Murder at the Bridge: An Exham on Sea Cosy Murder Mystery (Exham on Sea Mysteries Book 5)

by Frances Evesham

  Puzzled, she turned to the third column, which contained hyperlinks. She clicked on one and gasped as a photograph opened up. There was Kate Stephenson, her arms round someone with his back to the camera, eyes closed, mouth half-open in the prelude to a kiss. For a second, Libby's stomach seemed to turn over. Then she relaxed. The man wasn't Max.

  She peered more closely, her heart rate returning to normal, but she couldn't identify the man in the photo.

  She tried another link from the file, and found another image. Taken from the outside, looking in through a window, it showed Kate Stephenson and the same man. This time, both were naked. Libby smiled as she recognised the curtains in Abbott House, Kate's home.

  She pulled a mint from an old packet in her bag and sucked, as a series of events clicked into place in her mind like dots joining up to make an outline; Kate, Belinda's links to the Pathway, her disappearance, and the strange affair of the worthless ring.

  Libby swallowed the last of the mint and shut down the computer. She knew where she had to go.

  Her phone rang. "Yes?"

  Max said, "Where are you? I thought you were coming round this morning. Bear's furious, and I'm…" He hesitated. "I'm missing you."

  A warm glow flooded Libby's veins, but there was no time to talk. She gabbled, "I've cracked it. I've been looking at the farm computer and I know what this is all about. Give me Lady Antonia's address and meet me there. Hurry up, I'm on my way."

  "Hold on," Max shouted. "Wait for me. Don't do anything until I get there."

  Libby dropped the phone in her bag before he could protest, and hurried to the kitchen.

  Mike sat where she'd left him, his face vacant. She hesitated. He was in no fit state to answer questions. Anyway, she had no need to ask. She dropped a hand on his shoulder. "You should have told us, Mike."

  "What?"

  "Never mind. Stay here, I'll be back soon." Libby grabbed Shipley and left at a run, leaving behind Mike's plaintive voice, begging her to explain what on earth was going on.

  The house

  Gravel screeched under the car's wheels as Libby accelerated away, speeding down the twisting lanes until she turned onto the main road and hit the back of a queue of traffic travelling at less than ten miles an hour.

  Thumping the steering wheel, she leaned sideways, trying to see the blockage. A tractor lumbered ahead, filling the road, leaving no room to pass. Frustrated, taut muscles screaming, Libby changed down until she was crawling in second gear.

  Just as she was about to scream with frustration, the tractor found a lay-by and let the queue of traffic pass.

  At last, she reached Lady Antonia's home. Libby steered between two pillars topped with stone pineapples, drove past a tiny church along a narrow avenue, hedged on either side by beeches, and arrived at an impressive Georgian manor house. Libby counted eight rows of windows, dark and uninviting despite the early afternoon sun. Libby's skin crawled. Under other circumstances, she'd think the house charming and old-fashioned, but her heart was pumping with fear for Sarah and Belinda.

  She ran up the short flight of carved stone steps to hammer on the door. There was no reply, so she ran round the house to the back garden, where a spacious lawn led down to an ornamental lake. Lilies floated serenely on the surface.

  There was no one in sight.

  Shipley sniffed round the garden, found a scent, and nose close to the floor, ran down the path and back. "What is it, Shipley? Can you smell something strange?"

  The dog stopped, nose in the air, four legs rigid. Libby knelt beside him. "What is it?" She followed his gaze. "Are you pointing at something?"

  Directly in the line of the dog's sight was a set of outhouses, probably built as stabling for horses, but no equine heads poked over the half doors today. With an anxious glance back at the house, Libby walked towards the nearest stable, her pulse racing. She had one hand on the wood, ready to push it open, when Shipley barked, once. "Not that one?"

  She moved to the next door, Shipley at her heels. "Is this the way?"

  The door opened easily. The outhouse was full of junk. She saw old chairs and an ancient mangle, a relic from the days of washing clothes by hand. A musty smell emanated from a pile of rolled carpet. Wrinkling her nose, Libby muttered to the dog, "Is that what you can smell? Old rugs?"

