Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 122, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 745 & 746, September/October 2003

Barbara Cleverly’s first novel, The Last Kashmiri Rose, was published in the U.K. by Constable & Robinson in 2001, followed by Carroll & Graf’s U.S. release in 2002. With the book, now available in paperback, hailed as “spellbinding” by the New York Times, and two others in the same series, Ragtime in Simla and The Damascene Blade, out in hardcover, Ms. Cleverly has turned to short stories — this one featuring architect-sleuth Ellie Hardwick.

1

The two bodies were lying side by side in the south aisle of the church of Tilbrook St. George. The figure on the right, an armoured knight, his hands folded in prayer, his feet resting on a lion, was impressive enough, but it was the pallid alabaster beauty of the lady at his side which took the breath away. Her delicate hands were peacefully folded below her breast, her feet rested on a tasselled cushion. The knight had lain here in this quiet place carved in white stone for nearly six hundred years. His lady was of flesh and blood and was newly dead. He had a dagger at his side; she had a dagger in her heart.

I might have run screaming from the church. I ought to have checked for a pulse. I did neither of these practical things. I stood and gazed. It occurred to me even then that I was reacting to the scene as I was intended to react, for, in that moment of terrified discovery, the macabre display was beautiful and full of meaning.

The early-morning sun angled through the stained-glass windows, stencilling the pament floor with a pattern of rich colour: vert, sable — how easily the heraldic colours sprang to mind in this theatrical moment — gules and azure, that rare blue still sometimes to be seen in untouched medieval churches. The seemingly peaceful couple were framed by a canopy of pale, sunlit stone. Sir John Hartest, survivor of the Battle of Agincourt, lay in plate armour, gauntleted hands resting on his chest, helmeted head encircled by a jewelled wreath. At his left hip on a richly sculpted baldrick was carved a dagger with an ornate gilded hilt. His features were serene; as the sunshine slid across his face he seemed almost to smile.

At first sight the figure by his side appeared no less serene. Closed eyes, a dreaming face, her pallor a match for his alabaster. Her long fair hair had been arranged to frame her face before spilling over the edge of the tomb. The long white dress she was wearing had been carefully draped and folded; a girdle traced the sinuous line between her legs. I brought my eyes back to her breast and to the head of the dagger, very slightly to the left and very precisely into the heart.

I started as frozen emotion began to run again and the paralysing spell of the scene lost its grip. I looked away and then forced myself to focus once more on the dagger. But how could it...? Surely not! I peered more closely at the hilt, professional curiosity taking over for a moment. And then I looked back at the one at Sir John Hartest’s side. A representation of a vicious stabbing dagger, possibly of Spanish manufacture and designed to penetrate plate armour with a short, underhand stroke. A misericorde. The word meant compassion — pity. Such blades were often used to put dying soldiers out of their misery on the battlefield. What kind of sick trickery was I witnessing? The carved stone dagger and the wrought steel dagger were identical.

The Sleeping Beauty bewitchment of the tableau was fading rapidly now and reality was crowding in. Hasty and fearful, I looked round the church, belatedly considering the possibility of a murderer lurking behind the pews, under the velvet hangings, in the vestry — there were a hundred places to hide in a medieval church and I knew them all. My eye roamed over the nave and was caught by the grotesque and inquisitive features of a carved oak devil, one of the bench end figures, eager, apparently, to enjoy this violent event which had shattered his centuries of unwelcome peace. Imperceptibly, the sun changed its angle and a rosy glow began to creep over the white cheeks of the dead girl, infusing her with life before my disbelieving eyes.

With a dry rustle and a clearing of the throat, the ancient machinery of the church clock gathered itself and launched into its ten-o’clock strike. Not with a shriek, but with a very female whimper, I fled down the aisle towards the heavy oak door.

I’m an architect. I spend my life working in old churches and ancient buildings — that sort of architect. I’ve seen ghosts, even unwittingly addressed a few words to one or two, but I had never been terrified in an old building before. And yet it was terror that snapped at my ankles as I ran down the aisle, fought with the massive old box lock, and burst out into the blessed spring sunshine, the birdsong, and the cool breeze of a Suffolk morning. I ran down the path towards the safety of my old Golf.

In the deep shadow of the lych gate I cannoned off a hard body.

“Where are you rushing off to, I wonder?” came a far from friendly male voice. I looked up to see my client, the man with whom I had a ten-o’clock appointment. My client, Edward Hartest, or, as his letterhead had it: “The Honble. Edward Hartest, J.P.” “Not fleeing the field already, are you? For God’s sake — I’m only thirty seconds late! I take it you are my church architect?” He tapped the top of my hard hat. “Of course. Who else would wear one of these ugly things? Hang on — you’re upset! Has something happened? Now look here, Miss... er... I don’t know what’s happened, but hysterics won’t help. Pull yourself together if you can and tell me what’s going on here!”

He smelled of hay and diesel oil. He was wearing an ancient checked shirt and jeans, the uniform of a farmer in May. I didn’t like him much and I certainly wasn’t going to be patronised by him. I glared. “Will you move out of my way, please! I’ve got to get to my phone!”

