Murder Takes the Stage

by Amy Myers

  ‘Were you a suspect?’ she asked.

  ‘I was interviewed by the police, but that was all, thanks to good old Uncle Sam. I was in camp that evening. No pass. That’s a good enough alibi, I reckon.’

  ‘Could be,’ Peter said politely.

  Buck laughed aloud. ‘Sure, I could be lying through my teeth, but I’m not. I brought you folks here to confess, but not to murder.’

  Georgia diagnosed the look on Cath’s face as resignation rather than opposition.

  ‘My turn to speak,’ Cath said firmly. ‘You asked me to look into post-war smuggling, Georgia. The trail led me straight to Grandpops, as you feared.’

  Georgia had indeed, but nevertheless it was a shock to hear Buck himself confirm it.

  ‘It was just fun at the time,’ he said. ‘Beating the system. It was a gloomy time all round in England. The USAF was sharing Manston with the Brits, as I told you, but we had our own supplies and did a heck of a lot better than they did. The war was only just over for us both, but you were still suffering more of the consequences. But it was tough for us Yanks too, dumped into a strange depressing place like this. We had to brighten it up. The war in Korea was still on, and so entertainment off duty was high priority. I met Joan, as I told you, and used to pinch a few cigarettes for her or the odd can of food. I’m not proud of it, but I was thousands of miles from home and it didn’t seem like thieving. She began to ask for more and more, and she was drinking and smoking stuff I hadn’t gotten for her, so I began asking questions like the dumb fool I was. Darn it if she didn’t try to blackmail me. Turned out there was an organization running smuggled stuff in by boat from the continent. Don’t know how much you know about the Kent coast, but way back smuggling was big business, with stuff landed at coves – the Gaps they’re called at Broadstairs, aren’t they? – and then run through tunnels to safe houses. In 1952 it wasn’t so widespread, and this organization centred on Botany Bay out towards Cliftonville, which was nicely deserted back then.

  ‘Joan insisted I get drawn in on the distribution,’ he continued. ‘As a US sergeant I’d be less likely to be caught, and the damn woman said she’d go straight to my CO if I didn’t cooperate. So I decided to stay right on the sidelines, plead camp rotas in order to do as little as possible and keep my ears and eyes closed. I knew some of the Waves Ahoy! folk were mixed up with it because I’d overheard conversations at the pub. I kept out of them. It wasn’t long after I joined that Joan was killed, and I was out of that circle like a shot, putting it round that I was being transferred. By the grace of God, I was, so I heard no more about it. So that’s why I keep my distance now. I never thought I’d be back in this neck of the woods. But what happens? I meet Mary over in the States and find out she lived here. When my air-force time expired, I came back to find her, and here we are. I heard no more about the smuggling ring, but now you two come along,’ he added without rancour.

  ‘Was Joan the ring’s organizer?’ Peter asked.

  ‘Good grief, no. Joan was a good-time girl. Rotten to the core, but then she was young, in her late twenties, I reckon. Maybe she was just weak. I was even younger, twenty-two. She was proud of her looks, and no wonder. She was useful to the ring, she knew so many folk and could distribute stuff without eyebrows being raised.’

  ‘Who was the organizer then?’ Peter asked.

  Buck chuckled. ‘That’s where I bow out, Peter. I settled here because it’s far enough from Broadstairs not to cause any problems. I sure as hell didn’t want my new life mixed up with my old.’

  ‘You must have had contact with some of them over the years,’ Georgia said, despite Cath’s frown, which was saying, ‘Don’t push it.’

  ‘I stumble across them from time to time, but we’re all older now, so we don’t talk of the past. It’s history now – even to journalists,’ Buck added, grinning at Cath. ‘Never wake up a sleeping dog.’

  ‘Ken Winton did,’ Peter said evenly. ‘And he died. Any connection?’

  Georgia could see Cath looking uneasy as Buck replied, ‘I don’t know, and that’s the truth. Knowing I was around at the time, Cath mentioned Ken’s theories over Tom so often over the years that I knew them inside out. I didn’t take them seriously – and nor did I you, Georgia. Guess I was wrong there. Cath told me you’d found out that Tom came back to Broadstairs in 1975. That was news to me, and mighty hard to believe.’

