Murder in the Green - Libby Sarjeant Murder Mystery Series Read online

  Ben let out an irritated sigh. ‘No, but at least you can talk to them, or engineer a meeting. If you’d never met them, how could you?’

  ‘No, I see that.’ She paused. ‘I don’t suppose you could say I was looking for a job? Give me a glowing reference as a – a – oh, I don’t know, a perfect PA?’

  Ben spluttered into his whisky.

  Chapter Nineteen

  ‘WHAT DO WE KNOW about John Lethbridge, apart from the fact that he was married to Wilhelmina?’ asked Fran on the phone the following day.

  ‘He was a financial adviser,’ said Libby. ‘At least, I think so.’ She stopped to think. ‘I’m still puzzled about the police not looking for him.’

  ‘I expect they are,’ said Fran, with a strange note in her voice that Libby recognised.

  ‘Oh? Come on Fran, out with it. What do you know?’

  ‘I don’t know anything,’ said Fran slowly, ‘but I’m pretty sure he’s dead.’

  Libby let out her breath in a whoosh. ‘Just as we thought. They were both murdered.’

  ‘Ye-es, but someone must have set it up to look as if Lethbridge murdered Frensham.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, he hasn’t been seen since Frensham’s murder and his car wasn’t where it should have been.’

  ‘That’s right.’ Libby frowned. ‘So what are you saying?’

  ‘Lethbridge was killed before Frensham.’

  ‘Are you certain?’

  ‘I keep seeing trees in the dark. And fire. And you know that suffocating feeling I get?’

  ‘I know, but I don’t know why you’re getting it now. You’ve no connection to Lethbridge and you haven’t touched anything of his, have you?’

  ‘No.’ Fran sounded uncertain. ‘But I think perhaps it’s because I’ve been concentrating on it so much. Mind you, it could be my mind playing tricks. We don’t know for certain.’

  ‘Could we follow it up somehow? Could we ask Ian?’

  ‘Of course not,’ snapped Fran. ‘Be sensible.’

  ‘Trees at night and fire,’ mused Libby. ‘How about if I ask Gemma if there’s anything in that she recognises?’

  ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea. Given her reactions when you were down in Cornwall she’ll get scared again, and I bet she regrets asking you in in the first place.’

  ‘She does,’ said Libby. ‘All that sacrifice stuff and the Goat’s Head Morris really turned her up.’ She stared out of the window to where Sidney was stalking a piece of paper on the tiny green outside the house. ‘What about the Tyne Chapel mob? Do you think they know anything about – well, whatever goes on behind the scenes at Cranston Morris?’

  ‘It’s a Goddess Cult,’ said Fran.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Goddess Cult. John Lethbridge’s wife was the Goddess before Gemma. It was Frensham and Lethbridge who introduced the more esoteric elements into what had been an ordinary Morris side, wasn’t it?’

  ‘And Diggory had something to do with it,’ said Libby. ‘How do you know, anyway?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Fran, in some surprise. ‘But that’s it. And you’ve just given yourself the clue. Diggory. You can ask him.’

  ‘He’s creepy.’ Libby shuddered.

  ‘No more than the Tyne Chapel mob, who are supposed not to exist now.’

  ‘What about if they all defected to Cranston Morris?’

  ‘That’s stretching it a bit,’ said Fran. ‘You think about it. See if any of what I’ve seen makes any sense.’

  The more Libby thought about it, the less keen she was to make any sort of approach to either Gemma Baverstock or Richard Diggory. In fact, if she were honest, she was beginning to regret getting even marginally involved with the whole Green Man murder. What with Ben organising a party just to introduce her to two of the suspects, who had nothing to do with the Green Man aspect anyway, and now Fran being sure Lethbridge was murdered and wanting her to find out about Goddess Cults – well.

  She turned away from the window and went out into the conservatory, where she wasted a considerable amount of time staring alternately at blank and half-finished paintings. This was what she should be doing, painting, to bolster her barely adequate income. Oh, Ben always said he had enough money for both of them, and had been contributing to household expenses since he moved in, but Libby was determined to keep her financial end up, and, besides, she wouldn’t ask him for anything personal, like clothes, presents (especially for him!) and cigarettes.

