Murder Imperfect

by Lesley Cookman

  Now, she opened the door to them and beamed a welcome. Large and still with dark hair, Libby thought she could see a likeness to Lisa. She waddled through a door on her right and waved them to a sofa before an electric log fire. Libby thought of Flo Carpenter.

  ‘Do you know Flo Carpenter?’ she said involuntarily.

  Dolly’s eyebrows rose. ‘Course I know Flo! Known her for years.’

  ‘And Hetty Wilde?’

  ‘Yes. Not so well, o’course. Her marrying gentry and all.’

  ‘Oh, they aren’t gentry,’ said Libby. ‘I’m Ben Wilde’s – er –’

  ‘Girlfriend, ducks. Yes, I know. We live in a village you know!’

  ‘Of course,’ said Libby, with a wry look at Colin. ‘Anyway, it’s very nice of you to see us, Mrs – Mrs?’

  ‘Webley, dear, but call me Dolly. Everybody does. No, no, it’s a pleasure.’ She drew her mouth down. ‘Well, not a pleasure, o’course, but I could see poor Cyril couldn’t come after all this other business.’ She shook her head. ‘Poor bugger. Don’t seem fair.’

  ‘Much worse for Patrick, though,’ said Libby. ‘We were so sorry about him.’

  Dolly sighed gustily. ‘Thank you, dear. He was a good boy. Funny sort of job he was in, but each to his own, I say. Can’t say I knew him all that well since he grew up. Lisa, now, she stayed at home more, and she and Margaret used to come down to visit. Came for a couple of weeks last year after Margaret’s Roy died. Poor souls.’

  ‘It’s really tragic,’ agreed Libby.

  ‘Patrick was a lovely boy,’ said Colin. ‘Cy and I knew him.’

  ‘I know you did, dear. Not that I know you.’ She peered at him. ‘Colin, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’ Colin blushed a little under her scrutiny. ‘I’m sorry Cy couldn’t come.’

  ‘That’s all right dear, I said. So I’ll tell you my little story instead. Would you like some tea?’

  ‘No, I’m fine, thank you,’ said Libby, not wanting to delay the start of Dolly’s little story. Colin shook his head and murmured something and Dolly settled back in her armchair.

  ‘Well,’ she began, ‘after I heard about Patrick and then that Cyril had been attacked the same way, I remembered that Larry Barkiss.’

  Libby and Colin exchanged looks.

  ‘Larry Barkiss?’ repeated Colin. ‘Don’t know him, I’m afraid.’

  ‘No? Went to school with Cyril.’

  ‘Oh. I don’t know much about his schooldays.’

  ‘Well, Larry Barkiss went to school with Cyril. And Paddy went to the same school. Quite a bit after, o’course. But this Larry was still there and he started bullying Paddy. Course, Paddy was only a kid and he wasn’t – well –’ Dolly stopped and looked at Colin, an apology in her eyes.

  ‘Gay, you mean,’ said Colin. ‘Don’t worry about it. I don’t.’

  ‘All right, dear,’ said Dolly. ‘Gay then. Not then, anyhow. Anyway, somehow Cyril found out, knowing the family, you see, and he took it on himself to have a go at Larry.’

  ‘He beat him up, you mean?’ Colin’s eyes were round with surprise. ‘I never would have thought it.’

  ‘Yes, dear. Mind, we all thought he was a hero, but he got into trouble for it. And then, o’course, this Larry would have it little Paddy was qu – gay, that they both were.’ Dolly’s lips thinned. ‘Nasty piece o’ work, he was. Not,’ she said quickly, ‘that there’s anything wrong with it, but not what he was suggesting.’

  ‘I should think so,’ said Colin, his face red with indignation. ‘As if Cy would have tried it on with a kid! It’s disgraceful.’

  ‘Have you told the police about this?’ asked Libby.

  ‘Well, no, dear. I mean, I’m nothing to do with any of it, so I haven’t seen them. That’s why I thought I ought to tell Cyril. Especially now.’

  ‘This Larry,’ said Colin, leaning forward. ‘Does he still live in Maidstone?’

  ‘I don’t know dear. I’ve lived down here for sixty years. My Webley, he worked at the farm, and Mr Boncastle let us buy this place for next to nothing, so no call to go back, was there?’

  ‘Would Margaret or Lisa know?’ said Libby.