  ‘We’ve good evidence for it. Could he have been mixed up with the ring?’ Peter asked.

  ‘No way. Joan made it clear that he wasn’t involved. Are you thinking her death might be mixed up with it?’ Buck frowned.

  ‘It’s on the cards.’

  ‘It’s possible, I reckon. Joan was a greedy lady. Maybe she got too greedy and threatened the organizer, as she did me. So, Peter, here’s my stake. You bring me proof that that’s why she was murdered, and I’ll come clean. Otherwise no way. It might be history, but I take no chances. I aim to stay alive to see Cath and Charlie’s kids.’

  ‘Grandpops,’ Cath complained instantly, ‘you make it sound as though there’s one on the way. And for the record, folks, there isn’t. Yet. Happy everyone?’

  ‘For you, yes.’ Buck grinned. ‘Charlie’s a good bloke and he’d be even better if he ever stops in one place long enough to think what’s good for him, which is Cath. He’ll settle down.’

  ‘Not likely,’ Cath declared. ‘I’ll be travelling with him.’

  Georgia was watching Peter, who was clearly awaiting his moment to pounce. Then it came: ‘You implied the organizer is still alive, Buck.’

  For the first time Buck looked thrown. ‘As I said,’ he answered shortly, ‘bring me proof that’s why Joan was murdered, and I’ll sing like a nightingale.’

  ‘Would proof that he or she killed Tom in 1975 do?’

  Trust Peter to float an idea as though it was a near certainty, Georgia thought. Nevertheless, it was a good ploy, on a par with beating woods to see which birds fly out. It was working in this case.

  Buck looked very shaken. ‘You reckon old Tom was murdered?’

  ‘We’ve found no one who has seen him since then,’ Peter replied. ‘Of course that’s no proof at all, but he didn’t return to his previous life in London after his visit. Even so, it’s hard to see to whom Tom could have been a threat by that time. If he knew who killed Joan, he would have told the police at the time, and though the smuggling ring opens up another possibility, it seems a weak motive after all those years.’

  ‘Who knew about his return in the seventies?’ Buck asked abruptly.

  ‘So far as we know, only his former neighbour, Micky Winton and Pamela Trent.’

  ‘And Pamela told her husband,’ Georgia added. ‘None of them seems likely to have killed Joan though. Pamela and Matthew are ruled out through age, and neither the neighbour nor Micky seems to have had any motive.’

  ‘Whatever that was,’ Buck commented.

  ‘The Giant Rat of Sumatra,’ murmured Peter. ‘That’s a cryptic clue Micky wrote in his diary for 1975. A story for which the world is not yet ready, according to Conan Doyle. That could have been the smuggling ring.’

  ‘Or the Giant Rat. That you, Grandpops?’

  Cath was joking, but there was no answering grin from Buck this time.

  Cath was joking, but there was no answering grin from Buck this time.

  TWELVE

  A warm beach. Luke at her side, the sun beating down – Georgia stirred uneasily. Or was it fireworks? The sky seemed to be lit up to celebrate – celebrate what? With a start, she was fully awake, aware of the patterns dancing on the curtains and the crackle – of what? Immediately she was out of bed and rushing to the window.

  ‘Luke! Fire!’

  Flames were leaping and flickering from the oast house. Even as she dashed for the phone, she heard a grunt and the sound of his moving as rapidly as she was. Why, oh why had she left her mobile downstairs? No, it was here, thank heavens. As she punched in 999, Luke rushed past her down the stairs
in a towelling robe; by the time she joined him he had already seized the small fire extinguisher from the wall. Grabbing a coat, Georgia hurried after him, desperately trying to think as she did so: water, blankets, buckets, water—

  ‘Luke, don’t go in!’ she shouted. Too late.

  It looked as if the fire had reached only the storage end of the oast house and not yet the office itself. How long before the fire engines would be here? As she reached the door to the oast house, the heat was already intense, with small flames greedily licking their way towards her. Seeing her there, Luke passed his computer to her, but then to her horror he went back in. Long seconds ticked on by.

  ‘Come on, come out, Luke,’ she pleaded, and at last, at blessed last, he did, clutching another computer.

  ‘I could get another one—’ He was gasping already.

  ‘No!’

