Murder Out of Tune - A Libby Sarjeant Murder Mystery

by Lesley Cookman

  ‘So when Bowling built his house, did he tell you what he wanted to do with the converted attic?’ asked Libby.

  ‘Wasn’t converted – purpose built, like this one. And no, not at first, but eventually he asked me about Mike Farthing.’

  ‘Mike? Why?’

  ‘Mike helped with a bit of the landscaping round here, so Vern wanted to ask him to help out at his place, too. And then he asked me if I thought Mike knew anything about plant ventilation systems. You know, for greenhouses.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So I asked him if he was setting up a nursery, or a conservatory or something. And that was when he took me up to the factory. Course, it didn’t have plants in it then, but he explained it all.’ Stewart shook his head. ‘I told him he was mad.’

  ‘So what happened when he asked Mike?’

  ‘Mike must have refused to help. You know Mike, don’t you? Can you see him doing anything like that? Course not.’

  ‘He says he didn’t know anything about it.’

  ‘So he didn’t even ask him. Not surprised.’

  Libby thought for a moment. ‘So he asked the boys in Mike’s shop instead, didn’t he?’

  Stewart looked surprised. ‘I suppose so. How do you know?’

  ‘The police took his computer away and shut the place down. There was something on that computer, and as Mike hardly ever uses it and all his mail order stuff is run by those two – Patrick and Gary, isn’t it? – it wasn’t hard to guess.’

  Libby heard the lift door swish open and a woman appeared carrying a tray. Libby had expected Stewart’s wife to be as much of a seventies throw-back as he was, but Maria Stewart looked like most of Libby’s friends, middle-aged but not frumpy.

  ‘Telling Libby here about Vern’s house.’ Stewart waved a hand in Libby’s direction. Maria sat down and handed out mugs.

  ‘Silly bugger,’ she said. ‘Needed his head examined. And all those others.’

  ‘Others?’ Libby looked from Maria to Stewart.

  ‘Doctor, lawyer, merchant chief,’ said Maria. ‘He got them all hooked. But not on cannabis.’

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Libby gasped. ‘Robinson? Chandler? They were users? Of what?’

  Stewart shrugged his shoulders, watching her carefully. ‘This and that. Course, so was I, but not on that scale. I introduced Vern to Chandler. He got me off a drugs charge a while ago, see. I didn’t know what it would lead to.’

  ‘What about the doctor?’ Libby was frowning. ‘And is he a doctor of medicine or what?’

  ‘Psychology,’ said Maria. ‘Pity he doesn’t psychoanalyse himself.’ She brushed greying blonde hair out of her eyes.

  ‘Now, sweets, we don’t really know about that,’ said Stewart.

  ‘About what?’ asked Libby, beginning to think she was floundering around in a completely different investigation.

  ‘His mates all covered up for him,’ said Maria, eying her husband defiantly. ‘Abuse, it was.’

  ‘Abuse?’ gasped Libby.

  ‘Now, now,’ Stewart protested again. ‘No one really knows.’

  ‘All right – it was gossip. His wife –’ Maria paused. ‘Have you met her?’

  Libby nodded.

  ‘She goes to the same WI as I do.’ She caught Libby’s look of surprise and grinned. ‘Didn’t expect that, did you? Yeah, I belong. I know your friend Patti, too. We’re ever so normal, really. Anyway, Veronica Robinson goes to the same WI as Sandra Farrow and I do. Or she did. She stopped coming because of the gossip – at least I guess that was why it was.’

  ‘But gossip about what?’

  Maria hesitated. ‘Well, Ron’s right, really. It is only gossip, but the word is that he used to beat Veronica up.’

  ‘Oh, good heavens,’ said Libby, her hand going to her mouth. ‘But how do you know?’

  ‘As we said, it was only gossip,’ said Maria.

  ‘It was hushed up,’ said Stewart. ‘The word is that he’d done it before, and his colleagues had rallied round.’

  ‘I can’t believe it! This is like a soap opera.’ Libby shook her head. ‘But they’re still together?’

  ‘Easy to cover things up when you can get someone to say your wife’s loony tunes in his business.’ Maria sat back triumphantly. ‘I honestly don’t know why Ron still knows them all.’

  Stewart sighed. ‘Performing, that’s all.’ He looked at Libby and grinned. ‘That’s why I’d like to do the concert.’

