Murder in the Dark - A Libby Sarjeant Murder Mystery (Libby Sarjeant Murder Mystery Series)

by Cookman, Lesley

  ‘Please sit down. I’ve made coffee as I didn’t think you’d want a drink.’

  Libby sank into a huge squashy sofa and accepted coffee.

  ‘So what have the police told you so far?’ she asked.

  ‘Only that Johnny found the – the body yesterday afternoon, and the – er – your son and … and –’

  ‘Adam and Mog, the landscapers,’ Libby said.

  ‘Yes, that they were here too. None of them know who she is. Was.’

  ‘No, and you didn’t either?’

  ‘No.’ Adelaide shuddered. ‘They showed me pictures.’

  ‘And did they ask who knew you wouldn’t be in residence?’

  ‘Well, yes, they did, but I don’t really know many people locally. We used to see people when Roland worked in this country, and we know a few people from across the county, but not here. Most of my friends are in London.’

  My friends, noted Libby. Not our friends.

  ‘So the only people who knew you weren’t here were my son and his boss, Johnny and your cleaner?’

  ‘Marilyn, yes. She’s not exactly my cleaner, though. She just keeps an eye on the place and opens up now and then. She could have told any number of people, of course. She lives in Keeper’s Cob and comes here in her son’s Land Rover. He farms over there.’

  ‘Do you use any of the local shops? Order anything from farm shops?’

  Adelaide shook her head. ‘I go to Waitrose in Canterbury.’

  You would, thought Libby.

  The newest model smartphone that lay beside Adelaide began to warble. She picked it up.

  ‘Carl? What?’ She shot a scared look at Libby, and switched to speakerphone.

  ‘Ramani? No, I haven’t … I’ve only just got here. And I’ve got someone with me.’

  ‘Of course, you haven’t met her, have you?’ A man’s voice floated out. ‘It’s just that I’ve got home and she’s not here.’ The voice sounded scared. ‘And I don’t know where she is.’

  Chapter Four

  ‘Police,’ mouthed Libby.

  Adelaide stopped looking horrified and obviously tried to pull herself together.

  ‘Have you told the police, Carl?’

  ‘N-no. I don’t know how long she’s been gone, you see. She might have only popped out.’

  ‘Have you been away?’ asked Adelaide at another mouthed prompt from Libby.

  ‘Yes, I went away on Sunday. Two-day conference in Hertfordshire. So you see, she could have just gone out for the evening.’

  ‘Why did you ring here?’ asked Adelaide, off her own bat, this time.

  ‘I don’t really know,’ said the unknown Carl. ‘She doesn’t know many people, and I thought she might have … well, you see, I can’t think where she’d have gone. You know she doesn’t go out much.’

  ‘I think you should tell the police,’ said Adelaide firmly. ‘Let me know what happens.’ She rang off.

  ‘Who is he and why did he ring here?’ asked Libby, sitting forward.

  ‘He’s our local doctor. We’ve met him socially a few times, but never his wife. She’s Asian – and you heard him say I’ve never met her. I can only think he thought of me because I’m often on my own here and she might have come here.’ She looked up at Libby. ‘You don’t think …?’

  ‘Was the picture the police showed you of an Asian woman?’

  ‘I – I think so.’

  The women sat looking at one another.

  ‘Should we phone the police?’ asked Adelaide eventually.

  ‘I wouldn’t,’ said Libby. ‘They’ll probably want to talk to you again anyway, so wait until they do.’

  ‘But suppose Carl doesn’t call them?’

  ‘You can always call him back and ask what the police said.’

  Adelaide’s phone rang again.

  ‘Carl?’ she said, switching again to speaker.

  ‘The car’s gone,’ he said flatly.

  ‘Her car?’

  ‘Ours. We only have one. I was picked up by a colleague on Sunday evening so I could leave the car for her, although she hates driving.’

  ‘Phone the police,’ said Adelaide. ‘Do it now.’

  ‘All right.’ There was something suspiciously like a sob in the man’s voice.

  ‘Poor bugger,’ said Libby, after Adelaide switched off the phone.

  ‘Do you think I should go and see him?’ Adelaide said after a moment.

