Murder Out of Tune - A Libby Sarjeant Murder Mystery

by Lesley Cookman

  She reached the crossroads at Steeple Martin and drove across and into Allhallow’s Lane. Before she could continue to number seventeen, a familiar figure in a red coat riding a mobility scooter screeched to a halt in front of her. Libby stood on the brakes.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  ‘The police are still hanging around my house.’ Monica Turner thrust her face up to Libby’s window. ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s not your house,’ said Libby wearily. ‘They’re still looking at the churchyard.’

  ‘Why are they in the Close, then?’

  ‘Because that’s the way in, of course.’ Libby glared back and Monica Turner waved her umbrella.

  ‘Don’t you take that tone with me!’ she yelled, spittle forming at the corners of her badly lipsticked mouth.

  ‘And you don’t take that tone with me,’ countered Libby. ‘Who do you think you are?’

  ‘Your better and elder, that’s who!’ The other woman was panting now, and Libby was getting worried about her.

  ‘Look,’ she said more consolingly, ‘they’ll be making an arrest soon, then they’ll be gone. I dare say it’s annoying, but you want them to catch the murderer, don’t you?’

  Monica Turner just stared at her, and Libby began to get worried. To her relief, Bethany Cole suddenly appeared from her blue gate.

  ‘Mrs Turner,’ she said approaching the red-coated fury. ‘I think you’re blocking Mrs Sarjeant’s way. Can I help at all?’

  ‘No.’ Monica Turner swung her scooter sideways, banging Libby’s bumper and nearly running Bethany over. ‘Mind your own business.’

  Libby got out of the car and watched the scooter bumping along the high street towards Maltby Close.

  ‘Thanks, Bethany. I didn’t know quite what to do. Glad she didn’t run you over. Her eyesight’s so bad.’

  Bethany shook her head sadly. ‘I know. I can’t help being quite glad that she doesn’t come to my church.’

  ‘She’s what used to be a typical female churchgoer years ago, isn’t she?’

  Bethany nodded. ‘The sort who would be in love with the vicar.’ She giggled. ‘I was always sorry for those vicars. Well, if you’re sure you’re all right, I’ll go pottering on my vicarly way.’

  ‘Yes, I’m fine, Bethany. Thanks for coming to my rescue.’

  Ben had lit the fire and was sitting on the sofa reading, Sidney curled up on his lap.

  ‘You were a long time,’ he said. ‘Do you want tea?’

  ‘Don’t get up,’ said Libby taking off her latest cape. ‘No, I’ve just had one with Sandra Farrow. And coffee with the Stewarts. Is it past lunchtime?’

  ‘There’s some soup on the Rayburn. I’ve had mine.’

  Libby fetched herself a bowl of soup on a tray, then regaled Ben with the results of her morning’s interviews.

  ‘So there are lot more unsavoury characters than just Vernon Bowling and Derek Chandler,’ said Libby, and stopped, her spoon halfway to her mouth.

  ‘What?’ said Ben. ‘What have you thought of?’

  ‘Something the Stewarts said. They said Bowling was like Chandler only with red hair. What he had of it, they said. So – what if it was the wrong victim? Like in Othello, you know. “Murder’s out of tune”, when Cassio isn’t killed.’

  ‘That’s a bit far-fetched, isn’t it? The whole group had been together. Nobody would have mistaken one for the other.’

  ‘But what if it wasn’t a member of the group? I was thinking that on the way home. Perhaps the police have found something we don’t know about? And Chandler had more reasons for people to murder him, didn’t he? Trying to diddle people out of money?’

  ‘But I thought after Flo blew the whistle they got their money back?’

  ‘That’s true.’ Libby put down her spoon. ‘Bother. But has it occurred to you to wonder why he’s still practising?’

  ‘I thought someone said he was actually cleared?’

  ‘Oh, so they did. Bother again.’ She finished her soup. ‘The thing I was actually thinking about on the way home was that the police have probably found other leads in Bowling’s life, not just the cannabis factory and the ukulele group.’

  ‘I should imagine the uke group was a very small part of his operation,’ said Ben.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Libby gloomily. ‘He probably had contacts all over the place. It started at Dellington, I suppose. Experimenting with all those drugs. Oh, and it wasn’t just cannabis.’

  ‘And he was probably part of a much wider organisation.’ Ben stood up. ‘Time to give it up, I think, don’t you?’

