Mistletoe and Murder

  ‘You’ve heard of him!’ said Bertie. ‘He’s one half of the Melling twins, Charles and Donald. Their parents died in a car crash when they were young, remember?’

  ‘Oh!’ said Daisy. ‘The Shropshire Mellings.’

  I understood, after almost two years as Daisy’s friend, that she was using English shorthand. What she meant was that the Mellings owned an estate, and were incredibly well off, and were absolutely English in every way. It never stops amazing me, the way the English all know who each other are, without ever needing to look it up.

  ‘Donald’s the older twin, isn’t he?’ Daisy went on. ‘Golly. I’ve always wondered – is Chummy cross about that? Only five minutes too late to inherit all that money.’

  ‘You’re a ghoul,’ said Bertie, rather affectionately. ‘But – well, I suppose he is. It’s a pity, really. Chummy seems as though he ought to be the elder. He’s better-looking, and he behaves like an heir, you know. He’s the one who speaks up and makes all the decisions. Donald’s the follower. He just tags along with us.’

  ‘Chummy sounds just like me,’ said Daisy, smirking. ‘Looks and brains and nothing for his brother. Poor old Donald – and Squinty.’

  ‘I’m ignoring that,’ said Bertie. ‘Anyway. Their birthday’s on Christmas Day, and they’re having a party for it in the Hall – supposed to be for both of them, but Chummy’s invited almost all the guests. You’ll be there, of course – I’ve had a word with Chummy about it. There are jazz bands coming, and Chummy’s ordered a fountain of fizz. I think Donald’s cross about Chummy taking charge of things, though he’s trying to hide it. He’s paying for all Chummy’s friends. But really – who’d be friends with Donald, when Chummy’s about? Donald does try, but he’s like … a bad copy. He’s not half so amusing. And he’s unlucky too! He’s always getting himself into the strangest accidents.’

  4

  ‘What do you mean, accidents?’ asked Daisy, narrowing her eyes.

  ‘Oh, there’s Amanda at last!’ cried Bertie, waving. ‘Hey, Amanda!’

  I had been expecting someone as dandyish as Bertie himself, with his green trousers and slicked-back hair. But the girl swinging down from a rusty green bicycle and hurrying towards us was not well-turned-out at all. She was stocky, with pink cheeks and flyaway, frizzy brown hair that was escaping from a faded blue beret. Someone less like Bertie was hard to imagine.

  ‘Bertie!’ she panted, her face red and shining. ‘Sorry I’m late. I was at St Lucy’s working on an essay and I forgot the time, and then the Horse needed oil.’

  I looked about for a horse, but could see nothing of the kind.

  ‘She means that bicycle of hers,’ said Bertie, grinning at me. ‘Manda, meet my little sister, Daisy, and her friend Hazel. They’re both far too clever for their own good.’

  ‘What rot!’ said Daisy primly. She hates to let on how clever she is to anyone until she is quite sure they can be trusted.

  ‘Hullo,’ said Amanda. She had her breath back now, and was assessing us both.

  ‘Daisy, Hazel, this is Amanda,’ Bertie went on. ‘She’s a brilliant historian. We’d all be lost without her.’

  He gave her a truly Daisyish smile, and I saw Amanda melt, exactly the way the shrimps do over Daisy. I understood why she was glad to give Bertie her lecture notes.

  ‘Now,’ said Amanda. ‘Have you told them how this is going to go?’

  ‘Beginning to,’ said Bertie. ‘You can carry on for me, if you’d like.’

  Amanda turned to us, and I saw that underneath her soft, frizzy hair her eyes were sharp and determined, though tired. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Listen up. Miss Mountfitchet’s asked me to look after you while you’re in Cambridge. She wants me with you all the time, but I’ve got far too much to do. So we’re going to make a pact. I’ll walk you in and out of St Lucy’s, and after that you’re free to go wherever you like, so long as you tell anyone who asks that I was with you. All right?’

  ‘All right,’ Daisy said quickly. I had known that this was to be the agreement, but now I had seen Amanda I was curious about it.

  ‘What are you doing while we’re out?’ I asked.

  ‘Essays,’ said Amanda. ‘I’ve got a pile of them to finish before the end of the holidays.’

