An invitation to murder.., p.1
AN INVITATION TO MURDER an absolutely gripping murder mystery full of twists,
p.1
AN
INVITATION
TO MURDER
An absolutely gripping murder mystery full of twists
NORMAN RUSSELL
Oldminster Book 1
Originally published as
Tongued with Fire
Revised edition 2021
Joffe Books, London
www.joffebooks.com
First published by Troubador Publishing in Great Britain in 2019
as Tongued with Fire
© Norman Russell 2019, 2021
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The spelling used is British English except where fidelity to the author’s rendering of accent or dialect supersedes this. The right of Norman Russell to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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Cover art by Dee Dee Book Covers
ISBN: 978-1-78931-945-3
CONTENTS
1. ‘Will You Walk into My Parlour?’
2. The Angry Bookseller
3. A Question of Title
4. Among Velleities and Carefully Caught Regrets
5. Army Games
6. The Pain of Living and the Drug of Dreams
7. Death in the Afternoon
8. The Investigators
9. Timothy and Linda Reid
10. The Birthday Party
11. Dr Thornhill’s Ministry
12. Doubts and Revelations
13. At the Monkshead County Asylum
14. The Trap
15. Suspicion
16. On Trial for Murder
17. Phantoms
Epilogue
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1. ‘Will You Walk into My Parlour?’
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Lord Renfield stood in the great window embrasure in the parlour of Renfield Hall and looked out on to the forecourt, where Jessica’s red Mini Cooper was parked. She had come tearing in from Oldminster not more than ten minutes ago. He could hear her now, her bright, fierce young voice in conversation with her mother.
‘But, darling, you owe it to your father to dress more like . . . well, more like a daughter of the aristocracy, to put it bluntly. Why pretend that you’re something that you’re not? Those wretched torn jeans are so obvious. And the same old sweater, day after day . . .’
Frank Renfield knew that Carole would be standing halfway up the great staircase, impeccably dressed, manicured and made-up. Jessica would be standing in the hall, defiantly casual, using slovenliness as a calculated weapon against her parents. That had been all very well when she was sixteen, but she was twenty-five now, and the time had come when she would have to toe the line. There had been plenty of boyfriends, some tolerably civilized, others horrendous, but she had been too free a spirit to commit herself to any of them. Well, the days of parental indulgence were now over.
‘Daddy’s living in a world of his own, Mother. He may be the twentieth baron, but he’s on his uppers, isn’t he? He should sell this place, and move into something modern and manageable. Nobody bothers about titles these days.’
He couldn’t hear Carole’s reply. Evidently mother and daughter had gone up to the drawing room to continue their pointless conversation — pointless because neither of them would give an inch.
There was another man in the room, a man of military bearing, who had kept silent until Lady Renfield and her daughter were out of earshot. Colonel Laxton had known Frank Renfield since they were both in the army. They had not been particularly close, but both had always been keen supporters of SSAFA, the armed forces charity. Laxton was there that day because he had come to collect Frank’s annual donation. It had been a cheque for £50.
‘It’s all I can run to this year, Laxton. Things have been pretty tight of late,’ Frank had said. He’d not heard Laxton’s reply, because his whole attention had been given to his daughter’s crude criticism of his way of life.
‘Did you hear all that, Laxton?’ he said, flushing with anger. ‘Renfield Hall and its estate — such as it is, now — are both sacrosanct. They’re part of an orderly universe that’s not going to be changed. That silly girl doesn’t know what she’s talking about.’
Colonel Laxton could sympathize with his former fellow soldier. He suspected that Frank Renfield was heavily in debt, sacrificing his peace of mind to a theory of social station. Well, society was held together by hierarchies, and he could understand Frank’s attitude.
‘There have been Renfields at Abbot’s Grayling for four hundred years, haven’t there?’ he ventured.
‘Yes — yes, indeed. The house was Tudor originally, but it was largely remodelled in 1708. We’ve old Renfield portraits hanging here, Laxton, portraits by Reynolds and Gainsborough among others. Priceless. And you’ll see the Renfield achievements of arms blazoned in the windows in this room, and carved into the panelling in the gallery.’
‘I wouldn’t pay too much attention to your daughter, Renfield,’ said the colonel. ‘Girls can be very silly at times. My two were, but they ditched all their nonsense once we’d married them off.’
Colonel Laxton thanked Renfield for his cheque, and took his departure. Frank sat down and felt for his pipe and matches in the pocket of his tweed jacket.
Yes, Jessica was very tiresome at the moment, but when she’d said that he was ‘on his uppers’ — had Laxton heard that? — well, within the family, the truth of her assertion was an open secret. He had long ago sold off the farms for cash, losing valuable income in the process. There had been pressing debts that needed to be paid. They still had an investment folio, managed by his long-suffering solicitor, but everything now was held together by taking out long-term loans, with little prospect of them ever being redeemed.
