[Peter and Georgia Marsh 05] - Murder in the Mist

by Amy Myers

  ‘ I wonder if they know World War Two’s over?’ Peter whispered, making his way to the other bar. This luckily proved far more welcoming and opened out into a restaurant area on the far side of the pub. There was no one behind the bar, but a door opened almost immediately, and a man of seventy-odd appeared. He was hardly beaming, but Georgia was relieved that at least he hadn’t emerged with all guns blazing. He should be pleased to see custom; there couldn’t be much trade around at four o’clock on a weekday afternoon, even if it was still the holiday period.

  ‘What can I get you?’ He sounded pleasant enough, which was encouraging. As he supplied them with their drinks, he added, ‘Just passing through, are you?’

  A casual question, but Georgia noticed that his eyes went from one to the other as though he were more interested in their reply than his tone suggested.

  Why not plunge in, she thought, slightly surprised that she had even considered not doing so. What had they to hide? ‘We’re interested in the Fernbourne Five,’ she said as Peter obligingly flourished his newly acquired book. ‘We thought we’d see the village they worked in, but we landed up on the wrong road at Shaw Cottage.’

  ‘Mrs Elfie’s place.’

  Another man, much younger – his son, perhaps – had come in through the door to the private quarters. One of the two was presumably the landlord – her guess would be the new arrival. The hair was brown and thicker than his father’s but the faces looked much the same. She decided she would rather get on the wrong side of the son than the father.

  ‘Not hard to lose your way round there, is it, Dad?’ the newcomer continued.

  Dad polished a glass by way of answer.

  ‘Was she part of the Fernbourne group?’ Georgia asked brightly, taking a wild guess and hitting an unexpected bullseye.

  A prompt reply from Dad to this one. ‘Best ask the board about that.’

  ‘The board?’ Peter queried.

  ‘The Fernbourne Trust. You’ll be reading all about the group in that book of yours.’

  Even the son looked slightly surprised at the note of churlishness in his father’s voice and obviously decided he needed to step in. ‘Matthew Hunt, who wrote that book, he’s the chair of the board. You’ve missed him though. Went up to London today, he did.’

  Well, well, volunteering information, Georgia thought. Time to persevere. ‘So is Shaw Cottage anything to do with the Fernbourne Five’s story?’

  ‘That’s the manor you want,’ was his prompt reply. ‘Not that old place.’

  The son glanced at him. ‘There’s interest growing in the Fernbourne Five again. You’re the second this week. Trade’s looking up. Come back in a year or two.’ He laughed as Georgia blinked. ‘The manor,’ he continued. ‘The trust is making it into an arts centre, isn’t it, Dad? Opening next year, and that will put us on the map.’

  ‘For what that’s worth,’ Dad muttered.

  ‘Survival, Dad, and you know it.’ He nodded to them. ‘Bob Laycock’s the name. And Dad is Ted.’

  ‘Still remembered round here, they are, Mr Hunt and his wife.’ Ted seemed to find his voice, even though it sounded more of a threat than a chatty comment.

  ‘That’s Clemence Gale. She’s still alive, isn’t she?’ Peter pressed on.

  ‘I meant his first wife, Mrs Elfie.’ Ted grudgingly grew more expansive. ‘She was a lovely lady. My dad was gardener up at the manor. They called her Elfie, though her name was Ella. Loved flowers, she did, and wrote and illustrated books for children, under her maiden name Ella Lane. She was Mrs Elfie to us. My father said she was like an elf herself.’

  ‘Lived with Birdie Field,’ Bob added.

  This drew a dark look from his father, Georgia noticed. Odd. What could be so secret about this, save that presumably it was after she left Gavin Hunt? And who was Birdie Field?

  ‘Did Elfie own Shaw Cottage?’ Peter asked.

  This was received in silence by Ted, but Bob seemed happy enough to answer. ‘Mrs Elfie was divorced from Mr Hunt. Miss Birdie asked her to come to live with her.’

  ‘It’s coming back to me,’ Peter remarked, with a look Georgia knew well. The bloodhound had just been given the scent. ‘There was a great love affair, wasn’t there?’ he continued. ‘Elfie was married to Gavin Hunt, but fell in love with one of the others in the group. She had to choose between him and her child.’

