The Marsh & Daughter Casebook

by Amy Myers

  She found herself running, and this time running back. Luke had begun walking down the lane towards her, so it wasn’t too far to go. No time to change her mind now, and in any case she didn’t want to. This time he just held her.

  ‘Sure?’ he asked.

  ‘Quite sure.’

  He drew a deep breath. ‘Thank heavens for that. I thought I wouldn’t be needing that double bed again.’

  ‘You’ll be needing it. We could try it out tonight.’

  ‘We’re not moving in tonight.’

  ‘South Malling. Trial period.’

  ‘Trial periods are over, remember?’

  ‘I do, I do.’

  ‘OK, that’s settled. Now we can go celebrate at the pub. Anyway I’ve some business to talk about.’

  ‘Deeds to sign?’

  ‘That you should be so lucky. Wedding banns?’

  ‘That you should be so lucky,’ she retorted cheerfully. ‘One day. House first.’

  With lunch over, and as they reached Peter’s office, she thought to remind Luke about the business he’d mentioned.

  ‘Oh yes, I’ve found Thomas Langley for you,’ he told them.

  ‘Who?’ Even Peter looked blank.

  ‘The aged barman from Woodring Manor who was there in 1975. Lives in Maidstone now.’

  ‘That’s very good of you, Luke,’ Peter said, gratified.

  ‘Not at all. He’s the brother of the owner of Medlars.’

  ‘This is a remarkable amount of good news for one day,’ Peter gloated. ‘Anything else? You don’t happen to know what name Alan Purcell’s living under in France, do you?’

  Luke looked blank. ‘Purcell?’ He laughed, picking up Peter’s favourite current book. ‘Try Arthur.’

  ‘Very funny,’ Georgia said sourly.

  ‘No, really. If Purcell changed his name it might have been something related to the composer. His work for instance. You never know. Dido, Aeneas, King Arthur . . . I’d say Arthur was the most likely.’

  ‘You know, Georgia, he’s got a point,’ Peter said, excited. ‘Let’s try that at least.’

  He was already reaching for the phone when it rang. He glanced at Georgia and as he answered it he held the receiver briefly towards her so that she could hear the familiar tones of DI Pullman.

  She couldn’t work out what he was saying from Peter’s end of the conversation. ‘More good news?’ she asked when he rang off.

  ‘Depends. He thought we’d like to know that they’ve charged Paul Stock with Jack Hardcastle’s murder. He’s admitted being at the house that evening.’

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘That must mean,’ Georgia said, ‘that Jack’s death is connected to Patrick Fairfax’s.’ They had been talking about the arrest for what seemed like hours and still they came back to this starting point. Not long after Pullman’s call, Paul’s wife had telephoned.

  According to Paul, Jack had rung him quite peaceably to ask if they could have a chat about the aviation club. Paul had assumed he meant over the phone or for a drink, but Jack had asked if he could come over right away. He’d something he wanted to talk about. When he got there, Jack was his usual hale and hearty self. They had a glass of beer, and Paul was intrigued, but all Jack wanted was to talk about Patrick Fairfax and 362 Squadron. Did Patrick ever talk about the war to him? Paul had answered truthfully no. The drink came to an end, and so did the meeting.

  Odd, Georgia had observed.

  ‘Just what Pullman probably thought. He showed no signs that he believed the slightest word Paul said.’

  ‘Why did his wife ring us?’

  ‘Ah. Pullman is, Paul fears, making up a case that it was he who killed Fairfax in 1975 and that Jack was threatening to expose that, having just discovered the Janet Freeman angle.’

  Georgia couldn’t see this. ‘Even if they could make a circumstantial case for his killing Jack, they couldn’t find proof for his killing Patrick. If it was as easy as that, the police would have found it at the time. As it was, it appears he wasn’t even suspected. So where do we stand on this?’

  ‘Jack’s death is a moral responsibility for us if it was we who stirred him up over 1975. Our focus is still Fairfax, and Paul is still therefore in our sights. Even so, I can’t see him murdering anyone, can you?’

  How could one possibly tell, she wondered. She remembered Jack’s ‘That bastard!’ Would he really have an amicable discussion only a week or two later with said bastard?

