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

by Amy Myers

  ‘Yes. Planted for Alwyn,’ Georgia said. She was back to safety, though night had fallen. ‘The legend was right all the time. Elfie adored Alwyn. What the legend did not report was that Alwyn loved only Roy. He must have been a gentle soul, unlike Roy Sandford, but he’s still a mystery.’

  ‘And that,’ Peter said, as he turned the wheelchair to return to the car, ‘is the point. He is still a mystery. We said Roy was the key, but we began with Alwyn, and that’s where we must end.’

  Fifteen

  ‘We thought we should tell you ourselves, Janie,’ Peter said, having explained what had happened after they had left the funeral. ‘It could be the reason that your mother was killed.’

  It had been his suggestion that both Georgia and he should visit her the next day. A low time, Peter had said. Georgia’s immediate reaction was that they should wait, but Peter had merely replied once more, as had Janie herself, that the sooner this was over the better.

  ‘Look at this place,’ Janie said in despair. She was still living in the manor, and no wonder. ‘It feels like a great empty barn now that my mother has gone. It had some purpose then, now it doesn’t.’

  ‘It does,’ Georgia said, ‘and you’ll feel that again once you feel able to begin work again.’

  ‘I suppose so, but it’s hard to imagine it. What was going to be a great adventure now seems more like another wake ahead. Thanks for coming to tell me, though.’

  ‘It does mean the end of the story is fast approaching,’ Georgia said.

  ‘The true story of the Fernbourne Five. That’s good. I need to know how far my mother was involved.’ She looked at them hopefully.

  ‘In nothing that didn’t meet her own standards of integrity,’ Peter said firmly. ‘And they were pretty high.’

  Janie looked at him gratefully. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘You know …’ She was clearly struggling with tears. ‘I didn’t know any of this. She told Matthew, but not me. I suppose she would have done if … if … I must say,’ she said quickly, ‘I’m glad I drew Clemence and not Elfie in the lottery of life. Poor old Matthew. He’ll take it badly.’

  ‘Only if the police find and identify the body,’ Peter said. ‘I don’t see him believing it otherwise.’

  ‘Oh, I do. Come in here. I want to show you something.’

  She took them into the study room, which was still as chaotic as it had been on their earlier visit – hardly surprising in the circumstances. ‘This is all Elfie’s stuff, and this is where Luke must have snaffled those letters.’ She managed a grin. ‘You wanted to know whether Elfie had ever drawn any pictures of Roy. The answer’s yes. Have a look at these.’

  She produced a folder and laid it on the study table for them to see. Georgia bit back a cry. What lay before her were black and white drawings of dark trees, nude bodies in overt sexual positions intertwined in the trees and branches, and stark corpses or ghosts. It was hard to see which in the latter case, and Georgia shuddered. These went far beyond those published in The Woods Beyond the Stream.

  ‘The file’s labelled “Dark Wood drawings”. You can see why,’ Janie said.

  Georgia could. The file was dated 1941/2. ‘These are her nightmares of Roy.’

  ‘Yes,’ Janie said. ‘I felt sorry for Matthew. He took one look at these, and immediately said she had been ill. If he’d ever seen them, which I doubt, he must have blocked them from his mind. Like his mother, I guess, only she didn’t succeed so well, judging by the nightmare quality of these.’ She hesitated. ‘Did my mother know about Roy’s murder all the time?’ she asked awkwardly.

  ‘Only much later. When your father died.’

  Janie nodded. ‘Good. But perhaps she sensed what was going on at Shaw Cottage much earlier.’

  ‘You mean the painting your father didn’t like, “The Abdication”? We thought that was because he was the model.’

  ‘No, Roy was. At least we know why my father didn’t like it – he didn’t want to be reminded of why Elfie had murdered Roy Sandford.’

  ‘It might also have made him uncomfortable about the rough music against Alwyn,’ Georgia pointed out.

  ‘You could be right. He played no part in that. And he most certainly didn’t like my mother’s “Double Janus” either, and nor did Birdie. That’s the painting that troubled my mother most, because when you think about it, it represents the passions of Shaw Cottage as much as Roy himself.’ Janie paused. ‘Should we hang them in the new arts centre?’

  ‘Was Clemence proud of them?’

  ‘As an artist, yes. It was the subjects that disturbed her. She found she was painting something she didn’t fully understand herself.’

