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

by Cookman, Lesley

  ‘Even if he was,’ said Ian, a trifle austerely, ‘it could still be a powerful motive for murder.’

  ‘Because someone believed him?’ said Fran.

  Ian nodded and Edward sighed.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘we might as well look. There might even be a hidden room.’

  ‘A priest’s hole?’ asked Fran.

  ‘It’s possible. Before the house was added to in 1643, the original building is said to date from around fifteen hundred.’

  ‘I didn’t come across anything like that when we was doin’ up the house.’ Lewis looked round at the panelled walls.

  ‘Do you remember,’ said Libby slowly, ‘when we first met you we found something like that at Creekmarsh? And the outside didn’t match up with the inside?’

  ‘That’s exactly the sort of thing to look for,’ said Edward excitedly. ‘And where was that? Creekmarsh? Where’s that?’

  Lewis grinned. ‘Where I live. Come over one day. I’ll show you round. Or me mum will.’

  ‘Really?’ Edwards eyes were shining. ‘Where is it?’

  ‘We’ll come with you and show you the way,’ said Libby, amused. ‘I’d like to see Edie, anyway. Haven’t seen her for ages.’

  Ian cleared his throat. ‘Can I remind you that we’re doing the search here?’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Edward.

  ‘So where shall we start?’ asked Fran.

  ‘I suggest the top and work down,’ said Edward. ‘If there’s a secret room or hiding place, they’d want to be as far away from the hall as possible to avoid being heard or seen when getting into it.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Libby. ‘If you heard the Roundheads coming you wouldn’t want to be in the first place they’d look.’

  ‘Worse, if it was earlier and they were looking for Catholic priests …’ Edward let the sentence hang.

  ‘So, the attics,’ said Lewis, and started up the stairs. ‘We ʼad a great job with the attics. The dust! Cor, it was enough to put you off buildin’ for ever.’

  ‘Have they been restored?’ asked Edward.

  ‘Only tidied up. Couldn’t touch ʼem much, and they ʼad to be conserved, not restored.’

  ‘Good.’ Edward nodded his approval.

  The house, Libby and Fran discovered, was a jumble of different staircases and passages. Meeting Edward, Lewis and Ian in the middle of a gallery which they had approached from a completely different direction – and staircase – Libby confessed herself thoroughly confused.

  ‘It’s fascinating,’ said Edward. ‘I’ve actually discovered a bricked-over medieval window, and when I check outside, I think I can trace a missing wing.’

  ‘So whatever we’re looking for may not even exist any more?’ said Fran.

  ‘That’s quite possible,’ said Edward, ‘but let’s not give up now.’

  Ian, who was looking as disenchanted as Libby was feeling, sighed and nodded.

  ‘Attics, then,’ said Lewis. ‘This way.’

  He led them to a door set in the panelling at the end of the gallery, behind which he revealed a substantial ladder leading up through a large opening.

  ‘No proper staircase?’ Fran looked up in astonishment.

  Lewis grinned. ‘Not yet. There’s more research to be done on where the original was, and what we might have to knock down to replace it. It’s quite safe.’

  Libby looked doubtfully at the ladder. ‘You go first, then.’

  Libby and Fran climbed carefully up the ladder with Lewis and Edward in front and Ian bringing up the rear. At the top, they found themselves facing an enormous Tudor brick chimney and a distinctly wavy wooden floor.

  ‘They’re all like that,’ said Lewis. ‘Haven’t you noticed?’

  ‘I suppose they are,’ said Ian. ‘Edward, where could you hide something up here?’

  Edward went straight to the chimney and peered up inside it. Lewis began to go round the sloping walls and Ian started tapping the beams. Libby and Fran stood still in the middle of the room. Light came from small windows low down on the gable end walls, but Lewis switched on a working light on a stand in the corner which illuminated the dust which hovered in the air, disturbed by their presence.

  ‘Here,’ Edward called, his voice muffled.

  Ian, Lewis, Libby and Fran crowded round the inglenook. Edward ducked and came out, dusty, but grinning, his eyes and teeth white,

  ‘See?’ He pointed at a gap in the brickwork. ‘It’s a purpose-built hole. The brick is on a sort of swivel hinge.’

  ‘What was in it?’ asked Libby, as they all leant forward to see what Edward was holding.

