Murder on the Run

by Lesley Cookman

  ‘No,’ said Libby thoughtfully, watching the police cars driving off in the direction of Canterbury. ‘Even her Irish accent wasn’t convincing.’

  ‘She kept forgetting to use it,’ said Harry. ‘Come on, let’s go into the caff. You look as if you could do with a glass of something. Is that all right, officer?’

  DC Turnbull nodded. ‘And DCI Connell knows where to find you if he needs to, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Libby with a sigh. ‘Always.’

  Libby and Ben ate at the pub that evening, joined by Peter and Harry. Guy and Fran drove up from Nethergate with Adam and Sophie, and Ian had promised that if he could, he would call in on his way home. Much to everyone’s surprise he arrived earlier than usual and ordered champagne.

  ‘What are we celebrating?’ Libby asked, eyeing the bottle suspiciously.

  ‘The resolution of a very nasty case,’ said Ian. ‘Aspects of which we managed to keep from you, I’m afraid to say.’

  ‘Oh. And now will you tell us what was going on?’

  ‘As much as I can. Where would you like me to start? The end, or the beginning.’

  ‘When you and Libby both realised that Faith Conway was really Derek Samuels’ sister,’ said Ben. ‘That took a leap of faith, if you’ll pardon the pun.

  ‘The woman calling herself Faith Conway never left this pub, so to hear that she was getting into a car driven by a man, when she claimed not to know anyone, was suspicious. We checked that it wasn’t Andrew Wylie, but Mrs Dory described the man as big and with very dark, greying hair.’

  ‘Nick Heap,’ said Sophie, wide-eyed.

  ‘As far as we can make out, Nick Heap, who, of course, was Rowena Samuels’ nephew, had discovered the tunnels at Notbourne, including the so-called chapel, or “dining room”, as described in the archives. He had access to a lot of archive material, including some passed on to Rowena’s parents when they inherited the estate, and, of course, he knew all about the so-called Hellfire Club, including the fact that the Lord Cheveley who tried to sell off the estate was continuing the tradition.’

  ‘We guessed that,’ said Fran.

  ‘So, Heap, who had connections to all sorts of different spheres of society, shall we say, began to set it up again. Some of the “amusements” on offer, often conducted in a pseudo-religious manner, were, quite frankly, appalling. Young people, particularly very fit young people –’

  ‘Ballet dancers,’ breathed Libby.

  ‘Runners,’ said Sophie.

  Ian nodded. ‘And several circus performers – not just human – were recruited. And it was lucrative. A few people died –’ there was a gasp from his audience ‘– but it was all hushed up. What we gather, although he isn’t saying much yet, is that Nick Heap recruited Lisa while she was still living in Canterbury and persuaded her to become, quite literally, the gatekeeper at Chestnut Cottage.

  ‘Although he claimed to know nothing about her, she had recruited Roly, too, which was why he was so frightened. Sadly, he’d been tempted into the whole sex games part of the operation, and, of course, his job in financial services brought him into contact with people who could become – er – clients. But he’d become wary and suspicious, and when Lisa disappeared he guessed part of what had happened, although he didn’t know why.’

  ‘And why was it?’ asked Fran.

  ‘A lot of what Denise Samuels – the mock Faith Conway – told us was true. Rowena had searched for Faith and found her. They had become very friendly and Rowena was determined to hand the estate back to the family. Then she became suspicious about what was going on behind her back and came down to find out for herself. She actually told Faith about it, saying she would be in touch when she got back, but of course she didn’t get back.

  ‘Heap was furious that his aunt by marriage was going to take his lucrative and highly illegal business away from him and probably put him inside for a good proportion of his life, so he killed her and put her in the freezer at Maple Cottage while he figured out what to do.’

  ‘Good God,’ said Guy.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So where does Lisa Harwood come into it?’asked Peter.

  ‘Faith Conway, just as we were told, came over to find out what had happened because she hadn’t heard from Rowena. So Heap had to kill her, too. He hid her in the chapel, and, of course, Lisa, who had access to it, found her. Although we don’t know for sure, we think she challenged him on the morning of the Nethergate 5K. He had a ready supply of energy drinks – they were used in his, er, ceremonies at the chapel, as were other drugs, along with other things, and he knew Lisa would never touch them because of her condition. I think he expected her to die out there on the cliffside, but she didn’t, so he had to get her away very quickly.’

  ‘Why was she dumped here, though?’ asked Libby.

