A Lethal Lesson

  PRAISE FOR THE LANE WINSLOW MYSTERIES

  “The ‘find of the year’ . . . With the feel of Louise Penny’s Three Pines, the independence and quick wit of Kerry Greenwood’s Phryne Fisher and the intelligence of Jacqueline Winspear’s Maisie Dobbs, this mystery series has it all!” —Murder by the Book, Texas

  “Relentlessly exciting from start to finish.” —Kirkus Reviews

  “Whishaw spins an engrossing tale of murder, . . . British spies and local Canadian constabulary while deftly braiding the many story threads into a twisty plot.” —Shelf Awareness

  “Charming . . . with solid characters and nice puzzle plots . . . perfect for a mental getaway.” —Globe and Mail

  “Think a young Katharine Hepburn—beautiful, smart and beyond capable. Winslow is an example of the kind of woman who emerged after the war, a confident female who had worked in factories building tanks and guns, a woman who hadn’t yet been suffocated by the 1950s—perfect housewife ideal.” —Vancouver Sun

  “There’s no question you should read it—it’s excellent.” —Toronto Star

  “A master of the genre.” —Wisconsin Bookwatch

  “In the vein of Louise Penny . . . a compelling series that combines a cozy setting, spy intrigue storylines, and police procedural elements—not an easy task, but one that Whishaw pulls off.” —Reviewing the Evidence

  “Well-drawn, pleasantly complex characters and a clearly developed, believable, and intriguing setting . . .” —Historical Novel Society

  “The setting is fresh and the cast endearing.” —CrimeReads

  “Fantastic . . . readers will stand up and cheer.” —Anna Lee Huber, author of the Lady Darby Mysteries and the Verity Kent Mysteries

  “Wonderfully complex . . . The post-war time period is particularly interesting and well captured.” —Maureen Jennings, author of the Murdoch Mysteries

  “Rich with intrigue, humour, murder and romance.” —Kerry Clare, author of Mitzi Bytes and editor of 49th Shelf

  “Exquisitely written, psychologically deft.” —Linda Svendsen, author of Sussex Drive

  “A series that’s guaranteed to please.” —Mercer Island Books, Washington

  “Full of history, mystery, and a glorious setting . . . a wonderful series.” —Sleuth of Baker Street, Ontario

  THE LANE WINSLOW MYSTERY SERIES

  A Killer in King’s Cove (#1)

  Death in a Darkening Mist (#2)

  An Old, Cold Grave (#3)

  It Begins in Betrayal (#4)

  A Sorrowful Sanctuary (#5)

  A Deceptive Devotion (#6)

  A Match Made for Murder (#7)

  A Lethal Lesson (#8)

  For Mary Wiens Miller, who educated and brightened lives in her own one-room schoolhouse in Saskatchewan in the 1940s

  PROLOGUE

  “GET OUT.” THE DRIVER’S VOICE was compacted with rage. The car was stopped in the middle of the road. Only the fan of light provided by the headlights made any inroads in the utter darkness. Any trace of that night’s half moon was obliterated by the swirling snow. At near midnight, in these conditions, it was unlikely any traffic would be on the road.

  “What?” The man was drunk. He couldn’t make out what was being said to him.

