Murder in Steeple Martin (22 page)

Her mother turned on her with a face ablaze with anger and grief as she fell through the door.

‘What was you doing letting her get away?’

Millie was clasped in her mother’s arms, her little face white and blank.

‘Daddy,’ she said. ‘Daddy.’

Hetty looked down and saw her father’s body half covered in earth.

‘Christ,’ said Lenny.

Chapter Twenty-six

‘
I
T DIDN
’
T TURN OUT
the way Mum thought, of course. Everyone thought Dad had killed Warburton, but we couldn’t say, see?’ Hetty leaned back in her chair, her face still hidden.

‘But why?’ Ben burst out. ‘Why couldn’t you have left them both there? No one would have known you had anything to do with it. No one saw you go after them, did they?’

Hetty shrugged. ‘I don’t rightly know, son. None of us were thinking very straight. Perhaps it would have been better, but one of them couldn’t have killed the other and then knocked himself out, could he?’

‘Nobody saw you bring the body back?’ asked Ben, eventually.

‘Not apart from Millie. So you see, it is all my fault. We thought she’d got over it. She stopped having the dreams when she moved back down here with me – funny, that. But this play brought it all back. And then Lenny coming down. He wouldn’t have said anything, though. He’s just a silly old fool. Liked to tease me about it.’

Libby suddenly found herself disliking Uncle Lenny intensely.

‘So she tried to stop the play.’

‘Thought it was all going to happen again, I think, poor old girl.’

‘And the bridge?’ Libby asked.

Hetty shrugged. ‘No idea. I suppose it was the photographer. She was taking pictures of all the old places. Millie must have thought she’d find Dad’s grave. She wouldn’t have. I wouldn’t have let her.’ Hetty stood up. ‘I’d better go and see how your dad is.’

‘Does Dad know?’ Libby felt Ben’s hand tighten on her own.

‘No. Didn’t tell him at the time, did we? And then after, after the war, well, it would have killed him.’

Ben nodded and she left the room.

‘The fire,’ said Libby quietly. ‘Was that Millie?’

‘Yes. She was still there when I arrived. In fact, I saw her before I saw the fire and stopped to see what she was doing. I’d just been listening to Pete’s horrific ghost stories, don’t forget.’

‘Had Millie told him the truth?’

‘In a garbled fashion, yes. He told me and we thought she’d got it wrong, of course.’ He sighed. ‘But she hadn’t.’

‘So she thought it would come out if we did the play? But how?’

‘I can see it, can’t you? If a series of events is being replayed in public it stands to reason someone might find out.’

‘Well, I have. And what about Susan and David? They’ll find out.’

‘Yes.’

‘Will she be all right?’ asked Libby after a while.

‘Mum? Or Aunt Millie?’

‘Both, I suppose. But I actually meant your mum.’

‘I hope so.’

‘God, what an awful story.’ Libby shivered. ‘Will you tell her everything will be all right?’

‘Will it?’ He held her away from him and looked at her.

‘We can just forget it all again, can’t we? Only the family know.’

‘And you.’

‘Well, we can pretend, can’t we? Like we were going to pretend to be grown-up middle-aged people.’

Ben pulled her close to him and Libby tried not to mind that her back felt as if it was breaking.

‘What about the play?’ she asked, after a muffled moment.

‘What about it?’

‘Do you want me to cancel it?’

‘No. There’s absolutely no reason to, now. And it was a great success, wasn’t it? We’ll make it a memorial to my grandfather.’

‘Perhaps we could have a plaque in the theatre. Sort of put a full stop to it. For Hetty’s sake.’

Ben kissed her. ‘I knew I was right about you.’

‘Oh,’ said Libby, blushing again.

Then he stood up and pulled her to her feet.

‘Can you walk? As far as the front door?’

‘I’m only a bit bruised, that’s all. And I might have a few nightmares for a bit, I suppose.’

‘Then I shall go upstairs and have a quick word with Mum before I drive you home.’ He went towards the door, then turned and came back.

‘Do you want to get someone to stay with you? Will you be all right on your own?’

Libby sighed. ‘I shall be fine. Fran’s coming down tomorrow, so it’s only tonight.’

‘You don’t want me to ask David to come out and have a look at you?’

‘I thought he was looking after Millie?’

‘Susan’s there as well, don’t forget, and, dull though she may seem, she’s been a doctor’s wife for years. Very capable woman, my sister.’

‘I’m sure she is,’ said Libby, ‘but I don’t need David. As I said, I’m only bruised.’

