‘Even the family?’
‘Well, my dear mama doesn’t have to be involved does she? She wasn’t involved in the original scenario and certainly isn’t with the current one, so I haven’t bothered to tell her. And Hetty doesn’t mind. At least, I don’t think she does. You never can tell with Hetty. But she’s agreed to wheel Greg out for the occasion, so that can’t be bad.’
‘How is he?’
‘Frail. I don’t think anybody thought he’d last this long, frankly, but on he goes – the proverbial creaking gate.’
‘Was it the war that caused all the problems?’
‘Oh, yes, dear. You know he was missing presumed dead for a year?’
‘No. Really? How awful for Hetty.’
‘Yes, specially as by that time she was down here with Ma-in-law on the doorstep. And when Pa-in-law began to fail, she had to take over the running of the hop farm. The old girl was useless, apparently.’
‘Yes, you told me.’
‘Did I? Oh, yes. Well, anyway, it was Hetty who had the new huts built, you know, the proper brick ones with proper roofs. Good job they weren’t there before the war when you think of what happened the other night.’
‘I don’t want to think of what happened the other night, thank you.’
‘Sorry, dear.’ Peter stood up and stretched. ‘Ready for a little drink? Or would you prefer coffee?’
‘Coffee, please. And I think I ought to have something to eat.’
‘A nice slimming salad, or something?’
‘Don’t be rude. No, something hot. Soup?’
‘I will ask the chef, m’lady.’ Peter bowed and disappeared kitchen-wards. Libby sat and looked out of the window at the wide High Street, with its eclectic mix of houses from the last four centuries bathed in unexpectedly brilliant sunshine.
‘I hope it’s like this tomorrow,’ she said, as Peter returned with a cafetière and two mugs.
‘Course it won’t be. It’ll be pouring with rain, we’ll all get soaked and Hetty will stomp round all tight-lipped in her green wellies.’
‘Where are these photographs going to be taken?’ Libby pressed down the plunger and poured coffee.
‘The huts –’
‘New or old?’
‘Hetty had the old ones knocked down, didn’t she, so it’ll have to be the new ones, except that they’re outbuildings now, so they don’t look quite the same. Still, we’ll move all the extraneous rubbish out of the way and tart it up a bit.’
‘When are we going to do that?’
‘How about this afternoon? Got anything on?’
‘I’m supposed to be going through the lighting plot.’
‘No, you’re not. I forgot – I was asked to pass on the message.’
‘In that case, no, not until this evening.’
Peter’s eyebrows lifted. ‘Ooh. Got a date, have we?’
‘Not really,’ Libby tried to appear cool, ‘Ben and I are going out to one of the Thai restaurants in Canterbury.’
‘What’s that then, if it isn’t a date?’ Peter cackled. ‘You crafty old moo.’
‘I’m not. We’re just both at a loose end, that’s all.’
‘I shall refrain from making the obvious vulgar remark.’ Peter raised his mug. ‘Cheers.’
Harry provided them with soup and fresh bread, a bottle of wine and more coffee and promised to join them later if he wasn’t too tired.
‘All the prepping up for this evening, you see, ducks. We don’t just stop when we chuck the punters out.’
The new hoppers’ huts were now on the edge of a paddock some distance from both The Manor and the Oast House.
‘This used to be the “common”,’ Peter told Libby as they picked their way along the edge of the ditch that ran behind the huts. ‘The Sally-Ann and the lolly-man all used to set up here. And they had a huge party at the end of the picking.’
‘Lolly-man?’ panted Libby, feeling hot inside her layers. ‘I know the Sally-Ann is the Salvation Army.’
‘The lolly-man used to come round selling sweets for the children. And the fish van used to come on Fridays – oh, a regular little hive of industry, it was.’
‘Didn’t they use the shops in the village?’
‘Oh, no, dear. Out of the question. The villagers hated them. The hoppers used to call them “home-dwellers” and if ever they got together all hell broke loose. They say it was after one of those fights on a Friday night that Hetty’s dad had a go at her.’
