Alex Connor - Isle of the Dead

The lie was smooth. ‘Actually I’m a location finder for the film industry. We’re always looking for interesting places to use and I heard about the hall for an E. M. Forster movie. It might be just perfect, but it’s long shot.’

‘ The film industry? ’ she said, her eyes alert. ‘How exciting. Perhaps I could help you. I was thinking of calling at the hall myself …’

She let the words hang and Nino caught them.

‘D’you want a lift? I can take you there. Your nephew could hardly refuse to talk to me if I was introduced by his aunt.’ He smiled, knowing that she would be a willing companion. ‘Of course I’d understand if you were busy—’

‘Oh no, I’m not busy. Not busy at all.’

Nino followed the directions to Courtford Hall. When they arrived, Hester climbed out of the car and looked around her, sighing longingly. Mullioned windows, bearded with variegated ivy and winter-bitten honeysuckle, caught the last rays of daylight and two stone statues book-ended the double doors of the entrance, the wood worn in parts and studded with iron nails.

Grabbing hold of it, Hester began to rap with a knocker the size of a serving dish. But no one answered the door. Instead a man appeared round the side of the house. He was wearing gardening clothes, cords tucked into Wellingtons, but he had the bearing of a military man and someone well practised in manners.

‘What a surprise!’ he said, kissing his aunt on the cheek and beckoning for them both to come in. ‘How good to see you. I’m only sorry Clare isn’t here, but she’s gone to London to do some shopping and stay with her sister. Christmas, hey – gets worse every year.’ He turned to Nino. ‘Welcome. And you are?’

‘This is Nino Bergstrom,’ Hester said enthusiastically. ‘A new friend of mine. He’s a location finder. Wants to have a look at the hall for a film, something by E. M. Forster.’

Harold Greyly was all smoothness.

‘Really?’ he said, turning to Nino. ‘Perhaps you’d like to make an appointment. You could talk to Mrs Grant, the housekeeper, or my assistant. I’m sure we can arrange a date that would be convenient for both of us.’

Immediately Nino stopped him.

‘Actually I just need a few minutes, Sir Harold. If it wouldn’t be too much of an imposition, could we do it now?’

Having beckoned for his assistant to approach, Greyly waved him away and turned back to Nino. ‘Fine, come on through.’

With the air of the practised host, Harold Greyly ushered them into a comfortable sitting, room where two springer spaniels lay in front of a log fire, the day’s newspapers dumped unceremoniously on the sofa.

Moving them out of the way, Harold turned to his aunt. ‘Glass of sherry?’

‘Lovely,’ she agreed.

‘And you?’ he asked Nino.

‘I’m OK, thanks.’

After pouring the sherry, Harold stood in front of the fire, giving Nino the chance to study him. His frame was upright, trim around the waist, his shoulders wide, his whole body suggesting time spent at a gym. Nino guessed his age at around fifty. Harold Greyly had kept his wavy auburn hair and his skin was weathered and marked with old acne scars around the eyes. He looked well fed and well bred, a country Englishman at one with his august surroundings.

‘Nino wanted to look around the hall, but he was also wondering about our family,’ Hester said, as though they had been talking about it in detail.

Nino was getting the drift quickly: the old woman was a bit of a mischief-maker. Having been ‘put out to grass’ she was eager to get back to her old home, even temporarily, and desperate to know what was going on.

Nino picked up from where she left off. ‘I heard that the hall was one of the grandest properties in Norfolk. And one of the oldest, isn’t it?’

‘The foundations date from the fourteen hundreds—’

‘Thirteen eighty,’ Hester said firmly. ‘Then there were wings and additions in the fifteenth century and more in the eighteenth.’ She dimpled up at Harold, annoyingly helpful. ‘Isn’t that right, dear?’

He smiled, but the gesture didn’t reach his eyes. ‘You know the family history, probably better than I do.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that—’

He cut her off. ‘Hester, don’t be modest.’

‘I’m just trying to help,’ she said, leaning back in her seat and sipping the sherry. ‘Please go on.’

‘I can give you a quick tour of the house,’ Harold offered. ‘We get people coming here pretty often. You know the kind of thing: journalists, people who write those home style magazines. I don’t mind – I’m grateful to own such a wonderful place.’

‘But you don’t own it, do you?’ Hester intervened. ‘We’re all just guardians, looking after the house and the books for the next generation.’

‘You know what I mean,’ Harold replied shortly, raising his eyebrows and turning away.

Having noticed several photographs around the room, Nino changed tack.

‘You were in the Army?’

‘I was. Retired now.’

‘Harold speaks several languages,’ Hester said proudly. ‘And he’s travelled all round the world, haven’t you? And he’s so well read, which helps with us having such a marvellous library. You know, all your travelling used to worry me when you first came here – would you settle into being a country gentleman?’ Her tone was all barbed sweetness. ‘But you have. Hunting, shooting, fishing. He’s especially good at hunting, aren’t you, dear?’ She didn’t wait for him to answer. ‘One of the best shots in the county, I’m told. And he’s game for everything – deer, rabbits. Skins them quick as that!’ She snapped her fingers. Harold interrupted the flow as he turned to Nino.

‘Did you want to look around?’

‘I’d love to, thanks.’

Leaving Hester to her sherry, Harold took Nino on a tour. It was something he had often done before, that much was obvious, his enthusiasm a mixture of pride and boredom. Apparently his son was to inherit after him, and the Greyly line would continue as it had done for generations before.

‘A place like this takes a lot of money to keep up, but it’s worth it,’ he went on. ‘I made plenty—’

‘In the Army?’

‘God no!’ he laughed. ‘When I came out I worked as a consultant, putting the right people together with the right people – you know the kind of thing. Contacts. That’s how I got my OBE.’ He pointed to a painting on the landing. ‘That picture’s a Van Dyck. Not a copy, an original.’

‘Must be worth a lot of money.’

‘It’s not a problem. We’re insured and alarmed up to the hilt. We have to be, with the library, the silver and the paintings,’ Harold continued, just in case his visitor was not what he seemed. ‘We’ve not had a break-in since the seventies.’

‘It’s amazing,’ Nino said, looking around at the oak panelling and the carved ceiling above the stairwell. ‘It might be exactly what the film company’s looking for. Can I take some photographs?’

Flattered, Harold allowed him to capture a few shots of the hall and upper landing, culminating in the drawing room. Knowing that he couldn’t keep up the pretence for much longer, Nino pointed to a framed photograph on a side table, a faded picture of a debutante in the 1940s.

‘It that your mother?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s all very English, isn’t it?’ Nino remarked, smiling as he took another photograph. ‘You can tell from my name I’m a bit of a half-breed myself. My mother was Italian, my father Swedish. I suppose Courtford Hall’s never seen any foreign blood? No dilution of the English line?’

Following Nino, Harold watched as he took several more photographs in the hall, finally concentrating all his attention on the ancient front doors.