Loe raamatut: «Secrets at Toplingham Manor»

With thanks to Mariangela and Christina for their support

With love

HENRICUS dei gratia rex Angliae dux Normannorum praemio pro hospitio abundanti sibi praebito ab Arturo Toplinghamensi necessario DECERNIT ut manerium Toplingham in Devoniae comitatu in perpetuum ad praeclarum quaestum meretricium faciendum iure ac merito nemine obstante neque impediente permaneat et hic subscribit die xiii julii anno regni nostri xxxi.

Chapter 1

The campus clock struck four. She went over to the post tray and started collecting the day’s letters. As she bent forward, she sensed eyes on her. Turning round, her heart sank. She saw it was Edgar Lean, lurking at the open door of her office. She wasn’t the sort of girl who would ever want to be rude to anybody, but his habit of sneaking up on her had started to give her the creeps. Nevertheless, she managed to summon up a weak smile. Confrontation wasn’t her way.

‘Afternoon, Linda.’

‘Good afternoon, Edgar.’

‘Anything I can help you with?’ He was staring at her fixedly. His eyes were wide open, unblinking.

‘No, I’m fine thanks.’ As always, she felt uncomfortable in his presence. She nodded towards the pile of letters. ‘Sorry I can’t stop and talk. I’m afraid I’m busy.’ She turned her back on him, hoping he would take the hint.

All was quiet for a minute or two. Then, behind her, she heard steps. There was a movement and, to her horror, she felt a touch on her bottom. She squeaked with indignation and spun round.

But Edgar Lean had left. In his place, she was confronted with the tall figure of Roger Dalby, an expression of embarrassment on his face. Now, he was a very different kettle of fish. Her indignation left her and she gave him a warm smile.

‘Hi, Linda, sorry if I startled you.’ He was carrying a large cardboard box. The dog-eared label read, 12^th-century records. The dust-covered box looked little younger than the contents. The corner that had bumped into her gaped open. Ancient sticky tape looked to be the only thing holding it together.

‘Sorry about that. I wasn’t really paying attention.’

Nothing new there. He rarely left the twelfth century. She leant forward to give him a hand. Just at that very moment, the box finally gave way.

‘Oh, blast.’

Papers cascaded onto the floor. He dropped to his knees and started collecting them up again.

‘Here, let me help you.’

She knelt down beside him and started picking up grubby old files, marked variously Knights Templar, Bernard of Clairvaux and Cistercians. He raised his eyes towards her. Her face was little more than a foot from his. So close, he could smell her perfume. For one crazy moment he wondered what would happen if he were to throw his arms around her and kiss her.

But that was not his way, either.

The papers all collected, she stood up again.

‘Roger.’

He looked up sheepishly from the floor.

‘This letter has just come in. It looks important. Maybe you should open it straightaway.’ She held it out to him as he pulled himself to his feet. He carefully placed his papers on the table before taking the letter from her, relishing the slight physical contact as their fingers touched.

The long, stiff envelope was marked Private and Confidential. To be opened by the recipient in person.

‘Very formal. Who on earth can that be from?’ He was puzzled.

‘It seems to be a firm of solicitors, if you look on the back of the envelope.’ She suddenly blushed. ‘Not that I’ve been…I mean I wouldn’t…’ Her voice tailed off, but he was quick to reassure her.

‘Of course not, Linda. Now let’s see…um… Henderson Brothers and Healy. A local firm. Definitely legal by the looks of it. Here’s hoping it’s not a summons.’

He took the proffered paper knife and carefully made an incision. Inside were a number of folded sheets. He opened the covering letter and read it. As he did so, his eyes widened. He broke into reading out loud.

‘Acting in accordance with the wishes of Mr Eustace McKinnon (deceased), as expressed in his last will and testament… My word, I don’t believe it…Toplingham Manor…all the land and appurtenances… Good lord, Linda, Uncle Eustace has died and he’s…he’s…’ His voice faltered. She leapt towards him protectively.

He slumped into his chair and took a big gulp of air before continuing in shocked tones, ‘I do believe Uncle Eustace has left me a fortune.’

Linda stood beside the chair and debated whether a peck on the cheek would be appropriate, given the circumstances. All her instincts were crying out to throw her arms around his neck and smother him in kisses, but, as ever, she controlled herself. In the end, she contented herself with a few words of encouragement.

The news went round the university like wildfire. Within a very few days, everybody had heard of Roger’s good fortune and the way this would affect his plans for the future. And theirs. Not everybody was pleased.

‘You’ve heard the news?’ Amanda could see she had.

