Strange Brew (Dead Reckoning series - Part 33)

Continued from Episode 32 (Photograph)

The story so far:  Josiah's 'on the rebound' romance with the woman he thought was his old flame, Jeanette DeVille, led to him and Archibald being left for dead in the rapidly rising waters of the cellar of Evanley Hall.  Now recovering from their ordeal, Archibald has suspicions that he was served his lunch, at the local chip shop, by a heavily disguised 'Precious', the bogus 'Jeanette DeVille's' daughter.  The Detectives, however, find nothing but an irate chip shop owner.  But when they discover that someone looking a lot like 'Precious' was the last person to be seen with their suspicous death in the reservoir, the apparent connection changes everything:

 

Samantha strode into the storeroom of Oakshott and Underwood to find Archibald morosely leafing through the local newspaper.  She gave a quick ‘ahem’ to warn him of her impending arrival and he jumped up and attempted to hide the newspaper behind him.  Then, realising that he wasn’t supposed to be doing anything, anyway, he returned the paper to his makeshift desk.

“’Lo Ms. Knight” He muttered.

“I wish you would call me Samantha” She chided, “How are you feeling?”

“I’m alright” He shuffled his feet, “It’s just…I’m just a bit…”

“Jumpy?”

“Yeah, that’s about the size of it” Archibald nodded, “Did they find owt, at the Chippy, the police that is?”

“No, I don’t think so” Samantha shook her head, sadly, and sat down beside him, “I didn’t get the impression that they were going to look all that hard”

“She’s too bright for them” Archibald mused.

“Yes, well, there may be something in that” Samantha nodded, “But we can’t just leave it like that, can we?”

“Can’t we?” Archibald looked surprised, “What else can we do?”

“We need to ask some questions.  I think we need to go back to Evanley Hall”

“Go back?  Why would you want to go back there?” Archibald yelped.

“Well, not the Hall itself, more the cottage.  I think Jeannie knows more than she’s been telling us” Samantha looked at him, hopefully.

“Well, good luck!” Archibald turned back to his paper.

“I was hoping you could take me?”

“WHAT?  Why?” Archibald spluttered, “Why would I want to do that?”

“Well, it would help me a great deal” Samantha explained, “For one thing, I don’t think Josiah’s put me back on the Company Car Insurance yet and, of course, you know the way”

“I want to FORGET the way!” Archibald folded his arms and tried to look resolute, “I don’t want to go there ever again!”

“Yes, yes, I know Archie” Samantha soothed, “But, the sooner we get to the bottom of all this, the sooner you can stop feeling…”

“Jumpy?”

“Yes, amongst other things” Samantha smiled warmly at him, “Shall we go?”

There was a series of muttered expletives but Archibald eased himself from his stool.

“And this’ll be the end of it?” He fixed Samantha with a ‘look’.

“Well, I think it might be the beginning of the end, eh?”

* * * *

“Right!” D.I. Wood announced as he entered the open-plan office, “I’ve been and seen the Governor.  As expected, he’s doing his fruit about all this.  Buggered up his budget forecast for this month and no mistake!  Any road, what you lot need to do now is find out anything and everything you can about these three” He pinned the CCTV still images of Jeanette, Hames and Precious to the central whiteboard.

There was a collective groan from the seated officers.  In an effort to look focused, however, many of them started to instantly tap on keyboards or pull files from cabinets, without any real hope of achieving anything constructive.  D.S. Stone, looking somewhat thoughtful, began to access the National Police Database.

* * * *

Archibald pulled the limousine into the dark and rutted lane, leading to Evanley Hall, and stopped almost immediately.

“Why are we stopping here?” Samantha asked.

“This is as far as I’m going!” Archibald said, grimly, taking his hands off the steering wheel and folding his arms.

“Really?  Ok, no problem” Samantha sighed, “we’ll just have to walk up to the cottage”

“WE??” Archibald looked startled.

“Well, yes, of course” Samantha smiled at him, sweetly, “you’ll have to come with me”

“WHY??”

“Because you’ve had dealings with all three of them, haven’t you?  There’s that Nenette, the chauffeur cum butler, Hames and this daughter of Nenette’s, Precious”

“I still don’t see why I’ve got to come” Archibald grumbled.

“Come on, Archie” Samantha said, encouragingly, “you can play with the kittens!”

“Humph!” Archibald looked less than happy but climbed out of the car, anyway.

Samantha made her way, gingerly, up the rutted track, cursing her decision to wear high heels.  Archibald trailed some way after her, muttering all the time.  When she finally reached the dilapidated gate of the cottage, Samantha managed to drag it to one side, walked up to the cottage door and knocked smartly.

“WHO IS IT?  A voice shrieked.

“It’s Samantha Knight, Jeannie.” Samantha yelled through the letterbox, ignoring the potent smell of cats and ancient cooking that emanated from within, “We met some weeks ago, when there was all that business up at the Hall?”

“BUGGER OFF!”

“Now, don’t be like that, Jeannie” Samantha pleaded, “we just want a quick word”

“WE?  WHO’S ‘WE’?”

“It’s me and Archibald.  You remember Archibald?  You helped him when we dragged him out of the water”

“I don’t need reminding” Archibald chuntered, scuffing his shoes.

