Murder on the Old Road

by Amy Myers

  As she drew closer she could see that the ruins were more substantial than she had thought. There seemed to be two former buildings, one adjoining the other, and she changed her mind about their having been barns. The larger of the two had the remains of four walls at varying heights and was roughly twenty feet long and ten feet wide, with the entrance in the narrower wall. Not a barn, she decided. It was the wrong shape. The smaller building abutting it was in better shape, with an arched doorway still intact. She decided the larger one might have been a chapel, and from the look of the ruins it preceded the church in date. With its position so relatively near to the Old Road that was highly possible. She remembered St Martha’s Chapel near Guildford, which she had visited once with Luke. Pilgrims needed not only wayside inns for physical refreshment but religious sustenance too.

  What had this smaller building been used for, she asked herself, peering through its doorway. Inside the small enclosed area was a further arched wall, which sheltered a gated area covered with a modern grid. It was, or had been, a well, but Health and Safety had been at work here with a vengeance. No one was going to prise that iron grid off in a hurry, even if they managed to get through the iron gate.

  Unusual, she thought.

  She must have spoken out loud because a voice behind her made her jump. ‘Isn’t it just.’

  It was the Reverend Anne Fanshawe.

  ‘Sorry,’ Georgia said. ‘I hope I’m not trespassing.’

  ‘Actually yes, but no problem. Everyone thinks they own this place, and who’s to say they’re not right?’

  There was a note of bitterness in Anne’s voice that made Georgia even more curious and, mindful of her mission, she pushed further. Anne Fanshawe was a lady who appeared easily able to resist pressure, if she wanted to.

  ‘Both these buildings look interesting,’ Georgia observed brightly. ‘An old chapel?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Anne did not seem disposed to say more. Interesting in itself. There had to be a reason why not. ‘A pilgrims’ chapel?’ Georgia pressed. ‘Dedicated to St Thomas?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  Very dismissive. ‘And the well?’

  ‘Just a well.’ Anne’s smile took away some of the sting, but her message was plain.

  Georgia ignored it. ‘Like St Thomas’s well at Otford? The one that, legend has it, he produced by striking the ground with his staff?’

  ‘Legends say a lot of things, and there are quite a few wells all over England said to be created by Becket. The facts behind them are few and far between.’

  There Georgia agreed with her, her mind switching over to Peter’s desperate longing for proof about Rick’s death. She forced it back again. ‘Is there a village history published? Or a website? I’d like to read more about them.’

  ‘Neither, I’m afraid.’

  No doubt about it. The vicar, for whatever reason, was not talking. Very well. Georgia decided to press further. ‘There must be information somewhere. I understand your father was the village historian?’ Nothing except an obstinate set to Anne’s mouth. Her best chance now, Georgia reasoned, was to say nothing, look enquiring and wait. It worked.

  ‘Yes, he was,’ Anne said unwillingly at last, ‘but he died before he could publish anything. I left the village in the late seventies with my mother and for good, as I then thought.’

  ‘But you came back.’

  ‘As you see.’

  Subject closed, and unreopenable, judging by Anne’s expression. Very well, Georgia would use another tack. ‘I heard you were in the 1967 production of Becket. Did you walk in the pilgrimage too? The one in which Hugh Wayncroft was killed?’

  That must have hit a nerve. Anne flushed. ‘I don’t like fencing, Georgia. So let me be clear. I’ve read Marsh & Daughter’s books. I like them, and admire what you’ve achieved in some cases. But Chillingham and Hugh Wayncroft’s death are not going to form one of them. It’s the last thing I need.’

  I need? Georgia noted the emphasis. ‘The murder was unsolved,’ was all she said, ‘and unsolved cases can have lasting effects, both on families and on communities.’

  ‘Don’t you think I know that?’ Anne flashed angrily at her. ‘But Robert Wayncroft wanted it to stay unsolved. And before you make assumptions, I’m not breaking any secrets of the confessional; his views were publicly known. So let Hugh rest in peace.’

  ‘If you’re sure he is.’

  ‘You believe in ghosts?’ Anne was furious now.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then you’ve answered your own question.’

  ‘You told me Peacock Wood gave you the shivers.’

