‘There don’t seem to be many houses,’ said Libby.
‘Ah, no, but that didn’t matter, see. His best mate was the bloke who owned the big house.’
Chapter Twenty-seven
‘GERALD SHEPHERD?’ MANAGED LIBBY, after spluttering on a mouthful of cappuccino.
‘That’s him. Went off with his daughter-in-law a few years back, didn’t he?’ George leant back and stared at Libby. ‘’Course, that’s what it is, isn’t it? That skeleton. They reckon it’s the son, don’t they? You’re on that, aren’t you?’
‘Um,’ said Libby.
‘Well, I don’t mind telling you what I know. Old Frank used to know him, see, the actor bloke, from London. In fact, it was because he – what’s-’is-name–’
‘Gerald Shepherd.’
‘Yeah – come down to visit Frank he found the big house. So he bought it.’
‘How long ago was that?’ asked Libby.
‘Years and years. The son was still at home, then.’
‘And when Shepherd vanished, did the police look for him?’
‘Cor, bless you, no! It was obvious what had happened, wasn’t it? While the son was in that telly thing, his dad and his missus went off together. Not been seen since, have they?’
‘Er –’ said Libby.
‘Oh, ’course, they must be looking for ’em now.’ George rubbed at a spot on the bar with a tea towel. ‘They could always ask old Frank,’ he said diffidently. ‘I always reckoned he knew a bit more about it than he said. But he was a loyal bloke, even if he did think they was doing wrong.’
‘You really think he might know where Gerald went? The police have been searching for him for weeks now,’ said Libby.
‘Couldn’t say for certain,’ said George, ‘but it’d be worth a try, wouldn’t it? Not that I reckon he did it or anything, but – well, best be sure, eh?’
Libby thanked him effusively, drained her coffee and fished for her mobile. Outside she punched in Fran’s number.
‘Fran? Are you still at The Fox?’
A crackly voice answered her. Then there was a pause.
‘Fran? Are you there?’
‘Yes,’ said the voice more clearly. ‘I was in the cellar. I’m in the bar now. What did you want?’
‘You’re still there, then. I’m coming back. Have you found anything?’
‘Yes, Frank’s shown me where he thinks the tunnel used to come out, but what’s the matter?’
‘I’ll tell you when I get there. I’m at The Red Lion – I’ve been talking to George.’
‘What? What are you doing there?’
‘I’ll see you in five minutes,’ said Libby. ‘Keep him talking.’
Libby turned the Land Rover round with difficulty and set off back to Creekmarsh. It was just over five minutes later when she pulled up in The Fox car park and Fran came out to meet her.
‘What did you say to him?’ asked Libby, locking the car.
‘I said you wanted to see the tunnel entrance,’ said Fran, frowning. ‘What on earth’s up?’
Libby repeated her conversation with George, while Fran’s eyes got wider and wider.
‘Come on, then,’ she said, ‘we’ll go and ask him.’
‘Hang on a minute,’ said Libby. ‘He knows the police have been looking for Gerald Shepherd. If this friend of his really is him, he must have a good reason for keeping quiet. He may clam up.’
‘Then we tell him what we know,’ said Fran grimly. ‘The general public don’t know any of that. Did you say George didn’t know Cindy was back?’
‘It seemed that way,’ said Libby, following Fran into the pub.
‘Let me do the talking then,’ said Fran. ‘And don’t put your foot in it.’
Libby opened her mouth for an indignant reply, but was forestalled by the appearance of a large man in a short-sleeved checked shirt, with broad shoulders and an even broader grin.
‘This your mate, then?’ he said to Fran, and stuck out a large hand.
‘Libby Sarjeant,’ said Libby, smiling nervously back.
‘You want to see where the tunnel was, too?’ said Frank, standing back from the open bar. ‘Come on, then.’
Fran nodded to Libby, and they went behind the bar. Libby peered at a trapdoor from which led a steep stepladder.
‘I’ll go first, shall I?’ said Frank, and with surprising agility he lowered himself through the hole and down the steps. Libby followed and Fran brought up the rear.
