Chapter Twenty-One

SEBASTIAN GAPED at him. “What on earth are you talking about? I already have a father, and he’s very much alive and well.”

Mike shook his head. “I’m not talking about your adoptive father.”

Jonathon stared at him, openmouthed, and Mike nodded.

“I found the birth certificate for Moira’s child. Bit of a coincidence that her son and Sebastian Trevellan have the same date of birth—and don’t bother denying it, because I have a copy of your birth certificate too.”

Jonathon stared at him in amazement. “How were you able to accomplish that in one morning?”

Mike winked. “I met up with an old tech mate from the Met who agreed to do me a favor.” Then he straightened his face and returned his attention to Sebastian. “And then there’s your middle name.” Mike leveled a firm stare at him. “Still going to deny it?”

Jonathon regarded Sebastian intently, taking in his thick brown hair, the line of his jaw. Was there a resemblance? Possibly. “Are you really my cousin?”

Sebastian ignored him and made an exasperated noise. “Look, this is sheer nonsense.”

Mike closed the study door and came fully into the room. “What I’m trying to figure out is if you told Dominic who you were before he died. Because you were here that day, weren’t you?”

Sebastian’s eyes bulged. “No! Of course not! This is the first time I’ve been in this house.”

Mike shook his head slowly. “Sorry. There are way too many things for it to be mere coincidence.”

“Such as what?” Sebastian groaned. “Jonathon, what he’s saying has no truth in it.”

“So you say, but you know what? I’m going to listen to him anyway.” Jonathon trusted Mike wholeheartedly. More importantly, he trusted Mike’s instincts.

“Let’s start with the physical evidence.” Mike counted off on his fingers. “Pollen on Dominic’s clothing.”

Sebastian stilled. “Pollen? How could that be linked to me?”

“It came from the species lilium regale, which, by the way, is only grown by one person in the village—Melinda. And you could have come into contact with those lilies any number of ways. In her garden. The church flower displays. You did tell Jonathon that one of the tasks you perform was helping with the flowers, right? What if you got pollen on you, which then transferred to Dominic’s clothing? You wouldn’t notice a few grains of pollen, right? And then there’s the brass rubbing wax and brass polish that was found on the photo album. You even told Jonathon about cleaning the church candlesticks.”

“Oh no.” Sebastian shook his head. “There are lots of people who could have handled that stuff. Your sister, for one. Bryan Mayhew for another. Bryan was always rubbing brasses in the church as part of his research. And he would have handled the photos too.” He set his jaw. “I don’t have to stay here and listen to one more word of this… fairy tale.”

“But then we come to the punch that sent Dominic flying. The blow that ultimately caused his death.” Mike’s eyes were cool.

“Punch? What punch?” Sebastian swallowed. “He fell. He got his feet all tangled up in the rug and he fell. Everyone knows that.”

Jonathon stiffened. “I’d have to check, but I don’t remember if the part about the rug was made public. Something tells me it wasn’t.” A sinking feeling sent cold spreading out through his body.

“Dominic received a sharp blow to the sternum. It was hard enough to crack his ribs. Maybe like… a karate punch?” Mike didn’t break eye contact with Sebastian. “You know, just the other day, I was watching a documentary on Bruce Lee. A lousy actor, but a fantastic karate expert. There was this one move, a blow with the base of the hand. Do it hard enough, and it can kill a man.”

“So what? I don’t know karate.” Sebastian’s chest rose and fell more rapidly.

Something stirred in Jonathon’s memory. “That photo on the wall of your cottage. The one with the kids in karate gear.”

Sebastian arched his eyebrows. “Was I in that photo? No, I wasn’t.”

“No,” Mike interjected, “because you were the one taking the photo. It was your karate school that you set up for underprivileged kids in London. I phoned them this morning. The guy I chatted with spoke about you in glowing terms. He also talked about your skill in karate.”

“How the hell did you find out about the school?” Sebastian demanded incredulously.

“I googled you,” Mike said, deadpan.

Jonathon was seriously impressed by Mike’s demeanor. He imagined seeing Mike in full detective mode would have been something to behold.

“I’ve heard enough. I’m out of here.” Sebastian strode past Mike, opened the study door, and left them.

It took about two seconds for the full import of what he’d seen to hit Jonathon.

“Wait!” He glared at Mike. “Stop him!”

Mike dashed out of the room, with Jonathon hot on his heels. Sebastian stood by the staircase, staring at them.

“What now?”

Jonathon turned to Mike. “Did you see that?”

Mike frowned. “See what?”

“Sebastian opening the door and leaving the study.”

Mike’s expression was vaguely amused. “Er, yeah? What about it?”

Sebastian was staring at Jonathon as if he’d lost the plot.

