The Thornthwaite Betrayal Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Books by Gareth P. Jones

  Dedication

  ACT I

  A Room with One Wall

  The Apparent Uncle

  The Chef

  The Chandelier

  The Builder

  A Surprise in the Study

  Gravity or Foul Play?

  Mr and Mrs Crick

  The Willard Room

  The Ivory Chess Set

  Lorelli’s Letters

  Settled Dust

  Water and Fire

  Uncle Harry’s Delahaye

  Lorelli’s Little Secret

  Ovid’s Little Secret

  Martha Thornthwaite’s Headstone

  Clairmont Prison

  No Prestige in Obscurity

  An Invitation

  The Alteration of the Will

  The Fortune of Family

  Flush of Death

  ACT II

  Two Stories

  A Splendid Breakfast

  Ovid’s Bicycle

  Riding Pride

  Memorial Picture House

  Beaufort’s Secret

  Silas’s Mine

  Hotel Nowhere

  A History of Murder

  Half-truths and Lies

  Adam Farthing

  A Good Man

  Incomplete Pictures

  Fish for Dinner

  Bring on the Darkness

  Business as Usual

  Moving the Story On

  A Pound of Flesh

  Cricks’ Glassware

  Artie Newly Is Dead

  A Small Favour

  One’s True Self

  A Kind of Father

  ACT III

  Bleeding Hearts

  Peril in the Mine

  Mrs Bagshaw’s Turnip Soup

  Fear of Telephones

  Where to Start?

  Worse Than Murder

  A Two-way Kiss

  Back to Normal

  Glassworks Death Trap

  A Fugitive

  Escape From the Manor

  A Traditional Family Stew

  Everything Except Murder

  Escape by Train

  A New Game

  Leopard on the Loose

  Fresh Meat in a Pink Dress

  A Purr and a Growl

  Tomorrow’s Steak

  Living in Denial

  A Slight Gesture

  Packing Up Books

  Killing the Past

  No Loose Ends

  Good Riddance to Bad Uncle

  A New Story

  The Thornthwaite Family Tree

  The Thornthwaite Legacy

  Gareth P. Jones

  Copyright

  BOOKS BY GARETH P. JONES

  The Thornthwaite Inheritance

  The Thornthwaite Betrayal

  Constable & Toop

  The Society of Thirteen

  No True Echo

  Death or Ice Cream?

  Wynne Joyner, 1919–2016

  My Nan, who always loved stories

  ACT I

  A Room with One Wall

  Over the centuries, Thornthwaite Manor had survived floods, plagues, civil wars, sieges and explosions. The most recent of these assaults was a fire that had greedily devoured much of the building’s innards, but as with the family whose name it bore, the grand old house remained.

  The Thornthwaite twins, Lorelli and Ovid, sat at opposing ends of a long blackened table in a dining room with only one wall intact. An ornate chandelier above their heads jangled insistently as a cold breeze blew through the room. A sparsely decorated birthday cake with fourteen candles sat between them.

  Ovid shivered. ‘We should ask Dragos to take a look at this room next. One wall really isn’t enough.’

  ‘I did ask him,’ replied Lorelli. ‘He said it was not this room’s time yet.’

  ‘Yes, that sounds like Dragos,’ said Ovid. ‘You’d never guess he works for us, would you?’

  ‘Whatever you say about him, you cannot deny that he is a first-rate builder and he is doing a good job with the restoration. The boxing room is almost exactly as it was before the fire.’

  Ovid looked uncertainly at the rattling chandelier. ‘So long as it’s structurally sound, I suppose.’

  Ovid’s bottle-green eyes met his sister’s. A year ago, he would have been nervous that she had tampered with the fitting of the chandelier to make it crash down on his head on the final note of the ‘Happy Birthday’ song. Or, just as likely, he would have done the same to her. The Thornthwaite twins had spent their childhood trying to kill each other. Attempted murder had become a habit. Now, after a lifetime of murderous plotting, they had called a truce. Their quiet, contained lives of determined destruction had been blown wide open by the previous year’s fire. They no longer lived in isolation. Instead of having lessons at home, the twins caught the bus to Shelley Valley Secondary School every day, where they did their best to fit in with the other children.