  ‘Margaret might,’ said Dolly slowly, ‘but Lisa wouldn’t. Shouldn’t think so, anyway.’

  ‘Worth asking?’ said Colin to Libby.

  ‘Oh, I think so. I think, too, we ought to tell the police. It’s another suspect and a very good one, too. Although,’ she said, frowning, ‘I can’t see quite what his motive would have been, do you?’

  ‘Holding a grudge? Especially as both Cy and Paddy did turn out to be gay.’

  ‘Yes, he might feel he was being vindicated,’ said Libby, nodding, ‘and angry because no one believed him way back then.’

  ‘Because it wasn’t true way back then,’ said Colin. ‘At least, not the way he thought.’

  Dolly’s eyes had been going anxiously from one to the other. ‘Don’t you let on as it was me that told, you, though,’ she said. ‘I don’t want him coming after me next!’

  ‘Cy can pretend he remembered it himself,’ soothed Libby. ‘In fact, I’m surprised he didn’t.’

  Colin looked at her sharply. ‘So am I,’ he said. ‘Especially after all the fuss you’ve made about his background.’

  ‘I haven’t been making a fuss,’ said Libby indignantly. ‘Just trying to find out about Josephine.’

  ‘Poor little beggar,’ said Dolly unexpectedly.

  ‘Who?’ Libby and Colin said together.

  ‘Josephine, o’course.’ Dolly looked surprised.

  ‘You knew Josephine?’ said Libby.

  ‘Course I did. She was Cyril’s ma.’

  ‘But you said poor little beggar. As though you knew her when she was a child.’

  ‘I did. Well, not to say, knew, but I knew all about her.’

  ‘All about –’ Libby paused. ‘All about her adoption, you mean?’

  ‘She weren’t adopted, dear. That couple took her away at the dead o’night. Fostered you’d call it.’

  ‘Yes, we knew that,’ said Colin. ‘And Cy’s got Josephine’s birth certificate. It says her mother was Cliona Masters. Did you know her?’

  Dolly snorted. ‘Oh, we all got to know about her,’ she said. ‘Look, I want a cuppa, so I’ll go and put the kettle on, then I’ll tell you another little story.’ She heaved herself out of her chair and waved Colin back as he stood to help. ‘I’m fine love. Tea do you both? It’s all set out in the kitchen. Won’t be a mo.’

  ‘Well!’ said Libby, when she’d gone. ‘What do you make of all this?’

  ‘I don’t know what to make of it,’ said Colin, frowning. ‘Why has it suddenly turned up now? Why haven’t we heard about this bloke before?’

  ‘No reason to, if you think about it,’ said Libby. ‘After all, would you necessarily remember someone who’d annoyed you fifteen years ago, or whatever it was?’

  ‘I suppose it was only one incident,’ agreed Colin. ‘You wouldn’t think it could have any bearing on anything today, would you?’

  ‘Not that sort of thing, no,’ said Libby. ‘I must admit, when I said was there anything in Cy’s background, or Patrick’s, I was thinking of something a bit bigger.’

  ‘Like murder?’ suggested Colin, his eyes bright.

  ‘Not necessarily, although that does seem to be the one thing that drives people to even more unreasonable crimes.’

  ‘More unreasonable than murder?’ Colin looked startled.

  ‘Well, no.’ Libby made a face. ‘You know what I mean, though.’ She turned as Dolly pushed open the door carrying a tin tray with three mugs on it.

  ‘Here you are,’ she said. ‘I put milk in and the sugar’s there.’ She put the tray on a pouffe between them and took a mug for herself.

  ‘Now, where was I?’ she said. ‘Oh, yes, Cliona Masters.’ She gave another snort. ‘Or, what we found out later, Norma Cherry.’

  Chapter Twenty-one

  ‘NORMA CHERRY?’ REPEATED LIBBY.


  ‘Norma Cherry.’ Dolly’s dark eyes darted between them. ‘Never heard of her? No, I suppose you wouldn’t. But she was famous in her day.’

  ‘Famous? For what?’ said Colin.

  ‘Murder,’ said Dolly.

  Libby and Colin stared at her with their mouths open.

  ‘Murder?’ squeaked Libby eventually. ‘Cy’s grandmother was a murderer?’

