Murder in Abbot's Folly (27 page)

The photo was taken in the front of the pub with a grinning Max (she presumed) in the middle. He was a tall, stocky man, with an easily recognizable Esther at his side. A young Barbara was on his other side, with a man's arm round her shoulders. It took a few minutes for it to dawn on Georgia that it was Tom Miller, then a good-looking flaxen-haired young man, cocksure and arrogant, the leader of the pack. He had not changed much in that way. For some reason Barbara had wanted her to see this photo, Georgia realized – could that reason be Tom Miller?

She was still thinking of him as she went in search of Jennifer again. The filming must be behind because the crew was still in the assembly room. She could see Jennifer, standing with Phil, in the corridor – that couldn't be a happy conversation, unless they had talked out or postponed their differences.

‘Have you had your moment of glory, Jennifer?' she asked as she joined them.

‘Not me,' Jennifer answered. ‘Phil's had one, haven't you?'

‘Did it go well?' Georgia asked him.

‘Thanks, yes,' came the brief reply – although not, Georgia thought, antagonistic. Perhaps he'd faced facts, or rather fakes.

‘Phil did a good job,' Jennifer assured her, ‘keeping to Jane's visits to Kent and how she travelled and Edgar House's role in that.'

‘And Douglas,' Phil added meaningfully, ‘did well on the Harker side, talking about the Napoleonic wars and his staying in the Edgar Arms with his brother, and how he later married Lady Edgar at Stourdens. All true, of course.'

‘I'm sure Jake will be monitoring it,' Georgia replied sweetly, but was taken aback when Philip flushed and did not reply. Not so hard-boiled then. ‘Were you happy with the new approach, Jennifer?' she asked.

She replied without hesitation. ‘I don't think Douglas would dare go off script now. Tim popped in to see him earlier. Tim's been as good as gold. He told me he had in fact suspected there might be an authentication issue, but didn't want to face it. He agrees that we and Jake should keep off dangerous territory.'

‘Lucky for some,' Philip said ironically.

‘I'm sorry about your book,' Jennifer said, ‘but we really don't have any choice.'

Philip shrugged. ‘What do you expect me to do though? Tell my publishers that one daft female and just
one
expert have bees in their bonnets and maybe they should scrap the book?'

‘Not so daft,' Georgia rejoined. ‘And perhaps the mistake was yours in building a book's thesis on one opinion.'

‘Find twenty-four experts and you'll have twenty-four opinions,' Philip exclaimed with disgust. ‘I can't get Jake to understand that.'

Jake must have heard his raised voice, because he promptly came over to them. ‘Georgia's right, Phil,' he said quietly. ‘I have to act on the verdict that Jen's been given, even if it's not set in stone yet.'

‘Whose bloody side are you on?' Philip exploded.

‘Mine, and all these people I'm employing at vast expense. I realize I'm luckier than you, because I can switch themes, albeit with difficulty. You can't.'

‘My problem,' Philip replied wearily.

‘Is there nothing I can do?' Jake asked.

‘Yes. Show some guts,' Philip retorted. ‘You were eager enough to scent a scoop at first. And nothing has happened to change that.'

Shaken, Jake did not reply, but Jennifer did. ‘Something
did
change,' she whipped back. ‘My mother was murdered, Phil, just as she was going to put a stop to this fantasy. Then Amelia Luckhurst was murdered. Coincidence? I don't think so.'

‘I'm sorry.' Philip shook his head, perhaps in disbelief at what he'd said, and walked unsteadily away.

‘He'll come round,' Jake said, ‘once he's sorted this mess out. I'm afraid this is the end of a beautiful relationship though. I told him yesterday that I was moving out and did so right away. I've been thinking about it for some time, and this Austen business has brought it to a head.'

‘What will you do if he pulls out of the film?' Georgia asked.

‘No problem. I'm pretty sure he'll go on with his other scripted pieces, but if he doesn't I'll get Jill to do the lot at the Stourdens filming. Don't worry about it, Jen,' he added. ‘We'll be there as planned.'

Jennifer leaned forward and kissed his cheek. ‘Thanks, Jake.'

‘All in a day's work.'

