Murder to Music - Libby Sarjeant Murder Mystery Series

by Lesley Cookman

‘Yes, thank you so much,’ said Libby. ‘Very enlightening.’

  Hugh raised his eyebrows, but before he could speak Rosie broke in.

  ‘I’d like to see more of your barn,’ she said. ‘Could you apologise to Brenda for me, girls? And don’t wait for me if you’ve finished before I get back.’ She smiled sweetly. Hugh looked surprised, and Fran and Libby aghast.

  ‘Up to Hugh,’ said Libby.

  ‘No, of course I don’t mind,’ he said, looking down at Rosie for all the world as if he were going to pat her hand and call her “little woman”.

  Outside on their own, Fran and Libby looked at one another.

  ‘Well!’ said Fran.

  ‘Harry was right about her. She is an inveterate flirt,’ said Libby.

  ‘And at her age!’

  ‘You’d think it would be difficult to find men personable enough at that age to flirt with, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Who didn’t want women young enough to be their granddaughters,’ added Fran.

  ‘Which most of them do,’ agreed Libby. ‘We were both lucky.’

  Fran nodded solemnly and they walked back in silence to the Ashton Arms.

  Libby apologised about Rosie and Brenda shrugged. ‘S’allright,’ she said. ‘She’d paid up front. I’ll bring yours over. Stayed up at the Court has she?’

  ‘Er – yes. She wanted to see over it,’ said Fran.

  ‘Don’t know how he does it,’ said Brenda, going towards the kitchen. ‘Charm the knickers off a nun, he would.’

  Libby snorted with laughter.

  ‘Just right for each other then, aren’t they?’ said Fran as they went to sit down.

  ‘Although I would say Rosie is what we used to call a prick-teaser,’ said Libby thoughtfully. ‘I bet what happened with Andrew is that she led him on and when he pounced she got the shock of her life.’

  ‘More traumatised than that,’ said Fran. ‘We’ll probably never know. You were sure they’d gone to bed together.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Libby watched Brenda approaching with their food. ‘Ooh, I did enjoy that sausage pie. Hope this is as good.’

  It was.

  Rosie had not appeared by the time Fran and Libby had finished their lunch and coffee.

  ‘Well, I’m not waiting around for her,’ said Libby, standing up. ‘Come on, Fran.’

  Once outside, she stopped dead. ‘Her car’s not here.’

  ‘Perhaps she moved it to the Court,’ said Fran.

  ‘No we’d have seen her go past the window if she went that way,’ said Libby. ‘She must have crept round the side and driven off towards the coast road.’

  ‘To see how big Hugh’s estate really is?’ Fran laughed.

  ‘I expect she might already have found that out,’ said Libby with a giggle.

  ‘I wonder why she didn’t come and say goodbye,’ said Fran.

  ‘Embarrassment?’

  ‘Possibly.’ Fran unlocked her car. ‘I’ll ring her when I get home. Ring me if you hear from her first.’

  Libby drove slowly home. This, she decided was all rather suspicious. First, Rosie wanted to go back to the village and had more or less coerced Libby and Fran into accompanying her. Then there was her wish to go and see the upstairs of Ashton court, which Libby, in the end, had made happen for her. And, finally, the very obvious ploy of staying on her own with Hugh. And now the disappearing car.

  ‘I should have gone down towards the coast road,’ Libby said to herself. ‘Then I could have seen if there was anywhere she could have turned off or parked. I bet she went back to Ashton Court.’

  As soon as she arrived home, Libby called both Rosie’s numbers. Both went to voice mail. She called Fran.

  ‘Same here,’ said Fran. ‘It’s odd.’

  ‘Not if she did get back to Ashton Court through a back way,’ said Libby. ‘She and Hugh are probably wallowing creakily in a tangle of sheets by now.’

  ‘I don’t want to think about that,’ said Fran. ‘So there’s nothing we can do apart from wait to hear from her.’

  ‘She’s hardly a missing person,’ said Libby. ‘And that reminds me, do you think Ian’s found out any more about the Asian girls?’

  ‘He might have done, but it’s probably a bit early,’ said Fran. ‘We can hardly ask, can we?’

  ‘No,’ sighed Libby. ‘We can see if anything’s on the news later.’ She looked out of the window. ‘Bother. It’s started to rain again.’

