Murder by Magic Read online

  MURDER

  BY MAGIC

  LESLEY COOKMAN

  Published by Accent Press Ltd – 2012

  ISBN 9781908192059

  Copyright © Lesley Cookman 2012

  The right of Lesley Cookman to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  The story contained within this book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publishers: Accent Press Ltd, The Old School, Upper High St, Bedlinog, Mid Glamorgan, CF46 6RY.

  Cover design by Sarah Ann Davies

  Acknowledgements

  I have several people to thank for their expertise during the construction of Murder By Magic. First, Justin Monahen, magician extraordinaire. Next, Doctor Joanna Cannon for her professional advice and finally, Suzanne Sutton and the Reverend Frances Wookey for their invaluable help on the procedures of the Church of England.

  And once again, sorry to all British Police Forces for taking such liberties.

  WHO’S WHO IN THE LIBBY SARJEANT SERIES

  Libby Sarjeant

  Former actor, sometime artist, resident of 17, Allhallow’s Lane, Steeple Martin. Owner of Sidney the cat.

  Fran Wolfe

  Formerly Fran Castle. Also former actor, occasional psychic, resident of Coastguard Cottage, Nethergate. Owner of Balzac the cat.

  Ben Wilde

  Libby’s significant other. Owner of The Manor Farm and the Oast House Theatre.

  Guy Wolfe

  Fran’s husband, artist and owner of a shop and gallery in Harbour Street, Nethergate.

  Peter Parker

  Ben’s cousin. Free-lance journalist, part owner of The Pink Geranium restaurant and life partner of Harry Price.

  Harry Price

  Chef and co-owner of The Pink Geranium and Peter Parker’s life partner.

  Hetty Wilde

  Ben’s mother. Lives at The Manor.

  Greg Wilde

  Hetty’s husband and Ben’s father.

  DCI Ian Connell

  Local policeman and friend. Former suitor of Fran’s.

  Adam Sarjeant

  Libby’s youngest son. Lives above The Pink Geranium, works with garden designer Mog, mainly at Creekmarsh.

  Lewis Osbourne-Walker

  TV gardener and handy-man who owns Creekmarsh.

  Sophie Wolfe

  Guy’s daughter. Lives above the gallery.

  Flo Carpenter

  Hetty’s oldest friend.

  Lenny Fisher

  Hetty’s brother. Lives with Flo Carpenter.

  Ali and Ahmed

  Owners of the Eight-til-late in the village.

  Jane Baker

  Chief Reporter for the Nethergate Mercury. Mother to Imogen.

  Terry Baker

  Jane’s husband and father of Imogen.

  Joe, Nella and Owen

  Of Cattlegreen Nurseries.

  DCI Don Murray

  Of Canterbury Police.

  Amanda George

  Novelist, known as Rosie.

  Chapter One

  The voices receded and the heavy iron-studded door swung shut. Silence fell, and the weak sun sent pastel-coloured lozenges of colour on to the stone floor before the altar. A few dead leaves rustled in the breeze from under the door, which also lifted the sparse grey hair of the woman in the brown coat, whose now sightless eyes stared at the prayer book still clutched in her claw-like hands. Someone looked out of the vestry, paused and silently withdrew. All was well.

  ‘I wish you’d come and look into it,’ said the querulous voice on the other end of the phone. ‘I’m sure you could help poor Patti.’

  ‘Poor Patti?’ repeated Libby Sarjeant. ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘I’ve just told you! The vicar!’

  Libby sighed. ‘Look, Alice, I’m not a private detective, you know.’

  ‘But you’ve been involved in all those murders. And the police are stumped. Or else they really don’t think there’s anything fishy about it.’

  ‘They could be right,’ said Libby. ‘After all, didn’t you say this was an old lady? Couldn’t she have had a heart attack or something?’

  ‘Oh, they looked into all that.’ The voice that was Alice sounded impatient. ‘There was a whadyercallit – a post – post …’

  ‘Autopsy. Post mortem. Yes, there would be in a case of sudden death.’

