by Amy Myers
‘But if so,’ Georgia pointed out, ‘that simply confirms the suicide verdict.’
Boxed into a corner, Peter took the easy way out. ‘We’re doing too much theorizing. Let’s go back to the scene of the crime – not poor Damien Trent’s, but Alwyn Field’s. There’s nothing like the actual scene for helping the mind to focus. I’ve already fixed it in fact – for tomorrow. Matthew was somewhat grudgingly agreeable, and said we could pick up the key from the pub. I had to insist it was on Mike’s orders.’
Georgia hoped that one wouldn’t come home to roost – or that Ted Laycock wouldn’t have ideas of his own when they requested the key. In the event, he didn’t, but his silence as he handed it over on the Tuesday afternoon spoke volumes of disapproval. The weather held the edge of autumn chilliness now, which made the cottage and garden seem even more forlorn than on their earlier visit. The love-in-a-mist was little in evidence now, and the poppies had vanished altogether, giving way to Michaelmas daisies fighting for survival amongst nettles.
‘Cottage first,’ Peter decreed. ‘You’ll probably have to do most of it though.’
In fact getting the wheelchair inside was not difficult, owing to the width of the eighteenth-century doorway. Georgia could see the cottage was as empty of contents as their earlier peeks through the window had suggested, and though clean enough it smelled musty. She couldn’t see Clemence coming round with a brush and pan but someone must do it. Janie probably, or else they paid for help from the village.
She walked through the hallway into the large kitchen, trying to conjure up a picture of Birdie, Alwyn and Roy eating here. Or perhaps they ate in state in the dining room with its peeling striped wallpaper. To her disappointment, however, nothing spoke of the past here, and indeed she had to bear in mind that it had been over fifty years since Alwyn had lived here. As she went upstairs, each step creaked in protest at unaccustomed work, and her footsteps echoed because of the lack of carpet.
The cottage seemed larger on the first floor than downstairs, with four bedrooms and a 1950s bathroom which had once been smart with its avocado suite; above the first floor, the eaves space had been converted into a large studio. For all of them, she wondered, or just Roy and Alwyn? Large windows, probably inserted in the days before listed building regulations, made it light and a pleasant place to work, she imagined. She could see the two of them working here – and of course Birdie.
She returned to the first floor to nose around the bedrooms. She wouldn’t mind betting that Birdie had the best one, which was tucked away on its own round a corner at one end of the passageway, making the cottage L-shaped. It had a splendid view over the garden – or what would have been splendid when the garden was lovingly tended. Did Roy tiptoe round here night after night? Perhaps he didn’t return Birdie’s love.
Perhaps was a useless word, Georgia decided, looking out on the wilderness beneath. It absolved you from having to put further thought into something – although at the moment that would have been welcome, so close to the place where Alwyn Field had died. Instead, she needed to grasp the nettle firmly – and there were plenty out there to grasp, she thought ruefully.
An ivy-covered fountain was just about visible in the middle of what had been the lawn beyond the stone terrace and steps, and on the left a high rockery delineated the end of the lawn. On the right were the remains of the path she and Peter had struggled down on their first visit, and she shivered at the memory. It was time to join Peter again.
‘Unpleasant, isn’t it?’ he remarked as she reached him.
He was right. Although nothing like the atmosphere at the stream, this part of the garden was far less appealing than Elfie’s front garden, perhaps because the band of dark trees across the stream looked so formidable.
‘I had a call from Mike, while you were gallivanting all over the house. The police investigation led nowhere. Alwyn Field was thoroughly unpopular all round, with his colleagues, with his family and the village, but no one would seem to have had reason for murder and nothing more turned up in the way of evidence to suggest it was.’
‘Didn’t you find that curious?’ Georgia asked. ‘Like the trust, it’s a united front.’
‘Possibly. Mike says the reason for the open verdict was an amount of alcohol in his body, plus sedatives. That could have been a way to keep him quiet, as there wasn’t much deep haemorrhaging or bruising, which could indicate a forceful strangling. But it could be the opposite. There was nothing found at the scene in the way of trace evidence. The rope was thick clothesline of the kind used by much of the village.’
