Murder at the Manor

by Lesley Cookman

  ‘Nothing to lose by going and having a look round,’ she said.

  ‘Really?’ Libby narrowed her eyes at her friend.

  ‘What did it say on the net?’

  ‘This woman whose name I can’t remember was found dead in a church after a big reunion service. As far as I can see, as I suggested to Alice, it was a heart attack, although she hadn’t been under the doctor for her heart. So unless the police are keeping something to themselves, it doesn’t bear any further investigation.’

  ‘So why are the villagers up in arms?’

  ‘Because there’d been a lot of ill-feeling, particularly between this lady and the vicar. I can imagine an old church hen not liking a new lady vicar, can’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but maybe she wasn’t an old church hen. You’re using generalisations again.’ Fran took a sip of her white wine. Libby scowled at her mineral water. She was driving.

  ‘What are you doing this afternoon?’ said Fran after they’d both been served.

  ‘I thought I was spending it with you.’ Libby took a bite of sausage. ‘Lovely.’

  ‘Why don’t you drive us over to St Aldeberge and we can have a walk round the village? We could even call on your friend Alice.’

  ‘So you don’t think it was a simple heart attack.’ Libby leant back in her seat and surveyed her friend.

  ‘I don’t know. But your friend Alice is concerned, and where there’s concern, there’s sure to be a cause.’

  Libby sighed. ‘I was trying to keep out of it, you know.’

  ‘I know, but you’re also bored.’ Fran put her knife and fork neatly together.

  ‘No, I’m not.’

  ‘You are. You don’t normally call me and suggest lunch for no reason.’

  ‘I haven’t seen you much lately.’

  ‘We saw enough of one another in the summer,’ said Fran, ‘let’s face it.’

  ‘Seems ages ago, though,’ said Libby.

  ‘So let’s go and have a look at St Aldeberge.’ Fran watched Libby’s expression with amusement, knowing she would give in.

  ‘Oh, all right. Shall I ring Alice?’ Libby said, with a resigned sigh.

  ‘Do you want to? We might decide not to do anything about it, and then it would be difficult to back out.’

  ‘But you said we could call on her.’

  ‘We might.’ Fran stood up. ‘But let’s go and have a look first.’

  ‘You’re hoping for a moment, that’s what,’ said Libby, following her out of the pub.

  Fran grinned over her shoulder. ‘It had occurred to me,’ she said.

  Fran’s “moments” were occasional flashes of scenes or sensations which appeared in her mind like established facts. She had felt deaths and seen places and events, some of which had helped the local police force, in particular Detective Chief Inspector Ian Connell, solve crimes. It was this that gave her the sobriquet Special Investigator, and which had alerted the media to some of the adventures in which she and Libby had become involved.

  St Aldeberge sat in a small hollow about half a mile from the cliff top. Below the cliff was a natural harbour at high tide, to which rough steps had been cut in the chalk, allowing a few intrepid small boat owners access to their craft, which at low tide lay at drunken angles on the sand. Libby drove to the end of the road out of St Aldeberge and stopped.

  ‘Look,’ she said, getting out of the car. ‘Isn’t that lovely.’

  Fran looked down at the little natural harbour, high tide now, with the few boats bobbing gently at their moorings.

  ‘Those steps don’t look very safe,’ she said.

  ‘They don’t, do they? And those rings set into the cliffs don’t look very secure, either. One good storm and they’d be pulled out.’

  ‘Perhaps they’ve been set into concrete or something,’ said Fran. ‘We can’t see from up here.’

  ‘No.’ Libby turned and looked inland. ‘I suppose now we go back to the village. Then what do we do?’

  ‘Look at the church,’ said Fran. ‘And then we’ll see.’

  The church, dedicated unsurprisingly to Saint Aldeberge, stood on a triangular plot in the middle of the village, facing a wide street which divided either side of it. Feeling very exposed, Libby tried the big iron handle on the studded oak door. Almost to her surprise, it opened.

  ‘I though churches were kept locked these days,’ she whispered to Fran as they sidled in.

  ‘Are they?’ said Fran. ‘I thought they were supposed to be kept open for everyone to come in when they wanted.’

  ‘Used to be, but things get stolen these days.’

  They stood and looked around. In front of them a stone font stood, its wooden lid surmounted rakishly by a little stone figure poking its tongue out.

  ‘That looks like a gargoyle,’ said Fran.

  ‘Yes, but actually it’s what’s called a “grotesque”,’ said Libby. ‘Gargoyles were water spouts.’