  With an effort, she set about her preparations to work on the half-finished picture she’d started in Jane Maurice’s house. Eventually, it took hold of her, and when Sidney butted his head against her leg, she was surprised to find she’d been working for well over two hours. Which made it lunchtime. She stood up and stretched.

  There was nothing in the cupboards or the fridge that she fancied, which meant a trip into the high street to buy something. She went upstairs to make herself presentable, collected her basket and set off down Allhallow’s Lane.

  It was while she was in the new farm shop that she saw Harry gesticulating madly outside The Pink Geranium. She paid for her salad ingredients and crossed the road.

  ‘Wassup?’ she said. ‘Going in for semaphore?’

  ‘Got someone here who wants to buy you a coffee,’ said Harry holding the door open for her.

  ‘Someone who doesn’t know me very well, then,’ said Libby.

  ‘Libby!’ said Richard Diggory, standing up from the table in the window and holding out his hand. Libby’s heart sank.

  ‘Hello, Richard,’ she said. ‘How are you? Recovered from Cornwall?’

  Looking disconcerted, Diggory sat down again.

  ‘We were just sorting out orders when we saw you trotting about like the good little housewife you are and decided to bring a little light into your life,’ said Harry. ‘Coffee? Or a glass of wine?’

  ‘It’s lunchtime, isn’t it?’ Libby looked round at the few other patrons. ‘Wine, I think.’ She gave Diggory a cool little smile and sat down on the opposite side of the table, pushing order pads and Harry’s laptop out of the way.

  ‘We were only talking about you this morning,’ she said, bending the truth a little.

  ‘Oh? Who’s we?’ Diggory was looking now as though he regretted inviting Libby in the first place. If he had, of course. It was probably Harry.

  ‘My friend Fran and I. Remember her? You met her at the Mount.’

  ‘Oh, yes. At the Solstice Parade.’

  ‘That’s it. She was wondering, actually,’ said Libby, making it up as she went along, ‘about some of the other Morris traditions. Or Celtic, or whatever they are. I mean, the whole Mannan Night thing – that isn’t traditional, is it? It’s been made up.’

  Diggory looked horrified. ‘Made up? What on earth do you mean? Of course it isn’t.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Richard,’ said Libby. ‘It’s a complete fabrication made up by that creepy Malahyde bloke and his sister.’

  ‘Based on true folk history.’

  ‘But incorporating all sorts of other stuff that doesn’t belong. I mean,’ went on Libby, getting into her stride and completely forgetting that she was fed up with the whole thing, ‘all that sacrifice stuff and going off into the woods. What was that all about?’

  Diggory’s face was now a fetching pink. ‘It’s part of the ceremony that’s private,’ he said at last.

  ‘I bet.’ Libby sat back and stared at him. He fidgeted. ‘Connected to the Goddess Cult.’

  His colour fled from his face, and almost as quickly returned. ‘Wha –?’ he said.

  Harry returned at this moment with a glass of red wine and a fresh cafetière. Diggory looked as though he would like to get up and leave, but served with fresh coffee and with uncompleted orders from a good customer all over the table, he was stuck.

  Libby turned to Harry and compounded Diggory’s discomfort.

  ‘I was just asking Richard about the Goddess Cult,’ she said. Diggory’
s hand shook as he tried to pour coffee and covered his paperwork in brown splashes.

  ‘Goddess Cult?’ Harry narrowed his eyes at her.

  ‘It’s a fertility thing,’ said Libby blithely. ‘Celtic in origin, isn’t it, Richard?’

  ‘Um, yes.’ Diggory cleared his throat.

  ‘Not part of the ordinary Morris dance tradition, is it?’

  ‘Er – no.’

  ‘So what is it?’

  ‘The earth mother,’ said Diggory, ‘you know, that sort of thing.’

  ‘You use some of the traditions of the solstices, don’t you? Corn dollies, and the Oak and Holly Kings. The Goddess comes into those.’

  Diggory relaxed a little. ‘Oh, yes. Morris celebrates all the old seasons and rites, you see.’

  ‘Like May Day?’

  ‘Yes. Beltane, and the need-fire.’

  ‘Need-fire?’ Libby sat up straight. ‘Gemma told me about that.’

  ‘We light it the night before May Day.’ Diggory cleared his throat again. ‘It’s – er – a cleansing ritual.’

  ‘Oh?’ Libby looked interested. ‘Where do you do that? On the Mount again?’

  ‘Near the Mount, yes.’

