Strawberries and Suffering Read online

  “Does he have a pulse?” Holly asked under her breath but loud enough, so William could hear.

  The young man shook his head. “His lips are turning blue.”

  “Then he’s not getting enough oxygen.” Holly felt her own heart skip a beat and a wave of dizziness swept through her head. “Lay him out flat.”

  Holly put a hand up to her brow, closing her eyes for a second while she thought things through. After a moment, she stood up and held her arms out to either side.

  “Move back, please,” Holly instructed. “We need to give him some room. Does anyone have training in CPR?”

  A flurry of hands shot up into the air and relief surged through Holly.

  Emma pushed her way through to the front, craning her neck to have a look at Arnold. “We all have to get a first aid certificate before we work here,” she explained. “Is it a heart attack?”

  “I don’t know.” Holly bent down next to the prostrate man again and looked to William for an answer.

  William shook his head. “I don’t know, either.”

  “Okay,” Holly shouted, standing up again. She clapped her hands together to draw people’s attention. “Everyone who knows CPR get into a line of pairs. We’re going to keep Arnold’s heart going as best we can until the ambulance arrives.”

  The assembled staff quickly organized themselves, responsive as though the familiarity of following orders was a welcome relief. Emma tapped her on the shoulder, passing forward a first aid kit with a breathing pack already pulled out, ready.

  Rather than take it, Holly jerked her head at first in line, and Emma passed it over.

  “Right! Anybody here”—Holly pointed at the guests remaining—“know the Bee Gees song, ‘Staying Alive’?”

  A few stepped forwards, looking hesitantly around as though Holly might be cracking a joke.

  She stood back and nodded at the first pair in line to start CPR. William was already there, so crossed his ankles to lean his weight forward, tracing up a few finger lengths from the knot in Arnold’s sternum. When he performed the first compression, another man bent, ready to give some breaths through a bag with a mouthpiece.

  “I need you to start singing it at full volume so the team working on Arnold can keep time with their compressions. Ready?”

  She raised her eyebrows, and the guests nodded. “GO!”

  The disco song was incongruous with the surroundings, but as the team giving CPR fell into the pattern, the guests singing upped their volume, grateful to offer help where they could.

  Holly walked to the next pair waiting. “Count down five minutes on your watch and then get the next in line to take over. You can be the time-keepers so that nobody wears themselves out.”

  The young men nodded, faces strained and pale with the unexpected turn of events. Holly would have like to stand and sympathize with them for a moment, but there were other things to check on.

  She moved quickly back across the hall to the corridor that led into the kitchen. As Holly got close, the team of people who’d run off to make the phone call emerged, shaking their heads.

  “There’s no signal,” one said and burst into tears. “The trees must have knocked the lines down somewhere.”

  “Won’t that have cut off the power?” Holly asked, confused.

  “The power is out.”

  It was Emma’s voice speaking from behind her and Holly turned. “What do you mean?” She pointed up to the glowing chandelier in case the young woman hadn’t seen it, but Emma just shook her head.

  “I don’t know if you saw it, but half an hour ago the lights flickered. That’s when the power went out. The gennies in the shed are rigged up to kick in automatically.” Emma pursed her lips and looked over her shoulder at the CPR teams. “It happens all the time, so they’re well-prepared.”

  “What about mobiles?”

  Emma shook her head. “They never get a signal out here. The valley dips down too low. We’d need to get almost back to the bridge to be high enough to ping the towers and the trees are down across there.”

  “Does anybody have a car that would make it?” Holly asked. Events seemed to be stacking up in a terrifying way.

  “William’s got a four-wheel drive here,” an excited voice called out from the back of the small group.

  Holly shook her head. “Wendy took it to try to make it through to her daughter.” She gave a small laugh and shook her head. “Remember when the wedding not happening was the most we had to worry about?”

  “Change teams,” a voice called out from back near Arnold. The staff was all doing what she’d told them. Holly just hoped that she’d remembered everything.

