LS 13 - Murder in a Different Place

by Lesley Cookman

  ‘So you do know. You gave me the impression you didn’t. They wouldn’t tell me anything, anyway, even if it’s still there.’

  There was another silence.

  ‘Hal? What’s the matter?’

  Harry sighed. ‘It’s still there, all right. I donate to them every year.’

  ‘Harry!’ Libby screeched into the phone. ‘Why on earth …?’

  ‘Look, I’ve never got too close, and as far as they know, I’m just another benefactor. I felt I ought to try and help others who were like me.’

  ‘Well, they know you. You could ask them.’

  ‘They only know my cheques,’ said Harry. ‘I’ve never been there.’

  ‘They must have your address, though? Don’t they send you – oh, I don’t know – an acknowledgement? Newsletters?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Harry, sounding amused. ‘They know who and where I am.’

  ‘But you don’t want to know, do you?’

  ‘Well, I must admit to being curious now, but only mildly.’

  ‘Will you ask, then?’

  ‘I’ll think about it.’

  ‘And you’ll let me know?’

  ‘Yes, Lib, I’ll let you know.’

  And with that, she had to be content.

  The whole puzzle still intrigued her, though. And although the sisters had definitely been holding something back, Libby still wanted to know what had been going on in the late forties and early fifties on the Isle of Wight. She poured herself another cup of tea and tapped the Island into the search engine.

  This time she went right through as much of the history as she could, including the fact that Charles the First had been imprisoned at Carisbrooke Castle, a fact she thought she already knew, up to the laying of PLUTO, the underground pipeline laid to take fuel to the troops after the D Day invasion, which she also vaguely knew about. Also during the war, she was surprised to find that Operation Sea Lion, the German plan to invade Britain, had plans to land at Ventnor from Le Havre. This, of course, had never happened, but it seemed quite logical to Libby. After all, the Island was right between England and France, and, if captured, would have been an excellent base for a marauding army.

  None of these interesting facts, however, would appear to have anything to do with Matthew, Celia, or Harry’s grandmother, who, despite what the sisters said, Libby was still inclined to believe were the same person.

  Ben came home with the news that they had been invited to dinner at the Manor.

  ‘I think Mum was a bit lonely while we were away,’ he said.

  ‘She saw Flo and Lenny, though, surely?’ Lenny was Hetty’s brother and Flo her oldest friend.

  ‘I expect so, but she’s got used to having me around in the estate office almost every day, even though we hardly ever bump into each other. She just brings me the odd cup of coffee.’

  Libby eyed him uneasily. ‘You don’t want us to move in there, do you?’

  Ben laughed. ‘No. You and Mum together in a kitchen I don’t think I could take.’

  ‘We’ve been together in a kitchen before now,’ said Libby, somewhat huffily. ‘We were together loads when we held that writers’ thing.’

  ‘And look how that turned out,’ said Ben.

  ‘That wasn’t anything to do with Hetty and me, though,’ said Libby.

  After Ben’s father’s death, they had added en-suites to all the bedrooms and turned the Manor into a mini conference centre, which was just beginning to work when they held a writers’ reunion weekend that unfortunately spawned an unpleasant murder. Since then they’d done very little with the Manor, although they occasionally put up visiting performers appearing at the theatre.

  They took the back way to the Manor, to the end of Allhallow’s Lane where it petered out into a track across Manor fields, past the restored hop-pickers’ huts, down to the theatre, a converted Oast House, and finally to the Manor. Hetty was, as usual, in the kitchen.

  ‘Pour yerself a drink, gal,’ she told Libby. ‘Ben, go and get a bottle of the good claret.’

  Libby poured a gin and tonic for herself, and topped up the one standing at Hetty’s elbow. ‘Smells lovely.’

  ‘Steak and kidney pud,’ said Hetty. ‘Now tell me all about this Island business.’

  ‘Ben didn’t tell you?’

  Hetty looked at her scornfully. ‘What do you think? Just said you got yerself mixed up in something.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t quite like that,’ said Libby, and explained. By the time she’d finished, the three of them were sitting at the kitchen table with the pudding in the middle.