  ‘There, you see,’ said Alice in triumph. ‘You know all about it. Why won’t you come?’

  ‘Because I’m not a detective, I’ve already said. And I don’t know any of the people, so I can’t go round asking questions.’

  ‘Oh, but I told Patti you would!’ wailed Alice. ‘What can I say now?’

  Libby sighed again. ‘Exactly what I’ve just told you.’

  ‘What about your friend? The psychic one. Would she come?’

  ‘Even less likely,’ said Libby. ‘Alice, I’m sorry, but the less I have to do with mysteries and possible murder the better I like it. And the police hate interference.’

  ‘I don’t see how they could hate interference in this, they’ve written it off.’ Alice was now indignant. ‘If I can’t change your mind, I’ll let you go, you’re obviously busy.’

  ‘Er – yes. Thank you.’ Libby cleared her throat. ‘How’s Bob, by the way?’

  ‘Fine. Getting under my feet as usual.’

  ‘Ah. Right. Nice to hear from you Alice,’ Libby lied, and switched off the phone feeling guilty.

  ‘I can’t just go butting into things which are none of my concern,’ she complained when her significant other arrived home in time for a drink before dinner. He cocked an ironic eye at her. ‘You know what I mean,’ she said, grinning.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ben, ‘I do. I also know that given the slightest excuse you’ll be off after the scent.’

  Libby shook her head firmly. ‘Not this time.’

  ‘Where does this Alice live?’ asked Fran Wolfe the next day when she and Libby met for lunch at The Sloop Inn, yards from Fran’s cottage overlooking the sea at Nethergate.

  ‘Not that far from you, round the coast a bit. One of those funny little villages on a cliff top. Rather isolated.’ Libby perused the menu. ‘Did I like the sausages here?’

  ‘How do I know?’ Fran looked up in surprise. ‘Don’t change the subject. What’s the name of the village?’

  ‘St Aldeberge.’ Libby looked a little guilty. ‘I looked it up.’

  ‘You surprise me. Why, in particular?’

  ‘It’s a funny name. Apparently it’s the alternative – and presumably the original – name of Queen Bertha.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘She was married to – er – Ethelbert, I think. There’s a church in Canterbury that’s all about her. Near the prison.’

  ‘Right. So why else did you look it up?’

  ‘Just to see if there was anything about the murder on the net.’

  ‘But you said it probably wasn’t a murder.’ Fran was looking suspicious.

  ‘It didn’t hurt to have a look. And there was something. But although the police called it “unexplained” it doesn’t seem to have been followed up.’

  ‘And why does this Alice want you to look into it? Who is she, by the way?’

  ‘A friend from years ago when I was still living the other side of Canterbury. She moved away too, to St Aldeberge, I suppose.
But we’ve been in the local papers, haven’t we? She tracked me down. Because there’s a whole lot of suspicion and gossip been stirred up, mostly against the vicar, I think.’

  ‘Poor man.’ Fran grinned. ‘Always a target.’

  ‘No, this one’s a lady vicaress. Patti. Or Poor Patti, as Alice referred to her.’

  The waitress arrived to take their order. When she left, Fran looked thoughtful.

  ‘Nothing to lose by going and having a look round,’ she said.

  ‘Really?’ Libby narrowed her eyes at her friend.

  ‘What did it say on the net?’

  ‘This woman whose name I can’t remember was found dead in a church after a big reunion service. As far as I can see, as I suggested to Alice, it was a heart attack, although she hadn’t been under the doctor for her heart. So unless the police are keeping something to themselves, it doesn’t bear any further investigation.’

  ‘So why are the villagers up in arms?’

  ‘Because there’d been a lot of ill-feeling, particularly between this lady and the vicar. I can imagine an old church hen not liking a new lady vicar, can’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but maybe she wasn’t an old church hen. You’re using generalisations again.’ Fran took a sip of her white wine. Libby scowled at her mineral water. She was driving.

  ‘What are you doing this afternoon?’ said Fran after they’d both been served.

  ‘I thought I was spending it with you.’ Libby took a bite of sausage. ‘Lovely.’