‘Another impasse then, just as the jury found. So do we go on, or stop?’
‘We never stop. We merely pause,’ Peter said grandly. ‘But in this case, onwards. In Stella Gibbons’ immortal words, I still think there’s something nasty in the woodshed.’
‘For woodshed, read stream,’ Georgia said more bravely than she felt. ‘I’ll go down there again. There might be something about the layout of exactly where it happened that might help.’
She had hoped Peter might demur, but he didn’t, and so she picked her way through the brambles and overgrown grass to the point she had reached before. The willows, the stream, the tree that reached its branches over it – everything seemed to have stilled around her, as if waiting for her next move. The fingerprints remained, she was in no doubt of that. Alwyn had died here, either as a helpless victim or glad to leave the troubles of his life. She felt prickles of tension in her spine, as if the stillness around her was about to break into something more terrifying. Perhaps it was Alwyn’s desperation reaching over the years. But it could be more than that. It almost felt as if something or someone were watching her. She wanted to turn and run but pride prevented her.
But neither could she go across those stepping stones. The woods on the far side were presenting themselves as a dark mass of threat, and the stream had turned itself into a formidable obstacle. Fingerprints were becoming claws and there was no way this Little Red Riding Hood was going forward to find Grannie; she knew when it was time to retreat and leave the wolves to themselves. As if on cue, she thought she heard a quiet whistling coming from the woods. Her imagination? She listened, and heard nothing. Even as she turned to stumble up the slope to where Peter was waiting, however, she could have sworn she heard it again.
‘Still there?’ Peter called out to her.
He meant fingerprints, of course. Nothing else, and the stifled cry she had inadvertently let out seemed ridiculous in the security of the fading sun on the terrace. The anxiety in his voice gave her a reason to return that she gratefully clutched.
‘It’s stupid,’ she said to Peter, when she reached the terrace, ‘but I felt I was being watched.’
He didn’t laugh. ‘Is that so stupid? Suppose you are – suppose we are? Let’s get out of here.’
Being taken seriously made her feel worse, however, and she followed the wheelchair back to the car in silence. It had been nothing, she told herself; the mere product of an overactive imagination. ‘There isn’t a note on the car reading “Keep Away”, is there?’ she tried to joke, as Peter leaned forward to open the car door.
‘No,’ Peter said gravely. ‘But someone’s been here. We didn’t lock up, and my stuff on the back seat looks as if it’s been moved.’
So her panic could have been justified after all. She swallowed, trying to stop feeling like a kid scared of the dark. ‘Anything missing?’ she asked. ‘The computer’s there?’
‘I didn’t bring it, luckily. Someone’s just curious, perhaps, or giving us a gentle warning. Which means there really is something nasty in the woodshed.’
‘That Alwyn was murdered as an extension of being a victim of rough music?’
‘If so, what gave rise to that, Georgia? Is it likely the village would be so upset by a love affair between two adults, even though it was the lady of the manor and a poet concerned?’
‘No.’
‘Or over Alwyn plagiarizing a d
ead man’s work?’
‘No. So that means …’
‘There’s something else.’
Five
‘Georgia?’
Luke’s sudden exclamation made her jump, abandoning her lowly position as table-setter. Luke was by far the better cook, and was currently mid stir-fry for supper. She was ready for it, if only to take her mind off the events of the afternoon at Shaw Cottage.
‘Molly Sandford,’ he continued, ‘came to see me this morning. She’s a literary agent, and says she’s met you.’
‘What on earth did she want?’ she asked uneasily. This seemed a remarkable coincidence. She had deliberately refrained from telling Luke more about the manor and the Fernbourne Five, partly because he had business worries of his own, and partly because Luke was their publisher, not their mentor. She played momentarily with the idea of Molly being the watcher in the woods, but she couldn’t see those smart London designer shoes stumbling through Kentish undergrowth. Peering into cars perhaps …
Luke looked mildly surprised. ‘I’m a publisher. She had a couple of projects about the Fernbourne Five that she thought might interest me.’