  ‘Then do it,’ Georgia urged her.

  ‘Matthew won’t like it,’ Peter murmured.

  Janie managed a smile. ‘Matthew can go to hell.’

  In daylight even in December these woods looked almost benign. Despite the scene suits, the diggers, the masks, the tents awaiting erection if the body were found – and despite Mike’s formidable presence. Of course Mike had to be here, and Georgia was glad of it. He needed to see whether the body was really here before he called in the full team. If it was, then the usual grim procedures would take place. If it wasn’t, he would consider whether to do a wider search. Laycock, Mike had pointed out, could well have been lying, or else deceived by the father as to where Roy Sandford’s remains lay.

  At first Matthew had declined the suggestion that he should join them, but then changed his mind – perhaps because Molly and Janie had been determined to attend. As, of course, had Ted. None of them spoke as they watched the diggers’ progress. Peter had managed to get as far as the near side of the stream and Georgia had decided to stay with him. It was only ten feet or so away from the site, but even so it gave a measure of detachment.

  As the time crept by, Georgia began to lose hope. There was nothing yet, although the diggers were several feet down. Another fifteen minutes crept by, and then: ‘Here!’ Mike suddenly called.

  Torn between reluctance and duty, Georgia crossed quickly to the other side to join the main party. She stared down into the hole. There, lying against the dark soil, was a hand stretching out as it must have fallen when the body was lowered. Whatever Ted’s father had wrapped the body in must have rotted away, for as the diggers carefully scraped a little more of the soil away, the whole skeletal arm appeared with scraps of what might have been a covering. Mike called a halt while he summoned the dedicated team.

  ‘We don’t want to go into overdrive and then find the bones are prehistoric,’ he said, going over the stream to put Peter in the picture.

  Small chance of that, Georgia thought. She was certain she was staring at the remains of Roy Sandford, which had been in the ground over sixty years. At her side Matthew was trembling, and ashen-faced.

  ‘My God,’ he murmured over and over again. ‘Clemence told me about Roy’s murder after my mother died. I didn’t believe her, even though I felt I had to at least warn Birdie. I thought Clemence was prejudiced. My mother had caused a great deal of trouble between her and Gavin one way and another.’

  ‘What the hell am I going to tell Betty?’ Molly muttered.

  ‘It will confirm her suspicions,’ Georgia said, perhaps unwisely. ‘Even if Alwyn wasn’t his murderer, but his lover.’

  ‘You’re probably right. She never liked Elfie. She said she never trusted wistful ladies who wafted through life with a faint smile.’

  ‘I’ll talk to her,’ Matthew said.

  ‘You will not.’ Molly turned angrily on him. ‘Thanks a bunch, Matthew, but you’ve done enough. You set me up, all of you, as a patsy. I was the mug who was going to write the biography of the bright flame, whom you all knew to be bisexual, and probably a rapist to boot. Now it turns out that the bright flame was snuffed out by your mother.’

  ‘Not proven,’ Matthew snapped.

  ‘I’ll give them a bucketful of DNA and so will Betty if it will make you admit the truth for once, Matth
ew.’

  He blenched, but replied calmly enough, ‘Why don’t we go to the pub while they’re waiting for the next stage?’

  Molly looked undecided, but Georgia took her arm and led her back to the crossing stones to join Peter and Mike. Molly grinned at her as she thanked her. ‘Don’t say life must go on, will you, Georgia?’

  ‘I promise.’

  In fact, once they were established in the warmth of the King’s Head, it was Molly who reverted to the practical approach. ‘Assuming what we’ve just seen are indeed Roy’s remains, I suppose we need to decide pronto what’s to happen about the launch of the arts centre and whether we do want reprints available.’

  Matthew answered her stonily. ‘The centre will go ahead, as arranged, of course.’

  Georgia was as taken aback as Molly clearly was. ‘Just like that?’ she asked. ‘But there’s no legend left to promote.’

  ‘I think you’ll find there is. The legend, as you rather scornfully refer to it, is that my mother was in love with Alwyn and he with her. Has that been contradicted? No. There is nothing in my book about the plagiarism – or otherwise – of The Flight of the Soul, merely a passing reference to both poets having been involved in it. That could well be true. No mention of Jenny Baker’s rape either. Roy’s death occurred during an air raid. True enough, even if the raid were not the cause of it. I have dealt in my book with the artistic achievements of the Five. I suggest we leave it at that.’

