Murder on the Tor: An Exham on Sea Cosy Mystery (Exham on Sea Cosy Crime Mysteries Book 3)

by Frances Evesham

  “I did know, actually.” Had the woman come to confess or give unwanted advice? “It’s time you explained what’s been going on.”

  Miss Bakewell, taken by surprise, swallowed the last of the truffle with an audible gulp. “Oh.” She recovered. “Very well. I think you and your friend, Mr Ramshore, may have jumped to the wrong conclusions.”

  “Do you?” Libby kept her voice non-committal.

  “Yes, you see, when you asked me about little Katy, I didn’t tell you everything.”

  “As far as I remember, you didn’t tell us anything useful.”

  “You and that friend of yours―Max, isn’t it―were very kind, after that dreadful explosion, so I decided you should know the truth.”

  Libby held out the plate and Miss Bakewell selected another chocolate. “Let me guess,” Libby prompted. “We know you were one of the friends at University with John Williams and Professor Perivale. You visited the professor even though you’d kept away from each other for so many years. You wanted to know if he had the beads, didn’t you? You’re obsessed by them. Did you cause the explosion?”

  Miss Bakewell sat ramrod straight. Two pink spots appeared on her cheeks. “No, no, you’ve got it all wrong. I wouldn’t do a thing like that. I’ll be frank. I went to see Malcolm, as you say, to beg for the beads. You see, nothing’s been right in my life, since I lost them. Nothing.” The pink flush deepened to purple. The teacher’s lips suddenly curled, transforming her mild expression to a snarl. “They were mine.”

  The doorbell rang. Miss Bakewell clamped her lips together and Libby winced.

  Max’s eyes sparkled. “Am I in time?”

  “Your timing couldn’t be worse,” Libby hissed. “She was just about to spill the beans. Don’t upset her.” She returned to Miss Bakewell and offered an encouraging smile. “You can tell Mr Ramshore the truth. We’re partners.”

  The teacher looked at Max as though he were an insect in a bowl of cereal. “Very well, if you insist. Where was I?”

  “Let’s go back a bit. Explain what happened at University.”

  “There were several of us. All friends together. It was the sixties―well before your time. I’m afraid we experimented with some rather inappropriate substances.”

  Max chuckled. “The generation that invented sex.”

  Libby glared, but the teacher ignored him. “There were five of us in all.”

  Libby counted them off. “You and the professor, John Williams and Catriona. That’s four, plus Tanya, the vet.”

  “Catriona,” said Max. “That’s who you recognised in the photograph you stole.”

  Miss Bakewell’s lips trembled. “I thought it would all come out, if people saw the pictures. It was so long ago. When I read about the exhibition in the local news, I couldn’t sleep. How could John show everyone? Why couldn’t he leave well alone?”

  “Show everyone what?”

  “The pictures of us all―of Catriona.”

  Libby nodded. “It was all about Catriona, wasn’t it?”

  Miss Bakewell paused, blinking. “I wonder if I could perhaps have another chocolate. And a glass of water?”

  Libby fought an urge to grab the woman by the throat and shake her. She raised a hand, warning Max not to interrupt, fetched water and offered more chocolates. Miss Bakewell sucked a salted caramel, making it last, as Libby forced herself to count to a hundred. She reached ninety and the wait was finally over. “John put photographs of Catriona in the exhibition, and I had to hide them. I couldn’t let anyone recognise her because―because she looked exactly like that child.”

  “Katy,” said Libby. “I think Catriona was Katy’s grandmother.”

  Miss Bakewell heaved a sigh. “The likeness is unmistakable.”

  Max said. “Which of you killed Catriona?”

  Miss Bakewell gasped. “I―we didn’t. She fell―it was an accident―we were at a party. I told you, it was the sixties. She’d taken something―LSD, I suppose. She went upstairs to find her coat and she fell.”

  Libby leaned forward, trying to read the teacher’s face. “That’s not the whole truth, is it? What really happened?”

  Miss Bakewell’s lip curled. “You have to understand. Catriona was always wild. She looked lovely, of course. Her face was quite exquisite, so of course everyone loved her.” The words dripped with sarcasm. “When Catriona was around, the rest of us faded into the background. She outshone us all, in every way, and what’s more, she knew it and used it. She was a mean, spiteful cat. She got into University by flirting in the interview; the interviewers were all men, of course. She wanted to be an architect, like her father. He died when she was very young. She shouldn’t have been at a University like Bristol. She couldn’t cope with the work and she was jealous of those of us who could. There was nothing Catriona liked more than spoiling things for us―especially me. Of course, all the men adored her.”

