Murder Most Fowl

by Lesley Cookman

  ‘I don’t know. I said I’d hand the phone over this evening, so probably.’

  In fact, Ian arrived just as Ben and Libby were leaving the cottage.

  ‘Before we go,’ he said, accepting the phone, ‘let’s just check.’

  He turned on the phone, which immediately began chirruping about saved messages. ‘Have a look,’ he said, handing the phone back to Libby.

  ‘A lot from people I sent that turning off text to… a reminder from the doctor… oh. Look.’

  ‘Unknown number,’ said Ian. ‘No message. How many?’

  ‘Four,’ said Libby, and shivered. ‘Do you think…?’

  ‘Possible,’ said Ian. ‘I’ll send it through – although I doubt if anyone will do anything with it until after tomorrow.’

  ‘I didn’t think you stopped for Christmas,’ said Ben.

  ‘We don’t, but tech support does. Slows down, anyway.’

  Ian sent the number through to the team at Canterbury and kept the phone on and in his pocket all evening. It rang once, but this time the number was withheld. ‘I’m not going to try it,’ he said as loudly as he dared above the boisterous pub crowd. ‘It’ll keep.’

  Peter and an exhausted-looking Harry joined them just as the pub was emptying of the faithful, and demanded an update on the story so far.

  ‘And now, dear heart,’ said Harry, when the story had been told, ‘forget it and enjoy Christmas Day. You know – tinsel, holly, mistletoe, silly hats.’

  And so they did.

  It was about three thirty on Boxing Day morning that Libby sat bolt upright in bed with a loud exclamation. Ben grunted disapprovingly.

  ‘I’ve got it!’ she said. ‘Sorry – did I wake you?’

  ‘What have you got? Indigestion?’ muttered Ben. ‘I’m not surprised.’

  ‘No – I think I’ve worked it out! The turkey murders! Well, part of it, anyway.’

  ‘I don’t see how,’ said Ben with a yawn. ‘Tell me in the morning.’

  But Libby couldn’t wait.

  Downstairs, the sitting room was cold, the fire not having been lit all day, and the heating long since having shut down, but Sidney was delighted to see her. She went to the table in the window and woke up the laptop, then typed in ‘Cheevles Farm’. The website loaded immediately.

  ‘That’s odd,’ she murmured to herself. ‘They should have taken it down by now.’

  But it was still operating. Even the contact form she had filled in herself only last week still worked. Encouraged, she began to go through the various pages, but there was no information that was likely to help. Even the “About Us” page displayed such a paucity of information it was scarcely worth having one.

  ‘What the police need to do is get on to the server,’ she muttered. ‘And I bet I know where it goes.’

  Next, she typed in Carlton Holdings, and as Ben had discovered, that produced little information other than the addresses of the two farms – Castle Farm and Old Minster Farm in Thanet. Other, that was, except for the registered address in London.

  ‘Which nobody will be able to get at until tomorrow, at least, she told Sidney, who by now had squirmed onto her lap. ‘Oh, well.’ She turned off the laptop, dislodged Sidney and stood up. Tomorrow she’d tell Ben what she suspected, and possibly Ian, too. And they’d probably laugh at her.

  Boxing Day. Everyone would gather again at the Manor to eat cold turkey and ham, bubble and squeak and warmed up Christmas pudding. Before they went, however, Libby told Ben of her middle-of-the-night suspicions. He looked dubious.

  ‘You haven’t got much to go on,’ he said. ‘I can’t see it, myself. Besides -’

  ‘I know, I know,’ said Libby. ‘I thought of all that. Anyway, I’m going to tell Ian. If he’s still at the Manor.’

  But Ian wasn’t at the Manor.

  ‘Went out at the crack of sparrer’s,’ said Hetty, expertly carving ham. ‘Work, he said. No breakfast neither.’

  ‘Is he coming back?’ asked Libby.

  Hetty shrugged. ‘Said he’d be back to collect his things, but he didn’t know when.’

  ‘Oh.’ Libby stared morosely at the kitchen table. Ben patted her hand.

  ‘Cheer up. Maybe he’s gone to arrest the turkey murderer.’

  Fran came into the kitchen at that moment, looking thoughtful.

  ‘Libby, where’s Ian gone?’

  ‘We don’t know. Work, he said.’

  ‘Oh – only I had a thought.’