  The dog ignored her. Tail in the air, nose to the ground, he pushed past heaps of rubbish to the other end of the building, where he stopped at the wall, body rigid.

  At first, Libby could see nothing unusual. Just wooden slats. She looked more closely. One area of wood was cleaner than the rest. She ran tentative fingers across the surface. The wood moved under her hand. She pushed, hard, and it swung open so fast she almost overbalanced.

  She steadied herself, grasping at the door frame. The ground below her feet pitched sharply down as steps led away into the blackness. Remembering one of the tricks Mandy had shown her, she switched on her phone to light the way, and set off down the stairs. "Come on, Shipley," she whispered. "I'm not going down there alone."

  ***

  Blood thundering in her ears, Libby descended the steps, one hand touching the wall, the other holding the phone. Shipley, close behind, growled quietly.

  The steps turned sharp left and Libby followed, her hand trembling, the light flickering over the walls. What was that? She stopped and Shipley scrambled past, almost knocking her over, and galloped across the floor. Libby shone her phone light round the space, but could see nothing except racks of wine bottles lining the walls. The air in the cellar was cool and dry.

  "There's nothing here, Shipley. It's just a wine cellar." Weak with relief, Libby examined the bottles more closely. Some were covered in dust, while others looked more recent, but there was nothing unusual about any of them. Shipley snuffled in the corner. "What have you found?"

  Aiming her light with care, she could make out cracks where the walls met the wooden floor. "Rats." Libby shuddered. "That's what you were chasing. And I thought you were leading me to something important."

  A voice boomed from the top of the steps. "I hope you haven't disturbed my bottles."

  Libby spun round. "Lady Antonia," she gulped, filled with sudden guilt. "Er, no. I was just-er-just… I'll come back up."

  "Will you?"

  Libby tensed, suddenly motionless as she recognised the man's voice.

  John Canterbury, the friendly rector, had joined the old woman.

  Libby rested her foot on the first step, shining her light upwards. The rector's eyes glittered. "Time to stop snooping about, I think. Antonia, get back inside the house. Make coffee or something."

  "What do you—" Libby stopped. "Where are Belinda and Sarah?"

  The rector descended the stairs, slowly, his face menacing in the single beam of light. "Not here, I'm afraid. And you won't be seeing them. We're all very tired of you poking your nose into our business. It's time to stop."

  Libby licked dry lips, searching for something to use as a weapon.

  "I'm sorry, my dear," the rector went on. "We can't tolerate any more of your interference—" He stopped speaking as a deafening torrent of barking echoed round the cellar.

  Lurching forward, the rector made a grab for the doorway, but his feet slipped on the narrow steps. For a long moment, he teetered at the top of the stairs, trying to regain his balance, before his feet slipped on the narrow steps and he fell.

  Libby clutched at his jacket as he fell past her, but the weight of his body pulled it from her grasp, and with a sickening crack, his head hit the floor. Bear, still barking, appeared in the gloom at Libby's side.

  Max followed, running down the steps. "Bear, that's enough." His hand brushed Libby's shoulder. "Are you OK?"

  As she nodded, he crouched by the rector's side and felt for a pulse in his neck. "He's still alive." Max pulled out his phone and swore. "No reception down here."

  Candles

  Libby blinked against the daylight streaming down the cellar steps. She gasped as s
he saw Belinda, face dirty, usually tidy hair in greasy spikes, scrubbing away tears with a grubby handkerchief. Libby laughed aloud. Sarah was there, too, outside the stable, her phone to her ear, laughing and crying at the same time. "Robert? It's all over. I'm safe."

  "Where's Antonia?"

  Belinda's eyes were red. "She's lying down. She's even more confused than usual, now. "

  "But, what are you all doing here? I mean, I thought we'd find you here, but Shipley took me to the cellar and then…" Libby felt a sob rise in her throat, now the drama was over. She bit her lip, determined not to cry.

  Max took her hand. "Shipley needs a little more training if he's going to be useful as a sniffer dog. I imagine he was taking you to the rats. But he wasn't far away from Sarah and Belinda, locked in the next stable. The rector drugged them both to keep them quiet."

