LS 13 - Murder in a Different Place

by Lesley Cookman

  ‘But I thought we agreed we’d uncovered the secret. And found that newspaper clipping. There isn’t anything else to find.’ Peter pushed his plate away.

  ‘There’s only one thing we don’t know,’ said Ben, ‘and that’s the name of Hal’s gran. That’s what must be the last secret.’

  ‘Well, Andrew wouldn’t tell us, and he knows,’ said Libby, ‘but if Ian’s questioning Keith Franklin and he’d found out, then he’ll have to tell Ian.’

  ‘There’s no “have to” about it,’ said Peter. ‘He can refuse till the cows come home. He hasn’t committed a crime.’

  ‘Unless he hit Hal over the head. And we know it wasn’t him but the younger one who tried to break into the caff,’ said Libby.

  ‘Allegedly,’ said Ben.

  ‘Perhaps we’ll find out when Ian comes back,’ said Peter. ‘If he can tell us anything.’

  ‘Like who killed Celia,’ said Libby. ‘We keep forgetting that was the start of all this.’

  ‘I wonder who the sisters really thought had done it?’ said Ben.

  ‘My guess would be Keith Franklin. He’d come back to the Island, Matthew said.’ Libby shook her head. ‘I still can’t believe they wanted us to look into it without telling us the background. There was no possibility of solving it.’

  ‘You keep saying that,’ said Ben. ‘Not your problem any more. Just let Ian and our wonderful police force handle it.’

  ‘I wonder, though,’ said Libby, ‘if all this will make the police look at Celia’s death again?’

  ‘It might, but I don’t see how they can investigate it again now. They don’t have a body to look at now.’ Ben stood up to take plates to the sink. ‘Now, let’s drop it and go and watch some mindless TV.’

  It was almost nine o’clock when Ian rang.

  ‘I just wanted to ask you where exactly these sisters of yours live.’

  ‘Where are you? Did you see Franklin?’

  ‘I’ll tell you when I get back tomorrow. Now – I’m on that long road – Military Road, is it? – heading towards Ventnor. Give me directions.’

  Ben took the phone and gave concise directions, then rang off.

  ‘What did you do that for? I wanted to ask –’

  ‘I know you did,’ said Ben with a grin. ‘You already had asked. He was obviously in the car, and presumably wants to go and see the old girls tonight. I’m sure he’ll have all the answers when he comes back.’

  ‘I wonder if he’ll get anything out of them?’

  ‘Oh, stop it! You’d worry anything to death, wouldn’t you?’ Ben went into the kitchen and waved two bottles through the doorway. ‘Whisky or wine?’

  The following morning Libby called Fran.

  ‘I’m dying to know what he found out, and what he made of the sisters. I’m so cross that in the end we were right out of it and have to learn everything second-hand.’

  ‘Safer, though,’ said Fran. ‘Who knows when Honoria might have lost her temper and shoved you down the steps!’

  ‘I suppose she didn’t …’ began Libby.

  ‘Kill her sister? Don’t be daft! Why?’

  ‘She was the one Hal and I saw trying to search the Beach House that morning.’

  ‘But you worked out why that was. They all wanted to know if there was anything relating to their brother there.’

  ‘That’s what we think,’ said Libby. ‘We don’t know that.’

  ‘So what are you going to do this morning?’ asked Fran.

  ‘I don’t know. I could get out the vacuum, I suppose.’

  ‘You really are desperate!’ laughed Fran. ‘How about a shopping trip with me?’

  ‘Oh.’ Libby brightened. ‘Where? Canterbury?’

  ‘Yes. I need a decent selection of cosmetics. We could have lunch.’

  ‘And go and see Anne in the library.’

  ‘You’ll see her tomorrow in the pub,’ said Fran, ‘and she won’t thank us for holding her up at work.’

  ‘That’s true. And I really ought to be thinking more about the show. We start next week.’

  ‘Not until the Friday,’ said Fran.

  ‘OK, then Canterbury it is. Shall I meet you there?’

  ‘I’ll pick you up,’ said Fran. ‘Half an hour.’

  Libby ran upstairs, changed into something slightly more appropriate for shopping in Canterbury and applied some make-up. She was ready when Fran tooted the horn of her little Smart car.

  ‘Be just like Ian to call while we’re out,’ she said, buckling her seat belt.

