The Corpse with the Sapphire Eyes (10 page)

“To hit someone across both legs, in a straight line, at this height,” he said, “you'd certainly have to be positioned to one side of the person you were hitting, which would allow a stick, or a weapon of some sort, to make a straight line, as David had on his legs.” His motions made that much clear. “Otherwise, the thing in your hand wouldn't make contact with both legs equally.”

“But that would be impossible, Bud,” I replied, since Siân clearly wasn't interested. “The stairs have a wall on each side, and while they are wide, they aren't
that
wide. Besides, why would you run down a flight of stairs into someone crouching on one of them? You'd wait for them to move.”

“He might not have seen someone crouching on a step. The light down here at the bottom might not have been turned on, and it was dark by then. That could make you miss things.”

“Granted it might make you miss your footing, Bud, but I think you'd see a person as at least a lump of something on the step. Besides, like I said, the stairs aren't
that
wide—a person would have to be tiny to have been able to be on a step beside David as he descended. And invisible.”

“So we're looking for a skinny ghost or an invisible leprechaun of some sort then?” mused Bud. He smiled in Siân's direction, and I could tell he was trying to get her to engage, but she didn't.

“As you know very well, leprechauns are Irish. In Wales we have the
bwca
,” I said.

Bud smiled wanly. “Go on then, tell me, what's a
bwca
?”

I settled my shoulders. “It's like a brownie, or a sprite. It wants to be helpful, and it will be if you thank it for its work with a bowl of milk or cream, but if you annoy one, it'll become mischievous. It'll thrown stones and break things, or knock on the walls or doors to confuse you, or pinch you as you sleep, or steal your clothes. Maybe there's a
bwca
in the castle and it tripped David Davies.” I grinned cheekily. “Mum used to call me a ‘little
bwca
' when I was naughty. Siân too. Two ‘naughty little
bwcas
,' we were. Remember, Siân?”
Nothing.

Bud remained silent as I recalled my mum's face with a warm smile. I rallied. “A
bwca
is related to the
bucca
of Cornwall and Devon, or the American tommyknocker. The knocking association comes from mining, when men working underground would hear creaking before a cave-in. They came to think of a knocking sound as a forewarning of disaster. Stephen King wrote a book called
The Tommyknockers
, though that's really more of a science-fiction book. Very similar to
Quatermass and the Pit
, in fact, which happens to be one of my favorite movies. Made in 1967. Love it, though I've never seen the original
TV
series. Have you seen it? The movie, I mean.”

Bud shook his head. “Quite how you manage to get from leprechauns to 1960s science-fiction movies in more or less one breath is beyond me. Your brain must get very hot, sometimes. But, putting all other information aside, I just wanted to point out to you how difficult, if not impossible, it would have been for a person to deliver a blow to the front of David Davies's legs, in the manner in which his body presents. There
must
have been a device he walked into, set at that height across his path, for him to have gotten that mark. Agreed?”

I nodded. “Or he might have done it before he was on the stairs,” I added. “Maybe he just happened to walk into something, getting the marks, a couple of moments before he fell down the stairs, and we're giving too much significance to the stain on his jeans, and the mark on his legs.”

“
We
?” said Bud. “
You're
the one doing that, Cait. I'm just helping you see it's not possible for a bar to have been hit across his legs while he was on the stairs. I think your new theory is much more likely.”

I jumped down from the table to join Bud. “Okay then, so let's go back upstairs and see what he might have knocked against within a couple of minutes of his fall. He couldn't have covered much ground in that time, so we could go up the stairs he came down and hunt about at the top. Oh, wait a minute . . . let me think.” I held up my hand as my mind whirred.

“I wasn't saying a word,” whispered Bud.

“Ssh. Think about it, Bud. David Davies's body was at the bottom of the up stairs—Dilys said so—not at the bottom of the down stairs. Why would that be?”

Bud shrugged. “We just walked down the up stairs, Cait. Why wouldn't, or couldn't, he do the same thing?”