  ‘Yes,’ she said finally. ‘I could. But only impulsively. Jack’s death would fit with that, but not Fairfax’s. I could see Paul having a fight with Fairfax on the spot, but not then attending the reunion and having a business meeting, and all the while planning to spirit up some ammunition, seize that gun and stalk Patrick until he got him on his own. It doesn’t add up.’

  ‘Pullman thinks it does. We’ve no idea what forensic evidence he might be sitting on. The only point in Paul’s favour is—’

  ‘The weak story he gave his wife to tell us,’ Georgia finished for him. The advantage of a long partnership is that minds think alike. And in long marriages too, she thought. A vision of herself and Luke as grey-haired pensioners popped into her mind, not entirely to her horror. A good sign?

  *

  ‘Beer in an English pub garden on a summer’s day, with the sun above, the river in front and the knowledge that all the world and his wife could pass you by, kings, road sweepers, prime ministers. One of the great signs of anonymity,’ Peter observed as he sipped his drink.

  ‘Drinking beer?’ Georgia enquired.

  ‘Quite. It bestows a cloak of invisibility. What the butler saw. Some day I’ll write a history of Britain written entirely from the butler’s diaries, only in this case the barmen,’ Peter said. ‘Has it ever occurred to you that the real history of any country remains untold because those who can write don’t write the truth, only their political slant, and those who could tell the truth either couldn’t or hadn’t the time to write?’

  Georgia laughed. ‘Then how will you write this great history, Lord Macaulay?’

  ‘Macaulay had a sweeping overview in his History of England, but I would have a worm’s eye view from beneath. And to answer your question, I’ve no idea, but you consider what the chambermaids and butlers could tell us about the events of history. Napoleon, we are told, had piles that affected the course of Waterloo. Suppose Henry II had had a row with his wife before he so irritably told four of his best knights to rid him of that turbulent priest Thomas à Becket. Or that the Earl of Leicester had a stomach disorder the day he went a-wooing Good Queen Bess. Or that Queen Victoria’s stays were laced too tightly on the day she was not amused. Yes, gardeners, ladies’ maids, butlers . . .’

  ‘Barmen,’ supplied Georgia. ‘Seeing that’s why we’re waiting here today. To be exact, a retired barman. This might be Mr Langley coming now.’

  Strolling towards them in a determined fashion was an affable-looking man in his sixties with an equally affable-looking spaniel on a lead at his side.

  She and Peter had followed up Luke’s information, and this had proved the first opportunity Thomas Langley had free, a week later. Such was retirement, Peter said somewhat sourly, to which she had replied that he would be even more unbearable if he retired.

  ‘Mr Marsh, Miss Marsh. Glad to meet you. You’re moving into Stan’s place, aren’t you?’

  Stan, Georgia realized, must be the current owner of Medlars, a house which, like the fruit it was named after, was best appreciated rotten. That had been Luke’s joke, not hers, and she could see his point.

  ‘I am,’ she answered. And how strange those words sounded. As solemn as a contract.

  ‘How is the old place nowadays?’ he asked after drinks and menu were before them.

  ‘Medlars?’

  ‘Woodring Hotel. The Old Woodpile I called it.’

  ‘Didn’t you enjoy working there?’

  ‘Not bad. A job. Wouldn’t like to be there now. Started ther
e in 1969 when I was still wet behind my ears. You have to be dry to be a barman, in all senses. Still, I learned quickly. Now that young gentleman of yours, Luke Frost . . .’

  She’d pass that on to Luke later, Georgia thought.

  ‘. . . said that you were writing a book for him about the death of that pilot chappie.’

  ‘That’s right. We need all the material we can get.’

  ‘Do my best,’ he remarked promisingly. Thomas sat back, licking the foam of the bitter on his lips. ‘Tastes all the better when you don’t have to draw it yourself.’

  Like cooking, Georgia thought, then firmly stamped on thoughts of her looming life at Medlars.

  ‘They came every year, did that group of pilots. I’d come to recognize them after a year or two. We had a lot of these reunions, but that was the one I remember most clearly. I suppose it was because of him, the chap that got murdered. They’d all have been in their fifties by the time I knew them, but you would never have known it. Always roaring the odds, they were, but nice about it, if you know what I mean. Fairfax was the leader of the pack all right. Seemed a nice chap though, and right from the beginning my boss told me he was a war hero. Matt Jones being the owner and one of the group himself, we treated this group special. Not free drinks – well, not unless Fairfax said so, and then there was a right royal fuss. We had orders after a while from Matty to chalk them up to Fairfax.

