‘Are you with her now?’
‘I can’t get in. All the doors are locked.’
Brent was in his thirties, a crumpled young man with dirt beneath his fingernails and sullen indifference in his eyes. He tended the lawns and the flower beds and occasionally chased trespassers off the land just as his father had before him. The grounds of Pye Hall backed onto a lake and children liked to swim there in the summer, but not if Brent was around. He was a solitary man, unmarried, living alone in the house that had once belonged to his parents. He was not much liked in the village because he was considered shifty. The truth was that he was uneducated and possibly a little autistic but the rural community had been quick to fill in the blanks. Dr Redwing told him to meet her at the front door, threw together a few medical supplies and, leaving her nurse/receptionist – Joy – to turn away any new arrivals, hurried to her car.
Pye Hall was on the other side of Dingle Dell, fifteen minutes on foot and no more than a five-minute drive. It had always been there, as long as the village itself, and although it was a mishmash of architectural styles it was certainly the grandest house in the area. It had started life as a nunnery but had been converted into a private home in the sixteenth century then knocked around in every century since. What remained was a single, elongated wing with an octagonal tower – constructed much later – at the far end. Most of the windows were Elizabethan, narrow and mullioned, but there were also Georgian and Victorian additions with ivy spreading all around them as if to apologise for the indiscretion. At the back, there was a courtyard and the remains of what might have been cloisters. A separate stable block was now used as a garage.
But its main glory was its setting. A gate with two stone griffins marked the entrance and a gravel drive passed the Lodge House where Mary Blakiston lived, then swept round in a graceful swan’s neck across the lawns to the front door with its Gothic arch. There were flower beds arranged like daubs of paint on an artist’s palette and, enclosed by ornamental hedges, a rose garden with – it was said – over a hundred different varieties. The grass stretched all the way down to the lake with Dingle Dell on the other side: indeed, the whole estate was surrounded by mature woodland, filled with bluebells in the spring, separating it from the modern world.
The tyres crunched on the gravel as Dr Redwing came to a halt and saw Brent, waiting nervously for her, turning his cap over in his hands. She got out, took her medicine bag and went over to him.
‘Is there any sign of life?’ she asked.
‘I haven’t looked,’ Brent muttered. Dr Redwing was startled. Hadn’t he even tried to help the poor woman? Seeing the look on her face, he added, ‘I told you. I can’t get in.’
‘The front door’s locked?’
‘Yes, ma’am. The kitchen door too.’
‘Don’t you have any keys?’
‘No, ma’am. I don’t go in the house.’
Dr Redwing shook her head, exasperated. In the time she had taken to get here, Brent could have done something; perhaps fetched a ladder to try a window upstairs. ‘If you couldn’t get in, how did you telephone me?’ she asked. It didn’t matter, but she just wondered.
‘There’s a phone in the stable.’
‘Well, you’d better show me where she is.’
‘You can see through the window …’
The window in question was at the edge of the house, one of the newer additions. It gave a side view of the hall with a wide staircase leading up to the first floor. And there, sure enough, was Mary Blakiston, lying sprawled out on a rug, one arm stretched in front of her, partly concealing her head. From the very first sight, Dr Redwing was fairly sure that she was dead. Somehow, she had fallen down the stairs and broken her neck. She wasn’t moving, of course. But it was more than that. The way the body was lying was too unnatural. It had that broken-doll look that Redwing had observed in her medicine books.
That was her instinct. But looks could be deceptive.
‘We have to get in,’ she said. ‘The kitchen and the front door are locked but there must be another way.’
‘We could try the boot room.’
‘Where is that?’
‘Just along here …’
Brent led her to another door at the back. This one had glass panes and although it was also securely closed, Dr Redwing clearly saw a bunch of keys, still in the lock on the other side. ‘Whose are those?’ she asked.
‘They must be hers.’
She came to a decision. ‘We’re going to have to break the glass.’
‘I don’t think Sir Magnus would be too happy about that,’ Brent grumbled.
‘Sir Magnus can take that up with me if he wants to. Now, are you going to do it or am I?’
The groundsman wasn’t happy, but he found a stone and used it to knock out one of the panes. He slipped his hand inside and turned the keys. The door opened and they went in.
Waiting for the eggs to boil, Dr Redwing remembered the scene exactly as she had seen it. It really was like a photograph printed on her mind.
They had gone through the boot room, along a corridor and straight into the main hall, with the staircase leading up to the galleried landing. Dark wood panelling surrounded them. The walls were covered with oil paintings and hunting trophies: birds in glass cases, a deer’s head, a huge fish. A suit of armour, complete with sword and shield, stood beside a door that led into the living room. The hallway was long and narrow with the front door, opposite the staircase, positioned exactly in the middle. On one side there was a stone fireplace, big enough to walk into. On the other, two leather chairs and an antique table with a telephone. The floor was made up of flagstones, partly covered by a Persian rug. The stairs were also stone with a wine red carpet leading up the centre. If Mary Blakiston had tripped and come tumbling down from the landing, her death would be easily explained. There was very little to cushion a fall.
While Brent waited nervously by the door, she examined the body. She was not yet cold but there was no pulse. Dr Redwing brushed some of the dark hair away from the face to reveal brown eyes, staring at the fireplace. Gently, she closed them. Mrs Blakiston had always been in a hurry. It was impossible to escape the thought. She had quite literally flung herself down the stairs, hurrying into her own death.
‘We have to call the police,’ she said.
‘What?’ Brent was surprised. ‘Has someone done something to her?’
‘No. Of course not. It’s an accident. But we still have to report it.’
It was an accident. You didn’t have to be a detective to work it out. The housekeeper had been hoovering. The Hoover was still there, a bright red thing, almost like a toy, at the top of the stairs stuck in the bannisters. Somehow she had got tangled up in the wire. She had tripped and fallen down the stairs. There was nobody else in the house. The doors were locked. What other explanation could there be?