‘Dreadful,’ agreed Jane. ‘I get hardly any sleep.’
‘I think it’s nature’s way of preparing for the sleepless nights to come,’ said Libby.
‘Is nature that cruel?’ asked Fran.
‘Of course. Red in tooth and claw,’ said Libby. ‘It’s also why old people get grumpy and grouchy and unpleasant, so their children won’t miss them as much when they die.’
Jane let out a peal of laughter. ‘They’ll be glad to get rid of them instead?’
Libby, pleased with this evidence of understanding, nodded happily.
‘I don’t know, Libby,’ sighed Fran. ‘You have the strangest outlook on life sometimes.’
‘Anyway, speaking of children and parents,’ Libby went on, ignoring the interruption, ‘how’s yours?’
‘My mother?’ Jane wrinkled her nose. ‘Well, she’s here. You knew that.’
‘She took some persuading, didn’t she?’ said Fran.
‘A lot. Partly because she was unhappy about Aunt Jessica leaving me Peel House and she didn’t want to live in it.’
‘She overcame her scruples, though, didn’t she?’ said Libby. ‘Once she realised she wouldn’t have to pay any rent, rates or services for the flat.’ Libby, having met Mrs Maurice more than once, was disinclined to attribute any of the nicer qualities to her.
Jane looked uncomfortable. ‘Well, yes. And she did say she’d be able to help with the baby.’
‘Really? Will she look after it if you go back to work?’ asked Fran.
‘No, I wouldn’t expect her to,’ said Jane, ‘and anyway, I’m going to work from home. I’ll only need to actually go out now and then. And while the baby’s young I can take him or her with me.’
‘Don’t know what it is, then?’ said Libby.
‘No, neither of us wanted to,’ said Jane. ‘So tell me what you’ve both been up to.’
Fran reported on her recent trip to France with Guy, Sophie and Adam.
‘And what about your Chrissie?’ asked Jane. ‘She’s pregnant, too, isn’t she?’
‘She’s being an absolute monster,’ said Fran. ‘I almost feel sorry for Brucie-baby. She just lays about on the sofa and doesn’t do anything, as far as I can make out.’
‘Well, she hasn’t gone out to work for years, has she?’ said Libby.
‘No, but at least she did the washing and cooking and kept the house clean,’ said Fran. ‘Now she won’t even do that. And she’s only four months.’
‘What about Cassandra?’
‘Oh, the cat’s the only one who understands her, apparently.’ Fran snorted. ‘It spreads itself across her on the sofa and refuses to move.’
‘It’s going to be severely upset when the baby arrives,’ said Libby.
‘I told her that when she said she wanted a baby,’ said Fran, ‘but there, she’s never taken any notice of me.’
‘What does Lucy say about her?’ asked Libby, referring to Fran’s other daughter, already mother to Rachel and Tom.
‘Scathing, as you can imagine. Actually, she’s stopped being such a pain towards me now. So much so that I’m letting her come down for a week with the children.’
‘Where’s Guy going?’
Fran looked surprised. ‘He’s staying here, of course. He doesn’t mind them half as much as I do, and, I must admit, it’s much easier with a grandma and a grandpa. They don’t wear me out so much.’
‘That’s another reason I don’t want Mum to have to look after my baby too much,’ said Jane. ‘She’s on her own.’
‘But at least she’s on the premises,’ said Libby, ‘and she doesn’t work.’
‘But she’s got her own life,’ said Jane. ‘She’s actually made some friends down here. She joined some club at the library and now she seems to be out all the time.’
‘Perhaps she’s found a new man?’ said Libby with glee.
‘Mum? Don’t be daft!’ Jane laughed. ‘Anyway, what about you? What have you been doing?’
Without hesitation Libby launched into a description of the past two days’ activities.
‘Amanda George? She’s your writing tutor?’ Jane turned to Fran. ‘Do you think she’d agree to do an interview with me for the paper? Or for our colour mag?’
‘I didn’t know you had a colour mag,’ said Libby. ‘How posh.’
‘It’s only monthly and goes across the whole group.’
