Murder to Music - Libby Sarjeant Murder Mystery Series

by Lesley Cookman

  ‘Shall I leave you to it?’ said Ian. ‘I’ve got to go out and see what’s happening outside anyway. We’re cutting a path through to the barn.’

  ‘Does Rosie know?’ asked Libby.

  ‘Of course, we had to ask her permission. There’s actually already a track there, but it’s completely overgrown.’

  ‘No traces of anyone having used it recently?’

  ‘We are looking, Libby. We had actually thought of that.’ Ian turned to Ben. ‘OK, then? All the doors are unlocked, and there’ll always be someone in the garden who can fetch me if you need me.’

  ‘Well,’ said Ben, after Ian had left through the back door. ‘You two had better show me around. Are we likely to hear this music?’

  ‘Yes, if we go upstairs,’ said Fran, ‘but I thought you wanted to find the cellar?’

  ‘That’s what I’m here for. Libby, have you got those details?’

  Libby had printed the old details from the estate agent’s website and fished them out of her basket. ‘It says door to cellar in hall.’ She looked round. ‘But I can’t see it.’

  ‘It’s a bit of a rambler, this house,’ said Ben. ‘This probably isn’t the only hall. This part is the later addition, I think. We need the earlier house.’

  ‘Through there, then,’ said Fran, pointing to the left. ‘That corridor leads to the rooms beyond the piano room.’

  ‘Oh, yes, the piano room. I’d better have a look at that.’ Ben led the way into the room.

  ‘It feels friendly, doesn’t it?’ said Libby. ‘It felt spooky upstairs, and in the garden after we’d heard the music, but I don’t think it is an unfriendly house.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Fran. ‘I really like this room. I can just see drifting white curtains at these long windows.’

  ‘And a big log fire in the winter,’ said Libby going to the Adam-style fireplace. ‘This isn’t original, though, is it? This room’s been upgraded.’

  ‘It’s a complete mish-mash,’ said Ben, frowning. ‘The Georgian owners obviously gave the interior a complete makeover. And I imagine upstairs there are even more desecrations from when it was turned into a workhouse.’

  ‘Not too many,’ said Libby. ‘Don’t forget this was the master’s house. The actual workhouse buildings were outside and were demolished.’

  ‘Except for the barn.’ Fran turned round in a full circle and then stopped. ‘I’ve had an idea.’

  ‘What?’ said Ben and Libby together.

  ‘Do you remember when we were at Creekmarsh? We went round the outside to try and find traces of the cellars?’

  ‘So why aren’t we doing that here?’ Ben patted her on the shoulder. ‘Brilliant, Fran. Might not be quite so easy as this is older and I think there’s more subsidence.’

  ‘There was subsidence at Creekmarsh,’ said Libby. ‘All we need to find is the top of a lintel, isn’t it? Then work out where it is on the inside.’

  ‘All? There’s a lot of outside to this place,’ said Ben. ‘Come on.’

  It wasn’t easy to get all the way round the outside. The side of the house that led to the wall and the garden gate was part of the newer house and contained nothing suspicious, the garden where the bodies had been exhumed was almost impossible to traverse, but by dint of keeping close to the wall past the piano room windows in single file, they reached the hedge which divided the garden and managed to squeeze through.

  ‘I’ve never been this side before,’ said Libby.

  ‘It looks as though this was the formal garden,’ said Fran. ‘Look, there are lupins and delphiniums over there.’

  Ben was grubbing around the bottom of the wall. ‘Look,’ he called over his shoulder. Fran and Libby bent down.

  ‘There,’ he said. ‘I think that’s a lintel.’

  It was a bleached beam at a forty-five degree angle, disappearing into the ground. Further along, there was another, which Libby pointed out.

  ‘Cellars? Or actually the original ground floor of the house?’ she asked. ‘If it’s subsidence, that’s what it could be.’

  Ben nodded, fished a tape measure out of his back pocket and started taking measurements. Libby and Fran took turns to hold the end, while he wandered up and down muttering and making notes. Finally he stood back and peered up at the walls.

  ‘I think I know where it is,’ he said. ‘Now we’ve just got to get inside.’

  The started round the other side of the house into more unkempt gardens.

  ‘Did you notice there was no music in the garden?’ said Libby.

