The Haunting of Mount Cod

by Nicky Stratton

  Jervis let her in, a cocktail shaker in his hand. ‘Go through, he said. ‘Strudel’s in the sitting room, I’m just getting some more olives.’

  While Jervis went to the kitchen, Laura and Parker joined Strudel who was relaxing with her feet up on the sofa in a multicoloured crepe de chine kaftan and matching turban. ‘You must forgive me Laura,’ she said. ‘I meant to wash my hair earlier but we had a crisis. It’s our first divorce and the husband is blaming Ancient Eros for not telling him of his wife’s addiction to online gambling.’

  ‘But when I went through her paperwork I discovered she hadn’t even got an email address.’ Jervis said, as he came in with the olives.

  ‘Like me, a Luddite, you mean?’

  ‘We don’t expect people in their eighties to be computer literate – and she’s ninety-three – that’s why we have the paper registration form.’

  ‘So she must have learned from him,’ Laura said.

  ‘Exactly. I would have told him to bugger off it weren’t for the fact that he’s a retired solicitor.’

  ‘Eventually we calmed him down and Jervis is explaining about a firewall.’ Strudel patted her turban. ‘But my wash and set went out of the window.’

  ‘You look simply gorgeous as you are my love, but Laura, what’s the hot news?’

  Laura told them about the arrest of Robert Hanley Jones and Tam.

  ‘Christ that makes five of your suspects in custody doesn’t it?’ Jervis laughed.

  ‘I fail to see what’s funny,’ Laura said. ‘Anyway the Canon’s out on bail.’

  ‘Well I’d say this latest news puts those girls squarely back in the frame for Matilda’s murder.’ Jervis stabbed an olive with a cocktail stick and dipped it in his martini. ‘Sir Repton must be heartily relieved.’

  ‘But that’s not the end of the story,’ Laura said. ‘Pom, the nice twin, has had a nervous breakdown and been admitted to The Priory.’

  When Ned had told Laura this, she had listened as his voice cracked with emotion. The poor girl had gone to visit her sister and discovered that Tam was secretly engaged to Robert Hanley Jones and they were planning to run away together. As if her sister’s perfidy were not bad enough Tam had admitted to being party to his deceptions. She blamed Pom for her arrest saying she must have told Ned Stocking about the stolen eagles from the roof of Mount Cod.

  ‘It’s a tragedy for Ned. Pom refuses to see him. She feels too bad about the things that have happened and now that Ned is proven to be Repton’s son, it makes matters even worse. Ned says it may be months before she recovers.’

  Laura was a little anxious when Strudel invited her to stay and share their supper but at least she was prepared, knowing topside to be invariably tough and she asked for a small amount as Jervis sawed through the grey lump of meat.

  ‘So what are you thinking about Cheryl and Lance?’ Jervis eyed a piece of beetroot and turned to Strudel. ‘You haven’t pickled these have you my love?’

  Strudel’s lower lip quivered.

  Jervis sighed. ‘Pass me the Rennies, they’re in the drawer behind you.’

  ‘They are capable of anything,’ Laura said, taking a sip of Riesling to help wash down a piece of beef.

  ‘Your abduction was truly shocking.’ Strudel reached across the table and squeezed Laura’s hand.

  ‘Thank you Strudel, but let’s not go back over old ground. I’m trying to forget that episode. The thing is someone really needs to see Inspector Sandfield about it all. Of course I can’t.’ Laura turned to Jervis and gave him a pleading look.

  ‘But Laura, I can’t go blundering in with no real evidence. What about Canon Frank, is he back in the picture?’

  Laura reached for her glass. She didn’t like to lie to her friends. If Canon Frank were involved, it would have to come out later. For now she needed him until the Andwele business was concluded. ‘… I don’t think so,’ she said.

  ‘You should speak to Sir Repton,’ Jervis said. ‘See if he can remember anything, anything at all that might be put before the Inspector as useful.’

  ‘Good thinking, Jervis.’ Laura put her knife and fork together looking at two last pieces of beetroot on her plate. ‘For example if the so called hauntings had stopped since Lance and Cheryl have been in custody, that would be something.’