‘And for you and Phil?' Georgia asked.

He pulled a face. ‘The land of lost loves is heavily populated. I'll recover. So will he.' A pause. ‘Look, Jennifer, I'm going to have to tell you, it's gone too far not to. Your mother did tell us that morning that she had just been told the collection was fake and that she was going to talk to you about it afterwards. We truly didn't believe her and thought we had time to discuss it with her.'

Jennifer stared at him aghast. ‘Then why did you, Phil and Tim attack Georgia and me over whether it was faked or not?'

‘Because Laura didn't name Douglas. She just said she had good reason to believe it was all faked and so was not going ahead with the Stourdens' plans. Tim nearly went spare. Roy was yelling at her, and Phil and I were just poleaxed.'

‘And no one remembered to tell me – or the police, come to that?' Jennifer asked angrily.

‘We thought the jury was still out, that's why,' Jake repeated. ‘Tim said he knew Amelia Luckhurst had been to see Laura, clearly bent on making mischief. I began to get cold feet and decided I needed a plan B. I was still thinking about it when Georgia came into the picture with her story. Phil was sure it was more of the same baloney, but it all began to make terrible sense for me. What better mask for a faker than to be a specialist in the subject? I'm sorry, Jen. Roy and Tim were adamant that I shouldn't tell you, it would be the last straw and I wasn't thinking straight. It never occurred to me – crazy though this might sound – that it could have had anything to do with Laura's death.'

‘And did it?' Jennifer asked quietly.

‘I don't know. I just don't.'

Jennifer said nothing, perhaps because the facts were so clear, Georgia thought. Only the fakes linked both deaths.

Lunch in the Edgar House garden offered a welcome interlude, even if Georgia's ideal choice of companions wouldn't have been Esther and David Wilson, Jennifer's presence notwithstanding. They were a curious couple, she thought. She spoke to them and received replies, but without getting much impression of the kind of people they were. Barbara and her helpers had laid the buffet out in the kitchen for everyone to help themselves, but every so often she appeared in the gardens. As now. Georgia could see that not surprisingly she had her eyes fixed on their table. Barbara can't take her eyes off Esther, she noticed, and wondered again what had gone on between the two women in 1985.

‘Well, well, well,' Barbara said. She looked almost shocked as she came over to the table. ‘Quite like old times.'

Esther seemed equally taken aback. ‘No one told me Barbara was coming,' she accused Jennifer when Barbara moved away.

Jennifer stared at her in amazement. ‘She has the catering contract. Why should I have told you?'

The moment passed, but even so when Georgia went to the kitchen to return dirty plates, she was concerned at how white Barbara still looked. ‘Are you all right?' she asked.

‘Just seeing Madam again,' was the reply. ‘It's made me feel quite faint.'

Georgia was uncomfortably aware that Barbara's eyes followed her out to the garden again, and that when Barbara next emerged into the garden herself she was still staring at them. The Wilsons seemed ill at ease too, when Georgia returned to their table.

‘Tim told us about the faked Austen letters, Jennifer,' Esther said. ‘I hope you don't think that Max and I knew they were faked. Or that Max was scheming with Amelia and Bob in any way. To him everything was genuine.'

‘That seems unlikely,' Georgia pointed out. ‘Amelia knew they were faked, and Bob did too. So did Douglas Watts, and Max Tanner doesn't sound to me an ingenuous person, though I can well understand he might have let you think they were genuine.'

This annoyed Esther. ‘There's no way Max would have been in some kind of conspiracy. He thought it was real, he really did.'

‘Isn't it possible that he found out it wasn't, realized he'd been duped, and went storming up to the folly to have it out with Bob?'

‘Whatever he went there to do, Amelia got there first, through the tunnel.'

A dead silence, and Georgia broke it. ‘You mean she killed him?'

‘Of course,' Esther said. ‘Who else?'

‘You did know about the tunnel then? You were rather vague about it when we last talked.'

‘Lots of people knew about it,' Esther flashed angrily back. She was on the defensive, and Georgia could see her husband becoming agitated on her behalf.

Georgia cut in before he could speak. ‘Why didn't Max speak out at the trial and say Amelia was guilty?'