  ‘Manda’s a workhorse,’ said Bertie, grinning. It should have sounded supportive, but there was something about the way he said it that made me feel uneasy.

  ‘Bertie’s going to give you the tour now, while I get some studying in,’ said Amanda. She brushed the hair away from her face again – it seemed to hover about her cheeks and forehead like a cloud, coming back no matter how she pinned it or tucked it up under her beret. ‘Show you Cambridge, and Maudlin. If anyone asks, I was with you. I’ll meet you outside St Lucy’s in an hour – we’re all to take tea with Miss Mountfitchet before you have dinner at Maudlin.’

  ‘You?’ Daisy echoed. ‘So you aren’t coming with us to Maudlin?’

  ‘No,’ said Amanda shortly.

  ‘Why—’ Daisy began, but Bertie elbowed her.

  ‘Leave it,’ he said. ‘See you at four o’clock, Manda, just before the bridge to Lucy’s.’

  ‘See you,’ said Amanda. She nodded at Bertie, and us, and then she swung herself back up onto the Horse and pedalled away. She went very fast, swerving in and out of the other cyclists, and I watched her go, feeling more curious than ever.

  ‘What’s up with her?’ asked Daisy.

  ‘It’s not important,’ said Bertie. ‘She’s staying away from Maudlin this hols, that’s all you need to know.’

  Daisy turned and made a face at me. I knew what she meant. There was something odd going on here – something that I wanted to get to the bottom of as much as Daisy.

  ‘Come on, both of you,’ said Bertie. ‘I’ll give you a proper tour of the place before tea and dinner.’

  ‘Will Chummy and Donald be at dinner?’ asked Daisy. ‘Are they at Maudlin over the hols?’

  Bertie nodded. ‘They are,’ he said. ‘I told you, it’s their birthday on Christmas Day. They turn twenty-one – they’re older than the rest of us, you know – and Donald finally gets his inheritance. They’ll be at dinner, and so will Alexander and George – they’re coming with George’s brother, my friend Harold, from St John’s College. By the way, Squashy, I knew Harold had a younger brother named George, but I didn’t realize that he was your George!’

  ‘George isn’t mine! I’ve never met him,’ said Daisy. ‘Nor has Hazel. She’s friends with Alexander, though.’

  ‘The American one?’ asked Bertie.

  ‘The bothersome one,’ said Daisy.

  I flinched. It is true that Alexander was the cause of a great deal of bother between us last term – almost our worst-ever row – but I was hoping that would all be over. Then I felt a burst of electricity through my body at the thought of seeing Alexander so soon. Today! I was not quite sure I was ready.

  5

  We walked up a long road away from the station. It was lined with white, wide-windowed houses, all set about with beautiful, bare trees. Bertie pointed out sights as we went.

  ‘Look, over there – that’s Parker’s Piece! It’s where they play cricket in the summer. It’s awfully pretty.’

  I looked, and looked again, and could not help wanting to exclaim in delight. The whole of Cambridge was appearing before us, all stone and grass and statues. Everything was old, and everything was so beautiful I felt overwhelmed. We kept passing arches that seemed like doorways into another secret world – I caught glimpses of lovely lawns with fountains and pathways where men in black caps and gowns were walking.

  It seemed that everywhere we passed had a story that Bertie wanted to tell us – an old oak doorway was where a second year had hidden from a policeman; a high wall was the place Harold had lost his cap, and then had to crawl over to get it while the others stood watch; and a winding cobbled street with tree branches leaning close over it was a short cut to a most excellent pub. We had
to wait almost ten minutes, until we were standing below a soaring stone building fenced around with railings, to come back to the topic of accidents with an unexpected jolt.

  ‘Blast!’ said Bertie, peering upwards. ‘They ought to be more careful! Someone’s dropped a shoe on Senate House.’

  I thought he must be confused, but I was wrong. There, on a ledge twenty feet above us, was something that looked exactly like a plimsoll.

  ‘How did it get up there?’ I asked.

  Bertie looked awkward. ‘Squashy, Hazel, do you promise not to tell anyone what I’m about to say?’

  ‘Of course,’ Daisy said, rolling her eyes. ‘We’ll keep mum!’

  ‘You’re sure? This is important,’ said Bertie. ‘And if you blab after you’ve promised, I’ll have you sent back to school.’