  ‘No. The police will probably go and see him straight away once he’s given them a description. He’s got no transport now and if he lives in the back of beyond like this …’

  Adelaide sighed and nodded. ‘Well, not quite so bad. He lives behind The Dragon.’

  ‘I haven’t cheered you up much, have I?’ said Libby. ‘Perhaps we ought to talk about something else.’

  They both tried, but neither of them could forget why Libby was there, nor the call from the doctor. When Libby’s phone rang in her pocket, she was relieved at the interruption, but alarmed when she saw who it was.

  ‘You said Lewis told you about Adelaide Watson. I’ve just called your home number and no one was there. Are you rehearsing?’

  ‘Er – no.’

  ‘At Dark House, then.’

  ‘Yes, I am. Mrs Watson wanted company.’

  Ian sighed. ‘And I suppose you were there when she received a phone call from Doctor Oxenford?’

  ‘Two, actually.’

  ‘Two?’

  ‘One to ask if his wife was here, and the second to say their car had gone.’

  ‘So it was you who encouraged him to call the police.’

  Libby’s eyes widened. ‘Shouldn’t I have done? Under the circumstances –’

  ‘Under the circumstances you may well have frightened the poor man into the middle of next week for nothing,’ interrupted Ian.

  ‘But,’ said Libby, looking over at Adelaide to see if she was understanding any of the conversation. Libby’s phone was too ancient to have speakerphone. ‘If it is her, then the quicker you find out the better, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’ll need to speak to you both shortly. How long are you going to be there?’

  Libby looked at her watch. ‘It’s nine now,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t planning to stay after ten. It’s a horrible night.’

  ‘I’ll get someone to you as soon as possible. Warn Mrs Watson.’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ said Adelaide, after Libby had relayed the conversation to her. ‘But I heard what you said about the sooner the better. So they think it’s Mrs Oxenford, then?’

  ‘Well, if it isn’t, they won’t need to see us, will they? I expect they’ll go to see the doctor, get a photograph and cart him off to the morgue to have a look. Then he’ll be in for it.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Adelaide, shocked. ‘He didn’t do it!’

  ‘They always look at the nearest and dearest first. And how do you know he didn’t do it?’

  ‘He said he was picked up on Sunday evening by a colleague. He couldn’t have been dumping her body in my grotto in the early hours if he was in Hertfordshire.’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Libby gloomily. ‘And he didn’t have any transport, either.’

  Adelaide sighed and stood up. ‘I’ll make fresh coffee,’ she said. ‘At least that gives me something to do.’

  Libby wandered round the room looking at paintings, wondering if Lewis had helped choose them, or if they were already treasured possessions of the Watsons. She heard Adelaide’s phone ring again from across the hall.

  ‘Would you believe it?’ Adelaide came in with an exasperated expression and a tray. ‘That was Roland. He’s just got off the Eurostar at Ashford and wants me to pick him up.’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ said Libby.

  ‘I told him I couldn’t, I was waiting for the police,’ said Adelaide triumphantly. ‘He’ll have to get himself home.’

  ‘Is that how he always goes to and from work?’

  ‘Yes, but he won’t drive himself to the station because he says
the parking costs too much when he has to be over there for at least a week at a time, and mostly longer.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Libby, thinking that the Watsons were probably as selfish as each other and wondering if their sons were the same.

  ‘Are your boys coming home?’ she asked.

  ‘No, and I don’t see why they should. The police have been to see them both, though. Such a cheek.’

  ‘The body was found here, though. They must have wanted to see if either of them – are there two? – knew her.’

  ‘Yes, two. One in Leeds, the other in London. Ridiculous. How could either of them have got here in the middle of the night?’

  Privately, Libby thought it was perfectly possible overnight, as long as you had a decent car. And no one was there at night except Johnny, who lived beyond and out of sight of the grotto, apparently, whatever that was.

  ‘I was thinking about your grotto,’ she said aloud. ‘It sounds intriguing. Did you have it built?’

  Adelaide’s face brightened. ‘No, it was built by the people who lived here in the late eighteen hundreds. They seem to have liked ruins.’

  ‘And ferns,’ said Libby. ‘They loved ferns.’

  ‘Oh, yes, the grotto’s covered with ferns. It was one of the things we liked about this house. No one else we know has anything like it.’

  That would be it, thought Libby. Not your own taste, then.