  Anne stared at her. ‘I was trying to reassure you.’

  ‘You said you don’t like fencing.’

  ‘Shivers are subjective.’

  ‘But we shared them.’

  Anne glared at her, and Georgia watched her as she walked away. She hadn’t handled that too well, she thought ruefully. Then her hopes rose as Anne paused and came back.

  ‘I’m not going to let you win, Georgia. I’d like to, but I can’t. So I have to tell you a certain amount about myself. I warn you it will be the minimum necessary. Agreed?’

  ‘Agreed.’

  ‘I came back to Kent in 2002 when I was ordained. My husband had died and that had led me to take holy orders. I was a curate at St Edith’s in Canterbury for a year or two and then came here as vicar.

  ‘I met Robert Wayncroft,’ she continued steadily, ‘by chance in Canterbury. He returned to England in 2002 after many years away. I knew him, of course, from my childhood, and he told me he proposed to spend his remaining years in Chillingham Place. He was eighty-two then, and he lived on for another five years. He was a Roman Catholic by upbringing, but had a great affinity with the local church – naturally, since the living had been in the gift of Chillingham Place for centuries. I remained in touch with Robert, and he suggested I apply for it when the former vicar retired. So that’s me. Anything more you’d like to know about him before I talk about the other Wayncrofts?’

  Anne looked a belligerent figure . . . or was she merely defensive? Georgia wondered. ‘No, and thank you,’ she replied. She would have liked to have asked what had made her accept Robert Wayncroft’s suggestion, but she couldn’t probe that far too soon.

  Nevertheless, Anne did add, ‘We remained friends because Robert was, by then, living in his flat in Chillingham Place. I shared his views about development in the village. We both opposed it, and I still do.’

  Anne was looking at her in such a challenging manner that Georgia decided to take that no further. Another put-down would be the result if she did and perhaps bring this tenuous communication to an abrupt halt.

  ‘And Hugh’s death?’ she asked. ‘Why did Robert want it to remain unsolved?’ Anne’s body language was almost shouting ‘no more’ so Georgia added, ‘Unless I understand that, Peter and I can’t judge whether the reasons are sufficiently valid for us to leave the subject alone.’

  ‘Because the murder was history by the time Robert returned here for good.’

  ‘Fencing?’ Keep your voice neutral, Georgia told herself, or you’ll get nowhere.

  Anne managed a grin. ‘If I say nothing more, will you still go on ferreting?’

  ‘Yes. I’d have to, don’t you see?’

  ‘Unfortunately, yes. So it’s better it comes from me than you upset other people by barging in to a situation you don’t understand.’

  Thanks, Georgia thought wryly, but there was no point in arguing.

  ‘Just now you said that unsolved cases can have lasting effects on communities. I presume therefore you think this is true in the case of Chillingham.’

  ‘So far it seems to be.’

  ‘If so, it goes back further than 1967, so my father explained to me. Until last century, the Wayncrofts owned nearly all the property in the village and ran its affairs, mostly fairly but traditionally. Even though property had begun to change hands, by the time the 1960s had arriv
ed the village was a backwater and money hard to come by. What happened was that it became split between those who wanted to modernize it – such as Fred Miller at the pub, for instance and Clive Moon – and those who most definitely didn’t.’

  ‘Including the Wayncrofts presumably.’

  ‘Yes and no. Hugh was a stickler for tradition, but young Val was a tearaway and joined the opposition. So did Jessica, Hugh’s widow. His death stopped the opposition in its track, but Robert always feared it would rear its head again. It split the village.’

  Georgia frowned. ‘Sorry. I don’t see how our finding Hugh’s murderer could affect that issue.’

  ‘Progress,’ Anne explained. ‘In the shape of Val Harper. He left the village for France in the 1980s, as it was clear – at he saw it – that the village was going nowhere. He had the luck to marry into the Bonneur family, and he settled in France for good. His wife was well-heeled, to say the least, and part of the old aristocracy. Typical Val, though. A keen eye for the main chance – only to make a mess of it. He played around and landed up divorced and penniless, so as soon as Robert, who couldn’t stand him, died, back comes Val on his white charger, determined to rescue the village from oblivion. It’s the one thing Julian and he agree on, although I suspect that’s only because Julian’s banking career may be faltering and Chillingham Place eats money. This current farce of a pilgrimage is one result of their so-called united front.’

