Murder Takes the Stage

by Amy Myers

  ‘When was that?’ Peter asked. ‘The prosecution thought it was the night of the murder.’

  Cherry looked surprised. ‘Oh, no. Tom told her some days before that. He was going to leave her and marry me.’

  Georgia’s heart sank. This was a different picture to the one they had been given by Ken, and it was not a good one. Why hadn’t the prosecution pounced on this? Tom would have had a motive, if Joan had refused to let him go. Divorce laws were far from lenient then. Either he would have to sue on grounds of her infidelity or persuade her to divorce him on those grounds – and from what Georgia had gathered about Tom, he was hardly likely to have let Cherry’s name be used.

  ‘I wasn’t there, of course,’ Cherry continued. ‘Tom just told me they’d had a row.’

  Georgia guessed what Peter was thinking. It was looking worse for Tom, and Cherry must have realized it, because she looked anxiously from one to the other. ‘But he would never have killed her over it. Tom wasn’t like that.’

  ‘Why did Joan pick Tom to marry? From what you say he wasn’t the type to fit her lifestyle, and in the photos we’ve seen so far he doesn’t look particularly handsome. Was she on the rebound from someone else?’

  ‘I mustn’t spread stories,’ Cherry began maddeningly.

  ‘But you need to clear Tom if you can,’ Georgia pressed her.

  ‘He was cleared,’ Cherry said stoutly. ‘I know people still said he did it, but he didn’t. I wanted to tell everybody that at the trial, but I wasn’t called. They thought I’d be prejudiced – and so I was. But because I knew it was true. He was with me.’

  ‘There’s still a chance to establish the truth. The Chronicle is to publish another article about it soon, so everyone will be talking about the case again.’ Peter was embroidering somewhat. ‘You would want to know what really happened, wouldn’t you? The real killer has never been found.’

  Cherry still looked undecided, and sitting here eating her walnut sponge it was easy for Georgia to believe she was still living in a world of over fifty years ago.

  ‘Ah, well, David’s long dead, so I suppose it won’t hurt,’ she said at last. ‘David Maclyn and Joan had an affair. He was married to Mavis, and Joan was single when it began. Something went wrong – Mavis, probably – and Joan jumped into marriage with Tom. She treated him worse than a faithful puppy. I’d only just joined the show that season, but I could see what was happening.’

  ‘So it was love at first sight for you and Tom,’ Georgia said encouragingly.

  Cherry looked pleased. ‘It was. He said he’d never been so happy as that summer.’

  ‘But he had a baby at home,’ Peter pointed out. ‘That must have worried him if he was about to leave Joan.’ Georgia froze in case he had gone too far.

  ‘No,’ Cherry shook her head vigorously. ‘It didn’t. Mind you, he was fond of baby Pamela. Very fond.’

  For the first time Georgia began to have doubts about Cherry’s memory. Had she convinced herself that it was true that Tom would leave Joan regardless of his child?

  ‘What went so wrong that could have driven Tom to murder as the police believed?’

  ‘Her lovers, dear. Not just David. There were others. There was an American sergeant at Manston. That was the wartime RAF station near here. The Americans had taken it over, and this sergeant and Joan hit it off. Tom hoped Joan would want to get spliced to him, if they split up.’

  ‘And there were others too?’ Georgia asked. Was this another example of Cherry convincing herself that Joan was unworthy of her beloved Tom?

  ‘Yes, but I don’t like to spread tales.’ Cherry sounded very determined, and Georgia decided not to press the point.

  ‘Could she have been pregnant when she died?’

  Cherry looked shocked. ‘I don’t know. Tom never said.’

  ‘When he came home again after the trial, what happened then?’ Peter moved to safer ground, helping himself to more walnut cake – which pleased Cherry.

  ‘It was terrible. Me being so young, I couldn’t handle it. He was in a daze, didn’t know what to do with himself. He told me he’d get through it alone, and then we’d be wed. My parents were dead against it, of course, and I needed their consent, so he said we’d wait until I was twenty-one, and then we’d marry and get away from Broadstairs.’

  ‘But something made him change his mind and kill himself. What was that? Did the show not want him back?’