‘How come he hadn’t heard all about it until then?’
‘The men used to come down at the weekends – come on, ducky, you’ve read the play –’ he stopped and raised an eyebrow at her. ‘You have read the play, haven’t you?’
‘I know that, but why hadn’t he heard before if it was such common knowledge?’
‘He didn’t come down every weekend. According to Lenny, he had other fish to fry. Not a nice person.’
Libby struggled along in silence for a few minutes.
‘There’s another thing I don’t understand.’
Peter raised his eyes to the skies. ‘Now she tells me.’
‘No, listen. It’s just struck me. How can even Hetty have known she was pregnant by that time? The hopping season was only three or four weeks in September, wasn’t it? Well, even if she’d conceived on her first day here she could only just have known herself and perhaps not even then. And we know that they didn’t actually do it until they’d been seeing one another for a couple of weeks.’
‘If you’d been paying attention, Sarjeant Minor, you would have remembered that it wasn’t the pregnancy that caused the bit of bother – nobody knew about that then. They didn’t discover it until after they’d gone back to London. No, it was the very fact that they had been doing it that upset the apple cart. They were funny about those things then.’
‘Well, she was only seventeen.’
‘And he was the wrong class. It meant as much to the lower classes as to the upper, this wrong side of the tracks business. You just did not cross over.’
‘We’re here.’ Libby stopped. ‘Aren’t they small?’
They were facing a long stone building with about a dozen plain wooden doors dividing it into different sections.
‘Have you never been up here before?’
‘No, never. It’s quite a long walk, isn’t it?’ She threw him a lowering glance.
‘Only a mile or so.’ Peter was nonchalant, opening doors and peering in.
‘You could have warned me,’ Libby said, trying to see over his shoulder. ‘Golly. They lived in these?’
‘And the old ones were worse. The interior walls didn’t go all the way up, so you could look over into next door, like you can in the school toilets.’
‘But they’re so tiny. At least you can stand upright in the ones we’ve built for the set.’
‘Artistic licence, dear.’ Peter backed out. ‘What we’ll do is, we’ll clear out one hut, so that he can get a shot of an interior, and shove all the rubbish into the others. There’s nothing very heavy here. Do you want to take that horse blanket off?’
‘I suppose so. I’m going to ruin my clothes.’
‘Oh, I thought you’d put them on special, like.’
‘Oh, shut up,’ said Libby.
It took them nearly an hour to clear the hut and move some of the most obvious junk out of sight, by which time Libby was sure she had lost at least a stone, was bright red in the face and damp all over.
‘There.’ Peter straightened his back and stretched. ‘That wasn’t as bad as I thought.’
‘You speak for yourself,’ muttered Libby, looking in vain for somewhere to sit down. ‘And now we’ve got to walk all the way back.’
‘No, we haven’t,’ Peter pointed. ‘Here comes the cavalry.’
A muddy four-wheel-drive was bouncing over the common towards them.
‘It’s your swain, come to rescue you.’
‘Oh, no,’ moaned Libby. ‘Just look at me.’
‘As lovely as usual, dear heart. And if you’re worried about the way you look, it definitely is a date.’
‘You dare –’ began Libby.
‘Hallo, folks. Spring cleaning?’ Ben jumped down from the driver’s seat and strolled over. ‘You should have let me know. I would have come to help. Anything I can do?’
‘Just in time to be too late, lucky legs.’ Peter picked up his waxed jacket. ‘But you can take us home again.’
‘What about the other sites?’ asked Libby. ‘For the other shots.’
‘Oh, the fight took place on the side of the ditch just along there, by the bridge where we crossed over. At least, that’s where Warburton’s body was found. Nothing to do there.’
‘How did you know we were here?’ asked Libby.
‘I called the caff to find out what time the shoot was set for tomorrow and Harry told me. Do you want to come and have a cup of tea up at the house, or would you rather go home?’
