Murder Repeated

by Lesley Cookman

  Mrs Mardle leant forward again. ‘Oh, yes! What was his name?’

  ‘Ted Sachs. He comes from over near Felling, I think.’

  ‘Sachs,’ repeated Mrs Mardle, frowning. ‘I’ve never heard Gary mention anyone of that name, but I’ll ask him. Now why should he have the keys?’

  ‘Well, if the police could find him, or Colin, they could ask,’ said Libby, wondering why on earth Ian hadn’t leapt at the chance when he saw Ted Sachs on Saturday.

  ‘Oh, Colin’s in Spain, dear. That’s where he lives now.’ Mrs Mardle nodded smugly. ‘Asked me over, he has, but I don’t fancy it. Not at my time of life.’

  As if she was at least a hundred, thought Libby, instead of a well-preserved eighty-five-year-old.

  ‘But he still has an office in this country?’ she said aloud.

  ‘Oh, an address – I expect so. I’ve got his one in Spain. Would you like it? Then you can find out why that builder had they keys.’

  Libby left Mrs Mardle with a feeling of extreme gratitude. Talk about falling into your lap!

  She switched on the electric kettle in her own kitchen, and began scrolling through the numbers on her phone. Her finger hovered over Rachel Trent’s, then over Rob Maiden’s, before eventually settling for Ian Connell’s private number.

  ‘Yes?’ came the curt response just as Libby lifted the kettle. She almost dropped it.

  ‘Er – Ian? Is this a bad time?’

  ‘Yes.’ She heard him say something to someone else. Then, ‘DS Trent is dealing with witness statements.’

  ‘Um – yes. I’ll call her.’ She felt a prickle of embarrassed perspiration along her browline. Why had she thought -

  ‘All right. I’ll pass on the information.’ His voice had softened, although he still hadn’t mentioned her name.

  ‘It’s Colin Hardcastle’s address in Spain,’ she said hurriedly, and heard a smothered expletive.

  ‘Are you at home?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Someone’ll be round.’ The connection was cut.

  Libby blew out a gusty breath of relief.

  She was just finishing the tea and thinking about what, from her extensive repertoire of cheat’s cooking, she could cook for tonight, when there was a sharp rap on the front door.

  ‘That doesn’t sound like Rachel,’ she said out loud to Sidney, as she went to open the door.

  ‘No, it sounds like an exasperated Ian,’ said DCI Connell, stepping over the threshold.

  ‘You could have sent Rachel,’ said Libby meekly, following him into the sitting room.

  ‘And you could have called her,’ said Ian, sitting down. ‘Why didn’t you? What’s the use of the superintendent telling me to stay in the office when members of the public insist on calling me out of it?’

  ‘I...’ began Libby, and stopped. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Well? Where’s this address? And what’s the story?’ His mouth twitched. ‘And where’s my tea?’

  Relieved, Libby grinned and went to switch the kettle back on. When she had refreshed her own cup and given Ian his, she pulled out the piece of paper Mrs Mardle had given her, and repeated the story.

  ‘So you see, there’s more to the story of Colin Hardcastle than we thought,’ she finished up.

  ‘How do you make that out?’ Ian frowned at her.

  ‘Well, he was obviously a neglected child, for a start.’

  ‘But didn’t want for anything, by the sound of it.’

  ‘No, except love.’

  ‘But he got that from your Mrs Mardle.’

  ‘It’s no wonder he didn’t want to come and run the hotel, though, is it?’

  ‘No.’ Ian shook his head. ‘But when did he give Ted Sachs the keys? And how did he know about him? Have you found out anything about him yet?’

  Libby hid a smirk. ‘Not yet. But I’ve got my spies out.’

  ‘What? Come on, Libby, now what?’

  Libby laughed. ‘Same source – Mrs Mardle next door. And do you know, I didn’t have to ask a single question. I simply asked if her Gary knew of Ted Sachs. Because Mrs Mardle wanted to know how Fiona Darling had got the keys to the Garden. Quite indignant, she was.’

  Ian put his head on one side and surveyed her through narrowed eyes. ‘You know, you’re just like those old women amateur detectives. Put you in a room full of people, and suddenly you’ve got all this information the police would take weeks to get hold of.’