  It was a rather horrid threat, and Daisy went pink and white. Her nose wrinkled. ‘All – all right,’ she said. ‘I’m not a snitch. Neither of us are.’

  ‘I won’t tell,’ I agreed. ‘Cross my heart.’

  ‘All right,’ said Bertie, lowering his voice. ‘Now. Some of us … climb.’

  ‘I know you do!’ said Daisy. ‘You’ve told me about that.’

  ‘Shush! I told you it was a secret!’ hissed Bertie, lowering his voice even further. ‘All right. I’m a Night Climber. It’s a group – a deadly secret group – of students who go out at night and climb up buildings.’

  I looked around at the spires and gargoyles and tall stone towers of Cambridge in amazement. They were so high above us – I could not imagine how anyone could manage to reach such high places without being killed.

  ‘It’s all very hush hush,’ Bertie went on. ‘If you’re ever caught, you’ll be sent down – that’s like being expelled, Hazel. All you’re ever allowed to know is who’s in your own section of the club – that’s so, if you’re caught, you can’t drop too many other men in it. There are five of us in our chapter – Chummy, Donald, another chap named Alfred, and I, all from our staircase at Maudlin, and Harold from John’s. We all read History, that’s how we met. We gather on the Maudlin roof, after midnight, and plan out our routes. It’s terribly exciting – even more so than mountaineering. All you can use are your hands and feet, and sometimes wire and rope if you really need to. Which reminds me, that’s how Donald’s latest accident happened – his worst yet, come to think of it.’

  ‘Yes?’ asked Daisy. ‘Go on!’

  ‘Well, we all climb, but somehow it’s always Donald who gets into scrapes. It’s his rope that breaks, or the bit of wall he’s leaning on that crumbles. It’s become a joke among us all. Last week we were all going up Senate House, here – it’s quite a difficult route, but it’s well known. Everyone’s done it heaps of times. There’s one bit where you go up a drainpipe, and then you have to reach out and grab onto an overhanging bit of stone. Chummy was ahead, and Donald was below him – and then, just like that, an entire section of stone sheared away and came down on Donald.

  ‘Luckily, he had his arms up, and they took the brunt of it, but it knocked him several feet to the next ledge. We all rushed over to him – his coat was ripped, and he was scratched all down his arms. His head got quite a knock too – he bled all over his shirt, and had to pretend he’d sent his bicycle into a wall when he handed it over to Moss to wash. Moss is our bedder, by the way – it means a sort of manservant. He looks after us all on staircase nine, keeps our rooms tidy and so on. You’ll meet him later. But as I said, that’s the worst accident Donald’s had so far.’

  ‘And is Chummy always there for these accidents?’ asked Daisy. I saw at once what she was getting at. Donald was the heir to an enormous fortune, while his brother Chummy would inherit nothing. Should anything happen to Donald, Chummy would inherit the Melling estate in his place. It seemed very interesting that Donald kept finding himself in danger, just before his twenty-first birthday.

  ‘What?’ said Bertie, frowning. ‘Oh … I suppose so. But you haven’t understood. That’s not Chummy’s fault. The pranks he plays on Donald are quite different.’

  Daisy and I exchanged an incredulous glance.

  ‘He plays pranks?’ repeated Daisy.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Bertie. ‘Didn’t I say that Chummy loves to joke? He’s a great sport – always teasing us, especially Donald. I expect that sheep let loose in the quad was him, although he hasn’t owned up to it. He switches about our caps, so none of them fit our heads, and pins rude notices onto the dons’ backs too. But it’s Donald who bears the brunt of it. Chummy will climb up to the Maudlin roofs and leave Donald’s things there, or sew the sleeves of his jackets together, or put frogs in his bed. Why, only a few days ago he put a bucket of ice water on top of Donald’s door. In the end, it was the whole bucket that fell on Donald’s head, not just the water spilling out, and Moss had to bandage him up again! Chummy denied it, but of course we all knew it was him. Donald’s expression was dreadfully funny!’

  I felt a creeping sensation on the back of my neck. Some of this sounded rather more serious than simple pranks.

  ‘Look at the two of you, Squashy!’ said Bertie suddenly, laughing. ‘Come on, it’s Christmas! It’s all nuts and oranges and marzipan and presents this week. Don’t go searching for trouble where there isn’t any!’

