Vivian Conroy - Death Plays a Part

‘Yes, some clues were too obscure. And one motive didn’t make sense at all. The audience does need a fair chance to unmask the killer, you know.’ She looked at the cell Haydock was going to use. ‘Only one way in – through the door. But there is a sort of hole in the wall?’

She pointed at a square, large enough to put a man’s fist through. Light seeped in, but the outside world couldn’t be seen clearly as the walls were so thick that her view was obstructed by the stone she looked upon.

‘It’s like something is moving on the other side,’ Guinevere said, squinting. ‘The light isn’t flowing in naturally.’

‘Probably bushes,’ Oliver said. ‘That’s the garden out there. I think …’ He frowned as if conjuring up the plan of the castle in his mind. ‘Rhododendrons.’

‘So these dungeons are not like cellars?’

‘In part,’ Oliver said. ‘You may have noticed that the castle’s entry door has steps in front of it. The whole castle is built a little higher, as it were, and the room below was used for these dungeons and for cellars to keep food. The dungeons did not need to be deep underground as escape was virtually impossible anyway. Just look at it. You were shackled to the wall. Then the cage was locked. The door through which we just entered was bolted from the outside. And there were always people around.

‘So even if a prisoner miraculously made it out of the dungeon, he’d not be out of the castle yet. He would most likely be spotted. At night the gate was closed, and a gatekeeper kept watch over it. Also keep in mind that the island’s cut off from the mainland during high tide. So a prisoner would have to know exactly when he could use the causeway or have a boat ready for his escape.’

‘It could only have been done with an accomplice,’ Guinevere said. The silence made her lower her voice. ‘If someone came from the outside, to lure the guard away, made sure a boat was ready and waiting along the beach … Maybe even delivered the key of the shackles to the prisoner.’

‘In a homemade pasty?’ Oliver grinned. ‘We should have forgotten about re-enacting this boring trial and gone for a daring escape instead. It would have been so much more fun.’

He made a movement as if he brandished a club over his head. ‘Knock the guard down, sneak through the dark passageways …’

Guinevere had to laugh. ‘I think the historical society would not have approved. That’s not how Branok’s story played out.’

‘Well, sometimes to sell something you need a little fiction to make it juicier. Ah, the lighter. Can you open the lanterns’ doors for me? They’re slightly crooked and never stay open when I want them to.’

They had to stand closely together to make it work. Guinevere looked at Oliver’s features as the lighter’s flame threw shadows across it. She couldn’t make any sense of him. What he was about. If he really disliked his father and the castle, or only pretended he did.

And if so, why.

‘Hello?’ Oliver tapped her shoulder. ‘Are you there? We’re all done. Father can come down to lock Haydock in. My part as judge will be a disaster of course. I haven’t had time to rehearse, and Haydock will be livid when my stumbling ruins the flow.’

He leaned over to her, whispering, ‘Who knows, I might condemn that scoundrel to death anyway.’

***

The flickering light of a few candles illuminated the group gathered in the tall room.

Oliver sat on a carved chair, holding a broomstick by way of wand of office. His father had said he would only produce the real wand, which was part of the castle’s collection, for the actual trial. That one special night when everybody would be present.

Kensa, grave in her plain garment, had given her testimony to condemn Branok for killing two innocent children when he had ordered the house to be set on fire.

‘But he never knew the children were in there,’ Leah had just said. She was a witness to defend Branok and plead his innocence. ‘You yourself had left them, being a bad mother who neglected her brood. You were at the inn meeting men and inviting them to the attic above the horse shed.’

‘I am not proud to say I made money that way in the old days,’ Kensa replied, ‘but not any more after I wed Merek.’

Leah laughed. ‘We all know Merek is a weak man who drinks too much. He may earn money but he spends it on stout and ale, not on your children. If you wanted them to have anything, anything at all, you had to return to your old trade.’

Oliver lifted a hand. ‘Do we know,’ he asked in an exaggerated baritone voice, ‘where the accusing party was when her house burned to the ground? Was she really at the inn with men?’

‘I have witnesses to confirm it,’ Leah said eagerly, gesturing to where Tegen and Bolingbrooke were waiting for their turn.

‘All liars, for gain!’ Kensa cried. She beat her fist on the wooden table before her.

‘You are accusing the other party of bringing bought witnesses into this court?’ Oliver asked.

‘Before this tribunal,’ Bolingbrooke corrected audibly from the side.

Guinevere suppressed a laugh, as this was so like rehearsal in their London theatre.

Oliver frowned at the interruption, but the women, completely into their parts, were already moving on.

Kensa cried, ‘Yes, my lord, he has done it before. He is a wicked man who buys people’s words for gain. He is a murderer too, of innocent children.’

‘She is just accusing Branok out of spite.’ Leah’s cheeks were red as she leaned forward. She had let down her hair, and it hung to her shoulders in waves, framing her delicate features. The dark colour of the plain garment underlined her solemnity. ‘Branok never wanted her and told her husband of her lecherous activities at the inn. Merek beat her for it, and she blamed Branok. But it was her own doing that got her beaten and also got her children killed. The thatch on the roof caught fire when she was not there. It was not arson.’

Oliver opened his mouth to say something, then seemed to have forgotten his lines. He scrambled to pull a piece of paper from his pocket.

Bolingbrooke called out, ‘Hurry up with that cheat sheet; you’re spoiling the momentum.’

Oliver nodded. ‘Calm yourself. I’m just a stand-in. What does he say here? Oh, yes. Do you have proof of that?’

‘The house is burned to the ground,’ the mother wailed. ‘How can I produce proof of anything?’

‘We can confirm that Branok was elsewhere at the time,’ Leah said. ‘He didn’t do this evil deed. Nobody did. It was an accident.’

Guinevere thought that, if Leah was like this in real court cases, she had to win a lot. But then she wasn’t even sure what Leah’s part in her father’s law firm was and what kind of cases they handled. Maybe it was just settling disputes and mediating between people? Nothing as big and dramatic as this old trial. It seemed like tension grew with every line, filling the room up to the shadows in the rafters overhead.

‘It is high time I hear the accused speak his own mind.’ Oliver rose slowly from his seat. ‘I will go to him in his place of …’

He consulted his cheat sheet again. ‘Confinement. Looking at this poor woman who suffered such loss, he will not be able to lie. I will see in his face if he speaks the truth.’

He looked around. ‘Is that the way they did it those days? Just take the villain’s word for it that he hadn’t done it?’

Bolingbrooke exhaled as if the delay was getting on his nerves. ‘Apparently. As Branok was influential, his word was worth a lot. And what else do you suggest to get at the truth? Torture?’

Oliver waved the broomstick. ‘All right, I get the point. Let’s go down into the dungeon then. Did the whole group come?’