Murder by Magic

by Lesley Cookman

  ‘But Alice and Patti asked you to help, didn’t they?’

  ‘Yes, they did, and we helped as much as we could, although I’m not sure that we didn’t do more damage. I keep feeling that if we hadn’t interfered Marion Longfellow might still be alive.’

  Kaye looked shocked. ‘You weren’t interfering. You’d been asked. And you didn’t actually do anything, did you? Besides …’

  ‘Besides?’ prompted Libby, after a moment.

  Kaye looked at her quickly. ‘Oh, nothing. It was just something Marion said.’

  Libby’s interest quickened. ‘What was that? When?’

  ‘It was when Sheila told us about you coming over to see Alice and Patti.’

  ‘How did she know that was what we were doing?’

  ‘Alice told her. She was picking up Nathaniel from school, and Sheila was picking up her grandson. So Sheila told us when we met that evening to discuss Christmas decorations.’

  ‘And what did Marion say?’

  ‘Nothing much. Just that it was about time somebody looked into it, and she’d tried to talk to someone.’

  ‘She had? Who?’

  Kaye looked surprised. ‘I don’t know. I thought she probably meant she’d tried to talk to the police, but they hadn’t been around much. It just made me think she knew something. Or thought she did.’

  ‘And if it wasn’t the police she talked to, then it could have been the murderer,’ said Libby grimly.

  ‘Oh, God!’ Kaye put her hand to her mouth.

  ‘What’s up?’ Patti appeared before them. Libby told her.

  ‘Will you tell the police?’ said Kaye.

  ‘Either I or Patti will,’ said Libby. ‘That’s really very helpful, Kaye. Although,’ she said in a low voice to Patti as they walked towards the Chancel, ‘it would have been a lot better if she or Sheila had something about this earlier. And Ian will have a fit.’

  After that, she and Patti tried to assert some sort of order on their cast of characters. Mary and Joseph, a pair of flighty teenagers whose parents were both shepherds, did nothing but giggle. The shepherds were stolid and grim, the kings gloomy, and the child angels and shepherds fidgeted. Gavin, as the innkeeper, overacted in mime and made Mary and Joseph giggle even harder.

  Eventually, the procession up the aisle was sorted out, the entrances of the shepherds and kings settled, (one lot from the vestry, the others from the Lady Chapel,) and the disposition of the angels (the choir stalls) established. Patti wiped her brow and asked why Libby ever got involved in theatre direction.

  ‘I was going to suggest a children-only rehearsal some time this week during the day,’ said Libby. ‘I could do that. I don’t suppose they all go to the same school, do they?’

  ‘Sadly not, but we could probably get them together by four thirty in the church hall one day,’ said Patti, turning to Kaye. ‘Kaye, what do you think?’

  ‘Good idea. Shall we suggest it now?’

  The idea was adopted with a sense of relief by the adults, and the following day, Wednesday, was decided on as being the only day when no after-school activities were taking place.

  ‘Come to me first,’ said Patti, ‘and I’ll take you over. Can you be there, Sheila?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Sheila, now holding the hand of a small person in a cub uniform. ‘I shall be bringing Jack anyway.’ Jack beamed up at her.

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, then,’ said Libby. ‘And I’ll make sure Ian gets the message,’ she added to Kaye and Patti, while Sheila looked puzzled.

  ‘But they’ll tell her now,’ she said to Ben as they drove away from the church. ‘And I don’t know whether to send Ian a text on his personal number now, or wait and call him in the morning.’

  ‘Send him a text now,’ said Ben. ‘He’s got the opportunity to ignore it and come back to you tomorrow or call you back.’

  The phone rang almost immediately Libby had sent the text.

  ‘What is it now?’ Ian sounded tired.

  ‘Just something I thought you ought to hear,’ said Libby. ‘You didn’t have to ring me back straight away.’

  ‘I’m aware of the fact that occasionally you offer me a little gem.’

  ‘Sarky,’ said Libby, and told him what she’d heard.

  ‘And that’s all?’ Ian sounded puzzled.

  ‘It sounds as if Marion Longfellow either knew or saw something to do with Joan Bidwell’s murder, doesn’t it?’