  ‘If I could forget that a member of this bloody drugs cartel bashed me over the head, yes.’

  ‘Which does seem a bit amateurish,’ said Ben. ‘You’d expect professional drugs barons to be a bit more sophisticated.’

  ‘Yes, but it could be someone much lower down. Ron Stewart said if he’d heard of me, so could anyone who lives in the area – someone whom Bowling supplied. Yes – that’s it!’ said Libby excitedly, spilling some soup. ‘One of his customers got into an argument with him – perhaps couldn’t pay him – killed him and then thought I’d find out.’

  ‘It works,’ said Ben. ‘It works better than anything else.’

  ‘In which case, I expect Ian or someone has thought of it and they’re chasing down any customers they can find.’

  ‘I don’t suppose he actually left customer records,’ said Ben, amused.

  ‘No,’ sighed Libby. ‘Oh, well, perhaps Ian will let us know at some point.’

  ‘I doubt it, unless they can prove someone hit you on the head,’ said Ben. ‘Now. Would you like to go to Hal’s tonight? He called and said he’d had a cancellation.’

  ‘Oh, yes, please. Although that’s not really fair, is it? I bet he had a waiting list.’

  ‘Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,’ said Ben. ‘Now you’d better ring your mate and tell her about your morning.’

  Fran was interested but distracted.

  ‘I’m sorry, Lib, it’s frantic in here. Give me a ring tomorrow.’

  ‘Never mind,’ said Ben. ‘Look, how about doing the tree? And we can do Mum’s tomorrow when we go up for lunch.’

  As usual, Sidney was keen to help decorate the tree, which stood on the table in the sitting-room window. Outside, ice began to form in the ruts of the lane and darkness crept in. Behind them, the fire burned and there was the occasional comforting sound of settling ash.

  ‘Nice,’ said Libby eventually, standing back. ‘Very traditional.’

  Ben put his arm round her. ‘And normal. Now let’s have a cup of tea and put our feet up.’

  Harry’s table was free at nine o’clock. When Libby and Ben arrived, Peter was already seated at the big table in the window with a bottle of wine. He beamed and gestured to the other chairs.

  ‘I didn’t expect the best table,’ said Libby, taking off her cape.

  ‘I expect he moved someone,’ said Ben, as Adam came up to take coats. ‘Hi, Ad.’

  Adam gave his mother a kiss. ‘He’s even done you your Pollo Verde. He cooked in the kitchen of the flat.’

  The Pink Geranium was a vegetarian restaurant, so Harry had to keep separate cooking utensils if he was cooking Libby her favourite dish.

  ‘Serve him right if I hadn’t wanted it,’ she said with a grin. ‘Anyone want nachos first?’

  They were well into the first bottle of red wine when Libby’s phone began to ring.

  ‘I’ll switch it off,’ she said, fishing it out of her bag. ‘Oh, no, I must take it. It’s Ian.’

  ‘Where are you,’ he asked, ‘and what have you been doing to poor pensioners?’

  ‘Eh? Pensioners? What are you talking about?’

  ‘A Mrs Monica Turner. She called the station and insisted on speaking to me – making a complaint about you. That’s why she was actually put through to me.’

  ‘A complaint? About me?’ Libby’s voice rose and Peter and Ben flapped hands at her. She stood up and went
out of the door. ‘Honestly, Ian, that’s rich. You ask Bethany Cole. Monica Turner is lethal on that mobility scooter – she practically caused a crash today.’ She told him what had happened. ‘So why was she complaining about me?’

  Ian sounded amused. ‘Apparently you’re to blame for all the disturbance in the village, including the murder.’

  ‘I know – she told me that, too. Honestly, Ian, the woman’s batty. Oh – and we’re in the caff. Harry had a cancellation.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Ian, now sounding wistful.

  ‘Have you finished at work? Why don’t you come and join us? It is on the way home, isn’t it? We’ll wait for our main courses until you get here.’

  ‘I don’t think I should be eating with such rogues and vagabonds,’ said Ian, ‘but it sounds too good to miss. See you in twenty minutes.’

  Libby returned to the table looking smug. ‘He’s joining us,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t pump him,’ said Ben.

  ‘Poor bloke,’ said Peter.

  Another bottle of wine had already made its way on to the table by the time Ian arrived.