  Dolly, looking delighted with the effect she had produced, nodded and took a large sip of tea. ‘Want to hear the whole story?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ said Libby, ‘but I can’t understand how Cy didn’t know this. Or Sheila, come to that. She knew a bit about Josephine being fostered, but she didn’t say anything about this – this Norma Cherry.’

  Dolly shrugged. ‘Sheila wasn’t a picker. I never knew her during the war.’

  ‘She knew all about you and your family, though,’ said Libby. ‘She was the first person who told me about you. And Margaret and Bertie being born after the war.’

  ‘I knew she was local, but I didn’t meet her until she joined the Players. She might have been around when we was working on the farm, but I didn’t know many of the locals, then.’

  ‘But I thought you were a local by then? Didn’t you come down after you got bombed out?’

  ‘Oh, yes, but we always felt they didn’t like us much. The old farmer, he was all right, gave us the cottage and that, but, of course, he weren’t never the same after it all happened.’

  ‘All what happened? And what’s the farmer got to do with Cliona? I mean, Norma?’

  ‘She came down, see, picking. She was with a group of them, and we thought she was family. Turned out after, she wasn’t, she’d just picked up with them and said she’d been bombed out, lost everything, so they said to come down with them. She bunked in with one of the women and a couple of kids. Then she started disappearing while she was supposed to be picking.’

  ‘Ah!’ said Libby. ‘The farmer.’

  ‘Right,’ said Dolly. ‘So next we knew, she was still there at the end of the season, and moved in with the farmer and his little boy.’

  ‘No mother?’ asked Colin.

  ‘No, she died, ages before. So anyway, there she was, and old farmer, he was like a dog with two tails. And then, next spring, she was pregnant. Course, she’d been pregnant all through winter, too, but we didn’t know anything of her then.’

  ‘Josephine?’ Libby almost didn’t want to ask.

  ‘Josephine.’ Dolly nodded. ‘But then, right about her time, the police come round. Not to us, they didn’t, but to the farm. And first of all they didn’t go in. Or they did, but came out again sharpish, because she’d gone into labour.’

  ‘Blimey!’ said Colin in hushed tones. ‘What a masterpiece.’

  ‘Anyway, my mum sent me for one of the old Red Cross workers who used to run the Hoppers’ Hospitals. I fetched her, and she went in to help. And later that night, or morning, I s’pose it was, this old couple from the village come up, the Red Cross woman came out and handed over a bundle, and that was the last we saw of Josephine.’

  ‘Blimey!’ said Colin again.

  ‘I didn’t see any of that, o’course, but it was all round the village in the morning, and then the police came and took Cliona away. Word was, the farmer wouldn’t keep the baby, and no one wanted it being born in prison, so this Red Cross woman found someone to take it. And most people knew who, although they moved away straight away. That day, they moved. Did a bit of a moonlight, you could say, although they paid up their rent and everything. Went the other side of Maidstone.’

  ‘And did the police not want to know about the baby?’ asked Libby.

  ‘I don’t know. If they did, I never heard. Perhaps they thought it died. Anyway, then it turns out Cliona is really Norma Cherry, and she’s been murdering men in London and taking their savings. I expect that’s what she thought to do with the farmer, only she got caught out.’

  ‘Pregnant, you mean?’

  ‘Yes. She wouldn’t have planned on that. See, it was easy in the war. Especially in London. It wasn’t just the Blitz, you know. It went on all the way through, the bombing. There was those awful V things, and the fire bombs.’ She shuddered. ‘So it was easy to kill someone and make it look like a bomb. Only she kept taking their money and papers and things, and someone, somewhere, cottoned on, and they started to look for her.’

  ‘I can’t think how they did that. It really must have been like looking for a needle in a haystack,’ said Libby. ‘I mean they didn’t have the technology they’ve got nowadays. And with all the chaos of the war …’ she shook her head. ‘Incredible.’

  ‘Ah, well,’ said Dolly, finishing her tea and putting her mug back on the tray, ‘not as incredible as all that. See, what we heard, it was in the papers, they was acting on “Information Received”. Someone had shopped her.’

  ‘Who?’ asked Colin.

  ‘They never said. Stands to reason. Anyway, they got her, and she hung.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ said Libby.

  ‘So how did you know who Josephine was when she was grown up?’ asked Colin. ‘You still haven’t told us.’

