Ten Lords A-Leaping: A Mystery (Father Christmas) (48 page)

“
I
have no issue with how Olly got his money.”

“Then perhaps you should.” John raised an eyebrow. “Because I would more than wager that money lies at the heart of Boysie’s murder. Do you remember, Jamie, about the time you and Jane were to be married, that Oliver was manoeuvring to buy that old theatre club on Villiers Street and turn it into that enormous nightclub?”

“Icarus. We were talking about it yesterday, oddly enough, Jane and I—Tom was with us. Boysie and Kamran were to be his partners in the venture, weren’t they? I know Father didn’t approve of it. I’m sure he got Boysie to renege. Boysie came into this money about that time, but you know Father—he wasn’t going to have Boysie throw good money away or use the family name to raise capital all for some foolish scheme.”

“But Icarus is a great success,” Jane demurred. “It’s one of the most consistently popular clubs in London. And Oliver was going to expand, with similar clubs on the Continent and the United States.”

“But how did Oliver finance Icarus in the beginning? Uncle Fred’s hotel scheme on Baissé drained much of what
was left liquid in the Morborne Trust, didn’t it?” John looked to his brother.

“Yes,” Jamie replied. “The Morborne name was manure in capital markets in those days. How would Oliver have financed his share of the scheme, you ask? I expect much depended on the soundness of his two partners. The Arouzis are enormously rich—but quite conservative socially. I can’t imagine Kamran’s father wearing the notion of his son owning a nightclub, but it didn’t matter in the end anyway, did it? Kamran took his own life, and that killed that goose and his golden egg.”

“So where did Olly turn next, Jamie?”

“Boysie, I should imagine.”

“I’ve had time to think about this at Hexham Priory. I’m sure you may be right, Jamie. Either Father got Boysie to renege on the scheme or Boysie had already forwarded moneys that he wished returned or Oliver wanted Boysie to loan him more money—or some financial doodah that made Oliver desperate. Perhaps Oliver owed money to criminals.”

“But he wouldn’t have got it from Boysie, would he? Father would have noticed any funny business in Boysie’s estate after he died.” Jamie paused to take a sip of his drink. “How, then, did Olly get Icarus off the ground?”

Tom held up a hand, as if he had been called upon in school. “I think I know.”

Both brothers looked at him. “Really?” Jamie said.

“Dominic accused Oliver of selling works from the collection at Morborne House. I understand that their great-great-grandfather was an early collector of Impressionist paintings.”

Jamie frowned. “But surely word would get about. Those paintings are treasures.”

“Apparently, under the guise of cleaning and restoration and new framing, Oliver had the paintings sent out and copied, returning the copies to Morborne House and selling the originals on a black market.”

The Allan brothers were silent a beat. “The devil!” Jamie finally exploded.

“I gather he’s done it again over the years whenever he’s needed an infusion of cash. And if he was having trouble getting financing from the usual sources for this new business venture of his, the Icarii …”

“Probably one of the reasons he’s wanted Lucy and her mother out of Morborne House,” Jane said. “Someone among their friends and allies might begin to notice. But,” she continued impatiently, “surely Oliver alit on that scheme
after
things went pear-shaped with Boysie.”

“Well.” Jamie stared into his whisky as if it yielded secrets. “David Corlett—or Phillips—identifies him at Tullochbrae shortly after our wedding.” He frowned. “It’s hard to think he went up with murder on his mind.”

“I don’t believe he did. Or perhaps that’s what I want to believe.”

“Why, then, didn’t he want anyone to know he was travelling to Scotland? Why did he lie about being at Kamran’s funeral?”

“I expect he didn’t want any of the family to know
why
he was coming—all about grubby money. And it would have looked strange to appear after a wedding he had declined to attend. He’d been to Tullochbrae a few times when he was a teenager. He’d remember the private roads and paths. Aird Cottage is very near a public road. I don’t think he travelled
with stealth, I think he was simply being very discreet. Probably wanted to avoid Father.”

Jamie made a dismissive grunt.

“I think whatever Olly asked for, Boysie refused,” John continued. “They argued. And in a blind moment of rage, Oliver took the poker by the fireplace and struck Boysie a fatal blow. There was nothing to be gained by deliberately killing Boysie. There was more to lose, but it was done, and he thought he’d got away with it. Only he didn’t realise he’d been witnessed by a mentally handicapped boy—”

“Whom you moved to protect—an astonishing act of sacrifice, John,” Jane said.

“If there had been a proper investigation—” Jamie paused to drain his glass. “—then I suppose Oliver’s being in Scotland would have been winkled out eventually. For example, he must have hired a car at Aberdeen. There would be a record. But as you had confessed to Boysie’s murder, John, that ended that.”

John didn’t respond to the provocation. “What is difficult to understand is why it ended with such violence,” he said instead. “What could Boysie have said or done that would have driven Oliver to … manslaughter?”

Tom and Jane exchanged glances.

“I think Tom has an idea,” Jane said regarding him speculatively. “It goes—does it not?—back to a horrifying event in Shropshire more than a quarter century ago.”

“
D
id you know Kamran Arouzi?” Tom asked Jamie.

“Only a little. I was a fair bit younger and excluded from Boysie and Oliver’s circle at school. But Kamran would come to tea sometimes at Bridgemary. He boarded. We Allans were day boys.” He looked over the rim of his glass. “You say Kamran was witness to this ghastly act on The Wrekin?”

“Gaunt’s certain. But only as a witness.”