  ‘I wonder who she tried to talk to. I’ll check the original reports, see if there’s anything there.’ He became brisk. ‘Thanks, Lib. I’ll come back to you.’

  ‘I bet she tried to talk to the murderer, not the police,’ said Ben, as Libby switched the phone off.

  ‘I don’t suppose we’ll ever know,’ said Libby with a sigh.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Although she wasn’t due in St Aldeberge until four thirty, Libby decided to go down in time to see the community shop while it was open, and accordingly arrived at a quarter to two.

  ‘Just realised,’ she said to Patti, who was behind the counter, ‘it’s your day off, isn’t it? And now we’ve eaten into it.’

  ‘We won’t be very long,’ said Patti. ‘I’ll drive over afterwards. Are you rehearsing your panto again tonight?’

  ‘Yes. Will you and Anne be having a drink?’

  ‘We will.’ Patti gave her a conspiratorial grin. ‘See you there. Now, did you come to have a look at us, or to buy something?’

  ‘To have a look, really,’ confessed Libby, ‘but I must say, those home-made cakes look wonderful.’

  ‘Oh, they are. All made by members of the WI.’

  Libby bought a cake and went outside to wait for Patti, who soon appeared with the other person who’d been helping in the shop.

  ‘This is Dora Walters, Libby.’

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ said the woman, holding out a hand.

  ‘And you,’ said Libby, shaking it and reflecting that all the women in this village looked as if they still lived in the fifties.

  ‘You’re here to help with the Nativity, aren’t you?’ said Dora, folding her hands over her handbag.

  ‘That’s right.’ Libby looked at Patti to see if she wanted to add anything. ‘Just at the beginning. I don’t suppose I’ll need to come back.’

  ‘Libby’s in panto over at Steeple Martin,’ explained Patti. ‘She’s a bit busy to help us regularly.’

  ‘Oh, I always go to that panto,’ said Dora, with a “there now” sort of hand gesture. ‘Thought I knew your face, but I didn’t put it on the stage, somehow! You were the Fairy Queen the other year, weren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I was. Glad you enjoy them.’

  ‘Oh, we do.’ Dora drew a little closer, confidingly. ‘Do you know, we even go without any children!’

  Libby laughed. ‘A lot of our regulars don’t bring children. I shouldn’t worry.’

  ‘Would you like to come and have a cuppa? Vicar?’ Dora turned to Patti, who glanced at Libby and caught an imperceptible nod.

  ‘Yes, we’d love to, wouldn’t we, Libby? We didn’t stop for one in the shop.’

  ‘Good.’ Dora beamed on them both. ‘Come along then. Just round here.’

  Dora’s cottage was in the middle of a terrace, not unlike Libby’s own, although the plethora of china ornaments and lacy mats were distinctly unlike. Dora bade them sit down and hurried out to the kitchen.

  ‘Why did you want to come?’ whispered Patti.

  ‘Village gossip,’ Libby whispered back. ‘Useful. And I told Ian what Kaye said, by the way.’

  Dora bustled back in.

  ‘Won’t be long,’ she said. ‘So, how do you come to be helping our vicar?’

  ‘We have mutual friends,’ said Libby, ‘and we thought it would be a good idea. Besides, the village needs cheering up after those awful murders, doesn’t it?’

  Dora sniffed. ‘Don’t know what it’s coming to,’ she said, although Libby wasn’t sure what “it” was. ‘Murders
in the church, no less. Not that I go much meself. Chapel, I was, but there isn’t a chapel to go to round here.’

  ‘You’re not from the village, then?’ said Libby.

  ‘North Kent, I am,’ said Dora. ‘Excuse me, I’d better see if the kettle’s boiled.’

  ‘I assumed she was one of your flock,’ said Libby.

  ‘Because of the shop? Oh, no, it’s nothing to do with the church. I just help out because I want to,’ said Patti.

  ‘And it’s a good way of keeping your finger on the pulse.’

  ‘There is that,’ said Patti, with a rather shamefaced grin.

  ‘That’s why I –’ Libby stopped as Dora came back with a tray of tea.

  ‘There,’ she said. ‘Do you take sugar?’

  When they were settled with their tea, Libby returned to the previous conversation.

  ‘So what sort of chapel did you go to in North Kent?’

  ‘Nonconformist. Quite strict, it was. Can’t say I was sorry not to go no more.’