  He glanced at her and thankfully saw sense.

  Time ticked by agonizingly slowly as she watched it burn. They were helpless to achieve anything more than the fire extinguishers had already accomplished, but at last she could hear the wonderful sound of a fire engine siren. That must mean it was still on the Canterbury Road, she thought; another few minutes before it would arrive here; she blinked tears of frustration from her eyes. Luke was the calm one now.

  ‘Think of the bright side. Only unsold backlist gone. The new ones aren’t in yet.’

  It gave her no comfort at all. What did was the arrival of not one but two fire engines.

  The rest of the night was punctuated only by cups of coffee and tea as the firemen’s assessment officers went about their work. At least the fire hadn’t been at Medlars itself, she tried to comfort herself, but with the smell of the aftermath of fire in her nostrils it was hard. Offices could be replaced, she told herself, even oasts – and looking at it now that the flames were mostly out, the oast itself looked as if it might survive, even if the attached storeroom had not.

  As dawn came, the smell and desolation seemed to get worse. There seemed an endless procession of firemen, police and insurance and assessment officers, while she and Luke remained mere onlookers. At last Luke went out with the police, but came back with a grim face.

  ‘The good news is that my office and the staff office in the oast are mostly OK. It’s chiefly confined to the back room, with minor singeing to the oast. We were lucky the clapboards didn’t catch.’

  ‘And the bad news?’

  ‘They’re pretty sure it was started deliberately. It seems to have begun at the rear access door.’

  ‘A random arsonist?’ She couldn’t believe that and was not surprised when Luke replied, ‘Perhaps. But a coincidence we should have a threatening letter one day and only a week later a fire. The PC thought I was barking to consider that letter a threat, but I’m afraid we might think otherwise.’

  ‘It doesn’t fit with Harold Staines, Luke,’ she said wearily. ‘He’s well over eighty. He wouldn’t be prancing around with accelerants in the middle of the night.’

  ‘No,’ Luke agreed, ‘he’d send his lawyer.’

  A feeble joke, but Georgia managed to laugh.

  Sleep, when it came at last for a brief hour or two, provided nightmares of flames and heat, but at least when she awoke at ten o’clock she felt marginally rested.

  I’ll be late for the office, was her first thought. This suddenly seemed inordinately funny as the full horror of the night came back to her. Then, realizing that Peter would be worried by her no-show, she dragged herself downstairs to telephone him. The smell of the fire was so strong, even in the house, that she wondered if any of the sparks could have reached as far as Medlars’ ancient wooden beams, but she decided to put the thought aside. She couldn’t cope with everything at once. Medlars seemed its usual comforting, solid self, however. Getting breakfast on the table provided reassurance today, rather than routine. Luke had already come down, she realized, and must already be outside. Should she join him? No, a quick bite and drink first after ringing Peter. She needed sustenance to face what lay outside.

  Peter snatched up the phone so quickly that Georgia felt guilty, knowing he must already have been worrying. She told him what had happened, and he just said, ‘I’ll be over.’ The receiver was replaced.

  At that moment Luke returned to announce, ‘Frost & Co will survive to publish a few more books. The flames had reached further than the structural damage they had caused. Quite a bit of stock has gone, but the metal shelving must have helped slow the flames a little.’

  ‘Can you still work in the office?’

  ‘Not yet. I’ve sent Cheryl and Dinah home today. Will’s out there helping clear up.’

  ‘And it still looks as if it was deliberately started?’

  ‘Let’s say there’s no sign of accident yet. Over to the insurance folk now. Then Frost & Co can get back to its autumn programme.’

  It sounded comforting, but they were only brave words, and both she and Luke knew it.

  Peter was longer than Georgia had expected, and when she heard his car draw up, she realized why. He was not alone. Detective Superintendent Mike Gilroy was now inspecting the damage. As she and Luke went out to join him, he grimaced. ‘Not as bad as it could be, but nasty,’ he commiserated with them.

  Peter joined them, explaining, ‘Mike told me some nonsense about a police luncheon he had to go to, but he saw my point that he was needed here.’

  Georgia caught his eye and controlled an insane desire to laugh. His next words stopped that. ‘Think it will happen again?’ Mike asked.