‘I’m sure she would. All authors love a bit of free publicity,’ said Fran. ‘Shall I ask her?’
‘Yes, please,’ said Jane. ‘Give her my email address, would you? And do you suppose she’d let me use your investigation in the piece, too? It would be terrific local interest.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Fran. ‘In fact, if you do speak to her, don’t mention that we’ve told you anything about it. We don’t know what’s behind it, yet.’
‘No, I suppose so,’ said Jane, ‘but Cherry Ashton is a very emotive subject locally.’
‘Because of the workhouse?’ said Libby.
‘Well, yes.’ Jane nodded and turned to look out of the window. ‘And the children.’
Chapter Four
LIBBY AND FRAN LOOKED at each other.
‘The children?’ echoed Libby.
Jane turned back. ‘Didn’t you know about the children?’ she said. They both shook their heads. ‘It’s not very nice. Didn’t you look it up on the internet?’
‘Of course,’ said Libby. ‘That’s how we knew White Lodge was – or had been – part of the workhouse.’
Jane shook her head. ‘I can’t believe it didn’t come up anywhere. Even I knew about it, and I didn’t come here to live until three years ago.’
‘But you work in the meeja. You get to hear things.’
‘You used to stay with your aunt, didn’t you?’ asked Fran. ‘Did you hear about it then?’
‘No. I can’t actually remember when I first heard about it, but it comes up periodically in the office.’
‘So what is it, then?’ said Libby.
‘You don’t have to tell us,’ said Fran quickly, noticing the look on Jane’s face. ‘I’m sure we can find out some other way.’
Libby looked puzzled and Fran made a face at her. ‘We can ask Campbell, can’t we?’
Jane’s expression relaxed. ‘That’s a good idea. He’ll know.’
An hour later, after much conversation about the coming baby and viewing of the cot, Terry came home and Libby and Fran left.
‘So tell me what that was all about?’ Libby stomped off down Cliff Terrace.
‘Oh, Lib.’ Fran sighed. ‘You saw her face. Whatever it is, it’s about children – buried there, I would guess. And Jane’s hormones are all over the place. She was getting really distressed.’
‘Oh.’ Libby scowled at her feet. ‘Sorry. Yes.’
‘I don’t think you’re really insensitive,’ said Fran, laying a hand on her arm, ‘just a bit thoughtless sometimes.’
‘I know.’ Libby glared at the beach. ‘Bull -’
‘In a china shop,’ Fran finished for her. ‘Not quite. Just a mind above other things.’
‘That’s a laugh. My mind is very firmly rooted in the everyday mire.’ Libby turned to her friend. ‘But nice of you to try and make me feel better. Now, are we going to call Campbell McLean?’
The local television news reporter had helped Fran and Libby in the past and never seemed to mind their occasional pleas for help.
‘I’ll ring the office,’ said Fran, fishing out her mobile. ‘We don’t want to disturb him in the middle of a broadcast.’
Kent and Coast Television promised to get a message to Campbell as soon as they could, but warned that as he was out recording a piece about bulls for the evening bulletin it might be some time.
‘Do you think he’s having to get up close and personal with some hulking great beast?’ asked Libby, as they arrived at Coastguard Cottage.
‘Remember him at that farm we went to looking for illegal immigrants?’
‘He got a good item out of it, though,’ said Fran. ‘Come on, if we’re going now. You can drop me back here, can’t you? It’s on your way?’
‘Oh, are we still going? I thought you might want to wait to talk to Campbell.’ Libby fished in her basket for Romeo’s keys.
‘Not chickening out, are you?’ Fran waited for Libby to unlock the passenger door, and climbed in.
‘Course not.’ Libby started the engine. ‘Now, as far as I remember, we drive right past Creekmarsh towards the saltings.’
‘But we don’t know if it’s on the main road, do we?’ said Fran.
‘There aren’t many roads in Cherry Ashton. We’ll find it.’
The road followed the river past Lewis Osbourne-Walker’s house Creekmarsh, then turned inland on to the windswept saltings.