  ‘It was their idea?’

  ‘Val’s in the driving seat, I suspect.’

  ‘But you don’t approve.’ Georgia was surprised. She had assumed Julian would be a staunch traditionalist. ‘Sooner or later there are bound to be housing estates popping up here and goodness knows what else, so that would bring Chillingham into prominence whether it likes it or not,’ she pointed out. ‘Why do you feel so strongly about not supporting Val and Julian’s plans? What do they have in mind?’

  ‘Quite a lot,’ Anne said firmly. ‘I can’t do anything about housing projects, but I can stop this tourist attraction nonsense. I can’t approve the principle.’ She must have caught sight of Georgia’s astonished face. ‘Robert asked me to oppose it, Georgia.’

  Georgia grappled with this. ‘Why you, not Julian? He’s the heir.’

  ‘Because Julian is all for encouraging tourism, and so is his mother. Robert was right. He said it would all blow up again once he was dead.’

  Georgia clung to the one thing that seemed to make sense. ‘His mother? Jessica? Is she still alive?’

  ‘And kicking.’ Anne paused. ‘Ask the Moon family about St Thomas and the Wayncrofts, and tell them I sent you.’

  Anne’s amused look as she left had irritated Georgia. It implied she had only been allowed to see the tip of the iceberg where Chillingham was concerned. She supposed this was fair enough. She might have felt the same if a relative stranger had barged into her and Peter’s private lives, but having told her some of the story, Anne should have concluded it. Georgia felt she was being manipulated, and she didn’t like it. ‘Ask the Moon family’ – why? Reluctantly, however, she acknowledged that it was in her interests to play Anne’s game if this were the open sesame to Chillingham. The Three Peacocks it should be, then, in the hope that Lisa Moon would be on duty.

  The pub was virtually empty as Georgia walked in, but on a Monday this was not surprising, and it certainly suited her purpose. She tried to picture the Three Peacocks full of gastro diners, but the sight of those empty tables and the general look of forlorn expectation of happier times made it hard to do so. There was no sign of Lisa, and it was Simon who greeted her cheerfully from behind the bar.

  ‘You’re the lunchtime rush all by yourself, Georgia. What can I get you?’

  Georgia ordered a cider, which seemed appropriate in Kentish apple land. ‘How’s the pilgrimage faring?’

  ‘Too soon to tell, but the signs are good. Tim said the play went well in Winchester on Saturday night. A few first night nerves and dramas, but on the whole a success. The local papers and citizens gave them a good send-off when they embarked on the St Swithun’s Way yesterday, and Tim’s hoping that the pilgrimage might pick up some national media interest when it arrives at the North Downs Way, a bit further along.’

  ‘Are you going to meet them at any point?’ Georgia knew that some of the Chillingham pilgrims were in for the whole two weeks, but others were joining for particular stretches only.

  ‘The vicar is.’

  An odd reply, but Georgia was getting used to that in Chillingham. ‘But not you?’

  ‘Only if I can get Lisa and Derek to cope for a day or two.’

  A minor problem, Georgia thought sadly, if this empty pub were anything to go by.

  ‘I’d like to do bits of it,’ Simon continued. ‘The Otford to Wrotham stretch for a start – and, of course, the walk from here to Canterbury for the last lap. But Tim’s laden with leaflets encouraging residents along the way to join the pilgrims and drop in here for lunch, so someone has to be here to run the shop.’

  ‘No problem, Simon.’ Lisa appeared from the kitchens to fetch a bottle from the bar. ‘I can cook sausage and chips for a day or two.’

  ‘Very funny,’ Simon grunted. ‘Lisa,’ he explained to Georgia, ‘is a superb cook of everything from pie and mash to truffle soufflé.’

  ‘No need to butter me up,’ Lisa returned cheerfully. ‘I’ve enough fat of my own.’

  Georgia seized her chance. ‘If the Becket tourist trade does increase, you should do well here. I take it that you’re both keen supporters?’

  ‘You’d take it wrong then, m’dear,’ Lisa replied, not it seemed offended.

