THE COUNTRY INN MYSTERY an absolutely gripping whodunit full of twists

by Faith Martin

  ‘We were hoping to have a few words with your son Matthew, sir,’ Franklyn said, after displaying his identification card. ‘It’s just routine,’ he added blandly.

  ‘But what’s it about?’ Greenslade senior demanded, looking more worried than aggressive. ‘He’s not in trouble is he?’

  ‘No, sir, not at all. We just need to ask him a few questions concerning an incident that occurred this afternoon.’ Franklyn was at his most reassuring.

  ‘When this afternoon? Only our Matt has been in all day. Moping, if you ask me. He and his girl have had a row, you see.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Up in his room, is he?’ Franklyn pressed, shifting his balance slightly forward, and was relieved when the other man reluctantly stepped back to let them into the small hallway.

  ‘Yes, upstairs, first door on the left,’ Mr Greenslade admitted, nodding at the staircase. And then watched them go up the stairs with a worried frown creasing his forehead. From further inside the house, both the police officers clearly heard a woman’s querulous voice asking what was going on.

  Both of them hoped the parents wouldn’t come knocking on their son’s door to offer support and satisfy their curiosity.

  When Franklyn first tapped on the bedroom door Mr Greenslade had indicated, he could hear nothing at all; no sense of movement, furtive or otherwise. A shade impatiently, he tapped again, more sharply this time, and was finally rewarded with the unmistakable sound of a bedspring complaining. A moment later the door opened.

  The young man who slouched in the doorway looking out at them needed a shave, and had eyes that could only be described as bleary. What’s more, a definite aroma of alcohol wafted from him as he abruptly straightened up.

  ‘What the hell? Who are you?’

  Lucy eyed the tall, square-jawed handsome young man and felt herself perk up a bit. She’d always been partial to a man with a nice square jaw and Hollywood leading-man good looks! She could quite see why a man like this had joined an am-dram society.

  ‘Police, sir,’ Franklyn said, once again showing his ID. ‘Can we have a quick word?’ And not giving him the chance to say no, took a step forward, forcing the younger man to retreat back into a modest-sized bedroom.

  Lucy followed him in and firmly shut the door behind her — just in case the parents came sneaking up the stairs in an attempt to eavesdrop.

  Once it had accommodated a double bed, Matthew Greenslade’s room had a small space left over for a large, old-fashioned wooden wardrobe stuck in one corner, and a set of drawers in another. An old armchair had been requisitioned from downstairs and had been set to one side of the room’s only window, and in front of it had been placed a tiny coffee table that probably caught your shins every time you went past it. A small television set had been positioned on the wall opposite the bed, and rested a shade precariously on black iron brackets.

  ‘Sorry, but there’s nowhere much to sit,’ Matthew muttered, clearly confused by their presence. ‘Er, I don’t mind if you sit on the edge of the bed,’ he added, slumping back down on the bed himself.

  Lucy, in the pursuit of the proper decorum, elected to sit on the only chair, whilst Franklyn decided to simply stand, leaning one shoulder comfortably against a wall and eyeing the young man thoughtfully.

  On the floor beside the bed were what looked like half a dozen or so empty bottles of beer. Which probably accounted for the scent of booze.

  ‘Been having a bit too much to drink, sir?’ he asked mildly.

  Matthew flushed. ‘Yeah. I suppose I have a bit. I don’t normally drink this much,’ the words were just slightly slurred, but he sounded sober enough to know what he was saying. ‘Only I’ve had a major barney with my girlfriend . . . well, not my girlfriend any longer, I suppose, and . . . Sorry, but this can’t be . . . I mean, why are you here exactly?’

  But Franklyn wasn’t in a forthcoming mood.

  ‘Your girlfriend — this would be Miss Thornton, would it? Felicity Thornton?’ he asked, not because he needed the clarification, but just because he wanted to set a pattern: he asked a question, Matthew answered it. Simple as that.

  ‘Yeah? How do you know Flick?’ the young man asked, sounding astonished, and as if willing to believe that the forces of law and order really did see and know all. Had he been a little bit more sober, he might have been less easily impressed.

