Murder in Midwinter

by Lesley Cookman

Fran shook her head. ‘I don’t know. A lot of people from the forties and fifties by the look of them.’ She showed him the blurry images of children posed in gardens and adults at the seaside. ‘I wonder where these were.’

  ‘Nethergate, do you think?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t think so.’ She looked through a few more and stopped, her breath catching in her throat.

  ‘What?’ He was watching her intently.

  ‘This one –’ she held out a picture ‘– it’s Anderson Place.’

  The black and white photograph showed a much more overgrown building standing in untidy gardens. But posing against the wall in the foreground stood the two children in the other photographs, obviously Dorothy and Laurence.

  Connell looked puzzled. ‘Why would they be there?’ he asked. ‘I suppose it is the two Cooper children?’

  ‘Oh, yes, it’s them.’ Fran stroked a finger over the photograph. ‘But why, I wonder? The house wasn’t open to the public in those days, was it? It had been a military hospital during the war.’

  ‘Looks like some kind of notice there, look,’ said Connell taking it from her and peering closely.

  ‘Pity it isn’t clearer,’ said Fran, and carried on looking through the photographs.

  ‘We’ll get it scanned and let the boys have a go at it,’ said Connell, standing up. ‘Do you want to see anything else?’

  ‘I’d like to have a quick look round up here,’ said Fran.

  ‘I’ll be downstairs with Fitch, then,’ he said.

  When she heard his footsteps going down the stairs, she went to the wardrobe and opened the door. A few dispirited garments hung there, polyester blouses and pleated skirts, but nothing that gave any clue to Dorothy as a person. Fran shut the door and went into the room next door. Immediately, she felt something. ‘Laurence,’ she muttered to herself.

  The room contained only a single bed, a small wardrobe and a bedside table. A few male items of clothing hung in the wardrobe, although nothing of the kind Fran felt sure Laurence would have worn. In the bedside table drawer she found another photograph, this time on its face, of two young men, arms slung carelessly about each other’s shoulders, and by the clothing, taken sometime in the sixties.

  ‘Before or after it was made legal?’ murmured Fran. She put the photograph, along with the others from the dressing table, into her bag and went downstairs. Here, the sense of Laurence wasn’t as strong as it had been in his room, but there was a sense of someone else. A very strong feeling of anger – and fear. Mainly fear, thought Fran, as she stood in the little sitting room with her eyes closed, ignoring the two men staring at her.

  ‘What did he tie her with?’ she asked, opening her eyes suddenly.

  ‘Er –’ Fitch was floundering.

  Connell looked at him contemptuously. ‘Picture wire,’ he said. ‘It was in the report. From those pictures.’ He nodded towards two blank spaces on the walls. Fran went over and ran her hands over the spaces. She didn’t know if she would get anything from them, but she had to try. She was new at this, and every situation would be a testing ground. Nothing came through except more fear and confusion. Nothing at all from Dorothy. She went back to the chair and went to touch the back, but pulled her hand back quickly.

  ‘What is it?’ said Connell.

  Fran smiled at him wryly. ‘Squeamishness,’ she said.

  He smiled back. ‘Come on, then,’ he said. ‘If you’ve finished here, we’ll go over to HQ and see what they’ve got.’

  Fitch, even more disgruntled than when they arrived, locked the door, checked the tape and said they could follow him to HQ. Fran and Connell shook the rain off and set off after him.

  The DCI in charge of the murder enquiry was pleasant but wary. They were shown the evidence bags, and allowed to take out the birth and death certificates.

  ‘Father, Colin Cooper – what’s that? Army?’ said Fran, peering. ‘Mother, Shirley Cooper, housewife. And these are their death certificates.’

  ‘And this one.’ Connell held it out. ‘You’ll love this.’

  Fran took it and gasped. ‘Laurence Cooper! But what on earth is his birth certificate doing here? He’d have needed it himself.’

  ‘Is it Laurence’s, though?’ said Connell, pointing. ‘Look at the Christian name.’

  ‘Earnest,’ said Fran. ‘But it is Earnest Laurence, look. Maybe he preferred Laurence.’

  ‘It’s the right date, anyway,’ said Connell. ‘I think we have to assume it’s his. Born in 1946.’

  Fran picked up another evidence bag and hastily put it down again.