  ‘Do not be reminding me of this. It is a subject on which we cannot agree.’ Strudel got up to clear the plates. ‘Jervis, we have a bowl of mandarins in the fridge and some condensed milk that my cousin has sent me from the Aldi in Badmunchensden with the bottle of Gewürztraminer. We shall celebrate with it and give thanks for the progress we have made and the safe return of our friend.’

  The next morning Laura stayed in her room. She was still feeling a little tipsy when Mimi brought her up a sandwich at lunchtime. She had a vague recollection of dancing to a Nina Simone song in bare feet in Jervis and Strudel’s carpeted sitting room. It had been a fun evening.

  She was about to ring Sir Repton when she changed her mind; she’d visit him instead. It was overcast but still warm; a little ride out in the car with the windows down would clear her head.

  As the lodge came into view, an idea came to her. Why had Lance and Cheryl lied about being married? She parked outside the front of the house and got out.

  The front door wasn’t locked so she walked in. She could see through to the kitchen and decided that that kind of chaos was best avoided. She carried on to the living area. A huge flat screen TV hung above the fireplace dominating the room. In front of it was placed a low-slung L shaped sofa on which the remnants of a meal still sat on dirty plates. She could imagine the two of them lounging on it while carrying out their deception.

  Upstairs, the bed lay unmade, a trail of clothes scattered on the floor. The wardrobe door was open, hanging half off its hinges so that a brightly coloured silk dress on a hanger caught her eye. She checked the label. Of course, the fabric was a give away, she should have known it was by Pucci. But what was it doing here in the lodge? Could it have been Matilda’s? Laura’s pulse quickened and then slowed again.Even if it was, there could be a perfectly innocent reason for it being there.

  She rifled through the rest of the dresses and found they were all from well-known high street stores; Laura wondered what, if anything, was in Cheryl’s flat in the stable block.

  ‘Come on, let’s get out of here,’ she said, as Parker emerged sneezing from under the bed, a tangle of cobwebs caught on his snout.

  She drove up to the stable yard and still thinking about the dress, climbed the rough stone steps that led to Cheryl’s flat. The door at the top was unlocked and she let herself in. It was as if no one had ever been there. Sir Repton had obviously never bothered to check because there wasn’t even a bed. No wonder the Canon hadn’t been able to stay there.

  She walked back down and rang the back doorbell. There was no answer so she opened it and called out. The sound of the radio was coming from the kitchen where she found Sir Repton and Gladys sitting at the table reading recipe books.

  ‘You’ve no idea how easy it would be to burgle you,’ she said.

  ‘Laura,’ Gladys said. ‘You nearly gave me a heart attack. We were planning the menu for our luncheon.’

  ‘You two seem to have got things sorted out remarkably well.’ Laura turned to Sir Repton. ‘Has Gladys seen off Rosalind as well?’

  ‘Golden lads and girls all must,

  As chimney sweepers come to dust.’

  ‘Oh Repton,’ Gladys pulled a hankie from her pocket. ‘That was lovely.’

  ‘You mean she’s gone?’

  ‘It would appear that Gladys has indeed seen her off.’ Sir Repton’s watery eyes glazed over as he took her hand.

  She left them discussing summer pudding having first asked him for the Canon’s address.

  Chapter thirty-four

  Laura headed back to Woldham and edged her way down Campden Road in second gear, looking at the house numbers. She needn’t have bothered as she saw Cano
n Frank in his front garden. He was up a ladder in a smart set of dark blue overalls, pruning a rose.

  She drew up, put Parker on his lead and got out.

  He only noticed her as she opened the wicket gate and called out, ‘Hello Canon.’

  The secateurs fell from his hand, landing with a thud not far from where Parker was sniffing some exceptional aroma on the lower branches of a purple flowering hebe. Laura picked them up.

  The Canon hurriedly descended the ladder. ‘Lady Boxford, You have been in my prayers. I had hoped to come and see you but I thought you might not be too keen under the present circumstances of my bail conditions.’

  ‘Well, I’m here now and there’s something I’d like to talk to you about if now is convenient?’

  ‘Of course, come in and have a cup of tea.’

  She handed him the secateurs and followed him into the house.

