Murder Imperfect Read online

  Peter frowned back at her. ‘So you think whoever it was meant to murder Cy?’

  ‘Well, they murdered the other one, didn’t they?’ said Libby reasonably.

  Footsteps could be heard running up the back stairs, and a moment later Harry, still in chef’s trousers, arrived brandishing the usual bottle of red wine.

  ‘Find the glasses, Lib,’ he said. ‘You know where they are.’

  Libby did as she was told and then sat back down on the sofa. ‘Come on, then, tell us what this is about,’ she said.

  ‘I called Cy – well, Colin actually, because Cy isn’t talking too well – and told him what you’d heard.’ He cocked an eyebrow. ‘And guess what? They’d heard too.’

  ‘Well, hardly surprising, I suppose,’ began Libby.

  ‘No, petal. It was how they heard.’

  ‘From the radio? Television?’ hazarded Ben.

  ‘Another letter.’ Harry raised his glass. ‘Cheers.’

  Silence fell as they all looked at each other.

  ‘What did it say?’ asked Libby eventually.

  ‘I quote,’ said Harry. ‘“You should have gone the same way. We’re watching you.” Nice, eh?’

  Libby shivered. ‘Lovely. So have they gone to the police now?’

  ‘They hadn’t when I called, but they have now. Colin said someone was going round to see them this evening.’

  ‘So what was so urgent about telling us tonight?’ asked Ben.

  Harry, Libby and Peter looked surprised.

  ‘Because it’s a serious development,’ said Libby.

  ‘And there’s even more of a threat,’ said Harry.

  ‘And they’re friends,’ said Peter.

  Ben made a noise that sounded like “hmph” and settled back into the sofa. Peter and Harry exchanged glances.

  ‘What should we do?’ asked Libby after a further short silence.

  ‘Wait until after we hear from Cy and Colin in the morning,’ said Harry.

  ‘Well, if the police are involved now, they won’t need me – us – to investigate now, will they?’

  ‘Especially as the murder is obviously connected to the attack on Cy,’ said Peter. ‘As long as they’ve shown the police the letter.’

  ‘I wonder what they think?’ said Libby slowly. ‘That because the attackers were interrupted they just went off and killed someone else instead?’

  ‘If it is gay bashing, why not?’ said Harry.

  ‘Because the letter doesn’t seem to suggest that,’ said Libby. ‘Don’t you agree, Pete? Ben?’

  ‘I see what you mean,’ said Peter. Ben just shrugged and Libby heaved an exasperated sigh.

  ‘Come on, then,’ she said, ‘let’s go home.’

  ‘But we haven’t finished the bottle yet,’ said Harry in surprise.

  ‘I’d rather go, if you don’t mind, Harry,’ said Ben, standing up. He clapped Peter on the shoulder and handed Libby her cape.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, and made a face at the others. ‘I’ll talk to you in the morning,’ and followed Ben down the front stairs and out into the high street.

  He stopped and turned to face her.

  ‘I’m sorry, Lib,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t understand, Ben,’ she said, hugging her basket to her chest. ‘You were the one who said you thought I ought to listen.’

  He sighed. ‘I know. But that was because I thought it was urgent. It wasn’t urgent at all. It was simply Harry doing theatrical flourishes. All he needed to do was give you a quick ring and say that Cy and Colin had been to the police and tell you about the new letter. That was all that was needed. There’s no need whatsoever for you to go on investigating and we should all be heaving sighs of relief.’ He turned and began walking. ‘Instead of which Harry turns it into a drama.’

  Libby’s mouth fell open. ‘But it is a drama!’ she gasped, hurrying after him. ‘Cy’s been beaten up, received threatening letters and now someone’s been killed and it’s linked to the attack on him.’ She shook her head in disbelief. ‘I can’t think of anything much more dramatic.’

  ‘But not for you,’ said Ben. ‘Not this time.’ He stopped and turned to face her. ‘Please, Lib. Not this time.’

  Chapter Six

  HARRY WAS ON THE phone almost as soon as Ben had left Number 17 the following morning.

  ‘I put my foot in it, didn’t I?’ he said.