  “How about the roof?” she asked. “Is there any way to get as high up in the house as possible to see if we can get a signal there?”

  Emma shrugged. “There’s a back staircase that goes up into the loft. If we open a skylight, there’s a possibility that might work.”

  “Right. We’ll try that then. I’ll grab my phone and everyone who has a mobile handy, follow along. Best we try every model and every network in case one’s working better than another.”

  As she walked through to the back hall, Holly spared a glance over her shoulder at the men and women helping out Arnold. Although she had no doubt they’d do the best they could for the collapsed man, if an ambulance didn’t get here as soon as possible, it would all be for naught. CPR was more a holding pattern until the defibrillator could get there, rather than a method to resuscitate by itself.

  “Lead the way,” Holly called out to Emma, falling into step behind the young woman as she hurried through the maze of back corridors. They turned through three different sections of the house before they arrived at an innocuous wooden door.

  “Does someone else want to take the lead now?” Emma said. “I’m not great with heights.”

  “It’s indoors,” a colleague scoffed as Holly stepped in front.

  “Doesn’t matter.” Emma fell into the back of the line. “I don’t like them, either way.”

  The back stairs were steep and narrow. Everything about them shouted that they were built for service, not comfort. The wood had visible splinters poking up—where Holly could see through the thick layer of dust, that was.

  Emma stayed put, but called up after a moment, “There’ll be a door at the top. It’s meant to be locked, but they lost the key ages ago so just left it hanging open. You should have no trouble getting into the loft. I think there’s a skylight up there, too. If you open that, the reception might improve.”

  At the head of the staircase, even Holly had to admit that dizziness was circling, though she didn’t usually have a problem with heights. It was a relief to push open the door and step out into the space of the loft, rather than be aware there was a steep fall waiting behind.

  The others followed through in single file, all the staircase would allow. Holly crossed over to where a patch of light pierced through the dim gloom. The skylight.

  She tugged and pushed at the handle. No response except her hands got dirty, and Holly twisted a tendon in her wrist.

  “Let me have a go,” a young man said.

  Holly was happy to step aside as he put his young might to the task. She looked down at her cellphone—still no reception. Holding it above her head for another yard of height didn’t make any difference.

  “It’s stuck,” the young man pushing at the skylight said in disgust. He stepped back while a colleague stepped forward, an eager face looking like it wanted nothing more than to prove him wrong.

  “Does anybody have any bars?” Holly asked. She tried to dial and held the phone up to her ear, just in case the display was having a laugh. Nope. No dial tone. The numbers beeped in her ear, and then nothing more happened.

  “I don’t have anything,” the first man to help with the skylight said. Holly wished they had tags to help her out. She struggled with names at the best of times.

  “Anyone?” Holly asked again, turning to face each o
f them in turn. The consensus was no.

  “Ah!”

  The man at the skylight managed to push it open. Only an inch, but Holly hurried over, seeing if the clear air helped out any.

  Her display resolutely insisted that there was no reception. She and the young man worked together, hitting their palms flat against the sides of the window to push it further open. Still nothing.

  Panic started a slow creep up Holly’s body. It began by freezing her toes, then pumped icy blood up through her thighs, her abdomen, her chest, until she struggled to breathe.

  “What else?” she cried out, biting her lip to stop herself from shouting anything more. “Isn’t there anything in this place that we’ve forgotten?”

  Blank faces were the only answer. With slumped shoulders, Holly began the steep trek back downstairs.

  As she reached the wooden door, Holly heard a cry from the main hall. With Emma once again leading, they ran through the twisted maze of corridors until they emerged into a buzzing crowd.

  “What is it? What’s happened?” When no one responded to her call, Holly pushed herself forward, craning her neck to see if Arnold had recovered. William saw her and stood up, gripping her by the upper arms.

  “I’m sorry. Arnold had a convulsion. He’s dead.”

