By the time the main courses had been served we’d hijacked the dinner table and made it our centre of investigations. It was amusing to see secret love letters, betting slips, a plastic revolver and a copy of Lord Southerby’s last will and testament strewn amongst the bone china, crystal glasses and silver candlesticks.
I did a fairly good job of paying attention as questions and accusations were shot across the dinner table and deflected back with equal speed and vehemence, but every time I looked down the other end of the table I caught Adam looking at me. To the untrained observer he probably looked quite serious, but down in the depths of those warm brown eyes was a smile. A just-for-Coreen smile. And I didn’t know what to do about it. Didn’t know if I wanted to see it there or not. Didn’t know if I was brave enough to ask myself what it meant.
I tried to ignore even the possibility of those questions by throwing myself into the investigation. We hadn’t pieced it together yet, but one thing was certain—the late Lord Southerby had been a very, very naughty boy during his lifetime.
It seemed his sons had good reason to worry about their inheritance, in danger as it was from money-grabbing illegitimate offspring and a gold-digging fiancée. Not only that, but Giles’s rather unfortunate string of bad luck on the gee-gees had led to him dipping into the family fortune and then trying to cover his tracks.
Each and every one of us had a motive for wanting the lord of the manor dead, and those motives ranged from jealousy to greed, from revenge to the protection of loved ones. It was all quite thrilling, actually. We were still arguing about competing theories when we retired to the drawing room after desert. One camp thought Rupert had murdered his father, keen to inherit the lion’s share of the family money before his father changed his will, and another group were sure it was poor little Ruby the parlour maid, who’d been fending off the old goat’s unwanted advances for months now and had acted out of desperation to preserve her virtue and her income.
I looked across at Izzi, sitting once again in her high-backed winged armchair. She was smiling, watching a heated exchange between Marcus, of all people, and Jos, as they discussed the real reason for the discovery of Lord Southerby’s bow tie in the maid’s quarters. When Jos threatened to sue Marcus for defamation of character—and I think she half meant it—Izzi stepped in.
‘How about some music, Jules? We could do with some light entertainment to help us let off steam.’ She nodded towards the grand piano in the corner. ‘I’m sure you know a tune or two from the right era.’
Julian actually smiled. He jumped up and headed over to the piano. ‘I’ve rather been hoping you’d ask,’ he said, pulling the stool out, flapping the tails of his jacket back and settling himself on it. ‘I’ve practised a few specially.’
Izzi rapped with her cane on the floor. ‘And there’s no reason why you youngsters can’t foxtrot later, or do whatever new-fangled dances you do nowadays. We can move the settees and clear a space near the bay window.’ She fixed the rest of the men with her beady little eyes and rapped the cane once more. ‘Well, hop to it, boys!’
Marcus paused, and I suspected he was going to pull the ‘shoulder’ excuse out of the bag again, but he took one look at Izzi and thought better of it.
Julian flexed his fingers and set to work, impressing us with a selection of tunes by the likes of Cole Porter and Irving Berlin. Mum had done a whole set of this type of songs once. Half of me didn’t want to hear them. I hadn’t been able to listen to her favourites for a long time after she’d died, and a familiar churning-in-the-pit-of-my-stomach feeling crept up on me.
But after the first pang of fear and grief I relaxed, welcomed those notes and melodies. Maybe it was because enough time had passed, or maybe it was because being Constance gave me some distance, but hearing the songs again now felt like meeting old friends. I could remember Mum singing them with appreciation and joy instead of fear and dread. Before long I was humming along and tapping on the arm of the sofa.
Marcus, who had been self-medicating his shoulder pain all evening with the contents of Inglewood Manor’s wine cellar, drowned me out. I tried not to mind, but when he started to murder ‘At Last’, Mum’s absolute favourite, getting all the lyrics wrong, I couldn’t look at him. I turned away, still humming.
‘You said your mother was a singer, didn’t you?’ Izzi said to me from her high-backed chair. ‘Why don’t you get up and sing it properly for us? It would save us from Marcus’s warthog impression and I’d be forever grateful.’
Marcus had been lolling on one of the sofas while he’d been singing. He raised his head in inch. ‘I’m doing a perfectly fine job, thank you very much.’ He swigged back another mouthful of red wine and glared at me. ‘But if madam here can do better, I’d like to see it.’
I shook my head. ‘It wouldn’t be becoming for a vicar’s sister and would-be missionary to sing in public like that,’ I said sweetly, hoping to put him off. Humming along was one thing; making a complete spectacle of myself was something else entirely.
He looked me up and down, his wandering gaze letting me know just how much unlike a vicar’s sister he thought me. ‘Pretend it’s a hymn,’ he said with a sneer.
I was tempted to get up and give him what for—that was what Coreen would have done—but Constance might have other ideas on the matter, and I didn’t want to spoil Izzi’s evening when things had been going so well. As much as it hurt, I was just about to meekly admit defeat when a tug inside stopped me.
Constance Michaels might be a gauche twenty-something who’d led a sheltered life, but she was also prepared to trek halfway around the world on her own to live in a strange land where she didn’t know anyone or even speak the language. She wasn’t afraid to look poverty and deprivation in the eye and not turn away. She even had the guts to do something about it. I reckon Constance Michaels had a bit more gumption than I’d given her credit for.
Besides, it was only Marcus, Julian, Izzi and I who’d benefit from my performance. The other four had wandered out onto the terrace with their drinks after Robert had opened the French doors.
‘You’re on,’ I said, then stood up and walked over to the piano. Julian started the song again and, before I even had a chance to get stage fright, the introduction was over and I was singing.
I closed my eyes.
While I might not have had my mother’s training, I had inherited her voice. I’d always shied away from being like her, copying her in any way, but now I was singing words that I had heard her sing so many times, and I felt as if it brought me closer to her. And not in a scary seeing-her-in-the-mirror kind of way. My mind was flooded with happy memories. Mum smiling and laughing and singing. And loving.
I remembered how happy she had been before my father had left, how her eyes had lit up and fixed on him when he was in the room. Even though it was only a memory I felt the warmth of her love. For the first time I understood her a little better, understood how intoxicating that feeling must have been, and how she’d have done just about anything to hang onto it.
My courage grew as I started the second verse and I opened my eyes. Bad idea. I’d discovered my audience had grown. Adam, Jos, Louisa and Nicholas were standing just inside the French doors, watching me with open curiosity. I thought I might choke, or trip over the words, but somehow I just kept on singing.
When I got to the bit about looking at someone for the first time and realising that you’d finally found that someone, that soul mate, I plucked up the courage to look over in their direction.
The