  ‘Did Bowling know all this?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Stewart looked at his feet. ‘He got to know everyone’s secrets.’

  Libby groaned.

  ‘Makes it difficult, doesn’t it?’ said Maria. ‘But we haven’t told the police any of this.’

  ‘They will already know about Robinson if his wife complained. It will be on record.’

  ‘Not if Derek Chandler managed to get them to scrub it. And we don’t know that the wife complained.’ Stewart sighed and sat up. ‘Now you know why I wanted you to have a look into it. One of those bastards is responsible, I’m sure, but no one will have told the police about any of this.’

  ‘So.’ Libby let out a breath. ‘Are there any more skeletons in the cupboards? Any more suspects?’

  ‘No.’ Stewart shook his head slowly. ‘Poor old Bob Alton, of course, but he wouldn’t hurt a fly.’

  ‘Because of his son? You know about that?’

  ‘Oh, yes. He found out who Vern was when he saw our names on the list for the concert.’ He shrugged. ‘We weren’t a formal group – when we met in The Poacher it was all first names.’

  ‘What about Alan Farrow?’

  ‘Alan?’ Maria laughed. ‘Driven snow! And now he’s married to the lovely Sandra – he wouldn’t jeopardise that.’

  ‘So – just Robinson and Chandler?’ said Libby.

  ‘And me,’ said Stewart with a grin. ‘I knew about his factory and I’ve been done for drugs.’

  ‘I can’t see that you’ve got a motive, though.’ Libby sighed. ‘And Mike. I suppose he still has got a motive, if it was his computer used to research and buy the ventilation stuff.’

  ‘Research, I think, not buy. So he’d kill Vern for that? Don’t think so.’

  ‘On the spur of the moment?’ suggested Libby.

  Maria and Stewart both shook their heads.

  ‘Was he a ladies man? Could Denise ...?’

  ‘No. And Denise wouldn’t want to kill him. He was her source.’

  ‘He – what? Denise, too?’

  Maria nodded. ‘Have you met her? All nervy, gets stressed-out, and starts yelling.’

  ‘Oh – yes. I’ve seen her do that. I didn’t realise.’ Libby sighed again. ‘So might he have found someone else – to get away from her, perhaps?’

  ‘Did you ever see him?’ asked Stewart.

  ‘No, why?’

  ‘Imagine Derek Chandler with ginger hair – what there was of it,’ said Maria.

  ‘Unprepossessing, then?’

  ‘Off-putting to a degree.’ Maria shuddered artistically. ‘Creepy.’

  ‘That’s what I thought about Chandler,’ agreed Libby. ‘Well, thank you both for all this information, although I haven’t got a clue what to do with it. And I can’t see any reason at all for any of our suspects to have a go at me.’

  ‘I knew about you and your investigations – so could any of the others. And you were involved with the concert,’ said Stewart.

  ‘It still doesn’t makes sense,’ said Libby, and stood up. ‘I’ll think about it. I shall have a word with Mike on my way home.’

  They both took her down in the lift and saw her to the front door.

  ‘Oh –’ said Libby as she stood on the steps. ‘Publicity material!’

  ‘Oh, bugger!’ said Stewart. ‘Hang on.’

  He disappeared in the direction of the lift and Maria laughed.

  ‘He’s getting more and more forgetful.’ She moved nearer to Libby. ‘And he’s really nervous at the though
t of performing – just so’s you know. That’s why he joined the uke band, to get him back into it.’

  ‘Why – I thought Jonah Fludde still performed?’

  ‘Occasionally at festivals, and he stays well in the background. He lost his nerve.’

  ‘Was there a reason?’

  Maria’s eyes slid away from Libby’s. ‘Breakdown.’

  ‘Ah.’ Libby nodded and didn’t know what else to say. Stewart appeared in the hall holding a brown envelope.

  ‘I put all that together when I got in last night. Hope it helps.’

  ‘It does, and we’re all very grateful. If we hadn’t already sold out this would have done it for us.’

  They both waved Libby off as she drove back down the drive and through the gates.

  ‘So that’s what a superstar is like,’ she said to herself.

  As she drove towards Mike’s nursery she found herself trying to remember something that had been said that felt important, but couldn’t pin it down. But it niggled all the way towards Shott.

