Mrs Bennet and the Body in the Library

By Susannah Donim

Chapter Thirteen – Mrs Bennet the Snitch

Even though the show has been closed, Auntie Michelle has to stay on and help the police find the killer.

A uniformed constable had been looking for Giddings for the last hour, but he was new to the team, and had no idea that the inspector and the sergeant had set up their headquarters in Mr Bennet’s study – a communications cock-up for which Sergeant Sharpe was being blamed, especially as she had accidentally left her phone on ‘Silent’. (It had been buzzing away on ‘Vibrate’ in her handbag and none of us had noticed.)

When he was eventually informed of a second fatality on his watch, Giddings gloomily gathered everyone together in the staff room and gave us the news about Douglas. Someone said that it was sad, but presumably he had killed himself from remorse after killing Hannah Matthews, and was it all over now? Could we go home?

The inspector was quick to damp down any such suggestions. The police, he said, were not yet satisfied and the investigation was ‘ongoing’. He was in an odd mood, which I suppose was understandable. This might well be the biggest case of his career, but he would be under a lot of pressure from his superiors, who might blame him for not solving Hannah’s murder in time to prevent a second death. And he still had a lot of suspects…

Since there had been two suspicious deaths at Hadleigh House within forty-eight hours, we were now effectively in quarantine. The Earl and Countess were banned from their own property and the ever-helpful Mary Manners would also not be allowed to set foot here. Dennis was on his way back early from his holiday but he wouldn’t be allowed in either. He arranged to stay at the Hall. Worse for us was that the catering staff were sent home, so we would have to fend for ourselves from now on. There were plenty of provisions in the kitchen, or we could order takeaway, in which case a police officer would have to collect our food from the main gate.

As the meeting broke up, and people went off to do whatever they were able to do in this strange form of lockdown, Giddings invited me along to the ‘command centre’. Holly moved to follow but was firmly prevented by Sergeant Sharpe. I assumed I was going to be interviewed yet again, but that wasn’t it. It seemed I was part of the investigation team now. I wondered what the rest of The Pride and Prejudice Experience cast thought about my privileged position, especially Holly.

There were just the three of us in Mr Bennet’s study, sitting at his small table with coffee and biscuits. Holly had persuaded me to wear my new jeans with a fairly hideous floral top. I agreed because I thought I would be glad to get back in trousers after wearing nothing but dresses for five weeks, but the jeans were tight and nothing like as comfortable as a skirt.

What was worse was that Sergeant Sharpe kept staring at my bottom with her mouth open. The inspector didn’t appear to notice anything remarkable. Perhaps he was now starting to see me as the plump, middle-aged woman I appeared to be (as indeed was I). In any case, I wouldn’t have expected a comment on my appearance from him, complimentary or otherwise.

“It appears Miller fell – or was pushed – from the roof of Hadleigh Hall,” Giddings said through a mouthful of oatmeal biscuit.

“So you think he was murdered too?” I asked.

“Bit of a coincidence otherwise, isn’t it?” he said. “He didn’t seem the suicidal type, but I only spent an hour or so with him. You knew him better. Did he seem to you like the type to kill himself?”

“No,” I agreed. “But he’s been behaving oddly for the last couple of days. We’ve all noticed. He seemed frightened of something. How did he get up there anyway? How did he get into the Hall at all?”

“The Countess gave Mr Vaughan a key to the back door by the kitchens,” said Sharpe, “so that he and cast members could get in and out easily. It’s missing. Mary Manners said they haven’t been setting the alarms lately because of all the visitors and Experience team members coming and going at odd hours. The wardrobe team were often there in the late evening mending and washing costumes. Manners said they knew it was a little risky but it was a nuisance with the alarms going off all the time. So they locked up all the really valuable books, jewellery and artefacts, and came to rely on security devices at the entries to the Estate.”

“There’s a sort of viewing platform that runs all the way along the roof at the back of the Hall,” said Giddings. “The Countess told us that the whole house was rebuilt after a fire in 1886, and the Earl at that time fancied himself as an amateur astronomer. He had telescopes and such like up there. You can get out onto the platform through a door at the end of the passage on the third floor of the West wing.”

“But how on earth would Douglas, or whoever pushed him, have known about all that?” I asked.

“Apparently they run guided tours of the Hall and the grounds on a weekly basis,” said the sergeant. “The view over the fields from up on the platform is quite impressive, I’m told. Mind you, they haven’t done a tour since The Pride and Prejudice Experience opened, so either Douglas or his killer must have been here before then. We’re checking the Visitors’ Book – which is why we’ve asked for samples of everyone’s handwriting – but I don’t hold out much hope. If you’re planning to push someone off a roof, you’re unlikely to have signed your real name.”