  ‘Funny, isn’t it,’ said Patti. ‘All the Nonconformist movements were set up because they didn’t agree with the Act of Uniformity, and all the regulations surrounding worship, yet they’ve become even stricter than the church.’

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ said Dora. ‘I just went to Chapel because me mum and dad did. Married there, and all.’

  ‘And when did you come here?’

  ‘My Fred was a miner, so we come down here.’ She shrugged. ‘All gone now, o’ course.’

  ‘Didn’t you go to the Miners’ Reunion service in the church?’ asked Patti.

  ‘No, vicar, but I went to the party after. Although that went a bit flat, didn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, poor Mrs Bidwell,’ said Libby.

  Dora snorted. ‘She was a difficult old besom, that one. Always complaining about the stuff we had in the shop. Said it was too expensive.’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Patti. ‘And if I happened to be there, she would never be served by me.’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ said Libby. ‘But I suppose you get all sorts in the shop, not just the church congregation. Some of the others must be difficult.’

  ‘It’s mainly the old folks,’ said Dora, ‘who can’t get to the big supermarkets. Some of the young mums come to buy fresh veg, but most o’them say it’s too dear. That Gavin Brice, he do take some of them up to Felling or into Nethergate in his minibus.’

  ‘That’s nice of him,’ said Libby, thinking that, apart from his overacting, she rather liked Gavin Brice.

  ‘You’ll never believe it, but Maurice takes a regular group in his car. And drives some of them to hospital,’ said Patti. ‘He used to take Mrs Bidwell.’

  ‘That longfaced strip o’bacon?’ said Dora in disbelief. ‘Well, I never!’

  ‘Good old Maurice,’ said Libby. ‘So you know all the people who go to church even though you don’t go yourself, Dora?’

  ‘Can’t help it in a village this size,’ said Dora. ‘The things I could tell you.’ She sent a quick glance to Patti. ‘But there, I won’t.’

  Bugger, thought Libby.

  ‘Actually, Dora,’ said Patti, ‘I’m sorry to rush away, but I’ve got to open the village hall for the –’ there was the smallest pause, ‘flower ladies. They’re starting the decorations for the church. Don’t worry, Libby, you finish your tea and I’ll come back and collect you.’

  Libby thought this was a very obvious ploy, but Dora didn’t seem to notice and after she’d seen Patti out, she came back to her chair and leant forward confidentially.

  ‘As I was saying, there’s things go on here that the vicar wouldn’t know about.’ She shook her head. ‘Some o’them young people, the things they get up to of a night. Drinking out in the street – and worse.’

  Libby forbore to say that the youth of St Aldeberge were hardly in the minority in this respect.

  ‘And there’s more than one couple not abiding by their marriage vows.’ Dora nodded wisely. ‘That Marion Longfellow, for a start.’

  ‘Mrs Longfellow?’ Libby was surprised. ‘But I didn’t think she had a husband. Wasn’t she a widow?’

  ‘Oh, she were, yes,’ said Dora, looking saintly.

  ‘Oh,’ said Libby at a loss. Could she ask who?

  ‘And him younger than her, too. Although not much, and she wasn’t bad-looking, I’ll give her that.’ Dora lifted the teapot. ‘More tea?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ said Libby. ‘So do you think this man, whoever he is, could have been Marion’s killer?’

  Dora looked surprised. ‘I though she was killed by same one as old Bidwell?’

  ‘We don’t know. I mean the police don’t know. You must have heard what people think in the village, though?’

  ‘As to that,’ said Dora, going pink, ‘there was a lot of talk about the vicar at first. Course, I never held with it. Good to me, she’s always been.’

  ‘Yes, I know about that,’ said Libby. ‘But that stopped after Mrs Longfellow died, didn’t it?’

  ‘Course it did. Weren’t even here, were she? I know Wednesdays she sometimes goes off after she does her stint at the shop and often comes back Thursday mornings, but looks like some folk didn’t.’

  ‘So you think it was someone who didn’t know the vicar very well? Or didn’t know her routine?’

  ‘She didn’t always come back on Thursdays, mind,’ said Dora, determined to be fair. ‘Sometimes she came back Wednesday nights. I see her, see. I see her headlights as she turns onto her drive. Can’t help it.’

