‘Oh, yeah, fine,’ said Lewis. ‘Just let me know soon as, eh?’ He stood up. ‘Come on, Ad, I’d better get back to Miss Droopy Drawers.’
‘Is that Cindy Dale?’
‘Yeah. You must come over and meet her, Lib. I’d got quite the wrong idea about everything, you know, and I think the public had when all that business blew up.’
‘I thought you wanted to talk to me today,’ said Libby. ‘That was one of the reasons I asked you out here.’
‘You don’t want me to take on this house?’ Lewis looked puzzled.
‘Yes, of course, but –’
‘Not the right time now, anyway,’ said Lewis. ‘Tomorrow.’
‘All right,’ said Libby, with a quick look at Ben, who gazed studiously out of the window. ‘Perhaps tomorrow morning. Oh, and you said you wanted to go to Harry’s restaurant, didn’t you? How about the four of us go tomorrow evening. Ben? Would that be OK?’
Ben smiled and nodded. ‘We could talk about this place, couldn’t we?’ he said craftily.
‘Great,’ said Lewis, beaming. ‘Tell me what time when you come over in the morning.’ He stopped on his way to the door and looked serious. ‘You will come, won’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Libby, ‘I’ll come.’
Surprisingly, Ben had no objections. Throughout the evening they talked about Steeple Farm and what it could be like. Ben’s memories of it as a child were vague, but very much as a typical country farmhouse.
‘The only room I remember being different was the sitting room,’ he said at one point. ‘Millie must have persuaded my uncle to let her decorate it. It had silver embossed wallpaper on the chimney breast and bamboo paper in the recesses. I think she boarded up the fireplace and put in a gas fire.’
‘It hasn’t changed much now,’ said Libby. ‘Except the wallpaper’s different and there’s a television in front of the fireplace.’
‘It’s a pity,’ said Ben, ‘that we didn’t get together sooner. It would have been a wonderful place to bring up children.’
‘If we’d got together sooner Millie would still be at Steeple Farm,’ said Libby, ‘but I see what you mean. I said that to Adam this afternoon. It was the sort of place I dreamt about when I was a girl reading horsey books.’
‘Didn’t you dream about places like The Manor?’ said Ben.
‘No, they weren’t homely enough. In the books I read, they always belonged to the snotty family with the daughter who won everything at the Pony Club competitions and came a cropper in the end.’
‘That was our Susan, then,’ laughed Ben, ‘although you wouldn’t have said we were a snotty family, would you?’
‘Not with your mother,’ grinned Libby, ‘anything but.’
The following morning Adam went off in the Renault and Ben lent Libby the Land Rover.
‘It’s really not difficult to drive,’ he said. ‘Just remember there are more gears than your car has.’
Libby looked down nervously from the driving seat. ‘It seems very high,’ she said.
‘Then you can see over hedges,’ grinned Ben. ‘Go on, off you go. I’ll see you later.’
‘Will you book a table for tonight and ring me so I can tell Lewis?’
‘Yes,’ said Ben with a sigh. ‘Now stop dithering and go.’
Libby drove slowly and carefully towards Nethergate, infuriating several other drivers. Pulling up on the Creekmarsh drive and letting out a great sigh of relief, she found her shoulders ached from tension. Lewis came out to meet her and helped her down.
‘It’s like driving a bloody lorry,’ she said, stumbling against him. ‘And I’ve got to drive it back.’
‘Come and have a cuppa,’ said Lewis, tucking her arm into his. ‘Katie’s got the kettle on.’
Katie didn’t look particularly down, thought Libby, when they went into the kitchen. Tired, perhaps, but otherwise just as Libby had last seen her.
‘Nice to see you again, lovey,’ she said. ‘Been a bit much, all this, hasn’t it?’
‘Certainly has,’ said Libby, sitting at the table. ‘Did you have a good weekend at home?’
Katie turned back to the kettle. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘Caught up with a few things and had a good dust round, you know.’
‘Do you want to come upstairs and meet Cindy,’ asked Lewis, who had been hovering by the door, ‘or drink your tea down here?’
‘I’d rather have my tea here,’ said Libby, ‘and anyway, I want to hear about her before I meet her. You haven’t said much, either you or Ad, except that she wasn’t what you’d expected.’