He stood aside, waving me past him with mocking formality, and watched me, quizzically enquiring and infuriatingly at ease, while I unlocked my car, reached into the glove compartment, and found my phone. With a very unsteady forefinger I stabbed out 999.

“Hello? Yes, police, please.”

Pause.

“Police? There’s a dead body in Tilbrook Church.” I prayed the operator wouldn’t take me for a hoaxer. “Yes, that’s Tilbrook St. George, three miles west of the A140 and five miles south of Mendlesett.” And I added ridiculously, “I suspect foul play.” Where do such expressions come from? “My name’s Ellie Hardwick. I’m the church architect. Yes, of course I can stay put. About fifteen minutes? As long as that? Okay. Yes, of course. Thanks.”

I snapped shut the phone and looked at Edward Hartest. His astonishment and dismay were all that I could have asked for. Without a word he turned and began to run up the path to the church.

“Oy! Stop!” I called after him. “Mr. Hartest, you shouldn’t go in there! Wait for the police!”

He stopped and waited for me to catch up with him. “Now, listen! It’s my church and if some clown’s dumped a body in there I’ve a right to know about it. If you’re scared, you can wait outside.” He paused for a moment and went on, “On second thoughts, you’re right. I’d be a fool to go blundering around in a crime scene without a witness, so you’ll have to be it. Come on!”

He tucked my arm firmly under his — partially as a support but more, I believed, to stop me running off again — pushed open the door, and marched me into the church. We set off to walk up the aisle, the strangest couple to undertake this walk together in the thousand years of its existence, I thought: middle-aged farmer, boots treading grass and earth up the smooth red Wilton, and me, a Lego figure in the firm’s green overalls and white plastic hard hat.

“The table tomb,” I whispered. “She’s laid out on the tomb. East end, south transept.”

He stood to gaze down at the scene which had held me spellbound moments before. I watched him closely. He made the sign of the cross and went on looking, drinking in every detail. An expression of great sadness came over him, sadness which burned away the irritation between us. It was clear the girl was known to him, possibly even well known.

“My God,” he muttered, and again, shaking his head, “My God!”

“Do you know her? Family?” I asked diffidently.

“Yes,” he said. “Well, almost. Let me present...” He gestured to the figures on the tomb. “...on the right, my ancestor, Sir John Hartest, first Baron Brancaster, and on the left, the mortal remains of the future Lady Brancaster, my son’s fiancée. At least — she was the future Lady B., but not anymore, it seems.”

I didn’t know what to say. Polite phrases of condolence would have been out of place but he looked at me questioningly, expecting some sort of response.

“She’s — she was — beautiful,” I said hesitantly. “I think, no, I’m sure, I’ve seen her somewhere before...”

“You’d have had to have been living on Mars not to recognise her,” he said surprisingly. “This is Taro Tyler. She’s staying with us.”

“Taro Tyler! Oh yes, how stupid of me not to have seen it! It’s just that... with her eyes closed... those wonderful green eyes... she’s not so recognisable perhaps.”

Those remarkable eyes now growing milky under their stiffening lids — I’d seen them smiling out from the side of every bus in London, working their magic in countless up-market TV cosmetics ads.

“Thank you. It’s tactful of you to mention the eyes.”

Was there irony in what he said? I didn’t doubt it and it made me angry. Her eyes, lovely though they were, had received far less publicity than her famous breasts. Every man in the country knew their size — 36D — most had run lustful eyes over them on page three of tabloid newspapers. It shocked me that, however obliquely, he should be calling up the memory as we gazed in fascinated revulsion at the rust-fringed puncture in that glorious, money-spinning bosom.

“ ‘On her left breast/A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops/I’ the bottom of a cowslip,’ ” he murmured, but he wasn’t really talking to me.

“Why do you suppose there’s so little blood?” I whispered, my eyes drawn to the red-brown patch encircling the dagger blade. “There’s just the merest trickle.”

“It’s been expertly done. The dagger was placed with precision and left in the wound. It’s a skillful job, a surgical job, not a wild, crazed stabbing. But perhaps it was just a lucky stroke?” He shrugged. “At any rate, I don’t think we’re going to find any blood-drenched overalls in the graveyard dustbin.”

“But how do you get a girl to just lie there while you plunge a dagger into her heart? Or was she killed somewhere else and the body brought here and arranged like this? And where on earth would you come by precisely the same dagger as the old man’s got at his side? That’s a misericorde, I think. It’s all so deliberate! Look at her hair. It’s been arranged to fall like that. Her dress — someone’s folded it. And what would Taro Tyler be doing wearing an outfit like that anyway? It looks medieval!”

I gasped as the connection struck me.

“Only just caught on?” he asked acidly.

“She’s meant to look like — be a replica of — the original figure... the figure I was supposed to be inspecting with you this morning.”

“I think so. Your firm sent some chaps last week to remove Sir John’s alabaster wife, Lady Alienore. She was in need of remedial treatment. We called your boss, who said, ‘Awfully sorry, I shall be away on holiday in Puglia but — tell you what — I’ll send you my assistant. She’s young and highly qualified, a sound art historian. Pretty girl, too,’ he added. Recognise yourself? I had the remains of the first Lady Brancaster placed over there in the corner on that tarpaulin.” He nodded towards the bell tower and to an ordered pile of pale-gleaming fragments rising from which I could make out a single white hand pointing forlornly heavenwards.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” I said, and for a moment it seemed horribly likely.

