For your reading pleasure, there is a glossary of British English usage and vocabulary at the end of the book, followed by a note about accents and the magical language, Wicc’yeth.
Chapter 1
The Missing Piece
Had she heard it, felt it or sensed it? Time stopped. She caught Jonathan’s eye, as he stood still with a slight furrow between his brows. And then the moment was whirled away in the bustle of The Event. That was when it must have happened. All Amanda Cadabra could tell Detective Inspector Trelawney, afterwards, was that Jonathan had been there.
***
Inspector Thomas Trelawney, of the Devon and Cornwall police, passed a hand through his light brown hair, and wondered if he would ever get used to interviewing dead people. Especially so, the white-tressed and victory-rolled lady, seated ramrod upright beside him, upon the chintz sofa of number 26 Orchard Way, on this February afternoon.
He reminded himself, as he added two sugar lumps to his tea, that the politically correct term for ‘deceased’ was ‘transitioned’.
‘You’re looking well, Inspector,’ the lady commended him, in cut-glass English tones. ‘No one would put you a day over 40, and I am sure you look quite 10 years younger.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Cadabra.’ He wondered at her affability.
‘Surely the inspector is barely a day over 40, Granny,’ pointed out Amanda, pushing her untidy mouse-brown plait back over her shoulder and handing him his favourite shortbread. ‘I do hope that that was an attempt at a compliment. Anyway, you know why he is here.’
‘Once again, my dear, you confuse the state of what is so indelicately referred to as “death” with omniscience. I believe I have made full disclosure of the events leading up to the incident. At least, my part in them.’
A tall silver-haired man, seated in an armchair on the opposite side of the comfortingly blazing fire, was appearing as solid and unghostlike as his wife. Perran Cadabra was gently splitting a scone with a porcelain-handled knife, and looked up mildly at his wife’s words.
‘But the case isn’t closed, my love,’ he pointed out in his gentle Cornish-flavoured voice. ‘Not until they have the last bit of the picture.’
‘Yes, Granny,’ Amanda put in, in support of her grandfather’s observation. ‘We know what you intended and why. That you planned to send the minibus carrying the whole of our family – loath as I am to own them! – over the cliff that day.’
‘But I was rudely pre-empted,’ said Mrs Senara Cadabra, née Cardiubarn, indignantly. ‘If I had known the letters would be hijacked …’
Perran met the eyes of his granddaughter and the inspector. All three of them shared the unspoken thought. Senara baulked at the notion that she had been bested by a Flamgoyne. The house had been the rival of the Cardiubarns for centuries.
Senara’s own homicidal clan should have perished at her own hands. She had gone to the trouble of setting up a booby trap on that treacherous Cornish bend, had lured her venal relatives into a journey that hinted at great financial reward, and been thwarted.
Before the trap could be sprung, the ordinary letters of invitation that should have gone out had been replaced by magical parchment. Each sheet had released a toxin. That had put an end to them all before ever the minibus hit the sharp crags at the bottom of the sheer drop.
‘What your Granny is saying,’ Perran explained, covering his wife’s discomfiture, ‘is that she wants to know who told the Flamgoynes about her plan, as much you, Ammee love, and the inspector do.’
‘So you will help, won’t you Granny?’ asked Amanda, her blue-brown eyes looking into Mrs Cadabra’s violet orbs in what she hoped was a persuasive manner.
‘I really don’t see what I can contribute,’ Senara replied. ‘But very well, young Thomas Trelawney, ask away.’
His pleasant features broke into a smile at her use of his first name. Trelawney owed her his life, as he had recently become aware, and had hoped his acknowledgement of this connection between them would make her more approachable. However, there was no dimming Senara Cadabra’s love of the cat-and-mouse game she so enjoyed playing with him. She was not about to abandon her entertainment.
‘I expect you want to know what connections I had with your family,’ she continued.
‘I prefer not to think of the Flamgoynes in that light, Mrs Cadabra. They are my maternal grandmother’s. I am a Tre...’
Senara smiled triumphantly. She had already thrown him onto the defensive. He grinned in acknowledgement.
‘Well, yes, nevertheless, I would like to know.’
‘None,’ she pronounced, crisply.
He looked at her in surprise.
‘I have no connections with them whatsoever.’ Senara elucidated, ‘There used to be the occasional cold-war truce party between the Cardiubarns and the Flamgoynes. But you must remember that I had left Cardiubarn Hall in my youth.’
‘When we eloped,’ added Perran Cadabra, with a twinkle.
Senara’s face softened as she glanced at her husband, and they shared a reminiscent moment. She continued:
‘I returned, only at my mother’s request, for Amanda’s birth and, thereafter, to deliver and collect her for their inspection at intervals. Until, at the age of three, they finally gave her over to our care, and we departed for Sunken Madley. By the time of the incident, I had had no association with any of the Flamgoynes for over 20 years.’
Trelawney moved on. ‘Whom did you instruct to send out the letters? Your man of business?’
‘I had absolute confidence that the person I used would have been unwaveringly loyal. Thanks to adequate intimidation and a great deal of money. Unlike your … Flamgoynes, we did not enslave our servants and staff with enchantments. Promises of reward for loyalty, and recompense, of another kind, for the opposite, were always more than enough.’
‘Did your solicitor visit you
