Murder by Magic

by Lesley Cookman

  ‘Have you got any idea where she’s gone?’

  ‘None,’ said Andrew, cheerfully. ‘I’m sorry, Libby.’

  ‘The trouble is, of course,’ Libby said to Ben when she’d rung off, ‘that texts don’t prove anything. Somebody else could be sending them.’

  ‘I do understand you’re worried,’ said Ben, in a rather exasperated tone, ‘but Andrew’s told Ian and Ian will be on the case if there’s anything to worry about.’

  ‘But Ian hadn’t told me.’

  ‘Libby, you are not in the police force,’ said Ben. ‘Now, stop worrying.’

  Saturday dawned as grey as the rest of the week had. Ben was off to London to meet his son, who had come down from somewhere near Manchester. Libby was vague about their exact relationship, only knowing it hadn’t been easy. Ben spoke very little of his early life, although Libby knew he had worked in theatres when he was a student, which had given him the interest he still had.

  Making up her mind, she called Harry at the restaurant and booked a table for herself for eight o’clock that evening, which Harry corrected to nine.

  ‘Christmas is coming, ducks,’ he said. ‘Full up before then.’

  Then, collecting Ben’s old anorak and her Wellington boots, she set off to drive at a leisurely pace towards Heronsbourne and The Red Lion, a pub she and Fran knew well.

  ‘Hello, George!’ she said to the large man polishing the bar as she went in.

  ‘Well, if it isn’t Libby Sarjeant!’ George put down his cloth and held out his hand. ‘Not got that Fran with you today?’

  ‘No, she’s doing family things and helping in Guy’s shop. Can I have one of your lovely coffees?’

  ‘So what brings you out here, then?’ said George, above the noise of the coffee machine. ‘Not another murder, is it?’

  ‘Well, actually,’ began Libby.

  ‘Course it is. It’ll be they old women over at St Aldeberge, won’t it?’ George turned and winked at her.

  ‘You know about it, then?’

  ‘Course. In the local paper and on the news. And one of them women was a customer in here.’

  ‘Really?’ Libby hoisted herself onto a bar stool. ‘Mrs Longfellow?’

  ‘Not sure of the name, but recognised her picture in the paper. Used to come in here with a bloke.’

  ‘Did she now? What was he like?’

  ‘Quite nice-looking. Bit younger than her. Always wore a long overcoat. They never talked much. Always sat in a corner, over there,’ he pointed, ‘and sometimes had something to eat. Is that a clue?’ he looked hopeful.

  ‘Do you know, George, I think it might be,’ said Libby. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve told the police, have you?’

  ‘Didn’t think they’d be interested. She coulda been in most pubs round here, couldn’t she? They wouldn’t want to know all of ’em.’

  ‘I suppose not. I might drop a hint, though, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘You go ahead. You been asked to look into it?’

  ‘Yes, by the vicar. She was having trouble over there.’

  ‘I know she was, bless her.’ George shook his head. ‘Our St Martha’s is one of hers, too.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ Libby was surprised. ‘I know she said she had another church, but I didn’t realise it was here. Did you hear about the Miners’ Reunion service?’

  ‘Hear about it? I was there!’ said George, delivering his second surprise of the morning.

  ‘Oh, George, you’re a marvel!’ said Libby. ‘Can I buy you a drink?’

  ‘Bit early for me, Libby.’ He pulled a stool up behind the bar and sat on it. ‘Go ahead, what do you want to ask me?’

  ‘How do you know I want to ask you anything?’ grinned Libby.

  ‘Course you do.’ He grinned back and patted her hand. ‘Been asking questions since I first met you however-many years ago.’

  ‘OK, then. You were at the church and the party afterwards?’

  ‘I was. Went over with the missus. Old Father Roberts used to be our vicar here and he helped with the service.’

  ‘Yes, in fact he took communion to the first victim.’

  ‘The old woman who was found in the church? Cor, that didn’t half cause a row.’

  ‘A row?’ said Libby.