The cellar was brightly lit, smelt slightly damp and was crowded with crates and crates of bottles and barrels of beer, positioned under another trapdoor which Libby guessed led up to the outside of the pub for the draymen.
‘Here you are then,’ said Frank, going right to the end of the cellar, where the stone ceiling began to slope downwards. She could just about make out the shape of a low, arched doorway, which had obviously been painted over many times.
‘That’s where it was, right enough,’ said Frank.
‘Bren didn’t seem to know,’ said Libby. Fran frowned at her.
‘Oh, Bren takes no notice of things like this. Lives in the moment, you might say.’ Frank let his hand wander over the outline of the door. ‘I’d love to open this up, but I think the whole place might come down if I tried.’
‘Where do you think it goes?’ said Libby. Fran sighed and rolled her eyes.
‘To the Place and the church,’ said Frank. ‘I got a coupla old maps upstairs they say was drawn by an old parson at the church. I was just telling your mate. Want to see ’em?’
Libby could hardly contain her excitement, and Fran had to keep digging her in the ribs to remind her to keep calm. In the bar, Frank told Bren he was taking them upstairs, prompting some ribald comments from the regulars who still sat at a corner table.
‘Don’t mind them,’ said Bren. ‘You go and enjoy yourselves.’
Upstairs, Frank took them into a pleasant living room with views to the back of the pub. From a glass-fronted bookcase, he took a large leather folder, which he opened on a coffee table.
‘There,’ he said, pointing. ‘See, it looks a bit like one of those old treasure maps, don’t it? Bloke I took it to reckons it’s genuine because it’s a bit rough, like, and could be a plan for when they dug the tunnel.’
‘Why do you think it was the parson who drew it?’ asked Fran.
‘Bloke says because he was the only educated one. This would be in the mid 1700s, he says.’
‘When the smuggling was at its height,’ nodded Libby, ‘and the revenue men were being posted all round the coast. Lots of churches were involved, weren’t they?’
‘Some even had their towers raised,’ said Frank, ‘so they could be seen from the sea, and they reckon ours was, so they could get into the inlet.’
‘But if the big house and the church and the inn were all involved,’ frowned Libby, ‘why did they need tunnels? There wasn’t anyone else around.’
‘Ah, yeah, but it was them dragoons, you see,’ said Frank with delight. ‘This little bit, almost an island –’
‘Peninsula,’ suggested Fran.
‘Yeah, well, it was all on its own, see, so the dragoons, or revenue men, were always sniffing around. There’s an old diary they’ve got in the county library that talks about it.’
‘So, wouldn’t the squire, or whoever owned the Place, have drawn this map?’ asked Libby.
‘Squire couldn’t read or write properly,’ said Frank. ‘Parson was his sort of secretary.’
‘The Clerk!’ said Libby, delightedly.
‘Ah.’ Frank beamed at her. ‘Rudyard Kipling.’
‘So can we tell where the tunnels came out the other end?’ asked Fran.
Frank pulled the map round. ‘See this? That’s the old church. Burnt down about a hundred years later. Some say because of the smugglers.’
‘They were getting much hotter on the enforcement by then,’ said Libby. ‘The French had been using the smuggling routes to escape, and the Nap
oleonic spies had got in through the same routes.’
Frank gave Libby an approving nod. ‘That’s right. So the original church was destroyed and they reckoned the passage and whatever was down there went with it.’
‘What about Creekmarsh Place?’ asked Fran. ‘Where did the tunnel come out there?’
‘Same place as here,’ said Frank. ‘In the cellars.’
Fran and Libby looked at one another. ‘I didn’t know Creekmarsh had cellars,’ said Libby.
‘’Course it has,’ said Frank. ‘Hasn’t your mate been down there, yet?’
‘You mean Lewis?’ said Fran. ‘I don’t think he knows they exist, either.’
‘Where do they go?’ asked Libby.
‘What, the other end? The ice-house,’ said Frank. ‘You know what an ice-house is?’
‘Yes,’ sighed Fran and Libby together.
‘We were trying to find out where the tunnel to that was, too,’ said Libby.
