Murder on Skiathos Read online

  MURDER

  ON

  SKIATHOS

  by Margaret Addison

  A Rose Simpson Mystery

  Copyright

  Copyright 2018 Margaret Addison

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system, without prior written permission from Margaret Addison except for the inclusion of quotations in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Rose Simpson Mysteries (in order)

  Murder at Ashgrove House

  Murder at Dareswick Hall

  Murder at Sedgwick Court

  Murder at Renard’s

  Murder in the Servants’ Hall

  Murder on Bonfire Night

  Murder in the Folly

  Murder on Skiathos

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter One

  ‘Rose, darling, what in the world possessed you and Ceddie to choose this place of all places to take a holiday?’ complained Lady Lavinia Sedgwick, wrinkling up her nose as if she had suddenly become conscious of some unpleasant vapour. The action caused her brow to crease, the combined effect marring, for a moment, the young woman’s beauty. There next followed a pout, which complemented rather admirably the petulant tone in which she had spoken. Indeed, it brought to the mind of the woman being addressed, the image of a child who had received a present which had fallen far short of its expectations.

  With the memory of the resemblance to the spoilt child still in mind, Rose shifted in her seat and regarded her sister-in-law with a somewhat practised eye. Lavinia had, until that moment, been reclining rather listlessly on a bentwood and wickerwork chaise, her elegant figure artfully posed and stretched out under a lace-embroidered parasol. Having spoken so disparagingly of their surroundings, however, she had now made languid efforts to raise herself into a sitting position. This she did with the aid of her elbow and the adjustable back of the sun lounger. An exquisitely manicured hand was thrown out in an expressive gesture. The purpose of which was to indicate that, in the unlikely event that there remained any doubt, her sentiments encompassed not only the hotel terrace on which the two women were seated, but also embraced the beach below and, indeed, everything as far as the eye could see.

  It might reasonably have been supposed that the young woman’s companion would display signs of being ruffled or upset by such a forthright condemnation of her choice of holiday venue. Of this, however, there was little evidence. Instead, Rose, Countess of Belvedere, appeared to take such comments in her stride, as if such declarations were neither infrequent, nor wholly unexpected. Certainly, she made no attempt to appease her friend or concur with the view expressed. Rather, the expression on her face was one of barely concealed amusement as she turned her gaze to the hotel terrace, with its scrubbed, irregular paving stones, edged in white paint, gleaming in the afternoon sun, and to the well-tended lawns, little oases of green in the parched, dry earth. She looked beyond these towards the edge of the cliff, on which the hotel was built, noting the thick clumps of vegetation that fought for purchase on the rock and decorated the crag’s mantle of pebbles and small stones.

  From her current vantage point, seated on the terrace, Rose could not see, without rising to her feet, the cliff’s sheer drop, though she was conscious of its ominous existence. For, more than once during her stay at the hotel, she had ventured out to stand on the cliff edge so that she might appraise the view it offered. She had peered down at the tiny beach below, which was little more than a cove bordered on three sides by rock face, its fourth side flanked by the Aegean Sea, whose waves lapped at the shore enticingly. Despite the relatively modest dimensions of the beach, its sands were golden, and it was almost unpopulated, for it had the honour of being reserved exclusively for the hotel’s patrons.

  As she contemplated her immediate surroundings, it was clear from her bright, upturned face and contented intake of breath that Rose did not share Lavinia’s unfavourable opinion of Hotel Hemera, or its beach, or indeed the Greek island of Skiathos on which they were situated. Instead, she laughed, a light sound that caught the breeze that came in from the sea and appeared to linger there.

  ‘Well, I think,’ Rose said finally, feeling the warmth of the sun on her face and conscious of the sea beneath the cliff which surely must sparkle and glisten temptingly in the afternoon sun, ‘that it is all quite heavenly.’

  ‘Well, you would,’ said Lavinia rudely, but not without humour, a grudging smile turning up the corners of her lovely mouth. ‘I should have known better than to ask you that question. I daresay you don’t mind if everything is deathly dull; but I do. It’s not what I’m used to after London, I can tell you. I mean to say, what is there to do in a place like this other than stare out at the sea and count the waves?’

  ‘There is plenty to do if you have a mind to look,’ retorted Rose briskly. ‘You could go for a swim or organise a tennis party or catch up with your correspondence. I, for one,’ she added, idly flicking over the pages of her copy of The Lady magazine, ‘am quite content to sit here in the sun for a while and read.’

  Lavinia pulled a face and paused for a moment to adjust her outfit. She was dressed in a rather becoming black and white swimsuit with matching silk cape. ‘It is all very well for you,’ she continued, rearranging the cape about her shoulders to prevent her porcelain skin from burning in the afternoon sun. ‘You haven’t had to refuse a dozen invitations to come here. When I think what I might have been doing … well, it doesn’t bear thinking about.’ She turned her head and gazed forlornly out to sea, as if she hoped that something on the horizon might grab her attention.