  ‘Well,’ said Hetty. ‘It do seem to me to be a lot like our little business.’

  Libby shot an uncomfortable look at Ben.

  Hetty began serving the pudding. ‘After all, I fell fer our Susan in the war, didn’t I? Could it be something like that?’

  ‘Oh!’ said Libby, surprised. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. For some reason we were all fixated on the fifties.’

  ‘It’s a possibility,’ said Ben. ‘That sort of thing happened in wartime.’

  ‘But I kept our Susan,’ said Hetty. ‘Looks like this ʼere woman didn’t.’

  ‘I don’t think she was allowed to,’ said Ben.

  ‘Different class,’ sniffed Hetty. ‘Like yer father’s.’

  Libby determined to put this theory to Fran in the morning, and possibly Harry too, but in this she was pre-empted by a call from the man himself, sounding, she had to admit, a little strange.

  ‘Lib, it’s me.’ He cleared his throat.

  ‘Yes, Hal? I was just going to call you.’

  ‘Can you pop round instead? I’ve got something to show you.’

  ‘OK – what is it?’

  ‘I’ve had a letter from Matthew’s solicitor.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  Libby made it to The Pink Geranium in record time, to find Harry in the same position as he had been yesterday, but this time with only a letter and his smart phone in front of him.

  ‘Did it come here?’ asked Libby, a trifle breathless after her dash down the high street.

  ‘No, it went home. Pete left early to go up to town, but I texted him. He said – well, look.’ Harry turned his phone round to show Libby a text.

  “Do what you always do – call the old trout.”

  ‘Charming,’ said Libby. ‘So what’s in this letter?’

  ‘Matthew’s left me some money.’

  ‘That’s brilliant, Hal! So why the long face?’

  He handed over a sheet of paper. ‘Letter from Matthew himself.’

  Libby’s mouth fell open and she picked up the letter.

  “Dear Harry,” it began, “I’m sorry you’ll be reading this after I’m gone, and even sorrier I wasn’t able to tell you anything before, but now my cousin Celia has died, I don’t feel quite the same about keeping quiet.

  “Your grandmother was raped, and it was, in those days, incredibly shaming for the girl and her family. I’m not sure things have changed much these days. However, she was sent away to the mainland to one of those ghastly mother and baby homes, and the baby, a boy, was adopted. It wasn’t normal for the natural mother to be informed of the name of the adoptive family, but I managed it. We’d always been close, you see, and she managed to smuggle a letter out to me.

  “So, between us, we kept track of the boy, who led a staid and boring existence for years, until he met a young woman called Jeanette Price in the seventies.”

  ‘There she is,’ said Libby, looking up. Harry was leaning back in his chair, his chin slumped onto his chest. He didn’t react, so she went on reading.

  “The outcome of this relationship was you, Harry. Your father was, quite frankly, horrified when Jeanette announced she was keeping the baby and wanted to get married. He reverted to his usual priggish, snobbish self and walked away. Jeanette had the baby and tried desperately to keep you, but she was alone and without money, although, because I knew about her (I was the most enterprising det
ective you’ve ever known) I gave her a little money when I could, but anonymously. Then one day, she caught me with the envelope just as I was going to put it through her letter box. She was in floods of tears because social services, or whatever they were called in nineteen eighty-three, had taken you into care.”

  Libby looked up again at Harry and decided not to say “I told you so”.

  “So I was able to keep track of you, you see. I suppose I should have stepped in and tried to adopt you myself, but they didn’t like single males to adopt in those days, and particularly gay single males. If I had, you would naturally have learnt about your relations, and your grandmother was still, even after all those years, so haunted by shame she couldn’t bear to meet you.

  “She did, however, make provision for you in her will. She left this in my care, and I now pass it on to you. I have since learnt that your father has come back to the Island, I believe because he has found out about his parentage. He would have no reason to be here otherwise. I haven’t seen him because since my illness and my cousin Celia’s death I’ve been confined to bed. He has written to me, but the letter is gone, like Celia. I shall not tell you his name as it would serve no purpose, if he didn’t want you when you were born, he is not fit to have such a son now. Your mother, however, would probably like to know that you are well, and, with this in mind, I have left her current name and address with my solicitor, who will act as an intermediary if you so wish.