There was a snort from the other side of the table. Libby and Lewis looked at Katie’s uncompromising back. ‘Doesn’t like her,’ mouthed Lewis. Libby controlled a strong desire to giggle.
Lewis came and sat down at the table. ‘Well,’ he began, ‘I thought she –’
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ said a quiet voice from the doorway. ‘I didn’t know you had company.’
Lewis, Libby and Katie turned towards the door, and Cindy Dale came into the room.
Chapter Eighteen
LIBBY STARED. CINDY GAVE her a shy smile, hesitating by the table.
‘Come and sit down,’ said Lewis, pulling out a chair. ‘Katie’s just making tea. This is my friend Libby. She’s Adam’s mother.’
Katie almost slammed three mugs down in front of them and stomped away to the fridge.
‘Hello,’ said Cindy. Her voice was light, her vowels home counties. Stranger and stranger, thought Libby. ‘Adam’s nice. You must be proud of him.’
‘I am, yes. I’m proud of all my children.’
‘How many do you have? Is Adam the oldest?’ Cindy leant forward, wide, confiding grey eyes staring into Libby’s own.
‘No, the youngest. Belinda’s the middle one, and Dominic’s the eldest.’
‘What lovely names,’ said Cindy, a trace of wistfulness in her voice. As Katie poured tea into the mugs, Cindy looked up, pushed a lock of mouse-brown hair behind an ear and smiled. ‘Thank you, Katie,’ she said.
Katie grunted and with thinned lips went out of the kitchen.
‘She doesn’t like me,’ said Cindy.
Lewis cleared his throat. ‘I’m sure she does, she’s just – er – a bit – um –’
‘She was like that with me at first.’ Libby rushed in to avoid the difficult moment and Lewis looked grateful.
‘Oh? Have you known her long?’
‘Er – no, not long,’ said Libby, feeling a bit pink. ‘She’ll be fine in a day or so. Are you staying that long?’ Oh, bugger, she thought. I shouldn’t have said that.
‘I don’t really know,’ said Cindy, turning the grey eyes towards Lewis, who was studying knotholes in the table.
‘Oh.’ Libby was at a loss. She didn’t know why Cindy was here, what she’d told Lewis or the police and, most importantly, why she was so different from the picture painted of her by the media three years before. This was no glamour model. This was a girl who wouldn’t have been out of place in the pony books Libby had been remembering. She wore a loose shirt over jeans, had thick, straight hair and wore no make-up on her high-cheekboned face. Libby tried to remember if there’d been any photographs on the various sites she’d turned up on the search engine. She didn’t think there had been, but the descriptions of Cindy as a model turned singer had suggested a very different type of person than the calm, quiet girl who sat opposite her now.
‘Is the house much changed?’ she asked, and cursed herself again. ‘Sorry. That was insensitive of me.’
Cindy’s smile was sad. ‘Oh, yes, of course,’ she said. ‘Lewis has done quite a bit more than we ever got round to.’
We? Libby risked a glance at Lewis, who was now concentrating on a new knothole. ‘I suppose he would, being a television DIY expert,’ she said out loud, and wondered how on earth she was going to get out of this conversation. With relief, she heard her mobile trilling from inside her basket.
‘Ben? Oh, great. Yes, I’ll te
ll him. No, I didn’t crash it. I might on the way back, though.’ She turned to Lewis. ‘Ben’s booked our table for eight, if that’s OK?’ She smiled at Cindy. ‘Sorry we’re taking him away from you this evening.’
Cindy looked startled. Lewis cleared his throat, looking relieved. Libby realised he hadn’t relished telling his house guest that she was to be left alone. Well, she thought, if you turn up out of the blue, you can hardly expect to be entertained the whole time, can you? Out loud, she said, ‘I’d better go and find Adam and let him know. I’ll see you in a bit, Lewis.’ She held out her hand to Cindy. ‘Nice to meet you,’ she said.
Cindy put a soft hand into hers and smiled. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It was.’
Outside, Libby realised she had no idea which part of the garden Adam was working on, and as she didn’t want go back in and ask, she had to go exploring.