  ‘And she was more than your girlfriend, I believe? You were engaged to be married, in fact?’ Franklyn pressed on.

  ‘Right,’ Matthew admitted, looking more and more bewildered. ‘Well, we were, but that’s all off now. When she called and asked if she could come around after Sunday lunch today, I thought for a minute that she might want to patch things up. But it was only to give me the ring back.’

  It was only then that Franklyn noticed a small gold and diamond ring resting on the tiny bedside table beside a digital alarm clock and his wristwatch. (Lucy O’Connor had spotted it straight away, naturally.)

  ‘Ah, hard luck, sir,’ Franklyn said. ‘And I take it the reason for the, er, break-up was your affair with Rachel Norman?’

  Again Matthew Greenslade flushed angrily. ‘I don’t see what this has to do with . . . You’re the police, right? What did I do?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir, what did you do?’ Franklyn asked with a wide smile.

  Matthew sighed and ran a hand across his face. ‘I really need a kip,’ he said heavily. ‘My brain seems to have gone AWOL. I don’t understand . . . What are you doing here?’

  Franklyn nodded crisply. ‘Right you are, sir, let’s get down to brass tacks. Can you tell me where you were today, between, say, two-thirty and five-thirty?’

  Matthew sighed. ‘Here. Like I said. Flick came over. We had a big barney, she flung the ring in my face and left, saying this time it was for good. And I . . .’ He nodded down at the empty beer bottles around him. ‘Drowned my sorrows, as you can see.’

  Lucy winced slightly at the word ‘drowned’ but made a note of his reply in her notebook without comment.

  ‘Can anyone corroborate that, sir?’ Franklyn asked flatly.

  ‘What? Why would they need to?’ And then, looking up and seeing the set expression on the older man’s face, Matthew seemed to shrink his head back into his shoulders a little, rather like a tortoise, and mumbled, ‘I dunno. My mum and dad can, probably.’

  ‘They were up here in your room with you?’ Franklyn asked facetiously.

  ‘No, course they weren’t,’ Matthew snapped, flushing a little in embarrassment. ‘But they’d have heard me if I had left,’ he insisted.

  ‘Sergeant, just nip downstairs will you, and see if either Mr or Mrs Greenslade left the house themselves this afternoon. Or heard their son do so.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Lucy said smartly, and slipped out quietly.

  Matthew watched her go with some alarm, not at all sure he wanted to be left alone with her intimidating superior. Swallowing hard, he looked back at Franklyn.

  ‘Why do you want to know where I was this afternoon?’ he finally plucked up the courage to ask.

  ‘Because this afternoon, Rachel Norman died,’ Franklyn replied flatly.

  For a moment, the handsome face looking up at him didn’t seem to react to this portentous statement at all. Then he saw the black pupils in the pale blue, slightly bloodshot eyes contract, and the colour bleached from his cheeks.

  ‘Rachel’s dead?’

  * * *

  Back in the car ten minutes later, Franklyn sighed wearily. ‘I take it the parents backed up his story?’ he asked his sergeant.

  ‘Yes, sir. His father mowed the lawn around four, but his mother was in the living room all the time. They heard the argument between Felicity and their son, and knew that after she’d left he’d raided the fridge for some beer, but just decided to let him get on with things. They’re both adamant he never left the house.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ Franklyn said. Lucy didn’t need telling that, as an alibi, parents weren’t always the most trustworthy of witn
esses. He’d known mothers of even the most hardened of criminals swear that their dear little darlings were with them when they knew damned well that they weren’t.

  ‘Did you believe them?’ he asked vaguely.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Lucy said.

  ‘Hmmm,’ Franklyn said again. ‘And we’ve no sightings of him from anyone at the pond?’

  ‘No, sir. We’ve got nothing that puts him at the scene.’

  ‘Pity. Of all the people we’ve questioned so far, he seems to have the best motive for wanting the girl dead. Well, him and the Welsh chap, perhaps. OK, so we scratch Matthew Greenslade off the list. Provisionally, anyway.’

  ‘Yes, sir. You want to interview Felicity Thornton while we’re here? She only lives about ten minutes away.’

