Murder to Music - Libby Sarjeant Murder Mystery Series

by Lesley Cookman

  His face went blank. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, we just wondered if you knew where she went when she left here?’ said Libby.

  ‘No idea.’ He turned and pulled the door closed behind him. ‘I’m just off for a drink. Join me?’

  ‘No thanks,’ said Fran. ‘Are you sure she said nothing that might give us a clue?’

  ‘Nothing. Why should she have done?’

  ‘How long was she here?’ asked Libby.

  He frowned. ‘Not long. I showed her the rest of the house and she left. Didn’t she come back to the pub?’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Libby, ‘or we wouldn’t be asking you. When we came out of the pub her car had gone.’

  ‘So why ask me, then?’ He was looking quite aggressive now. ‘She obviously went off on her own.’

  ‘Yes, but she hasn’t been seen since. Hasn’t been home and she wouldn’t leave her cat.’ Fran sighed and turned back to the car. ‘Sorry we troubled you.’

  ‘No trouble.’ He was back to normal and holding the door open for her. ‘Do let me know when she comes home. Rather a nice lady.’

  ‘We will,’ said Libby. ‘Thank you.’

  Weston watched as Fran reversed carefully back under the arch and out on to the lane.

  ‘Well!’ said Libby, blowing out a long breath. ‘That was a waste of time. And obviously the police hadn’t been to see him yet.’

  ‘We don’t know that. He was unlikely to tell us,’ said Fran.

  ‘Oh, he would. If the police had already been he would have greeted us with a concerned air and, “So sorry to hear about your friend, ladies.” He’d know we’d know if Ian had seen him.’

  ‘True. Where now?’ said Fran, halting at the crossroads.

  ‘Right. Let’s see if we can spot a turning anywhere.’

  But there wasn’t, only a track leading to the farm they’d seen in the distance.

  ‘Actually, it was a bit of a foolish idea,’ said Fran. ‘What on earth did we think we’d find out? We could hardly search the house.’

  ‘Let’s turn on the radio. There might be something on the local radio,’ suggested Libby.

  But the local news bulletin contained nothing about the White Lodge case or Rosie, only more about the two bodies discovered in the Medway area, which had now been discovered to be those of itinerant builders.

  ‘Oh, well,’ said Libby. ‘Let’s go back to The Red Lion. We could have a coffee with George.’

  But before they reached the pub, Libby’s mobile rang.

  ‘Where are you?’ said Ian.

  ‘In the car with Fran on the way to The Red Lion. Why, have you found Rosie yet?’

  ‘No, I’ve just been to see Colonel Weston, and he told me you’d beaten me to it.’

  ‘Ah.’ Libby glanced at Fran and made a face.

  ‘When will you keep out of things, Libby? He was warned I was coming, and if there’d been anything suspicious he could have made sure there was no evidence.’

  ‘But we didn’t say the police knew,’ said Libby.

  Ian made an unprintable sound. ‘Don’t be so naive.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Just don’t go getting into anything else.’

  ‘No. Sorry.’ Libby took a deep breath. ‘What about the cellar?’

  ‘I don’t know when I’m going to get around to that. You’ll just have to wait.’ The phone went dead.

  ‘Telling off?’ asked Fran, as she pulled in to The Red Lion car park.

  Libby sighed. ‘As usual. And now it looks as though we won’t get to see the cellar.’

  ‘You didn’t say anything about the cellar.’

  Libby told her as they went into the pub and across to the bar.

  ‘I expect he’ll let you see soon enough – or Ben, at least.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Libby nodded gloomily.

  ‘Hello, ladies.’ George beaming appeared at the door from the kitchen. ‘Where’ve you been this time. Not back over to Cherry Ashton again?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Libby. ‘Can we have two coffees, George?’

  ‘How’s that old cat of yours, then?’ He asked as he busied himself at the coffee machine.

  ‘Balzac’s fine, thank you, George.’ Fran hoisted herself onto a stool next to Libby.

  ‘I’ll tell you what, your coffee’s a darn sight better than at The Red Lion,’ said Libby. ‘Although they do a good sausage pie.’

  ‘I said they did good food, didn’t I?’ George set their foaming mugs before them. ‘Funny place, though.’