“Because we didn't know the difference, because we don't live here, and it's the middle of the night, so we weren't likely to be found out by the delightful Dilys. Besides, even if we had known, we're guests here and we leave in a few days, so what's the worst she can do to us? David lived here. He was her son-in-law, and I bet he'd get it in the neck from her if she ever found him using the wrong stairs. Also, it was the middle of the afternoon. It would have been very risky for him to use the wrong stairs.”

Bud shook his head. “I know you have a brain the size of a planet, and you're a genius and belong to Mensa, and all that, but you really do overthink things sometimes, Cait. David Davies, if we're to believe what little we've heard, wasn't someone who was well liked by Dilys Jones, and maybe that's because he was habitually misusing her stairs. Just saying it sounds ridiculous, I realize that. Stairs are stairs, for heaven's sake. Of course I get that using the ones nearest the dining room means that the food gets there hotter, but, other than that, there really cannot be a good reason for her rules being observed. And this is me saying this, Cait, and you know what I'm like for obeying the rules.”

“Except when it comes to stealing trifle in the wee hours.” I smirked.

Bud shivered. “That aside, maybe when there was a huge staff of people running up and down with dishes and multiple servings, it would have made more sense to have an in-door and an out-door for the kitchen, like they do in modern restaurants, and associated up and down staircases. But these days? It seems to be just her carrying food from one place to another, so why all the fuss? She can't run into herself.”

“Maybe Rhian, her daughter, usually helps?” I suggested. “Despite the fact that no one wanted to talk about the nature of David's death very much, there's no denying that tonight's dinner wasn't what had been planned. Delicious though it was.”

Bud dropped his shoulders and admitted, “Yes, maybe you have a point there.” Then he lifted his head and added, “But I still think that David Davies sounds like the kind of guy who'd quite happily jog down the up stairs if they got him where he wanted to go. And hang what his mother-in-law might say to him if she found him breaking her rules.”

“Why was David Davies in the kitchen, or coming down the stairs to it, at least?”

“Oh come on, Cait. That's no great mystery. His wife might have been down here, or he might have had any of a number of other reasons to be coming here—you know, like being hungry and wanting to nibble on something? Or he might have been looking for someone he thought was down here—anyone who lives here. Well, not Alice, I guess, because there's no way she'd get down here because of her wheelchair. But anyone else. We just don't know.” Bud sounded exasperated.
Not with me, I hope.

I had to admit it. “You're right, Bud. In fact we hardly know anything about the whole matter. If I'm brutally honest, we don't even know if any foul play took place at all. And I don't like not knowing. I can't help it. It's my nature. I like to understand things. And this is a puzzle.”

“A puzzle. A maybe-murder mystery? With treasure?” Siân had finally roused herself. “Sounds just like your cup of tea, doesn't it?”
Is she sneering?

“If you like,” I replied softly. She didn't look well. Beneath the glow of her suntan, I could see that her face was drained.

“How are you doing, Siân?” I asked.

Siân shook her head in despair. “Not good, sis, not good at all. I thought I'd put it all behind me. I honestly thought I'd got over what he did to me, how he made me feel at the time, and the anger that I allowed to grow inside me afterwards. But seeing him lying there, like that, it's all as fresh as it ever was. Oddly enough, I can even remember how very much I loved him. And why. I feel sorry for him.” She rubbed her face with both hands. “I've got to pull myself together. I cannot allow him to win again. I will not become full of the same hate. We have to find out who killed him. However horrible he was to me, no one deserves to die before their time. Not even him. I was a nurse. I helped to save lives. Then I created two new lives, my children, and now I keep them safe. I owe it to him, as a human being I cared about, to help him now, the only way I can.”

She stood, steadying herself against the chair. I reached up and put my arm around her shoulder. She's a good three inches taller than me, so I stood on tiptoe. This time she allowed me to comfort her.

“I'm so sorry, Siân, I know this must be difficult for you,” I said.

