by Amy Myers
She did. No business at weekends, especially bank holidays. It was hard enough that she and Peter shared their working lives, but with Luke vitally involved in it as their publisher, the guidelines had to be straight, or work would begin to turn into pillow talk as well. She’d broken the rules, she knew, but she didn’t know why. Or did she? If she was honest, it was because the opening of the Alice Winters murder had given the Fanny Star case limitless boundaries. Until the missing link – if there was one or even the sniff of one – had been found, she felt she was clutching at insubstantial ghosts. And ghosts might please Toby Beamish and Cadenza Broome, but not Georgia Marsh. Usually it was the atmosphere of unfinished business that drew her to a case, as it was with Peter, but never before had the unsubstantial shadows of the past they grappled with so obstinately refused to come forward and turn themselves into fact.
‘I am not breaking it.’ It was a weak answer and she knew it.
‘Fancy a day at the seaside tomorrow?’
Would she? She’d be with Luke, but she’d be taking herself with her, and Luke, normally the most patient of souls, did not deserve this. Instead Georgia realized she had a sudden and irrational desire to be with her mother. That hadn’t happened in fifteen years. She needed to reveal her frailties without reproach to someone who would understand, since biologically she shared half of them. Then Georgia realized how stupid she was being. Elena leaned on her, she wasn’t in the business of being around for other folks’ frailties. Her mother walked away.
‘Forget Jake Baines for a while, and concentrate on Fanny Star, is my advice.’ Luke returned to drying the dinner dishes. ‘That’s how you began this case. The fact that it’s widened to include Alice Winters doesn’t change the basic need to get to grips with Fanny Star’s murder. I’ll come with you to Friday Street if you like, and see—’
‘Dana Tucker?’ The words were out before she thought, and she kicked herself. She must be losing her marbles, if all she could pick on was that insignificant trifle. Or was it so trifling?
Luke looked at her – reproachfully? ‘I was going to say Jake Baines or Josh Perry, but Dana if you wish.’
Georgia’s foot was well and truly in the mud now. ‘You seem to get on with her pretty well.’
He flushed. He did. So there was something to it. She couldn’t stop now. ‘Dana seems to know an awful lot about the case that I haven’t told her.’
Luke threw down the tea towel. ‘I ran into her the other day in Faversham. Okay? I didn’t think there was anything secret about discussing it, if that’s what you’re on about. Anyone can speculate.’
‘What . . .’ Georgia forced herself to stop. It was no business of hers what he was doing in Faversham, and she could not, would not, ask. It was too demeaning. Anyone could run into anyone, she told herself. Luke was quite right. It wasn’t as if she was married to him. And any resemblance to Zac Taylor was entirely coincidental. ‘Zac, was that you I saw in . . .’, ‘Zac, how did you get . . .’, ‘Zac, I thought you said you were in . . .’
Oh, damn men. Damn them all.
*
‘Luke’s right,’ Peter said, after listening to her tale of woe the next morning. Luke had departed for South Mailing the previous evening and the solitude of her double bed had been painful. Not that she had told Peter that. Her woes were all business ones – well, almost all. ‘We should think of Fanny Star and work outwards and then a link might emerge. Suspects Anonymous last night had insufficient data. In the Fanny Star case, most Burglar Bills and Bettys refused to come out and play for the crucial period. Though Adam Jones’ Burglar did crash into Jonathan Powell as he came back up to the house.’
‘I told you Powell was mixed up in it!’ Georgia was triumphant.
‘Don’t gloat yet. Both depend on route and, in Adam’s case, when he left the Gibbs.’
‘Damn.’
‘Don’t despair,’ Peter said agreeably. ‘Let us have carrot cake to make us see in the dark.’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘My parents brought me up on the quaint wartime notion that eating carrots could make you see better in the dark, because it worked for night-time fighter pilots. Cover, of course, for secret intelligence, but my poor parents believed in carrots to the day they died.’
‘I don’t even feel like a daytime fighter at present,’ Georgia said bitterly.
‘Are you going to let those Daleks win? I’m not going to play Doctor Who all by myself.’