  ‘Why don’t you drive us over to St Aldeberge and we can have a walk round the village? We could even call on your friend Alice.’

  ‘So you don’t think it was a simple heart attack.’ Libby leant back in her seat and surveyed her friend.

  ‘I don’t know. But your friend Alice is concerned, and where there’s concern, there’s sure to be a cause.’

  Libby sighed. ‘I was trying to keep out of it, you know.’

  ‘I know, but you’re also bored.’ Fran put her knife and fork neatly together.

  ‘No, I’m not.’

  ‘You are. You don’t normally call me and suggest lunch for no reason.’

  ‘I haven’t seen you much lately.’

  ‘We saw enough of one another in the summer,’ said Fran, ‘let’s face it.’

  ‘Seems ages ago, though,’ said Libby.

  ‘So let’s go and have a look at St Aldeberge.’ Fran watched Libby’s expression with amusement, knowing she would give in.

  ‘Oh, all right. Shall I ring Alice?’ Libby said, with a resigned sigh.

  ‘Do you want to? We might decide not to do anything about it, and then it would be difficult to back out.’

  ‘But you said we could call on her.’

  ‘We might.’ Fran stood up. ‘But let’s go and have a look first.’

  ‘You’re hoping for a moment, that’s what,’ said Libby, following her out of the pub.

  Fran grinned over her shoulder. ‘It had occurred to me,’ she said.

  Fran’s “moments” were occasional flashes of scenes or sensations which appeared in her mind like established facts. She had felt deaths and seen places and events, some of which had helped the local police force, in particular Chief Inspector Ian Connell, solve crimes. It was this that gave her the sobriquet Special Investigator, and which had alerted the media to some of the adventures in which she and Libby had become involved.

  St Aldeberge sat in a small hollow about half a mile from the cliff top. Below the cliff was a natural harbour at high tide, to which rough steps had been cut in the chalk, allowing a few intrepid small boat owners access to their craft which at low tide would lie at drunken angles on the sand. Libby drove slowly through St Aldeberge and followed the road out of the village to its end, and stopped.

  ‘Look,’ she said, getting out of the car. ‘Isn’t that lovely.’

  Fran looked down at the little natural harbour, high tide now, with the few boats bobbing gently at their moorings.

  ‘Those steps don’t look very safe,’ she said.

  ‘They don’t, do they? And those rings set into the cliffs don’t look very secure, either. One good storm and they’d be pulled out.’

  ‘Perhaps they’ve been set into concrete or something,’ said Fran. ‘We can’t see from up here.’

  ‘No.’ Libby turned and looked inland. ‘I suppose now we go back to the village. Then what do we do?’

  ‘Look at the church,’ said Fran. ‘And then we’ll see.’

  The church, dedicated unsurprisingly to Saint Aldeberge, stood on a triangular plot in the middle of the village, facing a wide street which divided either side of it. Feeling very exposed, Libby tried the big iron handle on the studded oak door. Almost to her surprise, it opened.

  ‘I though churches were kept locked these days,’ she whispered to Fran as they sidled in.

  ‘Are they?’ said Fran. ‘I thought they were supposed to be kept open for everyone to come in when they wanted.’

  ‘Used to be, but things get stolen these days.’

  They stood and looked around. In front of them a stone font stood, its wooden lid surmounted rakishly by a little stone figure poking its tongue out.

  ‘That looks like a gargoyle,’ said Fran.

  ‘Yes, but actually it’s what’s called a “grotesque”,’ said Libby. ‘Gargoyles were water spouts.’

  ‘I never knew that,’ said Fran, giving the little monster an amiable stroke. ‘Odd place to have it, though.’

  Libby was looking through the inevitable stack of leaflets arranged either side of an honesty box. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘they’ve got a community shop in the village. Open ten till two Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. That’s enterprising.’

  ‘Can I help you?’ A voice echoed from the other end of the nave.

  Libby and Fran peered into the darkness near the altar and saw a figure clad in an old-fashioned cross-over apron emerge from a side door.

  ‘Er – no – we were just looking,’ said Libby lamely.