  ‘Of course not. The garden gate has been taken off. There’s nothing to trigger it,’ said Fran.

  ‘What I want to know,’ said Ben, as he poked along at the bottom of the wall, ‘is why they haven’t traced that music. There’s got to be a wiring system.’

  ‘Perhaps they have,’ said Libby. ‘You could ask.’

  They came up against a wall that blocked their way to the front of the house.

  ‘Come on then,’ said Ben. ‘Back the other way.’

  ‘We can go in the back door if it’s unlocked,’ said Fran, ‘or through the french windows into the piano room.’

  Back in the garden where white-coated figures still worked, Libby called out to the nearest.

  ‘Do you know if the wiring’s been traced from the gatepost?’

  Three of the figures turned round. The first pulled her mask down. ‘Don’t know anything about it. What wiring?’

  ‘Wrong sort of investigators,’ said Ben as they entered the passage from the back door. ‘I expect they’re soil samplers or something.’

  ‘We’ll ask Ian,’ said Libby. ‘Come on, let’s find this cellar.’

  But they couldn’t.

  ‘Do you remember,’ said Libby eventually, as, hot and dusty, they reconvened in the hall of the older part of the house, ‘at Creekmarsh it was inside a cupboard.’

  ‘I’ve looked,’ said Ben. ‘There’s only one place where it can be.’

  ‘Where?’ said Fran and Libby together.

  ‘Under the staircase at the other end of the building. There’s no under-stairs cupboard, and although it looks genuine, I guarantee that the wall is recent.’

  ‘What do we do? The listing people won’t let you knock that wall down, will they?’ said Fran.

  ‘I’ll tell Ian,’ said Ben. ‘I’m sure he can get round it. Shame I can’t get a sample of the brick work or plaster to date it.’

  ‘Shall I go round to the outside and see if it’s the right place?’ said Libby.

  ‘It’s more or less the right place. And you could be right. It isn’t so much a cellar as an original floor.’ Ben led them to the staircase in question. ‘It looks like a return, doesn’t it?’

  Fran and Libby looked.

  ‘If you say so,’ said Libby. Ben sighed.

  ‘Let’s see if we can find Ian,’ suggested Fran. ‘He’ll know what to do.’

  But Ben was suddenly on his knees again.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Libby, crouching down beside him.

  He waved her away. ‘Get out of my light,’ he muttered, and began feeling his way along the wall until he came to the outer one. ‘There!’ he said triumphantly, and stood up.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Wiring. Not sure if it’s going or coming, but that should be enough to allow us – or the police – to knock through.’

  ‘We’ve found the music?’ said Libby.

  ‘I think so. Come on, we really must find Ian now.’

  One of the white suits confirmed that Ian was still somewhere in the wood, and Fran called his mobile.

  ‘He’s coming straight back,’ she said switching it off.

  When Ian arrived, Ben took him to see the half covered lintel, then into the house to where the wiring confirmed the presence of the hidden cellar. Fran and Libby inspected the sagging door frame in the garden wall.

  ‘No wiring, but it was here.’ Fran ran her finger down a newish looking scrape in the old wood. ‘H
ow on earth did they manage to come in and dismantle it with all this police activity going on?’

  ‘There was no police activity last weekend,’ said Libby. ‘Only Ian on Saturday afternoon, and I don’t think he was here for long.’

  Ian and Ben appeared round the side of the house. Ian was talking into his mobile and scowling.

  ‘He’s got to get an expert to look at it to see if it’s genuine. My word isn’t good enough apparently,’ said Ben. ‘Back to the Archaeological Society.’

  ‘Andrew said he knew a buildings person,’ said Libby, ‘but it might not be tactful to mention it if he and Rosie have had a falling out.’

  ‘We’ll let Ian sort it out,’ said Ben. ‘I’ve done my bit.’

  ‘And we’ve found where the wiring was here,’ said Fran, pointing to the door frame.

  ‘So have we.’ Ian came up putting his mobile in his pocket. ‘And the speakers.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Libby and Fran, defeated.

  ‘Very cunningly concealed. It was a real specialist job. Now we can see the other end, thanks to Ben, and I expect we’ll find the equipment in the blocked up cellar.’

  ‘But if it’s blocked up, how are they getting to it?’ asked Libby. ‘They can’t leave it unattended – or can they? It might go wrong.’