  “Get out!” Shouting now, the driver leaned over, opened the door, and pushed hard at the man. Unable to help himself, the drunk man tumbled out onto the bank of snow that had piled up on the side of the road. He watched the car disappear around the corner toward Castlegar, the last red shred of its tail lights vanishing behind the bend. He stood, bemused, and then turned and began to trudge back to town. In an unconscious imitation of driving, the man stumbled across the road to walk on the right-hand side. The river roared below him in the blackness. He shook his head as if to clear it, but the driving snow that blew onto his face under his hat countered his efforts to understand what was happening. He wondered suddenly where his car was. He tried pulling his hat off to see better, but that only covered him in snow and didn’t alleviate the darkness. It occurred to him that he’d left something at home, and he tried to remember what it was. Not the car. How would he have gotten this far without the car? In the same instant he remembered, the road was lit blindingly by the headlights of a car coming from behind him, heading toward Nelson. His spirit buoyed in this one illuminated moment, and everything made sense. He would get home, be welcomed. He put out an arm to stop the car. He wanted to turn to face it, but he felt dizzy. The engine revved, sudden and deafening; he could hear it behind him and frowned. The sensation of being thrown into the snowy air made him feel full of light, as if the angels had come. In the darkness of the next moment, he was not aware of landing. He did not hear the blunt, hard sound of breaking, nor the muffled scream from somewhere. He had no sensation of bouncing or rolling. He knew nothing of sliding like a broken doll and resting in the snow far below. He did not hear the roar of the car disappearing, or see the lights blink out. He, indeed, would never hear or see anything again.

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  CHAPTER ONE

  Wednesday, December 3, 1947

  WENDY KEELING WAS AS HAPPY as she could ever remember being in her mostly unhappy life. She had ushered the children outside after they had put their lunch things away, and she could hear them now, shrieking in the snow, releasing all that pent-up animal energy they had accumulated during the morning. She would try to get them all on to arithmetic in the afternoon. She would start with a puzzle they could tackle in pairs. She walked up and down the short rows to make sure all the crumbs and jam smudges were off the desks, checked inside to make sure no one had hidden a sandwich away, and then looked at the clock. They had five minutes still before they had to come in and remove their piles of now no doubt soaking outer clothes.

  Taking up a piece of chalk, she drew six glasses on the board and indicated with a line that the first three were filled. Then she went outside holding the school bell and rang it, calling, “It’s time, ladies and gentlemen!”

  Under the cries of protest, she stood on the porch, her arms crossed in front of her, looking benignly implacable and saying nothing. Even after only a few days, they knew the routine. Line up in front of the stairs and be allowed in quickly. The door was kept closed to keep the heat in until they were all ready to come in at once.

  “What are we doing this afternoon, miss?” asked Rafe, one of Angela Bertolli’s boys, turning to give a little shove to someone trying to usurp his first-place spot in line.

  “Rafe!” Miss Keeling gave a warning note, and then smiled. “It’s a great afternoon for arithmetic. Okay, everyone present and correct?” Seeing that the jostling group contained the number of students she expected, thirteen, Miss Keeling
swung open the door, and watched the muffled group clamber up the stairs and into the classroom. She turned and put her head in the door. “Coats and scarves up! In your desks by the time I turn around.”

  She looked again at the now-quiet yard, with its trampled snow and two nascent snowmen, and was about to come in when she saw a red knitted scarf hanging on a branch of a short spruce tree at the south side of the school. Edith. Her granny had knitted it for her, Edith had told her. She was about to call the girl to come and take responsibility for her scarf, when she thought better of disrupting the complications of removing outer clothes and rubber boots. She closed the door and went down the four stairs and stepped into the snow, wishing immediately she had her rubbers, and made for the scarf.

  When she saw the black car, parked halfway down the hill, the clouds of white coming out of the exhaust, she frowned. The car was not moving, but the engine was running. Sunlight reflected off the front windshield, showing only the snow and trees around it, making it seem, she thought whimsically, as if she could see into its mind. Who was in it? It was almost as if someone were watching her, or the school, or more worryingly, the students. But who? She didn’t recognize the car. She was going to wave, but then thought, Someone has come up the wrong road and is even now looking at a map. If that person was lost, she’d not be much use to them. She’d only come to the area a short time ago herself.

  Even with the door closed, she could hear the banging and laughing of the children in the little kitchen room, boots being pulled off and hurled under the coat-rack bench, and she turned back to retrieve the scarf. When she looked down the road again, she saw that the car was slowly beginning to back away. Then, in some trick of the light, the windshield stopped reflecting the peaceful world it looked out on, and she could see, for the briefest moment, the shape of the head inside turned away to look out the back window, right arm over the seat, gloved left hand on the steering wheel, as the driver backed the car nonchalantly down the hill.

