Mydworth Mysteries - A Distant Voice E-Book

Matthew Costello

• Herausgeber: Bastei Entertainment
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Serie: A Cosy Historical Mystery Series
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 174

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

From the authors of the best-selling series CHERRINGHAM

It’s Midsummer in Mydworth - and celebrated medium Bellamy Smythe is in town with his lucrative supernatural show, claiming he can contact the departed. Still deep in mourning from the loss of her father in the Great War, spinster Alice Wetherby is desperate to make contact with ‘The Other Side’ and Smythe is happy to oblige - even though Alice is quite broke. Suspecting that Alice isbeing played, Harry and Kat investigate. As the Midsummer festivities intensify, they find themselves in a game of high stakes deception and clever tricks, where nothing is what it seems, and everyone is a suspect...

Co-authors Neil Richards (based in the UK) and Matthew Costello (based in the US), have been writing together since the mid-90s, creating innovative content and working on major projects for the BBC, Disney Channel, Sony, ABC, Eidos, and Nintendo to name but a few. Their transatlantic collaboration has underpinned scores of TV drama scripts, computer games, radio shows, and the best-selling mystery series Cherringham. Their latest series project is called Mydworth Mysteries.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Mydworth Mysteries

About the Book

Main Characters

The Authors

Title

1. An Intimate Gathering

2. Is There Anybody There?

3. A Most Strange Case Begins

4. A Return to the Grange

5. The Scene of the Crime?

6. A Plan is Formed

7. The Medium’s Guests

8. Converts

9. Showtime at Mydworth Town Hall

10. Voices from the Past

11. A Morgue and a Mausoleum

12. Voices From the Past

13. Secrets of the Accomplice

14. Is There Anybody There?

15. Let the Surprises Begin!

16. A Midsummer Chase

17. Just a Quiet Summer Evening

Mydworth Mysteries Episode 10

Copyright

Mydworth Mysteries

Mydworth Mysteries is a series of self-contained novella-length mysteries, published in English and German. The stories are currently available as e-books and will soon be available as audiobooks in both languages.

About the Book

It’s Midsummer in Mydworth – and celebrated medium Bellamy Smythe is in town with his lucrative supernatural show, claiming he can contact the departed. Still deep in mourning from the loss of her father in the Great War, spinster Alice Wetherby is desperate to make contact with ‘The Other Side’ and Smythe is happy to oblige – even though Alice is quite broke. Suspecting that Alice is being played, Harry and Kat investigate. As the Midsummer festivities intensify, they find themselves in a game of high stakes deception and clever tricks, where nothing is what it seems, and everyone is a suspect...

Main Characters

Sir Harry Mortimer, 30 – Born into a wealthy English aristocratic family, Harry is smart, funny and adventurous. Ten years in secret government service around the world has given him the perfect training to solve crimes; and though his title allows him access to the highest levels of English society, he’s just as much at home sipping a warm beer in the garden of a Sussex pub with his girl from the wrong side of the tracks – Kat Reilly.

Kat Reilly –Lady Mortimer, 29 – Kat grew up in the Bronx, right on Broadway. Her mother passed away when she was only eleven and she then helped her father run his small local bar The Lucky Shamrock. But Kat felt the call to adventure and excitement, first as a nurse on the battlefields of France, then working a series of jobs back in New York. After finishing college, she was recruited by the State Department, where she learned skills that would more than make her a match for the dashing Harry. To some, theirs is an unlikely pairing, but to those who know them both well, it’s nothing short of perfect.

The Authors

Matthew Costello (US-based) is the author of many successful novels published around the globe, including Vacation (2011, in development for film), Home (2014) and Beneath Still Waters (1989), which was adapted by Lionsgate as a major motion picture. He has written for The Disney Channel, BBC, SyFy and has also designed dozens of bestselling games including the critically acclaimed The 7th Guest, Doom 3, Rage, Pirates of the Caribbean, and, with Neil Richards, Planet of the Apes: Last Frontier.

Neil Richards (based in the UK) has worked as a producer and writer in TV and film, creating scripts for BBC, Disney, and Channel 4, and earning numerous Bafta nominations along the way. He’s also written script and story for over 30 video games including The Da Vinci Code and Planet of the Apes, and consults around the world on digital storytelling.

MATTHEW COSTELLONEIL RICHARDS

A Distant Voice

1. An Intimate Gathering

Nicola Green locked the front door of the Women’s Voluntary Service office as the bell of St Thomas tolled the hour. She turned to take in the empty Market Square on this mild June evening.

On the corner, outside the King’s Arms, the usual six o’clock crowd stood – or leaned against the pub wall – sipping their pints in the still-warm sun. A low hub of chatter, the working day over, the summer evening perfect.