Georgia was immediately suspicious. ‘What projects?’
Luke merely raised an eyebrow to indicate she was off limits. ‘Why?’
What on earth to say now? Nothing but the truth, she supposed, weak though it sounded. ‘Peter and I have just decided to tackle them as our next case.’
Luke looked startled, then remembered the stir-fry and pulled it off the heat. ‘I thought you’d abandoned that idea. So it’s on again. What’s the angle?’
She could hardly answer that Marsh & Daughter didn’t yet know. ‘Trade secret,’ she said lightly.
He eyed her thoughtfully. ‘So’s mine.’
Her heart sank. ‘There might be a clash here, Luke.’ How could she and Peter cast doubt on the established legend of the Five, of which Alwyn’s death was a part, but on the other hand, what would be the point of repeating it?
‘No clash for you,’ he pointed out. ‘Only for me, if I couldn’t publish both. But, on the whole,’ he added comfortingly, perhaps reading her stricken expression correctly, ‘that’s unlikely to happen.’
Was it? ‘You’re not thinking, Luke,’ she said, trying to sound professional and only succeeding in producing a sort of doleful squeak. ‘Marsh and Daughter books usually turn accepted fact upside down. That’s their whole point.’
He laughed. ‘True, but a juicy scandal might spice up the sales all round. Look, the only concrete proposition is reprints of some of the Five’s work to coincide with this big do they’re having next year. Hunt’s novels have recently been reprinted, so the trust wants the others to be represented too. There is another project as yet under wraps, however. Satisfied?’
‘I’m afraid not.’ She played the only card left in her hand. ‘Did you know there was a plagiarism issue over The Flight of the Soul?’
She lost the gamble. ‘Yes,’ Luke said somewhat coolly. ‘All settled, I gather.’
‘Not for Marsh and Daughter.’ She was getting in too far. She knew it, but couldn’t stop herself. Her words hardly made sense even to her, especially as she and Peter hadn’t yet fully examined this issue. Indeed they’d almost bypassed it, taking the plagiarism as established fact. The only doubt seemed to be in the degree of Alwyn’s duplicity. But if Marsh & Daughter took a different line to the trust’s, what then? It could be trouble for Luke, and even worse trouble between them in their private life.
‘On what basis?’ he asked.
‘An open line of investigation.’ This sounded weak too. Altogether she wasn’t doing well.
‘Then if and when you have some evidence for concern, tell me,’ he said reasonably, ‘and we can talk to Molly about it.’
The stir-fry was pushed back on to the heat again. ‘And’, he added, ‘if Marsh and Daughter decides to go ahead on the Fernbourne Five, give me an outline of the new proposal and I’ll look at it at the same time.’ Discussion ended.
The possibility of a clash between Luke the lover and Luke the publisher had always been there, she acknowledged bleakly. Now it would have to be faced. Luke was calm about it, but she was not. Meanwhile they would eat their stir-fry and postpone any more work discussion. And so to bed, where the problem might lie within her like an undigested pepper. The tempting thought of her own home popped into her mind. Thank heavens she had kept it. The bolt-hole it represented was a positive factor because although she would not use it, she knew she could.
She pushed the thought out again. Bolt-holes weren’t positive, only temporary refuges. Only progress forward would be positive. If she didn’t cope with this problem now, it could crop up again between herself and Luke, either over the Fernbourne Five or something else.
‘Suppose I follow this up with Molly?’ she suggested. ‘You could come too, if you like.’
Luke considered this. ‘No. We’ve different issues at stake. Have you got that table set yet?’
He was right, but the prospect of going alone to see Molly did not appeal. Too much like armed warfare. She’d sleep on it, she decided. Hours later, lying beside him in bed and listening to his rhythmical breathing – which, no doubt, she thought comfortably, would one day in their faraway future together become rhythmical snoring – she realized she was thinking of the poem on Alwyn Field’s gravestone: ‘I heard his music too.’ She woke in the morning with fleeting snatches of dreams of Pied Pipers and rats and children all racing for some far-off blue-misted mountain. What Pied Piper had Alwyn been chasing? Elfie, the muse of poetry, happiness? And what would lie beyond it for Marsh & Daughter? Not a paradise, that was for sure.