  ‘You’ve got your mobile with you, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes. I remember these days,’ said Libby.

  But no one called while they sampled the delights of the make-up departments in the Canterbury stores, nor while they ate lunch in a noodle bar.

  ‘Are you coming in for a cuppa?’ asked Libby, as Fran drove back towards Steeple Martin.

  ‘Of course. I haven’t seen Sidney for days.’

  ‘He’s much nicer to you than he is to me,’ said Libby.

  There was no light flashing on the answerphone, and no missed messages on Libby’s mobile when she checked.

  ‘I don’t understand it,’ she said as she went to fill the kettle, ‘He must be back by now.’

  ‘He can’t always keep you up to date,’ said Fran, accepting Sidney’s gracious advances. ‘You aren’t in the force.’

  ‘No, but he got all the information from me,’ complained Libby. ‘I need to know.’

  ‘I expect you will, eventually,’ Fran put Sidney back on the floor and he stalked off, affronted. ‘He may turn up at the pub tomorrow.’

  ‘I suppose so. Then again, we might not hear for days. And I think Harry needs to know.’

  ‘Well, perhaps he’ll call Peter first.’

  ‘Pete would phone me.’

  ‘There’s no pleasing you, is there?’

  Libby poured boiling water into a teapot. ‘I’m going to dig a bit further into the sisters’ pasts. We know more about them since Andrew’s visit. Coming?’

  ‘I was hoping to sit in the garden,’ said Fran. ‘Don’t forget I haven’t got one.’

  ‘I can’t see the computer screen in the garden,’ grumbled Libby.

  ‘Cardboard box,’ suggested Fran. ‘There’s the one in the conservatory you keep old rags in.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Come on, I’ll show you.’

  Five minutes later they were sitting under the cherry tree, Fran with a mug of tea and Sidney on her lap, Libby with the laptop inside the cardboard box.

  ‘Now, what did Andrew say Alicia’s husband’s real name was? Helmut Hoffman, wasn’t it …’ She tapped away for a few minutes, but nothing came up.

  ‘Try Hope-Fenwick,’ said Fran.

  ‘Nothing.’ Libby scowled at the screen. ‘Not even a Facebook page.’

  ‘Try the others then. What about Amelia?’

  ‘We don’t know her married name. I’ll have another go at Honoria. At least she came up as Honoria Morton.’

  ‘I wonder if there’s more about her under her married name?’

  ‘We don’t know that, either. Hang on, I’ll look into that Geometry of Fear thingy …’

  ‘I’d never heard of that,’ said Fran, ‘although I had heard of some of the artists.’

  Libby shook her head. ‘No. There isn’t even a proper entry for it in Wiki – just the sculptors, and not all of them. I can’t find the article I first read.’

  ‘Just type Honoria Morton,’ said Fran. ‘That’ll find it.’

  And of course it did.

  ‘No, it still doesn’t say much. No married name or anything.’ Libby sat back, frustrated.

  ‘I’ll tell you who you haven’t looked up,’ said Fran. ‘Matthew himself.’

  ‘Oh.’ Libby looked up in surprise. ‘Haven’t we? Didn’t we do that when we looked up Reginald Morton?’

  ‘Have another look.’

  ‘No, I remember now, it was one of those “cit
ation needed” sites. I’ll have another look, though.’ She typed Matthew’s name into the search engine. ‘Oh – look! Obituaries. Why didn’t they come up last time?’

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps you just put his name into Wiki and not Google.’

  ‘Oh, look.’ Libby turned the box towards Fran. ‘This is a report on the memorial service.’

  The both read the article on screen, hunched over the cardboard box, tea forgotten. They gasped at the same moment.

  ‘A sister?’

  ‘Who pre-deceased him?’

  They sat back and looked at each other.

  ‘Now why didn’t we know that?’ asked Libby.

  ‘I’ve no idea, but it does put a new complexion on matters, doesn’t it?’ Fran picked up her mug. ‘Ugh. This is cold.’

  ‘I’ll make some more,’ said Libby, handing over the laptop-in-a-box. ‘You carry on looking.’

  By the time Libby got back with two fresh mugs of tea, Fran had found a few more details.

  ‘I don’t know why we didn’t look further the first time,’ she said. ‘There are obits from all the broadsheets, and he even gets in to a couple of the redtops, too.’