  “Including the professor?”

  “He wasn’t a professor then. I met him first, before Catriona, and we were a couple. I thought we’d get married, and...” She took a bite from a chocolate, swallowing hard. “Catriona set out to take Malcolm away from me. She was always there, in between him and me, looking pretty and fluttering those long eyelashes.

  “Of course, she succeeded. She stole my fiance from me. Men are so superficial.” She spat out the last words, with a venomous look at Max.

  Max started, as though about to speak, but changed his mind and Miss Bakewell continued. “When she’d got her hooks into Malcolm, Catriona set her sights on my beads. She had to have them, just because I loved them.” She banged a closed fist on the arm of the chair. “They were all I had left of―of Malcolm and me. He’d taken them from the dig, just for me, but Catriona persuaded him to give them to her. He threatened to tell the University authorities I’d stolen the beads, if I didn’t hand them over.”

  Tears tracked down Miss Bakewell’s cheeks. She whispered, “How could he be so cruel? I did nothing wrong. It was Catriona. She made him hate me.”

  Max leaned back, eyes half-closed. “You must realise you’ve given yourself the perfect motive for killing Catriona.”

  Miss Bakewell rose to her feet, agitated. “No, I didn’t...”

  “I believe you, oddly enough, but you know, don’t you? You’ve always known who pushed Catriona out of the window?”

  Chocolate and whisky

  It took liberal doses of chocolate and whisky to calm Miss Bakewell. At last she departed, leaving Libby and Max confused. “It’s no good,” Libby yawned. “My head’s spinning and I can’t think any more today.”

  “No,” Max said. “You’re right. We’ll talk again tomorrow.”

  Libby spent an hour in the kitchen, piping flourishes on chocolates destined for Jumbles, pleased to finish the batch. The chocolate turned her stomach a little. It reminded her too vividly of Miss Bakewell, filling her face with sweets as she vented her hatred of Catriona.

  It was perfectly possible that Miss Bakewell, in a burst of fury, had killed Catriona. If the evening was hot, like today, Catriona may have stood by the open window, or even perched on the window sill. One push, that’s all it would take to tip her out.

  John Williams was another matter. Miss Bakewell was nowhere near strong enough to force a plastic bag over a grown man’s head, or carry a dead weight up the hill. Perhaps Libby was wrong, and the man really had killed himself. If you were going to end it all, the summit of Glastonbury Tor was as suitable a place as any.

  Libby cleaned the kitchen until every inch sparkled. She was too tired to bake. She needed a bath, to wash away the smell of chocolate. She’d lie in warm bubbles, let her mind wander, and hope her subconscious would sort out the interlocking strands of recent events.

  Upstairs, the airing cupboard was ajar as usual. Fuzzy liked to lie, full stretch, on the best towels, shedding orange fur that resisted every attempt at removal, but she wasn’t there, now. Libby called her name, but nothing happened. No surprise there. Fu
zzy never came when she was called.

  Libby dropped the plug in the bath and turned on the taps, full tilt, squeezing in half a bottle of ridiculously expensive bubble lotion. The water level rose and she prepared to step in, trying to ignore the faint anxiety tugging at her. When did she last see Fuzzy? She turned off the tap, slid a dressing gown round her shoulders and perched on the edge of the bathtub, thinking. After Miss Bakewell left, the cat refused to eat the bowl of cat food Libby offered, sashayed, tail aloft, through the cat flap, and disappeared. Libby hadn’t seen her since.

  Fuzzy liked to stretch out on top of the computer in the study. Libby looked there, found no sign of the cat and moved on to the bedroom. The cat was nowhere to be seen. Libby ran downstairs, half expecting Fuzzy to trip her up. She searched the house from top to bottom, even upending the kitchen bin in case Fuzzy had taken it into her head to sleep in there. The creature had chosen far worse places in the past. She wasn’t there. Maybe the garage?

