A Christmas Case Read online

  A Christmas Case

  -A Posie Parker Novella-

  L.B. Hathaway

  WHITEHAVEN MAN PRESS

  London

  First published in Great Britain in 2017 by Whitehaven Man Press, London

  Copyright © L.B. Hathaway 2017

  (http://www.lbhathaway.com, email: [email protected])

  The moral right of the author, L.B. Hathaway, has been asserted.

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, or specifically mentioned in the Historical Note at the end of this publication, are fictitious and any resemblance to any real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Sale or provision of this publication by any bookshop, retailer or e-book platform or website without the express written permission of the author is in direct breach of copyright and the author’s moral rights, and such rights will be enforced legally. Thank you for respecting the author’s rights.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN (e-book:) 978-0-9955694-6-1

  ISBN (paperback:) 978-0-9955694-7-8

  Jacket illustration by Red Gate Arts.

  Formatting and design by J.D. Smith.

  For Eden

  Also By L.B. Hathaway

  The Posie Parker Mystery Series

  1. Murder Offstage

  2. The Tomb of the Honey Bee

  3. Murder at Maypole Manor

  4. The Vanishing of Dr Winter

  5. Murder of a Movie Star

  6. Murder in Venice (Spring, 2018)

  Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Epilogue

  Thanks for joining Posie Parker and her friends

  Historical Note

  Acknowledgements and Further Reading

  About the Author

  Rebburn Abbey, England

  (Christmas Eve, 1923)

  One

  It was that awful dead time.

  The time between finishing a big Christmas Eve dinner, and the time for putting on of coats to march three minutes through the blustering snow to Midnight Mass.

  The house party of eight persons, being small, had assembled cosily in the Earl’s private red parlour, throwing formalities aside, with both sexes present and everybody mixed; the huge state rooms with their abandoned knights in armour left empty but for eerie draughts and howls of stubborn wind, sounding for all the world as if a banshee had been let out.

  But inside the red parlour, an essence of Christmas prevailed, albeit in miniature. In here, a normal-sized Christmas tree was dressed showily with candied fruits and red-and-gold baubles, and a hearty fire burned in the grate. Everyone was engaged in consuming a case of the best Blandy’s Madeira wine. The guests had arrived just that afternoon, before dinner, and they were still anxious to appear fresh and perfectly charming. At least, everybody except Posie Parker, London’s most famous female Private Detective. She didn’t really give two hoots what most people here thought of her, and she hunkered down now into her warm green scarf.

  Their host stood up, a little unsteady on his feet, perhaps.

  ‘I propose a Christmas Eve toast!’

  Rufus, Eleventh Earl of Cardigeon was struggling to raise his voice above the high wind roaring outside his ancestral home, Rebburn Abbey, more a huge turreted fortress than anything else. But he looked around amiably, a new Harris-tweed blue suit straining at the waistcoat buttons, a high colour rising in his cheeks; the very picture of contentment.

  ‘To friends!’

  Everybody repeated the toast like school children, taking dutiful sips of the plummy Madeira dessert wine.

  ‘And to absent friends.’

  This additional toast came from the green velvet armchair right next to the fire, and Posie shot a look of slight concern over at its occupant, who hadn’t bothered to rise at all, instead lighting up a black and silver Sobranie cigarette with an exaggerated, weary gesture.

  It was Dolly, Posie’s dearest friend, the wife of Rufus.

  Dolly had become the Countess of Cardigeon only one month previously, on the death of her father-in-law, the Tenth Earl, on the very same day she herself had nearly died giving birth to her only son.

  That baby, Lord Raymond Rufus Everard Cardigeon, had lived, but was sickly and frettish. Even now, his persistently high-pitched wail could be heard frequently from the nursery floor, miles away, where he was perpetually being soothed by the best childcare that money could buy. A doctor from Rebburn village called both morning and night to check on the tiny Lord. But Dolly herself still hadn’t recovered, physically or mentally.