‘Mmh.’ Rosie was staring miserably into the remains of her cappuccino. Term had officially finished and the all the undergraduates had fled. Along with a few other postgrads, the two girls were just about the only people in the coffee bar. ‘I heard yesterday. Linda told me. It won’t be the same place without him.’

‘Yes, and she’s going too.’

‘Linda? Leaving the uni?’ This was news to Rosie. ‘What’s she going to do?’

‘What do you think? She’s going with the prof. He needs somebody to look after him. He’d probably starve to death if she wasn’t there to remind him to eat. We all know that.’ Roger Dalby’s all-consuming obsession with his medieval saint was common knowledge around the campus. People still recounted the story of him walking into the fountain while trying to decipher a medieval parchment. He splashed straight across and out the other side, but he managed it without getting the parchment wet.

‘You make him sound like an old codger. He’s only thirty-eight.’ There was a slight pause. ‘And he’s an Aries.’

‘How on earth do you know that? Have you been stalking the poor man?’

Rosie nodded, unrepentant. ‘University records are open to the public, you know. Anyway, I’d take that job any day.’ Her face assumed a dreamy expression. ‘I’d like to look after all his needs.’ She sighed. ‘And a few of my own.’

‘Well, it looks like Linda’s beaten you to it. Well, maybe not all his needs, mind you. I still don’t think there’s anything going on between those two. But you’ve only got a few weeks left to make your move, and then he’s off.’

‘Doesn’t give me a lot of time. There must be some way to attract his attention.’

‘You could strip naked and sprawl across his desk with a copy of Vitae Sancti Bernardi Abbatis covering your modesty.’

‘Two problems there, Mandy. First, his desk is so covered with piles of paper, he wouldn’t see me. Second, there’s only one copy in the university and Ed’s had it for months.’

‘I’m not so sure I would want any book Edgar’s touched lying on my naked body.’ Amanda shuddered at the thought.

‘Oh, he’s not so bad, really. Underneath that geeky exterior, there lurks a geeky interior.’ Both girls laughed.

‘Talk of the devil.’ Amanda saw him first. Edgar Lean was shambling towards them, dead to the world. His headphones blotted out the noise of the coffee bar and his eyes, as usual, rarely lifted from his toes. ‘Why don’t you ask him for the book back? If you like, I’ll tell him what you want it for.’

‘Don’t you dare… Hi, Ed, how’s it going?’

‘Er, yes, hi, Rosie, Amanda. Um, I’m fine, thanks.’ He shrugged the heavy bag off his shoulder and stood it on the floor at his feet. Reaching up, he pulled out his earphones. He was looking even more lugubrious than normal. ‘To be honest, I’m not really fine. I’ve just heard that Roger Dalby is leaving.’ He ran the back of his hand across his nose and wiped it absently against his jeans.

Amanda made a mental note to avoid shaking his hand. ‘They’ll find you another supervisor, Ed. Don’t you worry.’

‘Yes, but there’s nobody who knows the twelfth century like him. I’ll be lost without him.’

‘So will I.’ Rosie’s voice was little more than a murmur. She rallied. ‘But it’s all change in the School of Medieval Studies. Did you know Linda’s going too?’

This was news to Edgar Lean ‘She’s what?’

Amanda watched an expression of horror flood across his face as she explained. ‘She told me herself. She’s been offered a job by the gorgeous Roger as his personal assistant. She leaves with him next month.’

Edgar looked so downhearted, Amanda felt she had to try to cheer him up.

‘Come on, Ed. It’s not that bad. These things happen. Even if Linda’s not going to be around, there are plenty more fish in the sea. You’ll find a nice girl.’ She did her best to sound encouraging. Rosie leapt in to help.

‘Yes, and by this time next year you’ll have got your doctorate. Just think, you can tell the girls, “Trust me, I’m a doctor.” You’ll be fighting them off.’

Chapter 2

‘It is quite amazing to think that Bernard of Clairvaux was already an abbot at just twenty-five.’

Linda sighed inwardly. Goodbye, twenty-first century, hello, twelfth. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a couple of inquisitive heads peering at them out of the ballroom door. No doubt they were wondering where the guest of honour had got to. The band had stopped playing. It was quite clear that he was expected on the stage.

‘Roger… Please…’ She tried to drag him away again, but without success.

At that moment, they were joined by the immaculately groomed form of his friend, Douglas Scott. She gave him a look of supplication. For once she was delighted, and relieved, that he was there with them. The fact that, as recently as the previous day, she had described Duggie to her mother as being a bad influence, was something she now conveniently overlooked. He took the hint and moved in to do his bit. She gave him a broad smile of encouragement and gratitude. If anybody could snap Roger out of it, it was Duggie.