‘I would rather go home and have a bath, if you don’t mind.’ Libby surveyed her clothes and sniffed suspiciously. ‘I know just how those hop pickers must have felt. Fancy not being able to have a decent wash feeling like this.’
‘Oh, it was worse than this,’ said Ben cheerfully. ‘There was all the gunge from the hops all over everything as well. Smelt awful, stained everything, dreadful stuff. And the hops hurt your hands. They said that when the children went back to school in London the teachers all knew where they’d been just by looking at their hands.’
‘You know a lot about it.’ Libby climbed in to the back seat while Ben held the door open.
‘Well, of course I do. I was brought up with the hop gardens. My mother virtually ran them after the war, right up until the big growers introduced automated picking and we couldn’t compete.’
‘So when did the last pickers come down?’
‘The sixties – quite late.’
‘I thought it all stopped not long after the war.’ Libby was fascinated.
Ben set them bumping over the common. ‘Good lord, no. And when they finally did stop, several of the old ladies who had been coming all their lives moved down here for good.’
‘I’d love to talk to them.’ Libby leaned forward over Peter’s shoulder.
‘Well, you could always talk to my mother. After all, she was a picker herself.’
‘Yes, but she went over to the other side, so to speak. What about her friend, Flo?’
‘Flo married Frank Carpenter, the foreman, just after Hetty came down here. He bought the Home Farm from my grandfather just after the war. He was a lot older than Flo.’
‘What beats me,’ said Peter, twisting round to look Libby in the eye, ‘is why, when we’ve been working on this play virtually since you moved in to Bide-a-Wee, you’ve suddenly developed this overwhelming interest in it all within the last week.’
‘It’s your fault. You introduced me to your mama and started to tell me all about it.’
‘Come off it. You can’t pin it all on me.’
‘Anyway, after that there was Uncle Lenny coming down, and your mum getting uptight and –’ Libby stopped.
‘And other things. Yes, I know. Puts quite a sinister complexion on matters, doesn’t it? Quite Miss Marple-ish, really.’
‘Libby doesn’t want to be Miss Marple.’ Ben flicked her a glance in the mirror. ‘Do you, Libby?’
Peter turned and raised an eyebrow. Libby scowled.
Ben surprised Libby by driving right behind the village and turning into Allhallow’s Lane from the other end.
‘I didn’t know it went anywhere,’ she said, surprised.
‘Well, it doesn’t really. It just turns into our land, but we’ve never put up any keep out signs. It didn’t seem worth it.’
Libby opened the door and clambered out.
‘Thanks for the lift.’
‘See you at seven.’
‘Be good,’ whispered Peter, leaning out of the window. Libby thumbed her nose at him and went inside.
Chapter Eight
LIBBY WORE HER PRETTIEST top with her straight skirt and hoped she wouldn’t get too hot. At least Ben hadn’t collected her in the four-wheel-drive, or her skirt would have been up round her knicker legs.
‘You’re very quiet.’ Ben slid his eyes sideways as he turned on to the main Canterbury road.
‘Sorry.’
‘You do apologise a lot.’
‘S – yes.’
‘There you go again. Let’s change the subject.’
Libby turned her head to look at him. ‘You know, you’re quite different from what I’ve always thought. I had you down as a straightforward businessman, with perhaps a bit of golf and squash on the side.’
‘I’m too old for squash, but I used to play. I tried golf, but it was too slow. Perhaps I might try again. Do you play?’
‘No, I’m hopeless at sport. My ex used to say that if I took a bit more exercise I wouldn’t be so fat.’
‘Nice way with words, had he?’
‘Thank you for not saying “you’re not fat”.’
‘I would have done, but you’d have thought it was flannel.’
‘Hmm.’
They parked in one of the tiny back streets to the north of the city.
‘So do you think you’re fully au fait with all our background history, now? Or are there still gaps you need filled in?’ said Ben as they walked to the restaurant.
‘Sorry, have I been terribly nosy?’
‘No, of course you haven’t. Quite understandable in the circumstances. I just want to know if I can be nosy back.’