  ‘Anyway that day we had both bars going, being a Saturday. I had two sidekicks then, both casuals or students, can’t remember which, Jimmy Potter and Tony Wilson. Both of them were bright lads, well spoken, Tony a bit older than Jimmy, early thirties maybe, and more serious like, not given to larking around. They weren’t the rough sort; Matt wouldn’t have that in his hotel. Well, it was pretty busy and we all stayed on most of the day barring the odd ten-minute break. I was on the upper bar, and Mr Fairfax was rampaging around in fine form most of the time. After most of his mates left, he joined this lady, a guest at the hotel. He was in a black mood by then. Go careful with him, I said to Tony. So we arranged to keep an eye on him, Tony in the downstairs bar, two of us upstairs, with the odd break now and then.’

  ‘Were they arguing?’

  ‘Not really. More talking hard, if you know what I mean. Then they went downstairs and I didn’t see Fairfax again. Not in the bar, anyway. I saw him rushing by the door about seven and assumed he was off downstairs. Some chap came in asking for him later and I sent him downstairs. He wasn’t there, of course, because Tony had passed on the message that his lady friend was in the garden. Tony was switching with Jimmy at the time, so when this chap went downstairs, one bar was empty. No Patrick. No lady.’

  ‘Any chance of tracing Jimmy or Tony?’

  ‘Casual workers. No way after all this time. They both made statements, I’m pretty sure.’

  ‘Anything else you can tell us?’ Peter asked. ‘Did you see this lady or any of the guests from the reunion still around, apart from Matt Jones?’

  ‘Ruby might have. She was on the desk that night. Used to be a barmaid there. Some maid. She was in her fifties when I joined. Been at Woodring for ever.’

  Georgia pricked up her ears. ‘Would she have been there during the war?’

  ‘She couldn’t have been, Georgia,’ Peter said. ‘It would have been run by the military.’

  ‘Wouldn’t she indeed?’ Thomas commented. ‘She was there; that’s how it started. Matt bought the hotel after the war, and her being a local girl Matt was thrilled to bits to see her, and brought her back. Favourite with the customers, she was.’

  ‘When you say she could tell us, does that mean she’s still alive?’ Georgia asked.

  ‘In a retirement home, but lively as a cricket last time I saw her. I pop in a few times a year.’

  ‘You don’t suppose,’ Georgia said hopefully, ‘we could pop in this afternoon?’

  He considered this. ‘If you’re driving and I can have another pint.’

  *

  ‘’Allo, Tom.’ The sharp eyes swivelled to them. Ruby was in the conservatory at the retirement home not far from Maidstone in what used to be a village and was now rapidly becoming urban sprawl. Thomas bent over and gave her a kiss. She was so small she almost seemed moulded into her armchair, huddled under a shawl despite the time of year. ‘Brought any fags with you?’

  ‘You’ll be breaking the law soon as well as storing up trouble for your old age,’ he joked, as Peter handed over the packets that Tom had advised them to bring.

  She cackled. ‘What they goin’ to do? Throw me into clink for a year or two? Look good in the papers, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Were you at Woodring Manor all through the war?’ Georgia asked when the cigarettes had worked their magic.

  ‘You bet your sweet life I was. Officers and gentlemen? Forget it. Officers maybe. Mind you, they was up all day in the air and ready for a drink or two after. The stuff we had to serve then was half water, no spirits at all. You had to make your own fun then and we did. Cried my eyes out when they closed the station down in ’44.’

  ‘Weren’t you called up?’

  ‘I was up. Woodring was war work. Good name for it. Employed by the government to look after our lads. So I did. Married one of them after the war. Dead now.’

  ‘A Battle of Britain pilot?’

  ‘No. I met Fred later.’

  ‘Do you remember the battle clearly?’

  ‘’Course I do. Those were the days, eh? “We’ll meet again”,’ she crooned. ‘We kept our sunny side up, all right. We did our bit for England our way.’