When she reached the office the next morning, she had almost convinced herself that there would be no clash with Molly Sandford, only to discover that the news of a possible rival publication outraged Peter even more than it had her.
‘That was very remiss of you, Georgia.’
‘I couldn’t have known that Molly was going to pounce on him,’ she said in her defence. The good thing about Peter was that he always moved on quickly.
‘Why go to Luke?’ He frowned. ‘No disparagement to Frost and Co, but why not a London publisher?’
‘Perhaps they all turned this mysterious project down, or perhaps reprints of poetry and old-fashioned children’s books are small beer for mass-market publishers.’
‘Or maybe it’s another step to block Marsh and Daughter from writing anything.’
‘This,’ Georgia pronounced gloomily, ‘is promising to be a real humdinger of a stir-fry. All the ingredients mixed up with no dominant flavour.’
‘There is,’ Peter observed firmly. ‘It’s Damien Trent. He’s been thrown back in the Fernbourne wok. Mike had a personal look at the laptop files and found a folder for the Five; that’s the good news. The bad news is that the files in it only had straight biographical information on the Five. He thought we’d like to know that there was nothing giving any clue as to what Damien was doing in Fernbourne, and still doesn’t believe the Five are necessarily connected with Damien’s death, although he’s prepared to consider it if more evidence turns up. Meanwhile he’s working on a much simpler line – local yobs and dealers.’
‘So where does that leave us? Back in yesterday’s garden?’ The woods at Shaw Cottage seemed frighteningly close, and for a moment the sound of that whistling haunted her again.
Peter looked at her scathingly. ‘Never look on it as yesterday, Georgia. This is today’s problem. It’s not so much the Fernbourne Five who are the hurdle for us, but the Fernbourne Trust, and with Trent’s death the cauldron is bubbling.’
‘Because we two witches are stirring it? I suppose that’s better than being in it.’
‘For once we’re innocent. The general heat is causing it. The arts centre is a big project, and there’s a lot at stake. It’s going to be Clemence’s legacy, and Matthew Hunt’s, but it’s also Janie’s future, Molly Sandford’s reputation
and part of her livelihood. Moreover, it’s Birdie’s big day, which means Christopher’s too.’
‘And for Ted Laycock?’
‘Nothing obvious. More trade for the pub?’
‘But resurrection of the plagiarism and Field’s suicide could threaten the arts centre, although that’s going to happen with or without us once the press gets stuck in.’
Peter frowned. ‘I’m not so sure. The suicide has already been dealt with in Hunt’s book, and the plagiarism is a dead issue, which, if need be, I’m sure the trust has plans to gently slide into the Five’s story. Their official story, that is. What could be at stake is the basic story itself. If the suicide was murder, or the plagiarism accusation false, then they become very much today’s problems for the trust. That’s where the danger lies.’
‘For them or for us?’ she asked, but he did not reply.
As soon as Georgia reached Fernbourne that afternoon she felt a difference. For a start, there was no sign of any police presence now. It was nearly three weeks since Damien’s death and the scene of crime cordon had long since been lifted. It seemed to have been replaced by a different kind of barrier, however, and this time it was invisible. As she parked the car, passers-by seemed to be hurrying their steps, faces set firmly looking in front of them. ‘Nonsense,’ she told herself uneasily, but when she went into the village shop she had the same reaction from another shopper. On the other hand Emma’s mum was eyeing her aggressively, as though ready and waiting if she dared to say anything about the Fernbourne Five. And then Georgia saw why. It was Wednesday, when the weekly Kent Sentinel was published. Over the front page was a huge headline ‘Fernbourne Murder’ and underneath was a picture of the beautiful Emma and Adam, plus a caption in which they both declared how terrible it was that no arrests had yet been made. That Mrs Baker objected to this publicity was evident from the scowl Georgia received when she took a copy to the counter to buy.
