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

by Amy Myers

  ‘Phew. Talk about a scrap,’ Georgia said to Luke on his return. ‘Where did he get the idea that Gavin was Suspect Number One for Roy’s murder?’

  ‘Clemence?’ Luke suggested.

  ‘Yes. Does that suggest it might have substance?’ She broke off as her mobile rang. What now?

  ‘Has Hunt gone, Georgia?’ Peter asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You both need to get here right away.’

  The tone of his voice told her this was urgent and she rushed straight out to the car, with Luke at her side. To her alarm as she parked outside Peter’s house, Mike Gilroy was coming out.

  ‘By the look on your face this is official business,’ she said, worried.

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Damien Trent?’

  ‘No. A new case in Fernbourne.’

  Alarm bells immediately rang. ‘Who?’

  ‘Clemence Gale. Found dead this morning. And she didn’t strangle herself.’

  Thirteen

  ‘My car,’ Peter said briefly, wheeling himself to the back door which was his main exit for the wheelchair. ‘Mike wants us over as soon as possible.’ He was right, Georgia realized. They needed to feel a team here, in the faint hope that such professional unity could distance them from the horror that Mike’s news had brought. Impossible to believe that this had happened: Clemence the artist, Clemence the wise counsellor, the solid rock of their investigation, and Clemence the warm-hearted woman. One day, after this case had been solved, she would have become a friend, but now someone had ruled that out for ever.

  Peter’s first thought had been for Janie, whom he’d rung immediately, while Georgia had talked to Luke. ‘You go,’ he had said. ‘Too many feet are a mistake on a crime scene.’ She knew he was right, but that it cost him dearly not to come. The important thing, he had said, was that they should find Clemence’s murderer.

  Peter drove almost in silence to Fernbourne. He told her he had only spoken very briefly to Mike, who had needed to hurry to the crime scene. Until they had been filled in on the whole picture, there was little point in their own speculation. There was only one question Georgia had to ask Peter.

  ‘Was it our fault?’ She knew he would answer truthfully. ‘Didn’t we ask the right questions, or did we get so near to the truth that we provoked this?’ Clemence’s warnings to her rang in her ears – warnings she hadn’t heeded.

  ‘It was her choice not to tell us everything she knew.’

  This wasn’t enough. ‘If she knew something then the trustees would as well.’

  ‘Not necessarily. Clemence could keep her own counsel.’

  ‘Janie?’ From his silence, she knew that was his fear.

  ‘Even if she knew nothing, which is the likelihood,’ Peter eventually said, ‘Clemence’s killer couldn’t be sure of that.’

  She thought of Janie in that vast empty house, with the woods closing in around it and the long, long nights. She would be wondering, as Georgia was herself: which of the people I’ve met could have done this?

  ‘Our problem is,’ Peter continued, ‘that we know the melody, but that doesn’t make the whole score.’

  The now familiar fields flashed inexorably by as Georgia counted the minutes before they would see the trees of Fernbourne. As soon as they entered the village she braced herself for what they would find. Despite the brightness of the day, the drive up to the manor house now seemed alive with memories of what they had faced on Bonfire Night.

  Two constables in the doorway of the manor came out to challenge them, but after Peter had spoken briefly to them, he received permission to drive on. He was stopped again when they reached the coach house and directed to an area set aside for mobile incident vans and cars. The rest was cordoned off. By the time they had negotiated entrance to the scene itself, Mike was there to meet them. He was known for his outward unflappability but today that seemed to have vanished.

  ‘Where is she?’ Georgia asked. ‘In her bedroom?’ She knew that was on the first floor beyond the studio.

  ‘Yes. Window broken in the kitchen, and the daughter –’ Mike consulted his notes – ‘Janie Hunt, slept in the manor. The scene seems clear enough so far.’ He hesitated. ‘Want to see her, Georgia?’

  Everything in her screamed out against it, but that was disloyal to Clemence. Peter wouldn’t be able to get up the stairs, so it was down to her. ‘Would it help?’ she asked Mike.

  ‘There’s always a chance. You can’t go in, but even so you need to be in whites.’ Georgia was glad of that. Putting the scene suit on forced her into some kind of professionalism, and once so clad and following Mike upstairs, she managed a certain detachment. She was thankful that Clemence hadn’t died in the studio, where they had chatted so recently, and she tried to fix her mind on that.