  ‘Well, thank you for the compliment, but it’s more that this is a close-knit village, and despite being a comparative newcomer, because of my association with Ben and Hetty and Peter, I’m a safe person to gossip with. Which, on the whole, is quite a good thing, isn’t it?’

  Chapter Seven

  ‘One thing I was going to ask you,’ said Libby, just as Ian was going out of the door. ‘Hardcastle Holdings. Rachel – or Rob Maiden – said the police hadn’t been able to raise anyone there. Even if Colin himself is away, someone should be there, shouldn’t they?’

  Ian turned reluctantly. ‘You do ask the damndest questions.’ He sighed. ‘Well, yes. And there is. It’s actually the registered offices of the company. And you know what that means?’

  ‘Oh – a bank? Solicitors?’

  ‘Exactly. In fact there are whole companies set up to act as Registered Offices these days. In Hardcastle’s case it’s his solicitors.’

  ‘Didn’t they tell you about him being in Spain?’

  ‘No – because Ted Sachs only knew the name. We could find no trace because it was the weekend, and sadly, unlike other professions, both solicitors and Companies House close over the weekend. And now we’ve lost Sachs again, and Colin Hardcastle.’

  Libby looked puzzled. ‘But surely you’ve got hold of them by now?’

  Ian’s exasperated look had come back. ‘Well, of course we have! Otherwise I wouldn’t know where the registered office was, would I? And apparently, the only person the solicitors ever see is a woman. They don’t think they’ve ever seen Hardcastle himself.’

  ‘The amazing vanishing man,’ murmured Libby. ‘I suppose he is real?’

  ‘Well, someone gave the keys to Sachs – and he says it was Hardcastle.’ Ian looked at his watch. ‘I must go. Thanks for the information, and...’ He paused.

  ‘Keep my ear to the ground?’ suggested Libby with a grin. ‘Sure!’

  She sat on the stairs and called Fran on the landline. Sidney tried to get on her lap.

  ‘Guess what!’ she began, as soon as she heard Fran’s voice.

  ‘I can’t be bothered to guess,’ answered Fran wearily. ‘And you’re going to tell me anyway.’ So Libby told her.

  ‘That’s really interesting,’ said Fran, who had perked up as the tale went on. ‘Mrs Next-Door talked about him as a real person, and Ian talked about him as a cipher.’

  ‘Well, I must say that’s rather what I thought. No one’s seen him, he lives in Spain, and doesn’t come near either his old childhood home or his offices. Do you suppose someone’s bumped him off and is milking the profits?’

  ‘I should think that’s a bit extreme,’ said Fran. ‘And why wouldn’t they have sold The Garden? Is it listed?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Libby doubtfully. ‘Quite old. Two hundred and fifty years, give or take?’

  ‘What’s next to it?’

  ‘Next to it? Why?’ Libby was surprised.

  ‘I just wondered. Trying to get the layout in my head.’

  ‘I should have taken you over there on Saturday – or Sunday morning.’

  ‘There wasn’t time,’ said Fran. ‘It stands just by the end of the high street, doesn’t it? Almost into the Nethergate Road?’

  ‘Yes – but what of it?’

  ‘Oh – just a thought. You in tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes – I’m trying to finish off those two commissions for Guy.’

  Libby painted what she called “pretty peeps” after a favourite detective series character’s paintings, mainly on commission for Guy’s gal
lery.

  ‘I might see if I can pop over. We’re not too busy in the week, and the school holidays haven’t started yet.’

  ‘I don’t see that has much to do with anything,’ said Libby with a sniff. ‘I thought British family holidays were always taken abroad these days. Not the good old English seaside holiday.’

  ‘Oh, Libby!’ Fran was laughing at her. ‘Have you not heard of the staycation? Everyone staying at home instead of off to the Costas? The boom in caravan and camper van sales? We’ve even got a brand new site up on the cliffs!’

  ‘Oh,’ said Libby, deflated. ‘Well, anyway, yes, I’m in. Perhaps we could go to Harry’s for lunch?’

  ‘Lunch out two days running? That’s a bit excessive!’

  ‘Oh, go on. That’s the way things are done these days. You know, like staycations,’ said Libby mischievously.

  Later on that evening, as Ben was pouring out a nightcap for them both, Libby said, ‘Fran’s coming over tomorrow. She wants to look at The Garden.’