  She and Ben watched all the local news programmes that evening but the only reference to murder was discovery of two dead males in an alley somewhere in the Medway area.

  ‘Come on,’ said Libby, switching off the set. ‘We’ve got the meeting at the theatre tonight.’

  ‘And you still haven’t decided what we’re doing for Christmas,’ said Ben.

  The meeting was, as usual, followed by a gathering in the pub.

  ‘How’s the investigation going?’ asked Peter as they squashed round a table.

  Libby updated him adding that she didn’t think she and Fran were going to be involved any longer.

  ‘Ben might,’ she said, idly stirring her drink with a finger. ‘Now he’s given his report to Ian. We might find out what’s happened with that.’

  ‘Shocking business,’ said Peter, shaking his head. ‘I don’t mean all those unfortunate TB victims, although that’s sad, of course, but these honour killings, if that’s what they are.’

  ‘They’re all Asian,’ said Libby. ‘I don’t see what else they can be.’

  ‘That’s a bit of a generalisation,’ said Ben.

  ‘Hmm,’ said Libby. ‘And there’s another thing. You know I told you about the Indian guy, Vindari, Pete?’

  ‘The restaurant bloke.’ Peter nodded wisely and stretched out his long legs.

  ‘His garden leads into the field at the back which butts right up to the trees surrounding the barn and he could get in quite easily.’

  ‘Were there any breaks in the trees?’ asked Ben.

  ‘Not that I could see,’ said Libby.

  ‘Ian will have questioned him by now. And they’ll have investigated the whole of the perimeter, too,’ said Ben.

  ‘They missed the signs of entry Fran and I found, didn’t they?’ Libby finished her drink and frowned.

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’ Peter patted her hand. ‘Your Ian’s very thorough. Not much gets past him.’

  ‘But it does. Sometimes it’s Fran or me that tells him things he doesn’t know.’

  ‘But you’ve told him everything now, so he’ll be on top of it.’ Peter stood up. ‘Come on. Have another drink and cheer up.’

  Harry arrived in one of his trademark pink shirts and draped himself over his partner at the bar.

  ‘Customers all gone?’ asked Peter.

  ‘Only a few tonight,’ said Harry. ‘I let Donna go early. Ad’s got young Sophie stowed away in the flat, so he didn’t mind staying on.’ He turned to the table and swung his leg over a chair. ‘Hello, my little investigator. How’re things with you?’

  Libby told him. When she got to Rosie’s defection he snorted.

  ‘Told you, didn’t I? Right horny old biddy.’

  ‘I don’t know how you know so much,’ said Libby, on her dignity. ‘You’re gay.’

  ‘Oh, be still my beating heart! She noticed,’ said Harry, clapping a hand to his head. ‘That’s why, you old trout. They often come on to us. All they see is a nice young man paying them some attention – we’re so kind to our elders, you see – and not being quite as au fait with modern sexual mores as you, petal, they go all unnecessary.’

  ‘Oh. So that’s what Rosie’s done, is it? Gone all unnecessary?’

  ‘Course not. She’s not that old, and she’s a novelist, isn’t she? She knows what’s what. I bet she’ll turn up all innocence, wide-eyed because she can’t think what the fuss was about.’

  ‘There hasn’t been any fuss,’ said Libby. ‘Fran and I came to the same conclusion. I doubt if she’ll tell
us what happened, or why, and we can hardly ask.’

  ‘Shame,’ said Harry. ‘I do love a bit of gossip.’

  ‘If I hear anything, I’ll tell you,’ said Libby. ‘Although I doubt if I’ll hear from her for a while.’

  But in the morning, the phone rang before nine o’clock.

  ‘Libby?’

  ‘Ian! What’s up?’

  ‘Where’s your Rosie? She’s not answering either of her phones, her car’s missing and she’s not at home.’

  Chapter Thirty-one

  LIBBY’S HEART SANK.

  ‘I haven’t seen her since yesterday lunchtime. She stayed behind at Ashton Court with Colonel Weston.’

  Ian swore. ‘What was she doing there?’

  Libby told him. ‘We felt we had to go over there with her, or she was going on her own. She didn’t listen when we warned her to keep her mouth shut, so Mr Vindari and Weston both know she owns the barn. I don’t know what she thought she was about, asking to see over the Court, but it looked to Fran and me as if she was on a seduction mission.’

