Swallow Hall Murder

By Noreen Wainwright

What links the dead poet to Swallow Hall? Many lives have been damaged by a controlling mother, and more than one person has ties to the dead man. Edith has her mind full with concerns about her own relationship and her brother’s health. But, when one of her old friends returns home, Edith is soon involved in the mystery of the Swallow Hall Murder.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tirgearr Publishing
• Release date: Oct 19, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370056538

Noreen Wainwright

Noreen is Irish and now lives in the Staffordshire Moorlands with her husband, a dairy farmer. She works part-time as a mentor at Staffordshire University and the rest of her time is spent writing. Many of her articles and short stories have been published and she has co-written a non-fiction book. She loves crime fiction, particularly that of the “golden age” and that is what she wants to recreate with Edith Horton’s world.

Book preview

Chapter One

She’s on the war path, again. I went into her room with the morning tea, knocked properly, waited for her gracious permission to enter, and all the rest of it. She still bit my head off. Tell the truth, Sylvia, I’ve had about enough of it. Ivy took off her cap and pulled her hair back off her face, replacing the hairpins with a stabbing movement.

It was only in the safety of the kitchen when they were on their own that Ivy would refer to Sylvia by her first name. In front of the Turner family, she referred to the cook as Mrs. Casey.

Sylvia shook her head, her forehead wrinkled beneath her pinned back, greying hair. I know. She’s getting worse. I can understand why young Beryl left, though how she could face going back to her mother and a houseful of brothers and sisters with no job, I’m sure I don’t know.

Ivy, the parlour maid, now doing the work of the departed housemaid, Beryl, on top of her own tasks, took the opportunity to sit down for a minute. She’d been up since half-past five, and her feet were on fire.

You did your best. I hope I did my best too, but Sylvia… imagine it, fifteen years of age and stuck out here in the middle of nowhere in what must have seemed like a madhouse. Can you blame the kid for hightailing it back to her family? For two pins, I’d go myself…

Don’t you dare, Ivy Moss. Look, Miss Hester will sort them out. You’ll see, things will get better, now she’s here.

Ivy slipped off her shoes and stretched out her legs, in their sensible lisle stockings. She flexed her feet, sighing.

I hope you’re right, but I have my doubts. It’s gone beyond that, I’m afraid. After Miss Elizabeth had accused me of coming across the corridor like an elephant, Ivy glanced down at her eight-stone frame, she started on with her usual nonsense.

Saying that you’d moved things around?

Worse than that. She said I’d been taking things out of her room and selling them. Ornaments, figurines…stuff that’s impossible to prove was never there in the first place. She’s clever despite it all. That’s the frightening thing.

Oh, Ivy. Look, no-one is going to believe her, not in a million years. Everyone knows she’s as mad as a March hare.

A moment’s silence fell where the only sound came from the big grandfather clock. Ivy put her shoes back on and went across to the window, looking out at the back of the house. Rain pattered on the window and rustled on the ivy-clad walls. The trees were barely coming into leaf, and she could just glimpse the soft-hued stone walls of the kitchen garden. She thought she saw a glimmer of colour, then shook her head. It was nothing.

A miserable day…outside as well as in. She smiled at her own words. Will we have a quick cuppa, Sylvia? Maybe turn the wireless on too? The work will be still there waiting for us when we’ve finished.

Her friend crossed to the stove and moved the big kettle onto the hob. Too right, girl. We ‘as to make our own fun, where we can, in this place.

* * *

Beyond the far wall of the kitchen garden, a man’s body lay prone on the grass, his thick, dark auburn hair, marred by the bloodstained dent. A fat, ginger cat circled him and paused by the head. It stretched out a small pink tongue and licked. Startled by a rustle and a thud, it took off quickly back to the kitchen door where with luck, a saucer of milk would be waiting.

* * *

The clock ticked audibly in the sitting room. Hester Turner looked up from the newspaper, thinking she heard a noise. As usual, here at Swallow Hall, she couldn’t settle to anything.

The gossip column’s copy about a member of the royal family and his carryings-on only served to make her more depressed than she was already. She couldn’t care less whether the king went off with the skinny American divorcee or did his duty and gave her up. His might be the shortest reign in recent history, according to the journalist, it being only a matter of weeks since King George’s death.

The world was in turmoil, a depression causing suicides and hunger marches. Why did people even care what the louche younger members of the aristocracy got up to?