“No you’re not,” he said. “Have a thought for the Suffolk Constabulary. They’ll have quite enough bodily fluids to put under their microscope without being distracted by extraneous and irrelevant ones from the visiting architect. Pull yourself together!”

He’d said it again! No one had told me to pull myself together since primary school. I breathed deeply, beginning sincerely to dislike Edward Hartest. I waved away the red spotted handkerchief he held out. “No thanks, Mr. Hartest. I find that, after all, my stiff upper lip is equal to the task of keeping back the vomit.”

“Good show,” he said. “Keep it on board. And look here, Miss Hardwick...”

“Ellie, call me Ellie,” I said impatiently.

“Fine. And you might as well call me Edward. Now, look here, Ellie, I want you to note a few things before the police get here. I’m certain that we can rely on them to use the full range of their forensic techniques but...”

“I know what you’re getting at. Not straightforward, is it? It’s as though someone’s left a challenge. If it weren’t such a gruesome thought, I might even say someone’s playing a game.”

“Yes, and I have a feeling I may know the identity of this joker. Do you see, over there, just below the scrolled edge — don’t touch it, for God’s sake! — there’s a smudge.”

“A fingerprint,” I said firmly. “In blood!”

We looked at each other in silence for a moment until outside in the real world, one by one, cars crunched to a halt.

A Detective Inspector Jennings accompanied by a detective sergeant and a uniformed officer marched competently in through the door and up the aisle. He made his way towards us, holding up his credentials for our inspection, unnecessarily, it seemed, as the Hon Edward greeted him with an easy, “Oh, hallo there, Richard.” After briefly establishing who I was and my role in the discovery of the body, the inspector courteously invited us to get out of the church by the fastest route and to avoid treading again on the carpet. I noticed that he spoke to Edward Hartest formally but with an underlying deference and I remembered — not only Honourable but also J.P., a local magistrate. This heir of an ancient family moved smoothly into action and, replying with just the right blend of formality and charm, informed the inspector that we would leave the scene of crime clear for the investigating officers and go to await his questions in the comfort of the library at Tilbrook Hall, where he trusted Richard would be able to join us later for coffee. Edward picked up my briefcase, put a chivalrous arm around my shoulders, and led me out into the sunshine.

Through the thin cotton of my overalls I could feel the solicitous arm shaking perceptibly.

As we left, uniformed policemen were cordoning off the churchyard with plastic tape, one firmly standing his ground and denying access to an indignant, weather-beaten lady. “Young man, kindly move aside. I always do the flowers on a Wednesday!”

We seemed to be in an earlier world where deference to the squire was in order. I was impressed to see the scene-of-crime officer, red-faced but determined, stand his ground. “But not this Wednesday, I’m afraid, madam,” I heard him say cheerfully.

A middle-aged figure, bespectacled and distinguished, climbed out of his Volvo, an assistant carrying his medical bag. The pathologist? “Got a little local difficulty, I hear, Edward?” he said easily.

“Local, Gordon, but I’m not so sure about little,” said Edward.

Am I the only outsider here? I wondered resentfully. They’re all paid-up members of the Tilbrook St. George Self-Appreciation Society (Founded 1415)!

The Hall was only five minutes’ walk from the church. A gable end was visible above the surrounding trees and the five-shafted cluster of a chimney stack broke the skyline. Fifteenth-century was my first impression. A fine house. A gracious and welcoming house. I was shown into the library and a tray of coffee was placed at my elbow while Edward went off to break the news of the death to his son Rupert, “still abed” according to the housekeeper, and to his father, the current Lord Brancaster, an invalid who kept to his room. I passed the time taking from my briefcase the file on Tilbrook Church. Meticulously kept, the notes went back for thirty years. The building was in first-class condition, scrupulously kept up by the Hartest family. The damage to Alienore had been caused by an overzealous Victorian insertion of iron cramps and I had been called in to advise on the restoration. Intrigued to see the original appearance of the tomb, I spread out on the library table a set of black-and-white photographs we kept as a record in the file.

I looked and looked again at the pictures of the original Alienore, intrigued and mystified. I compared them with the startling scene I had just witnessed and, unbelieving, I began to arrive at a shocking conclusion. And then there was the Latin inscription running round the tomb. This reinforced my theory. The words were an easily translatable, common enough formula until I got to the last word.

What I saw written there was a motive for murder. And it had been there, unremarked, for nearly six hundred years.

I decided it would be a good idea to scramble out of my unglamorous overalls, though the jeans and yellow T-shirt this manoeuvre revealed were hardly more appropriate to the leather bindings, the gilded titles, and the polished oak of these gracious surroundings. Even so, I was more suitably dressed than the young man who now appeared in the doorway. Rupert Hartest looked every inch the bereaved fiancé. Stunned, inarticulate, dressed in a white bathrobe, his black hair flopping unbrushed and still damp from his shower, he stood and stared at me.

He was very good-looking in a brooding, dark way, and very young. I guessed that he was probably in his early twenties and a year or two younger than me. He joined me at the table and listened in silent horror to the story I had to tell him, dabbing his eyes with the trailing end of his bathrobe. When I fell silent, he sniffed, and whispered gruffly, “Oh, Taro! Consistent to the last! You silly little trollop!” He paused for a moment, smiled a crooked smile, and added, “But what an exit!”

