So much for his so-called friends, who had abandoned him in his hour of need.
Returning the phone to the inner pocket of his blazer, Ryan made a leisurely observation of his surroundings. The drawing room was the largest reception room in the house and had originally been built for a royal visit, over a hundred years earlier. The style was opulent, with dark red damask walls and plaster panels on the coved ceiling leading up to a long skylight through which the setting sun had blazed during dinner. Now that darkness had fallen, the room was an odd mixture of shadows, relieved only by a central chandelier and a few scattered side lamps, all of which shone a weak, low-wattage glow. The air smelled of musty furniture and it had grown chilly since there was no roaring fire set beneath the vast chimneypiece dominating the southern wall.
At the head of the table, Cassandra Gilbert was engaged in polite conversation with a small group of staff and, catching his eye, she smiled and raised her glass.
Ryan raised his glass in return.
Small groups of staff huddled together, according to their respective roles on the estate. The horticultural staff occupied a position near the door, whereas the older volunteers were seated comfortably in the mid-section of the long dining table. Conservation staff were the most animated and chattered happily about scientific advances in their respective fields from a seating area at one end of the room. The housekeeper stood chatting to Victor, who Ryan knew to be Lionel Gilbert’s personal valet.
There was a polished grand piano sitting lonely in the corner and Ryan was considering tinkling the ivories when he spotted Anna weaving through the crowd in his direction. He smiled at the sight of her, as much at home in elegant silks as she was in scuffed jeans and walking boots.
“Nearly over,” she murmured, slipping into the chair beside him. “A few people have already made a run for it. We can head off any time you like.”
They were halfway out of their seats when a thin, balding man wearing by far the most glamorous outfit they’d seen all evening joined them. Martin Henderson was the new estate manager, charged with overseeing the smooth running of Cragside’s agricultural interests, which were substantial. Soon after he’d arrived in his electric BMW sports car, Henderson had issued a string of demands that had not endeared him to his colleagues. His choice of dress this evening was calculated to reinforce his status and, when Ryan enquired politely as to the red fur cloak and regal-looking sash draped across the man’s chest, he was informed that the ensemble had been modelled on Edward VII’s coronation robes.
“I had the jacket hand-made,” Henderson boasted. “And the fur is real, too. None of that tree-hugging faux stuff.” He belched and reached across the table for a decanter of wine to top up his glass. “Well, who d’ you think dunnit?”
Henderson addressed his question to Ryan, innate misogyny leading him to assume Anna had no thoughts on the matter.
“It’s always the butler,” Ryan replied breezily, rising in one fluid movement and holding out a hand to help Anna from her chair. “You’ll have to excuse us, Martin, it’s been a long day and we must be getting back.”
They had almost made their escape when the room was plunged into darkness.
CHAPTER 2
Muffled shrieks and drunken guffaws about the ghost of a murdered duchess echoed around the room. People stumbled into one another, bumping into occasional furniture in their haste to find an alternative light source. Taking matters into his own hands, Ryan made his way to the door using his phone as a torch, intending to feel around the wall for a light switch, and barrelled into somebody.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
He found the switch and tried it a few times, to no avail.
His eyes adjusted to the darkness and he realised it was the head gardener he had bumped into. She was standing beside him leaning against a marble-topped side table, breathing a bit unsteadily. Her eyes were wide and frightened in the light of his phone torch and Ryan struggled to remember her name—Charlotte?—but guessed she was somewhere around fifty, with short blonde hair topped with a long peacock-feathered fascinator.
“Are you alright?”
“I’ll be fine. I just had a bit of a fright,” she explained. “I hate dark spaces. I think I might have dropped a glass of wine on the carpet—”
Ryan looked around the floor and picked up the errant glass, setting it back on the table next to a large porcelain lamp.
“They’ll clean up the spillage later. Here, sit down on this chair,” he offered, drawing her down into one of the antique easy chairs set back against the wall.
“Thank you,” she said, a bit embarrassed. “I don’t know what came over me.”
“It’s been a long night,” Ryan said, with feeling.
When he was satisfied that the woman was comfortable, he turned back to the room at large and raised his voice above the din.
“Alright, listen up!”
It took a few seconds but eventually its occupants fell silent.
“Does anybody know where to find the fuse box?”
He waited to hear from Dave, the self-confessed electrical expert, but was surprised to find it was the valet, Victor Swann, who made his way forward.
“I know where it is. Down on the ground floor next to the kitchen, near the main entrance.”
“I’ll come with you,” Ryan offered but Victor shook his head.
“No, you stay here and look after my Maggie,” he looked over his shoulder to where she stood beside a group of other staff, his lascivious wink made sinister by the light of Ryan’s phone torch.
“Here, take this,” he started to hand it over but Victor produced a nifty LED torch from his trouser pocket and flicked it on.
“Always come prepared.”
He stepped through the doorway into the murky hallway beyond and threw a final, prophetic request over his shoulder.
“If I’m not back in five minutes, send a search party!”
*
In the end, Ryan gave him ten minutes. Leaving the remaining crowd of revellers, he made his way through the long, silent corridors of the old house in search of Victor. Although he was not prone to an overactive imagination, it was impossible not to experience a distinct sense of foreboding. Floorboards creaked underfoot as he made swiftly for the main staircase at the end of the gallery and painted images of long-dead aristocrats stared down at him from shadowy portraits. The darkness was complete; thick and black with no friendly moon to guide the way, only the single beam of his phone torch flickering against the walls.
Reaching the staircase, he ran lightly down to the ground floor and emerged into the entrance hallway. There was still no sign of another living person but wind whistled through gaps in the old oak doors, sending them creaking on their hinges.
“Victor?”
Ryan’s voice reverberated around the walls and he paused at the foot of the stairs, listening for a response.