Jonathon sighed. “Remember the first time you came here? How you couldn’t open the study door until I told you how to? How you couldn’t even see it?”

Mike’s eyes widened. “Oh wow.”

Jonathon nodded slowly. “And yet Sebastian, who claims never to have been here before, opened it instantly. No hesitation whatsoever.” He faced Sebastian. “Don’t try to tell me you just worked it out. That door was designed to blend into the wall. The only way you could have known how to open it was if Dominic had shown you.”

Sebastian gazed at him, the color seeping from his face. Then he crumpled. There was no other word to describe it. He clutched the banister as if to hold himself upright. “Okay,” he said at last. “I was here that day. But I didn’t kill him, I swear. It was an accident.”

The stark silence that followed Sebastian’s words was broken by the strident ringing of Mike’s phone. Sebastian froze as Mike answered it.

“Hey, morning, Sue. It’s not a good time to talk right now. Maybe later?” He paused. “I’m up at the hall with Jonathon.” Another pause. “Yes….” He laughed. “Yeah, that would be great…. See you then.” He disconnected the call, then addressed Jonathon. “Sue is going to meet us for a drink at the pub later.”

“What was so funny?” Sebastian asked.

“Oh, she asked if Jonathon was going to make some of his famous cocktails.” Mike’s expression grew more serious. “Now, how about we go back into the study and sit down so you can tell us how it wasn’t murder? And start at the beginning.”

Sebastian regarded him in silence for a moment, then nodded. “Okay.” He followed Mike into the study, and Jonathon brought up the rear.

Once inside, Mike wiped his hand across his forehead. “God, it’s hot in here. Jonathon, can you fetch us some water? And I’ll open the french doors too, to let some air in here.” He set his phone down on the desk.

Jonathon nodded and left the room. He hurried to the kitchen, which was down a flight of stairs. He filled a jug with cold water, found three glasses, and once he’d set them on a tray, carried them carefully up the stairs to the study. Sebastian was sitting on the couch, leaning forward, his head in his hands, and Mike had pulled out a chair to sit facing him. A pleasant breeze wafted in through the open door.

Jonathon set down the tray and poured water into the glasses. “Here.” He handed them to Mike and Sebastian before grabbing another chair and placing it a few feet from Mike’s. His head was buzzing with questions, but one was uppermost. “How did you discover Dominic was your father?”

Sebastian drank half his water, then sagged against the back of the couch. “I was eight when my parents adopted me. Before that, I spent four years either in an orphanage or with foster parents.”

“What happened to your birth mother?” To Jonathon’s mind it didn’t sound like a very happy childhood.

“I didn’t find out until I was old enough to track her down. My father gave me what details he had, but it wasn’t much. All I had to go on was her name and that she’d been a secretary in a law firm in London. I had no memories of her. When I finally got to see my birth certificate, there was no father listed. I discovered my mother had died in a road accident when I was three.”

“Oh, that’s awful,” Jonathon murmured.

“I just wanted to know more about her, that was all. I found the law firm and asked about her, but no one wanted to talk to me. It was like hitting a brick wall. Eventually I chose a more circuitous route and put an advert in the newspaper, asking if anyone had known her. Only one person replied, but that turned out to be more than enough.”

“You found out she was fired from there?” Mike said. “And that she was pregnant?”

Sebastian stilled. “Yes. When did you find out?”

“Yesterday. Jonathon called his father.”

Sebastian narrowed his gaze. “Would that be Thomas de Mountford? He wouldn’t even see me. Anyway, I met with Tracy, who used to work there too. That was the only reason she gave for meeting me—she’d left the firm. She told me she’d stayed in touch with my mother for a while after they dismissed her. Tracy said my mother received regular sums of money up until she died.”

“Did this Tracy say Dominic was your father?” Mike wanted to know.

Sebastian shook his head. “Apparently my mother never said who my father was. But Tracy had a photo of my mother. It seemed that every year the firm had an official photo taken, with all the staff. There was my mother, at the end of a row, only she wasn’t looking at the camera. She was staring at a smartly dressed guy on the front row. He turned out to be Dominic de Mountford.” Sebastian snickered. “I covered up my beard and looked in the mirror. What I saw was enough to convince me that I’d found my father.”

“What did you do next?” Jonathon asked.

“First, I had to find out where Dominic lived. At that point he’d already left the firm. It didn’t take much digging to find de Mountford Hall. Then I started talking to my father about maybe working in a smaller parish to start off with. I gave him some story about having traveled through Merrychurch at some point and that I’d fallen in love with the village.” Sebastian’s eyes misted over. “I knew he’d do anything to make me happy, so it didn’t take him long to pull some strings and get Lloyd Talbot to agree to taking on a curate.”