  ‘The picture wire?’ said Connell, picking it up. ‘What beats me is how whoever it was had time to take down the pictures and take off the wire. How come she didn’t make a run for it?’

  ‘Perhaps he’d already bashed her over the head?’

  ‘Then why would he need to tie her up?’

  Fran shrugged and they stared at each other, perplexed.

  ‘Weapon?’ said Connell, turning to the DCI, who shook his head. ‘Any chance of a copy of the landline records?’

  After half an hour in the canteen with some indifferent coffee and a small packet of bourbons, they were on their way home with the phone records and other information Connell had requested and been grudgingly given. Fran opened her bag to take out the photographs.

  ‘What the hell are you doing with those?’

  She looked up. ‘Shouldn’t I have taken them?’

  Connell gave an exasperated sigh. ‘No, you shouldn’t. For God’s sake woman, this is a murder investigation.’

  Fran bristled. ‘I’m aware of that,’ she said, ‘and may I remind you that you asked me here, not the other way round. I’m helping you. I have no personal interest in this case.’

  ‘Not much we can do about it now, anyway,’ muttered Connell, and swore as a lorry overtook them, throwing a swimming pool’s worth of rain at the windscreen.

  Fran put them back in her bag. ‘I’ll look at them at home tonight and send them back tomorrow,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll come and collect them tomorrow,’ corrected Connell. ‘If you don’t mind.’

  For the rest of the journey, except for a stop at services near Luton, they were silent. Fran peered ahead into the darkness and tried to quell a deep sense of disappointment.

  Chapter Eighteen

  LIBBY AND SIDNEY PUT up the Christmas decorations on Friday. When she had lived in the big Edwardian house on the other side of Canterbury, Libby refused to put them up until the last possible minute, telling the children it devalued the essence of Christmas. But now she wanted to keep Christmas going as long as possible, having decided that anticipation was the best part of it all.

  Sidney was a great help, naturally, especially when Libby brought in the tree she had dragged home from the Manor estate after Ben had helped her cut it down. Feeling virtuous, as she had only taken the top of a healthy tree, she stuck it in a large tub of earth and sand and stood it on an apple crate covered in crepe paper in the corner behind the armchair. If anyone sat at the table in the window the tree would have their eye out, but it looked good. Sidney immediately jumped up on to the table and began to select baubles.

  After half an hour of vigorous table tennis, Libby gave up and shut him in the conservatory. After retrieving the baubles Sidney had knocked into various corners of the room, she hung them on the tree and switched on the lights. Just garish enough, she told herself, as she stood back and gave it the once over. Then the cut out felt stockings were pinned to the mantelpiece and the effect was complete. Sidney was allowed in to give his opinion, and after tapping the baubles he could reach and finding them intransigent, he turned his back and began to wash.

  Libby contemplated lighting the fire to complete the picture, but decided it was too early. In fact, it was only lunchtime, and the rest of the day stretched ahead without even a rehearsal to look forward to. Wondering if there was anything she could do for Peter and Harry, whose wedding was now only a
week away, or for Hetty, who would be busy organising the Christmas Party, she phoned them both, and discovered that nothing was outstanding.

  ‘You can come and have bowl of soup with me, though,’ said Harry. ‘I haven’t got a “do” on this lunchtime and I’m bored. Pete’s in London.’

  ‘OK, that’d be nice,’ said Libby. ‘Ben’s doing estate business with his dad, and his mum obviously didn’t want me getting under her feet while she organises the party.’

  ‘Oh, yes, the great party. I’m doing some little bits and pieces for it.’

  ‘When will you have time?’

  ‘I’m here in the kitchen most of the weekend, course I’ll have time,’ said Harry. ‘Now, are you coming down or what?’

  Libby gathered up her cloak, a scarf and her basket and said goodbye to Sidney. The air was damply cool, the sky a muddy grey and puddles lay down the middle of Allhallow’s Lane in the tyre ruts. Once in the High Street, though, lights twinkled in shops and on Christmas trees glimpsed through cottage windows. In many of those windows were the professional-looking posters for Jack and the Beanstalk, and Ahmed’s display in the eight-til-late looked wonderful.