  ‘Do you remember Patrick Fairfax?’

  ‘The one who was killed up at Woodring? Should do. I was there. He was special, he was. Why would anyone want to kill him? I remember him from earlier, and the others. They’d all been meeting since the hotel opened up again after the war. Lay derelict for a year or two then Mr Matt bought it. His chums came over every May. Anniversary of the day he bought the hotel, he said, and the day war broke out in earnest. Old Hitler’s Blitzkrieg.’

  ‘Mr Fairfax,’ Georgia reminded her gently.

  ‘Hot temper had our Patrick. All the boys down in Hell’s Bells Club downstairs, them and their women.’

  ‘During the battle?’

  ‘Oh yes, they entertained their lady friends. Supposed to go by curfew time, but a few stayed on, I reckon. Old Arthur knew about it, but he turned the old Nelsonian eye, as they say. Some real ladies there was, as well as the scrubbers. There was one night, Mr Fairfax he had the pick, you see. There they were dancing to a gramophone in the bar, up and down the corridor. Anyway, this young chap turned up, and Mr Fairfax was with this lovely young lady. Hadn’t seen her before, staying in the village so they said. A Sunday night it was, and they’d been in the air a lot of the day. It was the day Biggin copped it so badly. Someone said later she was that actress Sylvia Lee. Well, I couldn’t take my eyes off her, golden hair coifed up, blue eyes, so graceful and gentle, and a wee bit sad. Mr Fairfax was all over her, and she was dancing away with him. Then this young chap comes in and picks a fight.’

  ‘One of the officers living there?’

  ‘No. Don’t remember if he had pips. He was looking for Pilot Officer Fairfax, and when he found him he punched him. Just like in the films. I thought they were all going to attack him but Mr Fairfax stopped them. The young lady was in tears and so Mr Fairfax said he’d go outside with this chap and sort it out. They were out a fair time, then Mr Fairfax came back and said someone should take the young lady home, and the evening sort of broke up. The young lady was still upset. “How’s Oliver?” I remember her saying. “How’s Oliver?” They all left the bar to see her off, and that’s the last I saw of any of them. Closed the bar and that was it.’

  Oliver Tanner? Georgia wondered. The LMF sergeant pilot. If so, how was Oliver? Could that have been the day he deserted?

  *

  ‘This is the last one,’ Peter said. ‘If this isn’t Alan Purcell I’ll eat my Marks and
Spencer’s hat.’

  A dire threat since this was his favourite headgear at present. Peter had been impatiently working his way through the Arthurs in the list supplied to him by Jacob. He had vowed to track him down by the end of July, and since time was running out fast, this was the last day.

  ‘This one is surely it,’ he continued. ‘I’ve checked this address. Not a stone’s throw from Wierre Effroy where Purcell was shot down. Coincidence? Perhaps, but unlikely.’

  She left him to it, unable to bear the suspense, and was rewarded by his smirk of triumph when she returned.

  ‘Bingo. Unfortunately the house is guarded by a stone wall called Alan Purcell.’

  ‘He won’t see us?’

  ‘He was furious, I persisted and he reluctantly agreed to meet you in Boulogne. Would you believe it though, the new address we had is false too. Email him to say what time you’ll be there. And make it soon; don’t give him a chance to change his mind.’

  Meet you, she noted without surprise. Not us. Peter never went to France. On principle, he claimed. The principle was that Elena lived there now. No matter that she lived almost at the other end of the country.

  ‘I’ll go tomorrow.’

  ‘With Luke?’

  ‘He’s too busy with deathwatch beetles.’

  *

  Alan Purcell had suggested a restaurant in the square at Boulogne, and so she booked her SpeedFerries ticket, even though this meant taking her car. She parked it by the quay and walked up the hill through the main street of the town. She had plenty of time, and dawdled looking in the shop windows at everything from charcuterie to shoes, enjoying her own company. Her own? Once again, she began to have the feeling that she was being watched. Nonsense, spies nowhere, she joked to herself, and bought a coffee to forget it. As she watched the passers-by through the window, the feeling would not go away, and continuing on her way she looked round uneasily as though all shoppers were out here to get Georgia Marsh rather than baguettes for lunch.