  ‘Perhaps we should have invited some friends to join us,’ said Lorelli, feeling a little intimidated by the size of the cake. ‘Felicia was angling for an invite before we broke up for Easter.’

  ‘I’ll bet she was,’ retorted Ovid. ‘She thinks we live in some kind of wonderful fairy-tale castle.’ A chunk of plaster fell from the ceiling. Both twins casually brushed the white dust from their jet-black hair.

  ‘We could always ask Millicent Hartwell.’ Lorelli winked at her brother.

  Ovid’s pale complexion reddened. ‘Sometimes I miss the old days when we were trying to kill each other.’ He picked up a sharp knife to cut two slices of cake, but it was harder than he anticipated and he had to put all of his weight on the handle to get through it. He slid a plate over the table to his sister.

  Hazel entered the room. Her light brown hair was tied back and she carried two glasses of lemonade on a silver tray. Since the imprisonment of the twins’ cook, Mrs Bagshaw, her adopted daughter Hazel had added kitchen duties to her list of domestic responsibilities. ‘I thought you might like something to drink,’ she said. ‘In case the cake is a little dry.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you,’ said Lorelli. ‘Won’t you sit and join us?’

  ‘No, miss. That wouldn’t be proper. Oh, and if you please, miss, this arrived for you.’ Hazel placed a letter in front of her.

  ‘Thank you. It will be about those books I ordered.’ Lorelli snatched it off the table quickly. ‘I say, this cake is delicious, Hazel.’

  ‘It’s one of Mrs Bagshaw’s,’ said Hazel. ‘One-spoon Cake. Only I added two spoons of sugar, as it’s a special occasion.’

  ‘How is Mrs B?’ asked Ovid.

  ‘She sounded all right on the phone last night,’ said Hazel. ‘She’s been moved to a low-security prison. She seems happier there. She said she’s allowed to spend more time out in the garden.’

  ‘What phone?’ said Ovid. ‘I didn’t know we had a phone.’

  ‘We do now, sir. Dragos insisted we connected one in case of emergencies. It’s on the upstairs landing. Will that be all?’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ said Lorelli.

  ‘Happy birthday, miss. Happy birthday, sir.’

  Once Hazel was out of hearing range, Ovid took a sip of the bitter homemade lemonade and pulled a face. ‘I don’t know why we don’t get a proper cook,’ he said.

  ‘Ovid,’ scolded Lorelli. ‘You know full well that Hazel promised Mrs Bagshaw she would fulfill her duties until her return.’

  ‘Whenever that will be,’ said Ovid.

  With their parents both deceased, their cook in prison and their head butler, Alfred Crutcher, dead, the role of the twins’ guardian had passed to t
heir gardener, Tom Paine, and their former nanny, Eileen Griddle. Both Old Tom and Nurse Griddle exercised a distinctly less hands-on approach than their predecessors.

  Tom rarely came into the house, but this being the twins’ birthday he stepped over a pile of rubble and entered the room through one of the missing walls. He wiped his grubby hands on his trousers, pulled out two cards and handed them over. Both were handmade using pressed wild flowers.

  ‘Thank you.’ Lorelli made hers stand up on the table.

  ‘Why you have to celebrate in this poor excuse of a room I don’t know,’ said Old Tom. ‘There are plenty enough rooms with four walls.’

  ‘It’s tradition that we celebrate our birthdays here,’ said Ovid.

  ‘If you ask me, young master, traditions are the same as garden plants. You need to decide which ones are worth keeping and which need weeding out.’

  ‘I like this room,’ said Lorelli. ‘Walls or not.’

