Every Trick in the Rook Read online

  Every Trick in the Rook is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  An Alibi Ebook Original

  Copyright © 2017 by Marty Wingate

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Alibi, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  ALIBI is a registered trademark and the ALIBI colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Ebook ISBN 9780425286210

  Cover design: Tatiana Sayig

  Cover images: Shutterstock

  randomhousebooks.com

  v4.1

  ep

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  By Marty Wingate

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  A distinctly steamy atmosphere filled the church hall at St. Swithun’s on that early April Thursday evening, created by wet mackintoshes, dripping umbrellas, and leather boots that would not dry out until July, all combined with six oil-filled radiators plugged in along the walls. The aroma of damp wool hung heavily in the air. I had intended to take the chill off and accidentally created a sauna. Despite that, our organizational meeting of the Smeaton-under-Lyme Wednesday Farmers’ Market—its inaugural appearance in a fortnight’s time—had gone well, if overly long. Farmers, cheesemongers, bakers, cider and perry makers, and a host of other food producers had attended so that we could talk through the last details. I glanced at my watch—just gone eleven. My God, don’t these people have homes to go to?

  A small woman in the front row raised her hand.

  “Julia, have you heard from Health and Safety yet? Our equipment must pass inspection before I begin, and if I don’t start soon, I won’t have enough supply to hand out the free samples at the market, let alone for the grand opening of the shop.”

  “Right, Helen, I’ll ring them tomorrow and secure an appointment.” Helen Dunne, proprietor of the village’s first sweets shop, Sugar for My Honey, looked as if she’d never popped a toffee in her entire life, but all of us at the Tourist Information Center had tasted her confections and given her top marks. I, for one, was particularly looking forward to her CocoJava fudge, although my co-workers, Vesta Widdersham and Willow Wynn-Finch, leaned toward the rose-and-lemon Turkish delights.

  A clattering of metal folding chairs lifted my heart, as I thought everyone else had finally had enough, too, and had begun to pack it in. But instead of preparing to leave, the crowd pulled back to watch two farmers go at each other like bulls.

  “You’ll never get away with it!” the short one shouted, as he threw a punch that made contact with a crunch.

  “I’ll not let you steal what I’ve worked my entire life for,” the taller one responded, although thickly, as he covered his nose with one hand. He flew at the first man, they tumbled to the ground, and the pummeling continued.

  “Stop it!” I shouted at them. “Stop it this instant!” I ran to them and took hold of the first one I could reach, grabbing the collar of his sweater and wrenching him back hard enough that I heard him gag. We both stumbled into the crowd, and I felt someone catch me before I landed on my bum. I let go of the one farmer and placed myself between them, pointing a finger at each to keep them still.

  Bloody asparagus growers. The two of them had been bickering with each other for the past month about who had the right to call himself King of Suffolk Asparagus. I’d tried arbitration, but it hadn’t worked, and I’d had enough.

  The little one jumped up as if to continue the scuffle, and the taller one flinched.

  “Stop it, the pair of you,” I warned, “or you’ll both be banned from the market from day one.”

  “On whose say?” the taller one asked as he wiped a trickle of blood off his lip. “This is the Fotheringill estate, and you’re only the tourist manager.”

  “On my say, with the full backing of Lord Fotheringill, as you well know. Shall I ring him now and we’ll just verify that?” I whipped my phone out of my pocket and wiggled it in front of their faces. “Go on, try me—you know I’ll do it.”

  The crowd held its breath. I could see Willow off to the side, her eyes wide. At last, the two farmers stuck their hands into the pockets of their grimy denims. Both shrugged.

  “Right,” I said, blowing my bangs out of my eyes and straightening my cardigan. “Now, we’ll have no more of this. You two behave, or you’ll find yourselves peddling your spears at the side of the road in Shimpling.”

  —

  “Gosh, Julia, that was truly amazing. You’re incredibly brave, and you have such a really, really bold spirit,” Willow said as we stacked up chairs and cleared off the tea table. “Ooh, look—two fairy cakes left.”

  For just a moment we considered those little squares of sponge cake coated in pink-tinted fondant—the last survivors on a platter of crumbs.

  “Well, can’t let those go to waste, now can we? What would Nuala say?” Nuala ran the tea room in the village and supplied cakes, tarts, and scones for our every need. I counted myself as one of her most enthusiastic supporters.

  The final fairy cakes dispatched, we washed out the tea urn and swept up.

  “There now,” Willow said, as we took a last look at the church hall, and she adjusted the knitted beret that sat atop her brown curls. “All put to rights. Well, Julia, as I won’t see you before you get off, you have a lovely weekend.”

  I certainly intended to. “And you, Willow. Thanks for helping out this evening.”

  I walked down Church Lane, past the Stoat and Hare pub—not only a pub, but hotel as well, with ten lovely rooms available upstairs, a fact I always pointed out to visitors—and continued down the high street to my Pipit Cottage.