She managed a laugh of sorts. ‘No.’
‘Very well then. It’s back to wattle and daub time.’
The fallback situation that even Suspects Anonymous couldn’t replace. When they first moved here, before Elena left, they had converted this house from four rooms on the ground floor to one through room on either side of the hallway. They had beavered away at an inner wall, stripping off the plaster to reveal medieval wattle and daub. Fortunately it wasn’t a sustaining wall, since by the time Elena had finished the daub itself had crumbled and she had found herself staring into the house next door – now Georgia’s.
‘At least,’ Elena had remarked happily amid the ruins of their joint inner wall, ‘we know where we are.’
It was a good way to think every now and then. ‘Very well, Master Builder,’ Georgia began. ‘Wattle it is. Fanny Star was murdered. Granted?’
‘Yes. One wound, not several tries, no fingerprints, she was wearing gloves, can’t have been suicide, so the killer must have worn gloves too. No way to lift glove prints then.’
‘They were evening gloves, I suppose. Very dainty.’ As Fanny had been clad in a skimpy, mini-skirted lace dress with heavy black boots, evening gloves were a nice touch.
‘Adam Jones. Guilty or not guilty?’
‘Not proven.’
‘Motive?’
‘Possible jealousy. Going solo. Trial evidence.’
‘Contradictory.’ Peter thought for a moment. ‘If Jones was innocent, who had reason to kill her?’
‘The father of her child.’
‘Qualification. Only if that wasn’t Ronald Gibb, whose alibi is probably valid. For what reason?’
That threw her for a moment. ‘Didn’t want the story to come out.’
‘Why not? Seven years had passed by 1968. Unlikely to be a motive for murder, unless the father was Ronald Gibb.’
‘Accepted.’
‘Who else then?’
‘Jonathan Powell, of course.’
‘Motive?’
‘Like Adam, he might have lost his temper over her going solo.’
‘Try harder.’
‘My other theory is that Hazel and Toby got the wrong end of the stick. That Fanny wasn’t threatening Adam that she would go solo. When she talked of being together, not in a threesome, she meant herself and Adam. In short, she wanted to sack Jonathan as their manager.’
‘Better, but killing her seems a funny way of keeping the golden goose laying.’
‘He had the opportunity,’ Georgia said obstinately. ‘He says he didn’t go over to the stage until eight forty. No one’s confirmed that.’
‘Hum. Same applies to many of them. Who else?’
‘Josh Perry.’
‘Motive?’
‘None known, unless he was the father of Fanny’s baby.’
‘Weak. Opportunity?’
‘As with Powell, other dinner guests, Sheila, Henry, Oliver, and rest of the gang. It’s too late to establish precise movements during the last hour of Fanny’s life.’
‘Okay. Who else?’
‘Tom,’ Georgia said reluctantly.
‘Which of the threesome, T, O, or M?’
‘Toby.’
‘Just because he’s a creep, he’s not necessarily a murderer.’
‘She could well have spurned him.’
Peter chortled. ‘How very sweet. Are we back to Lady Rosamund and her dastardly knight? How about Michael?’
‘This was his engagement party. If she held somet
hing over him, he could have wanted her out of the way.’
‘He could have been the father of her child.’
‘He fancied her, no evidence of anything more – and Sheila wouldn’t be matey with her if she was her rival.’
‘Oliver?’
‘Unlikely. Only fifteen at the time of Fanny’s departure from the village.’
‘Are you telling me fifteen-year-old boys have no interest in sex?’
‘No. But unless he’s a psycho, he’s unlikely to be a deliberate murderer at twenty-two because of it.’
‘Agreed, unlikely. End of the list.’
‘Jonathan Powell’s still at the end of my prong of the carving fork,’ she said obstinately.
‘My prong is still stuck in Friday Street.’
She ignored this. ‘He was being ousted as their manager, I’m sure of it.’
‘You can’t be,’ Peter gently pointed out.
‘As a thesis, then. The row between Fanny and Adam wasn’t about her going solo. He was lying.’
‘Perhaps, Georgia, he’s a Cretan man.’
‘Eh?’
