LS 13 - Murder in a Different Place

by Lesley Cookman

  ‘But they obviously thought there was a secret,’ said Libby.

  ‘No, I think all they were worried about, as we keep saying, was finding out if anyone knew the secret,’ said Harry. ‘Gawd, it’s like a bad Victorian melodrama.’

  ‘You know,’ said Libby, as they drove down to the ferry terminal at Fishbourne a little later, ‘we’ve completely forgotten about poor old Lucifer.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think he’s got anything to do with it,’ said Peter. ‘He was just a red herring. And we don’t know if he’s alive or dead.’

  Ben called Hetty to tell her they would be home early, and then reported that she wanted them all to come to dinner.

  ‘I expect she wants all the up-to-date news,’ said Peter. ‘Not that there’s much to tell.’

  But when they all got to the Manor later that evening, Hetty surprised them.

  ‘I remember that in the newspapers,’ she said, when they showed her the cutting. ‘Scandal, it was.’

  ‘But we hardly found any references to it online,’ said Libby, surprised.

  ‘Hushed up, I reckon.’ Hetty turned to the Aga and lifted a huge enamel pan full of toad in the hole. ‘Here you are, gal. You get serving while I get the veg.’

  ‘But they couldn’t erase all references to it.’ Peter frowned. ‘And why hush it up?’

  It was Hetty’s turn to look surprised. ‘ʼCos ʼe was old Reginald Morton’s son, wasn’t ʼe?’

  A stunned silence followed this.

  ‘You mean – Reginald Morton the poet?’ squeaked Libby eventually.

  ‘Yeah, ʼim. Had hisself a castle built, or something.’

  ‘Overcliffe Castle!’ chorused those round the table.

  ‘Arty set, they were. Some – I dunno – movement, I think they called it.’

  ‘Like St Ives?’ suggested Ben.

  His mother gave him a look. ‘I dunno, do I? Never was arty meself.’

  Peter got out his phone and also received a look from Hetty.

  ‘Not now. You’re here to eat. It’ll wait.’

  It was the first time Libby had seen Peter look sheepish. Hetty did, however, allow discussion of the situation over the dinner table. It ranged mostly over the astonishing information that Alfred Morton had been Reginald Morton’s son, and therefore, if their assumptions were right, Alicia, Amelia, Honoria, and Celia had been his daughters.

  ‘It sort of explains Honoria going away to be a sculptress, too,’ said Libby. ‘But why have we never known this?’

  ‘We might be wrong,’ warned Ben. ‘Just because we found a Honoria Morton it doesn’t mean she was the same one as our Honoria.’

  ‘That’s true, but it’s all fitting together,’ said Harry. ‘The Castle. They all grew up there, we know that. Perhaps it was a sort of arty commune.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of one on the Island,’ said Peter, frowning. ‘And we haven’t come across any, have we?’

  ‘There’s Dimbola Lodge,’ said Libby. ‘You know, where Julia Cameron lived. And all the poets and writers.’

  ‘Tennyson,’ said Peter.

  ‘Dickens,’ added Ben.

  ‘Keats,’ said Harry surprisingly. ‘Well, there’s a Keats Green in Shanklin. It sort of follows.’

  ‘They were all Victorians, though, not 1950s,’ said Libby.

  ‘Their parents – Reginald Morton and Matthew’s parents would have been born in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, though,’ said Peter. He fidgeted with his phone again. ‘Oh, Hetty, please let me look him up!’

  ‘Oh, go on then,’ said Hetty grudgingly. ‘Impatient bugger.’

  The others watched as Peter began the search for Reginald Morton on his phone.

  ‘Ah!’ he said triumphantly, looking up. ‘There we are. “Reginald Morton, poet and playwright, born 1893, died 1953.” There’s a proper website, but I won’t look at that now.’

  ‘So he’s the right sort of era.’ Harry was staring into the middle distance. ‘And he might be my great-grandfather.’

  ‘Golly, yes!’ said Libby.

  ‘And that does make it more likely that someone wants to keep you quiet, doesn’t it?’ said Ben.

  ‘But I haven’t known up until now – don’t know for sure anyway. Why would they want to keep me quiet?’

  ‘We’ve always said, because someone thinks you do know,’ said Peter. ‘And if there’s been such trouble taken over keeping the whole Alfred thing quiet for all these years, someone doesn’t want it to get out now.’