  Despite the plain 1960s’ facade, the interior of the house was a charming hotchpotch of tasteful knick-knackery. They walked through the hall past a console table with a floral arrangement of which Constance Spry would have been proud. Next to it was a miniature rendition of a chapel under a glass dome. It looked familiar.

  ‘Is that Eton College Chapel?’ Laura asked.

  ‘A memento of my time as chaplain.’ The Canon showed her into the sitting room.

  ‘What a varied life you have led,’ Laura said.

  ‘I’ve had plenty of time in which to accomplish it. Please make yourself comfortable while I put the kettle on.’

  While he was out of the room, Laura wandered around. Tall narrow bookshelves interspersed with Victorian watercolours lined the walls. Over the fireplace hung a gilt mirror the quality of which was immediately obvious; the top section was painted in oils depicting a bucolic scene.

  Chaplain at Eton and the Maze, she thought. Perhaps they weren’t so very different? But then St Botolph’s… it was quite a career.

  She walked over to the fireplace. On the mantle shelf stood a collection of Staffordshire greyhounds. She turned and looked out of a pair of French windows that led into the back garden. Roses rambled and clematis trailed in a profusion of colour around a circular area of lawn and along the back wall the doors of a Gothic style loggia stood open revealing a daybed covered in a multitude of brightly coloured cushions. It all looked most inviting and so unlike Sir Repton’s broken-down sunroom.

  ‘What a lovely garden,’ she said, as the Canon returned. He placed the tray he was carrying on a low table and proceeded to pour the tea from a well polished silver teapot.

  She sank down onto a soft, dark blue sofa. It was all so unexpectedly delightful that it seemed a pity to have to start a conversation of such an unpleasant nature. Still, she’d better get on with it.

  ‘So you’ve been charged with conducting fake marriages?’ she said.

  The Canon’s eyebrows slumped as he nodded in affirmation.

  ‘I imagine you will plead coercion to the charge. But there’s more to it than that. You see I also know that you knew the real danger I was in and that, Canon…’ She took a sip of tea. The aroma of Lapsang, warm and smoky, filled her nostrils. ‘… makes you an accessory to attempted murder; rather different to merely being coerced into arranging false marriages don’t you think?’ There, she thought, that’s got him.

  The Canon glared at her, his eyebrows like two moles about to bump into each other. ‘Steady on there, Lady Boxford. I tried to stop Liam Wilkes. That’s why he knocked me out.’

  ‘Oh.’ Laura hadn’t thought of this and it rather scuppered her line of attack. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, regrouping her thoughts. There was only one way forward and that was to grovel. ‘Alright then I’ll come clean Canon. The real reason why I’m here is that I find myself in a somewhat delicate position as a result of my abduction and I need your help.’

  ‘Obviously I am deeply ashamed of my part in the whole sordid misadventure. I’ll pay for it no doubt.’ He sat down in a battered leather armchair. ‘But in the meantime I will be of any assistance I can. Please tell me how?’

  ‘When I was forcibly confined in Brixton, I had to make a pledge to marry one of the men that you had already illegally married in the chapel that evening. Liam Wilkes was himself blackmailing the men. He said he would not give them the wedding certificates that you had issued unless one of them, Andwele Akadigbo, got rid of me. So I struck a bargain for my freedom but before there was time to honour it, I had been rescued.

  ‘Now Mr. Akadigbo has come to Wellworth Lawns – I have managed to get him work in the kitchen there but it is only temporary and he cannot stay. So you see I must honour my pledge to him.’

  The moles took off, transformed in an instant back into birds in flight. ‘Is this not a bit drastic?’

  ‘As I said, I am an honourable woman and after all he could have killed me.’

  ‘I’ll write you out a marriage certificate now, this very minute.’ The Canon jumped up and pulled open a drawer of his desk. ‘How do you spell his name?’ he said, taking out a pad of paper.

  ‘You’ll make sure his name is removed from the previous paperwork?’

  ‘Of course. Inspector Sandfield has yet to gather all the evidence and I still have not finished filling out the certificates.’

  Another man down on his knees, Laura thought as the Canon began filling in the form at a low table in front of Laura.

  ‘You mean Liam didn’t have them?