  Luke looked aghast at the very idea, and it was Peter who answered gravely, ‘It could do.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Luke said gloomily.

  ‘Unless,’ Peter added meaningfully, ‘we get a move on with police help and get this business sorted.’

  ‘By which you mean my business or yours?’ Luke asked wearily.

  ‘Both. I know you think I’m barmy, Mike,’ Peter said mildly, ‘but we’re all involved. Luke because he’s an easy target with the office here, with the result that a threat can be made to him without physical danger to him or Georgia, and Georgia and myself because if that does not deter our determination to continue this case, we could be the next target.’

  ‘It’s our fault, Luke,’ Georgia acknowledged. ‘You’re the victim because we chose this case.’

  ‘If I remember correctly,’ Luke said, ‘I accepted the risk.’

  ‘You’d better tell me all, I suppose,’ Mike said in resignation. ‘Can we go inside?’

  Once back in Medlars, the situation assumed slightly more normality. ‘This Broadstairs case of yours isn’t in my patch,’ Mike pointed out, ‘but this one is.’

  ‘Good,’ Luke said.

  ‘I’m not sure I agree with that, but I can’t change the situation, so shoot, please. And before you ask, Peter, I had a word with DI Jenkins at Thanet HQ about the Winton murder. It’s still ongoing. They’ve got their eye on some connection with a shooting in south London last year.’

  That was a point in favour of Ken’s death being unconnected with the Tom Watson case, Georgia thought, although she still could not believe it was. ‘Any link between the victims?’ she asked.

  ‘None found yet. But,’ Mike added sourly, ‘if Ken Winton’s death was linked to the death of that fifties case you were talking about and this fire, a whole different picture might emerge. So spit it out, Peter.’

  He listened patiently as Peter duly spat out the Tom Watson story, including his return visit in 1975, but then Mike picked on the obvious objection. ‘So you don’t know where Tom Watson went after then. Tried advertising for connections?’

  ‘Of course. He’s on our website now under both Bert Holmes and Tom Watson. Nothing after seventy-five.’

  ‘Your website isn’t viewed by the entire population.’

  ‘That is true,’ Peter admitted, ‘but it did bring forth two fruitful lines of enquiry for the period before seventy-five. So if Tom Watson was killed on that visit to
Broadstairs—’

  Mike knew Peter’s thinking of old. ‘You’d like us to check all the unidentified bodies between Broadstairs and John O’Groats for the last quarter of a century. Certainly. Easy as anything.’

  ‘More locally would be acceptable,’ Peter said hastily. ‘And perhaps up to 1980 would be reasonable.’

  ‘Easier,’ Mike grudgingly agreed. ‘Any DNA to help?’

  ‘No chance. His only relative, his daughter, turns out not to be his.’

  ‘Naturally,’ Mike remarked. ‘It’s one of your cases. Nothing ever is simple.’

  Luke was fully occupied with his own problems and had made it clear to Georgia that her help was not wanted. ‘What you can do to help is get on and solve the Watson case,’ he told her in a rare fit of irritability.

  This, she acknowledged, was a reasonable request. The problem was how to translate it into action the following day when she was trying to grapple with an elusive Tom in the Haden Shaw office.

  ‘Let’s assume that Tom Watson did disappear in July 1975,’ she said at last. ‘To recap, there’s no known reason for any of the four people who knew about his visit to want to get rid of him.’

  ‘There may have been others,’ Peter pointed out. ‘Micky or Matthew could have casually mentioned it to anyone. Acquaintances could have seen him in the street – Tom made no secret of his visit.’

  He was right, of course. ‘So where does that leave us?’ she asked.

  ‘I was struck by a word Mike used: connections. Remember that story of the Silver Gang?’

  ‘Yes, but I also remember that was years before Tom came back here.’

  ‘Agreed, but nevertheless there are interesting possibilities. I’ve been looking into it. Firstly, let’s assume John Silver, the leader, was nicknamed Quicksilver for his powers of vanishing off the scene whenever he chose. The gang disappeared abruptly as a unit about 1969.’

  ‘And the point for us?’ she asked patiently.

  ‘It’s believed that each member disappeared into a different hole, but there would still be a price on their heads, whether offered by the police, or by those with old scores to settle, or by those ensuring they never challenged the new kids on the block.’