  There were cars on the forecourt and the doors of the shop were wide open. To her surprise, Libby found Cassandra serving customers alongside a harassed-looking Mike. She stood aside and watched until they were both free and the shop was empty.

  ‘I thought you said Cassandra wouldn’t be here?’ She went forward and spoke to Mike.

  ‘I offered. Mike couldn’t cope here in the shop on his own.’ Cassandra was in full headmistress mode.

  ‘Oh.’ Libby looked at Mike. ‘The boys. Have they been prosecuted?’

  Mike looked nervously at Cassandra. ʻI don’t know how much you know …’

  ‘I think I know that Vernon Bowling approached your boys, Gary and Patrick, who researched the heating and ventilating systems using your computer. That was why the police were so sure you had something to do with the factory. Is that it?’

  ‘Yes. They took the computer.’

  ‘I know. So how are you coping without it?’

  ‘He’s using mine.’ Cassandra pointed to a laptop. ‘I set him up with an email address, and he can access his old website via that. He’d written the login details down. Not really the right thing to do, but useful, in this case. We’re coping.’

  ‘Have they arrested Gary and Patrick?’

  ‘I think so.’

  Libby made an exasperated noise. ‘Don’t you know?’

  ‘No.’ Mike looked at Cassandra again. Libby could see that this was going to be the pattern of their relationship from now on.

  ‘So that was it, was it?’ said Libby. ‘That was why they were turning you over? It wasn’t drugs?’

  ‘Of course it wasn’t,’ snapped Cassandra.

  ‘But in a way it was, wasn’t it?’ said Mike, suddenly. ‘They thought I’d been researching the systems for Vernon. They thought I was into drugs.’

  ‘Well,’ said Libby, narrowing her eyes at him, ‘so many people are, aren’t they?’

  ‘I suppose they are,’ said Mike gloomily. ‘I’m sure there wasn’t as much drug-taking when I was young.’

  Cassandra was also watching him. ‘I don’t think she meant that, Mike.’

  ‘Eh?’ He looked startled.

  ‘I think Libby meant so many of your friends.’

  ‘My friends? Who do you mean?’

  ‘Eric Robinson and Derek Chandler for two.’

  Mike looked stunned. He really didn’t know, thought Libby.

  ‘Eric ... and Derek? Drugs?’

  ‘Ron Stewart told me all about it. And Denise Bowling, of course.’

  Mike looked as though he was going to faint.

  ‘Do the police know this?’ asked Cassandra.

  ‘I’ve no idea. And if they do, they will be looking into it all very carefully.’ Libby sat down on the only chair in the shop. ‘And none of them could have a motive for attacking me.’

  ‘There’s an obvious reason for attacking you,’ said Cassandra, looking down her aristocratic nose.

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘You’re nosy.’

  ‘That’s a bit harsh,’ said Mike nervously. ‘She’s not nosy, exactly, she’s – um –’

  ‘Nosy,’ Libby finished for him. ‘I know I am, but I’m known for getting most things right. The only problem here is that nobody from the uke group knew me.’

  ‘A lot of them saw you at that meeting in the theatre,’ said Cassandra.

  ‘But they didn’t know I would be looking into the murder. And they didn’t know where I lived, or that I would be out and about that afternoon.’

  ‘Easy enough to find out where you lived,’ said Cassandra. ‘Somebody would only have to ask in the village shop. And a lot of people in the area would have seen you in the local newspaper – or even on the local TV news programme. You and a murder equals investigation.’

  ‘So whoever did it jumped to conclusions?’

  Cassandra shrugged. ‘Looks like it.’

  Libby scowled at her feet and decided not to mention the allegation of abuse against Dr Robinson, although she couldn’t help asking, ‘How well do you know Robinson?’

  ‘I’ve told you before, not well at all. I didn’t know any of them well. I joined because I didn’t go out much and it was a way to meet people.’ Mike smiled. ‘And I found I enjoyed it.’

  ‘You never met his wife?’

  ‘Never. I didn’t even know he had one.’

  ‘Right.’ Libby stood up. ‘I’ll get going then. I’ve got one more call to make before I go home.’

  Cassandra looked a question, but didn’t press it. Mike merely looked relieved.

  The final visit, Libby had decided on the spur of the moment, was to Alan and Sandra Farrow. She pulled out her mobile before getting in to the car.