  ‘A thought? Or a “moment”?’

  ‘A thought.’ Fran grinned. ‘Just a plain, ordinary thought. It was after you telling us about the whole Carlton Holdings and Castle Farm thing.’

  Libby looked across at Ben triumphantly. ‘Bet it’s the same thought as mine.’

  ‘She was up at three o’clock this morning testing some theory,’ he told Fran.

  Guy joined them in the kitchen. ‘At least,’ he said to Ben, ‘they aren’t going to go haring off to confront a murderer this time.’

  ‘No,’ said Fran. ‘Not this time.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Libby. ‘I think Ian’s gone to do that.’

  ‘Really?’ said Ben. ‘But you said…’

  ‘If Fran and I both worked it out, you can bet Ian has, too. I expect he told the team in charge and insisted on going too.’

  ‘Where?’ asked Hetty.

  Libby and Fran looked at each other. ‘Bollover Farm,’ they said together.

  ‘Jenny Bright,’ added Libby.

  Ian reappeared as they were finishing lunch and insisted on opening the champagne he brought with him. When they were gathered in the small sitting room, in front of a roaring fire, with the Christmas Tree lights twinkling softly in the background, he smiled at Libby.

  ‘Go on, then, Lib. Tell us what you had worked out.’

  ‘It wasn’t just me,’ said Libby, ‘Fran did, too. So we guessed you had, if we had. And obviously you had.’

  ‘Tell us, then,’ said Hetty. ‘Can’t believe it, meself.’

  ‘We were wondering who had killed Geoff Whitfield before he had time to talk to the police, you see. Jenny Bright said she was going to phone him, but when Ben spoke to him on the afternoon before Christmas Eve, neither the police nor Jenny Bright had been in touch. My guess is that he phoned Jenny to tell her.’

  ‘And according to what Libby said, the only people who knew about him,’ said Fran, ‘were Hetty, Ben, herself and Jenny Bright.’

  ‘And it’s inconceivable that she didn’t know Carlton Holdings were the company behind two farms who were customers of hers. And I wouldn’t mind betting that she has an interest in it herself. Am I warm, Ian?’

  Ian smiled and leant back in his chair. ‘Spot on. Jenny Bright more-or-less is Carlton Holdings. And think about where those two farms are.’

  ‘Smuggling!’ said Libby.

  ‘Both are on old smugglers’ routes, one from Sussex, one through Kent. The rustling and turkey thefts are small beer, really, but there’s an army of small fry who like to keep their hands in.’ ‘Like our first body?’ asked Ben.

  ‘Exactly. Cheevles is a small-scale storage unit. They keep the website to advertise anything they want to launder, basically. But this boy – Ricky Knight, his name was – went into business for himself, just as you suspected. So someone put him out of the way. We aren’t sure who yet, but whoever it was was at Cheevles when Knight turned up and hit him before thinking it through.’

  ‘But Knight had time to speak to me before that happened?” said Libby.

  ‘He must have looked at the website on his phone, and of course he could have picked up your message from anywhere.’

  ‘Where did he live?’ asked Fran.

  Ian smiled. ‘That really clinched it. He lodged with Geoff Whitfield. Who was a little economical with the truth when he said he’d passed the dog on to a young friend. The dog lived with both of them.’

  ‘That bloke Keith I saw at Bollover?’ asked Libby. ‘Was he in on it?’
r />   ‘Yes. He was the one who killed Geoff Whitfield – at Jenny Bright’s instigation, of course. Geoff was in on it, too, of course, as his farm was used as a base of operations. Ms Bright wasn’t too happy about him retiring anyway, so it seemed simpler to put him out of the picture. She also spent a lot of time this morning telling us how stupid he’d been letting Ricky Knight take his dog. He didn’t seem to know it could be traced back to him.’ Ian shook his head. ‘Something that had never occurred to her, either, it seemed.’

  ‘So it was all down to Jeff-dog in the end,’ said Libby, turning an admiring gaze to the collie, who slumbered peacefully at Hetty’s feet in front of the fire.

  Hetty, in her turn, shook her head. ‘Never would have thought it,’ she said. ‘Would have trusted that Jenny and Geoff Whitfield were as honest as the rest of us. You never can tell.’

  ‘And it all began with turkeys,’ said Fran.

  ‘And ended,’ said Libby, ‘as Murder Most Fowl.’