  People had taken note of Dolly’s words, however, and everyone nodded solemnly, warily, including Posie, repeating:

  ‘To absent friends.’

  It seemed likely that Dolly was thinking of her father-in-law when proposing her toast, for he had become her unlikely ally in the last year or so, providing some much-needed comfort and humour at Rebburn Abbey, which was breathtakingly beautiful, and eye-wateringly old, but situated in the middle of nowhere in Yorkshire, and as cold as hell when it had frozen over.

  To her horror, Posie felt her eyes watering, and she blinked away tears as she clinked glasses together with her friend and long-term work associate, Chief Inspector Richard Lovelace of New Scotland Yard. She recovered herself, and smiled as the Inspector leaned in for their own private toast.

  ‘Here’s to 1924, Posie, old girl. May it be a better year for all of us.’

  ‘Amen to that, sir. Put it this way, it can’t be any worse. “Absent friends” indeed! That’s putting it mildly!’

  Lovelace nodded, chastised: it was true that there were many absences in both his own and Posie’s lives right now, and 1923 had been the devil of a year. Unlucky. Catastrophic.

  ‘Best get it over with.’ Lovelace downed the rest of his wine and mulled over how he had got to be standing where he was. At Rebburn Abbey.

  When he had been invited up for Christmas by the Earl and Countess, he had thought it a bit of a joke at first, that he was being invited because they felt sorry for him. He had viewed the invitation as something to politely refuse, then rip up, and then to laugh about for years afterwards.

  But when he had found out that Posie Parker had similarly been invited, he had held off sending his refusal. He had thought it over for a few days, and in the end had weighed it up as being a better bet than spending the entire festive period with his parents-in-law. There was also the question of Phyllis, his one-and-a-half-year-old daughter, to consider.

  He had reasoned it would be good to get the toddler out of the unhealthily clammy London winter, with its pea-soupers and freezing fogs, and up to where the wind and snow blew freely and cleanly. There was also the fact that the Cardigeon twins, Bunny and Trixie, were exactly the same age as Phyllis, and it would be nice for her to have some company. These initial thoughts had finally firmed into acceptance and, so far, Lovelace hadn’t regretted it for a second.

  Especially when he had checked on Phyllis, up in the Cardigeon nursery, just a few minutes ago; she had been sleeping peacefully, tired out, with a healthy red flush in her cheeks, f
or all the world as if she slept next to peers of the realm’s daughters every day of her life.

  Lovelace looked over at Posie now and he almost smiled, which he didn’t do often these days. She was like a mother hen: engaged in tucking a thick, tartan woollen rug around her friend’s legs; patting at some cushions behind Dolly; pressing a drink upon her; stroking the Countess’ heavily powdered cheek.

  Funny, really. He had never thought of Posie as the maternal type, somehow. But then, Dolly looked so terribly ill. Her small elfin face was gaunt beneath her bleached-blonde hair, and the layers of bright, gaudy make-up didn’t help. Her large brown eyes seemed to have no spark in them: it was as if Dolly had once looked enthusiastically at everything life had to offer and had then been disappointed, turning her back on it forever.

  Poor Dolly. She was obviously slipping away.

  With professional detachment, Inspector Lovelace looked at everyone else gathered here.

  There was Posie, of course, moving back to her place beside him now, in a familiar maroon skirt-suit with what looked like an old cricket jumper on top; she seemed to be life itself. There was a vividness about her which he’d bet was almost impossible to take away, and by gad, even this wretched year hadn’t managed it. Her sapphire-blue eyes still twinkled, her dark hair was still smartly bobbed, and a curious, dancing energy still played across her face. She didn’t need jewels, which was lucky, as lately it seemed she’d dispensed with wearing any. Nothing except a single strand of cheap pink beads, anyhow.

  Lovelace looked across at the next woman sitting on his right, and made a mental note not to stare.

  Andromeda Keene.

