Murder in Midwinter (37 page)

‘We didn’t see that bit,’ said Libby, ‘we were in the pub.’

‘It was nice of Ian to let her see us, wasn’t it?’ said Fran. ‘He could have just hauled her off to the station.’

Guy gave her a sideways look.

‘So that’s that, then, is it?’ said Harry. ‘I can tell Danny all about it?’

‘Yes, and Connell says we can tell old Jonathan. Poor old Laurence. His father must have brought him up to think he had a stake in Anderson Place and the Alexandria,’ said Libby.

‘So why didn’t he make a move earlier?’ asked Peter.

‘Apparently he waited until Maria died because his father had tried it on with her and with Jonathan’s mother and got nowhere. I suppose he thought Bella would be a softer touch.’ Fran sighed. ‘What a mess.’

‘Well, it’s over now,’ said Guy. ‘All you’ve got to worry about is moving in to your lovely cottage.’

‘And the panto,’ said Libby.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Guy, pulling a face, ‘the panto.’

‘Just what we need,’ said Ben. ‘Cheer us all up.’

‘I wasn’t un-cheerful,’ said Harry, flinging an arm round Peter. ‘I’ve just got married.’

‘Exactly,’ said Libby. ‘So let’s drink to that.’

They all lifted their glasses. ‘Peter and Harry,’ they chorused.

‘And
Jack And The Beanstalk
,’ said Libby.

‘And Coastguard Cottage,’ said Guy.

Fran smiled. ‘And no more murders.’

First Chapter of
Murder by the Sea

T
HEY DID BOAT TRIPS
around the bay. George took the
Dolphin
chugging round the uninhabited island in the centre every other day and Bert took the
Sparkler
to the little cove round the point. The next day they changed over. Tourists asked them if they didn’t get bored doing the same thing all summer from Easter to September, but they just shrugged and smiled. The sea was always different, they said, the people were always different and the weather – well, the weather could be even more different. Sometimes they couldn’t go out for a week; one year they hadn’t gone out for the whole of August. Then they would sit in the Blue Anchor by the jetty, drinking tea and smoking, until the government forced them outside, where Mavis supplied them with a cheap canvas gazebo and an environmentally unfriendly heater.

But this year the weather was good. This year the regulars came back with smiles on their faces and the odd present of a bottle of whisky, which George and Bert would share on board the
Dolphin
or the
Sparkler
when the tourists went back to their hotels and apartments.

This year, too, there were the other visitors. Dark, olive-skinned, wary-looking, who worked in the hotel kitchens, cleaned the lavatories and worked on the farms outside the town. The tourists, for the most part, ignored them; the hoteliers and café owners despised them and paid them as little as they could get away with. The rest of the town’s residents were divided in opinion. Those, like Mrs Battersby and Miss Davis, who complained bitterly to anyone who would listen and to a lot more who would not, that these people should not be allowed and should be sent back to their own countries, and those whose determinedly liberal attitude drove them to be fiercely defensive on the immigrants’ behalf.

There were those, of course, who viewed both sides with amusement and detachment. George and Bert, and their friend Jane Maurice, who worked for the local paper, were among them. Jane would go down to the Blue Anchor and chat to George and Bert, and occasionally go out on the
Dolphin
or the
Sparkler
and help them entertain their passengers.

Which was what she was doing one day in July at the beginning of the school holidays. It was George’s turn to go round the island, and, due to the unusually calm sea, the
Dolphin
was packed with families, nice middle-class families who preferred a traditional British seaside holiday to the dubious delights of sun, sea and Malibu, with unbearable temperatures and incomprehensible currency. Those families who, had they chosen to fly to the sun, would not have dreamt of looking for English bars, breakfasts and nice cups of tea, but who were secretly pleased that these essential delights did not have to be foregone.

It was Jane who spotted it. Something had been washed up, or dumped, on the far side of the island, but what made her look harder was its position, well above even the waterline from the high equinoctial tides.

‘George, what’s that?’

George squinted through his cigarette smoke, keeping one hand on the wheel while pushing Jane out of the way with the other. Then he reached for the radio.

‘What’s going on down there?’ Libby Sarjeant peered round her easel in the window of her friend Fran’s cottage.

‘Hmm?’ Fran wandered in from the kitchen with an enamel jug full of flowers.

‘Down at the end by The Sloop.’ Libby stood up and leaned out of the open window. ‘There’s a police car and – what’s a blue and yellow car?’