  Franklyn sighed. ‘Might as well, I suppose. It’ll save us a job tomorrow anyway.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  Back at the Spindlewood Inn, Malcolm McFadden was trying manfully to keep a cheerful expression on his face as he stood drinking at the bar, but it wasn’t that easy.

  In his mid-fifties, Malcolm was a tall, lean man, with a head of thick and luxuriant white hair (about which he was secretly very vain) and thick white eyebrows over dark brown eyes. He had a prominent, what he liked to call a Roman nose, and was wearing his usual ‘working’ outfit of black trousers, with a dark shirt and lightweight black overcoat.

  He dressed like this because he liked to ‘disappear’ into the dark as much as possible when he gave his guided ghost walks, since it all added to the atmosphere.

  Malcolm lived in a village about ten miles away, and had been somewhat unexpectedly and summarily ‘retired’ from his job in the city when the last economic bust had hit rather closer to home than all the previous busts had done. Luckily though, he’d invested wisely during the boom years, and since his redundancy had also come with a rather nice golden handshake, he had at least been left financially secure. Not so luckily, he had very quickly become bored out of his mind.

  Needless to say, Sylvia, his wife of some nearly twenty-five years, used to her own circle of friends and activities, had not been pleased to suddenly find him under her feet all day long, with a face like a long wet weekend.

  Sweetly, she had advised him to find a hobby. And since he was not the kind of man to spend his days in an allotment shed, had instead turned the attic of his house into an office, and had set about writing ‘that book’ that he’d always promised himself he would write one day.

  But, it quickly transpired, his was not the kind of mind that easily turned to fiction, and for a while he’d groped unsuccessfully to find a subject that caught his imagination. After a lifetime working with banks and sorting out various financial portfolios he wanted nothing more to do with business. Besides, only a boring old fart would write a book nobody would want to read about economics. Alas, he knew nothing about gardening, stamp collecting or bird watching either.

  It had been during a visit to his local library in search of inspiration that he’d come across a slim volume, written in the twenties by a local historian, detailing the circumstances surrounding a famous nearby ‘haunted vicarage.’ This unhappy house had been made briefly famous back in the day, after the spectacular murder/suicide of a resident vicar and his wife.

  Curious, Malcolm had read it, been intrigued, and since then had never looked back, doing his own research and unearthing several other ‘haunted’ houses in the local area. Although not a believer himself, he found people’s willingness to believe in the supernatural fascinating, and thus had the topic for his book at last.

  Alas, Malcolm’s book, now five years in the writing, had yet to get past chapter three. But Malcolm’s trawl of the internet in search of ‘facts’ had led him to visit various ‘ghost walk’ websites, such as the famous ones in Edinburgh and London, and had sparked another idea in his head.

  Why not set up his very own Cotswold ghost walk? The area was full of tourists (or punters, as he often thought of them in his more cynical moments) and thus, he reasoned, he wouldn’t be short of clients. Plus, he quickly discovered that actually talking to people was far more pleasing and satisfying than sitting alone in his attic office and sweating over a recalcitrant laptop. The written word, he’d often found, could be far more elusive than the spoken one.

  Furthermore, he had to admit that talking as ‘the expert’ to a small group of interested acolytes was far more gratifying — and mirrored his previous career in banking — than life as a solitary, underappreciated author!

  Of course, he didn’t need the income as such, which was why he only charged a modest fee, which in turn virtually guaranteed that his ghost walk became ever more popular.

  And so, every weekend (and alternate Wednesday evenings) for the last four years, Malcolm could be found in various pubs around the villages and towns, having garnered together a small group of interested people through his website, adverts in the local paper, and by general word-of-mouth. Most of these groups, it had to be said, consisted of holidaymakers rather than locals, who could presumably ‘see’ their ghosts any time they wanted to.

  These outings inevitably started in a little village pub with a nice drink or two, to give them much-needed ‘Dutch courage’ for the ordeal ahead, and, on cold nights, to help them ward off the chill. This little ritual nearly always guaranteed that Malcolm’s clients became very mellow and laid-back as the tour progressed. (Which would probably prove to be a great asset in the rare case that they actually ‘saw’ anything.)