Don’t be obtuse That’s the very reason they did care. It was a lot easier, perhaps a release to think of film stars and royalty rather than whether you might lose your job. Like now, her philosophising, if you could call it that, was a distraction from what was going on in this house and more to the point, what she was supposed to do about it. Swallow Hall and the responsibility of having to decide how to deal with her crazy relatives was weighing on her like a heavy eiderdown and trapping her like a tangle of sheets on a hot night.

A shrill voice brought her to her feet. Aunt Elizabeth.

She was berating Aunt Mary, who was twittering as usual. Hester used to feel sorry for Aunt Mary, but the longer she spent in this house, the more irritating she found her.

I told you no good would come of Serena and Kate and their entertaining. There’s a dead body in the grounds. One of their visitors, no doubt…see, I said it would end badly…but would you be told…?

They were approaching the door of the sitting-room. Hester’s throat constricted. A dead body. Really, Aunt Elizabeth got worse. At what point could you have someone certified? If she went around the village with made-up stories like that, it wouldn’t be long. As she told herself this, Hester’s own body was saying something different. A cold, prickling sensation at the base of her spine made her arch her back and shudder.

She kept her voice calm and her tone low. What are you talking about, Aunt Elizabeth? You shouldn’t say things like that.

Elizabeth relished putting cats among pigeons. Attention-seeking was Aunt Kate’s phrase to describe Elizabeth’s behaviour. She tended to over-use the expression, especially in front of Elizabeth but she wasn’t far wrong when it came to summing up her sister.

Now, Elizabeth shrugged, her shoulders so narrow, the pale-blue cardigan drooped dismally off them. Built like a dressmaker’s dummy, somehow insubstantial, she was wiry too, though.

Come on then, if you don’t believe me. I’ll show you. Aunt Elizabeth’s hair was damp. So, she’d been outside and presumably discarded a hat and coat somewhere once back inside the house.

Stay in the house, Hester ordered Aunt Mary. She went to the back porch where damp-smelling gumboots and mackintoshes in various states of deterioration were slung and hung.

This was surreal, but she still had to check on what, if anything, was in the garden. Show me, she threw over her shoulder at her aunt.

Her anger towards Elizabeth at this moment was unreasonable, and she knew it—the effect of a couple of weeks in this place.

The rain had eased to that blanket of drizzle, the sort that didn’t seem much until you realised you were soaked. Her heart thudded slow and loud in her ears as they reached the back of the walled garden and she saw the shape. The thudding in her ears grew louder and faster, and there was a sort of whooshing sound. She took in some deep breaths of the damp, sweet air.

He might not be dead. She must check. Hester’s VAD training and experience pushed away the panic, and she had a second of acute thankfulness for that, at least.

It was awkward to feel his radial pulse as his hands and arms were partly under his prone body. Her eyes were drawn to the blood and his skull no matter how hard she tried to avoid looking. She felt at his neck and didn’t have to try too hard to ascertain that life had left him. The cold of his flesh wasn’t caused by the chilly day. He’d probably been here for several hours. Hester’s heart sat heavily in her chest.

Aunt Elizabeth stood a foot or so away.

I told you, didn’t I? Her tone was of one pleased with herself to be proved right, and her lack of concern for the dead man made Hester so angry she could have shouted at her. But, what was the point? Elizabeth was as she was and that wasn’t Hester’s main concern at this moment.

Go and telephone the police station…no, I’ll do it myself. Goodness knows how Elizabeth would come across over the phone.

She looked intently at her aunt.

He shouldn’t be left on his own. Can you stay here while I go back into the house? Will you be all right? Her aunt always came across as having the sensitivity of an elephant’s hide, but you never knew.

Of course, why wouldn’t I be? The dead can’t hurt you, you know, Hester.

This one might. Hester hurried back to the house.

Despite the shock, out of habit, she looked up at the house. Every time she took it in, she always had the same thought-—the state of mind or imagination of the person who had conceived and designed it must have been heavily influenced by the ornate and the gothic. The dark-grey stone shone almost black in the rain. In every direction you looked there was a quirk, a twist. Now, she caught sight of a gargoyle she hadn’t noticed before. Whoever the designer had been, he’d either had a subversive sense of humour or he’d been as strange as Elizabeth.

Chapter Two

There are some very strange people in these parts. Julia pushed her chair away from the table as she spoke, and rotated her shoulders back.

Julia’s vigour and good looks were back. Edith’s friend had turned her life around. Jules, there are strange people everywhere. I don’t suppose the dales has more than its fair quota.