  Detachment vanished, however, when she saw Clemence’s body. It was useless telling herself this was the shell and Clemence herself had gone. She felt herself beginning to choke, and sought words – any words, clichéd or not. That’s what clichés were for. To establish some kind of basic communication when all else failed. ‘Would she have suffered?’

  ‘She looks as if she was a tough old lady, but that might have been more mental than physical, I guess.’ To have Mike standing at her side was a support. ‘Her fear would be the worst.’

  Was that comforting or not? She could think only of the familiar face distorted by a strangler’s hands.

  ‘Take a careful look at the room, Georgia,’ came Mike’s steadying voice. ‘Can you see anything odd about it?’

  ‘I haven’t seen this room before. Janie would be a better guide.’

  ‘Sure. But you’ve a trained eye, and she’s in shock.’

  ‘Of course.’ Georgia forced herself to concentrate on the room, not on the abused body on the bed.

  ‘I don’t expect you to note fag-ends and trace evidence,’ Mike told her. ‘But you not only knew her but knew her in connection with the Fernbourne Five, and there almost has to be a link. You might spot something.’

  Paintings on the walls, dressing table, bookshelf, photographs … Then her eye fell on two canvases propped facing the dressing table. ‘What are those?’

  Mike signalled to a SOCO to turn them round, and Georgia’s heart plummeted when she recognized them.

  ‘I’ve seen them before,’ she told Mike, ‘but they were in the studio when I looked at them with …’ She found herself unable to say Clemence’s name. One was Double Janus, the other The Abdication. Jenny Baker’s disturbing face looked out at them enigmatically, but beyond her the unrecognizable man still drew the eye. For some reason she brought them in here, I suppose to think about them.’

  ‘What’s to think about?’ asked Mike pragmatically.

  How to answer that? Georgia drew a deep breath. ‘Perhaps it goes to the heart of the Fernbourne Five. The girl is Jenny Baker.’

  ‘Damien Trent.’ Mike immediately perked up with something concrete to go on. ‘His grandmother.’

  Georgia nodded. ‘Grandfather uncertain, however. Alwyn Field or Roy Sandford.’

  ‘Is the foggy chap in the picture either of them?’

  ‘Could be, but that’s not its point. It’s the power of sexual control: who holds it, who wields it.’

  Mike lost interest in the paintings. ‘You said Damien Trent was coming to see Mrs Hunt, only he was murdered before he could do so. If, as you say, he’d sorted out this Roy Sandford as his grandfather, why come to see her?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Georgia admitted.

  Mike had as usual put his finger on a weak point. Just what line had Damien been pursuing? He’d been no mere fan of literature or art, that was for sure. Mike must have noticed her mental – perhaps physical – slump, because he said, ‘Let’s join Peter. There were no signs of burglary that we could see, though we’ll be asking the daughter to check. It doesn’t look like casual crime; it’s too far off the beaten track to be a maniac who likes killing old ladies for fun.’

&
nbsp; Georgia didn’t reply and Mike took her arm.

  ‘Over to the big house for you. More comfortable there while you fill me in.’

  She was relieved. That would put her back in working mode as doubtless Mike had intended. He took her to the room with the sofas, where she could see Peter and Janie, Janie at one end of a sofa, and Peter at her side, his arm round her shoulders. Peter didn’t normally demonstrate sympathy with physical actions, and this reaction showed how much Clemence’s death had meant to him too. A PC was doing her best to be unobtrusive by the window.

  ‘I’ll need you, Peter,’ Mike said tactfully, ‘and you too, Georgia, in a minute or two.’ Reluctantly Peter followed him out of the room, as Georgia went across to hug Janie.

  ‘It was my fault,’ Janie blurted out. ‘If only I’d been sleeping there this wouldn’t have happened.’

  ‘It might,’ Georgia said gently. What she didn’t add was that Janie too might then be dead.

  After a few more words, she left the PC in charge, though Janie seemed oblivious anyway, and joined Mike and Peter in the Fernbourne Room across the passage.

