Murder by Magic Read online

  ‘So it looks like one of them is spreading the rumour just to try and get rid of Patti,’ said Libby slowly.

  ‘Unless Mrs Bidwell really was murdered,’ said Fran. ‘Then it would be the murderer spreading the rumours.’

  ‘Mind you, Patti did say she thought there was still underground resentment of her, didn’t she?’ said Libby. ‘Anyway, the police are going to look into the letters at least. And do we know if they think it was murder?’

  ‘Ian wouldn’t say much, but obviously if someone’s accusing someone else of murder they have to take it seriously. They haven’t released the body yet, anyway.’

  ‘We’d better warn Patti she’ll have the police knocking on her door,’ said Libby.

  ‘I tried her landline number just now and it went straight to voicemail, so I expect she’s still at her friend’s house.’

  ‘And may stay overnight,’ said Libby. ‘We don’t have her mobile number?’

  ‘No. I left a message anyway, so whenever she gets in she’ll find it.’ Fran sighed. ‘Right, I’m off to bed. I’ll let you know if I hear anything.’

  Libby recounted the conversation to Ben while refilling their wine glasses.

  ‘So whether there was a murder or not, the police will have to look into the anonymous letters. I seem to remember it being a hazy area of the law,’ she concluded.

  ‘To do with slander?’ asked Ben.

  ‘No, that’s oral defamation, libel’s the written one. Yes, I suppose it might be that. Didn’t we look into it before?’

  ‘You might have done, my love. I didn’t,’ said Ben, and settled himself more comfortably on the sofa.

  Out of interest, or just plain nosiness, Libby fetched the area telephone directory to see if Anne Douglas was listed in Steeple Martin, but there was no A Douglas listed at all. There were several Douglases, one in Lendle Lane, one round the corner in New Barton Lane and even one in Maltby Close, but Libby decided she could hardly go round knocking on doors or ringing telephone numbers on the off-chance. She sighed. She’d just have to wait.

  It was the next morning when Patti rang.

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t have Fran’s number to ring her back and someone else had left a message after her call, so I couldn’t do the 1471 thing,’ she said.

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Libby, wiping her hands on a tea towel. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘How – oh, of course. You mean have the police called? Yes, they have. Or rather, a Chief Inspector Connell called last night. His was the message that prevented me from calling Fran.’

  ‘Have you called him back? What did he say?’

  ‘Not yet. I’ve only just got in.’

  ‘Right,’ said Libby, just preventing herself from saying “You stayed overnight, then?”

  ‘I couldn’t drive after drinking half a bottle of wine, could I? Don’t want to get into even more trouble.’ Patti answered the unspoken question.

  ‘You’re not in trouble. Ian’s going to try and find out who’s doing it.’

  ‘Ian?’

  ‘Our detective friend. The one who called you.’ Libby decided not to say anything about the letters the police had received. ‘So tell him everything. All about your initial reception in the village right up to now. Including Alice asking me and Fran. And all the emails. The lot.’

  ‘All right.’ Patti sounded doubtful.

  ‘I mean it, Patti. We could only tell him a little because it’s hearsay, so you must tell him the lot. With all the names.’

  Libby heard Patti sigh. ‘OK. I’ll ring him now. I suppose he’ll want to see me?’

  ‘I expect so. Easier if you go to the police station rather than have them come to you, though. You don’t want to give the gossips any more fodder.’

  Libby put the tea towel back in the kitchen, thought for a moment and then rang Fran.

  ‘I wonder if we’ll hear any more?’ said Fran.

  ‘I suppose she might ring to tell us what Ian said, but there’s no reason for anyone to tell us anything else.’

  ‘You could ring your friend Alice to ask her how things are going,’ suggested Fran.

  ‘I will if we don’t hear anything after a day or so,’ said Libby. ‘Now I’m going shopping and then on to Steeple Farm to get it ready for tenants.’

  ‘You’ve let it? I thought it was only going to be for holiday lets.’

  ‘It’s a short-term let, just until Christmas. I don’t know anything about them, they came out of the blue saying they’d been recommended.’

  Libby wrapped herself in her old cape, despite Ben having bought her a brand new winter coat, thrust her feet into flowery Wellington boots and collected her basket. She did now own a couple of handbags, but when you needed to carry slippers and shopping, the trusty basket was best.