I don’t know if I agree, I think maybe there’s a particular type of strangeness…either attracted by remote places or caused by them. Anyway, shall we have another pot of tea?

Edith nodded. It was a cold, March spring day when winter held on with ghostly strong fingers, and spring had receded again. Inside the tea shop, a pleasing smog of steam, vanilla essence, and muted chatter prevailed.

Tea and gossip and a couple of cream slices still left on the cake stand. The simple pleasures. Edith would never again take them for granted. Well, she probably would, but she’d try hard not to.

You know, I’d nearly forgotten all about Hester Turner, Julia said.

I don’t know how you could forget Hester, Edith shook her head.

Yes, I know what you mean. She was well and truly the rebel out of all of us, wasn’t she? How she didn’t get kicked out of the Voluntary Aid Detachment, I’ll never know.

Edith paused and smiled at the girl in the black dress and white apron who put the silver pot on the table. Probably because she was an excellent nurse, and she kept her high jinks for off-duty time. Though I grant you, she did sail close to the wind at times. Anyway, as I said, she’s back staying with that strange family of hers at Swallow Hall. She’s been called to sort them out after the last housemaid fled in terror.

In terror. Aren’t you exaggerating, Edie?

Well, probably just a smidgeon. Anyway, she called round to the house. I bumped into her last week in the shop, and she practically clung to my coat-tails. I think she was just delighted to see a familiar face.

Remind me who lives there?

Three of Hester’s aunts and her cousin, Serena, and the grandmother, old Mrs. Turner.

Quite a clan of them, then…and all women?

Yep, said Edith. The monstrous regiment. Once Hester got going, I could barely get her to pause for breath. Strange things have been happening at the Hall. She was sent for. I don’t think any of them speak to each other, apart from Serena and her mother. All locked into this unhealthy situation by a controlling mother who must be about a hundred.

She paused. Actually, I tell a lie. There is a man on the edges of it all. A Hubert Billings, who is a distant cousin. I don’t envy him, in the middle of them all."

Julia hesitated before finally succumbing to the vanilla slice on the violet-patterned cake stand. As far as I knew them at all, I thought that the old lady had died years ago. Apparently, she used to go out, down into Ellbeck in some sort of pony and trap affair, scattering peasants as she went. Can you imagine? So, go on with your story,

So, you have Serena, tragically made a young widow by the war. Then there are the three aunts. Kate, who is Serena’s mother, Elizabeth, and Mary. Elizabeth is the one who is craziest of the bunch.

Julia licked the cream from her lips and made an exaggerated expression of ecstasy. Sweets and confectionary are what that the old man made his money from, wasn’t it?

Yes. The aunts’ father and Serena’s grandfather made his fortune from humbugs, bonbons, boiled sweets and the rest. Probably made a few dentists rich too, along the way.

Edith looked towards the door as the bell jangled. The two women who entered were unknown to her, but looked like typical countrywomen, probably farmers’ wives. They wore good winter coats and warm headscarves and each carried shopping bags as well as leather handbags.

She lowered her voice all the same. You never knew, in the dales—there were all kinds of connections and intermarriages, and you could get yourself in a lot of trouble if you didn’t take care where you spoke.

"The old father, George Turner was a decent enough fellow, by all accounts. Didn’t treat his workers too badly according to the times—did his bit for the local hospital and other charities but of course, married to the works. Your typical self-made man.

His wife was a different kettle of fish. One of those controlling women who took to her bed and acted like she was dying if all else failed in her attempts to get her own way. It worked. She had them all at her beck and call. Still has, I assume, though Hester talked much more about the aunts than she did about her grandmother."

Julia shook her head. We don’t live in Victorian times anymore. It’s hard to imagine grown women letting their lives be quashed like that.

Edith thought she had a vague understanding of how it could happen. Her regular psychology classes were opening her mind to the quirks of human behaviour.

So much was closed off to women of that generation, Julia. They either set to, got married and had children or became dependent old maids, thrown on the charity of some relative or other. No vote, no profession, and no voice. No wonder some of them became peculiar.

Julia put her head to one side and the hint of a smile twitched at the corner of her mouth. Some would say not a lot has changed.

Edith shook her head. She wasn’t going to allow her friend to slip back into some sort of…well, self-pity was the only expression. Julia’s bitterness at how her marriage had turned out bubbled under the surface, still.