  In The Pink Geranium Harry had a tasteful tree decorated with dried chillies, raffia and other natural ingredients, and artistically arranged bunches of holly, ivy and mistletoe hung from the ceiling and wall lights.

  ‘Aren’t they an environmental health hazard?’ asked Libby, unwrapping her cloak.

  ‘If they are, no one’s told me,’ said Harry cheerfully. ‘Lentil soup, honeychile?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ said Libby, sitting on the sofa in the window. ‘And can I still smoke in here?’

  ‘Only if no one else is in here. And after July next year, never,’ said Harry, going into the kitchen. ‘Want a glass of wine? I’ve got some red open.’

  Libby told him the latest developments in Fran’s investigations. ‘I don’t feel part of this one,’ she said. ‘Connell asked Fran to look into it but didn’t want me around, and now he’s actually offered to take Fran to all these places, she’s official. And probably can’t discuss them with me.’

  ‘I thought you said she told you all about yesterday’s shenanigans?’

  ‘Well, yes, she did,’ admitted Libby reluctantly, ‘but I don’t expect she was supposed to.’

  ‘And she still wants you to help, doesn’t she?’

  ‘Only like a – a – oh, I don’t know. Like a research assistant. I’m expected to go through all these old newspapers, and I haven’t got a clue what I’m looking for.’ She sighed and took a sip of wine. ‘It’s got nothing to do with Laurence Cooper, anyway. It’s all Bella Morleigh’s family history.’

  ‘I thought,’ said Harry, helping himself to one of Libby’s cigarettes, ‘the dashing Inspector Connell thought there was a connection. That’s why he asked Fran to do her voodoo that she does so well.’

  ‘That was the idea, but there’s no connection at all, as far as I can see. So Fran’s just looking into Bella’s family for interest’s sake. Bella isn’t even down here, so I don’t know why we’re bothering.’

  ‘Don’t, then. Bother, I mean.’ Harry stood up. ‘But I bet those old newspapers are fascinating. I wonder why the old auntie kept them?’

  ‘Fran thinks there must be something of value in them. Can’t see it myself.’

  ‘I’ll have a look through if you like,’ said Harry. ‘And now I’m going to get the soup, so sit yourself down at the table like a good girl.’

  ‘When would you have the time to look through old newspapers?’ asked Libby, when they were seated with bowls of lentil soup and hunks of fresh bread.

  ‘After work. I need to relax sometimes by doing something totally different.’ Harry sipped wine reflectively. ‘And at the moment as soon as I finish work, the wedding takes over. It would be good to do something else.’

  Libby shook her head. ‘I still say you won’t have time. And the wedding’s next weekend, isn’t it? Maybe after Christmas. Pete’ll get all caught up in the panto and the caff’ll go quiet.’

  ‘I thought it would all be over by then,’ said Harry.

  ‘Not Bella’s family investigations. The murder might be. I don’t know anything about that, and they might have a suspect already.’

  ‘Fran would have told you.’

  ‘Hmm. Well, they’ve ruled out Danny, anyway.’

  ‘Do you know that definitely?’

  ‘He certainly didn’t murder sister Dorothy,’ said Libby.

  ‘That’s a comfort,’ said Harry.

  After the soup, Harry brought out a large piece of banana bread, some of which had played quite a part in Libby’s unwise investigations into the death of Fran’s aunt last summer.

  ‘How about I come back with you and have a quick look at some of those papers?’ he suggested. ‘I haven’t got any prepping up to do until later, and Pete’s off doing something or other today.’

  ‘You’re really keen on those old papers, aren’t you?’ said Libby, licking crumbs off her fingers. ‘Yeah, come back if you like.’

  A brisk wind had sprung up while they were eating lunch, and it whipped Harry’s blond spiky hair into even wilder spikes, and tangled his pink scarf with Libby’s multi-coloured one. ‘Cold,’ he muttered, thrusting his hands deeper into his jacket pockets.

  ‘Should have worn something warmer,’ said Libby, tucking her arm through his.

  ‘I only have to walk about fifty yards to work in the mornings,’ said Harry. ‘I didn’t think I’d be going on a hike into the past with a batty old woman.’

  ‘Your idea,’ said Libby, unsympathetically.

  Libby lit the fire in the front room while Harry put the kettle on the Rayburn. Sidney rolled on his back in appreciation.

