The Dead of Winter Read Online Free PDF Page B

packs. The other re-enactors will be here for dinner soon. See you all then.’
    Rina felt she could hardly wait. Mac’s offer to collect them early was looking more attractive all the time.

THREE
    Taken from an article in the Times and Herald, 1870:
    [ . . . ]commiserations must be extended to local philanthropist Albert Southam, Esq. and Mrs Southam, who have returned only a scant month after their marriage to the news of the death. It is understood that Mr Creedy died in a freak accident. Mr Creedy, undoubtedly an experienced shot, and a man well practised in the use of firearms, seems to have tripped and fallen on his own gun. The shotgun discharged and hit Mr Creedy in the chest and abdomen. Those who came to the scene only shortly after discovered the man not yet dead, but mortally wounded. He is reported to have managed to speak a few words thereafter, before succumbing to his wounds [ . . . ]
    An enquiry being held, a verdict of accidental death has been returned. Mr Creedy leaves a widow and two young sons. It is in keeping with the generosity we have come to expect from Mr Southam, Creedy’s employer, that he has assured the family that a small pension will be paid to the widow and that they will be found accommodation on the estate.
    T im and Joy went to their room. No doubt, Rina thought, to reconcile properly, so Rina’s planned interrogation would have to wait. She wandered back to the nursery wing, taking time to look over the old house. It had evidently been a very rich establishment, and Rina admired the elaborate carving that ornamented the banisters and balustrades and the rather good portraits that lined the first floor corridor, some of which, judging by the costumes, pre-dated the house by a good couple of centuries. She had read that the newly rich in Victorian England often bought the family history of others and put it into their freshly built extravagances. She’d also heard they bought their books by the yard to fill their impressive but unread libraries and wondered how true either assertion was. The library here at Aikensthorpe looked impressive; she must go and take a proper look later.
    She wondered too when the little anteroom the seance had taken place in had been unsealed and had a dreadful suspicion it had been very recent.
    Viv had handed her the prepared information pack as they had parted, and it was now tucked beneath Rina’s arm. It was a substantial piece of work, if the chunkiness of the folder was anything to go by, and Rina guessed that if Viv had prepared it then it would be very thorough. She had engendered a sneaking liking for the mercurial Viv and the quiet Robin, but she was very hard pressed to find anything to like in the outwardly affable Toby; the sensation that he had put pressure on Tim to . . . well, not exactly to lie , but certainly to be guilty of the sin of omission, was very insistent, and she wondered again what influence Toby had that had enabled him to do so. Tim was an honourable and, in all the best ways, a rather simple character, honest and direct. Rina was very annoyed, but no longer so much with Tim.
    Walking slowly along the landing, she continued her perusal of the portraits, finally discovering one of the same Albert Southam who must have built this place. A portly, red-faced man, with rather sad blue eyes, he peered out at Rina, looking as though the artist had caught him in the act of searching for his glasses. She wondered if the painter had been trying to create some sense of the intensity of Albert’s character; in truth, he had made him look ever so slightly constipated.
    Southam’s wife hung next to him on the wall, and she was something of a surprise. Looking at the dates, Rina was surprised to find that both portraits had been executed in the same year. Eighteen seventy, just two years before the fateful seance. And, coincidentally, Rina recalled, the same year the unfortunate gamekeeper