‘A proposition in logic I learned at school. Empedocles, the Cretan, claimed all Cretan men were liars. Ignoring the impossibility of the conundrum, why believe anything Powell told you? He told you, for instance, that the accusations that he was Fanny’s lover were false. Suppose they were true?’
‘I find it hard to believe, having met him. He doesn’t seem the passionate type, gay or heterosexual.’
‘Or perhaps the “we” that Fanny referred to was not herself and Jonathan, or herself and Adam, but herself and a lover – as yet without a name.’
She thought about this. ‘Powell would have known. Why not tell me?’
‘I have no answer for that.’ Peter paused. ‘But that doesn’t mean there isn’t one – did I hear you mention lunch?’
‘No, but you can share mine. Luke’s disappeared.’
‘You should keep a more careful eye on our partner. By the way, I have the autopsy report on Adam Jones. I pleaded with Mike to fix it for me with the Coroner’s Office. I’m still waiting for Fanny Star’s.’
‘What did Adam’s say?’
‘No doubt about the verdict of suicide. Diatoms everywhere. Your Mr Powell was quite right about that.’
*
‘The pub will be making its fortune out of you,’ Josh joked as she walked in at Tuesday lunchtime.
‘I bet the old pilgrims along this road got a warmer welcome from the priory. And free nosh into the bargain,’ she retorted in kind.
Josh laughed. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘it’s no business of mine, but why don’t you stay in Friday Street for a day or two? There’s more to do around here now.’ He was polishing glasses and squinting at one carefully.
‘Stay in the pub?’ Georgia thought about it. It seemed a good idea, and yet she didn’t fancy it. Wouldn’t she and her mission here stand out like sore thumbs rather than allow her to blend into the landscape? Josh’s warning about trees came back to her with full force.
‘No. That Miss Tucker said yesterday she thought it was daft you driving to and fro all the time. There’s no reason you couldn’t move in with her for a day or two.’
Dana Tucker? Georgia saw a mountainous obstacle there. Why on earth should Dana be interested in her welfare? Ah well, she was a good climber of obstacles. At least her worst suspicions over Luke couldn’t be true if Dana was actually inviting her to stay with her. Then a sudden thought made a dive-bomb attack on her heart. Perhaps she was doing so in order to get closer to Luke?
‘Where better than Frances’s birthplace? Maybe her ghost will give you a few ideas,’ Josh said, straight-faced.
Josh was pushing this plan. She didn’t like that aspect of it, but on the other hand if she went out on a limb she might get to places she didn’t even know existed. ‘I heard you are involved over Alice Winters now,’ Josh continued. ‘You were up at the tower, with the police.’
‘And Toby Beamish,’ she added politely. ‘Your informant missed him out.’
‘He does own the place. Got to make a penny or two for the upkeep. Maybe he fancies being paid in return for help over your book, thought of that?’ Josh was looking at her almost expectantly.
Josh Perry was not going to be master builder of this case. ‘There isn’t a book yet,’ she reminded him. ‘It would be nice to think so, but we’re not in the business of making bricks out of straw.’
‘What do you count as a brick?’
Could this be an overture? ‘I told you we were looking for a link between Alice’s murder and Fanny’s. That would make a first-class brick.’
Josh snorted. ‘Made without straw, your bricks would be. There’s nothing to it.’
‘Maybe. I admit the name Winters hasn’t cropped up at all in connection with Fanny’s murder, although Alice’s grandfather Brian was a member of the gang. Not a very active one, obviously, since no one mentions him much.’
‘Right,’ Josh said noncommittally.
‘Even Adam Jones’ death is contributing to the general conviction that Fanny’s death was an open and shut case.’
‘You mean you think he was guilty?’ Caught unawares, Josh looked genuinely surprised.
‘No.’ She was interested in his reaction though. ‘I thought, stupidly, that if he came back here on the day of the murder, it might indicate he came back to tackle the real murderer if he was innocent.’
‘And?’ Josh was listening closely now.
‘He did come back here. He saw Henry Ludd; he might also have seen Ronald and Doreen Gibb. I don’t know. What we do know for sure is that he committed suicide, so there’s no point wondering whether he was given a lift back home by a murderer.’