Deeply puzzled, I pretended not to have heard, and said, “Your father thinks he knows who’s responsible...”

“Theo Tindall,” he said bitterly, “that’s who he’s got in his sights. The photographer. Taro’s manager, friend, ex-partner, and purveyor of strange substances to Taro and others — including myself.” He shook his head as though he could shake out memories. “Hateful man! He was staying with us, too, just for the week — at Taro’s invitation, of course. Perhaps I don’t need to say that he’s disappeared. Room’s empty, though his things are still lying around all over the floor. Mrs. Rose, our housekeeper, says he and Taro went out together in his car early this morning at about seven o’clock.”

I told him about the bloody fingerprint on the tomb.

His relief was obvious. “Well, they’ll nail him then, no sweat.” He paused for a moment, thoughtful, and then added, “Funny, though... what possible motive could there have been? He had every reason to keep Taro in good health. He made a lot of money out of her. He discovered her and flogged her talents to the media. Took a large cut of the proceeds. He didn’t seem to resent her getting engaged to me — he introduced us, in fact, and with all the publicity she could whip up over the society wedding, he, they, stood to make even more. Odd, that...”

He poured himself a cup of coffee and turned his attention to the photographs. His father had already described to him the scene of death but he made me go over again the details of the appearance of the corpse. “The dagger,” he said finally, pointing to the carving. “There’s a real one in a trophy of arms in the drawing room, the twin of this. I looked in before I came to the library. It’s missing. A misericorde, you’re right. And I bet if I looked in the chest on the landing I’d find that a long white nightgown and a pair of white satin ballet shoes have gone missing, too.”

“But do you think she changed into them willingly? Was Taro part of the impersonation, do you think?”

“Certain of it! Just the sort of offbeat humour she went in for. Bet it was all her idea. I can imagine what they were both up to! What a laugh! Dress up as the first Lady Brancaster and pose, probably with a lot of bosom showing, on the family tomb which somebody has conveniently cleared for them. Theo snaps away and flogs the result to... oh, any one of a hundred papers. You can imagine the headlines! Blast them!”

“But wouldn’t she have been a bit more circumspect... I mean... have held off from offending the ancient family she was about to marry into? Surely?”

Rupert snorted. “She had no respect for that sort of thing. She was one of those who cheered when the hereditary peers were kicked out of the House of Lords. I’ve always thought it was Taro and her sarcastic tongue that gave Grandfather his heart attack.”

“Is that possible?”

He grimaced at the memory. “It happened at her first dinner here. She said something deliberately calculated to get up Grandfather’s nose and then announced that she and I were engaged to be married and he’d better get used to hearing her opinions. She declared that she’d make every effort to talk me out of taking up the title when the time came. And even if I did take it up, she’d make sure any children we had were daughters so it would die out. Bluffing, of course, but the old chap’s heard of test-tube babies and DNA and all that, and I think he believed she could do it. Poor old bloke sent for his doctor and went to his room. He hasn’t come downstairs since. Doc says he’s got a heart condition and has to avoid stress. He’s over eighty now. Seems a bit strange in these days, perhaps,” Rupert looked at me assessingly, wondering whether he need explain, “but he really is obsessed by — lost in — family history. Heraldry, pedigrees... His family motto... our family motto... is ‘Who dies, if Hartest live!’ ”

I must have looked bewildered because with an apologetic smile he said, “ ‘To hell with everyone else — so long as Hartest survives.’ Nice!”

Rupert’s eye flicked to a photograph on the mantelpiece and I went over to look at it. Three generations of the Hartest men were lined up on the lawn, smiling, relaxed, at the camera.

“There, you see, until the last few weeks Grandpa was always fighting fit — literally fighting fit! He was a commando in the War and kept himself in shape. Tried to teach me and Dad all his skills. More successful with Dad — he was in the Coldstream.”

“Are you a soldier, too?”

“I was for about eighteen months. Tried it for Grandpa’s sake. Went through the motions. Got out. It wasn’t for me. I’m afraid I’m more the arty type, like my mother was. She died five years ago.”

“And in spite of all Taro had done, you were still prepared to go ahead with the marriage?” I couldn’t hide my incredulity and disapproval.

His face softened. “You never knew her, did you? It’s hard for those who didn’t know her to understand. She was magic... well, she magicked me, anyway. She was wild, ruthless even, and she could be a ferocious little bitch — I knew it. But the magic made all that of no concern. Made! Christ! It continues to work! She’s gone — but I can’t believe it.

“I loved her. And there was another reason. She was pregnant. Not very, but enough to make us name an earlyish date.” He sighed. “No illegitimate children acknowledged in the Hartest family for six hundred years. Not going to start now, though Taro wouldn’t have cared, I suppose.”

He was silent, deep in thought, and then he began to fidget. “Look, Dad’ll be down soon and he won’t be amused to see me still in my bathrobe. He thinks I’m pretty dissolute... I’ll just go upstairs and get kitted out. Stay here, I won’t be a minute.”