  Georgia glanced quickly at Peter, and then spoke for them both. ‘You can leave it where you like, Matthew. Marsh and Daughter won’t. Your book skims over the surface.’

  ‘There is no need to tell the whole sordid story …’ Matthew began.

  ‘There is,’ Molly said flatly. ‘Believe me, Matthew, this time there is. We do tell the whole story. If we don’t, others will sensationalize it.’

  Georgia was appalled. ‘Peter and I won’t do that …’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Molly looked aghast. ‘I should have said the whole story must be told by you, not by the tabloid press. We have six months, we can do it.’

  ‘Including the truth about Roy?’ Georgia was astonished at Molly’s turnaround.

  ‘Yes,’ Molly said. ‘There’s no way I can do a biography of Roy now that the poor devil has been deprived of his life and his reputation.’

  ‘The poor devil you refer to raped Jenny Baker,’ Georgia retorted.

  ‘True.’ Molly looked worried. ‘What do we do about the Bakers, Matthew? They’ll have to be told.’

  ‘The advantage of having been a businessman,’ Matthew said wryly, ‘is that one learns to move forward with the tide. In this case, with our friends the Marshes so heavily involved, I suggest there is only one way out. Everyone concerned takes a seat at the table to sort out the mess.’

  Molly looked pleased. ‘That’s a brilliant idea, Matthew – provided you make sure the meeting comes to some agreed conclusion. We can get Great-Aunt Betty and Birdie in on it. If we all work together we could get the whole story out at once and have a tremendous opening.’

  Peter had been silent for too long, Georgia realized, but now he said his piece. ‘Aren’t you overlooking something? We haven’t got the whole story. You’re forgetting Alwyn.’

  ‘I’m tired, Georgia,’ Peter said wearily as she drove them back to Haden Shaw.

  ‘Take the rest of the day off, come to us,’ she urged.

  ‘Not physically. I’m mentally tired of never having enough answers.’

  ‘You’re thinking of Rick again,’ she said gently. ‘You can’t do that. That’s our personal problem. You’ve had no answers to the advertisements?’

  ‘No. Still early days, I suppose. But it won’t lead anywhere and I know that. We’ll never have the answer, just as we won’t about this case. I’m on the point of giving up.’

  ‘Don’t,’ she said firmly. ‘You know the solution is there waiting for us.’

  He sighed. ‘I suppose Alwyn Field is the key to this, not Roy. He almost has to be. We think we know Roy’s story, but it’s led us nowhere. If Clemence and Damien were killed because of their knowledge of Roy’s murder, then it would surely have led us onwards, but it hasn’t.’

  ‘Matthew – Ted,’ she began hopefully.

  ‘We don’t believe that, do we, Georgia? Not deep down. I wish we did.’

  ‘No. Apart from Scatty Betty, whom I presume we can discount, who hated Alwyn sufficiently to want to murder him?’

  ‘There’s only one answer to that, isn’t there?’ Peter said.

  She looked as if she had been expecting them. Perhaps she was, as there was no Christopher here today. Birdie’s bright eyes were cold like a bird of prey’s; she was sitting erect, no blanket around her, just a frail and very old lady. Frail in body perhaps, Georgia thought, but, like Clemence, not in mind. Birdie said nothing, but kept those cold eyes on Peter, which made it all the more chilling as he said flatly:

  ‘You killed Alwyn, didn’t you, Birdie?’

  For Georgia, murder by a frail old woman had seemed unbelievable. Now looking at those stony eyes she knew it was the truth. Of course, Georgia and Peter had reasoned, Birdie hated Alwyn. Her brother or not, he had seduced her beloved Roy away from her. She had never forgiven him for it. Or Elfie for telling her after Roy’s death that Roy and Alwyn were lovers. That’s why Birdie had invited her to live at Shaw Cottage, so that Elfie should suffer every day. She knew Elfie hated the place, although Birdie assumed this was because her beloved Alwyn had spurned her love here. It had been Birdie’s revenge. She had turned on the messenger, not the culprit. She didn’t know that her Roy lay there dead all that time, not until after Elfie had died. The stories she had told them about Elfie and Alwyn at Shaw Cottage were malicious lies. The trust and Birdie had different interests, the trust determined to protect the secret of Roy’s murder – a secret Birdie couldn’t reveal after she knew about it, lest investigation opened up the matter of Alwyn’s death again.