‘Eh?’ Fran came forward and leaned over Libby’s shoulder. ‘Oh – Coastguard, I think.’

‘I didn’t hear the lifeboat, did you?’

‘No, but they don’t always send up a flare, you know. Anyway, perhaps the lifeboat hasn’t gone out.’ Fran turned away from the window and looked round for somewhere to put the jug. ‘Much as I love my fireplace,’ she said, ‘I wish it had a mantelpiece.’

Libby turned round. ‘Instead of a bloody great wooden lintel? I know which I’d prefer.’

‘I just need somewhere to put my flowers.’ Fran sighed and put the jug on the hearth. ‘I also need some more furniture.’

‘Ooh, look!’ said Libby suddenly. ‘The lifeboat
had
gone out. It’s on its way back.’

Abruptly the window went dark.

‘Oh, dear,’ said Libby and Fran together as the ambulance passed the cottage.

‘Shall we go and have a look?’ said Libby, wiping a brush on a piece of rag.

‘Libby!’ Fran looked shocked. ‘Don’t be such a ghoul. Anyway, we wouldn’t be allowed to get near the place.’

‘We could go to The Sloop for lunch?’ suggested Libby hopefully.

‘The Sloop will be cordoned off.’

‘The Blue Anchor?’

‘No, Libby! Really, you’re incorrigible.’ Fran went back towards the kitchen. ‘If you’re going to behave like this, I shan’t let you paint from my window any more.’

Libby grinned and turned back to the easel, knowing this was an empty threat. She’d been painting pictures of this view for years without having been inside. Both she and Fran had owned pictures of this view as children, and now Fran actually lived here.

‘How’s Guy?’ she asked now, considering where to position the next blob of white cloud.

‘OK, I think.’

‘You think? Don’t you know?’

‘I’m still trying to keep him at arm’s length,’ said Fran, and held up the kettle. ‘Tea? Coffee?’

‘Tea, please. But why?’

‘Why am I keeping Guy at arm’s length? I told you before I moved here. If I wasn’t careful he’d have moved in within a week, and I want time on my own.’

‘You can’t really feel much for him, then.’ Libby stabbed at her painting.

‘Hello, pot? Who are you calling black?’

‘Ben and I are – what’s it called – Living Together Apart. Or something. We’ve got our own spaces’

‘Well, so have Guy and I.’

‘But you never see him.’

‘I do, so.’ Fran put a pretty bone china mug on the windowsill in front of Libby. ‘Almost every day. And he’s been very helpful with things like tap washers and radiators.’

‘Taking advantage,’ said Libby, with a sniff.

‘Not at all. He notices things when he’s round here and offers to put them right.’

Libby swung round to face her friend. ‘And are you still keeping him at arm’s length in the bedroom?’

‘Libby!’ Fran’s colour rose and she turned away.

‘Look, we’ve had conversations like this in the past, and I know how difficult it all is, but for goodness sake! You’ve known him for a year, now, and I can’t believe he’s still hanging on in there. He’s still an attractive man, and you’re no spring chicken, pardon the cliché.’

‘Well, thanks.’ Fran sat down in the armchair beside the inglenook fireplace.

‘Oh, you know me,’ shrugged Libby, with a sigh. ‘Speaks me mind.’

‘I had noticed.’ Fran stared down into her coffee mug. ‘As it happens, he
has
got past the bedroom door. No –’ she held up a hand to stop Libby, ‘I’m not saying anything else. We respect each other’s space. He’d still like to be round here every night, but I really do want to savour this experience on my own for a bit.’ She looked round the room with a smile. ‘It’s just like a fairy tale. I still can’t quite believe it.’

Libby regarded her with an indulgent expression. ‘Well, I’m glad to hear it,’ she said. ‘You deserve your cottage, and you deserve Guy. Mind you, I don’t know how you kept it from me.’

‘We don’t live round the corner from each other any more, that’s why, and Guy lives almost next door.’

Guy Wolfe lived above his small art gallery and shop a few yards along Harbour Street from Fran’s Coastguard Cottage.

‘He might know what’s going on by The Sloop,’ said Libby, turning to peer out of the window again. ‘The ambulance is still there.’

Fran sighed. ‘Drink your tea, and we’ll go and see if Guy knows anything,’ she said. ‘You’ll never settle otherwise.’

Libby smiled broadly. ‘How well you know me,’ she said.