  ‘He didn’t kill himself.’ Cherry glared at her, and Georgia was instantly contrite. ‘Harold – he was the producer – said it was too much of a risk to have Tom back in a family show even though he was acquitted. Perhaps he was right. Harold usually is. But poor Tom! It was hard on him because Harold was looking for someone else for the Three Joeys, not expecting him to be back.’

  This didn’t tie in with what Ken had told them. Harold was obviously still alive, and Georgia wondered what his side of the story would be.

  ‘What happened to the little girl?’ Peter enquired. ‘Didn’t she give him a reason for living?’

  ‘Joan’s parents took Pamela. They wouldn’t give her back even when Tom was acquitted. He was unemployed, so he couldn’t insist.’

  ‘How did you know Tom had disappeared?’ Peter’s voice was quiet, and Georgia realized Rick was on his mind as well as on hers. They had had an illogical but never-ending niggle of guilt that they had reported Rick’s disappearance too late.

  ‘Tom said he’d got the offer of a job in Eastbourne. That would have been about October or November in 1953. It was a job in pantomime, he said. Off he went, but he never came back.’

  Georgia saw her lips tremble again. ‘You must have been broken-hearted for the second time. It was hard on you.’

  ‘It was. I married Harold a year or two later – I did it only to get over Tom’s going. It was worse than the case itself for me. He just walked out, without telling me or even leaving a note behind him. That’s why I know he’s not dead, you see,’ she added confidently.

  That happy smile wasn’t assumed, Georgia thought uneasily – Cherry really did believe this.

  ‘He would have told me, you see, or left a note. Tom loved me,’ Cherry continued serenely. ‘I’ve got a lock of his hair on my dressing table. I look at it every day, so I know he’ll be back.’

  ‘But where has he been in the meantime?’ Peter asked.

  ‘He made a new life for himself, that’s what happened. For my sake, or so he thought. But now we’re older – he’d be eighty-six – he’ll come back. He always said we’d die in old age in each other’s arms. So I know he will come back soon. It’s just . . .’ Her voice faltered. ‘I’d like to know when. And where he is.’

  Like Rick, Georgia thought dully. Like Rick. Before they had set out, Peter had broken the news to her that the 1994 festival programme at Guidel had no singers in it. That did not mean Rick and Miss Blondie had not been present, but as the police had covered that area in their search, they had agreed to discount Guidel as a lead. She and Peter were no further forward, and Rick became a smaller and smaller figure as he walked away briskly from them along that country road. Her nightmare.

  Talk of work was banned from Medlars itself, except on rare occasions sanctioned by both parties. Unfortunately Georgia could dream up no way of keeping thoughts of work out of her mind. Family talk either of Luke’s relations or of Peter’s sister Gwen, who now lived at Wymbourne between Canterbury and Dover with her second husband Terry, or of Gwen’s son by her first marriage, Charlie Bone, only took so much time, and setting the world to rights was too tough a task for evenings after a day’s work. Usually, the boundary was respected, but when Georgia returned from Broadstairs she found Luke in the Medlars’ living room engrossed with sales figures.

  As a result, vague worries about Tom Watson refused to disappear. The meeting with Cherry had both helped and hindered her. Cherry was a dear but unfortunately so fixed in her own prejudices over Tom that her contribution to the investigation was not going
to be as significant as she and Peter had hoped. On the other hand, the meeting had brought the case to life in a different way. Cherry had been there at the time, and therefore what had been history could now be brought alive in a way that even Brian James could not achieve. But where next?

  ‘Supper might help,’ she said aloud, breaking the silence.

  Startled, Luke looked up from his laptop, caught her look of reproof and laughed. ‘Sorry. We could talk about redecorating the bathrooms, if you like.’

  ‘Great idea,’ she agreed as the phone rang. It was Peter, which caused instant alarm. He so rarely rang that she knew something must be wrong.

  ‘Have you seen the regional news this evening?’

  ‘No.’ A terrible foreboding shot through her.

  ‘A man was found knifed on the seafront path at Broadstairs early this morning.’