  ‘Do you dance? Are you dressed up?’

  ‘Well, yes, but it’s a private ceremony.’ Diggory frowned. ‘Sorry, why exactly are you interested?’

  ‘Well, I told you. All that business down in Cornwall, going off into the woods – was that the same as the need-fire business?’

  Diggory’s colour was fluctuating again. ‘Similar,’ he said.

  ‘But the Goddess Cult is a part of it? But not one that all the members of Cranston Morris are aware of?’

  ‘What are you implying?’ Diggory finally summoned up righteous indignation. ‘That there’s something underhand about our rituals?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ said Libby, smiling at him. ‘Not underhand.’

  Harry poked her in the ribs. ‘Cut it out, Lib,’ he said. ‘You’re making my supplier uncomfortable.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Libby was penitent. ‘But he did ask me to have coffee with him.’

  To Diggory’s obvious confusion, she then proceeded to be charming to him, while Harry looked suspiciously on.

  ‘I must be getting on,’ she said at last, finishing her glass of wine. ‘I only popped out for some stuff for lunch.’

  Harry stood up to make way for her to ease round the table. She leant forward to Diggory.

  ‘Very interested in the Goddess Cult,’ she murmured. ‘I’ll ask Gemma.’

  Diggory looked alarmed. ‘Don’t do that,’ he said. ‘I’d be pleased to – er – tell you all about it.’

  ‘Good.’ Libby beamed and straightened up. ‘I’ll look forward to it.’ She edged past Harry, bestowing on him the ghost of a wink. He followed her outside.

  ‘OK, what was that all about?’ he said, hands on hips. ‘Your idea of interrogation and harassment?’

  ‘Sort of.’ Libby grinned. ‘His own fault. He shouldn’t have asked me to join you.’

  ‘So it’s Sarjeant and Castle – sorry, Wolfe – on the case again, is it?’

  ‘Could be,’ said Libby. ‘Even Ben’s got involved in this one.’

  ‘Omigod,’ groaned Harry. ‘Where will it all end?’

  ‘In tears, I expect, as you said,’ said Libby cheerfully. ‘Thanks for the wine.’

  ‘It’ll go on Diggory’s bill, believe me,’ said Harry darkly.

  Libby made her salad when she got home, sat with it at the table in the sitting room window and phoned Fran.

  ‘Fire,’ she said. ‘Need-fire. The night before May Day.’

  ‘Eh?’ said Fran. ‘Oh, I see, Fire, trees. Where did you get this from?’

  Libby told her in between mouthfuls. ‘And I asked about the Goddess cult,’ she said. ‘He was gobsmacked.’

  ‘So it is that.’ Fran paused. ‘I’ll look it all up.’

  ‘So will I,’ said Libby, ‘and Diggory is going to tell me all about the Goddess Cult. Once he’d got over his shock, I indicated that I’d be quite interested. He didn’t want me to talk to Gemma, though.’

  ‘Libby! Don’t go there!’

  ‘Oh, I shan’t meet him, or anything like that,’ said Libby. ‘I didn’t even give him my number, but it’s an avenue to explore, isn’t it?’

  ‘All I hope is that he won’t go and tell any of the rest of the clan and you don’t come to a sticky end.’

  ‘Oh, I shouldn’t think so,’ said Libby. ‘After all, we think Frensham and Lethbridge were the prime movers in the underground Cranston Morris, don’t we?’

  ‘Do we? Well, in that case it’s even worse. They’re both dead.’

  Chapter Twenty

  LATER IN THE AFTERNOON Fran’s car drew up behind Libby’s Romeo the Renault outside Number 17 Allhallow’s Lane.

  ‘I’ve got the kettle on,’ said Libby, opening the door, ‘and I’ve made a few notes on the Goddess.’

  ‘Me, too,’ said Fran, ‘but it’s all a bit confused, isn’t it?’

  Libby pulled out chairs on either side of the table in the window, where the computer sat winking its little eye at them. She tapped the keyboard and the screen sprang into life.

  ‘There,’ she said. ‘That’s the most inclusive explanation, but you can go off into all sorts of highways and byways.’

  ‘I know.’ Fran nodded and sat down. ‘Gaia seems to be the oldest figure, but the Goddess movement itself is modern.’

  ‘There’s very little to indicate naughty goings-on,’ said Libby. ‘I’ll go and make the tea.’