  ‘But you think most people don’t know?’

  Dora shrugged. ‘Don’t know. Maybe just me because I work with her at the shop.’

  ‘What about Mrs Longfellow? Do you think most people in the village knew she was having an affair?’

  ‘Now, I didn’t say that, did I?’ Dora looked uncomfortable.

  ‘You implied that she was having an affair with a married man,’ said Libby. ‘Was it just guesswork?’

  ‘People talk,’ said Dora obscurely.

  ‘So some of the village thought she was and talked about it?’

  ‘That’s about it.’ Dora drew herself up and tried to go back to looking saintly. ‘And I won’t say any more to blacken her memory.’

  At this moment Patti reappeared in the doorway and Libby reluctantly stood up.

  ‘Thank you so much for the tea, Dora. I hope I see you again.’

  ‘Did you get any more out of her?’ Patti asked as they walked back towards the vicarage.

  ‘Not a lot, but she implied that Marion Longfellow was having an affair with a married man. When I pressed her on it she rather backtracked and said it was just gossip.’

  Patti made a face. ‘I ought to be shocked, but actually, I wouldn’t be surprised.’

  Libby was shocked. ‘But she was a flower lady!’

  ‘They are normal people.’ Patti laughed at the expression on Libby’s face. ‘But funnily enough, Marion was the one who was most competitive about the flowers, at least when Joan Bidwell was alive, even though they pretended to be the greatest of friends.’

  ‘I thought Joan Bidwell didn’t like anyone?’

  ‘She didn’t, but Marion used to bring her to church and she had to be grateful. She used to go into Felling with Gavin sometimes.’

  Libby frowned. ‘Then why was Gavin picking Marion up the morning he found her dead if she normally drove herself?’

  ‘Apparently she got nervous about coming to church, so Gavin started driving out to pick her up. Completely out of his way, of course. I told you Sheila Johnson seemed to be doing most of the flowers, didn’t I? That was because Marion was nervous. And Kaye works.’

  ‘I expect it was also because of the feeling being stirred up against you,’ said Libby.

  Patti sighed. ‘Of course. Are you going to wait here with me until the children arrive, or have you got somewhere else to go?’

  ‘No, I confess I was being nosy about the shop, and hoping to pick up some gossi
p. That’s the only reason I came over early.’

  ‘Well, you did pick up some gossip, even if it’s not very useful.’ Patti opened the vicarage door and ushered her visitor inside.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Libby took off her coat. ‘She was also complaining about the young people’s behaviour, and it did occur to me that if you have a regular group of youngsters who hang around the village at night they might have seen something the night Marion died.’

  ‘If they saw anything in the village it would simply be someone driving through. You couldn’t tell where they were going.’

  ‘But,’ said Libby, frowning again, ‘if someone was driving in from the coast? Or towards it? There’s only the one road.’

  ‘With a lot of houses along it,’ said Patti, leading the way into the kitchen. ‘No, that wouldn’t work. Have you had enough of Dora’s tea, or would you like more?’

  ‘I don’t think I could,’ said Libby with a grin, ‘but we could have a piece of my new cake.’

  Settled at Patti’s kitchen table, Libby returned to the subject of Marion Longfellow.

  ‘I suppose if we could find out who the man was we might have a viable suspect, but as Dora said, we thought the same person killed both women, so why would Marion’s lover kill Joan Bidwell?’

  ‘To keep her quiet?’ suggested Patti, picking crumbs off the plate.

  ‘And then killed Marion because she found out? That’s a possibility.

  ‘Why didn’t you ask Dora who it was?’

  ‘I don’t think she’d have told me. She got a bit evasive, as I said. So who could it have been, do you think?’

  ‘It could be someone from outside the village,’ said Patti.

  ‘No, because if it was, Dora wouldn’t have known anything about him.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Well,’ said Patti, looking miserable, ‘I don’t really know. This isn’t my area.’

  ‘I’ll help,’ said Libby. ‘Start with the people she knew at church. Gavin, obviously, but it can’t be him because he’s not married. Maurice? Oh, no. You said he was a widower with a secret girlfriend.’

  Patti looked at her severely. ‘Who is a very respectable widow. They keep things to themselves and I’m not saying anything more about them.’