Murder in Abbot's Folly

by Amy Myers

  Georgia waited until Luke had beaten a discreet retreat through the back door, from which he could reach the safety of his office, and then she went to the front door. Luke’s ‘pretty agitated’ was an understatement. Dora was white and trembling, her face ashen against the pale brown of her dress and jacket.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Georgia asked in alarm.

  ‘I need to tell you something, Georgia. Please. I know I can speak freely to you.’

  Only so far, Georgia thought. She might be obliged to tell Mike, and of course Peter, but there was no point in scaring Dora still further by telling her so.

  ‘I can’t talk to Gerald,’ Dora said, following Georgia into the Medlars living room. She looked around at its comfortable chairs and old sofa, and remarked pathetically, ‘I like this room. So comforting. You are so lucky.’

  ‘I know,’ Georgia murmured awkwardly. ‘Can I get you some coffee?’

  This was waved aside. ‘No thank you. I mustn’t be long because Gerald doesn’t know I’ve come. I have something to confess, and I know you’ll understand. It’s how we women work. But you see I should have told the police . . .’

  ‘About the tunnel?’ Georgia asked gently. ‘We’ve already passed that on to them.’

  Words came tumbling out. ‘No, it was telling you about that and realizing how I should have spoken before that meant I simply didn’t have the courage to tell you or the police. But today at the funeral Laura spoke to me and I knew I must. So I’m here.’

  ‘So what is it?’ Mad scenarios rushed through Georgia’s mind and were dismissed.

  ‘That day . . . that awful day. The Gala. What I told the police wasn’t quite true, though I meant it to be. But somehow it didn’t come out as I intended. When I saw Laura that afternoon she was so upset. She hoped I wouldn’t mind too much.’ Dora stopped and looked at Georgia in appeal.

  ‘About what?’ Georgia prompted her.

  ‘She’d definitely decided that she wasn’t going to let Stourdens be commercialized. She said she’d agreed with the plans because Roy and Tim were so enthusiastic and Jennifer too was in favour, and she too could see the advantages, but she no longer did so. There – I’ve told you.’ Dora looked piteously at her. ‘She said that at four o’clock Roy was going to make her apologies for her non-appearance, but her decision was final.’

  The enormity of this disclosure made Georgia forget about discretion. Roy had implied that Laura would make the announcement when she felt she was well enough. In other words, no change to the expected news of great things afoot for Stourdens. ‘But why on earth didn’t you tell the police at the time?’

  ‘Well,’ Dora faltered, ‘I talked to Tim after Roy had spoken, and he said Laura was always changing her mind and had swung to and fro for ages on the question of how to save Stourdens. And so I wasn’t to worry about it. And then we heard that she’d been killed and I forgot all about it.’

  ‘Then why are you so worried now?’

  ‘Because it isn’t true,’ Dora said miserably. ‘She had been unsure about it, that’s true enough, but once she had made the decision that would be the end of it. Laura would never go back on something as definite as that. Not Laura.’

  NINE

  Georgia hadn’t envied Dora her meeting with DI Newton the next morning. She had hoped Mike might have intervened, but there was no sign of him at Charing HQ. Dora had made Georgia promise to come with her, which showed a pathetic faith in the Marshes’ powers, and Georgia was waiting with Gerald for her to be released from Newton’s tender mercies. At last she emerged, and Georgia’s heart sank when she saw her white face. She had clearly not been given an easy ride. Dora rushed straight into Gerald’s arms.

  ‘I said it all, just as you said I should,’ she assured Georgia.

  Not that that would have done her much good with Newton on her case, Georgia thought, but she soothingly replied, ‘You did the right thing.’ She saw Diane Newton leaving the interview room and her expression confirmed her fears, although even Newton could surely not seriously be thinking of Dora as a suspect. She wouldn’t have the courage to take a gun in her hands, let alone fire one. Gerald might be a different matter, however, although Georgia could think of no possible motive for his wanting to murder Laura. Because she’d said she was going to abandon the plans for Stourdens? That seemed unlikely, even if Dora and Gerald hankered after Edgar House being included in them. Certainly, the Clackingtons seemed all for promoting Jane Austen, but murdering opponents who got in their way would hardly be their style. Not in a million years.

