Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #3: Books 9-12 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [reading in the dark TXT] 📗

We had finished our main course, except for Dehan, who was picking up the bones and nibbling at them. She caught a glance from Pam and said, “It’s finger-food, right?”

Pam looked away and Brown and the maids started clearing the table. Ian got to his feet and spoke loudly over Gordon Sr.’s conversation, forcing him and Sally and Bee to turn and look. His accent seemed to have grown stronger with the wine.

“Ut’s late. We need ta be gone. C’mon, Sally, git yer thungs.”

Sally turned to him with narrowed eyes.

Gordon Sr. boomed, “You have not even finished your meal, man! Can’t you at least wait for coffee?”

Ian’s face hardened. “No. We’re gone now. But thanks for a wonderful evening, Charles!”

Just for a moment I saw savagery and hatred in his face. Sally sighed, stood and flounced out of the room. Ian looked at us all as though he knew some shocking truth about us and said, “I’ll wish yiz all a good evening!” Then he left, trailing his self-conscious dignity.

After he had gone, Pam stood too. “Actually, I’m quite tired myself. I think I’ll turn in.” She did something with her mouth that could not be bothered to be a smile and added, “Night all,” and followed Ian out of the room.

Gordon Sr. heaved a big sigh and threw his napkin on the table. “Fine!” he said gracelessly. “If there is to be no entertainment, and my wife is not to attend me, then I too shall bid you all a good night and retire.” He stood and stared at Dehan. “I breakfast and lunch in my chambers, but I shall no doubt see you at dinner tomorrow. Unless of course you care to pay me a visit.” He paused deliberately for a long second, then turned to me, as though pretending to include me in the invitation.

I held his eye. “Goodnight, Mr. Gordon.”

Unlike Ian, he gathered his dignity about him like robes of office and left the room.

Charles Gordon Jr. expostulated breathlessly, “Well!” Then he stammered, “We, we, um, we’re left with our cozy little group then! And, and, and… that’s nice! Who’s for sticky toffee pudding?”

We had sticky toffee pudding, which was astonishingly good, and then withdrew to the withdrawing room to have coffee and whiskey, though Bee had cognac. We settled ourselves by the fire, the major, Dehan and myself, armed with generous measures of single malt, while Charles and Bee took their drinks to a small card table near the French windows and played canasta together.

The major smiled happily, sipped, smacked his lips and sighed. I looked at Dehan. She was examining her drink and I was wondering how long it would take her to ask. It didn’t take long. She raised her eyes to the major and said, “What did Mrs. Gordon mean when she said some people thought Richard Gordon had been murdered?”

He gave a small, comfortable chuckle. “Couldn’t resist it, hey? Well, it was all rather peculiar, to tell the truth. Long time ago now, 1981, I suppose. Old Man Gordon, that’s Charles Jr.’s grandfather, hadn’t long bought the castle. His family were very rich, of course, having made their fortune in the previous century. But his passion, as I told you before, was to return to his roots and reclaim the land that he felt belonged to him and his family by right. When his wife died…” He paused, frowning at the fire, and mumbled half to himself, “Never really sure actually if she died or they divorced, but that’s neither here nor there, really…” He looked back at Dehan and raised his eyebrows. “That’s exactly what he did.”

I sipped. “So he bought it in 1980.”

“That’s right. Of course, Charles Sr. was only in his early twenties at the time, finishing at university in Boston. He read law, or as you would say, he majored in law, and came out to join his father when he graduated, which must have been ’81 or ’82, I suppose. And what he found was a rather peculiar set up.”

Dehan arched her eyebrows. “Peculiar in what way?”

“Well, for a start, it seemed that Old Man Gordon was going a bit… odd! He had started researching all the families that lived on the island, looking into their family backgrounds, finding out how long they had lived here and, above all, if any of them were related to him. It became something of an obsession.”

I frowned. “Aren’t most people in communities like this related to each other?”

He spread his hands. “Well, exactly! But he found one family, the Armstrongs, who were in fact quite closely related, via the mother, who was in fact a Gordon. And he sort of adopted this family.”

“Adopted them?”

He nodded down at his glass. “To the extent that he was considering putting young Robert Armstrong into his will. As you can imagine, Charles Sr., when he arrived at his new home from university in Boston, was quite alarmed at the situation. His father was talking about ‘raising up’ the Gordons once more and ‘re-empowering’ them. He wanted to reunite the clan…” He shook his head. “All sorts of mad stuff. He had clearly lost the plot, as they say these days, and Charles was understandably worried, as he could see his family’s considerable fortune being squandered on some bizarre project and, frankly, pilfered by unscrupulous people claiming to be related to him.”

Dehan shifted in her seat. “So, what happened?”

The major sighed. “Well, at first not very much.. Charles begged his father to reconsider his relationship with the Armstrongs, and to put some kind of financial cap on his so-called project, but his father wouldn’t hear of it. He continued to restore the castle…” He waved his hand around. “Forty years ago this was largely a ruin.