  ‘Yes. We met the owner,’ said Fran.

  ‘Oh, Colonel Bloody Weston?’ George rolled his eyes. ‘Thinks he’s God’s gift, he does.’

  ‘Yes, his manager said he’s a bit of a lad with the women,’ said Libby.

  ‘Oh, not only with the ladies.’ George leant forward. ‘He thinks he knows everything about everything. That manager of his – the pub wouldn’t be nothing without her – yet he goes on about it as if he did it all. And I’ll tell you, the ladies don’t always like it. I’ve had a couple in here who say they wouldn’t go back.’

  ‘Why did he buy it?’ asked Fran, blowing froth.

  ‘Buy it? Lord above, he didn’t buy it! It was part of the estate. He lives in the old Court barn, now.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Libby, not wanting to admit that they’d been there. ‘Was it a big estate, then? I thought it was just the land between there and the coast road.’

  ‘His old man owned the whole village.’ George sat down on his own stool. ‘In the family, like. At least, I think so. All those cottages an’ all.’

  ‘But we met one person who apparently owned one of the cottages,’ said Libby.

  ‘Oh, yeah. Old man sold a load off over the years, as people died. You still looking into things up there? Shocking, innit? Them honour killings is it?’

  ‘I don’t think that’s been confirmed,’ said Fran.

  ‘Said on the news they was all Asian, the bodies, and all female. Stands to reason.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Libby drank more coffee and licked froth off her upper lip.

  ‘Well old man Weston won’t like that. Darkies buried on his land? He’ll go loopy.’

  ‘He’s racist?’ Libby was surprised. ‘But he seems to be quite friendly with another of the residents –’

  ‘Old Vindari? Yeah, only on the surface though, I bet,’ said George. ‘He’s all right, though. Got a couple of good restaurants.’

  Libby and Fran agreed and fell silent.

  ‘So you’re involved, eh?’ George prompted.

  ‘Sort of,’ agreed Libby. ‘Although we’ve been told to stay out of it now.’

  ‘Getting too dangerous, is it?’ Seems to me you two like a bit of danger. I keep an eye on you in the paper. And that young Jane from the Mercury and her husband come in here sometimes. Haven’t see them for a bit, though.’

  ‘You won’t either. They’ve just had a baby girl, Imogen,’ said Libby.

  ‘Oh, that’s nice. Tell them George said congrats, won’t you?’

  ‘What did Colonel Weston’s father do?’ asked Fran, out of the blue. George and Libby looked surprised.

  ‘Do? I don’t reckon he did anything. Farmed the land a bit, although that wasn’t him, it was the tenant farmer, I think he had what they call business interests and he’d been in the war – course, most people his age had been. I think he just came home and played the landed gentry. Sent young Hugh off to boarding school, and then into the army.’

  ‘He’s a typical product of that sort of upbringing,’ said Libby.

  ‘Any brothers or sisters?’ asked Fran.

  ‘What Hugh? Not as far as I know. And what I do know’s general knowledge, anyway.’

  ‘Business interests,’ said Fran thoughtfully.

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’ asked Libby, as another couple of customers came in and George went to serve them. ‘People like that always had business interests.’

  ‘I’d like to know what they were.’ Fr
an drained her mug. ‘Who’d know?’

  ‘Bloody hell, Fran! How do I know?’

  ‘Would you have to go to the chamber of commerce or something?’ Fran was staring at the bottles behind the bar not seeing them. ‘Or Rotary?’

  ‘I thought Rotary clubs were charitable organisations?’

  ‘But it’s all local businessmen, isn’t it? They’d know about other businessmen.’

  ‘I don’t think they’d particularly want to be asked questions like that.’

  ‘Solicitors,’ said Fran. ‘They always know. Ian said he’d been in touch with the firm that rented out White Lodge in the sixties, didn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, but we couldn’t go asking about Colonel Weston’s dad! What are you thinking? And why, anyway?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Fran, looking more normal. ‘I’ll have to think it through.’

  ‘You do that,’ said Libby, ‘and let me know when you get the answer.’

  ‘You do realise, don’t you,’ said Fran, ‘that Rosie and Hugh are about the same age. They could have known one another.’