“This is getting out of hand,” the inspector continued. “We need more information and quickly. I’m sure we would find out everything we need by our usual methods eventually, but I’m afraid it will take too long. I won’t have any more deaths on my conscience if there’s a way to avoid it.”

He dunked his biscuit in his coffee. Half of it fell off and sank into the murky depths. He didn’t seem to notice. He looked at me piercingly.

“Which is why you’re here, Mr Bradshaw,” he said. “It’s unorthodox – to say the least – to consult one of the suspects in a murder enquiry, especially one we already know to be practising deception on a grand scale…”

“I’ve explained about that,” I said, a little hurt, “and I hardly think ‘grand’ is fair…”

“You know everyone here,” he continued, as if I hadn’t spoken, “so you almost certainly know something which will be helpful, even if you don’t know you know it. Please tell us everything you can think of, even things you suspect but don’t know for certain, whether it seems relevant to you or not.

“Now, Miss Manners discovered the body when she went out to the stable yard to collect the milk. That was at about half past seven. The Hadleigh village milkman doesn’t usually deliver anymore but with The Pride and Prejudice Experience going on, the Hall gets a whole crate and Hadleigh House gets two, so it’s worth his while. He reckons he was at the stables at about six o’clock. It was light enough by then for him to be sure there was no dead body there. So Miller must have fallen between six and seven-thirty. The pathologist says that fits with his initial estimate of the time of death, and his injuries are consistent with a fall from a height of three storeys. What can you tell me about your friends’ movements between those times?”

“Not much,” I said. “Holly and I were in bed till half-past seven, so anyone we saw after that had plenty of time to have done the deed before we surfaced. I did hear doors banging and toilets flushing before we got up, maybe as early as six o’clock, but I didn’t see anybody or hear any voices. We got down to breakfast at about eight.”

I strained to remember the scene.

“Tom had finished and was in one of the armchairs, reading the paper and drinking coffee. Derek and Rob were definitely at the table and nearly finished eating. Diane and Hilary were at the buffet. Linda, Sam and Amy came in after us.”

“That may be helpful,” Giddings said. “We’ll have to ask each of them who they saw and when. See if that tallies with what you remember. It’s a pity none of you actors get up early.”

“Except Douglas and the murderer,” I said. “Oh, and Amy and Sam often go for a run round the Estate before breakfast – usually together.”

“Indeed?” He looked down at his notes. “Let’s begin at the beginning. Tell us everything you know about Amy Longhurst.”

“Er, right, Amy. She’s nice; I can’t believe…” Giddings looked annoyed. “I mean, er, she and Holly are our two best actresses. Holly’s the leading lady type, while Amy is a character actress.” He didn’t seem to like that any better. “I guess I’d better concentrate on her background and personality, hadn’t I?”

“Yes, please.”

“She’s independent and strong-minded,” I said. “She doesn’t let anyone push her around. Her father’s an Army officer and he moved around a lot in his early career, so Amy was packed off to boarding school, which may be what has made her self-sufficient.”

The inspector made a note and muttered something to his sergeant, but I didn’t catch it. Sharpe stood up and went over to the window to make a telephone call out of my earshot.

“I can’t imagine it being relevant, but I think Amy may be gay. She’s not ‘out’ as such, which may make her a little vulnerable. We’ve never talked about it, but there have been signs. I don’t remember her having a boyfriend in the two years I’ve known her. I think she went to the summer ball with her cousin. Hannah isn’t – wasn’t – gay, by the way.

“Regarding Amy’s character: she does have a bit of temper. She practically bit Holly’s head off at a rehearsal when she challenged something I said about her performance. I was speaking out of turn, but Amy supported me forcefully.”

The sergeant had ended her call and returned to the table. I suddenly realised that telling a copper that my friend was quick to anger might not have been in her best interests.

“I can’t see Amy as a murderer though,” I added hurriedly. “As I said, she’s nice.”

“If you say so,” said Giddings cynically, “but I will share something with you, which you must keep to yourself. When our team searched the bedrooms yesterday, we found a maid’s apron with significant splashes of blood on it. We’re testing it, but I suspect it will turn out to be your sister’s.”

That was a shock. “Where was it?”

“In the laundry basket in Amy’s room,” said Sharpe. “You were all still in costume when the search was conducted, so she was wearing one of her three aprons. There was one more in her wardrobe, but the third was missing. The bloody one in the laundry basket was exactly the same as the others.”