  “I wish I could have done more for you, Harry, but at least I’ve kept an eye on you, and lived to see you and Peter together. Do pay my respects to your friends at that lovely theatre, Peter, of course, and finally, to you, my boy, my love.”

  Libby felt her throat tighten and tears prickle under her eyelids. The silence around them lengthened until it was broken by a chirp from Harry’s phone. He sat up and picked it up. Libby sat back in her chair and surreptitiously wiped her eyes.

  ‘Text from Pete,’ said Harry. ‘Asking if I’ve told you and what have you said. What have you said?’

  Libby shook her head. ‘I don’t know what to say. It doesn’t actually tell you much more than you already knew, does it? Except that you can, if you like, get in touch with your mother. She might tell you more about your nasty father.’

  ‘What it doesn’t say is if Celia was my grandmother, despite what the old girls said.’

  ‘It doesn’t say she wasn’t,’ said Libby. ‘And that letter. “Gone” he says, “like Celia”. Is that why Celia went to the Beach House? In response to that letter? Was she meeting your father?’

  Harry went white. ‘My father killed Celia?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Libby, feeling wretched.

  Harry heaved a great sigh. ‘Well, I suppose my grandfather raped my grandmother, whoever he was. Not specially good blood in the genes.’

  ‘Oh, don’t talk like that,’ said Libby, standing up. ‘Is the coffee on?’

  Harry nodded, picked up Matthew’s letter and folded it carefully. Libby came back to the table with the coffee mugs.

  ‘So what are you going to do?’ she asked. ‘Are you going to accept the money?’

  Harry looked up in surprise. ‘Of course I bloody am! That family owe me.’

  Libby looked doubtful. ‘Well, your father does, but none of it’s your gran’s fault, whoever she was. And what about Jeanette?’

  Harry’s mouth twisted. ‘You were right, weren’t you, you old cow? She didn’t want to give me up.’

  ‘So will you ask to meet her?’

  ‘I don’t know. I think I’ll write a letter to her and send it to the solicitor. He can either ask her if she wants it, or just send it to her straight away.’

  ‘I wonder if she knows any more? Did she know your father’s real name?’

  ‘She might have done, but not who his real parents were. Matthew says he didn’t know that himself until later.’

  ‘Why would he kill Celia, though?’ Libby said. ‘If he wrote to Matthew asking if he had information and Celia went to meet him …’

  ‘To tell him Matthew didn’t have any information? He could have bopped her in a temper.’

  ‘What about the address book? Now we know Matthew kept tabs on everybody, perhaps …’ Libby frowned. ‘No, I don’t know where I was going with that.’

  ‘What about the letter that the old girls sent to me? It could be my father – he said he wanted to know about the “young friend”. Was he actually looking for me – his son?’

  ‘If so, why write that note you found?’

  ‘How do we know it was the same person?’ Harry was looking more cheerful. ‘That could have been kids.’

  ‘I’d still like to know what it was those women were hiding,’ said Libby. ‘Was it that Celia was your grandmother?’

  ‘But why would they hide that?’

  ‘Because of the shame of the rape?’

  ‘In this day and age?’

  ‘They aren’t of this age, though, Hal. They’re pre-war vintage.’

  Harry sighed. ‘Spose so.’ He picked up his phone. ‘Better text Pete back.’

  ‘And tell him the old cow is as bemused as you are.’

  Shortly after this, Libby went home with Harry’s permission to tell Fran all about it.

  ‘Come down here,’ Fran suggested. ‘We can have tea at the Blue Anchor.’

  ‘If I come now,’ said Libby, looking at her watch, ‘we can have lunch.’

  After calling Ben to let him know where she was going, Libby managed to galvanise her old Romeo the Renault into action and drove down to Nethergate on the coast.

  ‘We’ll have lunch with Mavis at the Blue Anchor,’ Fran told her as they strolled along Harbour Street, ‘then one of Lizzie’s ice creams on the way back.’

