Blue Christmas Read online

  Blue Christmas

  Lord & Lady Hetheridge Mysteries Book #6

  Emma Jameson

  For my family

  For my friends

  and

  For my readers

  With a grateful heart.

  * * *

  Emma Jameson

  2019

  Chapter 1

  You can do this, Kate Hetheridge told herself, for perhaps the twentieth time that day. It means a lot to him.

  Her husband, Tony, also known as Lord Anthony Hetheridge, the ninth Baron of Wellegrave, was trying, and very nearly succeeding, to project the bland neutrality of one who doesn’t give a fig how his wife responds to his choice. In this case, his choice of a holiday let in the heart of London. Though it was only the sixth of December, the old city was already bedecked in the usual way: fairy lights, wreaths, shiny tinsel, and a towering Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square. And although the United Kingdom had been through its share of travails in the past few years, the holiday spirit was alive and well, perhaps even a touch more intense than in less fraught times. The very fact that Tony had discovered a rental property for them on short notice was a testament to his determination to make this work.

  Kate, too, wanted it to work, at least on paper. She’d made promises, and she meant to see them through. But even though seven full days in the city felt insurmountable to her, she knew Tony wanted more. He wanted to live and work in London again.

  If I can’t, what does it mean for our careers? For us?

  Chapter 2

  When Tony Hetheridge embraced a new career, private investigator, the welcome had been less than rapturous. In the run-up to hanging out his shingle, as it were, he’d interviewed a handful of London PIs. Most were emotionally situated somewhere between disgruntled and despairing. One had told him flat out: “It’s a dirty business, mate. Life’s too short. Especially for a bloke with one foot in the grave.”

  Fortunately Tony, who’d recently turned sixty-one, no longer gave one-foot-in-the-grave rubbish a second thought. By his reckoning, his full plate of responsibilities required him to delay the onset of decrepitude until ninety-three, and death itself until one hundred and eight. He had a young wife. A grown-up daughter he barely knew. An adopted son, brilliant and increasingly cheeky. A challenging brother-in-law with whom he’d gradually achieved détente. And a myriad of other friends, enemies, hopes and dreams. So he’d kicked off his professional second act with gusto. The case had concerned a pair of brother-sister twins, one dead, the other vanished. Getting to the complicated truth of what had befallen the twins had been a stunning success. It also nearly got him killed.

  Tony’s police career had been long, distinguished, and physically uneventful, with a couple of near-misses but no life-threatening injuries. At the outset of his PI career, he’d narrowly escaped death, but was beaten so badly he almost lost an eye. A period of recuperation, quiet, and reflection had been essential.

  It had been ugly. It had been tough. Nevertheless, Tony believed he’d processed the event. Was it because he’d killed his adversary? Because he’d literally cast him down? Perhaps. The evildoer who’d tried to annihilate him, Kate, Henry, and Ritchie, plus his friend and colleague, Deepal “Paul” Bhar, was dead and gone. Perhaps that triumph had permitted Tony to attain a minimal safe distance, emotionally speaking, from the worst of the memories.

  The same could not be said for Kate.

  It was the sixth of December. Tony and Kate’s first wedding anniversary, 25 December, was coming up fast. He wanted very much to mark the occasion, as well as Christmas Day, with optimism; with a feeling of moving forward, if at all possible. Plainly put, he wanted to see the back of Briarshaw, his ancestral estate in Devon, and not come back for a span of anywhere from twelve months to the rest of his life.

  That was possibly an overreaction. Tony and Kate had been married at Briarshaw, in the great house’s tiny chapel, with fresh-cut evergreens and fairy lights twinkling from the hall. As old heaps surrounded by hills, hedgerows, and sheep went, Briarshaw was tolerable. (Translated from English understatement, “tolerable” in this case meant pure heaven.) The original plan had been to return to Devon in mid-December, meaning next week, and mark the happy occasion where they’d tied the knot. Then “the rooftop,” as the family euphemistically called it, had happened.