  ‘I never do!’ said Daisy. ‘It isn’t my fault if trouble simply finds me. And why doesn’t anyone ever blame Hazel? She’s been in just as many scrapes as I have.’

  ‘Not on purpose!’ I said. It is true that trouble does follow us about, but not because we invite it – at least, I don’t think we do. Had trouble found us again, here in Cambridge?

  ‘Cheer up,’ said Bertie. ‘Look behind you – look at that view!’

  We both turned – and there on our right was the great golden bulk of King’s College Chapel. It rose up out of the grass, fringed with towers, its stonework looking delicate as lace. It felt somehow ridiculous that I should be so close to it after seeing it in pictures so often – as though I had suddenly come upon a dragon, or the Pyramids. I was amazed.

  ‘It’s quite something, isn’t it?’ asked Bertie. ‘You should see it at night, from the top of Senate House! You can see all the way across Cambridge – see King’s Chapel up close. From high up it’s magnificent. The clouds behind it, you know, and the spires.’

  He sounded so peaceful, as though just talking about climbing had soothed him. I thought I understood why. Being so high must give you a new way of looking at things. Bertie was looking at the chapel now and remembering his own secret view of it, a secret that he could keep long after the danger of the climb was over.

  Cambridge really was beautiful, impossibly so. It almost felt too large to take in. I tried to pull away from that dizzying vision of King’s Chapel by moonlight and concentrate on things at eye level – the bicycles whizzing past us, the little warmly lit beam-fronted shops selling sweets and cakes and students’ gowns, and the group of carol singers striking up ‘We Three Kings’.

  Bertie stepped forward to drop coins into the carollers’ upturned top hat, and while he was distracted, Daisy seized my arm. ‘Something’s up!’ she hissed. ‘Don’t you think, Hazel? Something between Chummy and Donald!’

  ‘You think – the accidents?’ I asked.

  Daisy nodded. ‘I’ve got a dreadful feeling that one day soon, something really awful may happen to Donald,’ she said ominously.

  6

  Once we were past the chapel the road narrowed, high walls coming to hem us in on both sides. The buildings were all brick and stone, beautiful and old.

  I was so busy looking at them that I was not paying attention to where I was going. My foot turned on a loose cobblestone and I stumbled out into the road. ‘Hey!’ someone shouted. Daisy barely pulled me back onto the pavement in time before a man on a bicycle flashed past my right shoulder, just where I had been standing. He was hunched over his handlebars, with brown hair under his cap and a gown flapping behind him, and as I stood there gasping, he look
ed back at me, scowling. He had a rather round face and a snub nose – features that ought to have been nice, but somehow his expression made them unpleasant.

  ‘Look sharp, Wells!’ he shouted, stopping his bicycle and resting a foot on the ground. I realized that he was talking to Bertie. ‘Make sure your guests behave, or I shall have you written up! I nearly ran into her!’ Then he kicked off again, pedalling away furiously down a lane to our right.

  ‘What a horrid man! Do you know him?’ Daisy asked Bertie after he had gone.

  ‘That’s Michael Butler,’ said Bertie. ‘He’s a History don, quite a young one. He can’t afford proper accommodation, so he lives at the bottom of our staircase and orders us about for extra pay. He can be all right, until he remembers he’s supposed to be in charge of us. Then he comes over tiresomely dull, and tells us off for the smallest thing. He’s part of the reason why we’re all climbers – the drainpipe’s simply the only way to get out after dark, with Butler guarding the downstairs exit. He locks the door to our staircase at eleven every night, and woe betide you if you’re late!

  ‘Now, up ahead’s the museum,’ Bertie told us, pointing. ‘Looks a bit like a Greek temple. I’ve never been inside – though I did get up on top of it once. And there on the left – that’s Fitzbillies. Absolutely the best Chelsea buns in Cambridge. You must go in another time.’

  I gazed in through the glowing plate-glass window of the little brick building as we went by. It was full of the most delicious displays, piled high with pink and white fancies, cakes piped with cream and scattered with nuts, and absolutely heaps of swirled golden-brown buns. They were studded with raisins and dripping with syrup. My mouth watered. It had been hours since those train sandwiches, their cheese slightly warm and their chutney gluey. Beyond the buns I saw tables full of people enjoying splendid teas. My stomach gurgled.