I was left alone but for the company of a Jacobean Hartest whose harsh white face under a black periwig stared down at me watchful, austere, and calculating from its gilded frame. I felt a sadness so oppressive that I put my head in my hands and tried to force back tears. Two innocent lives had been lost on that marble slab this morning. The girl and her unborn child were unknown to me, but I mourned them. And underlying the sorrow was a barely understood suspicion of the Hartest men and their motives, suspicion not unmixed with fear. I looked at my watch and wondered how much longer I would have to wait here. I found I really didn’t want to have any further dealings with this family. Three generations of trained killers were loose in this house and one of them was determined enough and ruthless enough to have got rid of an inconvenient little trollop. I looked again at the photograph of the table tomb, at the frozen features and flowing hair of the lovely Alienore, and I understood that an ancient tragedy had sent its echo on through the centuries to be replayed in front of my eyes this spring morning.

2

How soon could I get away from this place? I listened anxiously for the sound of a police car. My thoughts were redirected by Rupert. He slipped back into the room and tapped a finger on one of the photographs of the Lady Alienore.

“Always puzzled me, this,” he said. “I’ve spent hours in church on Sundays looking, enchanted, at this figure, and there’s something about her I’ve never understood. Dad says you’re an art historian? Well, tell me, Ellie.” He indicated the flowing hairstyle of the stone image. “In all the other table tombs I’ve seen, the ladies have their hair gathered up into a headdress. Why is this one different?”

Should I tell him? Would he want to hear? I’ve never been able to keep knowledge to myself. “That’s the key to the whole mystery, Rupert,” I said. He looked genuinely at a loss so I went on, “In those times it was the fashion for women to have their hair dressed and caught up in concealing coifs... if you were a respectable, married woman, that is.”

“But Alienore was all that! What are you trying to say?”

“That in those days this sumptuous spread of tresses was seen as the outward badge — the emblem, if you like — of a common prostitute. Whoever put this here knew it and wanted succeeding generations to know it, too. Sir John was announcing this to the world in sculpture. Vilifying his wife for eternity. An obscure but neat way of getting his own back for what he saw as his wife’s shortcomings.”

“Interesting theory, but a bit thin, I think. Impossible to read that much into a hairstyle.”

“Perhaps, but there’s something else. Look here... and here...” I pointed to the inscription which ran around the sides of the tomb. “Know any Latin, Rupert?”

“Enough,” he said. “This, at any rate — I’ve known it for years.” He started to translate the lines about Sir John, his date of death and age at death.

“It’s the short statement about Alienore that’s important,” I said.

“Easy,” said Rupert. “ ‘Hic iacet Alienora Iohannis Hartestis uxor.’ That means ‘Here lies Alienore, wife of John Hartest.’ ”

“But that’s not the end of the sentence. My firm is nothing if not thorough, and back in the past someone must have thought he was not doing his job properly if he failed to check out the condition of the fourth side of the tomb.”

“But you can’t see it. It’s hidden — it’s right up against a half-height run of panelling.”

“As I said — we’re thorough. Someone must have taken down a bit of the panelling to observe the north face and recorded what he saw in a photo — this one.”

“There’s a bit more Latin,” said Rupert, surprised. “But you’ve got me this time. I can’t translate that.”

“I can,” I said slowly. “It’s a continuation of the inscription about Alienore. The whole thing reads: ‘Hic iacet Alienora Iohannis Hartestis uxor et meretrix.’ A slap in the face from beyond the grave.”

“Ellie — please stop showing off and tell me — what the hell does ‘et meretrix’ mean?”

“It means ‘and harlot.’ It says, ‘Alienore — wife and harlot.’ It means, Rupert, that Sir John considered his wife a — what did you say earlier? — a silly little trollop.”

We looked at each other steadily for a moment. The fire crackled. Somewhere a clock struck eleven.

“What are you saying?” Rupert’s voice was smooth and quiet.

“I’m saying that for some men — for some families — the idea of the purity of the line was very important. We’ll never know whether your ancestor went as far as killing his lovely young wife — not unknown in those days — but the legitimacy of his offspring would have been vital to him. If Alienore had been pregnant — inexplicably pregnant — and don’t forget that these old knights were quite frequently away from home, for years on end sometimes — then horrors might ensue on his return. If he suspected that the child was not his, he might well have murdered her.”

He listened without comment. We both knew I was really talking of Taro.

“Of course, we wouldn’t have a problem nowadays,” he said confidently. “DNA testing will sort out any paternity question.”

“After the baby’s born,” I said, “and by then it’s too late if it’s been accepted into a family which declares it never recognises illegitimate children.”

“You’re saying that Taro was killed for a family reason. By me, in fact?”

Before I could answer, Edward strode into the room. He had changed into a black jersey and light linen trousers. I stared. I had been too quick to write him off as a waxed jacket and wellies type. He was slim and tall with stronger features but the same floppy hair as his son. An impressive man.

“Dad!” Rupert greeted him. “How did he take it? Is he all right?”

“Of course. What would you expect? He took it well. His heart may be a bit dicky but there’s nothing wrong with his mental equipment. Steady as ever.”