  ‘Sadly, nothing very exciting.’ He displayed a roll of black cloth tied with what may have once been ribbon, both almost disintegrating.

  ‘You don’t know that,’ said Ian. ‘Anything could be inside it.’

  ‘It doesn’t feel like it,’ said Edward. ‘No one’s got a newspaper or anything, I suppose?’

  Ian, not surprisingly, in Libby’s opinion, produced a snow-white handkerchief and spread it on the floor at Edward’s direction. Edward then laid the roll of cloth on it and took out a pair of surgical gloves.

  ‘Damn,’ said Ian. ‘I should have thought of that.’

  ‘You haven’t brought any?’ Edward looked at him in surprise.

  ‘Of course I have. I just didn’t think to put them on.’

  ‘Evidence bags, too, I hope?’

  Ian’s tone was as brittle as the roll of cloth. ‘Of course.’

  To Libby, the contents of the roll of cloth, which almost fell to dust as Edward unrolled it, were disappointing. What appeared to be a pewter, or possibly silver, chain with a rough Celtic cross hung from it, and a rather dull-looking ring.

  ‘What are they?’ asked Lewis, his head cocked to one side. ‘Rubbish? Seen better down the Lane.’

  Edward looked up. ‘The Lane?’

  ‘Petticoat Lane,’ explained Libby. ‘You must have heard of one of London’s most famous rip-offs!’

  ‘Certainly have.’ Edward returned his attention to the jewellery. ‘But this isn’t rubbish. This,’ he held up the cross, ‘is enamel and diamonds set in gold.’

  There was a collective gasp.

  ‘Gold?’ echoed Ian. ‘How can it be?’

  Edward looked up at him sideways and smiled. ‘You just wait until this is cleaned up.’

  ‘What about that?’ Libby pointed to the ring. ‘It almost looks like a claddagh ring.’

  ‘Well done, Libby.’ Edward picked up the tiny object in surprisingly delicate fingers. ‘It’s the fore-runner of the claddagh, the gimmel ring. It turns into more than one ring, and the clasped hands are there to hold them together. I believe this one is black enamelled, and see this here?’ he pointed to what could have been a stone set in the hands. ‘That is, I think, a Vauxhall paste.’

  ‘A what?’ they repeated together.

  ‘They were glass gems set on a mirrored back. A bit of a con, really, but now very rare.’

  ‘I honestly don’t know how you can see that.’ Ian peered even closer. ‘How would you know?’

  ‘This era is my speciality,’ said Edward, ‘and I know as much about it, and all facets of it, as I possibly can. Jewellery is just part of it.’ He straightened up. ‘I can give you a learned discourse on the weaponry of the period if you like.’

  They all smiled.

  ‘So do we think this is what we were looking for?’ asked Fran. ‘I can’t think it is, somehow.’

  Ian shot a quick look at her.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Edward shook his head. ‘Nice though these are, they aren’t worth a huge amount. They wouldn’t make your fortune.’

  ‘Not even for Rebecca?’ asked Libby. ‘Back then?’

  ‘They might have helped. Bought her passage if she had to run away, for instance,’ said Edward.

  ‘This wouldn’t have been enough to kill for,’ said Ian, down on his haunches in front of the little items.

  ‘I wouldn’
t have thought so,’ said Edward. ‘Nice enough if you picked them up in a burglary, but the average thief wouldn’t know what they were. But, as you said, the impression may have been given that there was more. And perhaps there isn’t.’

  Ian stood up and walked away to the window, his hands in his pockets. ‘Would Roland have known about this, that’s the point. And how?’ He swung round to look at Lewis. ‘You didn’t find it?’

  ‘Course not. If we ʼad, we’d have notified somebody – you know how you have to?’

  Ian nodded. ‘Is it archaeology, though, hidden in a building? Who does it belong to?’

  ‘Ah!’ said Edward. ‘Moot point. Pity so many records were lost at that period. If only we had Godfrey’s will.’

  ‘He may not have made one,’ said Fran. ‘A lot of people didn’t.’

  ‘Let’s assume there was some kind of document,’ said Ian, ‘that was given to Roland with the deeds of the house. Where are they, do we know?’

  ‘Solicitor?’ suggested Libby. ‘I understood that nothing was given to Roland though.’

  ‘Don’t you think it’s possible that if there was a document, Roland wouldn’t have shared it with his wife?’ said Ian. ‘And just as likely that he did share it with his lover.’