  ‘Again, as far as we can tell, because he hasn’t told us in so many words, he had one body in Maple Cottage and another not far from Chestnut Cottage. He knew Chestnut would become a focus for investigation when Lisa disappeared, so after a week of keeping her in his boot, he brought her here. He even tried to get into your new car park that night,’ he said to Ben and Libby. Libby turned a pale shade of green.

  ‘How was Lisa paid? And did she know about the other deaths? You said there’ve been deaths,’ asked Fran.

  ‘I imagine we’re going to find that Nick Heap was raking it in. And of course, he had so much blackmail material, it would have kept him going for years. I don’t think she knew the full extent of the operation, but she obviously began to suspect. And she was obviously one of the women on offer.’

  ‘But what about the Samuels woman?’asked Harry. ‘Heap’s mother. Why was she involved?’

  ‘They – because they were both involved – knew a lot about the estate, but not everything. They also knew that Rowena had handed control to a firm of solicitors, who didn’t take any hands-on control, but who had instructions to put in hand the transfer to Mrs Conway. So there had to be a Mrs Conway. And in order to establish her credentials and fill in any gaps in her knowledge, she went to Maidstone Archives and – well, you know the rest. Her son had given her the hire car documents, but not her passport or driving licence, because the picture looked nothing like Denise Samuels and they didn’t have the time to do anything about that. They were still with the body when we found her.’

  There was a short silence after he finished and topped up their glasses.

  ‘That’s one of the nastiest we’ve been mixed up with,’ said Libby eventually. She looked at Fran. ‘And you knew there was something right at the start.’

  ‘I wish I’d known what, though,’ said Fran, peering gloomily into her glass.

  Guy patted her hand. ‘Just be grateful that sometimes it helps.’

  ‘You both did,’ said Ian, raising his glass.

  ‘And what about poor little Roly?’ asked Harry.

  ‘He had been recruited by Lisa, who told him never to have the drinks, because he had a similar condition to her own, and that was the first thing that raised his suspicions. He didn’t dare say anything because he was under Heap’s eye both as a Harrier and one of the “amusements”, and he had seen what happened on occasions in the ceremonies. He was scared stiff, and tried to draw attention to the whole thing by his phone calls to Libby. Then, when she seemed to have got the message, he got even more terrified and went to ground. We’d have found him eventually – he’d made himself a den in the grounds of the estate.’

  ‘Why didn’t he get right away?’ asked Peter with a frown. ‘Why stay in the area?’

  ‘Because he thought if we were looking for him, he’d be found and then Heap would find him. Besides, in his weird way, he still wanted to draw attention to Heap and the Abbey of Notbourne. And then, earlier today, he went down into the chapel from Chestnut Cottage and found Faith Conway’s body.’

  ‘How did he get in there? We couldn’t make it open,’ said Libby.

  ‘Again, we would have don
e eventually. There was a concealed mechanism – quite common.’

  ‘And why hadn’t he been down there before now?’

  ‘He was scared of being found. Today he was getting desperate, and when he saw us he decided he’d have to go for it. He didn’t expect to find a body, though.’

  ‘What will happen to him?’ asked Fran.

  ‘He hasn’t committed any crimes except officially breaking and entering,’ said Ian. ‘We don’t know what went on during the ceremonies – or rather, we do, as they kept recordings of a lot of them –’ a concerted expression of disgust rose from the company ‘– but I doubt we could recognise any individuals. At the moment, he’s in hospital, currently refusing to see his parents.’

  ‘Oh, poor people,’ said Libby.

  ‘I expect he’s ashamed,’ said Ben.

  ‘Those tubs,’ said Fran. ‘What about them?’

  ‘Ian said they were just decoration,’ said Libby.

  ‘Sadly they weren’t,’ said Ian. ‘They were covering several graves.’

  There was another mass exclamation of disgust.

  ‘We haven’t uncovered everything yet, by any means,’ he went on, ‘and I don’t think you would particularly want to hear about any of it, so I’ll get someone to take official statements tomorrow and that will be the end of it. Thank you again, for your help, and where’s Edward?’

  ‘Gone to stay with Andrew. We’ll give them the good news – if it is good news – tomorrow,’ said Libby.

  ‘And meanwhile,’ Ian said, ‘please don’t believe either Libby or Fran when they say they won’t get involved any more.’

  The End

  Other titles in the Libby Sarjeant Series

  by

  Lesley Cookman

  For more information on Lesley Cookman

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  Published by Accent Press Ltd 2016

  ISBN 9781682994719

  Copyright © Lesley Cookman 2016

  The right of Lesley Cookman to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  The story contained within this book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publishers: Accent Press Ltd, Ty Cynon House, Navigation Park, Abercynon, CF45 4SN