The gardens were extensive. She found her way first to the parterre, where Adam wasn’t, then following the downward slope of a meadow with a ha-ha halfway down, which would doubtless one day be another lawn, found herself by the edge of the creek, or the inlet, she remembered. And there, just to her right, stood the weatherboarded building which must be the sailing club. Moored alongside a pontoon, several small boats bobbed and swung contentedly, like so many seabirds. Finding an ancient wooden bench, Libby sat down and contemplated the view.
The river was at its widest here, and almost dead ahead was the sea. On the opposite bank, she could see trees, a church spire and a couple of houses with riverside access. Expensive, she thought. But no more expensive than this place. She turned to look back and discovered that the house couldn’t be seen from here. So this place couldn’t be seen from the house either. She turned back towards the river and the sailing club. An ideal place for concealing activities, it would be, supposing you needed to. She stood up and made for the lane which ran alongside the meadow and took her down to the pontoon.
Sure enough a small notice attached to the door, which was firmly padlocked, announced it to be the Creekmarsh Sailing Club, Private, Members Only. Not many members, thought Libby, looking at the collection of small boats, although perhaps there were other moorings. She wondered if Gerald Shepherd, or any former owners of Creekmarsh, had sailed from here, or used it, perhaps, as a secret way of ingress or egress. It looked possible that the estate owned the land, which probably meant that the sailing club leased the building and the moorings. She must ask Lewis. Whom she now heard calling her name.
‘Over here,’ she shouted, waving at the small figure at the top of the meadow. She watched as he trotted down to meet her, his unnatural tension of earlier now replaced with his usual ebullience.
‘Watcher doing all the way down here?’ he asked breathlessly, as he came up beside her.
‘Exploring,’ grinned Libby. ‘I started looking for Adam by the parterre, and just carried on in this direction.’ She pointed towards the Creekmarsh Sailing Club. ‘Ben used to sail here with a friend in his schoolboy days. Do you own the land?’
‘I dunno.’ He walked forward curiously. ‘Never thought about it. The land goes right down to the river, so I suppose I do.’ He nodded towards the sailing club. ‘D’you reckon that’s illegal?’
‘The building? No, I should think they lease the land and the moorings from the estate. You’d better check with your solicitor.’
Lewis groaned. ‘Bloody solicitors again. You wouldn’t believe what’s been happening.’
‘No, so why don’t you tell me.’ She led him to the bench and sat down. ‘You were going to before Cindy interrupted us.’
‘Ears of a bat, that girl,’ growled Lewis. ‘Bet she heard.’
‘You don’t like her either, then?’
‘Oh, I dunno.’ Lewis sighed. ‘It’s just such a shock, her walking in like that. She’s such a shock, herself. Don’t get me wrong,’ he added hastily, ‘she ain’t done anything awful, like, but it’s got everyone confused.’
‘Tell me how it happened,’ said Libby. ‘From the beginning.’
‘Well,’ said Lewis, leaning back and turning his face up to the sun, which was just emerging from the overhanging trees on the other side of the lane. ‘Sunday afternoon, see, and I was up there all on me own. Katie wasn’t back, and I didn’t know when she’d turn up, so when I heard the front door open, I thought it was her and just sort of yelled out.’
‘Wasn’t it locked?’
‘Oh, yeah, that’s why I thought it was Katie, see, ’cos she’s got her own key. Anyway, there’s no answer, so I goes to the stairs and there’s this girl standing looking up at me. “Who are you?” she says. So I thought, bloody hell, what a cheek, and I goes haring down the stairs. “Excuse me,” I says, “but who are you? I just happen to be the owner of this place.” So she looks real surprised, like, and takes a step back. “But it belongs to Gerald,” she says. “Not any more, it don’t,” I says, “and who are you anyway?” So she tells me and you could have knocked me down with a feather.’
‘I bet,’ murmured Libby.
‘So anyway, I takes her into the kitchen and makes her a cuppa – for shock, you know – and tell her the whole story. All about how Tony sold the house to me with his power of wotsit, then about the body in the garden. Then she sort of puts her head in her hands and starts crying.’ He shook his head. ‘I didn’t know what to do.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘Well, I’m shocked, like, ’cos of thinking that she’d run off with old German Shepherd, and then she explains. And, cor, Lib, it just shows how the papers can get stuff wrong.’
‘So what does she say happened, then?’
‘This is the bit that explains a lot.’ Lewis turned to face her and leant forward. ‘See, Lib, we was all wondering about that power –’
‘Of attorney,’ supplied Libby.