“Thank God for that. But Grandpa’s going to need all his bottle if what your architect here has worked out turns out to be correct.” He threw a challenging smile at me. “She’s solved our crime. Move over Dick Jennings — you’ve been superseded by an art historian. And I grieve to tell you, Dad, it’s down to you or me. Come and look at this.”

Edward smiled bleakly and came to join us at the table. If my guesses were correct, with Rupert on one side and his father on the other, I was shoulder to shoulder with a murderer. But on which side? A further chilling thought occurred to me — could they both be involved? At Edward’s invitation I went haltingly through my theory again.

“A family thing. Yes, I believe you could be right, Ellie,” Edward said. “But have you considered that if Rupert is not the father of the child...” He turned to Rupert and said almost apologetically, “Oh, come on, let’s face it, Rupe, old son, you were out of your skull for most of the time till a few weeks ago and I don’t think you had a clue about what was going on in Taro’s life... then someone else is the father. That prat Theo what’s-his-name? Imagine — Taro tells him she’s marrying Rupert and giving up the modelling business. He’s about to lose his cash cow and his prospective child. ‘Okay,’ he tells her, ‘I’ll bow out of your life, but how about one last shoot to send me on my way? A golden handshake from the glossies... I’ve had a terrific idea for a location... And we’ll be able to stuff it up these Hartest prigs! Imagine their faces when they see the pics!’ How does that sound? But instead of a photo ‘taken from life,’ the model herself was taken from life! Revenge killing? Spite? Crime of passion?”

He was interrupted by Mrs. Rose, who just had time to announce Detective Inspector Jennings when he came striding into the room. Settling down with a cup of coffee and placing his mobile phone importantly on the table in front of him along with his notepad, he smiled round at our small group. I thought he looked keen and energetic and clever. I just wished he had been a little less impressed by the Hon Edward.

“I’ll be needing your individual statements, of course, and when I’ve finished what I have to say, I’ll send in an officer to take them. There have been developments,” he announced with satisfaction. His phone rang as though on cue and he snatched it up and listened eagerly.

“You’ve got him? Good lad! Where?” He looked at us and, involving us in his triumph, “In his flat? You don’t say! He must have burned some rubber down the A12. Flinging his passport into a bag? He’s no Ronnie Biggs, is he? Get the prints, did you? What’s his story, then?” He listened avidly, occasionally chortling, occasionally cursing gently, and finally switched off.

Stretching out his legs and leaning back in his chair, he announced, “I’m pleased to say we’ve made an arrest. My London colleagues have picked up Theo Tindall in his Islington flat and charged him with the murder of Taro Tyler.” He looked at his watch. “Has to be a record.” Then he added thoughtfully, “Almost seems too easy...”

We didn’t interrupt him and he went on, “We got a statement from Mrs. Wentworth at Parsonage Cottage. Very good witness. She keeps an eye out for visitors to the church; in fact, she unlocks at six A.M. and locks up again at dusk. She thought it was odd that tourists would come roaring up at seven so she took down their details, car make and number, the lot. Two people went into the church carrying a couple of bags. She noticed the girl was dressed ‘like a bride’ and then she recognised them. Those guests at the Hall who’d giggled all the way through Matins last Sunday. And gossip was that the girl was a model. Well, that made sense, didn’t it? Catching the morning light for one of those fancy photos. Mrs. Wentworth went off watch. She noticed that the car drove away half an hour later, going rather fast, but then, young men always drive like that, don’t they?”

“We noticed a bloody fingerprint on the tomb,” Edward said.

“Yes, we’ve got it. That’ll be checked by the morning, but he admits it’s his. Swears he didn’t murder her, but his story’s a bit thin. Says they were all lined up for the shot, she spread out on the tomb in her draperies, when the light shifted and he decided he needed a different camera and a bit of extra equipment from the car. He nipped out to get it and came back minutes later to find her dead. Denies taking the dagger to the church as part of the props and says the first he’d seen of it was the handle sticking out of the body. Says he tried to pull it out. Well, he would, wouldn’t he? So there’ll be prints there as well.”

He paused again, thinking aloud. “Neat, all sewn up, you might say. Yes, very neat and tidy... Anyway, he got some blood on his hand, panicked, and ran off. Says he felt sure someone was in the church watching him and he thought he might be next. We’ll need a motive, of course. If he did take the dagger from the Hall, then it was premeditated. But I’d feel easier if we knew why he’d done it. Wondered if you...?”

“Oh, yes, Richard. I think we can supply you with a motive,” said Edward smoothly.

And it was at this moment that there came the sound of a shot from the floor above. My three companions all jumped to their feet, looking at each other with total dismay.

Rupert was the first to move. “Grandpa!” he yelled. “That’s from Grandpa’s room!” and he started to the door. Edward and the inspector ran after him. I lingered behind just long enough to cast an eye over the inspector’s belongings abandoned on the table. There was something I had to find out without anyone noticing. Shifty but determined, I picked up his mobile and, one eye on the door, began to scroll through his phone book. I told myself what I was doing was in the interests of justice — and self-preservation.

I scrambled after the others, hurrying up the staircase and along a corridor. Rupert burst into the room at the end and we all gathered behind him, keeping to the doorway. Peering over Jennings’ shoulder I could just make out the body of an old man wearing a camouflage-patterned sweater and dark cord trousers slumped across his desk under the window. A service revolver lay on the floor by his right hand. The wall to his left was spattered with the contents of his head. Edward put an arm around his son and hugged him, both men’s faces white with shock.

