The staff were fully assembled in the library when Ryan and Phillips returned.
It was one of the larger reception rooms on the ground floor and happened to have been the first room in the world to be lit by an electric lightbulb, according to Dave Quibble’s guided tour the previous day. No artificial lighting was necessary now, as late morning light streamed through a large bay window overlooking the valley and warmed the apricot-coloured walls which provided a contrast to the heavier décor throughout the rest of the house.
“Oh, Ryan, I’m so glad to see you.” Cassandra Gilbert bustled across the room, looking as if she had spent most of the morning in tears. Her husband had roused himself from his sick bed and was installed in an armchair beside the fireplace.
“About bloody time you coppers came to see us!” he boomed. “No use palming us off on the junior staff. I want to know what you’re doing about all this!”
Cassandra winced.
“I’m sorry,” she kept her voice low, so that only they could catch what she said. “He’s a bit hard of hearing.”
She bore the martyred look of one who was well versed in making excuses for her errant husband and Phillips found himself feeling sorry for her.
“Why don’t you take a seat, Mrs Gilbert?” He led her back to one of the sofas arranged in a u-shape in the centre of the room.
“I don’t know what to do,” she sniffled, partly from grief and partly thanks to the virus she was coming down with. “What can I do, to make it up to that poor girl’s parents?”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Phillips said as he patted her arm.
“But she was here, under my roof, doing such marvellous work on our paintings. I feel responsible. Why would she do a thing like that?” Tears spilled over again. “She had her whole life ahead of her, everything to live for.”
Phillips decided to hold his tongue rather than raise the prospect of murder and left Cassandra to be comforted by Charlotte Shapiro, who was seated beside her.
“Thank you for your cooperation this morning,” Ryan raised his voice so that he could be heard in all four corners of the room. “As some of you may already be aware, we have identified the body found underneath the iron bridge as being that of Alice Chapman.”
There were murmurs around the room, more tears and a degree of fear that hadn’t been there before. He passed his gaze across each of their faces and thought: one of you knows.
His jaw hardened.
“I understand that each of you has provided a statement to my colleagues but, for the time being, I would appreciate it if you would make yourselves available for further questioning should the need arise.”
“Is that really necessary, chief inspector? Of course, we’re all devastated about what happened to Victor, and now Alice, but I don’t see what any of us has to do with it.” This came from Henderson, who stood near the door with a sullen look on his pinched face.
Ryan gave him a hard stare.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the deaths of Victor Swann and Alice Chapman are being treated as suspicious and as potentially linked.”
Realisation dawned on each of their faces and he made a careful note of their varied expressions. He saw Maggie clutch a hand to her throat and was sorry for it, but the facts could not be helped.
“On any analysis, two serious incidents within a twenty-four-hour period cannot be ignored and, therefore, will be jointly investigated until new information comes to light.”
Cassandra blew her nose loudly and then said what they were all thinking.
“Chief inspector, if Victor and Alice were…if their deaths weren’t accidental, do you think one of us might have been involved?”
Ryan could have given her a safe, roundabout answer, but he wasn’t in the habit of dishing out empty platitudes.
“Yes,” he said. “I do. For the time being, I would urge you to be vigilant and to report any suspicious activities to myself or one of my colleagues. Direct contact numbers will be made available but, failing that, you can always call the emergency number.”
His words fell like a death knell.
“There must be a mistake, chief inspector,” Dave Quibble was the one to break the residual silence. “Nobody in the room is capable of hurting anyone. We’re like a family, here at Cragside.”
There were nods of agreement around the room, more tears, but Ryan remained resolute.
“Anybody is capable, given the right motivation.”
*
As Ryan faced the room, one person looked on and almost laughed. He was so serious, so wholesome and dedicated to the scales of justice. How easy it must be, to live in a world of black and white and never any shades of grey. Perhaps he hadn’t lived enough of life to learn that, sometimes, action must be taken for the greater good. It was not enough to forgive and forget, or to go on with your life as if none of it mattered.
It was remarkable, really, how one individual action could trigger a sequence of events with such far-ranging consequences, some of which wouldn’t become obvious until much later. A person was forced to go on living with those consequences, putting up with the pain and the hardship, until the day arrived when there was an opportunity to balance the scales.
The girl’s death was unfortunate but, really, in the grand scheme of things, Alice had been a casualty in the war against a greater evil.
One that must be stamped out for good.
*
It took several hours for the CSIs to complete their work for the day, during which time Alice Chapman’s body was transferred to the mortuary for post-mortem and Ryan had the unenviable job of breaking the news of her death to the girl’s parents. They were based in Cambridgeshire, so Ryan delegated the task of paying a house call to a local family liaison officer. It gave him no pleasure to hand over a duty he felt he owed to her family and he intended to follow up with another phone call the following day, as much in solidarity as anything else.
A search of the immediate vicinity had provided the police team with their first breakthrough in the form of a solid link between two deaths which had, at first glance, appeared unconnected. Articles of menswear and other small items had been recovered from the shallow waters of the burn and had been found scattered in the rocky undergrowth in a twenty-foot radius around Alice’s body. They were undergoing forensic examination, but Lionel Gilbert had already confirmed that he recognised at least one article of clothing as belonging to his valet, Victor Swann.