  On hands and knees, Libby crawled around the Citroen, peering under the body at the mysterious underside. What were all those pipes for? She searched every inch of the garage, poking in empty cardboard boxes, peeking inside a roll of carpet and opening the doors of an old cupboard, left over from the kitchen renovation. When there was nowhere else to search, she returned to the house, grabbed a box of dry cat food and walked round the garden, shaking the box and calling. It was crazy to feel so anxious. Cats look after themselves. Everyone knows that, and Fuzzy was more independent than most. It was just nerves, that was the problem. Libby wished Mandy were here. There was no one more down to earth than her Goth lodger.

  The sun remained high in the sky throughout the evening, for midsummer was only a few days away. The house was hot, and Libby’s baking had heated the kitchen to sweat-inducing levels. Maybe she should stop worrying about the cat and take that bath, after all.

  The water steamed gently, cooling in the tub. Libby turned to close the door and hesitated. Suddenly nervous, she didn’t want to be alone and cut off behind a locked door, but she certainly wasn’t about to take a bath with the door unlatched. She leaned over, grabbed the plug and, as the water drained away, stepped in and took a quick shower. The noise of the water drowned out all sounds. She wouldn’t hear Fuzzy.

  She grabbed a towel, rubbed until she was dry, and dressed in jeans and a jumper. She wasn’t going to relax until that cat came home. “Fuzzy. Fuzzy, where are you? Come on, you stupid cat. Stop playing games.” Was Libby going to have to make some of those “Have you seen my cat?” notices, to fix to the lampposts? She was turning into an old cat lady.

  ***

  Libby slipped on a pair of wellies. She’d take a final look around the nearby lanes, before she gave up. She left the rows of houses behind, turning across a main road to a tree-lined footpath that led onto the water meadows. When I get my hands on that cat…

  “Meow.” The noise came from deep inside a hedgerow. Libby swept aside layers of foliage and found a marmalade tail. She knelt down, following the tail along the fluffy, bedraggled body, to Fuzzy’s head. “Hey, there,” she whispered. Fuzzy meowed again, the noise pitiful.

  “What’s happened to you?” One of Fuzzy’s hind legs stuck out, at an angle. “Was it a dog?” Fuzzy had a habit of teasing dogs, staying just out of their reach, driving the animals wild. This time she might have got too close, or met a fitter, cleverer animal.

  Libby slipped off her light summer jacket and eased it around the cat’s body. Fuzzy purred. “That’s right. I’m trying to help.” She carried the cat, wrapped in the coat, back to the cottage and rang the vet’s number, expecting to hear a recorded message. Instead, Tanya Ross answered, voice muffled as though eating. Libby shot a glance at her watch. It was definitely out of office hours. “I’m so sorry to bother you,” she began, and heard a sigh on the other end, “But my cat’s had an accident. I think she’s broken her leg.”

  The vet paused, probably swallowing a mouthful of dinner. “Where are you?” Libby gave her address. “Oh, you’re so near. I’m not really open in the evenings, but I don’t mind, just this once. Come round here.”

  The cat’s wicker carrier lived in the boot of Libby’s faithful purple Citroen. She eased Fuzzy inside and fitted it into the front passenger seat, securing it with the seatbelt. Fuzzy seemed very tiny, huddled against the side of the basket.

  Libby begged the car, “Please start.” It was becoming more and more eccentric with every passing month, but today, the Citroen was on its best behaviour. Sliding into gear with unusual care, Libby drove to the vet’s practice in town. “This is so kind,” she murmured. “I know it’s late.”

  “No trouble.”

  Libby forced a smile. “Is it serious?”

  The vet was gentle with Fuzzy, stroking the cat’s head as she examined the leg. “You’ll have to leave her with me. It looks like a fracture. She’ll needs surgery. I’ll have to give her a general anaesthetic.”

  Fuzzy’s eyes were huge, her gaze soulful. “Whatever she needs.” At least Tanya Ross sounded hopeful. Libby’s heart rate settled.

  “How did it happen?”

  “I don’t really know. She might have been run over, I suppose, though she’s a pretty wily animal. She usually keeps well out of the way of traffic. We lived in London for years.”

  Tanya’s head came up, her eyes boring into Libby’s. “You’ve had a spell of bad luck. Your dog fell ill, up on the hill, then you fell over the cliff, and now this. Maybe you should take a little more care.”