  ‘So what do they say?’

  ‘Matthew had a brother who died in infancy and an older sister who died two years ago.’

  ‘What was her name?’

  ‘I haven’t found it yet. None of them seem to mention it.’ Fran looked up. ‘That’s odd.’

  ‘What is? That they don’t mention it?’

  ‘Yes. Usually they do, don’t they?’

  ‘Is there anything about him being the nephew of Reginald Morton?’

  ‘No, and no mention of the sculpting Honoria, either.’

  ‘They really were trying to keep the whole relationship quiet, weren’t they?’ Libby mused. ‘The obits would have been prepared in advance, so it looks as though there’s been a systematic cover-up of the facts since Alfred died. Everything swept under the carpet, all records destroyed, sort of thing.

  ‘I can’t see what concealing the relationship between Matthew and the Mortons has to do with anything,’ said Fran, ‘unless the obvious inference has to be drawn.’

  ‘That’s horrible,’ said Libby.

  ‘But makes even more sense of the sisters’ desperation to keep everything quiet. Not only was their brother a convicted traitor and a suicide, but he raped –’

  ‘His cousin,’ said Libby.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  ‘Are we leaping to conclusions again?’ said Fran.

  ‘Possibly, but as you said, it is the obvious inference.’ Libby looked up into the cherry tree. ‘At least it wasn’t one of his sisters, and we did wonder if Celia had been Hal’s granny at one point.’

  ‘Nearly as bad, as far as the family were concerned, I expect,’ said Fran, ‘and after all, they’d all been brought up together.’

  ‘We know where the castle was, but we don’t know where the DeLaxleys lived.’

  ‘Must have been where The Shelf is now, don’t you think? That’s why Matthew owned the land. And Reginald built the castle next door after he married Tallulah. Lovely name, that.’

  ‘So whoever Matthew sent Celia to meet that day was trying to find out about all this,’ said Fran, frowning, ‘and hit Celia over the head when she wouldn’t tell him. Sounds unlikely.’

  ‘That’s the scenario we’ve been envisaging all along,’ said Libby, ‘and none of our investigations have got any nearer the real reason or the murderer.’

  ‘Perhaps Ian will have some answers when he comes back. I’m getting impatient to hear from him now, too.’

  However, all phones remained silent until Guy called Fran to ask what time she would be home and should he start dinner.

  ‘I’d better go,’ she said. ‘Let me know the minute you hear anything from Ian.’

  Libby assured her she would, and went to prepare her own dinner. Ben wandered in and offered a pre-dinner drink.

  ‘Yes, please, G and T. I need it,’ said Libby, and filled him in on the details learned from the internet that afternoon. ‘I suppose I’d better tell Pete.’

  ‘Leave it until he gets home from the hospital,’ said Ben, handing her a gin and tonic. ‘You never usually drink this.’

  ‘It’s a hot day. Gin and tonic is cooling.’

  In fact, before she could call him, Peter called her.

  ‘Just updating on the invalid’s condition,’ he said. ‘He’s now fretting about the caff and dying to get up. He’s also being very rude to the nurses.’

  ‘Oh, dear. Does this mean he’s getting better?’

  ‘Yes, most of the wires and things have been removed, and they’re talking about tomorrow or Friday. They need to monitor his temperature, apparently.’

  ‘I’m glad you called,’ said Libby. ‘Fran and I found something out today.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Peter, when she’d finished telling him. ‘And has Ian found Franklin?’

  ‘No idea, he hasn’t called.’

  ‘Oh, well, I suppose you aren’t the police. He doesn’t have to. Have you gone through the caff bookings yet?’

  ‘Oh, bugger! I forgot! I’ll do it tomorrow.’

  ‘Don’t worry too much, Donna did all this week’s. But whatever he says, Hal won’t be fit enough to open next week.’

  Libby had given up hoping to hear from Ian, so when the landline rang at just after ten thirty Ben answered it.

  ‘It’s Ian,’ he said. ‘Will we be in tomorrow morning?’

  ‘We? I will – will you? Is he coming round?’

  ‘Yes, Ian, we’ll both be here. Ten? Yes – oh. Really – who? Oh. All right. See you tomorrow.’

  ‘Well?’ Libby was practically bouncing with impatience.