“It's okay, Cait. I'll be fine. I just have to come to terms with how all this is making me feel. It's weird. I don't like it. But I'm really glad you're both here, because you can help me work out how he died and who killed him.”

“Oh no, we're not doing anything like that,” said Bud firmly.

Siân gave Bud a cold stare. “I don't know you well, Bud, nor, frankly, do I really know my sister—as an adult. But I do know what you two have done for complete strangers, when justice has needed serving. Cait's at least shared that with me in her emails. So, maybe, this time, you can help someone who's family.”

It was clear that this was a critical moment for the future of my relationship with my sister. I chose my words carefully.

“I think we could at least make some inquiries, Bud,” I said gently.

Bud and I locked eyes. Eventually, he nodded. “It's the moral thing to do, and the right thing to do, I know,” he said quietly. I smiled my gratitude.

“Thank you, both,” said Siân. “If someone meant to kill David, by whatever means, then I'd like to know who it was, and why they did it. I'll be honest and say I'm surprised at myself, because I didn't think I'd care if, or when, or how he died. But I do. And if we can find out who did it, then, I admit, I think I might be tempted to shake their hand. I know that causing someone's death is wrong. I do. Of course I do. Everyone does. But, frankly, for most of my adult life, I'd have fought off a crowd to be able to push him down the stairs myself.”

She nibbled her lip as Bud and I stood in silence, then added, “I . . . I am finding it hard to believe that I'm so . . . that I feel so strongly about this.”

Bud moved to stand behind me and gave my shoulders a squeeze. “It's decided then. I don't think we should say anything to anyone about what we've seen on the body, or our suspicions, agreed? We're guests, just guests. It wouldn't be a ‘normal' thing, for us to get involved.”

I nodded. “We don't know who might be a suspect, so everyone has to be considered as a possible pusher or tripper. So no cats out of bags, I agree.”

“I agree too,” said Siân sleepily.

I said, “Let's just hunt about upstairs for a few moments, please? I want to see if I can find something that might have hit him on the legs just moments before he fell. I won't rest at all until I do. And it would be difficult to do that when everyone's up and about, without letting on that we're looking into David's death.”

About half an hour later we stood outside the door to Siân's bedroom. I was still puzzled about the mark on the dead man's legs—we hadn't been able to locate anything that might have hit him or that he might have inadvertently walked into. But we'd all agreed it was impossible to judge, moving slowly in the darkness, just how far a man confident in his own home surroundings could stride in a couple of minutes.

“We'll tackle that issue in the morning,” whispered Bud sensibly, “when we can move like normal human beings, and not naughty schoolchildren.”

I agreed. “I suspect we shouldn't be late for breakfast. Dilys said half past eight, so we'd better be in the dining room by 8:29
AM
at the latest, okay?” We all said our goodnights.

BUD KNOCKED AT MY DOOR
at exactly 8:23
AM
the next morning. Luckily, I was ready, so we walked to Siân's room. I knocked, but there was no reply. I knocked again and called her name. I dared to open her door a crack, then stuck my head inside. There was no sign of my sister. Her bed was perfectly made, and her room was neat, though I could tell she'd unpacked. I could see right into her bathroom, so I was sure she'd left the room altogether.

“Maybe she went down early,” I said to Bud.

Almost immediately, Siân appeared, running up the stairs looking flushed and out of breath. Her hair was wet, and her spandex-clad body was entirely soaked.

My expression, I suspected, spoke volumes, because she didn't so much greet us as shout at us, “You two go on down. I'll be there in five minutes. I had to have a run. Needed to clear my head.”

I heard myself tut just like my mother. “Of course you did, Siân. Can't stop still for a minute, can you?”

“Ha!” she called as she swung past us and into her room. “Still as active as a bump on a log, is she, Bud?” Then she shut the door, and I fumed as Bud and I made our way down the stairs toward what I hoped would be a hearty breakfast.

“She seems a good deal more chipper this morning. But don't let what she said get to you,” whispered Bud as we entered the dining room.

“I won't. I'll eat my way through it,” I whispered back.