  ‘I never knew that,’ said Fran, giving the little monster an amiable stroke. ‘Odd place to have it, though.’

  Libby was looking through the inevitable stack of leaflets arranged either side of an honesty box. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘They’ve got a community shop in the village. Open ten till two Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. That’s enterprising.’

  ‘Can I help you?’ A voice echoed from the other end of the nave.

  Libby and Fran peered into the darkness near the altar and saw a figure clad in an old-fashioned cross-over apron emerge from a side door.

  ‘Er – no – we were just looking,’ said Libby lamely.

  ‘It’s so unusual to find a church unlocked these days,’ said Fran. Libby shot her an indignant look.

  ‘I’m afraid ours is usually locked, too,’ said the woman approaching up the aisle. ‘It’s only because I’m here doing the flowers.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ said Libby. ‘We’ll get out of your way.’

  ‘No, please stay and look round if you want to,’ said the woman, tucking a wisp of greying fair hair into a kirby grip. ‘I’ll be here for a while. Was there anything you particularly wanted to see?’

  ‘Actually,’ said Libby on a note of inspiration, ‘we wondered if there was anything about Saint Bertha, because this is her church, isn’t it?’

  ‘Only a window, over in the Lady Chapel,’ said the woman, ‘and we’ve got a little leaflet about her life, of course. Most people go to St Martin’s in Canterbury.’

  ‘May we see the window?’ asked Fran.

  ‘Yes, of course.’ The woman turned back down the aisle and they followed her down to the first pew, where she pointed to the right. ‘In there,’ she said. ‘Not very big, as Lady Chapels go, but at least we’ve got one.’

  Libby and Fran went through glass doors into the little chapel. To their left, they looked up at Queen – or Saint – Bertha, piously gazing heavenwards.

  ‘Don’t all churches have Lady Chapels, then?’ asked Fran in a whisper.

  ‘No, although we’ve got one in Steeple Martin. It’s usually big churches and cathedrals. I suppose this is quite a big church.’ Libby looked round at the small electric piano and modern light oak pews. ‘And this has been recently done up, too. Not much like the church itself.’

  They left the chapel and Libby called out goodbye to their unseen guide, who popped her head out of what was presumably the vestry door.

  ‘Pleasure,’ she said, and withdrew.

  Libby and Fran took a leaflet about the Saint and dropped some coins into the honesty box, feeling they’d justified their visit.

  ‘Well,’ said Libby, as they emerged into the watery daylight again, ‘did you get anything in there?’

  ‘Not a thing,’ said Fran. ‘Shall we call on your friend?’

  ‘I thought you wanted to look round?’

  ‘There isn’t much to look round, is there? The shop isn’t open and there isn’t anything else here.’

  ‘You’re such a townie,’ laughed Libby. ‘Villages are like that!
’

  ‘Your village isn’t,’ said Fran.

  ‘Steeple Martin is a big village with several shops. This is far more typical. Like Steeple Cross. Small villages have lost their shops and schools and often their pubs, too. It’s criminal.’

  ‘All right, I’m sorry. So will we ring Alice?’

  ‘Oh, all right.’ Libby fished her mobile out of her pocket and then, with a triumphant ‘Ha!’ put it back in her pocket.

  ‘What?’ said Fran.

  ‘I haven’t got the number!’ said Libby. ‘I never call her, so it isn’t in my phone. In fact, I doubt if I’ve even got it written in an address book anywhere.’

  ‘Right. What’s her surname?’

  ‘Gay,’ said Libby, ‘only she isn’t, in either sense.’

  Fran turned back towards the church door and went briskly inside. Libby stayed where she was.

  ‘Number 4 Birch Lane, down on the left,’ said Fran, emerging once more from the church. ‘I asked the flower lady.’

  ‘Enterprising,’ murmured Libby, following her friend down the wide, empty street.

  Number 4 Birch Lane turned out to be a substantial brick and flint cottage built in the shape of a letter L. Libby rang the bell, and was just about to suggest there was no one in and they might as well go home, when the door opened.

  ‘Libby!’ gasped Alice.

  ‘I’m sorry we didn’t ring, but I didn’t have your number,’ began Libby, but she was interrupted.

  ‘Oh, that doesn’t matter,’ beamed Alice, holding the door wide. ‘It’s just perfect timing. You see the vicar’s here already!’

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  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Acknowledgements

  Who's Who in the Libby Sarjeant Series

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  First Chapter of Murder by Magic