‘He did. No one listened, because he had no proof,' Esther said.

That could be so, but Esther was hiding something. She must be, Georgia thought. This didn't make sense. Amelia could not have killed Bob before Max (and then the protesters) arrived, so did she hide in the tunnel?

Georgia knew she must keep the pressure up. Esther was looking to her husband in appeal now. ‘Isn't it more likely that Max and Amelia were working together?' Georgia shot at her.

‘No, it bloody isn't,' David Wilson intervened on her behalf.

Push or not push? Georgia debated. Push, but not too hard or she'd lose the momentum. She felt her voice losing control and fought to regain it. ‘How would you know that, David? Your wife—'

David interrupted her, red in the face. ‘Because I'm bloody Max Tanner, that's why.'

SIXTEEN

‘
I
should have guessed,' Peter said bitterly. ‘We've been fools.' He had been steaming for the last hour over the fact that Max Tanner had been effectively right under his nose. Georgia had rung Peter immediately in the hope that he could reach Edgar House quickly enough to speak to Esther and David. It was still easier to think of him that way. As she clicked off, however, she saw them already driving out of the forecourt. Fortunately, she'd been in time to stop Peter leaving. Jennifer had followed her, and she too had watched her prospective parents-in-law leave.

‘They're probably going straight over to see their darling son,' Jennifer had ruefully suggested. ‘It's beginning to look as if it's Stourdens that Tim wanted to marry all along.'

Georgia had reassured her, even though she thought Jennifer was probably right.

Back at the office Peter shared her view. ‘Why didn't it occur to us that Elspeth could have remarried him under another name? And having fooled us, why did he suddenly decide to tell the world?'

‘That's easier,' Georgia said. ‘Barbara had recognized him despite the beard and ageing process, that's why. He'd taken the risk, and it hadn't worked.'

‘Did he admit to knowing the letters were fake?'

‘No way,' Georgia replied. ‘His line is that it was all a plot by the Luckhursts.'

‘Did he support Esther's claim that Amelia killed Bob?'

‘No. That's weird, isn't it?'

‘Indeed it is. Does he still claim he's innocent? And if so, who does he think was guilty?'

‘Guess who? Tom Miller.'

Rather to her surprise, instead of growling in frustration, Peter looked interested. ‘I've got something to contribute too. Suspects Anonymous.'

She groaned. ‘Not again. It's software, Peter. It doesn't know what's outside the box. Which in this case is an ugly black monster sitting on your desk.'

‘And therein lies its value,' Peter said smugly. ‘It sees everything objectively and together. No prejudice.'

‘What has the Great Box produced this time that is so relevant?'

‘Craig Hastings.'

Georgia began to laugh. ‘He's an old chestnut. What's Suspects Anonymous's thesis? That he popped up out of the cradle to kill Bob Luckhurst?'

‘He wasn't in his cradle if you remember. He had burst upon the scene nearly two years earlier. I got his birth certificate fast-tracked to me, courtesy of Mike.'

‘What made you ask for it?'

‘Suspects Anonymous.'

‘Silly of me to have asked,' she said resignedly.

‘It pointed out that as a player in the 1985 murder, Craig was a loose thread to be followed up.'

‘We knew that,' she said impatiently. ‘Who was the father?'

‘Tom Miller.'

She immediately remembered the photo of Miller's arm around Barbara's shoulders so carelessly and possessively. He'd claimed only to have visited the Edgar Arms occasionally, but the photo implied he was a regular. ‘Would an apology for stupidity placate Suspects Anonymous?' she asked.

‘None needed,' Peter replied graciously. ‘I've double-checked that Barbara was still Barbara Merryweather when Craig was born. Miller was already married and clearly preferred to stick with what he'd got. But where does this leave us on the murder? Miller had a pretty solid alibi. Even if theoretically he could have managed it, it would have been one hell of a risk.'

‘Barbara couldn't have been the woman involved, although Amelia and Tom seem unlikely conspirators.'

‘Only one person talks of a woman's voice – Tom's chum in the pub,' Peter pointed out. ‘A staunch chum who perhaps has no objection to throwing in a red herring. And what about the gun? It was Max's.'