Supping with the Devil

by Sally Spencer

Overview

"Spencer has devised a thrill ride that’s not easily forgotten." - Publishers Weekly Starred Review

Monika Paniatowski’s boss is trying to destroy her career, but the dead end case he assigns her turns out to be something else entirely . . .
DCI Monika Paniatowski recognises her latest assignment as advisor to the Earl of Ridley’s rock festival for what it really is – an attempt by the chief constable to destroy her career. Yet it soon becomes apparent that matters are not as simple as they appear. Why, for instance, did the earl choose to employ the notorious Devil’s Disciples motorcycle gang to provide the security for the festival? And to what lengths will his mother, the dowager countess, go to destroy it? But it is when the half-naked body of a tabloid journalist is discovered in the middle of Whitebridge that things really start to hot up.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781847515223
Publisher:	Severn House
Publication date:	06/01/2015
Series:	A DCI Monika Paniatowski Mystery , #7
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Sally Spencer worked as a teacher both in England and Iran - where she witnessed the fall of the Shah. She now lives in Spain and writes full-time. She is an almost fanatical mah jong player.

Read an Excerpt

Supping with the Devil

A DCI Paniatowski Mystery

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By Sally Spencer

Severn House Publishers Limited

Copyright © 2014 Alan Rustage
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84751-522-3

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CHAPTER 1

Wednesday, 4th August

While the butler went through the established ritual of serving the coffee, Gervaise de Courtney, 13th Earl of Ridley, looked quickly around the rosewood table which Thomas Chippendale, the master craftsman, had personally designed for the Great Library in 1758.

To the earl's right was his wife, Katerina, the Countess of Ridley. He had married her in his early thirties – which was considered very old for the heir to the earldom to enter his first marriage – but he daily thanked God that he had waited, because she had brought a light into his life which had made him want to continue living it.

To his left sat Edward Bell, his estate manager, a solidly built man wearing a rough tweed jacket which seemed to be such a part of him that he would shed it in only the hottest weather. Bell had worked at Stamford Hall all his life, as had his father, and his father's father, right back to George Bell, who had been appointed the Hall's first steward in 1705.

They were loyal to him – both of them – the earl thought, and he needed that loyalty, because sitting opposite him was his mother, Sarah, the Dowager Countess, and if there was one person in the world who really hated him, then – he suspected – that person was her.

The mother spoke. 'I wish to make it known, in the strongest possible terms, that I disapprove of the coming madness, and intend to confine myself to my apartments for the entire period it is being perpetrated,' she said.

The earl sighed. 'Couldn't you at least have waited until Barton had finished serving the coffee, Mother?' he asked.

His mother looked up at the butler, who was expertly pouring coffee from a large silver jug into small, delicate china cups.

'Does it distract you if I talk while you are serving, Barton?' she asked. 'Or do you believe, as I do, that a good servant will allow nothing to distract him from doing his duty?'

'I am not distracted, my lady,' the butler replied, in a voice totally devoid of any expression.

It really wasn't fair of his mother to put Barton in such a difficult position, the earl thought. And it wasn't fair of her to show such lack of respect for him in the presence of a servant.

But the problem was, the dowager countess didn't think that she was either making the butler's life difficult or embarrassing her son, because as far as she was concerned, the feelings and opinions of servants – if, indeed, they had any – counted for nothing. From her perspective, the servants' only function in life was to serve her, and when they were not doing that, they didn't really exist.

The butler finished his task, took an almost imperceptible step backwards, asked if there was anything else that the assembled company required, and withdrew when he was told there wasn't.

'It's not a good idea for you to stay inside all the time, Mother,' the earl said, continuing the earlier conversation. 'You know the doctor told you that you should get some fresh air at least once a day.'

'But the problem is that the air will not be fresh, will it?' his mother countered. 'It will have been horribly polluted by the rabble you will have allowed to invade the Hall.'

