The Dead of Winter

MOURNING THE LITTLE DEAD

TOUCHING THE DARK

HEATWAVE

KILLING A STRANGER

LEGACY OF LIES

A REASON TO KILL

FRAGILE LIVES

THE POWER OF ONE

RESOLUTIONS

THE DEAD OF WINTER

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This first world edition published 2011

in Great Britain and in the USA by

SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

9–15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.

All rights reserved.

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Adams, Jane, 1960-

The dead of winter. -- (A Rina Martin mystery)

1. Martin, Rina (Fictitious character)--Fiction.

2. McGregor, Sebastian (Fictitious character)--Fiction.

3. Retired women--Fiction. 4. Blizzards--Fiction.

5. Murder--Investigation--Fiction. 6. Detective and

mystery stories.

I. Title II. Series

823.9′2-dc22

ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-070-8 (ePub)

ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8034-5 (cased)

ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-352-6 (trade paper)

Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

This ebook produced by

Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

PROLOGUE

‘
O
h,' he said. ‘They've sent you, have they? Well, I'm not about to change my mind, so you may as well go and tell them that.'

‘I already have. I said you'd be leaving. That there was nothing more anyone could do about it.'

‘Right then.' He sounded a little deflated, as though he had expected a little more fuss and his leaving to cause more consternation. ‘Well, I'm packed and I'm going.'

‘Of course you are.'

The blow to the head was sudden, sharp, utterly unexpected and instantly fatal. There was very little blood, and a towel wrapped tightly around the head, a plastic shopping bag over that, took care of any post-mortem seepage.

The bedroom door locked to keep out any casual nosiness, it remained only to remove the car.

The killer left by the back door, wearing the dead man's coat and scarf and carrying his suitcase and battered leather shoulder bag. Out the back way and across the lawn, through the small door that led into the carriage house and then into the gravelled area where the cars had been parked.

The only danger point was the gated road, the only drivable way from the house to the narrow country lane that everyone referred to as the Main Road. Had there been another car coming along the gated track then one of them would have to give way, drivers would scrutinize one another, and it would be obvious that the current driver of the car and its owner were not one and the same. This was unlikely though, as only the local farmer regularly came up that way; everyone else was inside the house and not likely to want to go out that afternoon in the pouring rain.

Luck held; car and suitcase temporarily disposed of in a gully at the edge of the wood, a walk back across the fields, keeping close to the high boundary hedges and out of sight, was all it took. Wellingtons washed and back in the boot room. All done and dusted, and then only the little apology for not returning sooner to the waiting company.

‘Sorry. I needed a bit of fresh air before I felt like talking to anyone.'

Nods of agreement, and a few disgruntled mumblings, though these were soon set aside.

‘Oh well, he's gone. We'll have to carry on without him.'

‘Yes, he has definitely gone.'

There was much left to do, and the company got back to doing it.

Only one other of them understood the implication: that ‘gone' had a more permanent meaning than the simple departure of a discontented guest.

ONE

‘
Y
ou will wear the diamonds?' It wasn't really a question, even though he had phrased it as such. He held the black leather box in both hands, presenting it to her.

‘I will wear the diamonds,' she confirmed. He liked to see her well decorated, this husband of hers. He needed to see his prized possessions properly presented, and she was never left in any doubt that she, too, was one of his treasures.

He laid the black box down on her dressing table and shooed her maid aside as he opened the latch and withdrew the exquisite necklace. She bowed her head forward, exposing the nape of her neck so that he could fasten the clasp.

‘There.' He smiled at her in the mirror as she looked up, and Elizabeth managed a small twitch of her lips in return. ‘Beautiful,' he said, his hands – fat, clumsy hands, she thought – hovering over her bare shoulders.

He straightened then and drew back, as though suddenly recalling the presence of her maid. ‘I will let you finish dressing.' His fingers brushed her curls as he stepped back, and she could feel how much he wanted to touch her and also how much this awkward but, she had to admit, generous and caring man was in a we of her.

She just wished that she could love him in return. She just wished, oh so very hard, that he could somehow, miraculously, be younger, more attractive, less prosaic.

She relaxed as the bedroom door closed and her maid resumed her task, arranging
Madame's
hair and tweaking the bright stones in their floral settings into better position. More diamonds were then fixed into her hair, a task her husband would, fortunately, never dream of attempting. She could imagine the fat and clumsy fingers tugging at her ringlets as he tried to fix the fragile little clips in place.

‘Madame will go down now?' Her maid stepped back and handed Elizabeth her handkerchief, well perfumed with rose water.

‘Thank you, Abigail, that will be all.'