  ‘I would have sent them to him. How do you spell his name?’

  Laura hoped she had given him the right spelling ‘So what about all those other men you married that night?’ she continued.

  ‘They can stay here legally I suppose. It is indeed a bad business.’

  ‘But really Canon, how on earth did you ever get involved?’

  ‘I’m afraid the Wilkes family are consummate blackmailers and unfortunately I became the recipient of their nefarious ways.’ He handed her the completed form.

  ‘The truth is that when Senora Diggory came to Woldham she was in a state of grief at the loss of her husband,’ he continued. ‘My wife and I took on the role of comforting her but unfortunately I let the situation get out of control and found that I was attracted to her in a physical sense. She was not averse to my attentions and before very long we were embroiled in a liaison of a sexual nature.’ He looked up, still on his knees. Laura could only assume it was a position he was well practiced at from years of prayer.

  ‘We made every effort at discretion but Cheryl Wilkes happened to be passing through the back of the churchyard one morning – I had no idea that it was a shortcut to the hostel where Lance was temporarily residing having been in prison for robbery. They were trying for a reconciliation at the time.’

  ‘Lance had been in prison?’

  ‘Yes, that’s why Cheryl had taken the job at Mount Cod. She was most incensed when he took the job of gardener and was given the lodge. But over time they got back together.’

  ‘So what happened that morning in the churchyard?’

  ‘She caught us in flagrante. Threatened to tell my wife and the Bishop. Shortly after Senora Diggory left Woldham with a man she had met while attending an Anglo-Spanish culinary event in Birmingham. But the damage for me was done.’

  ‘And when was this?’ Laura said.

  The Canon finally got up with a resounding crack of his knee joints, the confession over, ‘Oh some years ago now. But Cheryl waited for her moment and I was trapped.’

  Their eyes met. Laura felt a little faint but managed to compose herself. She hoped he hadn’t noticed. Was this the sort of Rasputin effect he had had on Senora Diggory and… ‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘did Matilda Willowby find out any of this?’

  ‘Lady Willowby?’ Canon Frank sat back down in the leather chair. ‘Not as far as I know but I was only brought in after her death. Cheryl made her move on me when the vicar Liam had found in Pontypool turned tail.’

  ‘So Matilda could have found out what Cheryl and La
nce were up to?’

  The Canon ran his fingers through his virgin white hair. ‘That’s true, but what are you saying?’

  ‘I’m saying, Frank – may I call you Frank?’

  ‘I insist!’

  ‘I’m saying that it is not impossible that Cheryl or Lance or even Liam may have murdered Matilda. Don’t you think it’s suspicious?’ Laura fiddled with her bracelet. ‘I mean she may have gone into a diabetic coma but from what I’ve heard about her, it seems unlikely. She may have been missing one toe but she was still strong as an ox as far as I know.’ She looked out at the warm early evening sunshine. ‘Shall we go into the garden?’

  Canon Frank opened the French windows. ‘Now you say it, I’m beginning to think… She was most punctilious with her medication.’ He walked out in front of Laura absently.

  She followed him onto the lawn.

  ‘I well remember on one occasion when I was reading a passage from Leviticus to her, that she stopped me in order to check her blood sugar levels. And if she wasn’t in her boudoir, she liked to position herself at the top of the stairs with a loudhailer in order to command operations.’ Canon Frank stepped into the loggia and began puffing up the cushions on the daybed. He gestured for Laura to take a seat as he eased himself into a Lloyd Loom chair beside it.

  Laura had a sudden idea about actually lying down on the daybed but decided against it and sat instead as Parker jumped up beside her. ‘So, what if she had found out about the Wilkes’?’

  The Canon leant forward. ‘So they have to silence her?’ With his elbow on one knee, he rested his chin in his cupped hand.

  ‘Then after they’ve killed her, Cheryl starts the ghost business. That’s why she and Lance had to pretend they weren’t married. So that she could be in the flat, close enough to put on her nightly show and frighten Repton into submission. Making him, half out of his mind and so incapable, he was completely reliant on her and Lance. Do you know there hasn’t been a so-called haunting since the evening they disappeared. The evening of the last weddings you conducted.’