There was the sound of heavy furniture being moved about and doors being dragged open, before the front door opened a crack and an eye peered out.

“Ah, right, so it is” Jeannie said, “yer’d better come in, but mind the cats, yer hear?”

“Thank you, Jeannie” Samantha smiled at her less than cheery host and led the way into the dark recesses of the cottage.

“’Ow are ye doin’, son?” Jeannie asked as Archibald squeezed past her, through the door.

“Oh, you know…” Archibald flapped his arms, at a loss for words.

“He’s not himself” Samantha said, with some concern, as they made their way into the kitchen.

“’Ow’s that then?”  Jeannie frowned.

“He’s …how would you put it, Archie?” Samantha asked.

“Jumpy, I guess” Archibald admitted, reluctantly.

Jeannie looked him up and down and frowned.

“Not surprisin’, considerin’ what went on up there” Jeannie nodded, “sit yersen down, I’ll fix yer summat”

Samantha and Archibald cleared a couple of dining chairs of cats and assorted towels and blankets and sat down at the table.  Jeannie put a kettle on to boil and began grinding something up in a bowl, using a pestle and mortar.

“Ow’s the other one?”  She called over her shoulder.

“Josiah?  Not too great” Samantha admitted, “He’s very tired, always.  He comes to work with me but he hasn’t got any energy and sleeps most of the time.”

“Yeah, sounds about right.   They both on ‘em ‘ad a bad time of it” Jeannie pondered, still grinding and pummelling whatever was in the bowl, “were lucky to come out of it at all, that’s what yer ‘ave to tell yersen.”  More ferocious pounding, “Yer’ve got to give ‘em time to convalesce!  Yer can’t just jump back inter life after some bugger’s tried to drag yer out of it, can yer, eh?”

“Shall I make the tea?” Samantha suggested, now that the kettle had boiled.

“It’s not fer tea, it’s fer ‘im” Jeannie emptied the bowl’s contents into a mug and then added the boiling water, “but yer can make a pot with what’s left, if yer’ve a mind to” She conceded.

She stirred the mug, vigorously, and brought it over to Archibald.  He looked at the greenish/brown concoction, with bits of leaf and twig swirling about on the surface, with definite suspicion.

“Now, get that dahn yer, while it’s ‘ot” Jeannie instructed.

Archibald looked to Samantha for moral support, but she was busy making a pot of tea.  Under the intense glare of Jeannie, he took a deep breath, and had a go at drinking the evil brew.

* * * *

“If you’ve got a moment, sir, I think I might have something” D.S. Stone said, tapping on the door of D.I. Wood’s inner sanctum.

“Good work, Stoney!  Come on in and tell me all about it!”  D.I. Wood said, without looking up from his Caribbean brochure.

“Well, sir, it struck me that no-one can go through life without leaving some sort of bureaucratic trace…” D.S. Stone began.

“A paper trail, that sort of thing?” D.I. Wood flicked a sun-drenched page, over.

“Yes, sir.  So, I’ve had a look at the police database to see what I could find out about Evanley Hall.   After all, that’s the one thing we can be sure of, with this lot, that all of them have a connection to the Hall…”

“Yeah, good point” D.I. Wood nodded, still studying the brochure.

“Well, as far as I can see, sir, there’s been no-one registered as living there for years.  Thirty years ago, there was just the two girls, Jeanette and…”

“Nenette, stupid bloody name” D.I. Wood snarled.

“Yes, Nenette.  Both the same age, so I think we can surmise they were probably twins.  I’m waiting on their birth certificates to confirm.  The only other person there was their grandfather, Shepherd Mountjoy.  Now, he died about five years later…”  D.S. Stone produced a copy Death Certificate.

“Leaving them two with a wodge of cash and the Hall, I suppose?” D.I. Wood suggested.

“You would have thought so, yes sir” D.S. Stone nodded, “But, according to his Will, he left a few grand to various Navy and Service charities, a couple of grand to Nenette and everything else to Jeanette”

“That would have gone down like a lead balloon!” D.I. Wood put down his brochure, picked up the Will and perused it.

“I would have thought so, sir” D.S. Stone grinned, “Not long after that, the Hall appears to fall empty and stays that way, right up to the present day”

“So, we’ve no idea where they went, once the Hall fell empty?”

“Not Nenette, no” D.S. Stone shook his head, “up to press, I can’t find any record of her.”

“Bugger!” D.I. Wood said, with feeling. 

 “Jeanette, however, now that’s a different story, sir” D.S. Stone said, looking somewhat smug.

“How come?”

“Take a look at who’s registered as living at the Estate Cottage?”

D.I. Wood scrutinised the proffered document.

“Jeanette Mountjoy!  You mean that…that Jeannie…the mad old bint with the cats, she’s the heiress of Evanley Hall?”  D.I. Wood looked astounded.

“Looks that way, sir” D.S. Stone beamed.

“So, she’s the one old Oakshott was sniffing around, all those years ago?”

“Seems so.  Takes all sorts, sir, eh?”

“Well, I’ll go to the foot of our stairs!”  D.I. Wood shook his head in wonder, “Get your coat, Stoney, I think we need to go and have another chat with our Jeannie”

You can find a lot more from Josiah and Archibald, including the prequel novel to this series, in The Undertakers collection.

Now read Episode 34