  ‘Someone thinks Matthew told me.’ Harry looked round the table. ‘But he didn’t.’

  ‘We know,’ said Libby. ‘And I bet there’s only one person he did tell.’

  The following morning, Libby was just settling down at her laptop to do more research on Reginald Morton, when her phone rang.

  ‘It’s me.’

  ‘Hal? What’s up? You haven’t had another funny letter, have you?’

  ‘No. What’sisname Deakin just rang me up. He said –’ Harry took a deep breath ‘– he said Andrew McColl wanted to meet me.’

  ‘Andrew McColl? The actor?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But he’s famous! And he was at the memorial service.’

  ‘I know. And you know what this means, don’t you?’

  ‘He’s Lucifer!’

  Chapter Twenty-six

  ‘Well, maybe not,’ said Harry. ‘That’s leaping to conclusions. Let’s just say he might be.’

  ‘Have you told Pete?’

  ‘Of course, you silly woman. We decided I would meet him. I called Deakin back and asked him to arrange a time and place.’

  ‘Couldn’t he come here? I want to see him!’

  ‘Libby, it isn’t a show put on for your benefit.’ Harry heaved a great sigh. ‘I just can’t believe this. Bloody melodrama gets more stupid every day.’

  Libby was quiet for a moment.

  ‘You still there?’ said Harry.

  ‘Yes. I was just thinking. I was starting to research Reginald Morton this morning, so I’ll have a go at Andrew McColl, too. And I’ll ring Guy and see if he’s managed to get any more names from the blue book. Are you working at lunchtime?’

  ‘Course I am.’

  ‘I’ll pop in and let you know what I’ve found out.’

  ‘That’s just an excuse for me to give you a glass of wine.’

  ‘And a bowl of soup.’

  ‘All right, and a bowl of soup. Pete was going to look up McColl too, but he’s got a deadline. If he’s finished, I’ll get him to come along too.’

  ‘Ben’s over at the timber yard doing something important today, so he won’t come,’ said Libby. ‘I’ll see you at – what? When are you likely to be able to talk?

  ‘I’ve got no bookings, so it’ll be foot traffic. No idea. Just text me before you leave.’

  It was almost one o’clock when Libby sent Harry a text.

  ‘Empty,’ came the reply. ‘Come now.’

  Peter was already at the big table in the window to the right of the front door. Libby waved through the glass and he got up to open the door for her.

  ‘Got anything?’ he asked pulling out a chair.

  ‘Yes,’ said Libby, putting her laptop on the table. ‘And Fran’s joining us with the blue book.’

  Peter raised his eyebrows. ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes.’ Libby beamed. ‘Where’s Hal?’

  ‘Here.’ Harry appeared carrying the cafetière and a bottle of red wine. ‘The Turkish one I told you about.’

  ‘Angora?’ read Libby. ‘That’s rabbits.’

  ‘It’s also Turkish wine, dear heart,’ said Peter. ‘I bet Guy knows all about it.’

  ‘Yes, we must get him to tell us all about that little hideaway,’ said Harry. ‘I’m going to need it after this.’

  As Harry was setting out cutlery and glasses, Fran arrived.

  ‘Now we’re all here,’ said Harry, ‘what have you got?’

  ‘Well,’ began Libby, ‘I star
ted with Reginald Morton, but broke off after Harry called, so I looked at Andrew McColl first. But let Fran tell you about the book. I called Guy to ask him if he’d been able to get anything more from it, and he said he had. Not a lot, but there were several names that had emerged.’

  ‘And here they are.’ Fran took the book from her bag and carefully opened it flat. ‘See, there are only a few pages that would open, and Guy thought that was probably the ones Matthew used most regularly.’

  ‘Although he wouldn’t have used them so much these days,’ said Harry. ‘He had a smartphone like everybody else.’

  ‘Except me,’ said Libby.

  ‘So where was that?’ asked Peter. ‘We never heard any mention of a mobile.’

  ‘That is odd,’ said Libby. ‘The sisters didn’t mention it, and as they have phones themselves they would have known how to go through it.’

  ‘And probably wouldn’t have needed us in the first place,’ said Fran.

  ‘So Matthew was as keen as the sisters to keep the secrets, both their shared one and his own personal ones,’ said Libby.