  They’d then proceed in an orderly file to numerous churches — always a good spot for paranormal activity — houses of various horrors, and other atmospheric places, with their host acting as guide.

  In Malcolm’s now considerable experience, often a good setting was worth far more than a ‘near’ ghost sighting, in terms of providing satisfaction for his clients, and one of his favourite walks involved a now defunct railway station, where overgrown tracks led off to bramble-filled fields. Here he had his punters standing on the deserted, overgrown platform, listening out for the ghostly chuff-chuff-chuff of an approaching steam engine that had crashed on the railway line back in 1898, with the loss of five lives.

  Naturally, the ghost train had never yet had the temerity to actually show up, but his punters enjoyed the tale, standing in the moonlight (or better yet, fog) listening intently!

  Another favourite spot was an old barn on a hill, where a dead tramp had been found, between the wars, and was rumoured to be heard snoring there on certain days of the year. Here, once, Malcolm and his small group had nearly had the stuffing scared out of them when, unknown to Malcolm, the farmer had moved his prize bull into the barn, and they’d definitely heard something big and heavy breathing under the dark rafters! Naturally, they’d all legged it pretty sharpish and had retired to the nearest hostelry, where the drinks had flowed faster than usual (his tips that night had been a record-breaker). Malcolm had only learned about the presence of the bull the next day, when he’d gone back in broad daylight and seen the placid animal for himself. But by then his punters, of course, had all dispersed to go about their normal lives, much enthused by their ‘otherworldly’ experience.

  Not that he would have told anyone the true explanation anyway, even if he’d been able to track them down. For weeks after this incident — until the farmer moved his bull — that particular ghost walk had been very popular indeed, and his reputation as the man who could give someone a genuine ghostly experience had grown exponentially.

  But now, as he propped up the bar of the Spindlewood Inn (one of his regular starting points), ruminating on his past glories was the last thing on his mind.

  He’d known about the inn’s Regency Extravaganza for a while, of course — Muriel and Richard had been pleased as punch to come up with such a good money-spinner right at the end of the summer tourist season.

  Indeed, the local story of Hester and her ghost was on his regular tour of this area, and included a stop at the church t
o see her grave, and a walk past the big house where she’d once lived. So it was a no-brainer for him to choose this weekend to include the village of Caulcott Deeping in his walk. After all, he was bound to pick up some extra punters to add to his troop from the weekend guests at the inn.

  But when he’d turned up with his group of nine (a slightly small group, to be sure, but then the tourist season was nearly over) he’d found a pub if not in mourning, then at least abuzz with gossip and nervous energy.

  Which should have been a good thing — but now he wasn’t so sure.

  Malcolm’s tours were very simply arranged. He’d give the designated meeting point on his website, always a pub, and after the initial drink or two, which gave time for any latecomers to turn up, they’d set off on their walk. Malcolm would then explain the ‘ghost’ they were trying to find and there’d be the usual mix of giggles and anxiety as they did their stuff. Then they’d all get back in their various cars (designated drivers having refrained from booze, naturally) and meet up at the next point on the walk, which would be another pub. And so the process was repeated until everyone had had enough ghost-hunting and they’d all go home.

  And if the only spirits most of them ever saw were the spirits sold by the delighted pub landlords, nobody ever complained much. Although some ‘dedicated’ believers could be a bit bolshie over the non-appearance of an actual apparition. However, Malcolm only had to point out that ghosts, by their very nature, were bound to be capricious, and that he could hardly guarantee a sighting, and most would grudgingly concede that he had a point.

  So when Malcolm had left the last pub nearly half an hour ago — which, as luck would have it, was in itself the ‘haunted’ building — and had told the story of Milton-in-the-Marsh’s claim to ghostly fame, he’d mentioned the inn’s weekend event and the am-dram re-enactment of the local legend. At the time, Malcolm had felt rather smug telling them all about it, as it had added an element of glamour to the usual experience. It wasn’t often he could promise the chance to chat to glamorous luvvies, after all.