  ‘Well, it certainly will now we’ve disconnected everything this end,’ said Ian. ‘We’ll have to find the hidden speakers on the staircase next, but if we can get the buildings archaeologist down here, that’ll help.’ He turned to the white coats who had carried on with their careful scraping and sample taking and didn’t appear to be listening. ‘Have we got a dendrochronologist on the team?’

  ‘In the lab,’ said one.

  ‘Not on site?’

  They all looked up at him blankly and shook their heads. Ian muttered under his breath.

  ‘Shall we leave you to it?’ asked Libby. ‘You’ve got enough on your plate without us cluttering up the place.’

  ‘Thanks, Libby.’ Ian held out his hand to Ben. ‘And thanks, Ben. Will you be able to give a proper statement about this?’

  Ben nodded. ‘I’ll do a report and email it to you. What’s your address?’

  Ian wrote his email address on an official card.

  ‘Why isn’t it on there already?’ asked Libby, peering over Ben’s shoulder.

  ‘I’d be inundated,’ said Ian. ‘The only numbers there are the police station switchboard and my dedicated mobile.’

  ‘Different from the one we use?’

  ‘Definitely.’ Ian gave them all a grin. ‘Now I’d better make some more phone calls.’

  ‘Whatever did we do before mobile phones?’ mused Libby as they went back to their cars.

  ‘Led a different lifestyle,’ said Ben. ‘Shall we go and persuade Guy to come out for lunch at The Sloop?’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Fran. ‘You suggest it, though. He’s more likely to agree.’

  Guy agreed, and half an hour later the four of them were sitting outside The Sloop, the pub at the end of the hard in Nethergate, next to Mavis’s Blue Anchor café.

  ‘Difficult to believe all that horror going on at White Lodge while you’re sitting here,’ said Libby, squinting out over the sea, where ripples sparkled like sequins in the sunlight.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ said Guy.

  ‘And?’ prompted Fran after a moment.

  ‘You said the bodies were quite recent?’

  ‘The ones in the barn, yes,’ said Libby.

  ‘It may be nothing, but you remember Rachanda, Sophie’s friend?’

  ‘Nice girl, yes. What’s happened to her?’

  ‘Not to her, but her sister Rachita. She’s been missing for three weeks, apparently.’ Guy sipped his beer and shook his head.

  ‘When did you find this out?’ asked Libby. ‘It hasn’t been on the local news or in the papers, has it?’

  ‘No, but I’m not really sure why. Sophie went to see Rachanda yesterday, but the family’s closed ranks and she wasn’t allowed in. Rachanda managed to call her late last night.’

  ‘The police must think it’s racially motivated, then?’ said Ben. ‘Otherwise they’d have been appealing all over the press.’

  Libby looked across at Fran. ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  ‘ACTUALLY, THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT I was thinking,’ said Guy. ‘It just seems like too much of a coincidence.’

  ‘I suppose they have told the police?’ said Libby. ‘You said they’d closed ranks. They’re not trying to deal with it themselves, are they?’

  ‘I don’t know. Sophie said Rachanda was speaking in a whisper and couldn’t tell her much, except that she was frightened.’

  ‘Frightened?’ Fran looked alarmed.

  ‘About Rachita, I expect she meant,’ said Libby.

  ‘Rachita, how old is she?’ asked Ben.

  ‘About seventeen, I think,’ said Guy. ‘Younger than Rachanda, who’s the same age as Sophie. She wanted to go to university, too, but wasn’t allowed to by the family.’

  ‘So it’s entirely possible that Rachita’s run away if she’s being controlled in the same way,’ said Libby. ‘That’s probably why they haven’t told the police.’

  ‘We don’t know that,’ said Fran. ‘They may have told the police.’

  ‘In which case, wouldn’t Ian have been checking to see that none of his bodies is Rachita? He’ll be checking missing persons, won’t he?’ asked Guy.

  ‘Oh, yes, or the team will. Poor old Ian. This is turning into a hell of a case, isn’t it?’ Libby sighed.

  ‘There’s a link, somewhere.’ Fran was frowning. ‘I know there is. The TB bodies and now these. Must be a link.’