  ‘Right,’ Mike said when they were settled. ‘Tell me the lot, including every crazy notion you have or had. And I want a who’s who in Fernbourne. We’ve done one from Damien Trent’s viewpoint. Now I need your perspective.’

  Peter managed a grin. ‘Not often you ask for that, Mike.’

  ‘Not often I’ve got nowhere in a case like Damien Trent’s and not paid sufficient credence to the fact that you two were snooping around. The SOCOs have got glove prints for the coach house window and sent them off for comparison with Trent’s killer’s. If they match then what you tell me now is going to be vital. If they don’t, I still need to know.’

  It took a good thirty minutes to fill Mike in and even after that Georgia was by no means sure that they were on the same wavelength. It was easy to relate facts and theories, but how to convey even to Mike the atmosphere and all the hundred and one impressions that they brought? That, she supposed, was the point. Mike needed black and white and was an expert at dispersing any colour if he needed to.

  ‘So where you are now,’ Mike summed up, ‘is that there’s a strong suspicion not only that Alwyn Field was murdered, but that Roy Sandford was as well. Both seem doubtful to me. The police investigation at the time got nowhere on Field. On the other hand, if you’re right, it could have led to the deaths of either Trent or Mrs Hunt, or both. I take it that the opening of the arts centre next year is at stake as well as this Fernbourne Five’s reputation. Know what I think?’

  ‘Tell us.’ Peter was being unusually polite.

  ‘Two murders in the last couple of months is using a sledgehammer to crack a long dead nut.’

  ‘One man’s nut is another man’s caviar, his most valued possession,’ Peter shot back.

  ‘Roy Sandford is the heart of the mystery, and particularly how he met his death,’ Georgia maintained. ‘Clemence warned us not to get involved.’

  ‘That’s not caviar. It’s in the past,’ Mike pointed out.

  ‘The next generation can also be their protagonists in the present,’ Peter fought back. ‘Inherited legacies can be tied closely to the successors’ egos. Take Matthew Hunt, Clemence’s stepson. He’s in the firing line. The new arts centre is his legacy to leave for the lucky future.’

  ‘Why should he be concerned over Roy Sandford? What about Sandford’s descendants?’

  ‘I don’t see Great-Aunt Betty marching down here.’

  ‘She could have an emissary.’

  If it hadn’t been for the heavy lump that had substituted itself for her stomach, Georgia would have been amused at the idea of Betty Sandford as a hit man. Peter had different ideas. ‘There’s Molly Sandford, but it’s unlikely. She’s a businesswoman in London.’

  ‘Who else?’ Mike demanded.

  ‘Birdie Field is looking forward to the opening because of the publicizing of her love affair with Roy Sandford. Her son’s on the board of trustees, but her reputation isn’t at stake. And if it’s publicity she’s after she’d get plenty whether the arts centre goes ahead or not.’

  ‘Janie Hunt?’ Mike asked.

  ‘No,’ Peter replied very definitely. ‘No motive.’

  ‘What about the Laycocks? You said Ted was on the board.’

  ‘His father was the manor gardener in the 1940s, and his uncle ran the pub. Ted took over when the uncle died. The pub is on lease from the manor.’

  ‘Does he suffer from loyal retainers’ syndrome? Years of service sort of thing?’

  ‘Probably, but not much of a motive. And it was his father, not he, who worked directly for the manor.’

  ‘Dig further. Anyone else? So far we’ve got several elderly men and one old lady in her nineties. Oh, and a London businesswoman – I don’t see any of them as stranglers. What about the next generation? Plenty of drugs and gangs on the Trent case files.’

  ‘Shooting, yes, but strangling, Mike?’ Peter said doubtfully. ‘Matthew Hunt, Gavin’s son, is head of the firing line. A nasty piece of work, but a murderer? It’s possible I suppose, but I don’t see him strangling an old lady with malice and motive aforethought. His grandson Sean is a villain, as you know.’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten him,’ Mike replied grimly.

  ‘Nor me,’ Georgia said feelingly. She described Sean’s attack on Emma, and then their Bonfire Night experiences to Mike and he frowned.

  ‘That one didn’t reach my desk from Uniform. Sabre rattling?’