  The Cabaret star who had taken London by storm in the last couple of years was here. Almost next to him! He could smell her heady, musky wood-rose perfume…

  It wasn’t just that Andromeda was a perfect mimic, and funny as hell in a sarcastic, scathing sort of a way, and had the sort of pitch-perfect voice many an opera star envied, but the girl was a magician too. She could turn her hand at most conjuring tricks, rabbits and scarves and cards and money, all disappearing and appearing again to the accompanying strains of her own witty songs.

  The girl was older than Posie by a few years; a gamine, boyish streak of a girl with a man’s bowl haircut, whose wide, flat face had something deceptively oriental about it; a perfectly plain canvas to host her various characters upon. She was wearing what looked like expensive black silk pyjamas, a single red cord of a belt breaking up the sombreness.

  Andromeda was laughing now, sharing a joke with her partner, the gangly and fiendishly ugly-to-the-point-of-being-handsome musician and composer, Levin Smythe. He was seated right next to the fireplace.

  Levin was an established and sought-after star of the piano in his own right, a good twenty years older than his girlfriend, with booked-out shows for his solo performances and smash-hit musicals to his credit. But you wouldn’t have known that Levin was wealthy: he dressed like a tramp, and he smelt like a tramp, with his thick tweed suit obviously in need of an airing. The two music stars had been invited up for Christmas by Dolly, the invitation issued much earlier in the year, and Dolly had obviously been expecting big, exciting things of the famous pair.

  Lovelace had tried and failed to engage in conversation with the pianist earlier, with Levin haring off like a shot from a gun when he had heard what Lovelace did for a living. Lovelace frowned and almost shrugged regretfully: these famous musicians weren’t of his world, and he didn’t know their rules. Perhaps he had insulted the pianist somehow, without realising it?

  Whatever Dolly’s original hopes, it didn’t seem likely they would be entertaining the party anytime soon. Andromeda claimed to have lost her voice and was ‘resting’ it, and Levin was nursing a broken right hand, a grubby white plaster cast and a sling much in evidence.

  ‘All right, sir?’ Posie was at his elbow again, nodding around, staring a little too long at Rufus than was quite polite. She screwed up her nose right now in admonishment.

  ‘What’s eating you up, old girl?’

  Posie gave a small, barely perceptible shudder, but Richard Lovelace saw it, felt it.

  ‘You’ve only known Rufus these last couple of years,’ she whispered low, eyeing the new bottle of Madeira in Rufus’ hands, and the bright red flush on his sheeny, sweaty face. ‘And even though he hasn’t collapsed yet, I’d thought he had given up alcohol for good. To be frank, it upsets me to see him like this.’

  Rufus Cardigeon had been in a bad way after the Great War, when, despite winning two Victoria Crosses for bravery in leading his troops on the Western Front, in the years which followed he had sought oblivion in alcohol as a way to fend off the memories and the overwhelming guilt which had threatened to engulf him.

  Rufus had been Posie’s brother’s best friend at school, and she had known him since she was eleven years old. She had been instrumental in bringing him and his wife, Dolly, together, and Dolly had, in her turn, forced Rufus to give up drinking.

  Lovelace shrugged uneasily. ‘It is Christmas, Posie. It’s been a tough year for Rufus too, losing his father like that.’

  ‘Pah!’ Posie scoffed. ‘That’s no excuse. It was no surprise. Rufus knew his father was on the way out, and he’s been expecting to inherit the title and the Abbey for yonks now. It was only a question of time. Look at him! About as self-satisfied as you can get. Getting as overweight and corpulent and red-in-the-face as his father was! And if he’s not careful, he’s going to lose his wife and his baby son into the bargain; both of them are as weak as kittens. He should be sending Dolly somewhere warm to recover, and not take things for granted. He’s just pretending everything’s fine. And it’s not.’

  ‘I’m not really in a position to judge, being a guest here. Maybe he’s worried as hell, but he’s wanting to appear a good host?’