  ‘I don’t see how,’ said Libby. ‘The TB bodies were fifty odd years ago, and these are new. Recent, anyway.’

  ‘It’s to do with Paul Findon,’ said Fran.

  ‘And the estate agents, I reckon,’ said Libby. ‘I never trusted them.’

  ‘Riley’s in particular, or all estate agents?’ said Ben, amused.

  ‘Most of them. And I do object to the practice they have of employing beardless boys, who then pretend to know all there is about houses, bylaws and all the other things you need to know when buying a house.’

  ‘It doesn’t inspire confidence,’ agreed Fran. ‘Goodall and Smythe never employed anyone under thirty-five. They knew about gravitas.’

  ‘Back to the subject under discussion,’ said Guy, ‘what about this Rachita. Could she be – heaven forbid – one of Ian’s bodies?’

  ‘We need to know more about it.’ Libby was decisive. ‘We can’t just barge in.’

  Her nearest and dearest hooted with laughter.

  ‘No, what I mean is,’ said Libby, waiting patiently until their mirth had subsided, ‘we can’t go and ask Rachanda’s family, and we can’t really suggest Ian does, either. We need to know if she’s been reported to the police first.’

  ‘I’m sure it would have been in the local papers and probably on local TV. A missing seventeen-year-old girl is news,’ said Ben. ‘And if she really is missing, and not being hidden away, the police need to be told.’

  ‘Can you imagine the scene, though?’ said Libby. ‘Police go knocking on the door and say they understand someone’s missing. Family say, of course not, who told you? A friend of your daughter’s. And who told her? Your daughter. Family, laughing hysterically, and you believed her? Exit police, tail between legs.’

  They were all silent, considering this scenario.

  ‘Was Rachita at school?’ asked Fran.

  ‘Just about to go into the upper sixth form,’ said Guy, ‘so Sophie says. But on holiday at the moment, of course.’

  ‘Did she work?’

  ‘I think the family have a couple of shops. She may have worked in one of them.’ Guy shrugged. ‘I don’t really know.’

  ‘Oh, how are we going to do this?’ Libby banged a fist on the table. ‘How frus
trating.’

  ‘It may be unconnected, Lib,’ said Fran. ‘We’re only speculating on a coincidence.’

  ‘But you don’t think it’s unconnected, do you?’ said Libby, with a shrewd look at her friend’s face. Fran looked discomfited, and shook her head.

  ‘In that case, we have to do something. This has landed in our laps. We can’t just ignore it.’ Libby looked round the table. ‘I think we have to tell Ian.’

  Everyone groaned.

  ‘Guy – you tell him,’ said Libby. ‘You’re the one that got the first info from Sophie and he’d take it better from you than from Fran or me.’

  Guy looked at his wife. ‘Do you think so?’

  She sighed and nodded.

  ‘He’s likely to ignore his personal mobile at the moment,’ said Ben, ‘but I’ve got his card, haven’t I? We can ring his other mobile. Then he’ll know it’s important.’

  ‘Genius!’ said Libby, as Ben fished Ian’s card out of his pocket. He handed it to Guy, who took it and walked away from the table. ‘Not having you lot listen in,’ he said, with a grin.

  ‘Are we going to order food?’ asked Libby, watching Guy’s back.

  ‘Sandwich?’ suggested Ben, taking a menu from another table.

  ‘He’s got through,’ said Fran. ‘He’s talking.’

  A minute later, Guy switched off his phone and came back to the table.

  ‘He’s interested,’ he said, sitting down and handing Ben the card. He looked round at them all. ‘He actually said, “Ah. That fits.” I said does it, and he said he’d tell us later and could Sophie give him Rachanda’s address. He won’t bring Sophie into it.’

  They looked at each other.

  ‘Good job we told him, then,’ said Libby. ‘He wasn’t mad, then?’

  ‘Not at all. I think it was a good idea to use his police mobile, and that it was me who told him – thanks, Libby.’

  Libby nodded. ‘And now you’d better get the address from Sophie.’

  ‘Can she close the shop for a bit?’ asked Fran. ‘She could come here.’

  ‘OK,’ said Guy, picking up his mobile. ‘I’m not a slave driver!’

  Sophie joined them five minutes later and they ordered sandwiches and fresh drinks. He called Ian and dictated the address and phone number Sophie had given, then switched off.