  “The rooftop” had changed everything. It had even landed Tony and Kate in Devonshire in May, eight months ahead of schedule, for what felt like an endless recovery—two minor surgeries for Tony, three orthopedic boondoggles for Kate. After an extended relationship with St. Thomas’ Hospital, retreating to the country had been the best possible medicine. Briarshaw had swiftly become a haven, a spa, even an extended family getaway. And, so Tony believed after months of observing his wife, a sort of delicious limbo for Kate, unencumbered by challenges or traumatic memories. In Briarshaw’s drowsy green grass, watching rose-gold clouds gather behind a three-hundred-year oak, Kate had rested. She had allowed her body to heal. But even the best medicine can turn toxic, if taken too long.

  By July, Tony had begun entertaining doubts about Kate’s progress. By September, he’d become convinced she was deliberately ignoring every overture from the outside world, including her chosen career, to bring her back into the fold. Like him, Kate had chosen the Metropolitan police service over the objections of her family, all of whom had thought she was mad to try it. Also like him—although from the opposite side of the equation—she’d had to fight for her place against naysayers, saboteurs, and those who had a vested interest in preserving mediocrity. Finally, like him, she’d loved detective work, the thrill of a tough case, of clues that initially refused to line up, of gimcrack alibis that exploded under the correct pressure. He loved it still, unreservedly. Did she?

  By October, Tony had still failed to dredge the answer out of Kate, who was apparently content to feed goats and count clouds. Meanwhile, his regard for Briarshaw regressed to his teenage view: a cursed old heap, a thousand miles from any place of even fleeting interest, where bluebloods with superior deductive reasoning went to die. No one needed a policeman, much less a detective, in that bucolic corner of Devon. Midsomer Murders made the English countryside seem like a hotbed of sex and slaughter, but Briarshaw’s nearest village, Shawbridge, had yet to get the memo.

  Close to Bonfire Night, the village’s weekly newspaper had run the following headline: KNIFE CRIME STUNNER. Upon investigation, this referred to the theft of a pen knife that had been filched from a high street shop. The culprit, a pensioner suffering from Alzheimer’s, had been identified the following day. The knife, returned without incident, was valued at £7.

  Tony’s hopeful overreaction to the headline, his immediate desire to sort of parachute into Shawbridge and take charge of the situation, coordinating with local authorities and hauling off the guilty to face justice, was a wake-up call. Had Wellegrave House, the London townhouse he’d lived in for most of his adult life, been in any fit state, he would’ve dragged Kate off to a London weekend. The pitch would’ve been so easy. First, a relaxing railway journey in the quiet car. Lunch at Juno’s, their favorite hole-in-the-wall near Paddington Station. Then two days indoors, if Kate preferred. But alas, Wellegrave House was still weeks away from completion.

  After the fire—and what a year it had been, when a major housefire became a mere afterthought—it had taken months of back-and-forth with builders, suppliers, designers, and The Powers That Be (as Tony had come to think of those rules that govern the restoration of Grade II Listed houses) to remake Wellegrave House. It would be mid-January before the house’s CCTV cameras, infrared monitors, and other security measures went live. And Tony knew that until they did, Kate would refuse to spend so much as a single n
ight there.

  She’s not wrong, he reminded himself. On the contrary, an abundance of caution was both sane and wise. Security failures had led to that hellish experience on a rooftop. And while Tony had killed the evildoer, he had not eradicated him.

  In life, the man who’d attacked and nearly annihilated them had been a celebrity. In death, strange and hideous conspiracy theories had grown up around him, rewriting his true biography, transmuting him from the base metal of psychopathy and evil into the pure gold of—well, whatever his fringe cult needed him to be. Clinical madness was begetting voluntary madness. And it was hardly the first time, in the long annals of human history, that such a sad and destructive alchemy had occurred.