‘Wojtiva was still cutting his teeth in the monastery at Plovdiv at that age. Bernard was…’

‘For God’s sake, Rog, give it a break. Your public awaits you.’ Duggie materialised by his side and reinforced the message by removing Roger’s wine glass from his unresisting hand. He took him firmly by the elbow. ‘They are all here for you. For Christ’s sake, do them the courtesy of dragging yourself into the present-day at least for a few minutes.’

Linda nodded approvingly. She moved aside to let Duggie guide him out into the main body of the room. Both of them looked very smart. She particularly liked Roger’s new dark-blue suit. Mind you, the choice of colour had been her suggestion. As he passed her, Duggie accorded her an approving glance. Not for the first time, he reflected that with a change of wardrobe, a visit to a decent hairdresser, and a bit more self-confidence, Linda could so easily be a real stunner. For her part, she remained as unaware of her erotic potential as Roger Dalby appeared to be of the twenty-first century.

She followed them, as they passed through the ornate oak doors, into the formal ballroom. She looked around in awe. A sea of faces had turned towards them. She dropped her eyes and took a deep breath. A great many guests had been invited to wish Professor Roger Dalby well in his premature and unexpected retirement at the age of only thirty-eight. Duggie steered him through the crowd towards the far end of the room.

‘Smile, Rog. For God’s sake, smile.’

They reached the stage and Duggie led him up the flight of low steps. Together, they crossed to the centre, where the microphone had been placed. A gradual reduction in the volume of the chatter dropped to almost complete silence. He gave the mike a few sharp taps. The guests turned expectantly towards them.

‘It’s show time, Rog.’ Duggie dragged him to the microphone. ‘And for crying out loud, try to keep it in the twenty-first century. Just for once? OK?’

Roger pulled himself up straight and looked around the grand old ballroom, blinking as he took in the scene before him. The sea of faces shone back at him in the surprisingly bright light cast by the chandeliers. He searched desperately for something to say. His carefully rehearsed speech momentarily eluded his normally phenomenal memory. The inspiring words of Pope Innocent III, as he preached the First Crusade before an adoring crowd at Clermont in 1095, would almost certainly have leapt to his lips. But he managed to remember Duggie’s admonition.

He dug deep.

‘My friends, relatives, colleagues, students…’ He suddenly spotted the bishop and hastily threw in, ‘… my lords. It gives me great pleasure to see you all here tonight.’

Pausing for breath, he looked down to see Duggie nodding encouragingly. Alongside him stood Linda, looking quite wonderful in a light-blue dress that matched the colour of her eyes. She beamed back up at him. He managed a hint of a smile as he ploughed on.

‘It is going to feel strange when I wake up on Monday. After fifteen years at the university, my life will have totally changed. Instead of driving through the rush-hour traffic, I will just have to walk a few steps from my bedroom to my study. Of course, I will miss seeing you all.’

His eyes alighted on the scowling face of Edgar Lean, squeezed in alongside the other postgrads. He really had taken the news badly. Oh, dear. He soldiered on with his speech.

‘Of course, I won’t be completely alone. As many of you will already know, I will still have Linda to look after me.’ He caught sight of her face, now blushing red. He pressed on. ‘Because Linda has agreed to come to work with me. After so many years of having my life arranged by her at the university, I would have felt totally lost without her.’ A ripple of applause ran through the audience. Linda herself looked as though she wanted the boards to part beneath her feet and swallow her up.

When the applause died down, he continued with his speech. Beside Edgar Lean in the front row were the familiar faces of his other postgrads, Amanda and Rosie. He noticed that Rosie was in a dress that displayed a startling amount of bare skin. Somebody should speak to her, before some boy gets the wrong impression, he found himself thinking. He would never understand the caprices of female fashion. Of course, in St Bernard’s time, women would have been covered from head to toe, their hair concealed beneath a wimple. A glance around the ballroom revealed no wimples. With an effort, he returned his attention to his speech.

Linda looked across, disapprovingly, at the redhead. The dress the girl was wearing was so low-cut as to be positively indecent. Rosie was staring in rapt adoration at Roger. For his part, he appeared blissfully unaware of her designs upon him. Linda snorted to herself. There was only one person in this room with any right to have designs on Professor Roger Dalby. And it certainly wasn’t Rosie Barnes.

She returned her attention to Roger. By now, she knew every last freckle, line and dimple on his face. Over the years she had known him, she had dreamt of him in many different costumes, including his present, formal one. Some of her other dreams, she thought with a guilty flush, saw him much less formally clad. Indeed, much less clad altogether. She rubbed her palms surreptitiously down the sides of her dress.