But all this would change when Jessica married Karl Langer.
The simple act of recalling that name brought Lord Renfield out of his reverie. Leaving the oak parlour, as the great room was called, he crossed the entrance passage and went into the library. It was early September, and Lewis had lit a fire in the grate.
Framed to the left of the fireplace was a photograph of Renfield Hall in 1886, taken on the occasion of a visit from the Duke and Duchess of Fife. The royal couple stood in the centre, flanked by Lord and Lady Renfield. Arrayed on either side was the household of servants: butler, housekeeper, footmen in their smart liveries and the six maids in cap and apron. Today, the Renfields were served by Fred and Jean Lewis, known as a ‘live-in’ couple, and two young cleaning women who came in once a week from Abbot’s Grayling to help Jean with what she called ‘the heavy stuff’.
None of these people ever addressed him as ‘my lord’. Fred managed ‘sir’ on most occasions, because he was a respectful man by nature. Jean never gave him any kind of title. ‘There you are,’ she’d say, putting down a tray. ‘If there’s anything else you want, give us a shout.’
But they were good staff in their way, and would dress up formally to serve dinner in the old fashion, standing against the wainscot until it was time to change the plates. Fred seemed to enjoy serving from the silver dishes, so that on those evenings when the family dined formally, there was a very faint echo of Downton Abbey in the proceedings . . .
And now the time had come to make Jessica marry Karl Langer. He was coming for dinner that night, and Carole would ensure that the girl dressed properly and behaved herself while he was in the house. He would arrive in his Mercedes C200, a splendid car that he had bought for cash on arriving in England from New York a couple of weeks earlier. He had three homes: something called a ‘condominium’ in Silicon Valley, an exclusive apartment in Manhattan, and a country estate in the Hamptons.
It was time for Jessica to grow up. Karl Langer was only twenty-eight, three years older than Jess, but he was already a multimillionaire. He had developed or devised various algorithms — whatever they were — that had delighted the manufacturers of computer games and made him a fortune by the time he was twenty-five. He had not been content to rest on his laurels, and had soon developed computer programs that were designed to be of interest to government departments concerned with national security. His fortune had doubled virtually overnight.
Karl Langer was fascinated by the aristocracy of the old country, and had hunted and shot with some of the foremost families in Debrett’s. Frank Renfield had started to ensnare the young man just a year ago, showing him the sights of London, and wining and dining him in his club in Pall Mall. (He really must pay his dues there; the secretary was becoming rather strident about his arrears.) Now Langer was coming to dine, and if things went well, he could be persuaded to stay for a while at Renfield Hall. If the bait
Lord Renfield glanced round the library rather like a producer surveying a stage set. The dark panelling and shaded lamps would create the right atmosphere when the two of them retired to sample some Napoleon brandy after dinner. They would occupy the two comfortable armchairs on either side of the fireplace.
In the centre drawer of his desk reposed the folder of documents that had arrived from the Lord Chancellor’s Department a few days previously. They were there to show to Karl Langer, the innocent little fly who was about to blunder into his web.
* * *
Lady Renfield looked with distaste at her daughter, who was sitting, or rather slouching, on one of the antique brocade sofas that were a feature of the drawing room. It was a well-proportioned room, with a lofty plaster ceiling writhing with cherubs and acanthus leaves. Four fanciful Gothic windows looked out onto the rear gardens of the mansion.
Jessica was a very pretty girl with long, untamed blond hair and piercing blue eyes. She had behaved herself and done well at St Mary’s, Ascot, but had left at sixteen to pursue an aimless sort of life on the fringes of the arts scene in Oldminster. She had begun, but never completed, a secretarial course.
She had toyed with the idea of studying for a diploma in cordon bleu cooking at Oldminster Polytechnic, but nothing had come of that.
Nowadays she hung around an antiquarian bookshop run by an appalling man named Guy Lavender. She had become far too friendly with the bookseller’s nephew, Alan, who was supposed to be an artist. Well, all that would have to stop, now.
‘Jessica,’ said her mother, ‘you will go now, wash, do your hair and change into something decent. Mr Karl Langer will arrive in an hour’s time, and once he’s here, you will entertain him, do you hear? You will be nice to him. You’ve met him on a number of occasions, so you should be at ease in his presence. He is a young American, rich as Croesus, who wants to ally himself with an English aristocratic family—’
The girl jumped up from the sofa, her face flushed with anger. It was at such moments that her mother saw her daughter’s resemblance to Frank. The same bright red flush, the same clenched fists. Although Jessica did not realize it, she was very much her father’s daughter.
‘You want me to marry him?’ Jessica cried. ‘A boring computer programmer from Silicon Valley? Dream on, Mother. Yes, I’ve met him several times, each time manoeuvred into the meeting by Daddy, who doesn’t bother to conceal the fact that he wants to get his hands on his money. Well, I won’t let him use me as bait. I shan’t marry him, and that’s that. We’re not living in Victorian times.’