  ‘Good Lord!’ said Ben, handing her a glass. ‘Whatever for? Or is it a moment?’

  ‘She said she wants to get the layout in her head,’ said Libby. ‘What’s the other side of it?’

  Ben frowned. ‘There’s that little lane. Cuckoo Lane. Where you can cut off back to behind the church.’

  ‘Not down the lane, though,’ said Libby. ‘That’s got houses, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes – it’s a footpath leading off it that goes behind the church.’

  ‘So what’s down the lane? I know there are houses – or some anyway. Old redbrick ones, like ours.’

  ‘I know about the footpath, but that’s almost at the beginning. Come to think of it, that runs right behind The Garden. Right behind the bat and trap pitch, in fact. That was where everyone used to come in.’

  ‘Didn’t you?’ asked Libby.

  ‘No, we always went via the bar. Do you think Rob Maiden would let me have a poke around the back there?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so for a moment,’ said Libby with a grin. ‘But you could always join Fran and I on our nosymongering tomorrow. I expect if they see us pottering around they’ll think it’s entirely normal.’

  Ben grinned back. ‘I must just do that. See – I’ve been thinking. I’ve got a bit of an idea.’

  Libby felt a sense of foreboding. ‘Oh, yes?’

  Ben’s grin grew wider. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’m not going to be stupid.’

  ‘I think,’ said Libby, the following day when Fran arrived, ‘that he’s going through the male menopause. First it was the micro brewery -’

  ‘Well, you must admit he’s making a success of that,’ said Fran.

  ‘Yes,’ conceded Libby, ‘but now he’s revived our own – or his own – hop gardens, so by next year he’ll have to buy in fewer hops. What’s he up to now?’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about it,’ said Fran, amused. ‘If it keeps him happy...’

  ‘And out of my hair, you mean?’ Libby laughed. ‘There is that.’

  ‘Come on, then, if we’re going. Do you mean to call Ben to meet us there?’

  Together they walked down Allhallow’s Lane from number seventeen. The redbrick cottages led straight onto to the lane, all single-fronted, some two-storied, some three. On the other side of the lane there was a small green space almost opposite Libby’s and Mrs Mardle’s cottages, but otherwise nothing, until you came to the high brick wall which surrounded the vicarage, overhung by a huge lilac tree.

  They turned right here, past the front of the vicarage and onto the high street, with its few shops interspersed with cottages. There was nothing in the high street younger than mid-eighteenth century, other than the replacement shop windows. Most of the buildings were brick under tile, but at the far end, beyond the Manor drive which turned off to the right past the Pink Geranium and the pub, and beyond Peter and Harry’s home, were a few much older cottages, whitewashed under thatch with crooked windows set into it. Libby did not find these as eerie as she found the ‘eyebrows’ of Steeple Farm, just up the lane on the right.

  On the opposite side of the high street, just before it turned up the hill into the Nethergate Road, stood what had been The Garden Hotel. Libby and Fran stopped. It, too, was mainly brick under tile, and looked forgotten and dejected, until one noticed the blue and white police tape fluttering across the doorway and all the way round the sides of the building.

  ‘That’s the lane Ben was talking about,’ said Libby. ‘Cuckoo Lane.’ At the side of the hotel, a rough track led off and out of sight behind a hedge and wall on the right-hand side.

  ‘Those must be houses leading off the Nethergate Road,’ said Fran. ‘And that cottage on the left looks empty.’

  ‘What’s the building before it, though?’ said Libby. ‘Look – part clapboard. Looks almost like another pub.’

  ‘That,’ said Ben’s voice behind her, ‘is because it was.’

  Both women swung round.

  ‘How did you find that out?’ asked Libby.

  ‘I always knew.’ Ben was grinning widely.

  ‘Then why didn’t you tell me? You didn’t say last night you’d been down there.’

  Ben’s eyebrows rose. ‘Why? And I haven’t been down there recently. It’s nothing to do with this murder – if it is a murder.’

  Confounded, Libby looked at Fran for help.

  ‘Why did you know about it?’ asked Fran.

  ‘I grew up here, remember? And I played bat and trap for the Garden. Backed right on to that pub.’

  ‘What was it called?’ asked Libby, interested in spite of herself.