  As Holly stared at William with wide eyes, her head shaking in denial, the front door to the manor house banged open. In the entrance stood a young woman in a wedding dress, Mud caked her from the bedraggled train up to her thighs. The rest of her was sopping wet.

  “What?” Sheila asked in a testy voice. “Ain’t you ever seen a bride before?”

  The crowd moved back, revealing Arnold lying prostrate on the floor. Sheila raised a hand to cover her shocked mouth, her eyes darting over the entire wretched scene.

  “What the—” Sheila broke off, as if unable to process everything in front of her. She took dainty steps across the floor, stopping a few yards away to stare at the scene again.

  That’s when her gaze fell upon the saucer, with a cupcake overturned nearby. In the flurry of activity following Arnold’s collapse, it had dropped to one side.

  Sheila’s eyes widened, and she jerked her head around, searching the faces of the crowd.

  “Where is Crystal Waterston?” she demanded, pointing her finger to the cupcake as if it had offended her.

  Holly stepped forward, a stranger’s hand on her lower back helping her. She turned and frowned at the man behind her, who wouldn’t meet her gaze.

  “I’m Holly Waterston. I’m Crystal’s sister,” she said.

  “You!” Sheila advanced one step, then another. The care with which she placed her feet took on a malicious air.

  “That man died eating one of your cupcakes?” It was posed as a question but came out as more of an accusation. In her shocked state, Holly could only shake her head.

  “First, you try to poison my father-in-law, Brian Masters. Now, you’re trying to poison my entire wedding party.”

  Sheila extended her hand, pointing the finger of blame squarely at Holly’s chest. “Someone needs to arrest this woman! She’s a killer!”

  Chapter Six

  Ten minutes later, Holly was seated in the cupcake room, her legs shaking so much that she couldn’t stand.

  “How could anybody think that?” she asked. The question had been foremost in her mind since Sheila leveled the dreadful accusation at her. Although Holly had already requested it several times, no one had given her an answer.

  “I wouldn’t worry, Mrs. Waterston,” Elvira said. She, Aidan, Esmerelda, and Emma had escorted Holly away from the scene, while another party took Sheila upstairs, so she could clean herself up. Whatever endurance event she’d fought through to get here, had left its mark.

  “What did you do with Arnold?” Holly asked, changing tack. Her mind was buzzing, a low hum that disrupted her thoughts. She frowned as soon as the question was asked, uncertain if she’d already heard the answer.

  Aidan stepped over and placed his hands on Holly’s shoulders. “They’ve taken Arnold into a downstairs room and laid him out on the bed. As soon as we can reach the emergency services, they’ll arrive and clear up this whole, awful mess.”

  “I can’t believe that this is happening,” Holly whispered, placing her hands over her face.

  Sheila had uttered something very similar as she walked upstairs. The shock of Arnold’s death had hit both women hard.

  Pulling her hands away, Holly gave a short, sorrowful laugh. “I thought the worst thing that could happen today was getting lost at the church.”

  Aidan offered her a smile. “That was hardly a bad thing. After all, you got to meet me.”

  Esmerelda clucked her tongue at that while Elvira rolled her eyes. The gesture was so similar to the “Oh, Dad!” expression that had lived on Holly’s face as a teenager, that she gave a run of genuine laughter. It soon petered out as the horror of the situation recurred.

  “I wonder if we could build a reception tower and stick it up through the skylight?”

  Aidan shook his head. “The answer is no.”

  “I feel like I should have been able to do something more,” Holly whispered. “That poor man.”

  “You weren’t the only person there, you know,” Esmerelda said.

  Holly raised her eyebrows in surprise. The woman hadn’t spoken to her up to that point. As every face turned to her, Esmerelda got a mulish expression on her face.

  “There’s no need to stare at me like that. I’m just saying what’s obvious. There were a hundred or more of us stood in that room when the man collapsed. You did a lot more to help him than most.”

  There was a pause while Esmerelda crossed her arms over her chest.