‘Sit down, Jessica.’
There was such an imperious command in Lady Renfield’s voice that her daughter did as she was bid. Her mother towered over her, suddenly threatening and intimidating. Carole Renfield was fifty-three, but looked years younger. Jessica secretly envied her mother’s confident beauty and poise. She was also afraid of her. She had been a wilful child, reducing her nanny to tears with her behaviour. When her mother had heard the nanny’s anguished cries she had come into the nursery, told the nanny to go down to the kitchen, and had then proceeded to beat Jessica until she cried for mercy. Now she was standing over her, panting with anger. Her teeth were bared in something approaching a snarl.
‘It was you, Jessica, who mentioned marriage, not me. But yes, what a good idea! We’ll take it as a done deal, shall we? But if you won’t marry him, you will break Daddy’s heart. And, of course, he will stop your allowance. As for me . . . well, I will devise ways of making you regret that you were ever born. I mean it, Jessica. Your father and I have our disagreements, but we are as one on this. The Renfields belong to Renfield Hall. We have been here for four hundred years. We are part of the fabric, part of its beating heart. And tonight, Daddy will tell Karl Langer a secret that will bind him to us as your husband and our son-in-law—’
‘A secret? What secret?’
‘You will be told later. Meanwhile, you will do as Daddy and I tell you.’ Lady Renfield moved to the door.
‘And you will stop seeing Alan Lavender and his degenerate uncle the bookseller. We have better things in store for you than an aimless existence with people of that sort. Go now, wash, change and go downstairs to welcome Karl Langer when he arrives. Waylay him before dinner, and talk to him nicely.’
* * *
Karl Langer leaned against his Mercedes and looked up at the front elevation of Renfield Hall. It was getting dark, so that the glimmer of shaded lights in the tall window embrasure of the oak parlour turned the coats of arms in the windows to dark roundels.
He had grown to love this old mansion in a way that only an American could. The house came with a history, and more important even than that, it was the home of a baronial family who had dwelt on that spot for centuries. In a few moments he would ring the bell, but first he would smoke a Marlboro in the little knot garden, which he knew lay beyond an archway to his right. It was still light, and the evening was warm, so he was quite happy to linger for a while until he’d soothed his nerves. He had been hobnobbing with English aristocrats for a couple of years now, but Lord Renfield still had the power to make him feel nervous.
He heard a door open, and turning, saw his host’s daughter, Jessica, step out from a French window onto the path. Blonde like her mother, with her hair in a ponytail, she was wearing a floral dress and a string of pearls. The computing part of his brain duly registered her: The Honourable Jessica Renfield, only child of Lord and Lady Renfield. She was very pretty, but never had much to say for herself. But he liked her well enough. No, that was wrong. He liked her a good deal more than that. But then, he had to admit that he liked everyone and everything in Renfield Hall.
The girl stood rather awkwardly in front of him, holding out her hand, which he took. She treated him to what seemed to be an uncomfortably mocking smile.
‘Good evening, Mr Langer,’ she said. ‘My mother has told me to be nice to you, so here I am. What are you doing in the knot garden? Why not try the front door?’
‘I’m calming my nerves before I meet your father,’ he said. ‘In most houses I’ve visited in England, you’re sent out into the garden to smoke. England is a very obedient country. Your parliament tells you not to smoke, so you stop smoking. They tell you to eat five a day, so you eat five a day. It’s different in the States.’
Jessica laughed and made her way back to the window. ‘Better finish that up, and ring to be admitted,’ she said. ‘And by the way, Daddy smokes like a chimney. So you needn’t have risked getting a cold by loitering here among the flower beds.’
Karl Langer returned to the coffered porch and pulled the old-fashioned bell. Once again, he was to dine with Lord and Lady Renfield and their intriguing daughter. Each encounter drew him closer into their family circle.
The stout oak door was opened, and he was greeted by the family’s butler. He could never remember the man’s name, but he could recall his expression of hurt surprise on the first occasion they had met, when he had tried to give the man a tip. The man ushered him into the oak parlour and asked him to wait.
‘The family will be down in a minute, Mr Langer,’ he said. He made a gesture that was half nod, half bow and left the room.
Karl stood before the fireplace and took stock of his surroundings. By any standards, this was a splendid room of state. The fireplace was of old Italian marble, the mantelpiece supported by sculpted Tritons. The high ceiling of painted plaster depicted, he had been told, an English victory over the French in a battle forming part of the War of the Spanish Succession in the early years of the eighteenth century. ‘If you look to the far end,’ Lord Renfield had said on Langer’s last visit, ‘you’ll see my ancestor, the twelfth Lord Renfield, who distinguished himself on that field. He was a very gallant soldier, so we’ve been told.’