  Dora’s confession would be relevant to the police investigation, however, and the victim’s family would surely be Newton’s first port of call. Assuming it to be true, had they all known about Laura’s change of heart or only Tim? The likelihood was that they all had, but they could well deny it, or claim, as Tim apparently had, that Laura was always swinging back and forth through indecision. Nevertheless, it could explain the family’s being so obviously at odds with each other at the Gala, as well as the uneasiness between Tim and Jennifer. Georgia steeled herself to face the unwelcome fact that Jennifer might have been fully in the picture, and yet somehow she could not believe it.

  Dora insisted to Georgia that she and Gerald offer her lunch, which she could hardly refuse although it entailed a long account of the houses that Elena might or might not buy. It was late afternoon by the time Georgia reached the office, and Peter was impatient to see her.

  ‘Beware the Greeks bearing gifts,’ he cried immediately she came in.

  ‘Depends what the gift is.’ Judging by his face it was good news though.

  ‘Tim Wilson rang me before I could get on the blower to him. Anxious, would you say? A little call from the police?’

  Peter still looked suspiciously happy.

  ‘What was the gift?’ she asked again.

  ‘Tim suggested we might like to see the tunnel, now the police have finished with it. You, that is; I won’t be able to make it.’

  She braced herself now that the moment had come – in the worst possible way. Tim would be in charge. ‘Will just walking along it add much though? We already know Amelia could have used it and possibly Tanner too.’

  Peter glared at her. ‘Don’t you want to see it?’

  ‘I suppose I should.’

  ‘Then enjoy it. You’re booked in for Saturday morning. Our Mr Wilson says they need a day or two to recover from the funeral.’

  ‘And no doubt from the police visit they’ll have had today. Are you coming?’

  ‘Not necessary now.’ Peter looked smug. ‘I’ve had my few words with Mr Wilson about his interesting parentage.’

  ‘On the phone?’ That was unusual. Anything important and Peter liked to see the whites of their eyes.

  ‘No. Amazing thing. The one word “mother” made him decide he needed to dash right over here.’

  ‘Was that wise?’ She frowned. Peter was physically vulnerable, and there was a murderer at large.

  ‘No risk. You knew about it too.’

  ‘He admits to being Max Tanner’s son then?’

  ‘Yes. Never met his father – not since he was two years old, anyway. No idea what’s happened to him. His mother’s happily remarried to David Wilson, who is a loving stepfather. A happy-ever-after story.’

  ‘Especially as Tim’s wound up engaged to the heir of Stourdens.’

  ‘A poisoned chalice, don’t you think, in its present state of health?’

  ‘Chance or design?’

  ‘You mean his meeting Jennifer? A bit of both, I’m told. His background is PR in London; he met her, dated her, fell in love with her, then heard about Stourdens. Name rang a faint bell. Mentioned it to Mum – and found out the story about his father. Got him curious.’

  ‘Odd that he hadn’t looked it up before.’

  ‘He had. Just forgot the name Stourdens. Only Abbot’s Folly rang a bell.’

  ‘If Stourdens was in a healthy financial state, I’d say that wa
s a fantasy, but as it isn’t, the story’s credible. And the tunnel?’ she asked. ‘Did Laura tell him about it?’

  ‘That, dear daughter, is for you to discover.’

  Georgia arrived at Stourdens with a sense of anticipation, even though the anorak and jeans donned ready for tunnel exploration did not exactly make her feel like Jane Austen arriving for a morning call.

  ‘Hi.’ It was Jennifer who opened the door. ‘Welcome to Dissension City.’ She pulled a face. ‘Sorry, it’s not the happiest place in the world at present.’

  The house seemed to reflect that. As Jennifer led her through, Georgia was more aware on this occasion of the cracks in the walls, the pail that stood significantly under an ornate ceiling and the smell of damp that met her nostrils from a corridor to their left.

  Jennifer led her to the same comfortable, shabby living room where they had talked before. This time Roy and Tim were both present, rising like a formal reception party to greet her.

  Georgia decided to treat it as such. ‘It’s very good of you to let me see the tunnel.’

