try and conceal this.

“I see. So I assume Mr Beckett’s visit was not a friendly encounter?”

“No indeed, sir. Beckett and Tank – I’m sorry, but that’s the only name I was given for him – threatened us with physical violence.”

“My sympathies, My Lady.” He paused and whispered something to his clerk. “And where was your husband, the Earl, while you were facing this ordeal?”

Susie was going to have to box clever now.

“He was… nearby,” she said carefully, “on the Estate. But I told Beckett he was away from home and not expected back for at least two weeks. I hoped that he wouldn’t offer violence to two defenceless women, but I was sure he wouldn’t spare my husband if he could get his hands on him.”

“So Beckett didn’t meet the Earl on this occasion?”

“He only saw myself and my maid.”

She didn’t say ‘no’, which would definitely have been perjury. It was true that Beckett and Tank only ‘saw’ the maid, but that was because they were fooled by my disguise. Clever, but still very close to the wind.

The Coroner nodded.

“You didn’t think to contact the police?” he said.

“Of course I did, and I told Beckett I would when he made his demands. But that’s when he started threatening to break my and my husband’s fingers, and worse. He also said that it would be my word against his, and he had arranged convincing alibis for himself and Tank. Perhaps I should still have gone ahead and called the police, but I was afraid – for myself, my maid, and my husband.”

“I sympathise, My Lady. Now let us turn to the night of Beckett’s death. Please tell us everything that happened, as you remember it.”

So Susie described Beckett’s second and final visit to Hadleigh Hall. The Coroner let her tell the story in her own words and didn’t interrupt with questions. At half-past ten she and her husband – not her maid – were sitting in the drawing room, thinking about going to bed when Beckett broke in. Beckett assaulted her husband, hitting him in the face. The Earl tried to resist but Beckett, who was much bigger and heavier, hit him very hard in the chest and knocked him off his feet. Beckett then advanced on her, but he had underestimated her husband’s resilience. The Earl got back up and, fearful for his wife’s safety, charged Beckett from behind. Beckett lost his balance, fell sideways, tripped over the fireplace surround, and cracked his head on the edge of the mantlepiece, which killed him.

I was bright pink by now. I hoped no one noticed. But all eyes were on Susie. Every word she said was true. The Coroner asked a few questions of clarification and then thanked her for her testimony.

I was then called to describe the incident from my own point of view. I was asked about my injuries. I was quizzed in detail about my intentions when I struck Beckett from behind, but I said that I had no objective other than stopping him from hurting my wife. I had no idea what would happen when I barged him. I couldn’t have predicted which way he would be pushed, or that he would trip. At that point I had some idea of maybe getting my hands on a weapon such as the poker, but Beckett was between me and the fireplace. In the heat of the moment I didn’t think of my own safety or the consequences of my actions, only of my concern for Susie.

Again, every word was true, and again, the Coroner expressed his sympathy. It seemed he had no sympathy left over for Beckett.

The forensic pathologist testified that the only mark on Beckett’s body was the head wound that killed him. That was entirely consistent with the fall Susie and I had described. The abrasion contained tiny slivers of white paint, identical to the paint on the mantlepiece, on which the CSI had found a scuff mark with flakes of skin, which were identified as from the deceased.

The only other observation the pathologist made was that there was some foreign blood and skin cells on the back of the deceased’s right hand, which turned out from DNA analysis to be from Lord Marsham, and consistent with the deceased having struck the Earl across the face.

Sharpe and Giddings were called, which was a moment of truth for me, but with their testimony the Coroner focused on the background to Beckett’s flight from the police and break-in at Hadleigh Hall, presumably to understand his state of mind prior to his death. Giddings also testified to my interview and subsequent statement, both of which were entirely consistent with the testimony the Coroner had already heard.

At no time in the two hours of the inquest did it occur to anyone to ask how the Earl of Hadleigh had been dressed on the fateful night, and none of the four people who knew mentioned it.

The verdict was ‘Accidental Death’ and the inquest was closed.