  It was just after ten o’clock when the doorbell rang.

  To Libby’s surprise, Ian and DC Robertson walked in.

  ‘I’m sorry to bother you so late, Mrs Watson, but I just need to confirm what Doctor Oxenford told me this evening.’ Ian smiled his most charming smile and Libby watched Adelaide almost simper.

  ‘Of course,’ she said, her voice dropping by at least two tones.

  ‘Is it Ramani Oxenford?’ asked Libby.

  Ian scowled at her. ‘Doctor Oxenford’s being taken to view the body,’ he said. ‘Now, Mrs Watson, he called you when?’

  ‘Not long after you got here, wasn’t it?’ Adelaide looked at Libby.

  ‘Yes, about eightish or just after. Then again about ten minutes after that.’

  ‘And can you remember exactly what he said?’

  ‘Well –’ Adelaide looked at Libby again. ‘He just said had she come here?’

  ‘Even though you’d never met her,’ put in Libby.

  Ian turned another ferocious scowl on her, but Adelaide said, ‘No, Inspector, she’s right. And I put him on speakerphone, you see. And then he phoned again and said their car was gone.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘He said he’d been picked up by a colleague Sunday evening,’ said Libby. ‘To go to a conference in Hertfordshire.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ian. ‘And nothing else?’

  Both women shook their heads.

  ‘So what can you tell me about Carl and Ramani Oxenford, Mrs Watson? Have you known them long?’

  ‘No, not long. Carl is our doctor down here, and, as I was telling Libby, we’ve met him a few times socially. I don’t think his wife goes out much. I think that’s why he thought she might come here, as she knows I don’t go out much here, either.’

  ‘But how would she have known you were here?’ asked Ian.

  Adelaide looked bewildered. ‘But she didn’t. She didn’t come here.’

  ‘He means why would the doctor think his wife knew you were here,’ explained Libby.

  ‘A stab in the dark,’ said Adelaide, then covered her mouth with her hand in horror. Ian’s own mouth twitched.

  ‘Happens all the time, Mrs Watson,’ he said. ‘So there’s nothing more you can tell me about the Oxenfords?’

  ‘Nothing. I’ve never been to their house – except to the surgery a couple of times.’

  ‘And you, Mrs Sarjeant?’ Ian asked. Libby’s mouth fell open. ‘Well?’ he prompted.

  ‘I don’t know either of them. And I don’t know Adelaide, either, really. She’s a friend of Lewis’s, I told you.’

  The sound of a door being thrust back hard and a muttered swear word brought Ian and DC Robertson to their feet. Adelaide momentarily closed her eyes.

  ‘That’ll be my husband,’ she said.

  Chapter Five

  Roland Watson came into the room looking thunderous. Ian stepped forward and calmly held out a hand.

  ‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Connell, sir, and this is DC Robertson.’

  ‘And why are you here?’ boomed Watson. ‘Come to harass me, now, have you? Fetching us all down here in the middle of the night?’

  ‘No, dear, they came to talk to me and Mrs Sarjeant here.’ Adelaide stood and indicated Libby. Roland Watson swung a huge head towards her like an angry bear.

  ‘And who the bloody hell are you?’

  ‘This is Mrs Sarjeant, a friend,’ interrupted Ian smoothly, ‘and they are both witnesses to something that happened this evening.’

  ‘What?’ The head swung back to Ian. ‘Another body?’

  ‘No, sir.’ Ian waved a hand. ‘If we could sit down?’

  Libby stood up. ‘Shall I go and make fresh coffee?’ she asked Adelaide, giving up all idea of being home before midnight.

  ‘Oh, please. We’ll run out of the ground stuff if this goes on.’ Adelaide gave a half-hearted titter and subsided at a look from her husband.

  Libby enjoyed pottering in the huge kitchen which had obviously been added quite recently and tastefully. The coffee things had been left on the counter when Adelaide made the last pot, and Libby found more cups and then carried the lot back into the sitting room.

  ‘… seen the woman in my life,’ Roland was saying. ‘Neither has my wife.’

  ‘Your sons say the same,’ put in DC Robertson, the first words he’d spoken that evening.

  ‘My sons? What the bloody hell do you want to bother them for?’