They had arrived at the restaurant and Ben held open the door. Libby didn’t reply until they were seated at a table by the window.
‘You can be as nosy as you like, I won’t mind. I might not answer you, though.’
‘I’ll risk it. How long ago did your marriage break up?’
‘Finally? Three years ago. It had been on the downhill slope for two or three before that. I think he waited until the children were old enough before he went.’
‘Do they stay with you in the vacations?’
‘Mostly, at Christmas. They spend some time with their father –’
‘And his floosie.’
Libby made a face. ‘But the rest of the time they swan about, working on building sites, that sort of thing. Dominic’s going to Europe next summer.’
‘Have they been down since you’ve been in the cottage?’
‘Belinda has. The boys haven’t. I hope I can squeeze us all in if they all tip up at the same time.’
‘You can always board out at The Manor.’
‘That’s very kind of you.’
‘It isn’t really called Bide-a-Wee, is it?’
‘If it was I would have changed it. No, that’s Peter and Harry’s pet name for it. They found it for me. It was called “The search for Bide-a-Wee”.’
‘I didn’t realise. Are you happy there?’
Libby thought. ‘It took some getting used to after a four-bedroomed Edwardian terrace, but yes, I’m happy.’
‘Even with all the bother at the theatre?’
‘Oh, I’ve got that under control now. It was only one incident, wasn’t it? And, you know, it couldn’t have been Aunt Millie who cut the wire. Could it? I mean, how would she have got in?’
‘Oh, she could have got hold of the keys from The Manor. They hang in the old pantry along with all the others.’
‘So anybody could get them?’ Libby looked up from the menu she was studying, startled.
‘If they knew where to look, certainly. My mother never locks all the doors during the daytime.’
‘You haven’t told anyone else that it was deliberately cut, have you?’
‘No. You didn’t want me to, did you?’ Ben frowned at her.
‘Certainly not. No need for everybody to worry.’
‘And no need for you to worry – not this evening, anyway. Let’s talk about something else.�
�
Somehow, Libby didn’t quite know how, they did talk about something else. Several things, in fact. To her surprise, she realised when they got up to leave that they hadn’t stopped talking once and had managed to steer completely clear of the play and all its ramifications.
Libby fell silent as they approached the village and discovered, as Ben switched off the engine outside the cottage, that every muscle in her body was tense.
‘Thank you for a lovely evening.’
‘Thank you for being a charming guest.’
‘Would you like to come in for coffee –’ damn. She hadn’t meant to say that – ‘or do you have to get back?’
‘Now what would I have to get back for? My mother doesn’t wait up any more, you know. And I don’t have to get up in the morning.’
‘Sorry.’
‘There you go again. Apologising. I’d love coffee, thank you.’
Libby led the way into the cottage, forgetting to warn him about the step, which meant that he cannoned into her from behind.
‘Is that meant to discourage unwanted visitors?’ he asked, grabbing at the door-frame to steady himself.
‘It’s too late by then – they’re already in.’ Libby paused by the stairs to stroke Sidney. ‘This is my ultimate deterrent.’
‘A formidable beast.’ Ben and Sidney stared at one another. ‘I think I’ll let him make the first approach.’
‘Very wise,’ said Libby, going into the kitchen and taking off her cape. ‘Do you really want coffee, or something stronger?’
‘Coffee, please. I’m driving and I’ve already had a glass or two of wine.’
‘It’s not far to walk,’ said Libby, and could have bitten her tongue out.
‘Good God, Libby. You’re not actually encouraging me to stay, are you?’
‘No.’ Libby’s face was fiery. ‘I just meant, if you wanted a scotch, or something, you could leave the car here and come back for it in the morning.’
‘And have the neighbourhood rife with speculation about my car being here all night?’ He was laughing at her again.
‘Fine. Coffee.’ She turned to the Rayburn, tight-lipped.
‘Are you going to set the cat on me?’
‘His name’s Sidney.’ Libby filled the kettle and put it on the hob.
Murder in Steeple Martin - Libby Sarjeant Murder Mystery series Page 6