  ‘That woman hasn’t got an ounce of sense,’ said Ian. ‘When you think about her behaviour right from the beginning, when she approached you and Fran. I don’t know what she’s playing at.’

  ‘Hadn’t you better go and talk to Colonel Weston?’ asked Libby. ‘After all, he can’t deny she was there, when Fran and I were, too.’

  ‘Of course he can’t, and why should he?’

  ‘I don’t know. Will you let us know if you find her?’

  ‘Yes, yes. Do I need to call Fran? She was with you all the time?’

  ‘Yes, and got the same voice mail messages as me when we got home.’

  ‘What messages?’

  ‘I meant, when we tried to call Rosie all we got was voice mail.’

  ‘So she’s actually been out of contact since yesterday afternoon?’

  ‘Yes. Have you tried Andrew?’

  ‘No – I thought they’d had a row.’

  ‘I’ll call him, if you like,’ said Libby. ‘Oh – and why did you want her?’

  ‘We’ve broken through into the cellar. You might tell Ben. And you can come and look later, but not until I tell you.’ He rang off.

  Libby sat looking at the phone. Ben came down from the bathroom ready to set off for the Manor.

  ‘Who was that?’

  She told him. ‘And now I’m really worried.’

  ‘Call Fran and Andrew. And don’t go galloping off on your own, either. Ian’s on to it. He’ll do his best.’

  But before Libby could call anyone, the phone rang again.

  ‘Libby, it’s Andrew. I don’t suppose you know where Rosie is, do you? Only I’ve been trying to ring her since yesterday afternoon, and I just went over there and her car was gone.’

  With the feeling that the day was going to get much worse very soon, Libby told him, leaving out any reference to the possible seduction of Colonel Weston.

  ‘So Inspector Connell is trying to find her, too, so we can leave it to him,’ she concluded.

  ‘I think this is all my fault.’ Andrew sounded miserable.

  ‘How can it be your fault? For goodness’ sake, Andrew, haven’t you seen through Rosie yet? She’s a thoroughly manipulative woman with an agenda that no one knows.’

  Andrew sighed. ‘I know she appears like that, but, believe me, she was very shocked when we found out about Paul Findon, and even more so about the legacy.’

  ‘How do you know about that?’ asked Libby sharply. ‘You weren’t there, and she had apparently cut all ties with you at that point.’

  ‘It was temporary. She called me later that night.’

  Libby gasped. ‘You see? She’s been leading everyone to believe you were completely out of the picture. She told Fran and me that she’d made a fool of herself with you.’

  ‘Did she.’ Andrew’s voice was now grim. ‘I wonder why?’

  ‘I assumed,’ said Libby boldly, ‘that she’d gone to bed with you and regretted it.’

  ‘Oh, she went to bed with me, all right. But we’d both got rather drunk, all in the name of ameliorating Rosie’s shock, and she was quite mortified at both the drunkenness and the – well – intimacy.’ He sighed again. ‘I shouldn’t be telling you this.’

  ‘So she obviously got over that?’ said Libby, ignoring this last statement.

  ‘She did. Even suggested that we should try again because …’

  ‘She couldn’t actually remember it?’ suggested Libby.

  ‘Yes. And we did. Have.’

  ‘Right.’ Libby thought for a moment. ‘And have you at any time got the impression that she would try and find out any more about what was going on at either the barn or the house itself? I mean, on her own.’

  ‘Yes. I thought she was going to ask you and Fran to help her.’

  ‘She did, I told you. But she was perfectly prepared to go to Cherry Ashton on her own, and both Fran and I thought she was quite likely to barge in where angels and all that, and could conceivably get into trouble.’ She sighed. ‘And now it appears that she has. What about Tybalt?’

  ‘Eh?’ Andrew sounded startled by the sudden change of topic.

  ‘Tybalt. The cat.’

  ‘Oh, Talbot. Of course, he won’t have been fed. What should we do?’

  ‘We?’ said Libby.

  ‘Well, I don’t know what one does about cats. Should we phone the RSPCA?’

  ‘I suppose we could,’ said Libby doubtfully. ‘And I don’t quite know what one does in this sort of situation. Is there a cat flap?’

  ‘I believe so.’