  ‘You somewhat over-dramatised,’ said Libby, ‘yes. Now he’s saying he really doesn’t want me to have anything to do with it all.’

  ‘No surprise there, then,’ said Harry with a sigh. ‘I suppose I can’t blame him.’

  ‘Well, no,’ said Libby. ‘And now the police are involved I can’t see that I can add anything.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Harry was obviously thinking. ‘I’ll speak to him this morning and see how the land lies.’

  ‘It won’t make any difference, Harry. I don’t see how I can go interfering into a police investigation, especially after Ben has been so – so – well, definite.’

  ‘OK,’ said Harry with another sigh. ‘Apologise to him for me, will you?’

  ‘No, you can do it,’ said Libby. ‘Take him to the pub.’

  ‘Oh, OK,’ Harry grumbled. ‘If Donna can cope at lunchtime. Is he at the Manor office?’

  ‘I think so, but better try his mobile. He might have sloped off to Steeple Farm.’

  But whatever she might have said to Harry, or indeed to Ben, Libby was still intrigued. Certainly, with the discovery of the body on the other side of the park it looked as though Cy’s and Colin’s initial thoughts about the anonymous letters were correct, so why was something else niggling at the edges of her brain?

  She abandoned the kitchen and booted up the laptop, tucking feet under dressing-gowned legs on the sofa. The local news sites all had accounts of the murder, and, to her surprise, it had also made the nationals. The redtops all screamed “Gay Bashing Ends In Murder”, as she would have expected, but from some of the other sites there was informed, or at least less sensational, comment. Nowhere was the victim named, and nowhere was Cy’s attack mentioned, so either the police hadn’t released that information, or Cy, despite having told Harry he had informed the police, hadn’t. Chewing her lip, Libby tried a few more sites and eventually, to her surprise, came up with Cy’s panto.

  No wonder Harry had asked her to help, she thought with a grin. “Cinderella,” read the item, “a pantomime written by local actress Libby Sarjeant, performed by the Hop Hall Players.”

  So why hadn’t she known? If she could be bothered, she could look through the statements that came from her old society, who were at liberty to hire out her scripts for a small fee. They had all been written many years ago, and anything she wrote for the Oast House Theatre was not included. Besides, Peter wrote most of that, although Hey, Diddle, Diddle had been bought in, on the strict understanding that she, as the director, could change anything she wanted to. This usually happened with pantomime scripts, their authors being aware that being precious about one’s gilded prose was just not an option.

  Tucking her feet under her more securely, away from the suddenly playful Sidney, she typed in Hop Hall Players. Panto society, they’d said it was, but in fact it was a fully fledged amateur society with a very interesting history.

  Started in the nineteen thirties by a group of hop pickers for their own entertainment on a large local farm, they had originally only performed musical and variety items, much as the concert parties of the era had done. During the war, when some of the regular East Enders had found homes in the area, hoping to avoid the bombs in London, they had got permission to perform in the oast house during the times that it wasn’t in use. Eventually, after the war, more people had joined and a large shed once used for Salvation Army assemblies was commandeered to form a performance space. When the original farm had ceased hop production, the small society, by now calling themselves “Hop Hall” had tried to buy it, but, as with so many oast houses, it had been sold and conv
erted into a dwelling.

  So the Hop Hall Players had continued to do what so many other societies throughout England had done, hired the village hall both for rehearsals and performances, and they were still doing it. They still appeared to be proud of their origins, however, and even boasted one or two venerable members who had been there during the war.

  And what about Josephine, wondered Libby, looking up from the screen and giving Sidney an absent-minded stroke. Was she there then? Did she have anything to do with the Players? Colin had said Cy had grown up there, Josephine and her husband had bought the house, presumably when Cy was a child. So where had they been before then?

  Working on the assumption that Cy was in his thirties, she supposed that Josephine had probably been born after the war, so wouldn’t have been involved with the Hop Hall Players while they were still based at the hop farm. And anyway, she thought, standing up and tipping Sidney onto the floor, what had the hop farm got to do with anything anyway? She stomped upstairs to get dressed.