“It’s not conclusive, of course,” said Giddings. “Amy shares a room with Samantha Spears, and anyone could have borrowed one of Amy’s spare aprons and later disposed of it in her basket to frame her, but still...”

I couldn’t believe it of Amy, but still…

Sharpe’s phone rang. She stepped away from the table again to answer it.

“Was there anything between her and Douglas Miller?” asked Giddings.

“Not that I know of. Do you think she was the one Tom overheard talking to him yesterday morning?”

I should have known by now that a police detective asks questions; he doesn’t answer them.

“And you don’t think she knew Hannah at all?” he continued.

I was about to answer in the negative but Sharpe interrupted. “That was one of the DCs calling back, sir,” she said. “Miss Longhurst was at St Anne’s. It’s an all-girls boarding school in the Peak District.”

“Oh!” I said. The two detectives looked at me expectantly. “I’m not sure – you’ll need to check – but I think that’s where Hannah went too…”

“Which means they may well have known each other,” said Giddings. “Miss Longhurst never mentioned that.”

“Amy would have been at least one, maybe two years below Hannah,” I said.

“Nevertheless, I think we have good reason to interview her again,” said Giddings. “Now what can you tell us about Samantha Spears?”

I tried to gather my thoughts. “Right, well, as you’ve seen for yourselves, Sam is very attractive, and she has never wanted for male company… as it were. To continue my actress metaphor: Sam would be the siren, the femme fatale.” I chuckled. “She has even come on to me a couple of times when Holly wasn’t around.

“I’m not sure about her family background,” I continued. “I think she may have been brought up by a single mother. She never talks about her father, but she did once say something about being abused as a child. In any case I don’t think she’s very well off. She’s the only one of us apart from Douglas who took a Gap Year between school and university, but unlike him, she didn’t go travelling. She had to work to raise enough money for Uni – various minimum wage jobs in London, I believe.”

Giddings turned to the sergeant. “Can you get the team to try and trace what jobs Samantha Spears worked two years ago, and where she lived?”

Sharpe stepped away again to make another call.

“Anything between Miss Spears and Hannah?” asked Giddings.

“Not as far as I know,” I said. “Most of my close friends at Uni knew I had a stepsister, but I didn’t talk about her much. Sam certainly never mentioned her name to me, but then she’d have no reason to.”

“Did Samantha know Miller outside of the university Drama class?”

“Again, I don’t really know. I’m pretty sure they never had a relationship, in fact I don’t think she liked him much, but then none of us liked Douglas. He’s… sorry, he was a prat. Pardon me for speaking ill of the dead.”

To my surprise Giddings smiled grimly. “In my experience most people who get murdered tend to be unpleasant in some way. Now what about Diane Simms? We’re going to have to talk to her about her conversation with Hannah in the dressing room – the conversation she denied having.”

“Right, well, Diane is the quiet one. Her father’s a fairly junior civil servant and her mother’s a nursery school teacher. Respectable middle-class upbringing in the Midlands. She’s always friendly; not a bad word for anyone. But I think she lacks confidence, and she’s easily led, and every now and then a little spitefulness comes out, like she’s trying to be one of the ‘mean girls’.”

I was remembering when she joined in with Sam and Holly to laugh at me being cast as Mrs Bennet. Was it really fair to call her ‘spiteful’ just for that? And to the police in a murder investigation?

“Anyway, I’d say she was a follower not a leader. For what it’s worth, Holly doesn’t rate her as an actress at all. She doesn’t think Diane will continue with Drama in her third year.”

We spent another half an hour with me telling the two detectives everything I knew about my classmates, which wasn’t much. I hardly knew Derek or Rob, except that Derek was very clever – straight Firsts, probably going to be a professor one day – and Rob was always smiling. Everybody liked Rob. I knew a little more about Hilary but nothing useful. I mentioned that she was a decent actress but struggled in class. Being brutally honest, I said to the inspector, I didn’t feel she was clever enough to plan a murder, let alone get away with two.

“Nobody’s got away with anything yet,” muttered Giddings.

“Right, sorry,” I said. “For what it’s worth, I can’t see any of those three as murderers, and I don’t know of any links between them and Hannah. I don’t think any of them hanged out with Douglas outside class either.”

Giddings looked at his watch.

“Which just leaves Holly Woodbridge.”

“I thought we’d agreed Holly wasn’t a suspect?”

“You said that,” the inspector said. “I didn’t. I think we can assume she knows everything you know – which means she knew Hannah.”

“But they never met!”