  ‘Who?’ Her voice sounded strangled.

  ‘I’m afraid it was Ken Winton.’

  ‘I’m afraid it was Ken Winton.’

  FOUR

  Coincidence – or did Ken’s horrible death have some connection with their visit or his scoop? Georgia’s sleep had been punctuated by long periods of thrashing over this unanswerable question. Had he been the random victim of a drunk? Possibly. The use of a knife suggested that, and it would be all too easy to assume that because Tom Watson was occupying her mind, Ken’s death must somehow involve him. The restless night meant she was early at work the next morning, but when she arrived in the office, Peter was already engrossed in the computer screen, regardless of an apple and plateful of toast at his side. Margaret was obviously failing in her familiar task of coaxing Peter into eating some kind of breakfast.

  ‘Your turn,’ came a call from the kitchen. Margaret had obviously heard her enter and was passing on responsibility for Peter’s breakfast to her.

  ‘Ah, Georgia.’ Peter swung round from his desk, sending the toast flying and Georgia diving for it.

  Margaret must have heard the noise from the kitchen, as there was a grim call of ‘I’ll bring you some more.’ When Georgia went to fetch it, she added, ‘And you look as if you could do with some yourself.’

  Georgia sensed that Margaret was becoming proprietorial about her role in the household, probably due to Janie’s frequent presence here, although she had never dared to raise the subject. Although Margaret graciously accepted Georgia’s help in what she saw as ‘her job’, Georgia had the impression that Janie’s was a different matter, and sometimes, if Janie was free of museum responsibilities, she would come over during the day as well as the evenings.

  Toast might comfort, but it couldn’t cure, alas. Peter did deign to have half a slice, but his mind was on other matters, and Georgia could not blame him. ‘I’ve been on to Mike again,’ he told her.

  ‘It’s not his area.’

  Peter looked surprised. ‘So? He has staff, who are presumably capable of emailing Thanet?’

  As usual, Peter was supremely confident that Mike was waiting at the end of a phone, eager to help him. Perhaps his blithe assumption worked, for the phone rang and, judging by Peter’s look of triumph, it was Mike.

  ‘Thanet said my contribution confirms what Christine told them,’ Peter said, as at last he finished the call. ‘Ken was probably killed late on Monday night. Not too many strollers along the seafront at that time, and even if he were seen slumped on a bench, he could have been taken for a drunk or assumed to be sleeping rough, which is why it was discovered only early yesterday morning.’

  ‘No arrests yet?’ she asked, expecting the answer she received.

  Georgia was sickened that they had both been in Broadstairs yesterday, but unaware of Ken’s murder. It must have taken place much nearer the pier than where she and Peter had parked.

  ‘No. Keeping mum about lines of enquiry, if any.’ He glanced at her. ‘We can’t blame ourselves, Georgia. It wasn’t us who stirred up the story. It was Ken himself, and his blessed scoop.’

  Georgia voiced her fear. ‘Suppose he was thinking twice about something or someone and we galvanized him into publishing too soon?’

  Peter sighed. ‘Joan Watson’s murder took place fifty years ago. The probability of anyone caring enough to kill over it now has to be so remote that we could hardly be blamed for not thinking it might present any physical risk.’

  ‘If it does . . .’ Georgia decided not to take her unwelcome thought any further, but Peter finished it for her.

  ‘Then there’s a chance it’s also a risk to us, if Ken’s killer knows we’re sniffing around too. That being the case, do we continue with Tom Watson or keep our powder dry for Rick?’

  Georgia struggled with the answer, longing to say yes to the latter. But she could not do it. It would seem a betrayal of Ken – and indeed of Cherry. ‘Continue with both?’

  ‘I agree, of course,’ Peter said. ‘But if – and it is still if – Ken’s death should by any chance be connected to Tom Watson, it would suggest that there’s a lot more to the story than he told us.’

  ‘Agreed, but in what way?’

  ‘Anyone directly connected with Joan’s murder – Cherry, Sandy, Harold Staines or Joan’s lovers – is going to be in his or her late seventies at least, and probably older. Agreed again?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Whatever we uncovered, we would be unlikely to be able to prove conclusively, and mere allegations are going to be defamatory and therefore unpublishable. Agreed?’