  ‘Do you realise we only ever see you in a suit?’ said Libby as he sat down. ‘Do you ever wear anything else?’

  ‘When I’m off duty.’ Ian cocked an eye at her. ‘And I’m never off duty when I’m with you.’

  Libby pulled down the corners of her mouth. ‘That makes me sound like a suspect.’

  ‘What you get up to is often suspect,’ countered Ian.

  ‘Stop bickering, you two,’ said Peter. ‘Will you have just one glass of wine, Ian?’

  Ian laughed. ‘Yes, please. Then I’ll stick to water. Are you waiting for me?’

  ‘Yes!’ said Harry appearing at the table. ‘So get on with it.’

  ‘Charm itself,’ said Ian, grinning up at him. ‘Quesadillas de hongo, please.’

  ‘So is there anything you can tell us?’ asked Libby when Harry had gone and Ian’s glass was filled.

  ‘Not much. Have you got anything to tell me?’

  Libby looked at Ben and Peter. ‘Might have. But I expect you know it all anyway.’

  Ian sighed. ‘What have you been doing?’

  ‘Andrew took me with him to see Dr Robinson yesterday – as a sort of apology. then they met in the pub last night to discuss it – the uke group, I mean – and I met them there. And Ron Stewart asked me to look into the murder.’

  ‘He what?’

  Libby nodded. ‘And then the others said they thought not. So Stewart offered to do a solo spot in the concert –’

  ‘Whoa, steady. I’m not following this. Apology for what?’

  ‘Andrew’s dropped them from the concert. Under the circumstances.’

  ‘Very sensible,’ said Ian. ‘And you say Stewart’s offered to go on instead?’

  ‘More or less. But really he wanted to talk to me. So I went to see him this morning.’

  ‘Really.’ Ian looked sceptical. ‘More than he did with me.’

  ‘Well, yes. That’s why he wanted … well, he told me quite a lot of things. But I expect you know all about them.’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘Denise,’ said Libby. ‘You know about her?’

  ‘Ye-es,’ said Ian cautiously. ‘What do you know about her?’

  ‘She knew about the factory and is a drug user.’

  ‘Yes, we knew that. Even if we hadn’t already suspected it, the minute she was taken to hospital it was confirmed.

  ‘Oh.’ Libby looked at the table, unsure whether she should go on.

  ‘Did Stewart talk about any of his fellow members of the group?’ Ian prompted gently.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I expect we do know, but tell me anyway.’

  ‘Derek Chandler and Eric Robinson.’

  ‘Robinson?’ Ian’s eyebrows rose. ‘Now, we hadn’t heard that.’

  ‘There was something else, too.’ Libby had grown pink. She wasn’t actually enjoying this.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Libby,’ Ben broke in, ‘I don’t think this is quite the right time and place for this. Can’t it wait until after we’ve eaten?’

  Ian smiled apologetically. ‘My fault, sorry, Ben. No more – er – shop.’

  Libby was unnaturally quiet throughout the meal, until her three friends took pity on her. The restaurant was emptying now, and Ben suggested they move to the sofa and chairs in the other window. Adam brought coffee and went off to commune with the PhD student, and Harry joined them, still in his checkered chef’s trousers.

  ‘This is to go no further,’ said Ian, ‘whatever it is Libby’s heard. So what was it, Libby?’

  ‘Gossip. The Stewarts heard that Robinson had been accused of – um – abuse. By his wife. They heard that his colleagues had covered up for him in a previous incident, and that Chandler got the new accusation hushed up.’

  ‘Domestic abuse? The police don’t always get involved,’ said Ian.

  ‘They did say it was only gossip,’ said Libby, ‘but Maria Stewart and Sandra Farrow went to the same WI as Veronica Robinson, and then Veronica stopped going.’

  ‘But we interviewed Robinson and his wife together,’ said Ian, frowning. ‘Why is she still there if this is true?’

  Libby shrugged. ‘In the same way that all beaten wives stay with their husbands?’

  ‘Possibly.’ Ian picked up his coffee cup. ‘Any other bombshells to drop?’

  ‘Chandler and Robinson were users,’ said Libby, eyeing him warily. ‘And it was more than cannabis.’

  ‘Robinson, too?’ Ian sighed. ‘Stewart told you all this?’

  ‘Yes, because he was one too, and he said Vernon knew all the secrets.’