“Very well, she knew of her. If you inherit Hannah’s share of your stepfather’s estate, and she marries you…”

“We’ve never discussed marriage!” Which was almost true. We’d both been drunk at the time and the subject hadn’t come up since. (Well, Holly wouldn’t be thinking about marrying her ‘Auntie Michelle’, would she?) Anyway she might have been too drunk to remember now.

“Still a possible motive,” Giddings argued.

“But her family’s wealthy too,” I said.

“Actually, I’d describe the Woodbridges as comfortable. Keith Matthews is wealthy.”

“Have you looked into all our finances?” I bristled.

“Of course, and your parents too.”

At that moment Sharpe’s phone rang. She answered it and walked away again.

“Well, she certainly couldn’t have pushed Douglas off the roof,” I said. “I can swear she was in bed with me from 6.30 to 7.30.”

“What time did you wake up? She could have gone out while you were still asleep.”

“No, actually,” I said, slightly embarrassed. “We’d had an early night and we were awake at half six and… busy… until we got up.”

The inspector nodded remotely. He might have been smiling on the inside I suppose.

“Of course, we can’t assume that both murders were committed by the same person – or even that Miller’s death was murder. You can’t give Miss Woodbridge an alibi for Hannah, can you?”

“No, but I can’t believe…”

“Neither can I, actually,” he interrupted, “but I have to keep an open mind. Another possibility is that Miller killed Hannah, and then someone else killed him, maybe in revenge.”

“Me, you mean? I wouldn’t kill someone for offing Hannah!” One Giddings eyebrow lifted. “Well, I hardly knew her.”

“But your only alibi for Miller’s murder is Miss Woodbridge, correct? And you’re hers?”

I couldn’t deny it, so I said nothing.

“We have to keep looking for connections to find a motive,” said Giddings. “Then we may have our murderer – or murderers.”

Sharpe turned back to the table.

“This may help with motive, sir,” she said, hanging up the phone. “It seems Hannah Matthews was known to the police in London. She was arrested last autumn for running a disorderly house.”

“My sister ran a brothel? She was a… a madam?”

“On a small scale, I believe,” Sharpe said. “But not only that; other names we know came up at the same time.”

She paused and looked at her boss. He got the message immediately.

“Yes, quite right, Sergeant.” He turned back to me. “I’m sorry, Mr Bradshaw. I can’t let you be privy to this new information.”

“But…”

“I promise I will tell you everything I can – especially about your sister’s apparently murky past – as soon as possible.”

He indicated that my role as a consulting detective was over, and I was to return to being just Mrs Michelle Bradshaw, forty-year-old amateur actress. I got up and left them to it.

* * *

I made my way to the staff room. The French windows at the back were open and most of the cast were out on the veranda soaking up the August sun.

Rob saw me first. “Ah, we were wondering where you’d got to, Michelle,” he called cheerily. It takes more than two deaths in forty-eight hours to dent Rob’s joie de vivre. “Go and get your bikini on and come and get a tan.”

“I haven’t brought a swimsuit with me,” I said.

“Well, just strip down to your bra and panties then,” said Sam. “I’m sure the boys won’t mind.”

She knew full well that my prosthetic breasts, bum and thighs couldn’t tan. I ignored her. Holly had risen from her deckchair and was heading in my direction.

“Upstairs, now,” she snapped. “Tell me everything.”

She dragged me up to our bedroom (with my cooperation – she could never have hauled my big, jiggly body anywhere if I resisted) and closed the door firmly. We sat down on my camp bed. I told her everything the cops had told me – well, they didn’t tell me not to, did they? – except the bit about the blood on Amy’s apron. I was supposed to keep that to myself, so I did.

“Hellfire!” she muttered when I reached the end of the story. “We obviously can’t trust anyone. So who’s your money on?”

“Well, until this morning I would have said Douglas, but now…”

“Do you buy the idea of two killers?”

“That seems very unlikely,” I said. “I think the key to this is what was going on at Hannah’s flat last summer. She seems to have been running some sort of amateur sex ring…”

“Very enterprising of her,” Holly said sarcastically.

“Pretty stupid, actually. She obviously had no idea what she was getting into. It would have attracted a lot of attention – strange men coming and going at all hours…”

“Was Douglas one of them, do you think?”

“He admitted to living there for a while.”

“Perhaps he was her pimp,” she said.

“Funny,” I said. “Pimps have to be able to handle themselves to deal with badly-behaved punters. Douglas was an arrogant prick, but a strong wind would have blown him over. I think Hannah was probably lucky the police caught her. Rival sex worker gangs would have terminated her business more ruthlessly. Mind you, the sergeant said her operation – if that’s not too grandiose a term – was strictly small scale.”