She glanced up. No rain tonight for sure. Wisps of cloud barely moved in the pale blue sky.

Across the square, she saw the usual little cluster of children, squatting in the dusty gutter of the cobbled High Street, playing marbles. Most of the shops had already shut, though she did spy Mrs Masters, rolling up the blinds of the haberdashers, pulling the shutters closed for the evening.

Over by the bank, she could see workmen already setting up the traditional trestle stage for the Mydworth Midsummer Festival, due to start on Friday.

That stage, with its garlands of foliage and brightly decorated summery wreaths, would be the bustling focus of a long weekend’s entertainment – Morris dancers, mummers, musicians, mystery players, and who knew what other strange and magical surprises the people of Mydworth would manage to concoct!

Sunday would be most civilised: the Flower Show (for which she had high hopes this year); Tea at the Vicarage; the Children’s Boat Races down on the river.

But for many, the real highlight was Saturday – Midsummer’s Eve – when a great crowd would march in costume from this square, straight up to Myers Hill, fuelled by endless gallons of ale and mead, carrying the papier-mâché effigy of George’s dragon which they would burn on a great funeral pyre.

The Summer Equinox seemed to Nicola to bring out a peculiarly ancient – even primitive – behaviour in the people of Mydworth. And despite all the high spirits – the fun, the fire, the costumes – over the years, she’d got used to dealing with the aftermath of this chaotic event.

For some, the unsavoury effects of too much ale, too much whisky, would leave her patching up the damage.

The womenfolk of the village, too often the unwitting casualties.

But, for now – as she crossed the deserted, peaceful square – she had other things to worry about.

Amazingly enough... matters spiritual.

*

Skirting the Town Hall, Nicola turned into Petersfield Road and followed it, past the last huddled line of workers’ cottages, then crossed over onto Spa Road.

This road – actually little more than a lane – was, she knew, a dead end, leading eventually to the dense woods and fields of the old Wetherby estate.

Little trace of the original Wetherby Manor remained. Just some ghostly ruins up in the woods, and the ornate Wetherby Mausoleum below Myers Hill.

But the Grange – the more recent family home of the Wetherbys – a modest four-storey Georgian house, still stood at the end of this lane.

Nicola had never been inside the house, but tonight, she had an invitation. To a very special gathering.

One that troubled her.

The letter had come from Alice Wetherby herself, and though Nicola was used to hearing all manner of family troubles and traumas in her role running the WVS, this invitation was, for her, a definite first.

It was an invitation to a séance – to be conducted by the “celebrated medium Bellamy Smythe”.

Nicola had heard of Bellamy Smythe. Who hadn’t in this part of Sussex?

He’d been touring the county since the spring, filling town halls to bursting with his “spiritual gatherings”, the crowds eager to make contact with the “other side”.

Quite understandable: she knew that there were few families in England that had not been touched by the horrors of the Great War. Even now – more than a decade after Armistice Day – for some, the desire to make contact with the dead was as intense as ever.

Sometimes, she thought, that desire seems almost like a fever. A collective madness.

Because, no matter how many times these “mediums” were exposed as charlatans, employing time-worn tricks and smoke and mirrors to fool the gullible – there were always more desperate, grieving, sad souls prepared to pay for the slightest glimmer of hope of contact.

Nicola had known the second she had finished reading that letter, that she would go, indeed – that she had to go.

Her thought: Alice Wetherby trusted her. A sympathetic shoulder to cry on.

And now here she was, standing at the rusty, ornamental gates that led to the Grange, ready to enter and, perhaps, unmask, if necessary, a fraudster and manipulator of sad, damaged, gullible folk.

Bellamy Smythe – you’d better look out! she thought, looking up at the gaunt grey building – its peeling paint and tattered curtains in dusty windows adding to a general air of neglect.

“Seen better days this old place, hasn’t it?” came a male voice behind her. “Must have been right posh, though, once upon a time!”

She turned to see a young man in a faded country suit and waistcoat, a cheery grin on his face, a lock of black hair drooping over his forehead.

Could this possibly be Bellamy Smythe? she wondered.

“Abel Coates, at your service,” he said, making a mock military salute, then sticking out his hand. Nicola paused before taking it. A salute? Really?

“Nicola Green,” she said. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“Oh, I know we haven’t,” said Abel, cheerily. “I’d certainly remember a pretty lady like you, that’s for sure.”

Nicola didn’t react. Smarminess. Never attractive. And with her lack of response, Abel, for a second, looked uncertain.

“Ahem. Well, anyway. I’m the new barman, down at the Station Inn? That place, not your cup of tea, I imagine?”

“Oh, appearances can be deceptive, Mr Coates. I’ve had the occasional drink down at the Station. I run the Women’s Voluntary Service. It’s nearby. No airs about the place, that’s for sure.”