‘Yeah, because how come Tony had it? When old Shepherd had done a runner three years before? Well, it turns out that he had the beginnings of that thing, you know,’ he clicked his fingers, annoyed, ‘where your memory goes.’
‘Alzheimer’s disease?’
‘That’s the one. And he knows it, so he gets this all set up with Tony.’
‘How did he know Tony?’
‘I dunno. Tony’s got – had – all sorts of connections in the entertainment business, like I told you, so I expect that’s how. Anyway, then Cindy and Kenneth come down here to look after him, like, but then Ken gets this Dungeon Trial gig, so Cindy and Shepherd are left down here on their own. And then Shepherd starts trying it on.’
‘Ah!’ said Libby.
‘Well, yeah, but then he starts getting violent, and she gets scared, so she runs off. She tells Tony, who seems to have been a bit like a dad to her, and he tells her Shepherd’s looking for her. Next thing is, she hears Ken’s come out of his dungeon so she goes back, sort of secretly, like, and finds Ken’s come to all these wrong conclusions. Then o’ course, Shepherd turns up and has a fit, and knocks old Ken cold. So Tony turns up – always there, the bugger, ain’t he? – and tells her to run away, like, because if she’s found there she’ll be for it, too, and she goes off somewhere, she hasn’t said where, and a couple of days later Tony sends her a false passport and says she can lie low for a bit, and he’s got all her real papers, birth certificate and wotnot so she can return when she likes.’
‘I don’t get it,’ said Libby, frowning. ‘Why on earth would Tony tell her to run away? She had nothing to do with it, and surely they could have proved Shepherd killed his son?’
‘Don’t ask me,’ said Lewis with a shrug, ‘except that Tony was going to cover it up, like, to protect German Shepherd, I expect, so he wanted her out of the way.’
‘She’d be the heir, though, wouldn’t she, if Gerald died? As Kenneth’s widow? Is that why she came back?’
‘I reckon so,’ Lewis nodded. ‘She still had her keys, see. She heard about the skeleton in the garden on the news – she’s been living in Spain lately – and realised old Ken’d b
een dug up. Then, o’ course, she heard about the theory that she and Shepherd had run away together.’
‘And she hadn’t heard it before?’ Libby’s eyes were wide with disbelief. ‘That’s ridiculous. It was all over the media. She couldn’t have missed it, even if she’d gone straight to Spain. Besides, it hasn’t been confirmed by the police that it’s Kenneth’s body. Did she say it was Kenneth?’
‘That’s what she says, anyway, and that’s what she told the coppers. That Big Bertha – cor, she weren’t ’arf mad!’
‘Why? No one’s found out where Shepherd is now, have they? According to Cindy, all she’s got to do is find him. Does Cindy know where?’
‘She says not,’ said Lewis, getting up and stretching. ‘Didn’t know the house was sold, either. So she’s sort of in limbo. I reckon she was expecting to inherit it one day and when she heard about old Ken’s body –’
‘On the news which she didn’t listen to or read three years ago,’ said Libby.
‘Look, it’s her story, not mine. ‘Course it don’t sound right, but old Bertha’s looking into it, so I expect she’ll get to the bottom of it.’
‘So why’s Cindy still here?’
‘Well,’ said Lewis, looking uncomfortable, ‘I didn’t like to ask her to go. She did live here once.’
‘But not now,’ said Libby. ‘Honestly, Lewis, you’re too soft-hearted for your own good. You’ll have to tell her to go. You wait, she’ll start taking over before you know it.’
‘That’s what Katie says. Cor, she right had the hump when she got back and found her here.’
‘Did she know who she was?’ Libby frowned. ‘She wouldn’t have met her before.’
‘Katie turned up Monday morning, walked into the kitchen and there was Cindy doing herself some breakfast. I was up in me bedroom, and I didn’t hear about it until I came down and Cindy tells me. And Katie’s in a right hump with me, as I said.’
‘Why, though? It doesn’t make any difference to her, does it?’
‘No, it’s this taking over thing. Cindy’s got a bit of the old lady of the manor about her, see? Treats Katie like the faithful old family wotsit.’
Murder in Bloom - Libby Sarjeant Murder Mystery Series Page 13