  ‘My mum knew. She knew the couple, see. So we used to go and visit sometimes. And it was fine. Josephine grew up not knowing anything about her real mother, or her father, come to that, but then the old couple died when she was in her teens and she went a little bit wild. She came back in the seventies with this baby – Cyril, of course.’ Dolly paused. ‘Never could work out what made her call him Cyril. Not a name you heard much in the seventies, was it? Anyway, she bought the bungalow – must have made money somewhere, and then she married Cy’s dad. And that’s it.’

  A short silence fell.

  ‘So what happened to the farmer?’ asked Libby eventually. ‘You said he was never the same – mind you, I can understand why.’

  ‘Oh, he stopped seeing anyone. And then he did something dreadful.’ Dolly was staring into the glowing logs, and into the past.

  ‘What?’ prompted Colin after a moment.

  Dolly let out a gusty sigh. ‘He let that poor little boy go off to Australia,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, no!’ Libby’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘Not the child migration scheme?’

  Dolly nodded sadly. ‘I don’t like to think of it, even now,’ she said.

  Colin raised an interrogative eyebrow at Libby.

  ‘Don’t you know about it?’ she said. ‘But you must do. The Australian Prime Minister made a public apology about it a few years ago, and ours did it in February 2009. It was an absolute disgrace.’

  ‘But what did they do?’ asked Colin.

  ‘They took children from their parents and homes and sent them to Australia. They told them lies, said their parents were dead, all sorts of things. And when they got there, they were put to work in the most dreadful conditions and often abused.’

  ‘Who was doing this?’ asked Colin. ‘It’s illegal, surely?’

  ‘Would you believe the government?’ Libby half smiled at his disbelieving expression. ‘All true. Look it up on the web, if you can face it.’

  Colin looked sick. ‘I don’t think I can.’

  ‘So that poor little boy was another of Cliona’s victims?’ said Libby. ‘And yet Josephine was lucky. She had a good life with her foster parents and then with Cy and his dad. Good job that little boy didn’t know.’

  Colin looked up. ‘But what if he did?’ he said.

  ‘There,’ said Dolly. ‘That’s another to add to your list. Suppose he came back?’

  ‘Oh, gracious,’ said Libby. ‘But how would he find out anything about Josephine – or Cy, for that matter?’

  ‘Depends when he came back,’ said Colin. ‘I’m going to look it all up later on. Is there a website about it?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Some woman set up an association for them.’

  ‘There you are, then,’ said Colin. ‘I bet you could find out anything through that. I suppose they do help people find
their families?’

  Libby nodded. ‘And help people here find people who were sent out, too. It was on the radio a lot earlier in the year.’

  ‘I wonder how they came to take this boy?’ Colin was frowning.

  ‘Who would know more about it, Dolly?’ Libby asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’ She shook her head. ‘See after Norma was gone and the farmer lost interest in everything, we looked for other work and somewhere else to live. We was lucky, because Dad came home and then Margaret and Bertie was born and we got a nice little place in Maidstone and hooked up with the Players again. I don’t know anyone who stayed around there.’

  ‘The Red Cross woman would be dead, by now, wouldn’t she?’ mused Libby. ‘She would have been – what? Middle-aged? At the end of the war.’

  ‘Long gone, I should think,’ said Colin.

  ‘She was a bit of cow, anyway,’ said Dolly. ‘Want any more tea?’

  ‘No thanks,’ said Libby and Colin together.

  ‘Yes, she was a case.’ Dolly folded her hands over her stomach. ‘Always preaching, she was. And heavy-handed! Gawd. Have her bandage you up, or make you swallow your medicine, you knew about it all right. Butcher Burton, we used to call her.’

  Chapter Twenty-two

  IGNORING LIBBY’S GASP OF astonishment, Dolly went on.

  ‘She came here, you know. I didn’t know her, because she’d gone when Webley and I moved to New Farm. But she’d been as spiteful here as she was back in our old village. Drove some poor soul to suicide, they said.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Libby, ‘she did. Her name was Maud Burton, and she sent anonymous letters to people in the village. The one she sent to Amy Taylor made her drown herself.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Dolly, nodding. ‘Old Grimes lived in the cottages along there,’ she pointed, ‘and he got one. He was the churchwarden, see. He told us all about it. Course, we didn’t know any of the people, although we met some of them later.’

  ‘So you knew Maud Burton before, then? Did you know anything about her at all?’ asked Colin.