  ‘As you say,’ said Old Tom. ‘I’m just the gardener and I only came to say happy birthday, which I have done, and to tell you that you have a visitor, which I have also now done.’

  ‘A visitor?’ said Ovid. ‘What visitor?’

  ‘Oh, it’s not the Hartwell girl, if that’s what’s concerning you,’ said Tom, making Lorelli giggle. ‘It’s a fellow by the name of Harry Marshall.’

  ‘Never heard of him,’ said Ovid.

  ‘Shall I send him away?’

  ‘What does he want?’ asked Lorelli.

  A gust of wind caused the chandelier to jangle again. Tom waited until it had settled. ‘He’s your uncle.’

  ‘Our uncle?’ said the twins in unison.

  ‘On your mother’s side,’ said Old Tom.

  ‘We have an uncle?’ said Lorelli.

  ‘Yes. Shall I tell him you’re too busy?’ said Tom.

  ‘No. Where is this man now?’ asked Lorelli.

  ‘He’s waiting in the Buxton Room.’

  ‘Thank you, Tom.’ Lorelli stood up. ‘Come on, Ovid. Let’s go and see this apparent uncle.’

  The Apparent Uncle

  The Buxton Room was named after Lord Buxton Thornthwaite, who in the late seventeenth century had sustained a severe gambling habit. In order to establish whether his visitors were debtors collecting money, he created a spyhole from the neighbouring room, which could only be accessed through a secret passageway.

  Lorelli and Ovid found an eyehole each and peered in on the stranger. He had untidy brown hair and a smart linen suit.

  ‘I’ve never seen him before,’ whispered Lorelli.

  ‘I don’t trust him,’ said Ovid.

  ‘You don’t trust anyone,’ she replied.

  The man stood with his hands behind his back, inspecting a painting of the view from Orwell Hill.

  ‘Come on,’ said Lorelli. ‘We won’t find out what he wants standing here.’

  Ovid followed his sister into the other room. He didn’t want to say what he was thinking. Even though the twins’ mother had died when they were babies and the only picture he had ever seen of her was a portrait that had burnt in the fire, this visitor had the same sky-blue eyes.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ said Lorelli. ‘I’m afraid we will have to see some identification to verify that you are our uncle.’

  The grin that spread across the man’s face accentuated his cheekbones. ‘Lorelli, Ovid, I can see my sister in you both.’

  ‘Lorelli is right,’ said Ovid. ‘We’ll need proof.’

  ‘So direct. So like Martha.’ He picked up a brown suitcase, clicked it open and took out a transparent plastic folder. He handed it to Lorelli. She opened it up and poured the contents onto a table.

  The Thornthwaite twins were not predisposed to public displays of emotion, otherwise the room would have been awash with tears as Ovid and Lorelli saw the proof that this man was indeed who he claimed to be. They would have wept at the countless pictures of their mother as a young girl, a teenager and a woman, and at the thought that they were not alone in this world. Lorelli examined the birth certificate up close, hiding her eyes for fear they might reveal her feelings.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Ovid. ‘Where have you been all this time?’

  ‘I sent cards every birthday and Christmas.’ Uncle Harry pulled a second ziplock folder from his bag, full of envelopes addressed to Thornthwaite Manor. ‘You can check the postage dates if you wish.’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ said Ovid. ‘We will.’

  ‘They were all returned.’

  ‘Alfred – Mr Crutcher – our former butler, went to great lengths to keep us away from the influences of the outside world,’ said Lorelli.

  ‘You could have visited,’ said Ovid.

  ‘I …’ Uncle Harry ran his fingers through his hair. ‘I’m ashamed to say that my work–life balance has not been very … well … balanced. And I feared that since my cards were returned … perhaps I was not welcome back.’

  ‘You’ve been here before?’ said Lorelli.

  Uncle Harry nodded. ‘Yes, I came the day of your parents’ wedding.’