  ‘Ian’s coming to see us tomorrow and can we ask Peter to be here, too, but ten minutes later.’

  ‘And he wouldn’t say why?’

  ‘No.’ Ben frowned. ‘It doesn’t sound like his usual de-brief, does it? More a formal interview.’

  ‘Three of us together? Sounds like bad news to me.’

  ‘Shall I call Peter tonight?’

  ‘No, don’t make him worry overnight, too. I’ll call him in the morning.’

  Peter was as puzzled as Libby and Ben had been when they relayed the message.

  ‘OK – it’s got to be something to do with Hal, hasn’t it? Do you think they’ve discovered he isn’t entitled to Matthew’s money or something?’

  ‘If that’s all it is it won’t matter too much, will it?’ said Libby. ‘You’re quite comfortable, both of you.’

  ‘You’re right,’ said Peter with a sigh. ‘All right, I’ll see you about quarter past ten.’

  Libby couldn’t settle to anything and eventually took her anxiety out on the kitchen worktops until Ben complained that everything would smell of bleach for weeks. At five to ten the doorbell rang.

  Ian came into the front room.

  ‘Libby, Ben.’

  Libby gestured him to a chair.

  ‘No, I’ll stand for a moment, if you don’t mind. I’ve got something to tell you, and someone I want you to meet.’

  Libby’s solar plexus did a somersault. Ben took her hand.

  ‘Who is it?’ he asked.

  Ian stood aside and gestured to the man standing just outside the door.

  ‘This is Keith Franklin.’

  Ben recovered himself first, going forward to shake hands while Libby was still gasping like a landed cod. Then he turned to Ian.

  ‘What happened?’

  Ian smiled. ‘Shall we all sit down, now? When is Peter coming?’

  ‘Quarter past,’ said Libby, still staring at the man she now realised she had last seen bundled up in scarves in a wheelchair on the Isle of Wight.

  ‘Then I’ll save the long explanation for when he comes. I just wanted you to get over the shock before he arrived. How about some coffee, Libby?’

  She turned to the kitchen, then turned back.

/>   ‘It was you we saw with Amanda Clipping, wasn’t it?’

  Keith Franklin nodded and looked at the floor. Libby made a sound like steam escaping and continued to the kitchen.

  ‘How about the short explanation, then,’ said Ben, when the three men were seated.

  ‘I told you I was going to see Keith Franklin who was staying at Beech Manor, didn’t I? Well, that’s what I did.’

  Libby returned with the cafetière and mugs on a tray.

  ‘And we still don’t know how you found out where he was,’ she said putting the tray on the table in the window.

  ‘The police do have some resources not open to the public,’ said Ian with a grin. ‘You’ve asked me to use them often enough in the past.’

  ‘What were they in this case?’ Libby jabbed the plunger down viciously.

  ‘Just checking all ticket sales to the Island,’ said Ian.

  ‘For how long? How did you …?’

  ‘You mentioned your mystery man was on the Island for Matthew’s funeral, so I started with that.’

  ‘Did you think he was the man I saw?’

  ‘I didn’t know,’ said Ian. ‘There’s Peter. Will you let him in?’

  Libby opened the door and grabbed Peter’s arm. ‘This is going to be a shock,’ she said, drawing him into the sitting room.

  Ian and Keith Franklin had risen.

  ‘Peter, this is Keith Franklin. Mr Franklin, this is Peter Parker, Harry’s partner.’

  Peter looked as shell-shocked as Libby had been. Franklin looked nervously at Libby and made no move to shake hands.

  ‘Sit down, Pete.’ Ben pushed Peter towards the sofa. ‘Ian’s just going to tell us what’s going on.’

  Libby distributed coffee and sat next to Peter. ‘Go on, Ian.’

  ‘The day before Matthew DeLaxley’s funeral Amanda Clipping made a ferry booking for herself, Keith Franklin, and Robert Jones.’

  ‘Who’s Robert Jones?’ asked Libby.

  ‘My nephew.’ Keith Franklin spoke for the first time. His voice was a trifle husky, as though he hadn’t tried it out yet.

  ‘How did you know Amanda Clipping? Why were you there?’ she asked.

  ‘Libby, if you’ll let me go on, I’ll tell you the whole story,’ said Ian. ‘If you keep interrupting we’ll never get anywhere, and I want Peter to know it all before he goes to see Harry.’