  ‘Better you should see it, rather than have garbled stories getting into print,’ Roy remarked ungraciously.

  ‘Daddy!’ Jennifer looked at him reproachfully, but Georgia was used to this attitude.

  ‘They won’t,’ was all she said.

  ‘So you’re going ahead with this book of yours on Bob Luckhurst?’

  ‘Still looking into it,’ she replied steadily. ‘Even though we realize it must be painful for you.’

  ‘Before our time,’ he said dismissively. ‘It’s old history to us, so investigate all you like, provided you’re not poking around on Jennifer and Tim’s wedding day, or barging into the film shoot.’

  Georgia saw Jennifer flinch. Avoid the direct answer. ‘I gather the wedding’s on the seventeenth of September. Is the filming still the last week of August?’

  ‘Begins on the twenty-third at Edgar House for a couple of days, then moves here.’

  Jennifer did not comment, and Georgia saw Tim glance anxiously at her.

  Roy cleared his throat. ‘It’s been a hard decision whether to go ahead with the film but we’ve decided to do it. And so –’ a touch of defiance – ‘we shall with the plans for Stourdens. Nothing too showy though, and we’ll do it gradually instead of making the great announcement to the world.’

  Georgia decided to plunge right in. ‘Even though there’s new evidence that your wife changed her mind about it?’

  Roy’s face darkened, and Tim quickly stepped in. ‘Dora Clackington is hardly the most reliable witness in the world, Georgia. You were quite right that she should tell the police about it, but it’s made things difficult for us, as only we know what the true position was.’

  ‘The police have to follow it up just in case, but it’s hard on you,’ Georgia replied.

  ‘Why do they have to?’ Roy said sourly. ‘Do they think we were all so shocked to hear my wife had changed her mind again that we rushed out and murdered her? A somewhat overdramatic reaction to a family argument, wouldn’t you agree?’

  Diffuse this quickly, Georgia thought, especially as he was implying that there had indeed been such an argument. ‘A tough decision for you over going ahead with your plans, especially where other people’s financial futures might depend on it.’

  Tim shot her a shrewd look, as if reassessing some earlier conclusion, but it was Roy who replied. ‘None of your business. It doesn’t affect the Luckhurst investigation. Or who killed my wife.’ Having made his point, he continued, ‘We can’t vet every maniac who attends the Gala and takes it into their head to kill someone at random.’

  ‘Having brought a gun with them?’

  ‘That is possible, Georgia,’ Tim said gently.

  He was right, but only partly. ‘This particular maniac would have a problem first in finding Laura in the house, then in persuading her to walk to Abbot’s Retreat, possibly by a tunnel which hardly anyone knew existed.’ She had nearly added, ‘Except you, Tim,’ but held it back. She was in the enemy camp and preferred neutral ground. She was aware she’d already gone too far.

  ‘There are references to the tunnel in the archives,’ Roy said icily. ‘And I believe you’re here to see it for yourself.’

  Tim took his cue. ‘Shall we go, Georgia?’

  So the tour was to be just with him. Just with him? A stab of irrational fear hit her, but common sense reasserted itself. Too many people knew where she was and who was with her, so if Tim had any intention of harming her it would not be by physical means but by intimidation. There she could hold her own.

  Georgia had imagined the tunnel leading off from perhaps a library, with its entrance disguised as books and bookshelves. Instead, Tim led her to the far end of the house along the corridor from which the damp smell had emanated.

  ‘The old kitchens were in a separate single-storey wing at this end,’ Tim explained. ‘In the eighteenth century when that was built there would have been an open corridor to link it to the house, but that was filled in when the Luckhursts took over from the Edgars a century later. Here’s the tunnel opening.’ He stopped by a doorway that looked identical to several others. ‘The door used to fasten back to disguise the tunnel beyond it.’

  When he opened it, however, Georgia could see nothing but a solid wall.

  ‘False,’ Tim said.

  Georgia was fascinated – and somewhat scared – when Tim fiddled with a catch of some sort and the plain ‘wall’ opened towards them revealing to her surprise not a tunnel but another wall or door with a naked Venus painted in oils on it. Whatever portion of her anatomy was misused as a catch, the goddess obligingly swung herself open at Tim’s touch.