  ‘Quite likely,’ said Libby. ‘He was a bastard.’

  ‘So she has it and someone kills her for it?’ said Lewis. ‘But why kill Roland?’

  ‘I think she was killed because she knew where it was but didn’t have it. Once she’d passed on the knowledge, she had to be killed, and the killer then went to get it from Roland.’ Libby looked round the group.

  ‘It’s the most likely scenario,’ acknowledged Ian, ‘but if so, has the killer now found the gold, or whatever it is, and gone for ever?’

  ‘Oh, how depressing,’ said Libby. ‘Surely not?’

  ‘Well,’ Ian squatted down in front of the jewellery again, ‘whatever the case, I’ve still got to find the killer, and it doesn’t seem as though this search is going to help.’

  ‘That’s defeatist talk,’ said Edward. ‘Here,’ he carefully rolled the jewellery back into the black cloth and handed it to Ian. ‘Why don’t you go back and report this to the coroner’s office, or the Finds Liaison Officer, and we’ll carry on here.’

  ‘You said yourself the rumour of treasure might have been enough to kill for,’ said Libby. ‘We can at least look for signs that there might be something else, or even that secret passage out of the cellars.’

  Ian looked doubtful. ‘I shouldn’t really leave you here at a crime scene unattended.’

  ‘Is there someone on duty at the grotto?’ asked Libby.

  ‘Of course. And the tent and forensics are there still.’

  ‘Well, we’re not unattended, are we?’ said Fran. ‘And I suggest you go and tell them we want to look at the grotto, too.’

  Ian sighed. ‘Anyone ever tell you you were bossy?’

  Fran and Libby looked at one another and grinned. ‘Yes, you,’ said Fran.

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘Where now?’ Libby asked after Ian had left, taking with him the jewellery in an evidence bag.

  ‘Cellar,’ said Edward, ‘but we can explore each level on the way down.’

  ‘There are so many levels,’ said Fran. ‘And staircases.’

  ‘Edward and I will go down one side of the house and you go the other,’ said Lewis. ‘Come on, down the ladder and I’ll point you in the right direction.’

  Libby and Fran’s way lay along a heavily panelled corridor, with three bedrooms leading off to the left. Ahead, a tall stained glass window sent lozenges of colour on to the floorboards. To the right, a carved banister protected them from the equally heavily panelled stairwell.

  ‘The steps are shallow,’ said Libby, peering over the banister. ‘Not much room to hide anything underneath one.’

  ‘We need to look in the bedrooms,’ said Fran, opening a door. ‘Come on.’

  The first bedroom was the master, and retained little impression of either Roland or Adelaide. A concealed door in the panelling led to a large en-suite bathroom.

  ‘Nothing here,’ said Libby, after they had tapped carefully on all the walls and opened all the cupboards and drawers. ‘Not that I would have expected there to be.’

  The other two bedrooms were the same as the first and obviously kept for the two sons’ occasional visits home. The only difference was a shared bathroom between the rooms.

  ‘Still nothing,’ sighed Fran. ‘I wonder why we thought there might be?’

  ‘Because Roland said there was, Ramani thought there was, and because of the parish record.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Fran, starting down the stairs, before coming to a halt halfway down.

  ‘What?’ said Libby, bathed in multicolours from the window.

  Fran stood still, her head cocked to one side.

  ‘Fran?’ Libby took two more steps down, to stand beside her friend.

  ‘There’s something …’ Fran reached out a hand to the panelling on her left and swayed slightly.

  ‘Fran!’ said Libby again, grabbing hold of her friend’s right arm. Fran straightened up.

  ‘Sorry, Lib.’ She cleared her throat and turned to smile at Libby. ‘That was very odd.’

  ‘I gathered it was some sort of –’

  ‘Moment, yes,’ said Fran with another smile. ‘But I don’t know exactly what it was. There was a feeling of darkness, but not suffocation. And a sort of claustrophobic feeling.’

  ‘A secret passage?’ suggested Libby. ‘That’s what it sounds like.’

  ‘Honestly, I don’t know.’ Fran turned to look at the panelling beside the staircase. ‘Perhaps there is one, behind here.’

  They both began to tap the walls all the way down the staircase but heard nothing to indicate there was an empty space behind them. At the bottom, they went through another door and found themselves in the hall beside the kitchen, where Edward and Lewis had made themselves at home at the table with steaming mugs of coffee.