'No one will be invading the Hall,' said the earl, laying a plan of the grounds on the table, and smoothing it out with his right hand. 'The music stage will be here, close to the west wall. The main camp site, however, will be beyond the walls, close to the west gate.' He paused. 'The portable toilet cabins will be here in plenty of time, won't they, Mr Bell?'

'They will, sir,' the estate manager confirmed.

'And we must ensure that there is an ample supply of fresh water. In this heat, there's a real danger of dehydration.'

'That's already been taken care of.'

'Our guests will be here, in a large semicircle around the stage,' the earl said to his mother and his wife. 'When the last band of the night ...'

'Band!' his mother snorted.

'... when the last band of the night has completed its set, all the fans will leave the grounds, and the gates will be locked.'

'And in the daytime?' his mother asked. 'Will the vile hooligans be free to rampage through the rose garden and the greenhouses? Will you just stand by and watch them kill the ducks and swans in the north lake, and row their sweaty bodies up and down the south lake?'

'As I have explained at least half a dozen times before, Mother, the concert area has been cordoned off from the rest of the grounds by a wire-netting fence,' the earl said.

'And what will happen when the riff-raff decide they will break down the fence?'

It was amazing how this woman – who really had a very limited imagination – could find so many different words to describe people she disapproved of, the earl thought.

'They will not break down the fence, Mother,' he said. 'They will listen to the music and do their best to become at one with the universe. And even if there are a few people who decide, for some inexplicable reason, to make trouble, the marshals I have appointed will soon deal with them.'

'The marshals!' the dowager countess repeated. 'Is that what you call them? I call them motorcycle thugs. Vandals! They will probably do more damage than the rest of the scum put together!'

'Since you have no interest in hearing what I have to say, I suggest you withdraw, Mother,' the earl said, his patience finally wearing thin.

'Are you ordering me to go?' the old woman asked.

'No, Mother, of course not.'

'Because you could order me to go, you know,' the dowager countess said, in a tone designed to make him feel both guilty and cowardly. 'You are, after all, the earl, whereas I am nothing.'

'Mother, this really isn't necessary,' the earl said.

'I don't see why you have to do it,' the dowager countess persisted. 'We don't need the money. You are rich.'

'The estate is rich,' the earl corrected her, 'but even so, running the Hall is a costly business, and if we do nothing to augment our income, the money will melt away soon enough.'

'Then do something with a little dignity to it,' the old woman argued. 'Open the house to guided tours for the respectable middle class – if you can find any! Build a safari park, if you consider it absolutely necessary.'

'That's already been done by others,' the earl pointed out. 'Besides, I believe in the RockStately Festival, Mother.'

'The RockStately Festival! What does that even mean?'

'It's a play on words,' the earl said, wondering why he was even bothering to explain, since he knew his mother was not interested in the answer. 'It's a combination of "rocksteady", which is a kind of music, and "stately home", which is what ...'

'Is my son charging enough?' the dowager countess asked, turning to Edward Bell.

'I'm sorry, my lady,' Bell replied, stalling.

'You're the man whose supposed to know about figures, Bell – God knows, the family paid enough to have you educated in them – so I would have thought it was a simple enough question. However, since you seem to have failed to grasp the concept the first time, I will repeat it – is my son charging the sweaty proletariat enough to make a profit?'

The estate manager shifted uncomfortably in his seat. 'If all goes as planned, we should certainly not make a loss.'

'I thought as much,' the dowager countess said triumphantly. 'This whole disaster is not to raise revenue at all – it is to indulge the decadent tastes that you, Gervaise, have developed since your breakdown.'

'Mother ...' the earl pleaded.

'Your father would never have done anything like this, but then your father was a real man. Do you know, there are times when I wish that it had been your brother who inherited the title?'

'Do you really think Sebastian would have made a better earl than I have?' her son asked.

The dowager countess hesitated for a moment, as if she were tempted to say 'yes', but then, realizing how ridiculous that would sound – even to her – she said, 'At least your brother has never been locked up in a lunatic asylum.' She turned to face her daughter-in-law. 'I blame you for this.'

'That's not fair!' the earl protested. 'It's nothing to do with Katerina. It was all my idea.'