  ‘The Hop – or Hop Pocket. It was always just known as the Hop. It had closed by the time I was old enough to drink in there.’

  Libby turned back to peer at the dingy white building. ‘What happened to it? It hasn’t been standing empty all this time, has it?’

  ‘A cafe was tried there at one time, but it’s off the high street, there’s no parking, and let’s face it, Steeple Martin’s never been much of a destination for tourists.’

  ‘I wonder why it hasn’t been turned into a house,’ said Fran. ‘That’s what usually happens, isn’t it?’

  ‘No idea,’ said Ben. ‘Let’s go and have a look.’

  ‘A look?’ repeated Libby. ‘At that place?’

  Ben held out a bunch of keys. ‘Oh, yes.’

  Libby and Fran exchanged glances. Libby’s said ‘What did I tell you?’

  They crossed the road and stood in front of the Garden Hotel. Libby shivered.

  ‘Well, this is it, Fran. Now, you wanted to know what was beside it, didn’t you? Well, there’s Cuckoo Lane and the Hop.’

  ‘And this side,’ said Fran, ‘what appears to be a chapel?’

  ‘It was,’ said Ben. ‘It’s been a house for years. I think there was a dispute for a few years because the Hardcastles wanted to buy it as it shares a driveway with the hotel.’

  ‘Doesn’t look as though they did, though,’ said Libby, surveying the neatly kept driveway, which now led to a rather glaringly new garage.

  Ben shook his head. ‘I gather that was dropped when Colin refused to come back and help his mother run the place.’ He cast a critical eye over the dilapidated hotel. ‘Can’t say I blame him, can you? He was a young man, living his own life in London. Why should he come down here to bury himself?’

  ‘You did,’ said Libby.

  ‘But I didn’t, did I? I came back to set up my practice in Canterbury. Dad was still alive then. I didn’t have to do anything until I’d officially retired and was living with you.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Libby. ‘Anyway, Fran, why did you want to know what was next to the hotel?’

  ‘Well, because you said it was obviously being used by kids. I wondered how they got in.’

  ‘Round the back, I expect,’ said Ben. ‘There was a big garden – where the bat and trap pitch was – and a car park at the end of that drive there. And if they went round the back by
the lane...’ He led the way round the other end of the building into Cuckoo Lane. ‘See? This is the pathway that leads past the garden and the backs of all the other houses right round the back of the church.’

  He indicated a very overgrown footpath that ran down behind the hotel on one side and beside the equally deserted Hop pub on the other.

  ‘So there you are. Now, as there is still a good deal of police tape around, we won’t be able to go into the Garden or we’ll spoil their harvest, or whatever it is, so shall we look at the Hop?’

  Fran looked interested, so Libby shrugged and acquiesced. Ben struggled with a padlock and a rusty lock, but eventually, the door opened with an ominous squeak.

  ‘Here we are,’ he said, throwing out an arm and beaming at Fran and Libby. ‘Welcome to the Brewery Tap!’

  Chapter Eight

  Libby stood still in the doorway and gaped, her eyes round with astonishment. The door they had come through was in the side of the building. The ceiling was low and nicotine brown. The bar, three sided, was high and solid. A few tables and chairs stood in dispirited looking attitudes and a couple of fly-blown advertising mirrors hung crookedly on the walls. On the front wall were four windows, partly boarded up, and a heavy front door.

  ‘Well – what do you think?’ Ben had gone past her and threw out an arm. ‘Fran?’

  Fran, too, had gone past her and now peered over the bar.

  ‘It’s a pub,’ she said.

  ‘What do you mean, Brewery Tap?’ said Libby at last.

  Ben sighed. ‘Just that. You do know what a Brewery Tap is, don’t you?’

  Libby ventured into the bar. ‘Yes. The bar that goes with a brewery. But this is nowhere near your brewery.’ She was aware that her voice was accusing.

  ‘No, it’s not, but it’s near enough. No one would ever find it if we attached it to the brewery.’ He looked at her sideways. ‘You don’t like it, do you?’

  ‘It’s not that.’ Libby felt awkward. ‘It’s just – well, how would Tim feel about it? You’d be taking custom away from him.’

  ‘I’ve talked to him,’ said Ben.

  ‘Before you talked to me?’ Libby gasped. Fran walked pointedly past the two of them and outside.