  Libby swallowed, the prickles of fear she’d felt that first time on the Tor, returning. “How did you know about my fall?”

  “News gets around.” The vet’s eyes gleamed, pale in the bright overhead strip lights of the surgery. Libby concentrated on keeping her breath slow and steady. The vet went on, “I hear you’ve met that funny little girl that runs around on the Tor. She should be in school. I don’t know what her father’s thinking.”

  “She’s very odd. She wouldn’t talk to me. All she’d do was whisper to the dog.”

  The vet’s head shot up. “She spoke to him? Really? Does her father know?”

  “He was even more surprised than you. Why? Is there something wrong with her?”

  The vet looked down. “She’s a strange little thing. Born too close to the Tor, that’s the story, one midsummer night. Folk see lights dancing around the summit at that time of year, you know.”

  Libby groaned. “Look, I’ve had enough of local ghost stories. Mysterious lights. Beads that bring bad luck. It’s a load of nonsense that you and Miss Bakewell use to throw me off the scent, whenever I get close to the truth.” Colour had drained from the vet’s face. Libby was right, then. “Miss Bakewell told me about Catriona’s death.”

  As Tanya Ross gaped, Libby went on, “You were one of that little group of friends and rivals, all at University together. John Williams used to take photographs of you all, and his exhibition brought those days back.

  “You must have been horrified when you heard about his retrospective exhibition. Miss Bakewell went along, and her fears were confirmed. She took some of the photographs, to keep them secret. For a while, I misunderstood. It wasn’t seeing the necklace that gave her such a fright. It was the likeness between Catriona and little Katy. The link between Catriona and Katy is at the bottom of all this. It’s time you explained, Tanya. John Williams is dead, and the professor was nearly killed in an explosion. I think you know what’s going on.”

  The vet licked her lips and swallowed. Her eyes were on the door, as if she hoped someone would interrupt, but Libby wasn’t going to stop. “Jemima Bakewell hated Catriona, but you didn’t. You loved her and you were jealous, because she was with Malcolm Perivale. Did you quarrel with her that night, because you couldn’t have her for yourself?”

  Tanya Ross filled a syringe from a bottle. When she turned back, her colour was high and her chin was thrust out, as though she’d made up her mind. “Hold your cat steady,” sh
e commanded. “I’ll tell you the story―at least, the parts I know.” She slipped the needle into the fur around Fuzzy’s neck, but the cat hardly stirred. “I did love Catriona, but I knew she didn’t really care for me, and I wasn’t surprised she set her heart on the professor. She always wanted the best, and she was sure everything would always turn out the way she wanted.”

  The vet gave a little, sad laugh. “She wanted to be an architect, and she managed to earn a place at one of the best universities in the country. She wanted Malcolm Perivale, and it was the easiest thing in the world for her to take him from Jemima. She should have been happy, but…”

  She looked straight at Libby. “She had a secret. She told me about it. She trusted me, because she knew how I felt, even though she didn’t return my feelings. You see, Catriona needed men, like she needed air to breathe. She felt safe, confiding everything in me, including her conquests. I warned her to be careful, but she didn’t listen. The University doctor prescribed the contraceptive pill, but she often forgot to take it.”

  Tanya stroked Fluffy, as the cat’s eyes closed. “She used to say, ‘It’ll be fine, don’t fuss,’ but of course, the inevitable happened. Catriona fell pregnant, and she was distraught. She could hardly believe such a thing would happen to her. She imagined all her dreams of a future career disappearing, if she left University to bring up the baby.” Tanya wouldn’t look at Libby. “She gave him up for adoption. She couldn’t bear to let anything stand in the way of her future.”

  “Not even her own child?”

  Tanya’s eyes met Libby’s, hard and bright with unshed tears. “Don’t you dare judge her. Things were different, in those days. It broke Catriona’s heart to give away her son.” The vet gulped and dashed a hand over her eyes. “When she fell from the window, that night, she dropped the necklace―the amber beads she’d fought Jemima to keep. The necklace was on the pavement, by her head, and I picked it up. No one noticed, they were all too busy looking at Catriona and the blood, seeping all over the pavement. I gave the necklace to the couple who adopted her son, Sam. That’s what she would have wanted. I was the only one who knew who they were. Sam’s new parents kept it for him, and he passed it on to his daughter, Katy.”