“Women’s Voluntary? Ha! I can play the Trumpet Voluntary. Same tune?”

Again, Nicola didn’t respond and the man suddenly looked serious.

“Sorry about that. Can’t help it. Always making silly jokes, I am – especially when I’m nervous.”

“Nervous?” said Nicola. Then she realised. This man must be here for the séance too.

“This thing?” he said, frowning and running his hand through his hair. “Tonight... all this spirit malarky... summoning the dead? I’ll be honest, the very thought gives me the heebie-jeebies, it does.”

Abel reinforced that thought with a visible shiver.

Nicola nodded at the man’s attempt at self-disclosure. She wondered what he knew about the gathering tonight, who the others were, and why were they all invited.

But then she saw a little red Austin 7 heading towards them, speeding down the lane. As it approached, it hooted its horn loudly and turned into the drive of the Grange – straight towards them.

It looked as if it wasn’t going to stop. Nicola and Abel jumped out of the way sharply.

As the car passed through the gates, Nicola recognised the driver – Alice’s sister Christabel Taylor. Next to her, crammed into the tiny space, sat a much younger woman with bobbed hair and a bright red dress, whose eyes seemed to linger on Abel as they sped by, far too fast.

Together Nicola and Abel watched the car shoot up the drive towards the house and come to a jolting halt in a slew of gravel.

“Well, there’s a sight for sore eyes,” said Abel, as if Nicola – the previous target for his attention – weren’t there. “I do believe my evening’s beginning to look up.”

He hurried up the drive towards the house and the car, like a hound bounding after its prey.

Nicola watched him, then followed.

Abel might be nervous about contacting the dead, but he clearly was no slouch when it came to the living.

*

When Nicola reached the front door of the Grange, the occupants of the car had already gone in – followed, no doubt, by the eager Mr Coates.

She climbed the cracked stone steps – definitely in need of repair – and went in through the half-open door into a dark, musty-smelling entrance hall.

Nobody greeted her.

No servant, no sign of Alice Wetherby. She looked around, her eyes adapting to the gloomy darkness. Underfoot, a once grand marble floor. A carpeted staircase – looking faded even in the scant light – swept upwards in a graceful curve under an enormous, cobwebbed chandelier.

Grand portraits lined the walls – but Nicola could see they, too, were all dusty and edged with cobwebs. She knew that in recent years Alice Wetherby had fallen on hard times – and now she could see the clear evidence with her own eyes.

Somewhere deep in the building, she thought she heard the sound of low conversation.

She shivered suddenly. Somehow, in spite of the warm evening, the air was chilly in here.

Then a door opened, and she saw Alice Wetherby appear.

Nicola had not seen the woman for over a year, and was surprised by how she seemed to have... aged.

Though probably barely in her thirties, her grey hair and Edwardian dress made her look twenty years older.

“My dear Nicola!” said Alice, hurrying across and taking Nicola’s right hand in both of hers. “Has Lance not been looking after you? Greeting you? Oh, that boy, he’s worse than useless. Tell you. I shall have to—”

“Not to worry, Alice. I’ve only just arrived,” said Nicola, wanting to spare this Lance – whoever he was – a punishment. She realised that Alice was still holding her hand and peering intently at her. The moment turning awkward.

“I’m so very grateful that you’ve come,” said Alice.

“I’m always happy to see you, Alice,” said Nicola. “Though I must admit, I’m not sure about—”

“Oh, yes. I know. A séance? You must think me ridiculous.”

“Not at all,” said Nicola. “The urge to make contact with those we love, is deep and genuine. Not ridiculous, but perhaps—”

“Foolhardy? Ill-advised? Gullible?”

Nicola didn’t answer for a few seconds. Those were indeed the words she wanted to use. Perhaps expensive as well?

“You see, that is precisely why I invited you, Nicola,” said Alice. “I know you’re a sceptic. Always have been. But this time – this time –I know I shall finally make contact. I feel it in my very soul.”

Nicola stared into Alice’s eyes – so bright, so impassioned.

“I don’t know, Alice. All these years you’ve been trying, failing, getting nowhere—”

“But, Nicola, this time I have witnessed it for myself! Bellamy bridging the divide, speaking to a lost soul! It was breathtaking! Astonishing!”

“Oh! So, you’ve already had a séance with him?” said Nicola, concerned.

“Yes, in the private room at the Green Man. Last week. He crossed the divide, the spirits spoke!”

“To you?”

“No. To another believer. She’s actually here tonight. Hoping to speak again to her dear departed husband. But Bellamy is confident that I, too, shall hear from those voices I have missed for so many years.”

The woman took a deep breath, and, with that, finally released Nicola’s hand.

“And when that happens, I want – no, I need –you here to confirm it as true.”