  ‘More than that,’ Georgia said. ‘Much more. “Clear off our turf, or we’ll make you.”’ A picture of Emma began to merge in her mind with Jenny Baker, and one of Sean and Adam with Roy and Alwyn. And that took her back to Clemence’s painting: who was wielding the power there? Gavin the controller? Or Roy the seducer? Or Alwyn himself?

  Peter dropped Georgia off at Medlars before driving on to Haden Shaw. Janie was under sedation and there was nothing more to be gained by either of them by remaining at the manor. Never before had Georgia been so glad to reach home. She couldn’t even face calling in at the oast house and seeing the sympathetic faces of the staff.

  And here was Luke, at home, by some miracle, and not in the office. He came to meet her in the hallway but for a moment she was too choked to speak. His arms were round her and that was all she wanted for the moment. ‘Oh, I’m glad to be home,’ she said at last. Another cliché, but a cliché that filled a need.

  ‘Drink and then tell me,’ Luke said, moving her with him and with one hand reaching out for the brandy already poured into a glass and waiting for her. He watched her as she sipped it.

  ‘That’s good,’ she said gratefully.

  ‘So now tell me.’ He listened as she spilled out the story, occasionally putting in a comment or asking a question. When finally she came to a halt, he said, ‘Molly’s already down here. She’s been to see Matthew. They’re not telling Birdie the news yet. They’re afraid of its effect. Now, if you can face eating, I’ve got lunch ready. It’s going to be a long day. Molly’s coming this afternoon.’

  Georgia sank back in relief, feeling like a child coming home from school, with these comforting words. Only when she used to return home, Elena had never quite got anything organized. But Luke had. She realized without surprise that she’d begun to think of Medlars as home. Someday, if this terrible case was ever over, she’d put the Haden Shaw cottage on the market. Someday soon.

  With lunch over, Molly had to be faced. Georgia wasn’t sure she could summon up the strength, but when she arrived, Molly looked as in need of Luke’s care as Georgia had been. She looked white, and lined for once.

  ‘I’ve been to see Matthew,’ she said abruptly. ‘He’s talking to the press. He’s good at that. Better than me or Janie. She’s not up to that, poor thing.’

  ‘What line is he taking?’

  ‘The truth. Appalling tragedy. Great achievements. Last member of the Fernbourne Five to die. The manor project w
ill be a memorial to her work. Family devastated. All true, yet he said bloody nothing worthwhile about Clemence. Nothing. Might as well have been the dog that died.’

  It was as if she’d ripped off her business mask, and with it went her usual articulate phrasing and logical thinking, Georgia thought.

  ‘News hounds have to be fed, just like any other kind of hound, Molly,’ Georgia comforted her. ‘Don’t judge Matthew harshly over that. We all live by words one way or another. Sometimes they mean something, sometimes they don’t. We all knew Clemence. We all admired her, loved her.’

  Molly didn’t comment. Instead she said abstractedly, looking round the Medlars living room, ‘I envy you this. It almost makes me want to pair off again. Almost but not quite. Then I remember the rows and know I’m fine as I am. Have dog, have cat, two in fact. That’s enough.’

  Georgia glanced at Luke, who shook his head slightly. Don’t say anything, he was intimating. She’ll say more. He was right.

  ‘I’ve been giving some thought to what you suggested about Roy,’ Molly continued after a pause.

  It almost seemed unimportant now. ‘That he was murdered? The police point out that we’ve no hard evidence.’

  ‘I decided to talk to Great-Aunt Betty after all,’ Molly replied. ‘If her story about Jenny is right, it puts a different complexion on everything. Including whether Roy was murdered. She said she’d always harboured a suspicion that Alwyn might have killed Roy through jealousy. I can’t see it, but that’s the trouble with dead clients,’ she complained, ‘especially if you’re writing a biography of one of them. In theory not knowing them gives you a more objective way in, but to my mind that’s more of a handicap if you really want to get at the truth, not just your idea of it.’

  ‘How are you depicting Roy?’ Georgia asked. Anything to take her mind off Clemence and that last sight of her.

  Molly grimaced. ‘As a wooden lump at the moment. He refuses to come to life except as a cliché of a golden youth cut short in his prime. OK, but it doesn’t satisfy me. I put that down to my lack of powers as a writer, and so it might be. But it might also be that I’m several pieces short in the jigsaw.’