“It’s hard to imagine Kamran any way involved. I think of him as a sensitive boy. I wondered even then that he was such fast friends with the likes of Boysie and Olly. They bullied him a bit, I recall—perhaps
teased
is the word—they were champion at it—but maybe he was glad of the friendship. I’m not sure how kind people were to him at school, because he wasn’t, you know, English—I mean, by birth. I remember Mummy once giving the two of them, Boysie and Olly, stick
for calling him a Paki, which was ridiculous since he was Iranian—Parsi, actually.”

Jane said, “Tom thinks Boysie was involved.”

“But Gaunt saw only two boys, darling—Oliver and Kamran.”

“Something Gaunt said to me, as we waited for help this afternoon, which suggests Oliver had taken your older brother”—Tom addressed Jamie and John—“into his confidence.”

“All boys together, sharing secrets, that sort of thing,” Jane added.

“What an appalling idea. And Boysie keeping such a dreadful secret?”

“If he kept it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Something you could hold over someone, don’t you think?”

“I expect so,” Jamie replied after a moment’s thought, adding, “Surely Oliver must have been … 
shaken
in some fashion by the monstrous thing he had done. I would have been too young—you even younger, John. Did no one take notice?”

“Oliver’s always seemed the height of lordly self-assurance to me, Jamie,” Jane responded. “He probably was then, too. But for Kamran, perhaps it wasn’t water off a duck’s back. It was the beginning of a life of—”

“Inspector.” Jamie interrupted his wife as Bliss lumbered into the room followed by his sergeant. “Any more news of Gaunt?”

“We’ve despatched Mrs. Gaunt to Torbay Hospital, which
should give you an indication of the seriousness of his condition.” Bliss wore a harried frown. His eyes landed on John. “I’ve had an interview with Miss Phillips—”

“May I see Anna?” John interrupted.

“All in good time.” Bliss gestured impatiently to his partner, who pulled a notebook and biro from his jacket pocket. “You were last seen in Abbotswick on Saturday evening around ten, having words with Lord Morborne. And then, Mr. Allan or Phillips or whatever you call yourself, you disappear for the best part of two days.”

“I thought Gaunt was the—” Jamie protested, but Bliss cut him off:

“I’m leaving no stone unturned, sir. Mr. Allan, can you account for your—”

“Inspector,” Tom interrupted, turning from contemplating the fireplace overmantel, the Triumph of Death, which had drawn his attention two nights before. “It doesn’t matter.”

“What?”

“It doesn’t bloody matter where John’s been the last two days.”

“Would you care to lead this investigation, Vicar?”

“I would not.”

“Then—”

“Look, if this were some sort of Jacobean drama, John here would do nicely on the playbill as the peer’s son seeking to avenge a murder. He spent years in prison, sacrificing his youth to protect a vulnerable, mentally challenged young man and the woman he loved, when all along he was protecting a scoundrel. Who hearing his story mightn’t imagine the outrage,
the anger, the betrayal he might experience when he learned the truth? Who mightn’t suspect him of murdering his cousin? Some, I expect, would hardly blame him.

“But he’s innocent—of Oliver’s murder and Roberto Sica’s, too. A year and a half ago, when I was new in Thornford, I thought for a time that he might have had a hand in some violent deaths in the village. You know the ones I mean, Inspector.

“Then, too, it seemed he might have a motive, along with the opportunity. But I came to understand that he wasn’t capable. Time spent in prison, I think, is thoroughly destructive for many people, but I think somehow John was … burnished by the experience, his Christian faith, which he seems to have had strongly from childhood”—Tom looked to both brothers for confirmation—“strengthened by the reversals of his life. He’s had a cross to bear, and he’s borne it well. However provoked—and he has been sorely provoked—I’m certain he would turn the other cheek.”

“Bravo, Vicar!” Jamie raised his glass.

“Fine words, Mr. Christmas, but I don’t share your certainty. With enough provocation—”

“Possibly, Inspector. I’m not going to debate with you. Yes, John has a strong motive. But he hadn’t the opportunity, for one thing.” He glanced at John, who remained unmoving. “I think you’ll find, if you check, that he has a solid alibi with the good Benedictines at Hexham Priory.

“However, there’s something more vital.”

“And what would that be?”

“Means, Inspector. John hadn’t the means to kill Oliver.”

P
riesthood was Tom’s second vocation. Before he read theology at Cambridge, he had been, for a time as a young man, a professional magician, which one of his mothers (Dosh) didn’t consider a proper job at all but a youthful enthusiasm gone riot. Whatever Dosh’s misgivings, magicianship had focused his youthful energies, built his confidence, given him pleasure—and attracted not a few girls along the way. He maintained a sentimental attachment to it still. Illusory magic could awaken people to deeper aspects of their lives, he believed, though some in the Church treated his avocation with scepticism. He could slip in a moral lesson, too, and in this instance, in Eggescombe Hall’s drawing room, for his first time, he was about to do something more.

He glanced at DI Bliss who had removed himself to the pale of the drawing room, ceding pride of place before the mantelpiece, a scowl on his face. He had been incredulous in
his resistance to Tom’s request. “And turn my investigation into a fairground sideshow?” he’d snapped, though Tom’s intent was not at all to amuse and distract. Indeed, he had never before approached a performance of magic with such a freighted heart and, in this peculiar instance, with such uncertainty as to its effect. He found himself in the invidious position of reminding the DI of his contributions to their past investigative successes. Only then was permission grudgingly given.