  ‘Nonsense!’ said Rose, not deceived by this display of boredom. ‘I believe you are enjoying this holiday as much as I am.’

  ‘As I said, it’s all very well for you,’ continued Lavinia, peevishly. ‘You are used to living in the country –’

  ‘Where not much happens?’ suggested Rose, with a wry smile, discarding her magazine in order that she might look pointedly at her sister-in-law. ‘Really Lavinia, I don’t know how you can possibly say that. You love Sedgwick Court with a passion; you know you do. And as to it being quiet and uneventful in the country, have you quite forgotten what occurred in the folly?’

  ‘Well, no,’ said Lavinia, frowning rather sheepishly. ‘I hadn’t forgotten that.’

  Rose had meant her words to be no more than a gentle rebuke.
Certainly, she did not intend them to upset the peace and tranquillity in which she was presently basking. They had initially brought a smile to her own lips, but almost immediately her mood became sombre. For her mind had drifted back unbidden to the tragic events that had occurred so recently in the grounds of the Belvederes’ country estate. She reminded herself sternly that murder was not a subject for merriment, and inwardly she admonished herself severely for alluding to it in so flippant a manner.

  Rose had dropped her head in contemplation; now, she turned her gaze and followed Lavinia’s example of looking out to sea. Dozing pleasantly in the hot Mediterranean sunshine, she supposed she might almost be forgiven for forgetting that a darker, more complicated world existed beyond the isle’s pleasant shores. For here in the calm and serenity of the Greek island, it was all too easy to believe that the recent death at Sedgwick Court was little more than a figment of her own vivid imagination.

  Inwardly, she sighed. For it had struck her in that same moment that it was not uncommon to become accustomed to things which initially appeared shocking or strange. Eventually she knew they would barely register, much in the same way as the strange haunting song of the cicadas, which had at first sounded deafening to her English ears, was now as familiar to her as the British dawn chorus.

  ‘I was about to say,’ said Lavinia, continuing in the same vein as before, despite Rose’s scolding, ‘that it is not so much that there is little to do here, more that there is no one to do it with.’

  ‘I can’t think what you mean by that,’ said Rose, somewhat surprised as her mind drifted on to more pleasant things, in particular, to reflect on the hotel’s other patrons. ‘I would have said there were quite a few people here given the circumstances. I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if we had been the only guests here. You know, Hotel Hemera opened its doors for the first time just last week. We missed the opening ceremony by a few days.’

  ‘What I mean,’ said Lavinia, frowning at the need to provide further explanation, ‘is that there is no society to speak of. This hotel is all very well, but there is no one of any standing here. Oh, I daresay you will disagree,’ she hurried on, as her companion made to protest. ‘You will point to that dull vicar and his daughter, or to the dreadful Misses Trimble, or even to that rather strange young man who is some sort of private courier. But really, they are hardly our sort of people.’

  ‘Your sort,’ corrected Rose, a trifle coldly, ‘and by that I suppose you mean they are not of your class. Have you forgotten that I once worked in a dress shop?’

  ‘Hardly,’ said Lavinia, rolling her eyes in an exaggerated fashion. ‘But you are quite different, darling. From the usual shop girl, I mean. And besides, I worked there too for a time, if you remember?’

  Rose did remember, and the recollection caused her to smile in spite of herself. For Lavinia was referring to a time when she had been fulfilling a bet made with her brother that she could not earn her own living for six months. It had been purely by chance that she had chosen to work in the same, rather obscure, London dress shop in which Rose herself was employed. An unlikely friendship had developed between the two girls despite their very different backgrounds, and Rose’s marriage to Lavinia’s only sibling, Cedric, Earl of Belvedere, had further cemented the bond that existed between the two girls.

  ‘Anyway, you’re not a bit like that,’ continued Lavinia. ‘If you were like the other guests … and besides, you are married to my brother and …’

  ‘You needn’t explain,’ said Rose with a laugh, recovering a little of her sense of humour. ‘I know you don’t mean half the things you say.’

  Lavinia made a face which suggested that perhaps on this occasion she had meant every word. Indeed, she opened her mouth as if in readiness to emphasise this very point, and no doubt would have done, had not the two women that very minute been hailed by one of the other hotel guests.

  ‘Lady Belvedere; Lady Lavinia. How very fortunate,’ cried a rather timid voice that nevertheless seemed to penetrate the summer air as effectively as any yell or shout. ‘I am so glad to have found you. I rather thought you might be on the beach. And really, it is far too hot to go down those awful little steps. I can’t tell you how dangerous I think they are, cut into the rock like that … so very steep when one is my age …’

  The voice trailed off as the speaker focused her efforts on crossing the hotel terrace while keeping one hand firmly on her hat lest it be blown off in the breeze, and the other clutching a large and rather shabby leather bag which Rose knew contained, among other things, a pair of knitting needles and three balls of wool. Thus encumbered, the owner of the voice made something of a comical picture. Being barely five feet tall and fighting with a hat whose brim was far too big for the small face it shielded, it seemed that both the hat and the ungainly bag engulfed the tiny figure. Her movements too were strange, being a mixture of hesitant steps and quick little skips, so that her progress across the terrace appeared erratic and disjointed. Certainly, she reminded Rose of a little bird picking at, and worrying, a scrap of food, reluctant to forsake it, but ever cautious of the possibility of the presence of a predator.