‘There,’ said Libby, pointing at a spire above a slight rise. ‘That must be Cherry Ashton.’
‘Is this the only road in?’
‘Don’t know. Look, that’s it, I bet you.’
Ahead of them, against a sky darkening with rain clouds, stood a house. A solitary tree stood opposite on the other side of the road, but that was all. Libby stopped the car.
There was complete silence. The house, part half-timbered and part tile-hung, felt dead, its windows, as Rosie had said, boarded up. A tall wall ran along the front.
‘Come on then,’ said Libby, after a moment. ‘This is what we’ve come to see.’
Fran followed her across the road, and through the archway in the wall.
‘It doesn’t feel right,’ she said.
‘As though we’re trespassing, you mean?’ said Libby. ‘Yes, I feel a bit like that, too. But we’re not. Look.’ She waggled the keys before going up to the front door and peering at the locks.
‘No, I didn’t mean that,’ said Fran. ‘There’s something not right about this place.’
Libby swung the door wide. ‘Fine time to have one of your moments,’ she said, and stepped inside.
‘Exactly the right time, I’d have thought,’ said Fran. ‘I’m not sure I can go inside.’
Libby turned round. ‘You don’t have to. I’ll look round on my own, if you like.’
Fran took a deep breath. ‘No, I’ll come.’ She stepped gingerly forward and shivered.
The hall was long, wide and very dark. Past the sweeping curve of the staircase could be seen a little light, which Libby soon discovered to be a door into the back garden.
‘Well, they didn’t board this up,’ she said, rattling the door handle. ‘I wonder if one of my keys opens it?’
‘Shouldn’t we finish looking round inside first?’ said Fran. ‘If I go outside I won’t want to come in again.’
‘That bad, huh?’ Libby cocked her head on one side. ‘What’s the feeling exactly?’
‘I’m just spooked.’ Fran looked round. ‘It feels as though something’s here.’
Libby frowned. ‘Don’t say that.’
‘Sorry.’ Fran moved back down the hall and made for a pair of double doors. ‘This is the room with the long windows and a piano.’
Libby raised her eyebrows but said nothing as Fran opened the doors.
The boards over the windows had not been fixed particularly well, and there was enough light to see that the room indeed matched Rosie’s description, including, in the corner, a baby grand piano.
‘Nothing else,’ said Fran. ‘Let’s find the kitchen with a bath in it.’
‘That would have just been Rosie’s dream making things up,’ said Libby.
‘Well, it didn’t make this up, did it?’ said Fran, and led the way up the stairs. The higher they got, the colder Libby felt.
Some of the windows at the back of the house hadn’t been boarded up. The very modern tiled bathroom and a large room next to it were as bright as the general oppressiveness would allow, but Libby’s legs still felt as though she was teetering on the edge of a very high cliff.
‘You’re right, you know,’ she said, as Fran opened another door into a pitch dark room, ‘it is very nasty here. Shall we go?’
Fran stopped so suddenly Libby bumped into her. ‘What?’
‘Look.’ Fran stepped aside and Libby peered round her.
Inside the room, which was long and narrow, she could just make out a large roll topped bath with claw feet, and on the other side of the room a deep porcelain kitchen sink. Fran pulled the door shut with a bang.
‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘Come on. This is weird.’
As fast as they could in the semi-darkness, they went down the staircase and out of the front door. Libby let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.
‘Now we’ll go round to the back,’ said Fran. ‘Find the door we were going to go out of.’
Libby led the way round the right side of the house through an unkempt garden, in which brambles snaked across a path with a vicious tendency to nip at uncovered legs. Libby’s jeans did better than Fran’s skirt.
‘Oh, my God.’ Fran stopped dead as they rounded the corner to the back of the house. In front of them a rotting wooden door, with a wooden lintel above it, was set into a tall wall of what looked like very old stone.
‘You know,’ said Libby, ‘Rosie must have been here. This is exactly what she described. The room with the piano, the bath in the upstairs kitchen and now this. There’s no other way she would have known. She isn’t psychic. That’s why she wanted you.’