  Libby made a face. "The rector had me fooled. He seemed so…"

  "Quite. He put on a good show, and took us both in, but he's a wicked man. By the way, I'm impressed with your improved IT skills, if they led you straight here."

  Libby managed a smile. "It's Mandy's doing. She gives me lessons. Liam kept all the information I needed on the farm computer. But, go on. Did the rector kidnap Belinda? And Sarah as well? Why would he do such a thing?"

  Max looked at Belinda. She twisted her hands together, as if washing them clean. Her eyes were over-bright. "My aunt has a vast inheritance stashed away. She's been suffering from dementia for a long time, and the rector started visiting, helping her. At least, we thought that was what he was doing. I suppose he wanted to get his hands on her fortune."

  Belinda's face was scarlet. "I knew the money would come to us, eventually. I came to ask my aunt for a loan one day, and the rector was here. He must have overheard my aunt refuse to give me any money while she was alive. I was getting desperate. I had to pay, you see, to get rid of…" She put her head in her hands, whispering, "To get rid of the curse."

  Libby shook her head. "Pay? Who were you paying? The rector?"

  Belinda shook her head. "No, not John. The Pathway. The Pathway, and Kate Stephenson."

  Libby groaned. "You were hooked by those séances? We went to one. It's all a load of old hokum. The Papadopoulos couple prey on vulnerable people who've lost a partner, or a parent. They find out things about you, and fool you into thinking they're in touch with the dead."

  Belinda shot a glance at Libby, through misty eyes. "You too?"

  Libby chuckled. "I could have been taken in, perhaps, but they didn't realise the last person I wanted to hear from was my dead husband. All the same, I can see why you believed them, and they gave me a bad shock."

  Belinda's smile was watery. "Olivia said my mother had an important message for me. She said I was in danger, but I could be helped. Kate Stephenson was there that day. She told me she could see an aura round my head, and that someone had put a-a curse on me." She began to sob. "I'm sorry, it sounds so silly."

  Sarah put her arms round her mother. "Don't worry. It's all over."

  Belinda took a deep breath. "Kate said she could help lift the curse, and she'd do it for nothing because we were friends. All I had to do was pay for some special candles."

  "I gave her a few pounds – hardly anything – for the candles. Then she made an appointment and I went to her house. She sat at her little table for a while, telling me about my aura, and how someone must have put the curse on me when I was young. When I was about thirteen, she said."

  Libby winced. "Everyone has arguments with other children at that age. Especially girls. And they can be cruel."

  "There were a few kids at school who used to bully me. They said I was posh. They used to steal from my school bag, scribble on my homework, that kind of thing. It sounds stupid, now, but it really hurt and I was scared of them. Especially one girl, who was big for her age. She used to come right up to me and spit."

  Belinda's face screwed up in pain as she remembered. "When Kate told me about the curse, I remembered those girls, and I thought they might have really hexed me. Then, Kate showed me an egg. Just an ordinary egg. She said it was from the chicken in the nearby farm, but it would show if I had truly been cursed."

  Belinda's face was scarlet. "I can't believe I fell for it."

  Max said, "You wouldn't be the first to fall for a psychic scam. There are plenty on the internet."

  With a grateful smile, Belinda went on, "She touched that stupid egg to my head and made me breathe on it, and then she smashed it on a plate. It was horrible. Mostly, it was normal egg white and yolk, all mixed up, but there were also a few black things, like apple pips, in with the yolk."

  Max's voice held an undertone of cold fury. "You didn't go back there, did you?"

  Belinda nodded. "Kate said there was a definite curse on me, and she could lift it, but—"

  Libby interrupted. "Let me guess. It would be expensive?"

  "She had to buy special crystals. She said it usually cost thousands of pounds, but she'd let me pay a little each month to the Pathway, because she wanted to help."

  Max said, "You handed over the money, but the so-called curse was too strong to be dealt with in one session, so they needed more…"

  Belinda nodded, sobbing too hard to talk.

  Libby remembered the email to Lady Antonia she'd read in Belinda's inbox, talking about borrowing jewellery. "In the end, you owed thousands of pounds and you ran out of money. You couldn't get out of her clutches, so you borrowed some of your aunt's jewellery, pretending it was for Sarah's wedding, sold the ring and had it replaced by a fake."