  ‘Good afternoon, Miss Hyacinth,’ greeted Rose with a welcoming smile. Lavinia, by contrast, immediately looked about her for a means of escape. Seeing there was none, unless she wished to appear frightfully rude by scurrying across the terrace and retreating into the relative safety of the hotel, a ruse which would appear too obvious even to the genial Miss Hyacinth, she slumped back on to the sun lounger and toyed with her hat, as if she thought it might serve as a mask or veil.

  If Miss Hyacinth Trimble was aware of the measures taken by Lavinia to avoid conversing with her, she made no sign of it as she made her way towards them, other than to give a quick glance in the girl’s direction. Lavinia, by this stage, had half-hidden her face beneath her sun hat and gave every appearance of being asleep. Certainly, Miss Hyacinth, as she approached, directed her conversation to the countess, panting slightly from her exertions.

  ‘I have some very exciting news.’

  ‘You have discovered what we are being served for dinner,’ mumbled Lavinia, from beneath her hat.

  Rose threw her sister-in-law a reproachful look, fervently hoping that Miss Hyacinth had not heard her muttered words. A quick glance at the newcomer did nothing to allay her fears, for a confused look had appeared on Miss Hyacinth’s face. Evidently, the older woman was aware that Lavinia had spoken. Rose’s only hope was that she had been unable to make out her actual words.

  ‘And what is that, Miss Hyacinth?’ enquired Rose pleasantly, feeling that she must atone for her friend’s rudeness by giving an exaggerated display of interest. ‘Please, won’t you take a seat?’

  ‘That is very kind of you, your ladyship; I’m sure I don’t mind if I do,’ muttered the rather flustered Miss Hyacinth, mopping at her forehead with an over-sized handkerchief as she perched herself carefully on the edge of a loom wicker chair. ‘It’s the heat, you see. I doubt whether my sister and I would have come if we had realised how very hot it would be at this time of year. Very silly of us, I am sure. But then, as you know, my sister and I are not frequent travellers. We are used to a more inclement climate …’ Miss Hyacinth paused and, after a brief rummage in her bag, produced a paper fan, which she employed in earnest. ‘Oh dear,’ she said, stopping for a moment as if it had suddenly dawned on her that she was creating rather a spectacle. ‘I suppose I must appear a frightful sight?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Rose replied politely, though somewhat mendaciously given the woman’s lobster-red cheeks and the large strands of hair that were escaping from under Miss Hyacinth’s straw hat, which rather gave her the appearance of a wilting flower.

  ‘Now, what was I saying?’ said Miss Hyacinth, returning the fan to the confines of her bag.

  ‘Nothing at all,’ murmured Lavinia, under her breath.

  ‘You said you had something to tell us,’ Rose prompted helpfully. ‘I daresay it
is to do with the excursion Father Adler is planning to the monastery?’

  ‘The Holy Monastery of the Annunciation?’ enquired Miss Hyacinth, a trifle vaguely, almost as if she had forgotten its very existence. A moment later, she was as a student being recalled to the subject by an officious governess, the words tripping off her tongue in parrot fashion. ‘Or Evangelistria, as it is commonly referred to here on the island …’ she said, remembering the passage about the holy building she had read in the vicar’s guide book. Though she had yet to see the church, it sprung up in her imagination, resplendent in all its Byzantine architecture. Indeed, for a moment she could almost feel the stone walls beneath her fingers. ‘No, it is not that … though I daresay it will be most interesting. Indeed, I cannot tell you how much Peony and I are looking forward to it. When I think how our dear father … oh, but I digress,’ she added hastily, perhaps conscious that Lavinia had stifled a sigh, and even Rose seemed a little restive. ‘How very silly of me,’ she continued, appearing a little flustered. ‘We are not used to having company, my sister and me. And such esteemed company at that! You see, it was only ever just the two of us and father –’

  ‘You had something to tell us,’ Lavinia said rather curtly, her platinum curls emerging from under her sun hat, and her eyes squinting in the bright sunlight. With an ill-concealed show of resignation, she sat up and all but scowled at the unfortunate Miss Hyacinth, who gave a start, almost as if she had forgotten the other girl was there.

  Rose, for her part, winced at Lavinia’s rudeness. However, the interruption had served its purpose. Miss Hyacinth’s manner became less hesitant and confused, and she ceased to ramble. Instead, her cheeks became flushed with excitement. She leaned forward in her chair, tapped the side of Lavinia’s sun lounger with the brim of her hat for emphasis, and said:

  ‘You will never guess what I have heard, Lady Lavinia. Mr Vickers was just after telling me –’