  She lurched up the steps, not daring to look again, some atavistic superstition urging her to ignore what she had seen. It was a bad reflection, it was nothing, a lost stranger now pulling silently back to the main road. Do not look, it seemed to be saying, because looking will make it real. But competing with that desperate hope was the cold hard nub of the truth, deep in her gut. It had been too good to be true. Somehow, they had found her.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Friday, December 5

  ROSE SCOTT LOOKED AROUND HER cramped bedroom. Even with the sun reflecting off the snow outside, the tiny bedroom window looked out only on the dark woods that pressed against the back of the cottage. She folded her Sunday dress carefully, preparing to put it into the suitcase that lay open on the bed, and then stood up to stretch out her back.

  She felt vaguely bad about lying, but no one would care. She’d be away from here and everyone would think she’d gone off to a fairy-tale ending. At the moment, “happily ever after” meant anywhere but here—anywhere he wasn’t. Even knowing she’d be safely away, the thought of him released a flood of sickening anxiety. She jumped at the sound of the telephone, its ring shattering the silence of the cottage. Should she tell Wendy about him?

  She picked up the instrument that was on the desk in the tiny sitting room. “B 228, Rose Scott speaking.” She could feel her heart beating in her throat.

  “Oh, hello! I was looking for Wendy, Wendy Keeling. Is this her number?” A pleasant, friendly female voice.

  “Yes, that’s right. She’s not here just now. She teaches at the school. She should be home by five or so. Can I give her a message?” Relief washed through her. For Wendy.

  The woman on the other end of the line hesitated. “I’m her oldest friend, and I’ve just come up and thought I could surprise her. Would it be a bother if I stopped by this evening after she comes home?”

  “No, of course not. Do you know how to get here?”

  “I’m coming from Nelson,” the woman said.

  “Right, well you’ll drive about twenty-five miles and just before the road takes a sharp rise, you’ll see three little drives that go toward the lake, on your right. We’re the middle one.”

  Rose put the receiver back on the cradle and leaned against the desk and shook her head, uttering a mirthless laugh. Wendy. Young, much younger than her, attractive. Could she become a target? But at least she had friends, evidently, and maybe that would protect her. She returned to the bedroom to continue her packing and then hesitated. Should she have asked the caller her name? She shook her head. By tomorrow, none of it would matter. At that moment, Rose could not think that she had a single friend in the world.

  Monday, December 8

  ELEANOR ARMSTRONG, THE King’s Cove postmistress, slid the noisy wooden kiosk window up at Lane’s knock and propped it with a stick. “Good Monday morning, my dear. Nothing in today, I’m afraid. The weather seems to have kept the boat docked up in town. Poor Kenny managed to drive all the way down to the wharf through the snow and had to come all the way back empty-handed. Did the inspector get off all right?” Lane thought of Eleanor and Kenny Armstrong practically as replacements for her grandparents, who were far away in Scotland. The Armstrongs ran the tiny King’s Cove post office, and she basked in their good nature and enduring affection.

  “Yes, he put the chains on yesterday afternoon. I’ve told him on no account to come home tonight if this continues.” Lane hadn’t liked telling her new husband to stay at his little house in Nelson, but one had to be sensible. In a way she’d never imagined possible before her wedding, she’d become quite used to having him at home at night. She’d been fearful that she’d miss her solitude once she married. Not a bit of it. She had all day to be solitary when he was off in town police inspecting.

  That morning she had watched him back out of the gate, turn deftly in the thick, new fall of snow, and drive off, his chains clanking softly on the blanketed road. She had tidied the kitchen, and then had stood looking out her French doors at the lake below, shrouded, like everything this morning, in whiteness and mist. Nothing had moved along the water. She had wondered if it ever iced up the way the rivers of her childhood had. Lane had grown up as part of a British community alternately in Riga, Latvia, and the seaside resort of Bilderlinghshof, and she had adored the winters of her childhood. Snow always lifted her spirits.