The speech continued, interrupted occasionally by a little polite applause. Duggie slowly retreated into the warmth of the crowd. As he stood and listened, the warmth of the crowd behind him crystallised into the unmistakable contours of the feminine form. This was a subject to which he had devoted almost as many hours of dedicated study as Professor Dalby to his doctoral thesis. Careful not to disturb the other guests, or the flow of the rhetoric from his old friend, Duggie slowly turned. He cast an admiring eye across the source of the warmth, reluctantly raising his gaze to the face above. To his exquisite delight, it did not disappoint.

‘Enchanting, quite enchanting. Douglas Scott. And you are…?’ He smiled warmly as his eyes instinctively flicked back down to that magnificent body, clad only in sheer black silk.

‘Tina. Tina Pound from the Geography Department.’ She gave a mock curtsy. She scrutinised him for a moment. ‘Where are you from? I haven’t seen you on campus.’

‘Not on campus, sweetheart. Not an intellectual, I’m afraid. Can’t read a word of Latin to save my life, but it doesn’t seem to stop me making a living. No, I’m a friend of the groom from way back.’ Tina’s big brown eyes smiled at him. To his surprise, he found he was managing to maintain eye contact far more readily than he would have expected.

‘Groom? That’ll be the day.’

Out of the corner of her eye, Tina had been admiring the handsome figure of Professor Dalby up on the stage. His mop of brown hair curled fashionably as it hit his collar, making him look more like a film star than an academic. And he was all the more desirable for being blissfully unaware of the reaction he aroused among members of the other sex. And quite probably among certain members of his own sex, she reflected with a smile.

‘There’s a line of girls halfway around the university waiting for the prof to invite one of them to the altar. That is, if a certain person doesn’t manage it first. Still, you know him well enough, I’m sure…’

Duggie smiled and nodded. He leant forward to whisper in her ear, taking the opportunity to let his fingers run slowly across the thin black strap over her shoulder. ‘Other things on his mind, I’m afraid. He gets off on things that happened in the Middle Ages, rather than present-day encounters.’ His hand lingered on her warm skin. ‘Not like the rest of us.’

‘So, if you’re not an academic, what do you do for a living, Douglas?’ Tina found she liked the look of this one. She had always had a thing for tough guys. The faint scars on Douglas Scott’s face spoke of an eventful life. ‘Nightclub bouncer, maybe?’ His hand was still on her shoulder. She didn’t mind.

‘Call me Duggie. Everybody does. No, far worse than that, I’m afraid. I sell houses.’

She grimaced. ‘Oh God, that’s disgusting!’ She gave him a broad smile. ‘And I thought this was a posh establishment.’

‘Nothing posh about me, darling.’ He was grinning too.

At that moment, a burst of applause told him that the speech was over.

‘Tina, I’m afraid I have to leave you for a short while. You won’t go anywhere now, will you?’

He slipped regretfully back towards the stage. Tina watched his muscular back depart and reflected how refreshing it was to meet somebody fun for a change. Somehow, most of the folk she met in the Geography Department were so terribly earnest. She decided that this particular bad boy merited closer inspection.

Roger was already off the stage and in the middle of some bumbling apology to Linda for something or other. Duggie cut him short.

‘Come on, Rog, let’s get some more champagne open and get you rat-arsed.’

Linda giggled at the thought, and accompanied the two men across the room. This time Roger managed to behave almost normally. All three of them made a point of stopping to talk to the guests. Both the mayor and the vice-chancellor received the attentions of the man himself. By the time they reached the bar, Linda was feeling more like the hostess than the personal assistant of the host.

As if reading her thoughts, Roger leant over, laid his hand on her arm and whispered, ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you, Linda.’

She beamed and waited for more. But that was it. This rare moment of natural human affection would, she knew full well, probably have to do her for the next six months. Tomorrow or the next day, he would once more plunge into his labyrinthine world of medieval politics and power struggles. She gave a mental shrug and returned to the task in hand, oblivious to the face of Rosie Barnes in the crowd to their left. The girl was staring bleakly at Roger as he clasped Linda’s arm. The expression of adoration on Roger’s face said it all. Her hopes dashed, Rosie turned back into the crowd, tears in her eyes. She was so upset, she didn’t even register the effect her audacious décolleté was having on every other man in the room.

‘I haven’t seen any of your family, Roger. Have you? Did any of your relations come?’

Linda had been responsible for sending out the invitations, so she knew that the few relatives who had been invited were of the very distant variety.