Lots of things have changed, Jules, and you know it. Women get degrees. We have women doctors, even aviators. Goodness me, even members of Parliament. I’ll grant you we have an awfully long way to go, but at least we have some choices. Anyway, back to Mrs. Turner. She became odder and more domineering as time went on. She wouldn’t socialise or entertain with her husband—rumour has it that he had another woman somewhere in Wensleydale. Though, where he found the courage to do that if his wife was such a dragon, heaven knows. But, all the control was exerted on the children. Any suitors who came calling were seen off.

One of them got married, though.

Serena’s mother, Kate. And the son, Hester’s father…late father, now of course. He really did escape as soon as he could despite the fact he was his mother’s favourite.

Is Hester staying long in Ellbeck? Maybe we should all get together some time?

Staying, for the time being, I think. She came because of a call for help from Serena, who’d just about got to the end of her tolerance. Elizabeth is the main one…the main problem, getting odder, falling out with all the rest of them. Accusing them of moving her things, stealing her jewellery, selling it. Then, when Hester comes she finds them all keeping to their own rooms.

Can’t be a bundle of laughs any of it, being forced to live together. How can you do such a thing, anyway? Force grown women to continue living together? What’s actually stopping them from leaving?

Edith squashed the prickle of irritation. Soft-living had cushioned Julia to some things. Simple, Jules. Money. If all your prospects and all the money you have are tied up with staying there, well, that’s what you’d do, isn’t it? Stick it out?

Julia’s frown was intense, as though she was trying to puzzle something out. Mmm, I suppose…

Before you even say it, Julia, what would women like that do? Any education they would have had would be minimal and wouldn’t consist of anything that might help them to earn a living. If you think about it, women from that class are even more trapped than some girl from a family where it’s a given that she’ll have to go out to work. Girls in those circumstances learn a trade or skill because they have to. That reminds me. You know Vera Bishop who works for my aunt?

Julia nodded and tilted her cup to one side in a sudden nervous movement. Sister of Davey, who saved young Daisy’s life?

Yes, Edith let a moment of silence pass as they both thought of the terrifying series of events which had led to the death of Julia’s husband, Giles, and the ordeal of his daughter.

A friend of hers, Ivy Moss, works in the house. Lives in, she and the cook. According to Vera, she’s looking for another job. It’s unbearable there. I didn’t say this to Hester. But, if that happens, it can only make a bad situation worse. Hester has a good job, though. She can’t stay here forever trying to sort them out. She works as a secretary for a member of parliament, so presumably she’ll soon have to go back to work. At Julia’s raised eyebrows, she smiled. I know. It’s quite a jump from nursing. But, she loves it and fair dues to her for getting so far. It’s usually a job that’s given to a man.

I rest my case, said Edith. Things are improving for us women. So, if I arrange an afternoon tea at my house. I’ll make sure Archie is out of the way.

Julia shot her a look which she ignored. You’ll come?

Her friend’s smile warmed the room. Of course. Tea, cake and gossip with old friends. Irresistible.

Something had changed for Julia. It was obvious when you knew someone for as long as they’d known each other. Ah well, if she had a hidden suitor, she wouldn’t be the only one who had someone causing that little glow inside that made the world a kinder place.

Edith had wasted too much time agonising about whether anyone could replace Alastair and then, there had been that ridiculous fantasy she’d built up about Matthew Taylor. Heat spread from her face down onto her neck.

Could it even be possible to actually embarrass yourself? She smiled at her foolishness. A real, flesh and blood man awaited her now.

Chapter Three

Sergeant Bill Brown clenched his fists and tightened the muscles in his shoulders. Fight or flight mechanism. He’d read about that. He was in a situation of danger, and his body was preparing to react. His mouth was dry and as for his heart... It could have given the drum section of a marching band a run for its money.

The problem was that he couldn’t now reveal himself. He was stuck in a room, little more than a dusty cupboard, at the back of the inspector’s office and had no choice but to listen as his boss was berated by some unknown woman. The worse part of it—probably -—was the inspector was unaware of his proximity. Brown had been searching for a file Inspector Greene had been badgering him about for weeks—some minor point he wanted to clear up about a local ne’er-do-well’s previous poaching career.

Time and time again, Brown had forgotten about it, and he feeling virtuous, had taken the opportunity of his boss’ temporary absence to have a good search. In fact, he’d had a flash of memory about it being in the basement store just as he heard the sound of the Inspector’s return. At the very moment he prepared to make his triumphant appearance and announce his brainwave, there came the sound of someone else with the inspector. A woman, an angry woman.

"It’s no use, Albert. No use you washing your hands of her and skulking around here morning, noon and night pretending you’re so busy and flaming important you