‘One and the same,’ said Frank. ‘The ice-house was down by the river, somewhere, so they could get ice from boats and cut it from the river in the winter, so it made sense to have that as the smugglers’ tunnel.’
‘Might have known,’ muttered Libby.
Fran sat back in her chair. ‘And do you mean to say the police haven’t been here asking you questions about the house?’ she said to Frank.
‘Why should they? No one’s told ’em I know anything about it.’
‘But when the skeleton turned up and they started asking questions –’ began Fran.
‘Only came and asked me some general questions, like,’ said Frank.
‘And you didn’t tell them you knew Gerald Shepherd.’
There was complete silence while Frank stared at Fran as though mesmerized.
‘Or,’ Fran continued with her fingers crossed, ‘that you still visited him in a home because he has Alzheimer’s disease.’
‘How do you know?’ Frank’s voice was almost a whisper and he leant forward so that Libby could see the veins standing out on his neck. She pushed herself back in her chair.
‘I’m right, aren’t I?’ said Fran. ‘And you’ve been doing it to protect him, haven’t you?’
‘He was my mate,’ said Frank truculently.
‘Still is, obviously,’ said Fran. ‘But don’t you see you could have helped the police find out the truth? They thought that skeleton was him at first.’
‘I could have told them it wasn’t,’ said Frank scornfully.
‘Then why on earth didn’t you?’
He looked awkward. ‘I promised.’
‘Promised who?’ Libby said in surprise.
‘Gerry. Him and me was mates years ago, see, in London, and when he went into this home he didn’t want everyone to know. He wasn’t that far gone, then, see.’
‘So you knew all about him going missing, supposedly?’ Fran looked astonished.
‘Oh, yeah. It fitted with Ken’s wife going off and the papers put two and two together. That’s when I promised, see. Ken said he’d look for her –’
‘Ken said?’ echoed Libby.
‘Yeah. It was Tony who organised the home, see, while Ken was in that telly thing.’
‘Tony West?’ said Libby faintly. Why on earth hadn’t the police been to see this man?
‘Yeah. Another old mate, he was. Can’t believe he’s gone.’ Frank shook his head. ‘Anyway, when Ken come out, he went straight down to see Gerald, and when he got back to the house Cindy was gone.’
‘So he started looking for her?’
‘He made a show of it,’ said Frank. ‘He couldn’t have cared less, really, she was a grasping little bitch. Anyway, then he goes off, and that was it. Didn’t think any more about it. I just kept visiting Gerry. I asked Tony why Ken didn’t come any more and he said he didn’t know where he was.’
‘So when they put out that the skeleton was probably Kenneth, and Tony West had been murdered, you didn’t come forward?’
Frank’s cheeks became pink. ‘I didn’t want to get involved,’ he said. ‘Poor old Gerry. Don’t know what’s going on these days.’
‘What about the people who look after him?’ asked Fran. ‘Why haven’t they said anything?’
‘They don’t know who he is,’ said Frank.
‘But they’d need all his medical records,’ said Libby, ‘how can they not? You can’t go into a home under a false name.’
‘He didn’t,’ said Frank, surprisingly. ‘We just said it was the same name as the actor and they believed us. ’Course, poor bugger was looking old then, not even like he was in that Collateral Damage.’
‘Well.’ Fran sat back. ‘You’re going to have to talk to the police now, Frank.’
‘Why?’ The truculent manner was back.
‘Because Cindy Dale came back.’
‘That cow?’ Frank’s fists bunched. ‘You wait till I see her.’
‘But now she’s gone again.’
‘Gone?’ Frank looked bewildered.
‘They questioned her about Kenneth’s murder – or supposed murder – then let her go and she vanished. We don’t know where she’s gone.’
Frank pulled at his lower lip. ‘I reckon I’ll have to think about this,’ he said.
Libby leant forward. ‘Frank,’ she said, ‘Cindy told them Gerry killed Kenneth.’
‘What?’ Frank looked, eyes blazing. ‘Fuck’s sake. I’ll soon put that right.’ He stood up. ‘All right, ladies. I don’t know how you managed to get on to me when no one else has, but you’re right. I’ll go to the police. Who should I speak to?’