In the event, it was Guy who came to them.

‘I was going to take you both to The Sloop for lunch,’ he said, after kissing Fran lightly on the cheek, ‘but it looks as though it’ll have to be The Swan.’

‘That’ll be lovely, thank you,’ said Fran.

‘Do you know what’s happening?’ asked Libby.

‘Not sure, but an ambulance arrived as I was walking here, so whatever it is, it’s serious.’

‘We saw it,’ said Libby. ‘I’ll go and wash my hands.’

‘Look, the
Dolphin
’s come in,’ said Guy as they left the cottage. They walked over to the sea wall and leaned over. Sure enough, the
Dolphin
was gently rocking at its mooring outside The Sloop while the passengers trooped off, watched over by a couple of yellow jacketed policemen.

‘Perhaps that was it,’ said Libby, ‘an over-boarder.’

‘Perhaps.’ Guy frowned. ‘I hope not.’

A passenger from the
Dolphin
broke away from the others and spoke to one of the policemen. Libby peered round Fran and tried to see what was happening.

‘What’s she doing?’ she said.

‘How do we know?’ said Fran, exasperated. ‘Come on Lib. We’re going to The Swan.’

‘I’m with the
Nethergate Mercury
,’ said Jane. ‘Can you tell me anything?’

The policeman looked her up and down. ‘If you’ve just got off the boat, miss, you know more about it than I do.’

‘Can I write it up for my paper?’

The policeman frowned. ‘Don’t know about that,’ he said.

‘Do you need me any more, then?’ Jane had visions of bylines in the nationals and wanted to get to her phone.

‘All passengers over there, miss. Names and addresses.’

Jane sighed and went over to the group of passengers huddled round George, who was holding forth in aggrieved tones to another, harassed-looking policeman. Under cover of the argument, which seemed to centre on George’s rights as a citizen being undermined, she dragged her daily paper out of her shoulder bag, looked up the number of the news desk and punched it in to her mobile phone. Several other people were on their phones, so her quiet conversation didn’t appear out of the ordinary, neither did her second one to her own paper, which had been put to bed earlier in the day. Her excited news editor promised to try and halt production until they could get in a stop press report and Jane, satisfied, put her phone away and moved up to hear what was being said by George and his policeman.

Fifteen minutes later, she and George were sitting outside The Blue Anchor with large mugs of coffee, supplemented, in George’s case, with a generous tot of Mavis’s whisky.

‘Treatin’ me like a suspect,’ huffed George, lighting a cigarette with his ancient Zippo.

‘No, they weren’t, George,’ said Jane. ‘They had to get down exactly what happened, didn’t they? And they talked to me as well.’

‘Hmph,’ said George as Jane’s phone rang.

Her news editor said that he had wangled half an hour for her put in a full report, so could she do so now? Jane filled in what she could, and being an honest girl, told him which national newspaper she had rung.

‘No bloody scoop, then, is it?’ grumbled the news editor.

‘More local people will see the
Mercury
tomorrow, though,’ comforted Jane, ‘and I can also do an in-depth follow up, can’t I? I know the area.’

‘If you can think of an angle, yes.’

‘Anyway, it’ll have been on the local news before then, won’t it? Radio Kent will have got it, and so will Kent and Coast.’

‘I know, I know,’ sighed the news editor. ‘Gets harder and harder for the poor newspaperman.’

‘Who do you think it was, George?’ said Jane, returning to the table.

‘How do I bloody know? Couldn’t see its face, could I? Wouldn’t be a local. More sense ’n to go gallivantin’ on Dragon Island.’

‘Looked as though it’d been dumped, though.’

‘Hmph,’ said George again.

‘I wish I could find out.’

‘Course you do, you’re a bloody reporter ain’t you? Police’ll give a statement, won’t they?’

‘I suppose so.’ Jane sighed. ‘They won’t give much away. I wonder who’ll be in charge of the investigation.’

‘That there Connell, it’ll be. If ’tis murder, anyhow.’

‘Inspector Connell? He’s scary.’

‘Nah. That woman was scary.’

‘What woman?’

‘The one what ’e got involved in that murder last winter. The body in the ole Alexandria.’

Jane looked along the bay to where The Alexandria Theatre stood on the promenade, now surrounded by scaffolding.

‘Weren’t there two women? Oh –’ Jane pointed a finger. ‘You mean that psychic, don’t you?’

‘Lives along ’ere, she does.’