Jennings went into action. “Stay back,” he said unnecessarily. He went to the desk and went through the automatic and superfluous gestures of checking the body for vital signs, then abandoned this ritual and noticed the arrangement on the desktop. A large iron key was acting as paperweight for a single sheet of handwritten paper. He looked at it and waved to Edward. “Come and have a look at this,” he said quietly. “Looks like a suicide note and it’s addressed to you.”

Edward went forward and began to read aloud. He needn’t have done this and I wondered why he was involving us all in this way. More showmanship? I thought so.

“My dearest Eddie, forgive me. I killed that friend of Rupert’s. Woman was a strumpet and did not deserve the honour he was about to bestow on her. I came down for a nightcap late last night and heard her planning — with that appalling photographer chap who’s been infesting the place — to defile the family tomb. Couldn’t have that. I got to the church before them and let myself in through the vestry door on the north side using this old key. No one saw me. I hid, and when the chap left the church to fetch something from his car I stabbed the girl with the dagger I’d taken from the display in the drawing room. I waited to terminate his miserable existence as well — I meant to snap his rabbit neck — but he was off like a flash. I couldn’t have caught him. I’m a bit decrepit these days but not as bad as I’ve been making out. In fact, I was faking my condition. I took to my room to avoid meeting this dreadful pair of limpets. I trust Rupert will learn from this fiasco and one day he’ll be able to find a decent girl. God bless you both. ‘Who dies?’ Eh?”

As he read I looked around the room, anywhere but at the poor, shattered body. I took in the military neatness of his arrangements, the bed already made, the books lined up on his bedside table. The only untidy item in the room was a pair of pajamas lying in a crumpled heap on the bed. A discordant note in this precisely organised room. Fearful of what I might find, unnoticed by the others, I edged nearer, put out a hand, and touched them. I looked at the carafe of water and the bottle of pills on the bedside table and I moved around until I could see the label and the contents. What I saw confirmed all my fears.

Hours later, after a sketchy lunch in which no one was interested and a tea tray in the library which seemed to have become the operations room, the police had finally left. Statements had been taken, frantic phone calls made, ambulances, police vehicles, pathologist, and undertaker had gone about their business, and I hoped that in the Islington nick someone had thought to release Theo Tindall.

It had been a long, weary, and sickening day, but finally a weight seemed to have lifted from Edward Hartest. He poured me a glass of sherry, having, on one pretext or another, prevented my leaving for the last two hours. “Nonsense! Not in the way at all! I can never apologise enough for dragging you into such a grisly family scene but we’ve both been glad you were here. Kept us in touch with sanity in an increasingly mad scenario, you might say. And you were right, you see, Ellie, about the motive. Purity of the line. It meant a lot to my father.” He fell silent, plunging into painful thought. Recovering himself he said, more brightly, “Ellie... now that’s short for Eleanor, isn’t it? And funnily enough, that’s the modern spelling of Alienore. Did you know that? Your surname’s Hardwick? One of the Norfolk Hardwicks, are you? Then your family are apple growers? You must know a good deal about apples.”

Suspicious and disturbed by his change of tone, I admitted that I did.

“Look, before you go you must have a stroll in the orchard with me. The blossom’s wonderful at the moment. We’ve got some very special old strains that might interest an expert.”

The thought of wandering under the trees in the twilight with the handsome dark lord was making my knees quiver. I tried to fix an interested smile and appear relaxed but all my senses were screaming a warning.

For two men who’d just suffered a double bereavement, Rupert and Edward were charming hosts. But it was more than noblesse obliging them to put on a good show — they were hanging on to me because my presence was a necessary buffer between them. When I had gone they would be left alone with each other, with recriminations, perhaps, and with much sorrow. For the moment I presented them with the need to behave normally. I got to my feet, packing up my bag. I had to take my leave carefully, raising no suspicion that I knew a huge injustice had been done and that one of these charming men was a killer, a killer with the deaths of a young girl, her unborn child, and an innocent old man on his conscience.

Neither man had an alibi for the time of the murder. Rupert was thought to have been in bed and had made a rather stagey (in my opinion) appearance in his bathrobe at ten-thirty. Edward had told the police in his straightforward way that, as usual, he’d been working by himself in the fields since six o’clock. If the inspector cared to ask, any one of what he called “his chaps” might be able to state that they’d spotted him out in the croft, mending the tractor. Somehow I thought his chaps might be queuing up, tugging their forelocks, to do just that.

The killer was probably trying to calculate how much I had worked out for myself, assessing from my behaviour how urgently I was trying to get away to raise the alarm, perhaps even working on a scheme to ensure my discretion — or my silence.

Rupert scrambled to his feet and firmly took my bag. “No, it’s all right, Dad. Ellie won’t want to be wandering round a damp orchard at this time of night. We’re not all apple freaks, you know! I’ll walk you to your car, Ellie... No, I insist! It’s a bit dark down the lane now,” he said. “You left it in front of the church, didn’t you?”

And we set off together to walk down the tree-lined driveway to the church.