‘Superintendent Bertram,’ said Libby, with a grin, ‘and don’t forget to tell her we sent you!’
Chapter Twenty-eight
THE FOLLOWING MORNING LIBBY remembered she hadn’t asked Frank where Gerald Shepherd was. He answered the phone on the first ring.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said.
‘Who were you expecting?’ asked Libby.
‘The police,’ said Frank. ‘I phoned ’em this morning. Yes, I know I said I’d get on to them straight away, but I didn’t think one more day would hurt, and I wanted to talk it over with Bren. So I phoned this morning.’
‘And they said they’d phone you back?’
‘I asked for that Bertram, and they said she was in London. So I left a message that it was about Gerald Shepherd and they said someone would call me back straight away.’
‘So I’d better get off the line,’ said Libby, ‘but before I do, where’s the home Gerald’s in?’
‘Why should I tell you that?’ Frank was cautious. ‘You’re not to go and see him, now.’
‘I just wondered how far away it was,’ said Libby.
‘Not far. He used to be in a place called The Laurels, but they had a murder there a coupla years ago, so we moved him.’
‘Hmm,’ said Libby. She knew all about The Laurels. ‘So where is he now?’
‘What do you want to know for?’
‘I wondered if Cindy would go after him,’ said Libby.
‘Why? She wouldn’t know where he was, anyway.’
‘Oh, I think she might,’ said Libby, with a sigh.
‘I’ll tell the police. He’ll be safe enough.’
Libby had to give in. Frank was probably right to keep the secret for that bit longer, although how the police were going to see it was another matter. She hoped they didn’t charge him with obstruction. Then she called Adam.
‘Any news from Lewis?’
‘Not sure,’ said Adam, sounding puzzled. ‘We had the police round here again this morning, although they didn’t talk to us. They were going over the inside of the house again. Then Mog got a text from Lewis saying he’s delayed.’
‘By what?’ said Libby.
‘Didn’t say. The message just said “Delayed”. Mog texted back and so did I, but nothing else and now his phone’s switched off.’
‘Have you tried Katie?’
‘Haven’t got her number,’ said Adam.
‘We thought of that, and we were going to go and look for it in the house, but the police were there.’
‘Were you expecting him back today?’
‘No, which is even funnier. He hadn’t said anything about coming back.’
‘Looks like some kind of message,’ said Libby slowly.
Adam snorted. ‘Yeah, Ma – a text message.’
‘You know what I mean. Something must have happened and he wanted to let you know – or warn you, perhaps – and that was all he had time to do.’
‘You think something’s happened to him?’ Adam sounded alarmed.
‘I was wondering about the police, actually.’
‘The police? Why?’
‘Because Big Bertha’s gone to London.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I have my sources,’ grinned Libby. ‘Let me know if you hear anything.’
Next she called Fran and told her what she had learned so far.
‘West’s murder,’ said Fran. ‘Oh, dear.’
‘You think that’s what it is? But Lewis said they weren’t interested in him for that.’
‘They must have found some new evidence.’ Fran was silent for a moment. ‘Libby, I’m sure there’s a weapon involved.’
‘A weapon?’
‘It looks like an outsized darning mushroom.’
‘You can see it?’
‘I think so,’ said Fran, sounding doubtful. ‘It popped into my head as soon as you told me about Lewis’s message. I should think he’s being questioned by the police about it.’
‘Heavens,’ said Libby. ‘I wonder what they’ll do next.’
‘Send someone to see Frank, I expect,’ said Fran. ‘I wonder who it’ll be?’
‘I bet I know,’ said Libby.
Ian Connell called Fran at lunchtime.
‘Not that I expect you to tell me,’ he said in a weary voice, ‘but just how did you get on to Frank Cole?’
‘At The Fox?’ said Fran warily.
‘Of course at The Fox.’
‘It’s a long story,’ said Fran.
‘I bet it is,’ said Ian. ‘Are you lunching with your fiancé?’
‘Er – no,’ said Fran, waggling her eyebrows at Guy, who was poring over seating plans.
‘May I take you to lunch then?’
Murder in Bloom - Libby Sarjeant Murder Mystery Series Page 20