'Well, of course it was all your idea,' the dowager countess said with contempt. 'I may not have the highest opinion of your wife, but I know she would never have come up with such an insane scheme herself.' She stood, using his arms to jack herself into an upright position. 'The reason I blame you, Katerina, is because you did not talk him out of it – which is what any true countess would have done in your situation.' She shrugged. 'But then, I suppose that since you are not only from the lower orders but also a foreigner, I should not expect much from you.'

She reached for her stick and hobbled away.

'I am so, so sorry, my dear,' the earl said to his wife.

'It's all right,' Katerina said. 'She is old, and she is in pain, and it does not really bother me.'

But it did – the earl could see that it did.

He turned to his estate manager. 'And I must apologize to you, also, Mr Bell. You should not have had to hear that.'

Bell smiled. 'You should know by now, sir, that members of my family never hear what the earl does not want them to hear,' he said.

The rot had started to set in the day they had found Jo Baxter's body out there on the cold, bleak moors, Monika Paniatowski thought, as she stood in the chief constable's outer office and waited to be summoned to the inner sanctum.

The coroner had ruled that Jo's death had been an accident – that having inadvertently drunk more than she should have done, she had miscalculated a bend and come off the road. Yet few of the people who had observed the Baxters' crumbling marriage – and suspected they knew why it was crumbling – had ever taken that particular verdict seriously.

Before Jo's death, Baxter and Paniatowski had been able, more or less, to put the past behind them – to ignore the fact that, long ago and in a different county across the Pennines, they had once been lovers – and deal with each on a professional basis. But just as overturning her car had killed Jo, so it had overturned the sometimes uneasy relationship which Paniatowski and Baxter had built up between them, and now – from Baxter's viewpoint, at least – they were almost at war.

The green light on the office doorpost came on, and Paniatowski knocked and entered.

Baxter was sitting at his desk, bent over a sheaf of papers, and for at least half a minute he ignored her.

Finally, he looked up.

'Good morning, Chief Inspector,' he said, in a voice which told her nothing at all. 'What do you know about the events which are about to take place at Stamford Hall?'

'Only what I've read in the general memo you sent round,' Paniatowski replied.

'And could you tell me what the memo said?'

Is this some sort of test? Paniatowski asked herself. Have we sunk to such a low level of pettiness?

'There's going to be a big rock concert held in the grounds of Stamford Hall,' she said aloud.

'It's a rock festival,' Baxter said, as if he'd scored a point by correcting her. 'Carry on.'

'Based on advance ticket sales, they're expecting a hundred thousand people to turn up, though there may be more.'

'Exactly. A hundred thousand people. That's more or less equal to the population of Whitebridge. Just controlling the traffic flow will be a major exercise in logistics.'

Why is he telling me all this, she wondered. Since it's nothing to do with me – and since he can barely stand to be in the same room as me these days – why are we even having this conversation?

'DCS Holmes will be in overall charge of the traffic flow, and will also be responsible for policing at the camp site and the catering and toilet facilities. But those are all outside the grounds, and unfortunately, he will not be allowed to police the actual estate itself.'

'What's stopping him?' Paniatowski asked.

'The earl,' Baxter replied.

'I know the Hall is private property, but if we suspect a crime is being committed, or may be about to be committed, then we have the legal right to enter the property.'

'You'd think that would be the case, wouldn't you?' Baxter agreed. 'But according to a royal charter which was granted to the 3rd earl, nobody – and I mean nobody – has the right to enter the grounds without the explicit permission of the earl himself.'

'But surely that charter is hundreds of years old, and must be out of date by now.'

Baxter shook his head.

'Well, if it isn't out of date, couldn't we simply have it repealed?' Paniatowski asked.

'We could certainly try, but the whole process would take at least two years, and require a specific act of parliament which would have to be passed by both the lower house and upper house.'

She still couldn't see why she was there, what she was expected to say, or how she was expected to contribute.

'The earl has agreed, in the interest of not appearing unreasonable, to allow one officer from this force inside the walls,' Baxter continued. 'That officer will give the estate manager, Edward Bell, whatever help or advice he requests, and may act as an observer.'