  ‘I’ll go first, shall I?’ Tim said, handing her one of the two heavy torches he carried. Then he began to descend the steps.

  There must be substantial cellars under Stourdens, and in the direction they would be heading Georgia guessed they would soon be at the old kitchens themselves. Any self-respecting tunnel would therefore have been dug much deeper than that level, or else it would wind amongst the various kitchen storerooms and cellars. The latter, she decided, as the steps ended sooner than she had expected, and a narrow curving passageway lay ahead, judging by the uncertain light of her torch.

  ‘As you can guess, the police gave this a thorough going over,’ Tim’s voice echoed in front of her.

  A stupid question, but relevant: ‘Is the tunnel safe?’

  He laughed, as though this gave him some kind of victory. ‘Yes, but not insured. Too expensive. We’ll wait until we open it up for the tourists.’

  That struck an unpleasantly overconfident note. ‘Surely Laura learned of its existence in time to get it checked out?’

  A pause. ‘Yes. She was a nervous woman, and it hadn’t been opened in a quarter of a century at least.’

  ‘Why not, if you and the Fettises knew about it?’

  ‘As I’m sure you know through your police contacts, she – we – assumed it had fallen in long ago and that in any case it could have been just an unfounded story.’

  ‘And what changed Laura’s mind?’

  He was ready for that. ‘I did. Through my mother, who, as you doubtless know, was Esther Tanner. Amelia Luckhurst said nothing about it to Laura, but my mother knew it was in good condition at the time the house was sold. It sounded fun to me so Laura and I had a hunt for it, not long after I met Jenny. We found the opening, and Laura said that some day she would get it surveyed and restored. I never dreamed she had done so. Just shows how keen she was on keeping Stourdens going as a tourist attraction.’

  Checkmate, Georgia thought ruefully. Tim was clever. No doubt about that. But if the tunnel was now safe, work had been done – and the whole family must have noticed. She shivered. Now was not the time to take this further.

  She changed the subject brightly. ‘Was it used as a smugglers’ tunnel?’

  ‘I doubt it. From what I’ve been told about the Mad Abbot, I don’t
see him as a village benefactor distributing smuggled goods to the needy. Careful,’ he added as she stumbled behind him.

  The arching roof of the tunnel seemed solid enough but was so close to her head that she kept wanting to duck. The floor was gravelled but concreted in parts, which suggested some kind of maintenance had been carried out, but the damp mustiness made her long for fresh air.

  ‘Does it just continue like this?’ she asked. If so, it was uninteresting compared with other tunnels. No gruesome or erotic figures were painted on the walls, and there was no sign of temples or grottoes.

  ‘No. There’s a turn ahead,’ Tim shouted back to her.

  She calculated they must be beyond the cellar area now, because the tunnel turned sharply to the right and, to her relief, widened. She felt tension draining away, perhaps because there seemed to be more air now.

  Relief was short-lived. ‘Tell me,’ Tim said, his voice echoing in the dark because he had drawn ahead of the range of her torchlight, ‘doesn’t it get you down, investigating murders all the time?’

  What was his game? If he was deliberately winding her up, he was succeeding all too easily.

  ‘Sometimes it does,’ she said steadily – or so she thought, but she could hear the tremble in her voice. ‘But any job gets one down sometimes. Doesn’t yours?’

  ‘No man is an island, is that it?’

  ‘It is,’ she whipped back. ‘What about Robert Luckhurst’s murder, for instance? Didn’t the fact that it took place at Stourdens affect you? And now Laura’s too?’

  ‘Only Laura’s. Luckhurst’s death is just a story like the Mad Abbot’s. Gone. Past. Why should it be otherwise?’

  She braced herself, remembering that Tim was a control freak. ‘Because your father claimed he was innocent.’

  ‘He was.’ Tim stopped so suddenly that she cannoned into him.

  ‘What makes you think so?’ She could hear his breathing at her side. If she stepped back too far, she yielded power in any battle of wits, but he was blocking the way forward. He laughed, but there was no humour in his voice.