  ‘A fuss. Woman goes out and comes back in all of a fluster and calls for a doctor. Then a bunch of them goes out, then the doctor comes back and asks us all to stay put. Well, we was anyway, the party not having long got going, but course, everyone’s talking about it, and asking what’s happened. And then these two coppers come and asked us all if we’d seen anything suspicious or knew this old woman. And us who’d gone over from here were told we could go. Funny business.’

  ‘Certainly was. And had you seen anything?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know if I had, would I now? There were people coming and going all the time, especially when it was communion. You know what it’s like then.’

  Libby thought for a moment while she sipped her coffee.

  ‘Were there many people in wheelchairs there?’ she asked suddenly.

  ‘Wheelchairs? I don’t know, except for the one outside the church.’

  ‘You saw it?’ Libby was almost holding her breath.

  ‘I just saw this bloke putting it in the boot of a car. As we were going in.’

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Libby stared, open mouthed.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asked George nervously. ‘Wasn’t I supposed to see that?’

  ‘I don’t suppose you were,’ said Libby. ‘That’s the first time anyone’s admitted to seeing that wheelchair after the beginning of the service. Can you describe the bloke?’

  ‘Didn’t actually see him properly.’ George wrinkled his forehead. ‘Only got his back view, and only for a second, you know?’

  ‘It wasn’t the man who came in here with Mrs Longfellow?’

  George shook his head. ‘Couldn’t see.’

  ‘So who is he?’

  George opened his eyes wide in surprise. ‘I don’t know, do I? They always paid cash in here, and I never heard his name – or hers, come to that.’

  Libby sighed. ‘It’s so frustrating. Do you mind if I tell the police you saw the wheelchair, George?’

  ‘Course not. Tell ’em about her coming in here, too. Might help.’

  Libby slid off her stool. ‘Thanks, George. By the way, from here, how would you get to Felling?’

  ‘There’s a turning to St Aldeberge off the main road, and a turning to Felling off that,’ said George. ‘Or you can go down to Nethergate on the main road –’

  ‘Yes, I know that way,’ said Libby. ‘I’ll try the back way.’

  ‘What do you want in Felling?’ asked George. ‘There isn’t much there.’

  ‘No, I know, Fran and I went there the other day. But I want to have a look at the Dunton Estate.’

  George looked doubtful. ‘Don’t think you’ll get there from Felling. You have to go St Aldeberge and on from there.’

  ‘But doesn’t it back on to the marshes at Felling?’

  ‘Yes, but there isn’t a road. Best go the other way.’

  Luckily, Libby remembered the way Fran had taken her to the Willoughby Oak and found her way fairly easily. She passed the tree and went on until she came to tall, open, rusted gates and stopped the car.

  It was very quiet. The drive that ran away from the gates was overgrown and rutted, but, oddly, showed signs of recent use. Libby got out and peered at it. Yes, there were definitely fresh tyre tracks. She looked around. The track had come to a halt by the gates, and dense woodland obscured her view that way.

  ‘That,’ she said aloud to herself, ‘must be the woodland that borders the Felling marshes.’

  Ahead of her was the drive, curving away towards more woodland and the top of a substantial house. Away to the right, open fields with no sign of life. Behind, back down the lane, the Willoughby Oak, poor Cunning Mary’s gibbet. Above, a parliament of rooks suddenly brok
e free of the naked trees, and rose in the air, cawing and clattering.

  ‘Judging the souls of the dead,’ thought Libby, shivering and remembering a fragment of local folk-lore.

  She locked Romeo the Renault and bade him be good, and set off to find a path through the trees, which seemed a better bet than striding purposefully up the drive under the eyes of who knew what.

  Not that she was entirely sure what she was trying to do. In her muddled brain there was now a connection between the Willoughby Oak, the Dunton Estate, smuggling and the murders of Joan Bidwell and Marion Longfellow, although she wasn’t sure how she’d managed to string them all together. And the smuggling seemed to have a link to Felling, despite the fact that nothing could get up the river to it, so coming at it from the other direction seemed like a good idea. Suppose, she reasoned, as she trudged through black, forest-floor mud and disintegrating leaves, something was being landed near St Aldeberge, and somehow brought overland here, and through the woods to the Felling Marshes.