  ‘Mr Matthew, yes,’ Bob agreed.

  ‘And she chose to stay with Matthew?’

  ‘Yes,’ Bob said casually. ‘So Alwyn Field topped himself. Hanged himself from a branch over the stream in the garden.’

  ‘So that was it,’ Georgia said, unaccountably depressed, when they returned to the car. ‘It must have been Alwyn’s suicide that caused the weird atmosphere by the stream. He killed himself over his unfulfilled love affair with Elfie Lane.’

  ‘Possibly. Presumably he was this Miss Birdie’s brother. Look, why don’t you check out the churchyard before we go? You might find Alwyn Field’s grave, and perhaps Elfie’s.’

  So she was right: Peter did have a scent in his nostrils. From which direction? she wondered, She knew better than to press him, so despite her misgivings she set off for the church. Beyond it, there were thick woods, perhaps part of the manor estate. Together with the yew trees in the churchyard, they looked tranquil enough – unlike those at Shaw Cottage. A quick scout around would present no problem and would please Peter.

  Passing through the lychgate, she almost bumped into an embracing couple just inside it. She recognized that blonde hair: it was Emma from the shop, wrapped in the arms of the famous Adam, presumably. Love’s young dream. The couple unwillingly parted at her arrival, glaring at her in a way that was becoming familiar in this village.

  ‘Gotta go, Sean,’ Georgia heard the girl say. Beauty then passed on her way. So the lover wasn’t Adam. Another eternal triangle in Fernbourne, she wondered, amused. What would Adam make of this? Where was he? She suspected she knew, because in the church porch another young man was loitering. He flushed when he saw her, but had obviously been watching the couple at the lychgate. Being young was tough, and it always was, she thought, remembering her own youthful passion for Zac. She’d made the mistake of marrying him, and she only hoped that Emma was making the right choice here.

  She had no luck finding Elfie’s grave, and it took a little time to find Alwyn’s, since it didn’t seem to be amongst the main block of forties and fifties tombstones. As a suicide – even if with the usual caveat of ‘balance of mind being disturbed’ – she suspected his grave might be separated from his peers, cruel though that seemed from today’s perspective. She tracked it down eventually in a corner, half hidden by bushes, and she found she wasn’t alone in her mission. A good-looking man in his late twenties was already there. He was dark-haired, casually dressed, and looked at her with an inquisitiveness that suggested more than a passing interest.

  Good, she thought, smiling at him. ‘Do you know anything about Alwyn Field?’

  ‘Some. What in particular?’ he countered.

  ‘About Shaw Cottage,’ she answered promptly, conscious that he was watching her keenly, as if she were trespassing on his private patch.

  ‘Why?’

  There seemed no harm in telling him – omitting the fingerprints on time, of course.

  He listened, then nodded his head. ‘The great love affair. You know about that?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, though I don’t understand why Alwyn hanged himself. If Elfie came to live with him at the cottage, there must have been some ongoing relationship.’

  ‘Elfie didn’t move in with Birdie until after he had died.’

  Georgia blinked. ‘That’s strange, isn’t it?’

  ‘I think so. I’m Damien Trent by the way.’

  ‘Georgia Marsh.’

  ‘Of Marsh and Daughter? You write books, don’t you?’

  There was definitely more than casual interest now. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is this going to be one?’
/>
  ‘I doubt it.’ She decided to err on the side of caution. ‘We’re only passing through. And you?’

  ‘Journalist. My dad’s just died,’ he added abruptly. ‘Staying here a few days.’

  This too seemed odd, but she supposed it was his reason for getting away in the aftermath of the funeral. The tombstone was plain: ‘Alwyn Field, poet and philosopher, 1912 to 1949. Greatly loved.’ Underneath were two lines of verse.

  Could the Piper not have stayed for me?

  I heard his music too.

  ‘Do you know what that means?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s from one of his poems, so his sister told me yesterday.’

  Georgia did a double-take. ‘She’s alive? She must be a fair age.’

  ‘Birdie’s over ninety and in a home, but she’s still got all her marbles.’