  ‘Then he can get in and out. That’s a relief. And if he’s really starving he’ll start catching food. Or you could go and put a bowl of food down near the cat flap.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘You’re the one in a relationship with her,’ said Libby, suddenly irritated with the whole situation.

  ‘I thought you were her friend.’

  ‘I only met her a day or so before you did. And I’m not sure I want to be a friend now. I feel a bit used and abused. Although that isn’t poor Talbot’s fault.’

  ‘I suppose I could go and put some food down for him,’ said Andrew doubtfully. ‘What sort?’

  ‘Dried cat crunchies, then it won’t go off if the weather suddenly turns warm again,’ said Libby, glancing out at the drizzle.

  ‘All right. And will you let me know if you hear anything?’

  ‘I will. And the same goes if you hear.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course.’

  After Andrew had rung off, Libby sat and thought. It was apparent that something had happened, but quite what was unfathomable. Had Hugh Weston bumped Rosie off because he had something to do with the bodies in the barn? And if so, why? Murdering the owner of the property wouldn’t stop the police investigation. Anyway, how could Weston have anything to do with honour killings, if that’s what they were? Much easier to believe that smooth Mr Vindari had something to do with it. Which was far too convenient. She sighed and punched Fran’s number into the phone.

  Fran was worried. ‘Something’s happened to her. I think she’s been pursuing her own agenda all the time.’

  ‘But she honestly didn’t know about Findon or the legacy,’ said Libby. ‘I really believe that.’

  ‘So do I, but it’s since she found out about it she’s become so strange.’

  ‘And flighty,’ said Libby. ‘Do you really think she was out to seduce Hugh Weston? After all that romping in the sack with Andrew?’

  ‘But again, why?’ Fran was silent for a moment. ‘Do you think we should go over and ask Weston?’

  ‘I knew you were going to say that,’ said Libby. ‘Ben told me not to go haring off on my own, that Ian would deal with it, but I can’t help feeling that we should try on our own.’

  ‘As long as he doesn’t think we’re chasing him,’ said Fran.

  ‘Who, Ian?’

  ‘No, stupid, Weston. Why should he? We’re
just concerned about our friend.

  ‘Huh,’ said Libby. ‘Friend. She’s caused me more trouble than any real friend has in years.’

  ‘Shall I meet you at the pub again?’ Fran sounded as though she was already halfway out the door.

  ‘No, I couldn’t bear that. Let’s meet at The Red Lion. George will let me leave my car in his car park.’

  ‘OK. Twenty minutes?’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  It was, in fact, nearly half an hour before Libby drew in to the car park of the Red Lion. The doors weren’t open yet, so Fran was still sitting in her car.

  ‘Off we go again,’ said Libby, climbing in beside her.

  ‘What do you think about Andrew’s confession that they’ve been having rampant sex?’ she asked a few moments later as they set off for Cherry Ashton.

  ‘What do you mean? Don’t you believe him?’

  ‘He seemed to be telling the truth.’

  ‘But you’re not sure? It is odd for a man to boast about it to a woman, I suppose.’

  ‘I thought blokes did that all the time? Or perhaps they don’t in these enlightened times?’ said Libby. ‘I’m out of touch.’

  ‘True or not, he knew about the legacy, so someone told him, and if not Rosie, who?’

  ‘Oh, don’t start suspecting Andrew of anything,’ said Libby. ‘He only came into the picture after we suggested an expert.’

  ‘I seem to remember you thinking he might be part of a plot at one time.’

  ‘Yes, yes, all right.’ Libby looked out of the window. ‘It’s raining again.’

  ‘Do we park in the pub car park again?’ asked Fran as they approached the crossroads.

  ‘Couldn’t we park in front of Ashton Court?’ said Libby. ‘It’s him we’ve come to see, after all, and he won’t be at the pub yet. It’s only just about opening time.’

  ‘It’ll advertise our presence, but yes, I suppose so.’

  ‘So would parking in the pub car park,’ said Libby.

  Fran drove slowly under the arch and came to a halt behind a large Land Rover.

  ‘Here goes,’ said Libby, and climbed out.

  Hugh Weston appeared at the door wearing his hat and coat as usual.

  ‘Ladies!’ he said genially. ‘Again! What can I do for you this time?’

  ‘We’re worried about Rosie,’ said Fran without preamble. ‘She’s been missing since yesterday.’