Before Nicola could react, Alice turned and briskly crossed the marble floor to the staircase.

“For their sakes, as well as mine,” continued Alice, pointing up to one of the dingy portraits on the wall. In the gloom, Nicola could make out the form of a grey-haired, moustachioed man in full dress uniform, so many medals on his chest, his bearing proud.

Seated in front of the man in the painting, on either side, two younger men, also in uniform, one holding a scroll with some Latin words.

Nicola had seen photographs of Alice’s father Major Arthur Wetherby and her two brothers, James and John, before – and she recognised them now.

“It’s a fine portrait,” she said.

“It was painted just before they left for France. Daddy was so proud. He expected them all to be home in just a few months. But he never returned. Nor did my brothers. His beloved sons.”

“I’m so very sorry,” said Nicola – words she had used many times to Alice over the years, as the woman had poured out her grief in the little WVS office above the town square.

Not that Alice had been the only such woman. Mydworth was home to many such stories. As was probably every village in Britain. The Great War, they called it.

With nothing at all “great” about it.

“All these years, I have longed to speak to him. And to James and John. If only to bid them farewell.”

Nicola nodded, waited. The woman’s desire for this impossible thing – overwhelming.

“And tonight you really believe you will?”

“I know it,” said Alice, turning to face Nicola.

Nicola could see in her eyes, now suddenly lit and intense, that she did indeed believe this – fiercely.

And she wondered, How can I possibly tell her that, even before it begins, this is sure to be a hoax?

That, sadly, the dead do not speak from beyond the grave.

2. Is There Anybody There?

Nicola sat in the corner of the drawing room of the Grange, and looked around at the other guests in the fading sunlight from the net-curtained windows.

She had been introduced to them all by Alice, who then left them to their own devices, disappearing through double doors to help Mr Smythe prepare the dining room for tonight’s “conversation with the other side”.

As for Mr Smythe, he himself had not yet made an appearance.

Presumably, thought Nicola, to heighten the drama when he finally does.

Stagecraft, pure and simple.

This room, like the hallway, smelled stale and unused. On every wall, dark Victorian landscapes in heavy frames leaned in precariously on ancient chains.

Cobwebs hung in all the corners; the Grange’s spiders clearly enjoying life here.

At one point, Nicola even saw a mouse brazenly emerge from under a bookcase and scuttle around three sides of the room before disappearing in the direction of the hallway.

On the dusty velvet-covered sofa opposite, sat Alice Wetherby’s sister Christabel: thin-nosed, bird-like, silent and clearly ill at ease. Her hands were clasped in her lap; her whole bearing speaking of tension and tightness.

Next to her sat her daughter Diana – just introduced – the rather pretty red-dressed girl from the car. She was, the girl offered, just eighteen.

A little young to be talking to the dead, Nicola thought.

For her part, despite the evening’s agenda, Diana looked utterly bored. Nicola saw that the young woman had taken notice of Abel Coates, though, who was standing by the bare, ash-strewn fireplace.

For a while, Coates had been the only man in the room, until the rather hangdog youth named Lance had appeared, pushing a rickety trolley of tea and biscuits.

Diana had ignored Lance, the servant obviously not worthy of her attention. Abel Coates, at his position by the dormant fireplace, kept gazing at the young girl. He was all smiles as he opened a silver cigarette case, lit one, and exhaled a cloud of smoke that seemed like a bit of a flirt in itself.

Diana nervously toyed with a button on her blouse and crossed her legs.

The woman next to Nicola had introduced herself as Maeve O’Connor: a hand extended for a dainty shake, a gentle smile, and with what sounded like a Dublin accent.

Not someone Nicola had actually met before. But she recognised the woman as an employee at Salon Maurice, Mydworth’s most stylish ladies’ hairdressers – not that Nicola could ever afford to have her hair done there!

When Nicola took her seat, Maeve had breathlessly informed her that her husband Liam – lost at sea in 1914 – had “crossed the divide” the other night at the Green Man and “made contact”.

Nicola could see her face still flushed, eyes bright, with the excitement that Liam might return and speak to her again tonight.

She heard a clock chime somewhere deep in the house: a sombre eight strikes.

“I say,” said Abel, loudly addressing the whole room. “Does anybody know when this little party is meant to kick off? So far, feels more like a wake!”

“My dear sir!” said Christabel. “I would be grateful if you would keep your opinions to yourself.”

“Free world,” said Abel, from his position at the fireplace. “Least, it was last time I looked.”

Nicola saw him wink at Diana, who looked away. “What do you think, sweetheart?” he said. “I mean, evening like this, you should be out having fun, not sitting here in the dark.”

“What my daughter should – or should not –be doing,” said Christabel, “is absolutely no business of yours, young man.”