Distantly, the reassuring sound of the blue and white plastic ribbons outlining the crime scene flapping in the evening breeze was reaching my ears. We crunched on in silence down the gravel. Not much further to go. My hand curled round my car keys in the right-hand pocket of my jeans. Fifty yards.

At the bottom of the drive, Rupert pulled me into the deep shadow of a lime tree, turned to face me, and put two hands on my shoulders. “You know, don’t you?” he said abruptly.

I shivered under his hands. “Yes, I do,” I said defiantly.

“And I want to know what you’re proposing to do about it.”

Keeping my voice level and unconcerned I said, “Nothing. That’s what I’m proposing to do. Who would listen to me in the face of so much evidence pointing so convincingly in a different direction? You’ve said it, Rupert, or was it your father? — ‘It’s a family thing.’ You can sort it out between you.”

“How did you guess?”

“It was no guess. Sharp observation and intelligent deduction!” I couldn’t let him intimidate me. I looked anxiously down the drive, trying to make out the outline of my old Golf. Could I outrun him if he got angry? Probably not.

“It was the pills that gave it away.” (Better give him something to think about.)

“Pills, Ellie? What do you mean?”

“In your grandfather’s room. All that stuff about his bad heart and being room-bound — no one considered he could have done the killing, but then in his confession he tells the world that it was all a bluff and, stiffening his old sinews, he does a commando-style exercise in the church for the sake of the family honour. Well, the police are happy they’ve worked out the bluff but they didn’t think as far as a double bluff. The pill bottle by his bed, Rupert — it was half empty. He’d been taking whatever it was in there, all right. And what was in there — I looked at the label — was a heavy-duty heart-disease prescription. My aunt had the same thing. So, your grandfather was genuinely a heart-attack victim and there’s no way he could have done what he confessed to. He was owning up to a crime he didn’t commit because he knew who had done it and was taking the blame for someone very dear to him. Paying the bill. For the family. Making sure that Hartest lives, if you like.”

“I don’t know what to say. What can I do?”

He seemed suddenly helpless and disarmingly childlike.

“You know he’s mad, don’t you?” he said. “You’d have to be a bit mad, wouldn’t you, to kill like that and be prepared to let an innocent man — two innocent men — take the blame?”

I considered this for a moment. “No, I don’t think so. Just very focussed and pitiless. You and I couldn’t do it, Rupert — we’re the arty type, remember. But your father could — and did. ‘Who dies?’ Well, Theo Tindall for a start... He was thrown to the wolves. But, just in case the wolves weren’t having any — and Jennings was beginning to make dissatisfied noises — even his own father... Yes, I think so... He told his father exactly what he’d done and, using this knowledge, the old chap cobbled together a convincing confession. He didn’t have much time. He wanted to fire the shot while Jennings was in the house, I’d guess — a police witness right there on the spot. He hurried to write the confession and then thought of a corroborative detail — he got out of his pajamas, leaving them in a heap, and dressed himself up in camouflage gear to make it look credible. But his pajamas were still warm...”

I paused for a moment, mind racing. “Would we be really mean, Rupert, if the thought crossed our minds that this was just what Edward calculated would happen? You know your father best — would he consider it no more than right and just that the old should sacrifice themselves for the young? I think that was in his philosophy and your grandfather’s. They saw you couldn’t find the strength to extricate yourself from what they considered an impossible situation and they acted. I can’t say they were doing it for you because in their thinking the individual is only a link in a chain. They were making sure a six-hundred-year-old chain wasn’t broken.”

“So that’s what I come down to,” said Rupert unhappily. “The weak link in the family chain.”

Lightening my tone, I went on, “As for what you do now... well, you go out and find yourself a respectable girl with a good name, marry her, have several male offspring, and you’ll find he need never kill again.”

I spoke flippantly but his reaction was unexpected.

Rupert smiled a devastating smile, reached out a forefinger, and gently stroked my cheek. “Ellie’s a good name,” he murmured, leaning closer.

I managed to fight down a shudder of fear and even retained my slight dismissive smile. The two Hartest men might have different methods of ensuring my silence — murder or matrimony — and on the whole, Rupert’s method was to be preferred, but in the end they shared the same compelling family motto and the next victim they were planning to ride roughshod over was me. I had decided some hours ago to adopt a motto of my own. Semper vigilans wouldn’t be bad, I’d thought... always on the alert.

“And I think you’re very attractive,” Rupert was whispering. “It didn’t take me long to work out that you were actually a strong girl, dependable, discreet...”

I swallowed and in what I imagined to be a light and friendly tone I agreed with him. “Oh yes. All that. And clever, too. It didn’t take me long to work out that the name ‘Eleanor’ in conjunction with the name ‘Hartest’ is not a lucky combination. Goodbye, Rupert. I’ll keep an interested eye on the announcements column in the Times. I may even turn up at your wedding!”

Truce? Standoff? He wasn’t the tactician his father was. He let me get away.

Back in the safety of my Golf, I turned the key with shaking hand and said a quick prayer when the engine started. Two miles away on the busy, brightly-lit forecourt of an Esso station I stopped and took out my phone.

I dialled a number I’d scribbled down in the library on the inside of my wrist.

“Inspector Jennings?” I said. “Sorry to ring you at home. Ellie Hardwick here.”