  ‘I’m on one side of the fence,’ Simon said wryly, ‘and Lisa’s fixated on the other, aren’t you?’

  ‘I need my job, Simon.’

  He laughed. ‘You can’t deny you’re all for keeping Chillingham a great big secret, can you?’

  ‘Let sleeping dogs lie, that’s what I say.’ Lisa looked unfazed.

  ‘As with Hugh Wayncroft’s murder?’ Georgia put her foot firmly into the playing ground. It was a safe bet, she reasoned, as Simon had not been in the village then, and it would hardly upset Lisa after forty years.

  Mistake. Georgia realized that immediately as the atmosphere instantly cooled. ‘I’ll be seeing to those potatoes, Simon,’ Lisa said, turning to go.

  ‘But the vicar said I should tell you she sent me.’ The words sounded ridiculously childish, even to her.

  ‘Well, did she now? Fancy that. And now you’ve told me.’ Lisa didn’t even bother to turn round, but disappeared through the kitchen door.

  ‘I seem to have upset her.’ Georgia could have kicked herself.

  ‘Old history,’ Simon muttered uneasily. ‘But I don’t mind talking about the murder, if that’s what interests you. I’m a newcomer after all, and I’ve always thought it strange that Hugh Wayncroft’s death seems a no-go area. Whenever I raised the subject, I would get a polite answer and the conversation would be diverted, so I stopped asking. All I could pick up was that he was probably killed by an itinerant strawberry picker. There used to be a farm not far away.’

  ‘Is that credible?’

  ‘From what I can gather, no. But, as I said, no one opens up about it. It’s just water under the bridge now.’

  ‘Even to Lisa?’

  ‘Especially to Lisa.’

  ‘Deliberately buried?’

  ‘The jury’s out, but my advice is not to go digging.’

  ‘On the murder itself, perhaps. But the vicar told me the village was split both then and now on the question of promoting itself, and as Hugh Wayncroft was opposed to it, it seems possible it could connect to his death.’

  ‘Did she say that?’

  ‘No. But nor did she explain why the issue seems to have polarized the village as strongly as she implied, both then and now.’

  ‘It’s simple enough,’ Simon replied savagely. ‘Chillingham is crying out to be put on the map, and if it doesn�
�t succeed not only this pub, but also village life will die on its feet. The post office is under threat unless trade picks up, and if it goes the village shop will too, and so will the B and B business. What’s left of the Chillingham estate would have to be sold, and the Three Peacocks can’t survive much longer. Only the church would be left. The church usually survives.’

  ‘So the vicar is a traditionalist.’

  ‘Not the only one, alas,’ Simon admitted.

  ‘Do you think the split could be relevant to Hugh Wayncroft’s murder? Anne Fanshawe implied it was just as fierce then as now.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know, but it seems possible. A lot of livelihoods were at stake, just as they are now, and Hugh Wayncroft was blocking their attempts to progress.’

  ‘But now his son is in favour of it.’

  Simon nodded. ‘Julian, Aletta, Val and Jessica all are. You’d think the village would follow their lead, but no. And yet Chillingham is doomed to decay if it doesn’t.’ He paused. ‘You know why this pub is called the Three Peacocks?’

  ‘No.’ It was an unusual name.

  ‘There’s a legend that Chillingham Place always had peacocks roaming round the estate, and that if their number fell below three, the village and Chillingham Place would be finished. Tim told me peacocks were once a symbol of resurrection, and later of the soul, hence the importance of keeping them happy. Well, there are no peacocks here now, not in Chillingham Place or in Peacock Wood. Not one. Every so often Julian has a go at breeding them, but they always die or disappear. It’s mere folklore, of course, but it doesn’t help at a time like this. Chillingham Place eats money, and Julian’s income doesn’t bring in enough to ensure its future or even his. The only way forward is through the tourist trade, so let’s drink to jolly old St Thomas Becket.’

  ‘Did he have specific connections with Chillingham? I noticed the church is dedicated to him. Would that old chapel also have been?’

  Simon regarded her with some amusement. ‘Didn’t Anne tell you?’

  ‘No. I asked her if the well had any legends attached to it, but she wasn’t forthcoming.’