  ‘Was she part of the Fernbourne Five group?’ He shook his head, and so she asked, ‘Then who was the fifth member after Clemence, Gavin, Elfie and Alwyn?’ Immediately the words were out she remembered the answer herself, but he spoke first.

  ‘That, as Hamlet said, is surely the question. It was Roy Sandford. Poet, essayist, artist, philosopher. The bright flame of the five, snuffed out in an air raid in 1941 aged twenty-eight.’

  ‘And what’s the question about that?’

  He regarded her seriously. ‘I wish I knew.’

  ‘You mean this could be a new case?’ Luke looked worried.

  Though Georgia loved and lived with him, there were times when their relationship was necessarily delicate, as he was Marsh & Daughter’s publisher. Medlars, their home for the last year, was only a mile or two from Haden Shaw where she worked, but by mutual assent her work was distanced as far as possible from the converted oast house office in Medlars’ forecourt. She was breaking the rules by raising a matter of business during the evening.

  ‘Don’t you fancy a book about a Kentish Bloomsbury Group?’ she asked.

  ‘What’s the crime?’

  Georgia stared at him, then began to laugh. She’d forgotten that tiny detail. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea. None that we can see yet, except that technically in 1949 suicide was a crime. A suicide and a love affair are all we have to go on.’ Except for the fingerprints on time that Peter and she had sensed, and Luke wasn’t privy to that approach. ‘You’re still frowning. Why don’t you like the idea?’

  ‘The usual reason. I don’t fancy libel suits, and you said that one or two of the group are still alive.’

  ‘Unlikely to sue at their age.’

  ‘My love, it doesn’t work like that,’ Luke said ruefully, ‘and you know it.’

  She did. ‘Anyway, there’s no case and therefore no book.’

  And nor would there be, she tried to convince herself. She couldn’t stop thinking about the Fernbourne Five, however, and found a pretext to sneak off to her laptop after supper and search the Internet. The results were interesting. Gavin Hunt, novelist, had ten novels to his name and a mass of awards, born 1908 and died 1988. Married twice, first to Ella Lane, second to Clemence Gale, with one child by each marriage, respectively Matthew and Jane Elizabeth.

  The best picture of Gavin she could find (as Peter had rightly marched off with Matthew Hunt’s book) showed him with windswept hair, laughing into the camera, more the outdoor type than the academic. As for Elfie, Georgia could see why she got her nickname. She had a mass of hair, delicate, almost elfin features, and such of her illustrations as were shown on the Fernbourne Five website had a fey quality to them, as did her children’s stories. No J.K. Rowling at work here. Her style might not be modern, but it had great attraction. And, Georgia noticed, in one of the watercolour illustrations a mass of love-in-a-mist was a major feature. Had she, and not Birdie or Alwyn, planted them at Shaw Cottage? And if so did that mean anything other than that she liked the flower?

  Clemence looked a different sort of woman altogether. More sturdy, down to earth. Her portraits seemed straightforward at first, until one studied them. Reviews of her work mentioned her use of symbolism, and there were indefinable aspects about the way the subjects were placed or where they were looking that suggested another dimension to them.

  She found less about Roy and Alwyn, save that both were poets. Roy’s greatest work was to be found in The Flight of the Soul, a collection published in 1942 to which Alwyn had also contributed. In addition Roy had written two pre-war collections and a detective story. Alwyn had published one collection before the war and one after, and he too had written a mystery novel, which seemed to have had good reviews, though it had never been reprinted. Nor had The Flight of the Soul.

  ‘Odd, wouldn’t you say?’ Georgia asked Peter the next day, when she reached their office. ‘The Fernbourne Five’s reputation seems to have been as a group rather than as individuals.’

  ‘Except for Clemence Gale,’ Peter pointed out. ‘And two of them died before they could really get under way.’

  Their office was in Peter’s home in Haden Shaw. Before Georgia had moved in with Luke, she had lived next door to Peter, and she still used the house occasionally as an office, or to put up friends. She was reluctant to sell it, but was uneasily aware that it was becoming an unspoken issue between her and Luke. To sell it announced clearly that she was ready for marriage and commitment, a decision she kept postponing, not through misgivings about Luke, but through memories of the failure of her previous marriage.