  “I didn’t even know the words to the song,” she muttered. “That’s how much use I was.”

  “Auntie’s right, you know.” Aidan raised himself from an awkward crouch and moved to lean against the bench. “It’s a terrible business all around, but you have nothing to recriminate yourself for.” He chewed the edge of his bottom lip, looking at the strawberry cupcakes, their frosting hardening into a shell. “Unless you really did poison a cupcake.”

  “For goodness sake!” Holly called out, leaping to her feet. “Arnold didn’t even have a bite from it. That would be some pretty powerful poison!”

  Aidan shot a satisfied look at Emma and Holly realized that she’d broken free of her shock.

  “Okay, you got me. Still, something seemed to happen.”

  “Yes,” Aidan replied. “A middle-aged man had a heart attack in a moment of extreme stress. It’s terrible and not being able to call for help added insult to injury, but I don’t think anyone could have handled things better.”

  “It was the water,” Elvira said in a small voice. At some point, she’d worked herself into the corner of the room. With her black clothes already dampened from the rain and her shoulders tucked in, Elvira looked tiny. A miniature of a person. Her weak voice fitted that appearance so well that it took Holly a moment to understand the significance of what the girl had said.

  “The water?” Holly frowned as she thought back through the sequence of events, and as the motions added up, she nodded. “Elvira’s right. He collapsed straight after he drank the glass of water.”

  “Joan,” Esmerelda shot back. “Her name is Joan.”

  But Holly wasn’t listening. “It was just tap water,” she said, puzzling over the event. “I poured it straight out of the faucet in the kitchen. There should be nothing wrong with it.”

  Aidan shook his head. “I’m telling you the poor man had his heart fail at the wrong time. He was thirsty to begin with, which can be a sign of an imminent heart attack.”

  “It could just have been a sign that Arnold had been talking for minutes without a break,” Holly pointed out. “We should get some water from the kitchen and bottle it up for testing.”

  Aidan stared at her as though she’d gone loopy. “He didn’t get poisoned from tap water, o
kay?”

  “You don’t know that, Aidan,” Elvira said. “There are all sorts of stories online about the bacteria and stuff that can grow in water. Look what happened in Havelock North.”

  “What happened there was mismanagement. Look, I’ll prove it, okay?” Aidan strode toward the door leading to the kitchen. “I’ll drink a glass of water and show you that it’s nothing to do with it.”

  “No!” Elvira scampered across the room and dragged at Aidan’s elbow. “It could be something growing in the pipes, like what happened at the Cadbury factory in the UK. It could be a strand of E. coli.”

  “What—?” Aidan stared in confusion down at the panic-stricken face of his young cousin. “It’s not going to be anything like that.”

  He shook Elvira free and walked out of the room. Although Holly wanted to believe that he was right, that she hadn’t poured a glass of poison and handed it straight to Arnold, a string of fear was plucked inside her belly, reverberating along her nerves.

  The four women followed Aidan as he walked into the kitchen. First he picked up a champagne flute, looking at the cut strawberry out in the sink with moue of distaste. Next, he spied the box of clean glasses and hooked one out, then poured out a glass of water. Over Elvira’s continuing protests, Aidan swallowed it all down, then wiped a hand over his mouth and sighed in satisfaction,

  “See,” he said, “nothing wrong with it!”

  As Holly relaxed back against the kitchen counter, Aidan’s face suddenly changed, twisting into an expression of distress. He raised his fingers and began to claw at his throat.

  Chapter Seven

  When Elvira screamed, Aidan dropped the act. While Holly stared at him in horror, his hands fell to his side. An expression of genuine upset replaced his fake acting as the rising volume of his cousin communicated that he’d chosen the wrong time and the wrong place.

  “You really are a disappointment to the family sometimes,” Esmerelda said, throwing her arms around Elvira and comforting her with a hug. “You must get that from your father’s side, because it’s got nothing to do with my family tree.”