'But why I am here?' a voice nagged at the back of Paniatowski's mind. 'Why am I here?'

'I'm sure DCS Holmes has a number of officers who would fill that role very well,' she said.

'I'm sure he has,' Baxter agreed, 'but I've decided to use someone from your team.'

That seemed a little odd, Paniatowski thought, but her team was not, at that moment, involved in any major investigations, and if it was what Baxter wanted ...

'I could spare you DC Crane,' she said. 'He's well-educated and very diplomatic, and I'm sure he'll find the experience interesting. But if there's a murder, I'll need him back right away.'

Baxter smiled. It was a grim, joyless smile, and she realized that for the previous ten minutes he had been playing with her like a particularly merciless cat might play with a very helpless mouse.

'Perhaps I didn't make myself clear,' he said. 'When I told you I wanted a member of your team, what I meant was, I want you.'

She should have seen it coming, but she hadn't – and it felt like a slap in the face.

'It's not really my area of expertise, sir,' she said. 'I've been in the CID for most of my career. I would have thought someone from the uniformed branch would be better equipped to handle it.'

'Would you, Chief Inspector?' Baxter asked. 'Well, you're certainly entitled to think whatever you wish to think, but I'm telling you that I've decided, as chief constable, that I'd like you to do it.'

Giving her a menial task well below her proven abilities was meant to humiliate her. But it could be worse, she consoled herself. It would only be four or five days work, and since the job at the Hall seemed to be, in fact, a non-job, she could run her team almost as well as if she was at headquarters.

'You start this afternoon,' Baxter said.

'But the concert's not for a couple more days,' Paniatowski said, 'and it seems as if I'll have very little to do, anyway.'

'If the wheels come off on this thing – and they well might – I don't want anyone saying that it only happened because I sent my officer in too late,' Baxter told her.

There was nothing for it but to bow to the inevitable.

'Very well, if you insist,' she said.

'While you're away, your team will be temporarily reassigned to DCI Wellbeloved,' Baxter told her.

'Who the hell is DCI Wellbeloved?' Paniatowski demanded.

'He's just been transferred to the patch from Honnerton. He's an impressive young man, by all accounts, and working with DI Beresford for a while will be an excellent way to acclimatize him to the job.'

'But I'll be away for less than a week,' Paniatowski pointed out. 'That won't be anything like long enough for DCI Wellbeloved to come to grips with how we work in Mid Lancs. It would make a lot more sense to give him a permanent team of his own.'

'You'll be away for less than a week, will you?' asked Baxter, with a hint of mock surprise in his voice. 'Who said anything about less than a week?'

'That's how long I'll need to be up at Stamford Hall. You're not suggesting I stay there longer than that, are you?'

'No, that would be a waste of valuable police time.'

'Well, then ...'

'But the RockStately Festival isn't the only event that will be taking place this August. Even just off the top of my head, I can think of half a dozen more. There's the Bryston Medieval Fayre, the Conglebury International Folk Gathering ...'

'You're surely not saying ...'

'The experience you gain at Stamford Hall will be invaluable when you're working on these other gatherings, and by the end of the summer, you will have become a real expert in the field of outdoor events.'

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Supping with the Devil by Sally Spencer. Copyright © 2014 Alan Rustage. Excerpted by permission of Severn House Publishers Limited.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Cover,
A Selection of Recent Titles by Sally Spencer From Severn House,
Title Page,
Copyright,
Dedication,
Author's Note,
Epigraph,
Monday, 9th August, 1976,
Part One – 'We Can Be Together',
Part Two – 'Rock 'n' Roll Suicide',
Part Three – Aftermath,
Epilogue,

Editorial Reviews

Spencer produces another taut police procedural featuring the flawed but admirable Monica, a gripping plot, and plenty of authentic cop-shop details.

Booklist

Spencer produces another taut police procedural featuring the flawed but admirable Monica, a gripping plot, and plenty of authentic cop-shop details.

Booklist