‘What’s that about?’ Josh looked worried.
She was taken aback. ‘Even in 1987 there can’t have been much of a bus service, and being just out of prison he’s unlikely to have owned a car or motorbike. Taxis would be beyond his reach. Yet he had to get here from a local railway station or coach stop and he had to return to the river to drown himself. He must have got lifts both ways. I wondered who from – someone he knew, or casual passers-by?’
Josh gave up the pretence of polishing glasses and planted his hands on the bar. ‘I can tell you who drove him here. And back.’
‘Who?’ Georgia asked sharply, shaken at scoring an unplanned bull’s-eye.
‘Brian Winters.’
Chapter Eight
Josh could obviously guess what Georgia was thinking, because he half smiled.
Excitement conquered her irritation at having to beg for help. ‘You don’t believe in volunteering information,’ she said lightly.
‘Need-to-know basis, Georgia. A question of trust.’
‘Not of truth?’
‘I don’t recall telling you anything that wasn’t true. Might not have been the whole truth, but who’s to know what that is? As soon as Bob takes over, you can come over to the house. Hazel’s at her sister’s, so we can talk in peace. Likes to put in her ha’p’orth, does Hazel.’
And Josh, she suspected, preferred being sole monarch of Friday Street’s affairs. The lock-keeper who controlled the flow both in and out. The problem was that she was dependent on it, a situation she didn’t much relish. She was reasonably sure that although Josh was cautious he was on the right side of justice, but in Friday Street it didn’t pay to rely on anything.
Half an hour later, after minding her Ps and Qs in the pub with a toasted sandwich, she was ensconced with Josh in his living room where he produced exceptionally good coffee. ‘We buy it in France,’ he told her. ‘Bob won’t let us bring back any liquor – killing his trade, he says – but he doesn’t object to coffee. Or a cheese or two. He’s partial to them himself.’
Georgia mentioned a disagreement she and Luke had had with a particularly smelly cheese they’d brought home from Lille last year, and waited patiently for him to return to the subject of Brian Winters.
&
nbsp; Eventually Josh cleared his throat. ‘Now then,’ he began promisingly, ‘Brian was a good mate of mine. I still miss him. Died too young, he did, like his son Bill. Bill was only just forty when he went. Car accident. Tragic it was. And now Jane has the farm to run and not even her daughter to share it with.’
Perhaps he was thinking this went too near the heart to tell an outsider, for he quickly cracked a joke. ‘And before you’re thinking that someone here bumped him off, let me tell you it was an accident. You might think we’ve got nothing else to do up here on the downs but go around murdering each other, but we’re a village. It’s rare, but it does happen.’
‘It doesn’t always leave scars the way it seems to have done in Friday Street.’
‘Murder always scars someone. So does any death. It’s bloody unfair the way God made the world, but everyone has to die. For all the Reverend says we can, we can’t change that.’
‘Natural death makes wounds that heal,’ Georgia said firmly. ‘Violent or inexplicable death, or . . .’ She forced herself to say it. ‘Or when there’s no body, only a missing question mark, then the wound doesn’t heal.’
Josh looked at her curiously. ‘Personal experience?’
‘Yes.’
She felt more kindly towards him when he did not enquire further. The shadow of Rick hovered, then gradually vanished as Josh said, ‘Suppose I said that’s how the Friday Street music treats it? Open wounds.’
‘Then why don’t you make more effort to heal them?’
She’d clearly stung him, for his face reddened. ‘We do. I do. But when you’re standing in the middle of a situation, that’s not easy. You folks can come walking in from outside, which isn’t easy, either, but at least you can walk away again. We can’t, except by uprooting and moving away.’
‘Like Oliver Ludd?’ She took a stab in the dark.
‘He didn’t go alone,’ Josh said steadily. ‘Liz Beamish went with him.’
‘Were they running away from Friday Street, or from their respective spouses? Was Oliver married?’
‘No. He was a likeable chap, gentle like Henry, and close to his father. Michael takes after Joan, the manager of the family.’