  ‘Yes, we’re in,’ said Sandra, sounding surprised. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’

  Providence Row was another tiny cobbled lane leading off the main street in Itching. The Farrows’ house was halfway up, a flint cottage under a slate roof. A smart red front door sported a holly and fir Christmas wreath.

  ‘Come in.’ Sandra led the way directly into a long room with gentleman’s-club furniture. Out of French windows at the other end, Libby could see a frosty garden.

  ‘Let’s go into the kitchen. It’s warmer there, we haven’t lit the fire in the sitting room yet.’

  The kitchen, very new and glossy, also looked out on the garden, where Libby could see Alan Farrow pottering in the doorway of a small shed. Sandra knocked on the window, he turned and waved.

  ‘So was there something you wanted to ask me?’ said Sandra, pouring tea from a knitted-cosied teapot very much at odds with the new kitchen.

  ‘Well, sort of,’ said Libby, accepting a cup. ‘You know you said you were friends with Denise through darts and – didn’t you say she was lonely?’

  ‘I thought she was, yes.’

  ‘You never suspected she might be on drugs, then?’

  Sandra almost dropped her cup. ‘Drugs?’

  ‘Apparently.’ Libby was watching closely. ‘No indications?’

  Sandra sat back in her chair shaking her head. ‘None. Mind you, I wouldn’t know what I was looking for. What was it? The cannabis?’

  ‘And worse, I gather,’ said Libby. ‘I’m afraid she did know about the factory after all. But she never let on to you?’

  ‘Never. I can’t believe it. Yes, she was a bit – well – nervy. Highly strung. But I suppose that was the drugs.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Libby was silent for a moment. ‘Do you happen to know how she is? Is she home?’

  ‘No, she’s been – ah – detained. Psychiatric ward. So sad.’ Sandra indeed looked on the point of bursting into tears. Luckily, Alan emerged through the back door rubbing his hands.

  ‘Tea?’ he said, beaming at the two women. ‘Capital.’ He shrugged off an old tweed coat and sat down next to his wife.

  ‘Alan,’ she said, turning to him. ‘Denise was on drugs.’

  Alan Farrow looked at h
er for a long minute. ‘I know.’

  ‘You knew?’ gasped Sandra.

  Alan turned to Libby. ‘When they first moved here I met Vernon in The Poacher and we got chatting. We met a few times, and one evening Denise came in. She was in such a state.’ He shook his head. ‘Vernon hustled her out. Eric Robinson was there, too. He said “Drugs, poor woman”. I supposed he knew. Being a doctor.’

  ‘But he’s a psychologist’ said Libby. ‘Not an ordinary doctor.’

  ‘All the more reason for him to know, surely?’ said Alan.

  ‘I suppose so.’ Libby pinched her lip. ‘Well, I’m no nearer knowing who hit me over the head or murdered Vernon Bowling, assuming it was the same person.’

  ‘Are you sure it is the same person?’ asked Sandra. ‘And one of the ukulele group?’

  ‘That seems to be the way the police investigation is going,’ said Libby. She swallowed the rest of her tea. ‘I’d better get going. I’ve been out all morning and I’ve got to get this publicity stuff off to Sir Andrew.’

  ‘So Ron Stewart’s really going to do a spot at the concert?’ said Alan.

  ‘Yes, he really is.’ Libby smiled. ‘As long as he doesn’t get arrested before then.’

  ‘Arrested?’ Sandra looked horrified. ‘Oh, no! You don’t mean ...?’

  ‘I was making a joke, albeit in rather bad taste,’ Libby explained. ‘Sorry, Sandra.’

  Libby drove back home to Steeple Martin thinking over her three visits. She’d got rather more information than she’d bargained for, but none of it seemed to give anyone a motive for the murder of Vernon Bowling. All the secrets that he might have known about were also known by other people, so there was no reason to try and silence him. So why him? There must be another reason buried somewhere in his life. And if there was, surely the police would find it. They would be going through every aspect of that life, financial, personal, public and private.

  She thought about his connection to Dellington. At first, that had seemed to be the obvious motive, as a reprisal for the death of a relation or loved one, and that could mean anyone, anywhere. She supposed the police would have traced descendants or relatives of all the victims of the experiments, and for all she knew they already had someone they were keeping an eye on – had even perhaps arrested. Detective Chief Inspector Connell sadly didn’t tell her everything.