‘I haven’t seen any.’ Roger took another good look round, just in case. ‘Mind you, I’m not sure I would recognise any of them, even if they did decide to come.’

Duggie appeared with glasses of champagne. He knew Roger and his family better than most. As boys, the two of them had been inseparable. ‘They’re probably miffed that old Uncle Eustace left it all to you. You did have some pretty weird relatives though, didn’t you? What was your cousin’s name? William, wasn’t it? The one who looked like Dracula. He must be hopping mad. Mind you, thinking about it, he’d be like a hundred years old by now. I imagine he’s no longer with us.’

Linda looked across at Roger’s face. He still hadn’t fully come to terms with his great good fortune. Being left a thirty-six room mansion, along with the rental income from a street of Georgian houses in Hampstead, had turned him into a very wealthy man. But he wasn’t making plans to buy a Caribbean island, or a villa in St Tropez. Professor Roger Dalby had other things on his mind. Predictably, his intention was to concentrate entirely on his research into the life of Saint Bernard. Linda was not in the least surprised to hear the B-word on her boss’s lips at that very moment.

‘Champagne was the cradle of civilisation in Bernard’s day, you know. And yet, they never got round to making the sparkling wine itself till the later Middle Ages.’ He was staring down into his full glass of champagne, musing out loud to nobody in particular.

Determined not to let him retreat into the past, Duggie was quick to snap him out of it. ‘Bloody hell, Rog, can’t you think about anything else? So tell me something. Why did they call those big hairy dogs after the old boy then? Surely he didn’t have a tail and a barrel round his neck?’

‘No, of course not. It was the abbey…’ He stopped. Even Professor Roger Dalby knew when he was being made fun of.

‘You could do with a dog in the new house, you know.’ Duggie drained his champagne glass just in time to slip it onto a passing tray and replace it with another. Chivalrously he offered it to Linda, but she waved it away with a light shake of the head. He remembered that she rarely drank. This was something else she had in common with her boss. She turned back to Roger, catching his arm in her eagerness.

‘Oh yes, Roger, get a dog please. It would be such great company.’ Her eyes sparkled and her hand on his arm felt good. Eager to please her, he immediately agreed. In fact, if she had suggested getting a giraffe, his reaction would probably have been the same.

‘Of course. We must have a dog. There is so much land at the new place, we could have a whole pack of them.’

She thrilled at the use of the pronoun we, but made no comment.

‘Will you help me select one, please?’ Delighted to see her nod, he carried on. ‘I suppose we could even consider a Saint Bernard…’ This time both of them groaned as one, so he hastily qualified it with a vague ‘or whatever…’.

Then, to the surprise of both of them, he did not dive back into the Middle Ages.

‘I hardly knew Uncle Eustace at all, you know.’ His voice was low.

‘Did you ever meet him?’ Linda prompted him gently, conscious that personal revelations did not come easy to him. She was rewarded by an unambiguous answer.

‘Only at the funeral.’ He paused to clear his throat. ‘My parents were both killed in a car crash. I was only nineteen. I was halfway through my first year at Cambridge when they had the accident. It all seemed so surreal somehow. One moment I was a normal student in the process of breaking away from my parents and then, overnight, they were dead.’

He swallowed the glass of champagne in one gulp before carrying on. The expression on his face was bleak. It took the thirty-five years of rigorous training in the suppression of her emotions by her Methodist parents to stop Linda from sweeping him into her arms and clutching him to her breast. She did at least grip his arm tightly. Duggie reached out to a passing waitress and replaced the empty glass with another full one. Roger didn’t even notice. He carried on.

‘I didn’t see him in the church. It was outside in the churchyard in the pouring rain. After that awful bit, where you pick up a handful of earth and drop it into the grave, I suddenly felt an arm around my shoulders. A flask of brandy was pushed into my hand. I took a mouthful and turned to see him; a mane of black hair and a beard and moustache like one of the Merovingian kings.’

There was a pause, during which both Linda and Duggie waited for him to veer off, and take refuge in his own private medieval world. But, to their surprise and gratification, he persevered in the modern era.

‘He gave me a hug and told me he was the black sheep of the family. That’s what he said, “the black sheep”. He said he had loved his sister very dearly and regretted the fact he had seen so little of her. Then he kissed me on both cheeks and left without another word. Can’t have been with me for more than thirty seconds. It was only that night I found the hipflask in my pocket. It had McKinnon Marine etched in the side. That was my mother’s maiden name: McKinnon.’ He paused awkwardly, as if regretting this rare glimpse into his personal life.