  Belinda blew her nose. "I was so scared. I'd stopped going to the Pathway meetings, but Olivia kept ringing up and sending me emails. They were threats, really, though not in so many words. I'd plucked up enough courage to ask you for help, but when Xavier saw us talking at the wedding, I didn't dare."

  "Did you tell anyone about your money worries?"

  Belinda bit her lip. "I told the rector. Mr Canterbury."

  ***

  An ambulance siren sounded in the distance. As if on cue, the rector groaned and opened his eyes. He tried to struggle to his feet. Max smiled, his eyes steely. "Don't bother. The police are on their way. I'm rather hoping you've broken a bone or two."

  "That dog of yours tried to kill me."

  Bear growled, but Max held him tight. "Don't bother. We know what you've been up to, with your friends in the Pathway cult. Psychic scams, that's what they call the business you're all in: you, Xavier and Olivia Papadopoulos."

  "And your lover, Kate." Libby's intervention caused a sensation. She grinned at Max's startled face, before turning back to the rector. "Don't try to deny it. Liam kept photos of you both. You've been having an affair, and he found out. That's why you killed Liam Weston."

  Max's mouth dropped open. Libby didn't meet his eye. "Blackmail," she went on. "Liam was blackmailing you about your affair. He's been pulling everyone's strings. He had a hold on all of you, one way and another. He was behind the Pathway, using Xavier's charisma, his clothes, and Olivia's talent for pretending to be a medium. They've been working with Liam. He set up the business and ran it from Handiwater Farm. At the same time, he learned your secrets and blackmailed you all."

  The rector scanned the circle of angry faces, desperation in his eyes. "Those photos would have finished me. Imagine a man in my position, caught having an affair. My wife would never forgive me." The self-pitying whine made Libby shiver. "I paid that monster to keep him quiet, but he was never satisfied. He wanted more and more money, bleeding me dry, until I couldn't stand it any longer. Liam Weston was evil—pure evil."

  A cunning smile curled his lips. "He knew everyone's secrets." He glared directly at Belinda, a hint of hysteria in his voice as he sneered, "You let him into your lives. More fool you."

  Tired of his self-justification, Libby stayed practical. "What did you use to drug him, so he'd crash the tractor?"

  "Rohypnol." The rector giggled, the sound shocking. "The
date-rape drug. It's easy to get hold of it these days, if you know how—"

  "Your wife," Libby interrupted, remembering their conversation at the rector's house. "She's a pharmacist."

  "Always so pleased to share her specialist knowledge." The venom in his voice suggested little love lost between the rector and his wife. "Thinks she's a cut above me. Like so many of you."

  Max steered him back. "The Rohypnol. How did you get Liam to take it?"

  "Easiest thing in the world. I'm the rector. Everyone opens their doors to me. Even though he was blackmailing me, it never occurred to Liam Weston I'd try to harm him, the idiot. Not as clever as he thought, was he?"

  He giggled again. "I had a cup of coffee with Liam before he went off on his tractor. I'd tried it several times. It didn't work at first, but he didn't suspect anything. He just thought he'd had too much to drink." His smile was cruel. "It worked in the end."

  Libby and Max exchanged glances. "The poison that leaves no trace."

  Max's mouth was set. "Not from the Amazon rainforest, but more effective."

  For a moment, she was silent, thinking hard. Finally, she admitted, "We were wrong about Tim, thinking he was jealous of Liam. What if it was the other way round?" She turned to Belinda. "I think Liam hated you for surviving the foot and mouth, while his own father was ruined and committed suicide. Liam was left with nothing, while you had everything. You trusted him, giving him access to the farm, the computer, and the house."

  How dreadful to discover someone knows all your innermost secrets. "I bet he loved reading your emails. He knew you'd borrowed your aunt's jewellery. It wouldn't take him long to put two and two together and realise the ring was a fake. He really did steal it at the wedding, and made sure Tim saw him pick it up, so there'd be a fight. He wanted to draw attention to the ring so he could blackmail you, Belinda."

  The rector said, "The world's better off without that boy. Born wicked, he was. I've done the world a favour."