  She visited Bob at the butcher’s shop, Nella at the farm shop and the eight-til-late, where Ali was anxious to show her a picture of his new niece, only a day old.

  ‘So that’s where your brother is,’ said Libby, handing the picture back. ‘She’s gorgeous.’

  ‘Ahmed is very proud,’ said Ali, standing the picture on a shelf above the till. ‘He will bring her to the shop in a few days.’

  No mention of Ahmed’s poor wife, Libby thought, as she trailed off up the high street towards Steeple Lane, shifting her basket to the other hand. Stupid not to have done the shopping on the way home.

  Steeple Farm stood halfway up Steeple Lane, its thatch eyebrows covering little slits of windows that Libby always found forbidding. Inside, however, Ben’s team of builders, with help from Libby’s son Adam’s occasional boss, television celebrity builder Lewis Osbourne-Walker, had done a perfect restoration job, and Libby had to admit it was beautiful.

  Ben had taken on the restoration project for his cousins Peter and James, whose mother Millicent still officially owned it. Since she had been in a luxury residential home for several years, it was unlikely she would come back to it, and Peter had suggested Ben and Libby might like to live there. However, after much shilly-shallying, Libby had decided she preferred her small redbrick cottage in Allhallow’s Lane, and Ben had resignedly agreed.

  Now, she looked round at all the polished wood and charming furniture selected by Lewis and Harry, cousin Peter’s partner, who ran The Pink Geranium in the village, and admitted that it was really rather nice. If only she could get over those shivery eyebrows …

  She whizzed through with dusters and vacuum cleaner and became aware that something was vibrating against her hip. She switched off the vacuum cleaner and switched on her mobile.

  ‘Ian just called,’ said Fran. ‘There’s been another death.’

  Chapter Five

  ‘Who?’ said Libby, sitting down rather suddenly on the arm of a sofa.

  ‘I think it’s one of the other flower arrangers.’

  ‘Not that nice woman we met the other day?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I think it’s the other one who was in the anti-Patti league.’ Fran sounded weary. ‘And he wants to talk to us – or more particularly, me.’

  ‘Oh? Why?’

  ‘You’ll never believe it, but there’s a rumour going round that it’s –’ she paused, ‘– it’s Black Magic.’

  ‘Oh, lord. And you’re the local witch, I suppose.’

  Fran laughed, a little shakily. ‘You could say so. After all, we had all that business with the Black Mass and then the nastiness with the Morris Dancers – it was all folk magic stuff and Satanism. I think Ian thinks we’re experts.’

  ‘But why you?’

  ‘Because I see things, don’t I?’ Fran was exasperated now. ‘Anyway, he’s coming here to see me, so if you want to come too, you’d better get here within the next half hour.’

  ‘Can’t do that. I’m cleaning at Steeple Farm for the tenant, I told you. I’ll come over as soon as I can.’

  But in fact, when Libby did arrive at Coastguard Cottage forty-five minutes later, Ian still hadn’t arrived.


  ‘So why Black Magic?’ asked Libby, while she watched Fran making tea in the kitchen.

  ‘I don’t know. I expect Ian will tell us.’ Fran handed over a mug. ‘Listen – that’s him now.’

  Detective Chief Inspector Connell hadn’t changed much in the last few years. His thick dark hair was a little greyer at the temples, but his eyebrows were just as heavy over dark brown eyes. What had changed were deeper lines etched on his forehead and around his eyes.

  ‘Here we are again,’ he said, as he sank into one of Fran’s deep armchairs. ‘And I’m the one asking for help again.’

  Libby looked smug and Fran frowned.

  ‘What exactly is the problem?’ she asked.

  ‘Shall I start at the beginning – as I saw it?’ Both women nodded. ‘Right. The first we knew about it was when the local GP notified us, as is always the case in an unexplained death. The coroner’s officer attended and the lady was taken to the morgue. A couple of officers were sent to ask preliminary questions, but it looked as if it was a perfectly natural death. The post mortem eventually confirmed it – as far as we knew. The deceased had diabetes and a general degeneration of some of her organs, but she was in her late eighties.’ Ian took a sip of tea. ‘Then we started getting the letters, as I told you, and we had no way of tracing the sender. When you told me the vicar had actually received emails, we were delighted, because an ISP is easier to track. That’s obviously why the perpetrator didn’t send any emails to the force.