  She’d heard Kenny’s truck struggling along the road on the way back from the wharf, where he normally met the steamboat four times a week to pick up the mail. She’d shovelled her way along the path between her house and the post office, and then propped her shovel against a tree and walked the rest of the way in the track left by Kenny’s bright red Ford.

  The truck provided the only splash of colour at the moment, with the clouds grey and low, and snow piled over everything, obscuring all but some glimpses of the dark green of the surrounding pine forest. The little wooden room that made up the post office was attached to the Armstrong cottage, and at the moment, though out of the immediate elements, it felt like a deep-freeze.

  Eleanor grinned at Lane and cocked her head toward the inside of the cottage just past where she stored all the business of the post office. “Come on. Come have a cup of tea. I doubt anyone will attempt the trip this morning. The wireless has promised no let-up in the snow. I’m just making some Christmas cake.”

  Lane banged the snow off her boots on the stair and, stepping inside, leaned down to unlace them. She immediately had a face full of Alexandra, the Armstrongs’ young West Highland dog, who wriggled excitedly and licked Lane’s ear.

  “Hello, darling! What do you do in all this snow, eh?” She toed her boots off and picked up the dog, who continued the face-licking campaign. “Gosh, it does smell lovely in here!”

  “I haven’t started baking yet. I’m on the last stages of mixing. I bet it’s the fruit soaking in brandy that you smell. His nibs is just bringing in some wood.”

  Lane pulled off her wool tartan jacket and sat in her usual chair,
wondering if there was anything more divine than the smell of brandy-soaked raisins in a snug and cheerful cottage on a winter’s day. “Maybe I should attempt it?” she said.

  “Nonsense. I’m making enough to feed an army. It’s shocking that I left it so late. I usually have them soaking away in the pantry by the end of October. It’s already gone December 8. I can’t think what it will taste like. I don’t know what came over me this year. All the excitement of your wedding, I expect. Have you thought of trying to make shortbread?”

  “You’re so kind not to point out my ghastly deficiencies in the kitchen. Could I manage shortbread, do you think?”

  “Certainly, my dear. You just have to remember not to handle it too much. Did you find Lady Armstrong’s cookery books in the attic? It’ll be in one of those.”

  Lady Armstrong, who had lived in the house Lane now owned, was Kenny’s deceased mother, and it was generally assumed in King’s Cove that she still haunted the place. Lane had reason to be relieved that the ghostly Lady Armstrong had the sense not to do her usual trick of opening the attic windows during this bitter cold spell.

  “I found one of them. I’ve been using it to learn the basics. Honestly, I don’t think my father ever imagined a world without a cook. My sister and I were brought up to be absolutely useless in the kitchen. It’s quite quaint to be sorting out what is meant by a ‘gill.’ I’ve just interpreted it as ‘some,’ and hoped that after I’ve added ‘some’ milk to something it ends up the right consistency.”

  Alexandra jumped off her bed of folded quilt and gave a welcoming bark at the sound of Kenny on the steps.

  “I thought I saw you plowing through the snow like a Laplander. What a day!” Kenny dumped the load of split wood into the woodbox, said a few words to Alexandra, and took off his scarf and thick woollen sweater. “I hope the lines don’t go down.”

  As if to prove the system was so far withstanding this heavy onslaught of winter, the Armstrongs’ phone rang. Lane was stirring sugar into her tea, thinking of the shortbread biscuits made by her parents’ Latvian cook, who had learned to make them to please her English employer when Lane was a child, after her mother had died. They had always made her think of hardtack, or some other impenetrable military biscuit. It was a revelation when she first met real shortbread in England during her Christmas breaks from Oxford.