  A warm glow emanated from the front window. I unlocked the door and stepped in, pausing for a moment to take a deep, cleansing breath. Home. I hung my coat on a peg, switched off the tiny lamp on the mantel, and climbed the steep stairs to the landing. I stopped in the bedroom doorway.

  Michael, sound asleep on his stomach with arms flung out, had left the bedside lamp on for me. I watched him for a moment, listening to his heavy breathing. His black hair—always a bit shaggy—didn’t quite cover that tiny white scar high on his cheek. Even in sleep, one side of his mouth tugged up into that lopsided smile. I smiled back.

  As quiet as a mouse, I undressed and slipped into bed beside him. When I turned to switch off the light, I saw he’d left the printed confirmation from The Ship pub in Dunwich: marsh view room for two booked for Michael Sedgwick starting tomorrow evening, Friday. I sighed. This had been our goal for weeks now—a weekend away on the coast, apart from our hectic work schedul
es. Time together. No wonder he was already asleep—he’d be up at four the next morning, as he had been every morning that week.

  Michael held my former post of personal assistant to celebrity ornithologist Rupert Lanchester—my father. This meant Michael not only organized Dad’s appearance schedule, but also produced his BBC Two television program, A Bird in the Hand. In case he didn’t have enough to do, Michael had created the Rupert Lanchester Foundation, which would award grants to worthy groups, institutes, and schools to further nature studies. The first grant was to be awarded soon. To say he was busy didn’t cover it by half.

  And just as Michael had been up before dawn every morning, I’d been in late every evening with meetings about the market, the Walking Festival, Smeaton’s Summer Supper. But when I locked the door of the Tourist Information Center tomorrow at five o’clock, no more of that—I’d get in my little Fiat and head for the coast. We’d meet up and not look back. At least until Monday.

  —

  A heavy mist threatened to soak me through the minute I closed the door of my cottage the next morning, but I set my mind to better thoughts—get through this last workday before the weekend. I clamped half a slice of toast in my mouth as I zipped my mackintosh, pulled the hood up, and hitched my weekend bag higher on my shoulder. A blob of marmalade slid off the corner of the toast and plopped onto my chest, but before I had a chance to nab it, the rain had washed it off and the marmalade landed on the toe of one of my shoes. Welcome to Friday.

  A loud caw-caw from across the deserted high street made me look up—a rook sat perched atop a chimney pot. The bird spread his wings, glided to the roof’s edge, and turned his head to peer down at me, in the process showing off his white chin and long, pale gray beak. A sage look that was contradicted by his pantaloon-like leg feathers, which gave him the appearance of a court jester.

  “ ’Morning,” I called to the bird, biting off the end of my toast as I clattered down the pavement in my spike heels. “The rook is a sociable bird,” I murmured, mouth full, paraphrasing The Observer’s Book of British Birds, which I had kept close at hand for nearly thirty years, even though I’d mostly memorized it since buying it for a pound at a church jumble sale when I was twelve. With a couple of flaps, the rook arose and flew off in the same direction I headed—down the high street toward the TIC.

  Perhaps he’d like a leaflet on available nesting sights on the Fotheringill estate. More likely he already knew, and had come from the rookery just at the edge of the village, near the bridge that spanned the brook. I’d mentioned the rookery in a recent and already quite popular leaflet, Birds of Hoggin Hall. As manager of the TIC, I had written a leaflet on just about every imaginable topic with a connection to our village, the estate, and the Fotheringills, including What the Vikings Left Behind—Do You Have Danish Blood? and Henry VIII and Fotheringill Abbey: A Tale of Jealousy and Intrigue.

  The rook waited for me across the road at the TIC—at least, I decided he was the same one. He strutted along the gutter of the slate roof, and I could hear the scritching of his toes when he stopped to shake the rain off. He sailed toward me, landing on the black iron bollard next to the curb, and gave the last bite of toast in my hand a significant look.

  “Oh, well, go on then,” I said, and tossed it onto the pavement.

  He dropped and spread his wings, giving me a bow before seizing it. I heard a chortling sound as he flew off.

  “You’re very welcome,” I called after.

  Breakfast on the wing—well and good for the rook, although not my favorite way of eating. But I had left it too late for a proper meal—I had needed to pack for the weekend, and I’d also taken time to refill the feeders in the back garden. I wouldn’t want to leave the garden birds without for three days—not in April, when they were so busy nesting and needed all the food they could get.