  ‘They all had a hold over each other. No wonder one of them killed him.’

  ‘Do you think that’s it, then?’ said Ben.

  ‘Looks like it,’ said Ian. ‘But there are other avenues of inquiry.’

  ‘People not in the ukulele group?’ said Libby. ‘Relatives of the Dellington victims?’

  Ian smiled. ‘You know I can’t tell you anything, Libby.’

  ‘Could you tell us about the murder weapon? Seeing that it might be the same thing that hit me?’

  Ian shrugged. ‘I would if I could, but we can only guess. There was a piece of decorative stone obviously missing from one of the graves, and traces were – er found.’

  ‘In the wound?’ said Libby. ‘So it was opportunistic, then.’

  ‘That’s complete speculation, Libby.’

  ‘But quite valid,’ said Libby. ‘Nothing else you can tell us?’

  ‘You know I can’t. I only let you in on what you already know about.’

  ‘And get help from me!’ said Libby huffily.

  They all laughed.

  ‘Poor old trout,’ said Harry. ‘Have a brandy.’

  Chapter Thirty-five

  ‘All the same,’ said Libby, as she and Ben walked home, ‘I was surprised that Ian didn’t seem to know about Robinson.’

  ‘He knew about Chandler being a user, though,’ said Ben. ‘When you told him, he said “Robinson, too,” so he must have known about Chandler.’

  ‘They’ll find evidence, won’t they? DNA or something. I expect they weren’t looking before. And bother! I forgot to ask about Gary and Patrick.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The boys who worked for Mike and got Vernon Bowling’s heating and ventilation system for him. At least, I think they got it. They researched it, anyway.’

  ‘Ah. And as for DNA, I expect they’re still waiting for results. It takes a long time, doesn’t it?’

  ‘But it’s three weeks since the murder! That’s ages. And the other thing I wanted to ask was did Bowling and Chandler look alike.’

  Ben looked amused. ‘You know, I don’t think Cassio and Roderigo looked alike in Othello.’

  ‘Oh, you know what I meant – the wrong man was murdered.’

  ‘In Othello’s eyes, yes.’

  ‘I wonder if t
here’s anything in that?’ mused Libby. ‘If someone was paid to kill Chandler and got Bowling by mistake?’

  ‘I know it’s possible, but it’s rather far fetched, isn’t it?’

  ‘You don’t know it wasn’t like that!’ Libby was indignant. ‘He was mixed up in drugs. It could have been someone from that world. Easily.’

  ‘All right, of course it could.’ Ben hugged her. ‘Now let’s get home and have a nice cup of cocoa.’

  Libby dug him in the ribs.

  On Sunday morning Libby rang Fran and filled her in on everything that had happened the previous day.

  ‘There’s something very wrong about all this,’ said Fran when she’d finished.

  ‘What do you mean, wrong? Of course it’s wrong! It’s murder.’

  ‘No. It just feels wrong.’

  ‘Are you having a moment?’ asked Libby after a pause.

  ‘I think I might be,’ said Fran, ‘which is good in a way, because I’m out of practice.’

  ‘So what can you see?’

  ‘Nothing. It’s just a knowing. I’ve told you before, I seem to know things as fact without any basis for them. And this feels wrong.’

  ‘But wrong in what way?’ asked Libby, exasperated. ‘The wrong man? The wrong murder? What?’

  ‘All of that. Almost as though we – or the police – should be investigating something entirely different.’

  ‘Well, that will please Ian,’ said Libby. ‘He was going off to look into the Robinson case today, although I still think it was odd that he didn’t know about it before.’

  ‘If there was no formal complaint it wouldn’t appear in the files,’ said Fran, ‘and Chandler could easily have had someone in his pocket in the force, couldn’t he?’

  ‘Another user, perhaps? Oh, dear, now we’re building fantasy clouds again, as Ben would say.’

  ‘Speaking of Ben, are you off to Hetty’s for lunch?’

  ‘Of course. She’d be devastated if we didn’t go. Why?’

  ‘I wondered if Flo and Lenny were going?’

  ‘No idea. They do sometimes, but again – why?’

  ‘I –’ Fran stopped. ‘Do you know, I’ve no idea either.’

  ‘You are having a moment. Or several.’ Libby did a bounce of excitement. ‘This hasn’t happened for ages. What do you think it means?’