  Of course, given their career backgrounds, they had all the information and reassurance a flawed world could offer. From the unit that routinely keeps tabs on potentially criminal groups and gatherings, Scotland Yard had created a special task force to monitor the evildoer’s groupies and copycats. While the risk of a revenge attack on the Hetheridges from “the Fan Club,” as it was called, was judged to be low, the number wasn’t zero. It would never be zero.

  Chapter 3

  In early November, Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Michael Deaver, Tony’s longtime friend and ally at the Yard, had traveled to Briarshaw to brief them in person. Although Kate pretended ignorance, she and Tony both understood that Deaver was there not only for a social call, but to assess Kate’s readiness to return to service. Physically, she was already cleared. Her promotion to Detective Inspector had gone through. Moreover, her place on the “Toff Squad,” the Scotland Yard unit which dealt with serious crimes that intersected with the lives of the titled, monied, and famous, was assured. Since August, Paul Bhar had been calling her regularly for help, advice, or simply to complain about his caseload. Kate always took his calls, and Tony had overheard enough of their substance to know she took Paul’s requests seriously, and did the best she could to assist him from a distance of one hundred and seventy-five miles. Yet still Kate hadn’t so much as hinted at being ready to return to London.

  Deaver went away confused. Paul called Tony, demanding to know what was up. And when Tony finally decided to press the issue, Kate had frozen him out. It was a first.

  To return to good old English understatement, a situation where Kate turned emotionally unavailable was something of a role-reversal. Tony had been at a complete loss. For the whole of his life, he’d been the distant one. That had been his entire M.O., pursuing women when it suited him and turning cold when it didn’t. For a long time, he’d assumed his blood just ran a shade cooler than the norm; that only intellectual pursuits truly captivated him. Then came Kate. And a large part of what made her so irresistible to him, that had driven him relentlessly even when he disbelieved she could ever love him, was her fiery red core. The live ember within the ashes. When Tony was close to Kate, he felt more alive, more passionate, and more willing to risk himself than ever before. The realization that perhaps she was drifting, that the fire would fade and he would be helpless to stop it, had forced him to take drastic action.

  He’d told her he wanted to see a therapist. That he was going against his upbringing, not to mention his habitual way of handling painful feelings—by ignoring them—but he believed it was imperative. Yet he couldn’t muster the willingness to go it alone. He needed her to go, too.

  Not as a couple, not to compare notes, not to achieve some sort of relationship breakthrough. He just needed her to support him by choosing a psychotherapist, booking a month’s worth of sessions, and going to them. If she did that, he claimed, he could marshal the strength to do the same.

  Had Kate seen through him? Perhaps. Had she seemed surprised? Poleaxed might be a better word for it. But she’d borne up, made some inquiries, and found a suitable practice in Plymouth.

  As promised, they’d traveled there together twice a week, seeing different psychologists. Tony had concluded after eight sessions. Kate was still going—and while she revealed very little of what was discussed inside the therapist’s office, she admitted the general topics were the same: flashbacks, intrusive anxiety, and the sort of helpless rage that all too quickly becomes depression. For the month of December, her therapeutic “homework” turned out to be an assignment beyond Tony’s wildest hopes. Kate’s therapist wanted her to return to London and spend at least a week there. Overnight—no railway trips to the suburbs, much less Briarshaw.

  Tony had done his best to receive this information neutrally. He’d failed, of course, with Kate tartly informing him over breakfast that while he was allowed to be happy, he ought to have the decency to wipe the offensive smile from his face. Determined not to overplay his hand, he’d promptly shaken open the Independent, started reading about the current state of things—an act incompatible with smiling—and allowed the secondary track in his brain to start chugging away on the question of London. Wellegrave House was out of the question. So where would they stay?

  Chapter 4

  It took him six days, seven phone calls, two emails, and two daytrips to London to sort through the flood of holiday lets and second homes offered by solicitous friends. Though Tony was embarrassed to fully acknowledge it, even to himself, the outpouring revealed something Paul and AC Deaver had hinted at: to the Met’s old guard, Tony was now viewed as a bit of a hero.