  ‘And what brings you here now?’ Ovid maintained his frosty air.

  ‘My whole life I have lived to work. When I made my first million, all I cared about was making my second. When I made my second, I set my sights on becoming a billionaire. When I achieved that, I … well, you get the idea. I’m thirty-five years old and I have everything money can buy, but I’m lacking one thing money cannot buy. I have no family.’

  ‘You’re rich?’ said Ovid.

  ‘Yes. Stinking rich … Filthy rich. I used to wonder why such negative words are associated with wealth. Why not wonderfully rich? Marvellously rich? It’s only when you have money that you learn of all its trappings and you understand. I’ve been rich and poor and you get judged much more harshly when you have money. Wealth breeds mistrust. Greed does terrible things to people.’

  ‘Yes, it does,’ said Lorelli.

  ‘Although money is not entirely without benefits,’ said Uncle Harry.

  He pulled back the curtain to reveal an expensive-looking jet-black car with a silver stripe over its curved bodywork.

  ‘Very nice,’ said Ovid. ‘A 1938 Delahaye 165, isn’t it?’

  ‘You know your cars,’ said Uncle Harry, clearly impressed.

  A man with a bowler hat and a small moustache got out of the passenger seat and brushed down his suit.

  ‘Is that your driver?’ asked Lorelli.

  ‘No. That’s my chef,’ said Uncle Harry. ‘Beaufort Nouveau. He won International Chef of the Year four years on the trot.’

  ‘Why have you brought a chef?’

  ‘I was hoping to offer you a slap-up birthday feast. I would take you out, but you would have to go quite some way to find a restaurant that could provide a meal to match one of Beaufort’s. What do you say? Shall we make this a birthday to remember?’

  Ovid looked to his sister but Lorelli was already saying, ‘Yes, of course. You are a welcome guest and we would love to dine with you.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Uncle Harry. ‘I’ll tell Beaufort to begin at once.’

  The Chef

  Hazel stared at the carp Tom Paine had caught for dinner. She didn’t mind cooking for Ovid and Lorelli. She had always looked after them. But she did not enjoy cooking fish. It was the reproachful look in the eyes. Cowell the cat crouched on the shelf above the cooker, watching with equal interest.

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ warned Hazel.

  She tipped the fish into a pan on the hob and used a spatula to turn it so that it looked the other way. She heard a click and turned to see a man standing behind her. He stood as straight and still as a statue, with his hands behind his back. He wore an angled bowler hat on his head and a neatly trimmed moustache on his upper lip.

  ‘Oh dear. No, no, no …’ He tutted and shook his head. ‘This is no way to cook carp. When frying any fish, one must ensure that the oil is properly hot first – 325 degrees is my preferred
temperature.’ He spoke at great speed, with a French accent.

  ‘Who are you?’ replied Hazel.

  ‘Beaufort Nouveau at your service.’

  ‘What are you doing in my kitchen?’

  ‘Your kitchen?’ exclaimed Beaufort. ‘Non. This is not your kitchen. A kitchen belongs to the person with the greatest mastery of the art of cooking, and in the present situation, that is I. So, please step aside. I will be cooking this evening’s meal.’

  He nudged Hazel out of the way and took hold of the pan handle. ‘Au revoir, Monsieur Fish.’ He tipped the carp into the bin and turned off the heat.

  ‘You can’t do that,’ protested Hazel weakly.

  ‘Do what? I am throwing away the rubbish.’

  ‘But it’s wasteful.’

  ‘Very well.’ Beaufort put his foot down on the bin pedal and extracted the fish with a pair of tongs. He put it onto a plate, which he placed on the floor outside the door. ‘There you are, puss, ’elp yourself.’ He made a small whistle and Cowell jumped down from the shelf to devour the fish. In a flash, Beaufort slammed the door shut behind her.

  ‘The only animals one should ’ave in a kitchen are the ones you are going to eat.’