  Georgia waited for Birdie to speak but she did not. Peter repeated the question and this time Birdie did reply.

  ‘I was away,’ she said indifferently.

  ‘You planned it,’ Peter said. ‘Perhaps you drugged Alwyn and Joe Baker carried the deed out, after you had told him that Alwyn had raped Jenny. Falsely of course. And with your artistic skills you copied all Alwyn’s poems into Roy’s handwriting, and faked suicide notes in Alwyn’s. Tell me, Mrs Atkin, why didn’t you destroy Alwyn’s original manuscripts of the poems? Did you see a chance of using them in some kind of blackmail, hurting Alwyn even more by letting him think that Elfie had been the forger in revenge for his not loving her in the way she wanted? Is that why he left nothing to her in his will?’

  A laugh, still in a monotone as though these were matters of complete indifference to her. ‘The bitch needed a lesson. All “darling Elfie” and “how clever of you, Elfie”. I needed to keep an eye on her, so I told her we could mourn Alwyn together if she came to live with me. I took my forgeries up to the manor saying they were files Roy had left at Shaw Cottage when he died, and I pushed one or two of Alwyn’s originals plus one or two forgeries in Roy’s handwriting into Elfie’s papers, hoping Gavin might find them and think she’d done it. He never did, and she never found them. So I put the rest of them into her junk when she moved in with me. Insurance policy, as I saw it. They’re always saying we should have something in the bank. I could shut Gavin up if he ever suspected there was more to the suicide than met the eye.’

  ‘And the rape of Jenny Baker? That was Roy, wasn’t it?’

  She shrugged. ‘Rape? The girl was always throwing herself at him. Why shouldn’t he take her? He loved me, not her. Easy enough to make Joe think it was Alwyn and talk him into the rough music and then into killing him. I made it easy for him. I left some pills dissolved in his whisky, and then went off and left things to Joe. Alwyn was a fool, he always was.’

  Peter glanced at Georgia, who nodded. They needed the whole truth now. It w
as Peter who put the question. ‘And Clemence and Damien Trent had to die for that?’

  Her face went blank. ‘I’m tired,’ she complained.

  ‘Then the police will have to come.’

  The eyes grew cunning. ‘I’m an old woman.’

  ‘Not too old to murder.’

  ‘Who says I did?’

  ‘We will, and they’ll believe us,’ Peter said matter-of-factly. ‘Damien came to see you. He told you all about Roy being his father, and not Alwyn. You were afraid that he’d spill the beans, and that it could lead to the discovery that Alwyn’s death wasn’t suicide, but that you murdered him. Did he suspect the truth about Roy’s death too? You wanted your moment of glory at the opening, not to have the past dragged up in front of you.’

  Georgia was afraid they’d gone too far, for Birdie made no reply, or gave any sign that he had spoken. But she wouldn’t stop now.

  ‘And then Clemence came to see you,’ Georgia said. ‘She told you we were working on the theory that both Alwyn and Roy were murdered. You couldn’t kill both of us, but you could get at Clemence. She knew. She was the last one of the Five. And if we discovered through her about Roy’s murder, sooner or later we would link you with Alwyn’s death, as well as Damien’s.’

  Birdie was quiet for a while, with her head nodding gently. Then she turned on them. ‘You fools don’t understand,’ she screeched. ‘If they knew about Roy, they’d know why that woman killed him. I couldn’t have that – Roy loved me. Only me. Not Alwyn, not Jenny, not that woman. Not Elfie Lane.’ Her voice was rising, and Georgia half rose. But Birdie grew quiet again, her eyes glittering.

  ‘We were in love, Roy and I,’ she crooned to herself. ‘He loved me. He came to me in flower time, put a rose in my hair and his kiss on my cheek. He touched me so gently. “My Birdie,” he said, “my gentle, gentle Birdie. We’ll fly together, you and I, not in my Spitfire, but on the wings of love. When the war’s over we’ll marry – all the poems of the world I will lay at your feet, my Birdie, my Dorinda.” We walked by the stream, we walked in the fields. We picked primroses together. He bound them in my hair, a garland of flowers. For me. Mrs Roy Sandford … After the war, after the war …’