But it wasn’t the bruising or the expected nightmares that kept her awake once she got home, it was Paula’s murder.

It was now perfectly clear that Millie had tried to sabotage the play, although Libby still couldn’t see her climbing up to cut steel wire, but it was also clear that it had nothing to do with Paula. She wondered briefly if anybody would tell DS Cole or DCI Murray about the events of the evening, but decided that it was in everybody’s interest to keep quiet. After all, what good would arresting Hetty do after all this time?

Not, of course, that it mattered to them now. There would be no more incidents, Paula’s replacement was, if anything, better than she had been, and, unless the police tried to disrupt the proceedings, as far as the play and the theatre were concerned that was the end of the matter. But, somehow, Libby felt that it wasn’t. A mildly malign influence when alive, Paula was still interfering when dead. It was thoroughly un-nerving. After all, if suspicion continued to fall on James, Peter or Harry, or even Ben, the effect would be catastrophic. And Ben had been particularly attentive tonight, thought Libby, turning over with a smile, before drifting into sleep.

The nightmares did wake her up after all. Trying to overcome the irrational fear of getting out of bed, she managed to switch on the bedside light and lay listening to the sound of her own heartbeat. Sidney, obviously having noticed the light going on, decided it was breakfast time and began complaining loudly outside the bedroom door. Berating herself for being stupid, Libby slowly swung her legs out of bed and reached for her dressing gown.

Downstairs, light was beginning to filter across the garden and Libby’s heart rate slowed to normal. She fed Sidney, put the kettle on the Rayburn and began to go back over the events of the previous night.

Sadly, the triumphant first night performance of
The Hop Pickers
had been totally eclipsed by what had followed. Libby wondered how David and Susan were coping with Millie, and what Peter would have to say about it all. She had a feeling it was going to hit him harder than anybody, even James, who presumably had more to worry about than the past peccadilloes of his family. And, in the cold light of day, with a slightly clearer brain, Ben’s attentiveness fell into place as nothing more than a giving and receiving of comfort.

How embarrassed he was going to be this morning, thought Libby, as she poured boiling water into the teapot. She, a stranger, had been made privy to the most intimate and shocking secrets of his family, secrets of which even other members of the family were unaware. She gazed miserably into her mug, telling herself off for being shallow enough to mind, but minding all the same. It appeared that the female psyche remained a perennial teenager despite the slow degeneration of its outer covering. Ever since Ben had walked into the pub that evening two weeks ago, she had reverted to her eighteen-year-old self, plagued with sexual jealousy and insecurity, even, she thought in disgust, in the face of bloody murder.

She poured tea and sat down at the kitchen table. The garden was getting lighter, and Sidney made for the conservatory and his cat-flap. Libby watched him prowl round his territory and wondered if Paula’s was a territorial killing. Someone who felt that she was trespassing? But that would mean a woman, and apart from Millie, whom she had never seriously considered, there were no women in the case. Or were there?

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ she said aloud. ‘You are
not
Miss Marple.’

Of course there would be disaffected women in Paula’s past, though, she thought, as she climbed the stairs to shower and dress. Bound to be with her reputation. She tried to think of any ex-wives or girlfriends she’d heard about, but to tell the truth she hadn’t known much about Paula until that night when Ben turned up and Paula started making up to James. She’d known about the relationship with James, but only in a vague sort of way.

And what, she thought, was she supposed to tell Fran? Fran, whom Ben had invited in to their little melange of secrets and lies, and who, either by intuition or clever guesswork, knew a lot more than a stranger ought. She decided she would ask Ben, or if he wasn’t speaking to her this morning, Peter.

But when Harry phoned later in the morning, it was clear this would be out of the question.

‘He won’t be at the theatre tonight, Lib,’ said Harry, and Libby could hear the strain in his voice. ‘You’ll have to cope without us. The caff’s full – some of the bookings are for pre-theatre suppers and a couple for afterwards, so I can’t be there.’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll do the bar. I’ll have to come round and get the float, though.’

‘No,’ said Harry hastily, ‘don’t do that. He really doesn’t want to see you. He doesn’t want to see anybody, but you in particular.’

Libby felt ridiculously hurt, and tried to swallow the lump in her throat. ‘Fine,’ she managed eventually.

‘Come on, Lib,’ said Harry, in a softer tone, ‘you can understand that, surely? His barmy old bat of a mother nearly does you in, and all over a play wot he wrote. He feels like shit.’

Libby sighed. ‘Yes, of course, but he needn’t. It’s got nothing to do with him.’