  ‘So he chucked it,’ said Harry. ‘Only thing that makes sense.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s what the sisters thought might be at Ship House or the Beach House?’ suggested Peter.

  ‘Could be,’ Harry nodded, ‘but I reckon he got rid of it. It must have had calls on it pointing to someone.’

  ‘Of course! The meeting he couldn’t attend and sent Celia to instead,’ said Libby.

  ‘Anyway, Fran, go on with the addresses,’ said Peter. ‘What did you find?’

  ‘I wrote out a list,’ said Fran, ‘but I’ll show you the entries. Here, see? The ones in biro are the ones that have stayed. What could be pencil marks are just faint indentations – not even that.’ She carefully turned over pages and then pushed a sheet of paper into the middle of the table. ‘And there’s the list.’

  ‘There are nineteen names,’ said Libby, ‘and none of them rung any bells until we looked at the research I was doing.’

  ‘Go on – one of them’s a Morton?’ said Harry.

  ‘No, but look at the first name we found. That’s Andrew Foster McColl, that is.’

  Harry and Peter looked stunned. Libby was beaming in triumph.

  ‘Looks as though we’re right, then,’ said Harry at last. ‘McColl is Lucifer.’

  ‘What’s even better,’ said Fran, ‘is that he first made his name in a sixties revival of Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, where he played the Devil.’

  ‘And he’s married to Fay Scott,’ added Libby, ‘and has been for donkey’s years.’

  ‘So did his and Matthew’s relationship pre-date McColl’s marriage?’ asked Peter.

  ‘We can’t tell, nor do we know why there’d been no contact for the last couple of years,’ said Fran. ‘Harry said he thought Lucifer was dead, didn’t you, Hal?’

  Harry nodded. ‘And he isn’t. And I’m going to meet him. Bloody hell.’

  ‘Let’s have the soup,’ said Peter, ‘then we can see what you’ve got on the Morton story. I’ve still got my deadline, but I decided I could take a lunch break. As long as it’s in by the end of the working day.’

  Libby went to help Harry fetch soup plates, bread, and a tureen, and they all helped themselves to Harry’s spicy Mexican soup. After his second bowlful, Peter sat back with a replete: ‘Ah!’

  ‘You want the rest, now, then?’ said Libby, topping up her wine glass.

  ‘Yes,’ said Harry. ‘Trot it out, then.’

  ‘Reginald Morton, we know, was born in 1893. I couldn’t resist looking up a bit about him last night, but Ben got bolshie and said we’d been waiting to watch some programme on television so I had to stop.

  ‘Anyway, his parents were part of a rather arty circle on the Isle of Wight. A lot of artists gathered there, some taking houses on the Island for the whole summer.’

  ‘Like Lamorna Cove,’ said Fran. Harry looked confused.

  ‘In Cornwall. Same sort of thing,’ said Peter.

  ‘So Reginald was born into this sort of circle, and it continued as he grew up. He began to make a name for himself, and then he fell in love with Tallulah DeLaxley.’

  ‘Matthew’s aunt,’ said Fran.

  ‘They married in 1918, after he came home from France, where he’d improved his standing in poetry circles by writing war poetry.’

  ‘Oh, of course!’ said Peter.

  ‘They had five children. Alicia, Amelia, Honoria, Celia and –’ Libby paused for effect.

  ‘Alfred!’ chorused the other three.

  ‘So we were right,’ said Harry. ‘That’s the secret the sisters are trying to keep. That their brother Alfred was a traitor – or a spy – during the last war and committed suicide after it. Nothing in that account about Matthew?’

  ‘Not on the website, which seems to be run by a PhD student at Oxford, but on the Wiki entry it does mention that Alfred took his own life in 1949. It doesn’t say why.’

  ‘Well, I think we’ve all been very clever,’ said Harry. ‘We worked it all out.’

  ‘You did how much?’ asked Peter, amused.

  ‘I helped. And I was the story to start with, wasn’t I?’

  ‘It’s all very well,’ said Libby, ‘but although we’ve solved both the mysteries – mainly because other people have come forward, like Jeannette and Andrew McColl – and even Hetty – we still don’t know why someone’s after Harry!’

  They all looked at one another.

  ‘That’s true.’ Peter put an anxious hand on Harry’s arm. ‘Perhaps I’d better bring the computer in here this afternoon if you’ve got prepping up to do.’