Fran turned slowly. ‘You’re right. Even I can’t conjure up this amount of detail without some prior knowledge.’
‘So why was she here, and why doesn’t she remember? And come to think of it, it must have been since the house was empty, because that’s how she described it. And that can’t have been long ago.’
‘No. A year, the agent said, didn’t he? And it’s a probate sale. So it could actually have been empty for a lot longer if the owner was in a home, or something.’
‘And supposing it had been left to someone before then, maybe years before, and they never lived in it. He did say a complicated probate sale.’
Fran looked up at the wooden lintel above the door. ‘This looks even older than the house.’ She gave the door a tentative push. It moved a little way and stuck. ‘Come on, there’s enough room for us to squeeze through.’
The garden they squeezed into was as overgrown as the one at the side. To their left, in the middle of the back wall of the house, they saw the door into the passage and, further along, the long windows of the room with the piano. To their immediate left, two more boarded-up windows.
‘Stones, look.’ Libby pointed.
Half-hidden by undergrowth and brambles, stones leant at awkward angles, mostly against the further wall of the garden, but a few lying in the middle.
‘Gravestones.’ Fran closed her eyes. ‘The children.’
‘Workhouse children?’
Fran shook her head. ‘I don’t think so.’ She opened her eyes and looked at Libby. ‘Jane didn’t seem to be referring to children in relation to the workhouse, did she? No, it’s something else.’
‘More recent?’
‘Not by the look of the gravestones.’ Fran moved forward and tried to clear the nearest. ‘Look, there’s nothing on it. Not even a faint mark.’
‘How do we know they’re gravestones, then?’
‘The shape, for a start, although some of them just look like boulders, don’t they? I just know they are.’
Libby looked round the garden. ‘I wonder how long it took for it to get this overgrown?’
‘Not long,’ said Fran, moving to another of the stones. ‘But the stones have been here for a long time.’
‘Not that long.’ Libby’s voice was muffled. ‘Look over here.’
Fran joined her standing over a cleared patch of stubbly grass.
‘This has been cleared quite recently.’ Libby bent and dug a finger at the ground. ‘Although not that recently. It
almost looks as though it’s been dug over.’
Fran looked up suddenly. ‘Listen.’
‘What?’ Libby glanced warily over her shoulder.
‘That music.’ Fran looked back at Libby. ‘Piano music.’
‘I can’t hear anything.’ Libby frowned. ‘It’s just you.’
‘No, no, listen. Clear as anything.’ Fran moved back towards the house.
‘Oh, God.’ Libby backed away towards the gate. ‘I can hear it. There’s someone in there playing the piano.’
Fran walked cautiously towards the long window and peered round the edge. Then she looked back at Libby.
‘No,’ she said. ‘There isn’t.’
Chapter Five
THEY STARED AT EACH other.
‘That’s it,’ said Libby. ‘We’re getting out.’ She turned, squeezed through the gate and almost ran down the side of the house. Fran followed more slowly, thoughtfully rubbing at the scratches on her bare legs.
‘That was no ghost,’ she said, as she caught Libby up at the car. ‘That was real music. Someone knew we were there.’
‘All the more reason to get out quick,’ said Libby, turning the key in the ignition.
‘It was to scare us off,’ said Fran, peering over her shoulder at White Lodge as Libby turned the car round. ‘I wonder if that’s what scared off prospective purchasers? Not to mention the estate agents.’
‘Surely he’d have mentioned it?’
‘Not necessarily. Remember he was almost eager for us to see it. He wants to get rid of it, and if he really thought we were bona fide viewers he wouldn’t tell us anything to put us off.’
‘But he did. He told me on the phone it was a monstrosity and about people being spooked. Why not tell us about the piano as well?’
‘Perhaps he thought it would be over-egging the pudding?’
‘Maybe. But it’s odd. In fact, it’s more than bloody odd,’ said Libby, ‘it’s terrifying. If that disturbed part of the garden is a recent grave it isn’t a legal one.’
‘Murder.’ Fran stared at her friend.
‘Oh, bloody hell, not again,’ said Libby.
Murder to Music Page 3