  ‘Unlikely, isn’t it? The houses are quite far from one another, and Rosie didn’t live here, she only visited.’

  Fran nodded. ‘Suppose so. Want another coffee?’

  ‘No thanks. I’ll get home and be a good little housewife.’

  ‘You’re not a wife.’

  ‘Good little house-concubine, then.’ Libby slid off the stool. ‘Come on.’

  They waved goodbye to George.

  ‘Thanks for the information,’ Fran called, and George waved back.

  ‘Did Ian say when the cellar was bricked up?’ asked Fran, just as Libby was getting into her car.

  ‘I think Ben thought it was comparatively recent. In years, I mean. Don’t think it was done when Findon was killed.’

  ‘Oh, so you think he was murdered, too?’

  ‘Slip of the tongue.’

  ‘Someone, then,’ said Fran, unlocking her car, ‘knows about it. So the police should be able to track down who did it.’

  ‘Should they?’ said Libby doubtfully. ‘No one would admit to it, would they?’

  ‘No,’ acknowledged Fran, ‘but I feel sure they’ll be found.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘Whoever bricked up the cellar. And then – who told them to do it.’

  ‘But that’s got nothing to do with the honour killings.’ Libby was puzzled.

  ‘There’s got to be a link somewhere,’ said Fran, and got into her car.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  ‘WHAT LINK?’ LIBBY SAID out loud to herself as she drove home. ‘How can there be a link between Paul Findon, the bricked-up cellar and the bodies in the barn?’

  She began to review the whole case in her head so thoroughly that she found herself outside number seventeen with little knowledge of how she got there.

  First, there was Rosie and the dreams. Then Fran and Libby had visited the house and heard the music and discovered the grave. That was another thing, that grave. Why was it a new grave with an old body? And who laid the flowers? After that, they discovered that Rosie had actually been to the house. Then came the advent of Andrew, the discovery of the archives and of Rosie’s relationship with Paul Findon. Ian’s further revelation of the legacy, Andrew’s claim that he and Rosie had become rather intimate and Rosie’s new, strange attitude.

  Almost completely unconnected was Libby’s discovery of the barn, Fran’s suspicions about it and finally, the discovery of the poor mutilated bodies. And Sophie’s missing friend, Rachita, of course.

  No. She shook her head as she opened the door and Sidney shot between her legs. There was absolutely nothing to connect the two cases.

  Except – Libby stopped and stared hard at the fireplace. All the bodies were on the same estate. That was a given, no one had questioned it, but why were they? Simply because the barn had lain semi-derelict for years and someone knew about it? That could mean anyone in Cherry Ashton, though. So that was a non-starter.

  She wandered around the cottage trying to make some sort of sense of the chain of events, then picked up her basket and left the house again. She arrived at the Manor five minutes later.

  ‘Het,’ she said following her knock into the kitchen, ‘have you ever heard of a Colonel Weston?’

  ‘Weston?’ Hetty looked up from her old-fashioned yellow mixing bowl. ‘Weston. Rings a bell, but it ain’t an uncommon name, so I coulda known lots of Westons.’

  ‘Do you think Greg might know? His father was a Weston out at Cherry Ashton.’

  ‘Go and ask him, girl. You know where to find him.’

  ‘Weston,’ Greg repeated, screwing up his eyes. ‘Yes, I do seem to remember a Weston. Had a son a bit older than Ben who went away to boarding school.’

  ‘That’s the one!’ Libby was delighted. ‘Do you remember what he did? We know he had a farm, but the tenant farmer looked after that.’

  ‘Good heavens, Libby! How on earth would I know that?’

  ‘If he’d been a – oh, I don’t know – a solicitor, for instance, you’d remember, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Greg, looking amused, ‘but I didn’t know the man. He was a good bit older than me. I believe at one time he was something to do with the old hospital –’

  ‘What?’ Libby almost bounced out of her chair. ‘The sanatorium?’

  ‘Honestly, Libby, I don’t really remember. All I know is there was a hospital – all right, sanatorium – over there somewhere, and I have the feeling that he was on the board, because they used to hold fund-raising events and he was always the driving force. I don’t know what happened for a few years because I was away, as you know,’ Greg had been in a prisoner-of-war camp during the second world war, ‘and when I came back I wasn’t too well. But I do remember him trying to save the hospital.’ He frowned. ‘That was after the war, of course. Before the war there’d been piano recitals by someone quite famous.’