“You’ve been living here a year. Why didn’t you just confront him? For all you knew, Dominic might have been happy to finally meet his son.” Jonathon’s heart ached. Dominic had not been a bad person. He felt sure his uncle would have welcomed Sebastian.

“I knew nothing about him!” Sebastian shouted. “When I first arrived in the village, I bided my time, trying to get a picture of what he was like. He seemed… inoffensive, I suppose. Kind. And that just riled me. If he was such a nice person, then why hadn’t he tried to find me? Did he even know that my mother was dead? Or did he simply not care?”

“You could have just gone up to the hall and asked him these questions, you know,” Mike suggested.

Sebastian shook his head. “Too easy. He’d abandoned us. If he’d stuck around, maybe I would never have ended up in an orphanage when she died. I wanted to unnerve him, to prick at his conscience, so I sent him anonymous letters. Nothing specific, just vague threats, you know, like, ‘Be sure your sins will find you out.’ And then I ran out of patience and came up here to see him.”

“What did he say?” Jonathon asked quietly.

Sebastian’s face fell. “To be honest, I can’t remember much of it. I recall being angry, and I think that clouded my judgment. He said stuff about not knowing what had happened, trying to make things right, but all I could think of was how different my life might have been. I was standing in this beautiful house, where he lived a life of privilege, and I’d had to endure some real nightmares before I was finally adopted. Stuff that I didn’t even want to think about, and in front of me was the one man who could have changed my entire life, if he hadn’t been such a selfish prick. He even got out that photo album and showed me the photo, as if that was proof somehow that he hadn’t forgotten me. As if that was a good enough excuse.” He sighed heavily and bowed his head. “I just… saw red. I shoved him away from me, and I must have caught him off-balance, because he fell. He tried to turn, but the speed that he fell… his head struck the corner of the fireplace and… he was gone.” Sebastian raised his chin and locked gazes with Jonathon. “I swear, it really was an accident.”

“So how did the rug become entangled around his feet?” Mike demanded. “That was a deliberate attempt on your part, right?”

“Couldn’t you have been honest?” Jonathon said, aghast. “Couldn’t you have told the police what happened? Why try to make it look like he tripped?”

Sebastian swallowed hard but said nothing.

“Oh, of course.” Mike stared at him, his eyes gleaming. “You couldn’t inherit if you’d caused his death, could you?”

“What?” Jonathon blinked.

Mike nodded slowly. “Think about it. Everyone thinks Dominic died as the result of an accident. Sebastian waits until all the fuss has died down, maybe a year, and then he suddenly comes forward with evidence he’s just ‘discovered’ that he’s the rightful heir to the manor. He feigns surprise, shock—and then moves you out and him in.”

“No!” Sebastian shook his head violently. “I’m telling you, aren’t I?”

“Only because we proved you had to have been here,” Jonathon flung at him.

“And then everything began to unravel, didn’t it?” Mike got to his feet and walked over to the couch to stand in front of Sebastian. “First, the police worked out that it wasn’t an accident, but that was okay, because you were sure there was nothing to link you to Dominic. And then things really went pear-shaped, didn’t they? Because someone knew what you’d done. Someone who wanted money to keep his mouth shut.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” Sebastian’s eyes were huge.

“Bryan Mayhew. What did he do when he returned to the village? Did he contact you right away, to tell you what he’d seen?”

“What?” Sebastian’s jaw dropped.

“I don’t know for sure, but I’m guessing he had evidence that you caused Dominic’s death. He probably figured the same thing as you. That once the police investigation was over, as long as you weren’t in the frame for it, you’d come into a lot of money once you inherited. He was probably willing to wait, right? That evidence was his bargaining chip. Pay me, or I’ll give this to the authorities and you lose everything.” Mike nodded. “A much better idea would be to kill Bryan, then take all the evidence. That way you can still come forward, because there’s nothing to link you to Bryan’s murder.”

“That’s because I had nothing to do with the murder!” Sebastian’s eyes bugged out. “I couldn’t have! I was nowhere near the crypt when he died. I was in the pub with you two.”

“Great, except he didn’t die in the crypt and we can prove it. Not only that, I think we can also prove he died earlier than the official time of death. And apart from that, there’s physical evidence to link you to his murder.” Mike shifted closer.

“Such as what? You’re making this up.” Sebastian’s face flushed. “How can there be evidence when I had nothing to do with his death?”

“Oh yeah?” Mike’s eyes sparkled. “You really shouldn’t have bowed your head just now. Because the first thing I spotted was this.” Mike darted forward, pushed Sebastian’s head down between his knees, and pulled down the collar of his T-shirt roughly to reveal…

…a dark stain on the back of Sebastian’s neck.

“Jeyes Fluid is a real bitch to get off the skin. That’s if you even knew it was there in the first place.”