“She also said ‘other people we know’ were involved, did she? So who else was screwing or being screwed for cash at Hannah’s Little Whorehouse?”

Holly could be quite vulgar at times, or maybe becoming a forty-year-old matron had made me prudish.

“They wouldn’t tell me. The only other person we know with a link to my sister is Amy,” I said, doubtfully. “They were at school together, albeit a couple of years apart.”

“I can’t see Amy being a murderer though, can you? She’s too…” She struggled for the right word.

“Nice?”

“Yes, nice. Also, they weren’t contemporaries. I mean, I never had anything to do with girls two years above or below me at school. So they were hardly likely to be close, were they?”

I agreed. This wasn’t getting us anywhere.

“Well, for now, you are the only person I can trust,” I said, “and, I hope, vice versa?”

“Absolutely,” she agreed. “Also, it’s worrying that almost everyone in the house knows your little secret – probably including the murderer.”

“True, but we were up front with the cops, after your initial misstep, so I can’t see how anyone can use it against me, can you?”

“No, but I still think we have to get away from here.”

I looked at her in surprise. “Hang on, if we try and leave, Giddings will think we’re guilty.”

“It’s a matter of self-preservation!” she protested. “Hannah was your sister and suddenly you discover you’re rich! You’re at the centre of this somehow, and that makes me a target too! The cops clearly can’t protect us when they don’t know who they’re protecting us from!”

“Actually, the inspector said he was going to have two officers patrolling the house all night.”

“Not good enough! They can’t watch all of us, all the time. The killer has already taken big risks of being caught in the act. It won’t help either of us if they get caught the third time but we’re dead!”

I began to realise that Holly was genuinely frightened; so perhaps I ought to be too.

We made our plans.

* * *

We stuck together closely for the rest of the afternoon. Dinner was a muted affair. Holly insisted that everything we ate came from either the freezer or out a tin, and we didn’t share anything with anyone. She also made me open a bottle of wine and inspect the cork and its wrapping for any sign of tampering. Not that I knew what to look for. Once it was open and being shared around, I wasn’t allowed a second glass from that bottle. We got a lot of funny looks that evening.

We retired early. When we were sure we weren’t going to be disturbed we packed a few things in my old rucksack. While Holly was in the bathroom I wrote a little note for Giddings and asked the copper patrolling the landing to pass it to him in the morning. We got into bed but didn’t undress. Holly wanted to get some sleep until it was time to go. I promised to wake her when the time was right. I put my bedside light on to do some reading.

* * *

I awoke suddenly, cursing because I hadn’t intended to go to sleep at all. I checked my watch. It was around two o’clock. I decided to let Holly sleep a little longer. Neither of us believed that Giddings’ plods would actually stay awake all night, so the plan was that I would go downstairs as quietly as I could, and see if the coast was clear. If I could see a way to leave the house without being stopped, I would come back and fetch Holly. We weren’t sure how exactly we would get out of the Hadleigh Estate, but we decided we had to try. If the main gate was impassable, surely there would be a gap in the fence somewhere or a low wall we could climb over.

I put the bedside light out and made my way downstairs as quietly as I could, which wasn’t easy considering how heavy and ungainly I was now. I tried to remember which stairs and floorboards creaked. There was no sign of life. I groped my way by moonlight through the kitchen to the staff room, wishing I still had my phone to light the way.

If I was challenged by a copper I could always say I was hungry for a midnight snack, although they might be suspicious that I hadn’t put any lights on and I was fully dressed. I quickly decided our best chance would be to go out through the French windows at the back of the house. The police might not even know there was a possible exit route there.

Everything went according to plan. I didn’t see anyone. I didn’t hear a sound. If there really were two coppers still in the building, I saw no sign of them. Perhaps the inspector had told them they could knock off at midnight. Perhaps he thought just warning us that they would be there would be enough to dissuade anyone from trying to leave.

I hurried back up to give Holly the good news. I didn’t bother creeping silently now that I knew there were no guards to hear me. A couple of the stairs creaked loudly. At the top a particularly noisy floorboard registered its disapproval of my excessive weight.

On the landing I thought I heard a door further down the corridor close and what sounded like running footsteps, but I got back to our bedroom without incident. Time to wake Holly up and leave, if we were going.

She was still asleep. I gave her a gentle shake. Nothing. Then a not so gentle shake. I felt a sticky, gooey liquid on her cheek. I put the bedside light on again. There was a large red stain all over the pillow.

Next: Mrs Bennet Confronts the Killer