  And what, she wondered later, while hunched over the heater in the conservatory, had made her wonder about the distant past in connection with Cy’s beating? Well, with the letters, more obviously. And even more obviously, the fact that the Hop Hall Players had come up while she was searching for references to last night’s murder. She sat up straight and nearly fell off the stool. Of course. It had been one of those research threads that leads somewhere else entirely, hadn’t it? But what she had ignored was why the Hop Hall Players had come up in the first place.

  In her haste to get back to the laptop, she knocked over the stool entirely, and had to stop and make sure the heater wasn’t going to set fire to the conservatory. The laptop was asleep by the fireside, its little light pulsing silently like a heartbeat. She opened it and backspaced until she reached the page which had first referred to the Hop Hall Players. And there it was.

  “The police are not releasing the name of the victim, who was found at the entrance of Aird Park, opposite the Aird Memorial Hall, where the Hop Hall Players were rehearsing this year’s pantomime.”

  Were they? Cy hadn’t been, neither had Colin or Sheila. Or had she? She had been walking home, so she could easily have been coming home from a rehearsal. So the second attack must have taken place after she’d passed the entrance of the park, but presumably, if the Hop Hall Players were anything like the Oast House company, there would still be people floating around for a good twenty minutes after rehearsal had finished. Had no one seen the body?

  Or, thought Libby, striking the laptop with the flat of her hand in enthusiasm and losing the page, perhaps that’s how it had been reported. By a member of the company. But in that case, why hadn’t it been on the news yesterday morning before she and Harry had gone to see Cy? Why had no one heard anything?

  She scowled at the screen and managed to get back the page she’d lost. It turned out to be yet another local news page, this time connected to a media company who also owned online television channels and free papers. She clicked the link to the TV channel and eventually found the report which had appeared on their morning bulletin with slightly more information than that which she had discovered yesterday afternoon.

  It appeared now that the body had been just inside the park gates, which were closed, so was invisible to passers by, including all the members of the Hop Hall Players, until a late reveller, in the way of his kind, had needed a place of at least semi-concealment. The gates had not been locked, and his relief was somewhat tempered, not to say squashed, by the sight of a battered body lying among the rhododendrons.

  So it had nothing whatsoever to do with the Hop Hall Players. Libby found herself slightly disappointed. It had been an intriguing thought, that whatever the reason for the anonymous letters and the beating, it had been hidden in a hop-picking past, as had the first murder Libby herself had been involved with. It just showed how ready she was to leap to conclusions which had no foundation. The original bull-in-a-china-shop, in fact, as her nearest and dearest frequently commented. And, in fact, it was nothing to do with her anyway. So why was she looking?

  It was still raining. Libby put the laptop away and wondered what to do with the rest of the day. Yes, she could learn the fairy’s lines. Yes, she could hoover the upstairs of the cottage. Yes, she could do some Christmas shopping. Her eyes swivelled to the laptop. Online. Or she could go and buy a Christmas Tree.

  She drove through sheeting rain out of the village towards Canterbury and the Cattlegreen Nurseries. Nella and Joe had recently opened a farm shop in the village, where Nella mostly worked, while Joe still looked after the plants and a more extensive range of vegetables and groceries at the Nurseries, including a small Christmas Tree plantation. The “boy”, Owen, greeted her as she pulled up on the forecourt and hustled her inside.

  ‘I’ll get Dad,’ he said.

  ‘Owen!’ she called after him. ‘No, it’s OK. I just want a tree. I’ll go outside and find one, shall I?’

  Owen turned back, looking doubtful. ‘It’s very wet,’ he said.

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Libby. ‘I’ve got to choose one now, or the best ones will be gone, won’t they? I’ll soon get dry.’

  Followed by a dubious Owen in a waterproof hoodie, Libby led the way outside and to the back of the Nurseries’ plot, where ranks of trees stood on a slight slope.

  ‘Shall I tag one?’ she asked. ‘I don’t want to dig it up without your dad here.’

  ‘I said I’d get him.’ Owen looked resigned. ‘I’ll go now.’

  ‘No, I meant it. Last year he let me tag it, and I came to collect it another day.’

  ‘Oh.’ Owen looked relieved. ‘Here, then.’ He pulled a white label attached to a red ribbon out of his pocket. ‘I’ll go and tell him.’ He turned back to the building. Libby sighed. Owen was a sweet boy, but difficult.