  ‘Oh, Greg! I wish I’d talked to you earlier. The hospital was the Princess Beatrice TB Sanatorium, and the pianist was a former inmate, Paul Findon. He’s our friend Rosie’s uncle.’

  ‘Is he?’ Greg concentrated on a corner of the ceiling. ‘Findon. Yes, I vaguely remember. We had his recording of Clair de Lune.’

  ‘So Colonel Weston’s father was something to do with the hospital? Oh, this is marvellous!’

  ‘Why?’ Greg leant back in his leather chair looking interested.

  ‘Hasn’t Ben told you anything about what we’ve been doing?’ No? Well, you see this is how it all started …’

  Ten minutes later Libby had explained the whole story.

  ‘And you say Fran asked what Colonel Weston’s father did? That’s what made you come and ask me?’ said Greg.

  ‘You were the only person I could think of, being a local landowner.’

  ‘I’ll tell you who else might be able to help, and that’s your friend over at Anderson Place.’

  ‘Sir Jonathan?’

  ‘When did he buy the place?’

  ‘He inherited it,’ said Libby. ‘Would he have known other businessmen in the area?’

  ‘He was – and is – a landowner. That’s the main point, didn’t you say? There’s the local hunt, for instance. I didn’t ever hunt, but I had applications to cross my land.’ He shrugged. ‘Couldn’t really refuse, although I wanted to. Sir Jonathan would have had the same and might have even hunted. Weston, I’m pretty sure, hunted.’

  ‘So they could both have been members of the local hunt?’ Libby was getting quite breathless with excitement.

  ‘It’s an idea, isn’t it?’ Greg watched her with amusement. ‘You’d better see what you can find out on that computer of yours.’

  ‘I will.’ Libby stood up. ‘Say hello to Ben when you see him.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to?’

  ‘Not till this evening.’ She went over to give Greg a kiss. ‘Thank you so much. There is such a wealth of knowledge and inf
ormation in this village, I don’t know why anyone goes anywhere else.’

  The local hunt did indeed cover the areas of both Anderson Place and Ashton Court and had an impressive website with an informative history page, where Libby was delighted to discover a Willoughby Weston as Master immediately before and after the war. It unfortunately didn’t say anything about his business interests, but now she had a name to search for.

  She rang Fran.

  ‘Excellent!’ said Fran. ‘Are you looking him up?’

  ‘Yes. It’s mainly ancestor-type pages.’ Libby groaned. ‘Oh, God. We’ve been here before.’

  ‘I’ll do it. You go and make yourself some tea and I’ll call you when I’ve found something.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Libby. ‘That coffee at George’s seems a long time ago.’

  She’d barely poured her tea when the phone rang.

  ‘Got it,’ said Fran. ‘You’ll never guess.’

  ‘He was on the board of the sanatorium?’

  ‘No, you’d already guessed that,’ said Fran. ‘No better than that.’

  ‘Oh – I don’t know! What?’

  ‘He was also a director of Riley and Naughton.’

  ‘Wh–? God! The estate agents?’ Libby sat down with a thump.

  ‘Yes. And what’s more, he didn’t appear until after Paul Findon died.’

  ‘What do you mean he didn’t appear? What does that mean?’

  ‘Think about it. After Paul Findon died, however he died, the house was rented out. Then the body was discovered, the ghost was supposedly seen, and at the same time this Weston buys into the estate agency and the house falls empty. It doesn’t appear on anyone’s radar until it goes on to Riley’s website a year or so ago.’

  ‘After which it’s taken down,’ said Libby. ‘But not by Willoughby. He’s long gone.’

  ‘Supposing his father left Hugh Weston not only his whole estate but business interests, too?’

  Libby was silent sipping tea and thinking.

  ‘Do you see what I mean?’ said Fran.

  ‘Yes, but that would mean that if Willoughby was involved in something nasty at White Lodge way back when, his son knows about it.’

  ‘And why not?’

  ‘You wouldn’t confess nasties to your children.’