  I went through the activities that started each workday—unlock the door, switch on the lights, turn the sign in the window to “Open.” I paused for a moment to take in the first impression our tiny shop-sized tourist office would present to a visitor. A short counter very nearly split the place in two—in front, racks of leaflets covered the wall, as well as maps, booklets, and posters touting the Fotheringill estate as a wonderful place to spend time. On the counter, an introductory leaflet—Who Are the Fotheringills?—along with our business cards (Julia Lanchester, manager; Vesta Widdersham, associate) and an assortment of pencils and erasers. A tray held key chains in two styles—a miniature Hoggin Hall with its distinctive turrets, the other the Fotheringill family coat of arms. These were the only items for sale, as we had no desire to compete with shops in the village. Behind the counter lay our workspace: small table and four chairs, two of which were usually stacked up in the corner, plus all the work necessities from computer to tiny fridge. Behind a concertina door, in what looked like a cupboard, was the loo.

  We had increased traffic into the TIC these days, in part, because of our website. It had a smart and appealing look. The home page displayed a warm welcome from Linus—the Earl Fotheringill—and a separate page that told the family history through the centuries. We had sprinkled in loads of photos and drawings, added an interactive map of the estate, and uploaded all our leaflets, which could be printed out at home. The project had consumed my January, but had been up and running for two months now.

  I dropped my bags, switched on the electric kettle, and breathed a sigh of relief. There—tea on its way. I rinsed marmalade off my fingers, nudged my weekend bag under the counter, and rummaged in my enormous day bag, pulling out a large slice of Madeira cake from Nuala’s, nabbed from the tea table at last evening’s meeting just before the farmers began to arrive. Good for my morning tea, but my favorite of Nuala’s cakes would always be the chocolate with chocolate fudge frosting, which I indulged in regularly—blessed, as I had been, with my mother’s ability to eat almost continually and still keep a reasonable figure.

  As I waited for our cranky kettle to rattle and wheeze its way to a boil, my mind drifted off to pleasant thoughts. Michael and I had been a couple—mostly—for nearly a year, which astonished me just as much as it did everyone else. Not only that, we’d been living together in my little Pipit Cottage for almost five months. I felt like a grown-up and, as my sister, Bianca, would say and has said: “About time, too, as you’ll be forty before you can take another breath.”

  At her words, my hand had flown up to my hair—dark blond cut in a bob. Rosy at The Hair Strand had been pushing me to get highlights, and I’d spotted two gray hairs not long ago. Still, not enough to worry about.

  But living together, it turns out, doesn’t necessarily mean seeing a lot of each other. In fact, for us lately, it had been quite the opposite.

  And so, we’d needed to go away to be together, although work and life did seem to have a way of following along. Michael and I had promised Dad we’d scout a few film sites while we strolled Minsmere, a Royal Society for the Protection of Birds reserve quite near our pub. Also, I had a bit of business to bring up. I wanted to tell Michael about an email I’d received. Really, it was only to clear the air. I’d give it five minutes, and then we could forget it.

  —

  I spent a pleasant morning with a steady stream of visitors, mostly walkers who were more than happy to learn that most of our footpaths came within shouting distance of both of the pubs on the estate—the Royal Oak and the Stoat and Hare. Over lunch, I texted Michael for no other reason than to act as a bit of foreplay, after which I jotted down a few notes about summer activities. I yawned.

  No, mustn’t be snoring on the worktable when a visitor appeared. I stood, stretched, and glanced round the front of the TIC. Time to put the wall of leaflets to rights.

  We took on this task three times a week and daily in the high season, refilling, resorting—it seemed many visitors had a difficult time remembering in just which slot they’d found The Royal Welcome Mat: Queen Charlotte’s 1802 Visit and thought that it might quite easily
fit with the leaflet about native butterflies in the meadows. Also, tidying gave me the opportunity to pull out leaflets that needed updating—this one, for example: The Fotheringill Family Tree.

  Past four o’clock, the bell above the door jingled. I was on my hands and knees, having knocked the tray of key rings off the counter as I’d grabbed for a handful of fresh foldout maps. I straightened, still on my knees, and looked up at my visitor—a slight girl with wide brown eyes and long, sleek chestnut hair that hung in a single sausage curl over her shoulder. She looked about the age of my niece Emelia—Emmy—who had turned eleven not long ago.

  “Good afternoon,” I said, flinging my handful of key rings back into the tray. One of them tumbled out onto the counter and I reached for it, only to be beaten to the prize when, from behind the girl, hopped a rook.

  Chapter 2

  I opened my mouth in surprise and watched as the bird picked up the stray key ring and deposited it with the rest, shook his feathers, and sidled down to the corner of the countertop, his toes clicking on the glass.

  “Hello, good afternoon,” the girl said quickly. “My name is Tennyson. And this is Alfie. Is it all right if he comes in?”

  A moot point as Alfie, who looked as big as a chicken at close range, seemed to be making himself at home.

  “Yes, well, of course. You’re both very welcome.” Alfie may have been the first rook inside the TIC, but birds—up close and personal—had been a part of my entire life. And people were continually telling Dad bird tales—tame robins that would eat out of your hand, a pink-footed goose that became best friends with the dog. Perhaps Rupert hadn’t seen it all, but he’d seen a great deal, and his family had been witness to most of it.