  She padded through the mud along lines of sparkling trees until she found one the right size and shape to fit the sitting room of Number 17. She tied the label where the star would eventually go, and realised she had nothing with which to write her name. Muttering under her breath, she pushed her way back towards the Nursery building.

  ‘’Allo, Lib.’ Joe appeared before her. ‘I’ll go and dig up that tree now. I bet you forgot to bring a pen, didn’t you?’

  Libby sighed and pushed wet hair out of her eyes. ‘Of course I did, Joe,’ she said. ‘Thanks. But I think I might have to leave it here for Ben to collect in the tank.’

  ‘He’ll be coming to collect the one for the Manor, won’t he?’ said Joe. ‘I’ll just put your name on it, then, and leave it here.’

  Libby made her sodden way back inside, where she found Owen, beaming and holding out a steaming mug.

  ‘Tea?’ she said, gratefully.

  ‘Hot chocolate,’ said Owen proudly.

  ‘Lovely,’ said Libby, taking hold of it in both hands and dripping into it.

  ‘That’s done, then, Lib,’ said Joe, coming in behind her. ‘That chocolate, Owen-boy? Enough for me?’

  Still beaming, Owen disappeared into the back of the building.

  ‘He’s a lovely boy, Joe,’ said Libby.

  ‘Aye. Better be kind and helpful than brainy, eh?’ He went to the counter and ran a finger down a grubby price list. ‘You going to pay now? Or leave it for Ben?’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ said Libby. ‘I don’t think it’s fair to leave it to Ben.’

  ‘So, you going to move into Steeple Farm, then?’ Joe punched keys on the till.

  ‘No.’ Libby put her card on the counter. ‘Staying in Allhallow’s Lane.’

  ‘Oh?’ Joe’s eyebrows went up as he pushed the card reader towards her. ‘More room at Steeple Farm, surely.’

  ‘There’s only two of us, Joe,’ said Libby, keying in her number. ‘And the kids don’t usually come down together.’

  ‘And your young’un’s got that flat over Harry’s place, hasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes. Helps out there, too.’

&nbs
p; Joe handed the card back. ‘Nice bloke, young Harry,’ he said. ‘Wasn’t sure, meself, at first, but he’s a good’un.’

  Libby put her head on one side and looked at him over the rim of her mug. ‘Weren’t sure because he was gay?’

  ‘Well, yeah.’ Joe looked away. ‘Not proud of it, but I know better now. Nella made me read a lot of stuff.’

  ‘Good for her.’ Libby smiled. ‘But do you think there are a lot of people round here who are still – well, against Harry and Peter? Or gay people in general?’

  ‘Some of the old’uns, maybe. Some of the churchy folk.’ He shook his head. ‘Not many, though. Country folk don’t mind much what other folks do. Mostly them from the town who do.’

  ‘Really?’ Libby sipped her chocolate, which had mellowed from scalding to steaming.

  ‘Yeah, from those estates and such. You know the sort.’

  Libby did. The macho types who thought the British Liberation Front was a good idea. Of course, they were the type who would be homophobic.

  ‘And some of the old colonial types, too,’ she added.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘From India. You know, the people who used to live abroad and think they ruled the world.’

  ‘Oh, ah!’ Joe laughed. ‘Like old Colonel Feathers.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Him who lived at the Old Hall. Thought we should all be like his servants back in India. His wife couldn’t even wash a floor.’

  ‘Well, I don’t suppose she ever had to,’ said Libby.

  ‘My old ma taught her. She went up to clean for a few hours a week, did Ma.’ He shook his head and laughed again. ‘The stories she used to tell.’

  ‘And what about,’ mused Libby, still following her train of thought, ‘the nouveau riche?’

  ‘The who?’

  ‘People who’ve come up from nothing. You know – who own chains of second-hand car showrooms, or – or – oh, I don’t know, betting shops.’

  ‘Oh, ah. Like them as live in the new houses out at Steeple Cross.’

  ‘I’ve been in one of those,’ said Libby, with a shudder.

  ‘What was you doing? Catching a murderer?’ said Joe, and laughed.