  ‘Don’t fuss.’ Harry patted Peter’s hand. ‘I’m all right here. And who’s going to attack me here in broad daylight, especially if I work with the kitchen door open so I can be seen from the street? And lock the back door?’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Peter.

  ‘But we don’t know who and why,’ said Fran. ‘The idea that it’s the sisters seems a bit farcical.’

  ‘I suppose what we could do is let them know we know all about their brother, then they should stop being silly about everything.’

  ‘You’re forgetting something,’ said Peter. ‘They still think Celia was murdered. And if they’re right …’

  ‘You’re right, I was forgetting,’ said Libby, frowning. ‘Now, where does that fit in?’

  ‘Matthew wasn’t well enough to meet this person, whoever it was, and Celia said she would go instead.’ Harry stated the facts.

  ‘And because she hadn’t got, or wouldn’t give, whatever it was the person wanted, he knocked her over the head and left her to drown,’ continued Peter.

  ‘Then Matthew dies. And the sisters receive the letter about “the young friend”. They still think the whole thing is about their traitorous brother, and send the letter on to Harry, whom they assume is the friend in question, but don’t believe Matthew would have said anything about Alfred to him,’ continued Libby.

  ‘And he didn’t,’ said Harry.

  ‘No, because it was shameful. And that’s the reason,’ said Libby, ‘that no mention was ever made about the relationship with the illustrious Reginald, because any research on him was likely to throw up Alfred’s treachery.’

  ‘But they think whoever killed Celia knows the secret and, desperate to keep it safe, try and find out who killed her by asking us but not telling us the reason,’ concluded Fran. ‘Neat.’

  ‘Has anyone thought to look up Matthew’s Wiki entry?’ said Harry suddenly. ‘I assume he’s got one. He didn’t have a website, I know that.’

  Libby obediently typed in Matthew’s name.

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s one of those “citation needed” pieces. Just says born 1925, worked for the Daily Sketch and then as a freelance.’

  ‘Nothing about family then,’ said Peter. ‘What a nuisance.’

  ‘Let’s go back to old Reggie,’ said Harry. ‘What about this Overcliffe
Castle?’

  Libby went back to the Reginald Morton website. ‘It’s not particularly informative about that. It says he lived there with his wife and children, and it became the centre of a group of artists, writers and poets who gathered on the Island every summer.’

  ‘Try searching Overcliffe Castle, then,’ said Peter.

  ‘Nothing much more. It was sold in the early fifties –’

  ‘When Reginald died,’ put in Fran.

  ‘Probably. The person who bought it tried to turn it into a hotel, but it wasn’t successful. Then the cliff began to crumble and it had to be demolished in the sixties.’

  ‘Which we knew, because it was on that plaque,’ said Fran.

  ‘So all along it belonged to the Morton family and not the DeLaxleys,’ said Harry. ‘So the land probably belongs to the sisters, not Matthew.’

  ‘That’s a point,’ said Peter. ‘You’ll have to get your Mr Deakin to look into that for you.’

  ‘Come to think of it, Candle Cove probably belonged to the sisters,’ said Libby. ‘The steps lead up to the top just below their house.’

  ‘But the Beach House …?’ said Harry.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Libby sighed. ‘Just as we think we’ve solved it all, up comes something else that needs explaining.’

  The bell tinkled over the restaurant door.

  ‘Bugger,’ muttered Harry. ‘Forgot to lock it.’

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ said the elderly gentleman who had come through the door. ‘It does say open.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Harry stood up. ‘Please come in.’

  ‘Actually,’ said the man, looking up into Harry’s face. ‘I believe it might be you I’ve come to see. My name’s Andrew McColl.’

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  In the middle of a sip of wine, Libby choked.

  Peter stood up. ‘Go up to the flat, Hal.’

  Harry, standing fishlike with his mouth open, pulled himself together. ‘Er, yes. Pleased to meet you, Mr McColl.’

  Andrew McColl, looking amused, shook his hand and looked at the group round the table.

  ‘I don’t want to interrupt –’

  ‘No,’ said Libby hurriedly, ‘we were just –’

  ‘Finishing lunch,’ Ben said, and trod on her foot. ‘Go on, Hal, you pop upstairs, we’ll clear up here.’