  Fran had opened her notebook and found a site on the internet which mentioned the Portherriot Mannan Night when Libby brought in two mugs of tea.

  ‘Did you bother to look any of this up when you got back?’

  ‘No.’ Libby looked surprised. ‘I should have done, shouldn’t I?’

  ‘I thought you wanted to look up those Goat people,’ said Fran.

  ‘I did. What does it say there?’

  ‘Very little. Just a description of what goes on, its roots with the ancient sea-god Manannán mac Lir and that’s about it. There’s an email address and a phone number, but that’s about all.’

  ‘Well, they didn’t seem over-keen on media interest,’ said Libby. ‘The Malahyde person and his sister seemed positively discouraging. I don’t know how Lewis’s researcher managed to get permission to film.’

  ‘Well, there’s no mention of the Goddess cult there, and as far as I can see it isn’t really known as the Goddess cult.’

  ‘No, but there are mentions of her and a horned god, representing the two sort of high gods. And that she is connected with the old Earth mother.’ Libby peered at Fran’s notes.

  ‘And the Maiden, Mother, Crone image which came from Robert Graves, so is very modern.’ Fran sat back frowning. ‘But there are indications of her being the symbol of rebirth and fertility, so if there are little pockets of Goddess worship, they could well have worked it into a nice little rite of fertility.’

  ‘Like bonking each other in the name of the Goddess.’

  ‘Something like that,’ said Fran, amused. ‘After all, that’s what that mob at Tyne Chapel were doing, weren’t they, all in the name of the devil.’

  ‘It seems to me that most weird cults are set up specifically to indulge in orgies,’ said Libby. ‘And it looks like this is what’s happening here, or are we getting ahead of ourselves?’

  ‘You said on the phone that Richard Diggory was a bit –’

  ‘Discombobulated,’ said Libby. ‘That’s what makes it suspicious.’

  ‘But he said he’d tell you all about it.’

  ‘Yes, but only because I made it sound as though I might be up for whatever it was.’

  ‘You be careful,’ warned Fran. ‘This is exactly what Ben doesn’t want you to do. That’s why he’s gone to all the trouble of setting up this party for you to meet the Frensham Holdings people.’

  ‘All right, al
l right. If he rings me, and I doubt if he will, I’ll prevaricate. But I want to know if that’s what all the goings-on are about which Bill Frensham introduced to Cranston Morris. This sub-culture, which was what was going on in the woods in Cornwall, I’m sure of it. And they put about the sacrifice rumour to stop people interfering.’

  ‘But surely that would make people interfere? If they thought sacrifice was going on, wouldn’t they report it to the police?’

  ‘Not if they were threatened,’ said Libby. ‘Gemma was terrified.’

  ‘She could have reported the animals on her doorstep before she left for home. The Goat people wouldn’t have come after her.’

  ‘She didn’t know that.’ Libby shook her head. ‘I tell you, she’d been threatened – or warned – before they even went to Cornwall. Which is daft. Why did the underground Cranston Morris bother to take Dan and Gemma and the other normal ones with them? Why not just go off on a jiggy-jiggy jolly without them?’

  ‘To keep the authenticity of the side going?’ suggested Fran.

  ‘Anyway, what we really want to know is whether it has anything to do with the Green Man murder.’ Libby pulled the keyboard towards her. ‘Beltane night and need-fire, that’s what we need.’

  ‘I’ve done that,’ said Fran. ‘It’s an old cleansing ritual. They used to drive their cattle through it, and all lights in the village or settlement had to be extinguished or it wouldn’t work. Then the villagers took home little bits of the fire to rekindle their own. And it was led by two chaste young men.’

  ‘Have trouble finding any of them these days,’ said Libby, ‘but yes, Gemma told me all about it.’

  ‘It’s a practice that has survived with some of the other old Celtic traditions, just for effect,’ said Fran. ‘I think they all jump through it, or something. Anyway, it was that night that John Lethbridge was killed.’

  Silence fell. Libby stared at her friend, her mug half-way to her mouth.

  ‘OK,’ she said after a minute. ‘When did you come up with that?’

  Fran looked surprised. ‘I told you. Fire and trees – he was killed in trees in the dark. It was Beltane night.’

  ‘But how do you know it was Beltane night? You didn’t at first.’