  ‘It’s so unusual to find a church unlocked these days,’ said Fran. Libby shot her an indignant look.

  ‘I’m afraid ours is usually locked, too,’ said the woman approaching up the aisle. ‘It’s only because I’m here doing the flowers.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ said Libby. ‘We’ll get out of your way.’

  ‘No, please stay and look round if you want to,’ said the woman, tucking a wisp of greying fair hair into a kirby grip. ‘I’ll be here for a while. Was there anything you particularly wanted to see?’

  ‘Actually,’ said Libby on a note of inspiration, ‘we wondered if there was anything about Saint Bertha, because this is her church, isn’t it?’

  ‘Only a window, over in the Lady Chapel,’ said the woman, ‘and we’ve got a little leaflet about her life, of course. Most people go to St Martin’s in Canterbury.’

  ‘May we see the window?’ asked Fran.

  ‘Yes, of course.’ The woman turned back down the aisle and they followed her down to the first pew, where she pointed to the right. ‘In there,’ she said. ‘Not very big, as Lady Chapels go, but at least we’ve got one.’

  Libby and Fran went through glass doors into the little chapel. To their left, they looked up at Queen – or Saint – Bertha, piously gazing heavenwards.

  ‘Don’t all churches have Lady Chapels, then?’ asked Fran in a whisper.

  ‘No, although we’ve got one in Steeple Martin. It’s usually big churches and cathedrals. I suppose this is quite a big church.’ Libby looked round at the small electric piano and modern light oak pews. ‘And this has been recently done up, too. Not much like the church itself.’

  They left the chapel and Libby called out goodbye to their unseen guide, who popped her head out of what was presumably the vestry door.

  ‘Pleasure,’ she said, and withdrew.

  Libby and Fran took a leaflet about the Saint and dropped some coins into the honesty box, feeling they’d justified their visit.


  ‘Well,’ said Libby, as they emerged into the watery daylight again, ‘did you get anything in there?’

  ‘Not a thing,’ said Fran. ‘Shall we call on your friend?’

  ‘I thought you wanted to look round?’

  ‘There isn’t much to look round, is there? The shop isn’t open and there isn’t anything else here.’

  ‘You’re such a townie,’ laughed Libby. ‘Villages are like that!’

  ‘Your village isn’t,’ said Fran.

  ‘Steeple Martin is a big village with several shops. This is far more typical. Like Steeple Cross. Small villages have lost their shops and schools and often their pubs, too. It’s criminal.’

  ‘All right, I’m sorry. So will we ring Alice?’

  ‘Oh, all right.’ Libby fished her mobile out of her pocket and then, with a triumphant ‘Ha!’ put it back in her pocket.

  ‘What?’ said Fran.

  ‘I haven’t got the number!’ said Libby. ‘I never call her, so it isn’t in my phone. In fact, I doubt if I’ve even got it written in an address book anywhere.’

  ‘Right. What’s her surname?’

  ‘Gay,’ said Libby, ‘only she isn’t, in either sense.’

  Fran turned back towards the church door and went briskly inside. Libby stayed where she was.

  ‘Number four Birch Lane, down on the left,’ said Fran, emerging once more from the church. ‘I asked the flower lady.’

  ‘Enterprising,’ murmured Libby, following her friend down the wide, empty street.

  Number four Birch Lane turned out to be a substantial brick and flint cottage built in the shape of a letter L. Libby rang the bell, and was just about to suggest there was no one in and they might as well go home, when the door opened.

  ‘Libby!’ gasped Alice.

  ‘I’m sorry we didn’t ring, but I didn’t have your number,’ began Libby, but she was interrupted.

  ‘Oh, that doesn’t matter,’ beamed Alice, holding the door wide. ‘It’s just perfect timing. You see the vicar’s here already!’

  Chapter Two

  ‘Ah,’ said Libby.

  ‘Is this Fran?’ asked Alice, giving Fran a warm smile.

  ‘Yes, Fran Wolfe,’ said Fran, holding out her hand. ‘I’m so sorry to barge in like this.’