  ‘Just like being back on holiday,’ said Libby.

  ‘Only I really prefer being here,’ said Fran.

  Outside the Blue Anchor, Bert, captain of the Sparkler, and George, captain of the Dolphin, sat under Mavis’s cheap canvas gazebo, comfortably smoking and drinking tea, waiting for the tourists to finish their lunches and decide to take a boat trip round the bay. They waved to acknowledge Fran and Libby, as Mavis came out to take their order.

  ‘Nice ʼere, innit?’ said Libby, after Mavis had retreated to the fastness of her kitchen. In front of them, the Sparkler and the Dolphin bobbed quietly at anchor, with a few small sailing dinghies clustered round them. The sun on the wavelets made sequins on the sea, and, at the waterline, small children squealed and bounced. It was all very tranquil.

  ‘So tell me all about this letter,’ said Fran. ‘What was in it?’

  Libby recounted the contents of Matthew’s letter and Harry’s reactions.

  ‘Any conclusions?’ asked Fran, when she’d finished.

  ‘Only that Jeanette Price is the only one with any answers.’

  ‘And Alicia, Amelia, and Honoria,’ amended Fran.

  ‘Well, yes, them, but they aren’t talking.’

  ‘And Amanda Clipping,’ said Fran.

  ‘Really?’ Libby’s eyes opened wide.

  ‘She was at Matthew’s funeral with two unexplained guests. Her parents were around at the time of the grandmother’s rape, and I sensed something when we met them in that pub garden, remember?’

  Libby thought for a moment, then looked up to thank Mavis for the tuna salad she had plonked in front of her.

  ‘You know Matthew says he’s heard Harry’s father has come back to the Island because he’s discovered about his parentage and has written to him? Suppose he was the old boy in the wheelchair?’

  Fran nodded. ‘That occurred to me, too. We couldn’t see much of him, and he could have been younger than he appeared.’

  ‘How old would Harry’s dad have been in the late seventies?’

  ‘Late twenties, thirty? Depends when he was born, and we don’t know that.’

  ‘So around sixty now. The impression given by that wheelchair bloke was of someone at least eighty, but …’<
br />
  ‘Yes,’ agreed Fran, ‘impossible to tell.’

  ‘So who was the younger one? And what were they doing with Amanda?’

  ‘She could have been their guide to the Island. Perhaps it was just chance that he knew her and there was a link to Matthew and Granny. And the younger man could just have been Amanda’s toy boy. That was certainly what Amelia thought!’

  Libby sat bolt upright and choked on a piece of tuna.

  ‘I’ve thought of something!’ she gasped, wiping streaming eyes. ‘Suppose it was Amanda’s parents who adopted Harry’s dad!’

  ‘Good lord!’ Fran stared at her. ‘That makes sense. And would be how Matthew was able to keep an eye on everybody. They left the Island, and Alicia said they never came back.’

  ‘And they live in Surrey!’ said Libby.

  ‘What does that have to do with anything?’

  ‘That’s where Harry’s last home was. Coulsdon, I think.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s relevant,’ said Fran, ‘except that it’s all on the outskirts of London.’

  ‘Do you think that’s what the sisters were hiding?’ asked Libby.

  ‘If it was, I really don’t see why,’ said Fran, frowning.

  Libby sighed. ‘No, neither do I. Perishing women. I suppose we’ll just have to wait until Harry finds out if his mother wants to meet him.’

  ‘You do realise that you are still investigating, whatever you said on the Island.’ Fran grinned across at her friend.

  ‘We,’ corrected Libby. ‘We are still investigating. Now come on, I want one of Lizzie’s strawberry ice creams.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  Libby was frustrated. There was nothing she could possibly do to help with the search for Harry’s parentage or to discover whether Celia had been murdered, and if so, by whom. In the past when mysteries had dropped into her lap or tripped her up, she had been able to keep following lines of enquiry, but this time she had nothing. Harry told her he had written a very difficult letter to Jeanette Price, with Peter’s help, and sent it to Matthew’s solicitor, who would forward it if he felt it was the right thing to do. So all he, and Libby, could do was wait.