  ‘These them, then?’ Harry picked up the pile of newspapers from beside the computer on the table in the window.

  ‘That’s them,’ said Libby. ‘Ben and I have been through some. Maria wasn’t born until 1914, so we didn’t think it was worth looking before then.’

  ‘These aren’t even in date order,’ said Harry, with a frown.

  ‘They weren’t when we found them,’ said Libby, going into the kitchen to make the tea. ‘Not something I’ve found the time or energy to do.’

  ‘I will,’ said Harry. ‘Let me take them home with me. I can spend a nice mindless half hour in the evenings doing this. Just the sort of thing that appeals to my sense of order.’

  ‘I didn’t know you had one,’ said Libby, bringing teapot, mugs and milk on a tray. ‘Although, come to think of it, you are very organised in the caff.’

  ‘And at home. When did you ever see Peter tidy anything away? Or make tea?’

  ‘Never, I suppose,’ said Libby, ‘but I always expect him to be organised, being a journo and all that.’

  ‘Take it from me, he isn’t,’ said Harry. ‘And who, pray tell, organised the bloody wedding that was all his idea?’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Libby. ‘You’re full of surprises, you know that?’

  Harry winked. ‘Not ’arf,’ he said.

  He had gone by the time Ben arrived from the other end of Allhallow’s Lane, coat collar turned up and nose slightly red.

  ‘Harry’s going to look through those old papers for me,’ said Libby, hanging up his coat. ‘He says he needs a bit of relaxation.’

  ‘Too right he does,’ said Ben, rubbing his hands in front of the fire. ‘He does far too much, that lad. Pete runs him ragged.’

  ‘Oh, he doesn’t,’ protested Libby, ‘at least, not on purpose.’

  ‘Not on purpose, no,’ said Ben, ‘but Pete has all the ideas and Harry has to carry them out.’

  ‘The wedding,’ nodded Libby.

  ‘Yes, the wedding, also the caff, the cottage –’

  ‘How do you mean, the cottage? I thought that was already Pete’s?’

  ‘When Millie gutted the kitchen at Steeple Farm Pete was going to let all that lovely stuff go to a firm of house
clearers, or the skip. It was Harry who stepped in to rescue it.’

  ‘I didn’t know,’ said Libby.

  ‘And Pete was supposed to be an active partner in The Pink Geranium, but what have you seen him do?’

  ‘Well, he waits on tables, sometimes.’

  ‘More often just sits in the corner reading the paper.’

  ‘You’re not being very nice to your cousin,’ said Libby reprovingly.

  ‘I adore my cousin Pete, and in a crisis I would always turn to him. He’s clever, generous and kind, but thoughtless. If you point these things out to him it’s like kicking a puppy.’

  ‘He doesn’t realise?’ said Libby, pouring tea.

  ‘Not at all. Has the ideas, and then when they come to fruition, thinks it’s all down to him.’

  ‘Well, in a way it is,’ said Libby, curling up on the creaky sofa. ‘Harry would never have suggested the caff, would he? Or getting partnered.’

  ‘True, O queen,’ said Ben. ‘Nevertheless, our Hal does all the work. What he wants to be doing with going through old newspapers I can’t think.’

  ‘That’s just what I said,’ agreed Libby. ‘Must be mad.’

  ‘So, do you expect to hear from Fran tonight?’ asked Ben, idly stroking Sidney with a foot.

  ‘No idea. It’s a long way to Richmond. She and Connell might go for a meal on the way home.’

  ‘You think so? I wouldn’t have thought he would let personal life in while he’s working.’

  ‘It’s hardly personal, is it? You have to eat.’ Libby frowned. ‘I just hope Fran doesn’t get carried away with him. Guy’s been sitting so patiently on the sidelines.’

  ‘Look, Lib, you can’t dictate people’s love lives. If Fran doesn’t like Guy as much as she likes Connell, although I can’t see why, either, she’s under no obligation to him, is she?’

  ‘I know that,’ said Libby, ‘I’m not stupid. When Derek went off with his floosie it was no use people saying how stupid he was, he was convinced she was the love of his life.’

  ‘There you are then,’ said Ben, ‘and anyway, has she actually said she likes Connell better than Guy?’

  ‘No-o,’ admitted Libby. ‘I just get that feeling.’