  That would mean being exposed a lot of the time and seemed a rather reckless method of transporting goods or people. She sighed, and tried to peer ahead through the tangle of trees and other – prickly – vegetation. She thought she could see the glimmer of water, but not quite how to get to it. Picking her way carefully along between the larger gaps in the trees, she suddenly found herself in front of a wide track.

  To her right it wound away and behind, to her left, it ended at the wire fence she and Fran had seen on Monday from the marshes, so that was proof that there was a way from the Dunton Estate to the Felling marshes. She smiled triumphantly, then euphoria faded. What did that prove? Nothing. She was weaving silk out of cobwebs again.

  Just to prove that she was by the marshes, she trudged down the track to the wire fencing, which was high and strong, and stood looking over at the quayside. Yes, she was where she thought she’d be. And behind her, somewhere, was the Willoughby Oak, and Fran was sure there was a drug connection there, if only they could figure it out. She turned and made her way back.

  When she reached the Willoughby Oak again, she once more stopped the car and got out. A fragment of blue police tape still fluttered here, too, along with fewer fragments of other material than had been here when she and Fran had last visited, nearly three weeks ago. She walked up to it and, after a moment, stepped round it.

  On the other side, free from the shadow it seemed to cast even when there was no sun, the ground was open. She could see ahead the roof of the house, nearer and clearer now, and away to the right a long expanse of open grassland, dotted with humps of grass and broken stone. This obviously wasn’t part of the formal gardens of the Dunton Estate.

  ‘I wonder?’ she muttered to herself, as she took a step forward. Would this actually go right down to the St Aldeberge inlet, this open field? Would it, in fact, become a chalk cliff top?

  Deciding it was too open to risk walking down it to find out, she returned to the car and thought about it. Even if it did lead to the top of the St Aldeberge cliffs, Marion Longfellow’s cottage and Joan Bidwell’s bungalow would be in the way, and it was so exposed, anyone, or anything, moving across the landscape would be seen. She shook her head, put the car in gear and bumped back down the track to the road, where she turned thankfully back towards Steeple Martin.

  ‘You know I was thinking about Rupert Bear yesterday,’ she said later to Fran on the phone, ‘well, I’ve figured it out.’

  ‘Were you?’

  ‘Yes, you mentioned him. Anyway, I remembered a story about Rupert and smugglers where there’s a little cave entrance just above the water line which leads to a tunnel that comes out on the cliff above.’

  ‘And you think there’s something like that at the inlet?’

  ‘It would explain how things got in from the sea.’

  ‘But, Libby, we don’t know that they have! This is pure speculation.’ Fran sounded amused. ‘Where did you go today?’

  ‘Why did you think I’d been anywhere?’ asked Libby.

  ‘Because I know you, and I know Ben’s away.’

  Libby related her morning’s trip. ‘It just all links up, somehow,’ she said, ‘but I’m not sure why.’

  ‘No news of Rosie?’

  ‘No, but as neither Andrew nor Ian appear to be worried, Ben tells me I mustn’t be, either. I’m going off to the caff tonight to be reckless and indulgent all on my own and I suppose I’d better forget all about inlets and smugglers and murdered flower ladies.’

  However, when Libby arrived at The Pink Geranium just before nine o’clock that night, she found Peter sitting on the sofa in the window waiting for her, a bottle of red wine open on the low table in front of him.

  ‘What’s this? A panto council of war?’ she asked giving her coat to a glowing Donna.

  ‘No, you ungrateful old trout. Company, and a chance for you to expound your most recent theories about your murders.’

  ‘How did you know I might want to do that?’

  ‘Because you always do.’ Peter handed her a glass of wine. ‘Off you go, and I shall burst each bubble as I see fit.’

  ‘What, right from the beginning? But you know most of it.’

  ‘Pretend I don’t.’

  ‘Oh, all right.’ Libby sipped her wine and spent a moment putting her thoughts – and the events – in order.

  ‘Well, it all started with the murder of Joan Bidwell,’ she began.

  When she finished, Donna appeared to take their order.

  ‘So which bubbles will you burst?’ said Libby when Donna had departed kitchenwards.