  ‘I’m gonna get one of those,’ said Lewis, indicating the coffee machine. ‘Great coffee.’

  ‘Have you found the cellar yet?’ asked Fran, as Libby went to fetch more mugs.

  ‘No, but we haven’t looked. When we’ve had our coffee we will. Let’s have a look at that plan again, Lewis.’

  ‘I think there might be something behind the panelling.’ Fran sat down at the table.

  ‘Really?’ Edward’s eyebrows shot up.

  Lewis squinted over the top of his mug. ‘You been ʼavin’ one of your wotsits?’

  ‘Yes.’ Libby put the mugs on the table and poured coffee. She glanced at Edward. ‘You know about Fran, don’t you?’

  ‘Do I?’ Edward looked puzzled.

  ‘I can’t remember now if anyone’s put you in the picture,’ sighed Fran, ‘so here goes. I have occasional – I suppose you would call them psychic insights – which have sometimes helped the police.’

  ‘Is that why your DCI wanted you on this search?’ Edward showed no particular surprise at Fran’s revelation. Fran nodded.

  ‘So what did you see?’ asked Lewis.

  ‘I didn’t see anything,’ said Fran. ‘I just felt this awful darkness and sort of claustrophobia on the staircase.’

  ‘A secret passage?’ said Lewis and Edward together.

  Libby laughed. ‘Exactly what I said. But we’ve tapped every panel we could reach and there doesn’t seem to be space behind them.’

  Edward frowned. ‘Some of the doors were built into the panelling to conceal them …’

  ‘Yes, like the door to what is now the en-suite in the master bedroom,’ said Fran.

  ‘But if they were bricked up behind the door you wouldn’t know there had once been a room there,’ said Edward.

  ‘Like the bricked-up cellar?’ asked Libby.

  ‘I’m wondering if there was a reason for that,’ murmured Edward.

  ‘What, you mean nothing to do with our G
odfrey?’ said Libby.

  ‘We’ve been assuming that it dates to the Battle of Maidstone – ’

  ‘No, you were,’ said Fran. ‘No one had thought about that until you came along.’

  There was a shocked silence round the table. Then Lewis laughed.

  ‘Way off the beam, then, mate!’ He slapped Edward on the back. ‘Much more likely that it’s something to do with the nineteenth century, innit?’

  ‘The Aldington gang,’ murmured Libby.

  ‘What?’ said Lewis.

  ‘Didn’t we hear about them once before?’ said Fran.

  ‘Who were they?’ asked Lewis.

  ‘A famous band of smugglers who operated along the coast between Deal and Rye. There was activity right up to Felling,’ said Libby.

  ‘The Hawkhurst Gang,’ put in Edward.

  ‘They were earlier,’ said Libby. ‘Mid seventeen hundreds, but yes, much the same.’

  ‘So this place could have been used for smuggling? Like mine was?’ said Lewis.

  ‘We thought that before,’ said Libby. ‘When we went to The Feathers pub in Keeper’s Cob.’

  ‘You went there?’ Lewis’s voice rose in disbelief. ‘It’s a hellhole.’

  ‘We know,’ said Fran grimly. ‘But we did think it was probably a former smugglers’ haunt.’

  ‘Probably still is,’ said Lewis. ‘Don’t go there again.’

  ‘I think that may be where the tunnel comes out,’ said Libby. ‘Perhaps not now, but …’

  ‘Quite possible,’ said Edward, frowning. ‘What we need is a geophysics team.’

  ‘That would cost a fortune, and wouldn’t get your research any further,’ said Libby.

  ‘No, but wouldn’t it be fascinating?’ said Edward with a grin. ‘Come on, let’s find this cellar.’ He pulled Lewis’s plan towards him. ‘According to this its entrance is in the inner hall.’

  There were no obvious doors in the inner hall.

  ‘There must be some other way of opening the door,’ said Libby.

  ‘If we had a vague idea of where it was,’ said Fran. ‘There aren’t any handy carvings to pull or push.’

  ‘Have a look, Lewis,’ said Libby. ‘You’ve got an eye for things.’

  ‘Not sure about that,’ said Lewis, but obligingly squinted along the walls, feeling as he went, until he stopped almost next to the outside wall.