  ‘There was also a suggestion, apart from the gay priest angle, that Miss Pearson was using the –’ Ian frowned. ‘Dark Arts, I suppose you’d say.’

  ‘Oh, blimey,’ said Libby. ‘Do you suppose that’s been going round the village, too?’

  ‘I think so. Then we got the call about this other death.’

  ‘Who is it?’ asked Libby.

  ‘Marion Longfellow. A flower lady, I’m told.’

  ‘And where was she? Who found her?’ said Fran.

  ‘She was at her home, and one of the churchwardens – a Gavin Brice – found her because he’d gone to pick her up to take her to church.’

  ‘And what about this Black Magic suggestion?’ said Libby. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘I think you’ve seen it before.’

  ‘Tyne Hall and down in Cornwall,’ said Libby. ‘So what is it? Black feathers? Blood?’

  ‘The whole thing, I’m afraid.’ Ian stared into the empty fireplace. ‘Beheaded.’

  ‘Ah. A black cockerel.’ Libby felt sick.

  ‘And the inverted cross. The lot. And the body was laid out.’

  Libby swallowed. ‘Hands folded?’

  Ian nodded.

  ‘So this one’s definitely murder?’ said Fran.

  ‘Yes, although we aren’t sure of the method.’

  ‘Could be the same as Joan Bidwell’s,’ suggested Libby.

  ‘It’s almost as though it’s been set up just to confirm that the vicar killed Joan Bidwell by Black Magic,’ said Ian crossly. ‘And as the vicar has a perfectly good alibi for the last twenty-four hours, it’s backfired somewhat.’

  ‘So what do you want us for?’ asked Fran, after a moment.

  ‘Who do you know in the village apart from the vicar?’

  ‘Only my friend Alice who introduced us to Patti the day before yesterday,’ said Libby.

  ‘Oh.’ Ian’s face showed his disappointment.

  ‘We could ask around,’ said Libby hopefully. ‘You know how good we are at that. And Patti really wanted our help.’

  ‘She’ll need all the help she can get now,’ said Ian. ‘Not that she’s in any danger from us, but I should think the parishioners and the bishop will be making her life hell.’

  ‘That’s what I said,’ agreed Libby.

  ‘And Fran, I know you’ve been to the church –’ Ian hesitated.

  ‘You want me to look at the place this other woman died.’ Fran’s face and voice were expressionless.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Ian was contrite.

  ‘Don’t be. Will you take me?’ She looked at Libby. ‘Us?’

  ‘I’ll take you both,’ said Ian.

  ‘Now?’ Libby looked at her watch.

  ‘Are you in a hurry?’

  ‘I’ve got to get back to let a new tenant into Steeple Farm at four.’

  ‘I’ll get you back here by half past three,’ said Ian. ‘Well before.’

  To Libby’s surprise, Ian didn’t drive them into the village of St Aldeberge, but further along the coast road, before crossing a bridge and turning down a lane. They stopped before a large cottage which overlooked the inlet, where blue and white police tape fluttered in the sea breeze.

  The door stood open, a police officer in a high-vis jacket standing outside and glimpses of white-overalled SOC officers to be seen inside.

  ‘I can’t go inside,’ said Fran firmly, stopping at the gate. ‘I’d need to be suited up.’

  Ian looked startled. ‘Yes, you would. I’ve got the suits for both of us in the boot.’

  Fran shook her head. ‘No. I don’t need to.’

  Libby touched her friend’s arm. ‘Fran? What have you seen?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Fran’s eyes were fixed on the window to the right of the door. ‘That’s where she was found, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Yes.’ Ian was frowning now. ‘What is it Fran?’

  ‘Where did the other victim live?’

  ‘Eh?’ Libby’s and Ian’s eyebrows rose simultaneously.

  ‘Where did she live?’

  ‘Actually, over there.’ Ian turned and pointed.

  Libby followed his pointing arm along the edge of the inlet to where a lone bungalow stood halfway down the cliff.

  ‘That’s a bit isolated for an elderly lady,’ she said.