  Ian gave an almost imperceptible sigh as Libby handed him a cup of coffee.

  ‘The body was discovered on your premises, sir. Everyone who has a connection here will have to be questioned. We’ve spoken to your cleaner –’ he looked down at Robertson’s notebook, thrust helpfully under his nose ‘ –Marilyn Fairbrass, your odd job man –’ he looked down again ‘– John Templeton and your gardeners, Maurice Legg and Adam Sarjeant. We shall naturally have to question anyone who might have known the premises were empty at the present time.’

  Libby was thinking. ‘What about the car?’ she said.

  Everyone turned to look at her in astonishment, but Ian’s expression softened.

  ‘Yes, Libby, we’ve thought of that.’

  Adelaide and Roland Watson stared at them both and Libby coloured.

  ‘Well, you don’t need my company now, Adelaide,’ she said and put her coffee cup back on the tray, ‘so, if Chief Inspector Connell doesn’t need me any more – ’

  ‘Hold on a minute, Libby, and you can follow us back to the Canterbury Road.’ Ian stood up and DC Robertson followed suit. ‘Mr and Mrs Watson, I’d be pleased if you didn’t talk about this to anyone until we’ve taken formal statements from you both. Will you come in to the police station in the morning?’

  ‘Come in –?’ Roland looked even more furious. ‘Why the hell should we?’

  ‘Because I shall have to bring you in if not, sir,’ said Ian, still calm. ‘Thank you for the coffee, Mrs Watson.’

  ‘Bloody hell!’ Libby burst out as soon as they were safely outside. ‘I don’t know how you didn’t blow up. I’d have slapped the handcuffs on him after the first five minutes.’

  Ian laughed. ‘Which is why you’re not a police officer. Now, come on, have you got room to turn that beast round? If you drove up here from Steeple Cross it can’t have been pleasant.’

  ‘It wasn’t. It feels like the back of beyond here, as though no one ever comes near. And it was foggy.’

  ‘It’s cleared a bit now,’ said DC Robertson. ‘And most of the locals use the other end of the lane from Keeper’s Cob.’

&nb
sp; ‘So Adelaide told me.’ Libby unlocked the car door and climbed in. ‘Am I just to follow you? You’re not going to tell me anything else?’

  ‘Not tonight, I’m not, but I expect we shall have to talk to Adam again now.’

  ‘Now you know who it is, you mean?’

  ‘I didn’t say that,’ said Ian. ‘I’ll probably speak to you tomorrow.’

  Libby followed the reassuring lights of the unmarked police car down Dark Lane. They led her back to the Canterbury road and, with a wave, sped off.

  Ben was waiting with a sustainingly large whisky.

  ‘I don’t know why you say yes to these things,’ he said, sitting opposite her after throwing a log on the fire.

  Libby sighed. ‘Neither do I.’

  ‘Sheer nosiness, probably.’ Ben grinned at her.

  ‘Probably. And I’m a bit worried about Ad.’

  ‘Why? He didn’t do it.’

  ‘But they’ll keep after him as one of the people who knew about the house and the grotto and the fact that the owners weren’t there.’

  ‘They’ll keep after Mog and the caretaker, too. And – I’ve just thought of this – Lewis, too.’

  ‘Lewis?’

  ‘He knew. He sent Adam and Mog there, and he’s worked on the house.’

  ‘Oh, bother, I told Ian about that.’

  ‘Oh, I expect they’d have worked it out for themselves,’ said Ben. ‘So tell me what exactly happened.’

  When Libby had finished recounting the details of her evening, Ben looked thoughtful.

  ‘Funny how both the Watsons knew the doctor yet not the wife.’

  ‘It sounds as though she might be a typical Asian woman who doesn’t go out except in a burkha,’ said Libby.

  ‘That’s a terrible generalisation. And if she was one of those women, why is she married to a white Englishman?’

  ‘We don’t know that’s what he is. Carl isn’t a very English name.’

  ‘But Oxenford is.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Libby stared into the fire. ‘It’s a real puzzle.’

  ‘You’re used to puzzles. Come on, finish that whisky and let’s get to bed. It’s gone midnight.’

  Libby was woken the following morning by Ben with a mug of tea.

  ‘Fran phoned,’ he said. ‘I managed to pick it up before it woke you.’