  ‘The oddest thing for me,’ Peter continued, ‘is that Matthew Hunt’s book The Freedom Seekers – and the website – ascribe the authorship of The Flight of the Soul mainly to Roy Sandford, with some input from Alwyn, but when I checked The Times Literary Supplement to see the reviews on publication, sole authorship was ascribed to Alwyn Field. No mention at all of this Roy Sandford.’

  ‘Really?’ She frowned. ‘A mistake?’ It seemed unlikely for such an informed source.

  ‘The TLS doesn’t make mistakes. So …’ Peter was deliberately taking his time, to her annoyance.

  ‘Tell me,’ she said sweetly.

  ‘I looked at the Times back issues CD. Further study of Alwyn Field reveals that hopeless love for Elfie might not have been the only reason for his suicide. In late 1948 a plagiarism charge was lodged against Alwyn on the grounds that The Flight of the Soul was chiefly Roy Sandford’s work, and not that of Alwyn Field. There’s no mention of its coming to court, so it was probably settled, but there must have been a lot of gossip.’

  Poor man, Georgia thought. The author’s great fear. A plagiarism charge was easily made, but so rarely disproved without stigma. A whole authorship issue was unusual however. What on earth had happened there?

  ‘That’s another reason for his suicide and our reaction to that place. There’s nothing to investigate.’ She registered with some surprise that she was relieved.

  ‘Sure?’

  She considered this. ‘Ninety per cent.’

  ‘Stick with the other ten per cent. Why isn’t the village proud of the Fernbourne Five? They don’t seem too eager to welcome visitors, but why not? Matthew Hunt’s book must surely be aimed at spreading the reputation of the Five, not damping it down.’

  He was right, and it was odd. ‘I take it you want to ask some awkward questions?’

  ‘I do,’ Peter said happily. ‘I’ll drive.’

  It was clear something was wrong as they turned the corner. A police incident van was evidence of that, even if the police cordon round the lychgate hadn’t betrayed it. It could hardly bear any relevance to their mission, Georgia tried to tell herself, even as her stomach lurched with foreboding.

  It was quickly justified when she saw Detective Chief Inspector Mike Gilroy stepping down from the incident van in the square. Mike had been Peter’s sergeant in his own police days before the accident had put an end to them, and now he was a friendly – usually – source for help. In theory this help went both ways, but it was heavily weighted in favour of Mike helping Peter.

  Mike’s poker face didn’t
change when he saw their car draw up, and he strode over to them. ‘Just happened to be here, did you?’

  Peter ignored this. ‘What’s the case?’

  Georgia held her breath. Please, please Mike, say it’s a mugging, say it’s a theft, say it’s anything but something involving the Fernbourne Five.

  She had banked on this visit resolving loose ends, not opening up a new and more terrifying prospect.

  ‘Man staying at the pub. Found shot at the back of the churchyard.’

  ‘Not Damien Trent?’ Georgia asked in alarm. ‘Late twenties, dark, quite tall?’

  Mike looked at her stonily. ‘Yes.’

  Two

  ‘It’s just coincidence, Mike,’ Peter added pacifyingly, after he had explained why they were so fortuitously at his crime scene.

  Georgia kept silent. She wasn’t so sure. Mike seemed uncommonly eager to wrest the story – such as it was – from them, and he had informed them that their coincidences had a habit of entwining themselves into his cases rather too often.

  ‘You’d better have a look, Georgia,’ he told her matter-of-factly, nevertheless.

  ‘Is the body …?’

  ‘No. He was found five hours ago and the scene lads and doc have finished with him.’

  She was both relieved and annoyed with herself for being so craven. Churchyards and corpses held memories for her of a previous case, and now the same prospect hung over her once again.

  In fact the scene of the actual crime turned out not to be in the churchyard itself, but in the woods some twenty yards away on its far side. As she approached, the site became immediately apparent by the tent, and the number of white-suited SOCOs moving around. This footpath was clearly a well used one, which suggested it might eventually end up at the manor house.