  ‘It is,’ agreed Ian, ‘and quite difficult to get to, especially as Mrs Bidwell used a wheelchair.’

  ‘How did she manage that?’ asked Fran, now looking down the lane towards the bungalow.

  ‘She had a ramp built, zig-zagging slightly to reduce the slope. She even had railings put up.’

  ‘I wonder why she didn’t move?’ murmured Libby.

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps your friend will,’ said Ian testily. ‘We’re actually here about Mrs Longfellow.’

  ‘She died because Mrs Bidwell died,’ said Fran, looking back at the cottage. ‘I’m certain of that. It was the only reason for her death.’

  ‘And the feathers? The Black Magic stuff?’ asked Ian.

  Fran shook her head. ‘I don’t know. All that I can see is that she had to die because Joan Bidwell had.’

  ‘Revenge?’ suggested Libby.

  ‘I have no idea,’ said Fran, ‘but I doubt it.’

  ‘You don’t want to go inside, then?’ said Ian.

  ‘I don’t need to.’ Fran shuddered. ‘So much blood.’

  Libby kept her quotation from Macbeth to herself, although the thought prompted her next remark.

  ‘Witchcraft,’ she said. ‘The three witches.’

  ‘There are only two,’ said Ian sharply.

  ‘And both infernal gossips and nuisances,’ said Libby. ‘Modern day equivalents of the medieval witch.’

  ‘Do we know that?’ asked Ian.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Fran. Libby looked at her sharply.

  ‘All right.’ Ian sighed heavily. ‘Come on, back to the car and I’ll take you home.’

  ‘I’m sorry if you don’t think I was much help,’ said Fran, once she was settled in the front seat of Ian’s car. ‘But what came into my mind was quite clear. And the detail can surely be left to your officers?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Ian. ‘Thank you for doing it.’ He was reversing down the lane. Once he was back on the main coast road, he flicked Fran a look and said, ‘You mentioned blood. What did you see?’

  ‘Blood, of course,’ said Fran, surprised. ‘Mainly cockerel blood, I think. And as to knowing that she died because Mrs Bidwell did, I can’t tell you. It was just
there, you know, like a fact.’

  Ian sighed. ‘I know.’

  After he dropped them at Coastguard Cottage, Libby took out her own car keys.

  ‘I’d better get off,’ she said. ‘See to the new tenants.’

  ‘Hasn’t Ben told you anything about them?’ asked Fran.

  ‘I’m not sure he knows. It was arranged through an agency. I’ll let you know what they’re like.’

  The autumn evening was drawing in as Libby drove back up Steeple Lane, past the dewpond, to Steeple Farm. Inside she switched on lights and laid a fire in the large sitting room fireplace. She was just dusting off her hands as the doorbell rang.

  ‘Hello, Libby!’ said a bright voice, and Libby found herself staring into Rosie George’s blue eyes.

  Chapter Six

  ‘Rosie?’ Libby gaped at the older woman. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m your new tenant,’ said Rosie, stepping through the door. ‘I’ve brought Talbot – you don’t mind do you?’

  ‘But …’ Libby followed Rosie into the hall. ‘Why didn’t you talk to me about renting the Farm? And why do you want to?’

  Rosie put down the cat basket she was carrying and bent to undo the straps. Talbot, the large black and white cat, emerged, sat down and stuck a leg in the air.

  ‘I’m having the kitchen and bathroom re-modelled,’ Rosie turned to the mirror on the wall and patted at her fly-away hair, ‘and I decided I couldn’t stay there. As to why I didn’t talk to you, well, that’s obvious, isn’t it? You would have felt compelled to let me have it for a low rent, or worse, for nothing. I heard you’d let some people stay here last year for nothing. So I booked through the agency.’

  ‘Well, I’m delighted, of course.’ Libby leant forward to kiss her friend’s cheek. ‘Where’s your luggage?’

  ‘Outside in the car. No – don’t bother now. Just show me round.’ Rosie twirled round, smiling delightedly. ‘I knew I’d love it. I pinched a leaflet when we were here for the writers’ weekend.’

  ‘Er – what about Andrew?’ Libby asked tentatively, following Rosie into the sitting room.

  ‘Professor Wylie and I are no longer an item.’ Rosie turned to face Libby. ‘In fact –’ she stopped, looking confused.