  Posie gave the Inspector a couple of hesitantly light pats on the back, which, just a few months ago, she’d never have dreamed of doing. ‘You’re a good man, sir. Always wanting to believe the best in people.’

  ‘They’re a rum pair.’ Lovelace gestured to the other corner, on the left, anxious to change the subject, indicating to where a couple in full black tie were fussing with presents, or rather, one present in particular, under the Christmas tree.

  Together with the Earl and Countess, Posie and him, Andromeda Keene and Mr Levin, this last pair completed the house party.

  ‘Major Fairbanks and his wife, the sweetly named Dulcie.’ Posie nodded. ‘The only two of our party to ignore the sensible advice to “hang usual rules and make sure you wear something jolly warm to dinner.” Obviously they’ve never been to Rebburn Abbey in midwinter before. More fool them! Away from the fire it’s simply beastly.’

  The Major was of fairly stock ex-military appearance; a tall bulky man, running to flab, in his mid-fifties, whose grey hair was smartly cropped and whose moustaches were trimmed and dignified. His skin was ruddily tanned, a testament to other, warmer climes, and his blue eyes sparkled with an intensity which gave you the impression he never quite relaxed, not even for a second, not even when he slept. His wife, Dulcie, was, by contrast, tiny and dark, and glittering with diamonds and a huge emerald engagement ring. She was intriguing as night. She could have been Persian, or Indian, or French, or Spanish. She radiated exoticness like a rare orchid but all that was certain about her was that she was not from England. She was also a good thirty years junior to her husband, but her velvet evening dress and her hairstyle would have suited a woman more the Major’s own age. Her dark eyes fluttered up to look at Posie and her gaze skittered off again in embarrassment at having been seen.

  Posie frowned. ‘I’ve never heard of “lamb dressed as mutton” before. But it fits here.’

  The Inspector grinned, taking another sip of his drink. ‘A girl from the wrong side of town, or the wrong side of everything – if you know what I mean – made good. Or at least polished up to look good. She’s awfully young.’

  ‘M
nnn, there is something dashed funny about her. Apart from the clothes, I mean. I swear she keeps looking at me, for one thing.’

  The Fairbanks had somehow kept themselves to themselves since entering the room, as much as was possible in a small party, skirting around the edges of the red parlour, not really engaging in much conversation with anyone. All through dinner Posie had noticed the couple muttering together, the Major often with his hand on his wife’s arm, less a sign of affection than of control, as if forbidding her to move. So far they hadn’t mingled at all, and was it Posie’s imagination or was the Major staring rather too frequently over at Mr Smythe, and sometimes at Miss Keene?

  Whatever the case, there was something not quite right there. In fact, something like ice flowed through Posie’s veins whenever she happened to catch the man’s eye, so she made a point of turning away. But Dulcie kept looking back at her, restlessly.

  As if he could read Posie’s mind Richard Lovelace butted in on her thoughts:

  ‘An unsavoury pair, I’ll warrant. But there’s something familiar about them. Don’t you think? Haven’t I seen them somewhere before? And what is that they’re messing about with under the tree?’

  Posie squinted but couldn’t see. She shook her head.

  ‘I doubt you’ve met them before, sir. They’re the new neighbours here, if you can count “neighbours” as people who live twenty miles off. They moved into the big Gamekeeper’s Lodge a month ago when Rufus started his programme of selling off parcels of the estate, which the old Earl wouldn’t agree to while he was alive. Rufus has made a nice tidy packet from selling that house, I understand. The Fairbanks are new to this part of the country, I believe. They’ve been out in India. Only recently back. But they’re jolly wealthy, and childless, and I think Rufus heard they would be alone for Christmas, so he invited them over.’

  ‘Unusual friends,’ muttered Lovelace. ‘Maybe he needs to keep them sweet for some reason. Maybe a case of “keep your enemies close”?’