  ‘Yes, but that’s often the case.’

  Peter impatiently waved this aside. ‘Due to age, it’s unlikely any of these people would kill again, especially with the obvious risk of discovery. If by any chance one of them is guilty, it implies there’s an angle to this case that we don’t know about. After all, look at the inconsistencies even in the story as we know it so far. There are plenty of them, and they’re remarkable, even given the passage of time. Joan Watson was warm-hearted, a bitch of the first order, promiscuous, devoted, all at the same time. Tom was guilty, not guilty, devoted to Joan, devoted to Cherry; he committed suicide, would never have done such a thing . . . No, there’s more to this, and since I think it unlikely that an octogenarian would be knifetoting around on the seafront at midnight, a wider range of interested parties could well be involved.’

  ‘What about Ken’s scoop?’ Georgia asked, leaping ahead. ‘That was to be published on Friday, and Ken might have handed in his copy already. If stopping the scoop was the murderer’s aim, there would not be much point in killing Ken – the article and his notes would have to go too. Was his home broken into?’

  ‘Full marks. I’m afraid it was. No info on what was taken. It’s the Chronicle for you, Georgia. Right now.’

  Georgia found the Chronicle office easily enough, having parked near Broadstairs High Street. It was tucked in a side road opposite Jameston Avenue and was hardly flaunting itself. With so much media competition its circulation was unlikely to be large, she realized, although for local communication it must be invaluable.

  The office promised more from its outside appearance than it did inside. A back room was obviously given over to technology, and the front office into which Georgia walked straight from the street had three desks set close together, although only one was occupied. There was also a small glassed-off partitioned area for, presumably, the editor.

  As she entered, she saw a head glued to a computer as earnestly as if it provided the answer to the Big Bang all by itself. Fortunately its owner, an attractive tall blonde girl in her twenties, leapt up to greet her after a moment or two. Trousers, tank top and the kind of face that could launch a thousand ships, Georgia thought. She had the brightness and confidence of a girl who knew where she was going in life and why. Today the Chronicle, tomorrow The Times. ‘Sorry. We’re all pretty busy today,’ the girl apologized.

  ‘With Ken Winton’s death, I expect. That’s why I’m here.’

  The girl grimaced. ‘You’re right. It’s not good having to report the murder of on
e of our own, especially Ken.’

  ‘I can imagine just how much,’ Georgia said sympathetically, and then explained who she was and why she was here.

  The girl considered this. ‘You’d better talk to Will Foster. He’s the editor. I’m only Number Two, limping in a long way behind. Cath Dillon,’ she introduced herself.

  She led the way through the glass door to where Will, who looked scarcely older than Cath, was at his desk staring gloomily at his screen. ‘Georgia Marsh is here about Ken. She met him a few days ago.’

  Will looked interested. He waved her to a fold-up seat that just fitted in between his desk and the partition wall, and Cath took another to complete the cosy threesome as Georgia repeated her story.

  ‘Ken told us about his scoop,’ she ended hopefully. ‘He said it would be out on Friday.’

  ‘Would have been,’ Will said gloomily. ‘He was going to send it over today. We weren’t expecting much. We’ve heard the story before. Always the big one next time. The lion roars, but out trots a pussycat.’

  That was a blow. ‘He seemed sure enough,’ Georgia nevertheless persisted.

  ‘I wasn’t holding the front page.’

  A setback this might be, but it was also a relief. If the scoop had been only in Ken’s mind, it could hardly have been the reason for his death, and some of the turmoil inside her relaxed.

  ‘He must have meant it this time,’ Georgia replied. ‘My father and I were considering the Watson case as our next full-length book project, and Ken was eager to help. After he’d published his scoop. It was in his interests to publish quickly, and he was keen to get involved.’ Was that true? She had a sudden doubt. Could Will Foster be right? Ken had been eager, but in hindsight it had been a nervous excitement, suggesting what he’d like to be doing rather than what he could do. ‘He’d never let you down on producing copy, had he? Did he email his copy in?’