She waited until the maid had left and then paused to survey her reflection in the cheval glass, tugging at her skirts and arranging her neckline impatiently. The pale rose silk looked well against her skin and made her dark hair look even more richly brown. She nodded to her reflection. She would do. She practised her social smile before leaving her bedroom, checking in the glass that it looked appropriately cheerful but still just that little bit aloof. Then frowned impatiently, recalling her mother's instructions and schooling. ‘You must always be a
lady
, Elizabeth dear.'

After all, she supposed, that was why Albert had married her, adding her name and lineage to his money and business acumen. Everyone had been happy. No – everyone who
mattered
had been happy, and Elizabeth was under no illusion that she was anything other than at the bottom, the very end, of that particular list.

But – and it was quite a considerable but – Albert was kind to her in an awkward sort of way, he denied her nothing and indulged her interests, and he supported what he called her quest, her talent.

Her small smile was more genuine as she left the room, anticipating the events that would follow this evening. This was to be her triumph, the first of many that would, she believed and hoped, set her free once more to go out into the world, acclaimed for what she truly was.

TWO

‘
W
e're lost,' Joy said.

‘We can't be lost, we've got a satnav.'

‘Which has brought us into the middle of a muddy field in the middle of nowhere in the middle of a rainstorm.'

‘Well, yes,' Tim agreed, ‘but I'm sure it knows what it's doing, and it's not
exactly
the middle of a field, there's a road.'

‘There's a track. A cart track if I'm being generous. Oh, God, look, there's yet another gate that needs opening.'

‘Well, it did say on the sign that it was a gated road. There's bound to be gates on a gated road, I'd have thought.'

Joy glared at him. ‘And who's the silly sod getting soaked opening them every time?'

Rina leaned forward in the rear seat and peered out through the windscreen. The rain was coming down in curtains, but she could just make out the five-barred gate blocking their way. ‘Do you want me to do this one, Joy?'

The girl turned with a quick smile. ‘Don't be daft, Rina. No sense more than one of us getting soaked, is there?' She waited until Tim had pulled up close to the gate, then dashed out, held it open as he drove through, and threw herself back into the passenger seat, water streaming from her hair.

‘Sure you shut it properly?' Tim asked, risking life and limb in the process, Rina thought.

‘I'm sure,' Joy said tightly. ‘I'm quite sure. How many more of those bloody things do we have to deal with?'

‘Hopefully that should be the last. We're almost there, according to the satnav. You're steaming the windows up,' he added, and Rina cringed. Tim could be so downright stupid sometimes.

‘Look,' she said, hoping to distract a now furious Joy. ‘I think I saw something, just ahead.'

They all looked, straining to see anything through rain so thick and treacly that the wipers could barely cope on their fastest setting. A few hundred yards ahead, something more solidly grey emerged and coalesced from the overall gloom. Geometrically imposing, crenellated . . . Rina thought that Aikensthorpe House positively
glowered
.

The track transformed into a gravel drive for the last few hundred yards, and the drive then curved about a circular lawn and deposited them in front of a flight of wide steps.

‘Are you sure this is the place?' Joy was suddenly doubtful.

‘Of course it is. There can't be two Aikensthorpe Houses, can there?'

‘So, do we just park up here, or what?'

‘Maybe,' Rina said, ‘we should all go inside and find out, then Tim can take the car to the car park or wherever. No sense us all going with him and then getting wet walking back, is there?'

‘No,' Joy agreed firmly, ‘there is not.' She glared in Tim's direction, an action completely lost upon him.

Rina hid her smile. Joy wouldn't stay mad for long, and a quick word with Tim would remind him that he needed to pay more attention to his fiancée, even when his mind was otherwise occupied – and right now it was full of the potential of this weekend at Aikensthorpe. Neither Rina nor Joy was particularly enthused by the idea of a weekend conference well stocked with both stage magicians and experts in the esoteric, not to mention the thought of attending lectures on the links between circa nineteenth-century stage magic and the rise of spiritualism, but they both knew Tim would be in his element and really hadn't felt they could refuse to come.

Joy had accompanied him, of course, simply because she wanted to be with Tim; Rina because she needed him to give her a lift back to Frantham on the Monday morning. True, she could have taken the train to Exeter and then Honiton and then got herself a taxi home, or she could have taken up Bridie Duggan's offer of one of her employees driving her back, but Rina really didn't want to put anyone out now that the nightclub staff were finally getting to take their holidays after the frenetic Christmas and New Year. As for the train, the dual threat of industrial action and ongoing repairs, which she knew had caused chaos for the past weeks, had really put her off that option.