‘Stoopid old trout, of course it has,’ said Harry affectionately. ‘Give him time and he’ll be back to his obnoxious self. Meanwhile, I’ll drop the float round later. Will you be in?’

‘I wasn’t planning on going anywhere. Fran’s coming down tomorrow, but I don’t know when. I don’t know what to say to her, either.’

‘Nothing,’ said Harry firmly. ‘Just let her watch the play and go home again. We know who was behind the accidents, there won’t be any more and Paula’s murder is nothing to do with us, so we don’t need Mrs Busy-Body Castle any more.’

‘That’s a bit harsh,’ said Libby, suppressing her remarkably similar thoughts.

‘I don’t know why Ben let her in unless he fancies her.’ There was a pause. ‘Sorry, Lib.’

‘Why’re you sorry? Ben and I aren’t an item. Good heavens,’ she said with a light laugh, ‘we’re both in our fifties. Much too old for that sort of thing.’

‘Never too old,’ said Harry. ‘See you later.’

Nevertheless, Libby worried about Fran intermittently all day. She was aware of the ambivalence of her feelings; she liked Fran and had quickly achieved a degree of closeness with her, yet she was jealous of her relationship with Ben, from whom she still hadn’t heard. Not that she was constantly listening for the phone, of course. And she certainly didn’t want to share with Fran any of the events of the previous night, or the details of Hetty’s story. When Harry arrived in the early afternoon with the theatre bar float, she tried to find out how much he and Peter knew. All of it, it appeared.

‘Ben rang and told us. David phoned to tell Pete he’d got mad Millie last night, and Pete rang The Manor, but Ben was taking you home. He phoned when he got back.’ Harry stared moodily out of Libby’s kitchen window. ‘Bloody awful, isn’t it?’

Libby patted his arm. ‘Not that bad,’ she said. ‘It was all a long time ago and it was an accident, anyway.’

‘You falling in a pit with an ’eadless corpse? Nah – that was no accident.’

‘She hadn’t a clue what she was doing, Harry. She only wanted me to dig, not fall in.’

‘I’m not so sure. Still, not likely to happen again, is it? Wonder what they’ll do with her? She can’t stay in that house on her own now, can she?’

‘I suppose it’ll be up to Peter and James. Do you think she’ll be sectioned?’

‘Got to be, hasn’t she?’ Harry looked grim. ‘When I think what she’s put my Peter through …’

‘And James. Don’t forget James.’

‘He’s not gay, is he?’

‘Stop asking questions. These are all facts. No, James isn’t gay, yes, she’ll have to be sectioned, and no, she can’t stay in the house. I’m sure when Pete’s had a chat with David they’ll sort things out.’ Libby put out a hand. ‘So, where’s the float, then?’

‘Oh, right.’ Harry grinned. ‘Got quite carried away. Here.’ He delved into a backpack and brought out a large canvas bag. ‘Last night’s takings have been banked. Just bag the whole lot up and either drop it in to the caff after the show, or bring it home and I’ll call round in the morning.’

‘I can’t drop in tonight if Pete doesn’t want to see me.’

‘He won’t be in the caff, he’ll be at home. He doesn’t want to see anybody, I said.’

‘OK, I’ll do that then, and tell you how it went. He’ll want to know that.’

‘Might cheer him up, although he still thinks it’s all his fault for writing the play.’

The performance wasn’t quite as sharp as that of the previous night, but Libby was nevertheless pleased with her cast. It felt odd to be in the theatre without Harry, Peter or Ben, especially Ben, she admitted to herself, from whom she’d heard nothing all day, and she was pleased when both audience and cast left reasonably early and she could lock up and go home, after persuading one of the back-stage crew to walk home with her. Puzzled at this unaccustomed nervousness on the part of his redoubtable director, he agreed, and, obviously wondering why she hadn’t asked Stephen, waved her off with unflattering haste at the bottom of Allhallow’s Lane.

Fran arrived at about half past four the following day. The weather had turned again, and the garden was as warm as high summer, so Libby took tea out under the apple tree.

‘So, it went well, then?’ Fran took her mug from Libby and leaned back in her chair.

‘Very well. Press, pictures and practically a standing ovation. We were delighted.’

‘So what went wrong?’

Libby looked up, startled. ‘What do you mean, what went wrong?’

‘Something did, didn’t it? I knew, on Tuesday night. I nearly rang, but decided it was too late.’

Libby looked at her suspiciously. ‘I thought you said you didn’t …’