  ‘I think that everything one learns afterwards casts each event in a new light,’ said Peter. ‘For instance, the motive for the first murder. If, as it looked like, it was done in order to look like a natural death, why then, was Marion –’

  ‘Longfellow,’ said Libby.

  ‘Yes, her, why was she killed with such flamboyance and surrounded with all the Black Magic paraphernalia?’

  ‘We know that! To point at Patti.’

  ‘I don’t believe that. I think it was genuinely to point at a Black Magic involvement.’

  ‘But why? When Fran and I tracked down the Willoughby Oak it appeared to have some connection with drugs, that was all, so why should someone want to draw attention to it?’

  ‘But no one knew that at the time, did they? Perhaps the Black Magic angle was a red herring?’

  ‘A red herring in which aspect? Drugs or murder?’

  ‘Both.’ Peter picked up the bottle and his glass and led the way to the table Donna had ready for them. ‘If the coven, or whatever it was, had been set up to draw attention away from drug smuggling, it might be useful to draw attention away from the real murderer, too.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Libby looked doubtful. ‘So then, why Marion Longfellow?’

  ‘Either she saw whatever the first victim saw, or she was in on it.’

  ‘Wow! And she was killed to shut her up? Perhaps she tried blackmail!’ Libby’s eyes grew wide with excitement. ‘That fits with her solitariness, except for all her men, of course.’

  ‘And she wasn’t exactly solitary there, was she, according to gossip?’

  ‘I wonder,’ said Libby slowly, ‘if all this gossip about men didn’t turn out to be another red herring. After all, most of them seem to have been there to do errands, and there’s only one Fran and I think was actually – er – doing it. Apart from the man in the long coat that George described, that must be the one Mrs Dora meant.’

  ‘Another smokescreen? So she and the man in the long coat were in whatever-it-was together.’

  ‘It’s just a question of what was it?’

  ‘And the man on the dating site, of course. He’s got to fit in.’ Peter poured more wine.

  ‘I almost wish something else would happen so we could actually see where things were going,’ said Libby with a sigh. ‘But I know I shouldn’t really wish that.’

  ‘You most definitely shouldn’t,’ said P
eter. ‘Especially with Rosie in the equation.’

  ‘I do hope she isn’t really in trouble,’ said Libby as Donna placed their Taco starter on the table. ‘I sort of feel responsible for her.’

  ‘Shut up and eat,’ said Peter.

  Harry joined them as soon as he could leave the kitchen, and after coffee, suggested that he and Peter should accompany Libby home.

  ‘Oh, don’t be daft,’ she said. ‘It’s only round the corner.’

  ‘And you know how Ben feels about you going home on your own. Any woman, actually. Even that Rosie,’ said Harry, finishing off his glass of wine. ‘Come on. Get yer coat, you’ve pulled.’

  Per lifted his aristocratic nose. ‘So common, dear.’

  Harry grinned. ‘But you love me for it.’

  They sauntered down the high street, Libby between them with an arm through each of theirs. The didn’t see or smell the smoke until they turned the corner into Allhallow’s Lane.

  Chapter Thirty

  Harry broke into a run with Peter not far behind.

  ‘It’s my house!’ gasped Libby, feeling the blood draining from her head.

  Peter turned back and grabbed her as she stumbled. ‘No, petal, it’s behind your house. Come on. Hal’s calling 999.’

  But someone else had obviously already called the Fire Brigade, because they had hardly reached the front door of number 17 when they heard the sirens. Libby fumbled with the lock and Harry and Peter between them pushed her inside.

  The conservatory was white hot and there was already a crack in the glass at the back. Libby opened the door into the garden as they heard someone at the front of the house. Peter went to direct the fire fighters round to the back of the property and Libby and Hal stepped into the garden to see the blazing hedge that bordered the woods. The fire had already consumed the flower bed at the back and was creeping down the dividing fences. Libby looked up to see the horrified face of her right-hand neighbour staring down from an upstairs window as a fire engine crashed through the wood, and within minutes hoses were being trained on the blaze and Harry and Libby were soaking wet.

  They went inside and found Peter making tea.