  To his fellow dinosaurs, some still clinging desperately to the apex of the food chain, others already retired and heckling the modern service from the sidelines, Tony was an inspiration. He’d given thirty years in service to the Met, only to be forced out as the top brass replaced seasoned, independent operators with the young and pliable. Then as a private citizen, he’d faced the nightmare of personal retaliation by a killer he’d tried to send down. It was a fear every detective who’d worked on high profile cases had dealt with, but ninety-nine out of a hundred times, they only thing they truly had to worry about was a civil suit. Barring that, a good old-fashioned hit job by the tabloid press. But Tony and his family had actually been marked for death and survived.

  That meant something to his contemporaries. It even meant something to his relatives—with the exception of his nephew Roderick Hetheridge, the man who was, through the creaky Middle Ages magic of primogeniture, his legal heir. Roddy wanted Tony to snuff it, posthaste; indeed, he’d never forgiven him for living this long. The only thing that kept Roddy happy was the knowledge that Tony had no son. Henry didn’t count; the Barony of Wellegrave passed only to sons of the body. But apart from Roddy Hetheridge, the warm welcome had been quite gratifying, with invitations and offers thick on the ground.

  When it came to the security arrangements of those offered properties, however, most were unsuitable for Kate. And since making Kate comfortable in the city was the entire point, Tony had politely and gently refused all offers that came with promises to visit, or a welcome party, or “dropping by for drinkies.” Tony suspected that all day, every day, some part of his wife was still on that rooftop: injured, terrified, and facing down death, not only for herself, but for those she loved. A woman who saw herself as cornered wasn’t likely to respond well to people she barely knew dropping by for “drinkies,” even if they brought the bottles.

  The railway journey to the city had gone well. Kate immersed herself in a novel and hardly said a word. The ride to Marylebone in a Black cab was unremarkable, although it fell to Tony to keep up most of the conversation with the pleasant, well-informed driver. Then they were there, at Strange Mews, a freehold brick mews house that was painted a clean, soft white. The cabbie insisted on helping them get their luggage into the mews house’s foyer.

  “Smart tree, that,” the cabbie said, nodding at the six foot artificial Christmas tree, slim enough to fit where a coat tree might usually stand. The white fairy lights and rustic wooden ornaments—toy drums, simple dolls, bears, and alphabet blocks—fit with the tree stand, an old-fashioned sled.

  “Cheers. Happy Christmas a wee bit early,” Tony said
, pressing a tip into the cabbie’s hand. Then he closed the door, reset the alarm, and regarded Kate with the bland expression he’d once turned on hardened criminals. He didn’t have to give her a sales pitch on the security system; he’d downloaded the specs a day early, allowing her to read them over at leisure. It was quite simply the finest money could buy.

  As expected, she made no complaint. But she was looking at the interior of the fully refurbished mews house as if she’d landed on the surface of the moon.

  She didn’t seem inclined to speak. That left him to do it.

  “Let’s have a peek at the living room, shall we?”

  Chapter 5

  Kate followed Tony out of the foyer and into the wide space that encompassed living room, dining area, and kitchen. Though the window offered what looked like a respectable view, he didn’t drag her over to inspect it, or insist she look at the gleaming stainless steel cooker and fridge, both the very definition of the term “mod-cons.” She appreciated that. After the long sanctuary of Briarshaw, arriving at Strange Mews—why would anyone name a house that?—was a bit overwhelming. She didn’t need Tony to narrate all the features her detective’s eye had already registered.

  Heart-of-pine floors, polished to a warm glow. A lovely old fireplace, the small, stark kind, with a pitch-black firebox nestled inside a white marble mantlepiece. A sofa, white with jet-black throw pillows, a stylish nod to the hearth. Over the mantlepiece hung a large, rectangular mirror, unframed apart from its beveled edges. The surfaces were mostly uncluttered. Apart from a pair of silver candlesticks, the living space was an empty canvas.