Local Secrets (Penny Plain Mystery Book 3)

by Jan Jones

  “Careful you don’t slip in it and break your neck,” warned Penny. “Don’t dismiss the essay prize either. It’s worth five hundred pounds to a local seventeen year old.” She paused for effect. “And I bet you can’t guess which prominent Salthaven businessman’s son goes to the same sixth form college as my Frances?”

  Leo met her eyes. “Surely not. Durham couldn’t be that stupid.”

  “Far from it. But he is greedy.”

  Leo smiled. “In that case, I can’t wait to see what sort of bribe he comes up with.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  So far so interesting, thought Leo as he and Penny crossed the bridge leading from West Salthaven to East Salthaven. As always, he stopped half way, just to look at the river cutting through the town and winding inland towards the hills. Next to him, Penny leaned her arms on the stone coping, gazing down at the water. Leo knew she was probably only pretending to be interested in the boats lining both sides of the river to give him a moment to rest his bad leg, but he found he didn’t mind her concern. Which was odd, because any sort of solicitous enquiry about his injury from anyone else usually caused him to feel pricklier than a grumpy hedgehog with a hangover.

  “It’s a wonderful view, isn’t?” he said, just to preserve the moment a little longer. “I never get tired of it.”

  She grinned at him, then her gaze strayed beyond his shoulder. Leo turned to see a council employee scrubbing away the remnants of the word BORED that had appeared on the side of the bridge in bright white paint just this morning.

  “Unlike that,” she said. “When you know Terry better, God help you, you’ll realise it was typical of him to make capital out of the graffiti. He’s always been quick like that. There’s absolutely nothing he can’t turn to advantage.” She straightened up. “I don’t suppose you’ve got any tea on Firefly? The hotel coffee was nice, but very strong.”

  “I have,” he replied. “Before we see the brewery or after?”

  “After will do. I only need the promise of it to sustain me.”

  They walked along the river, past his boat, and stopped opposite the Seagull Brewery. Leo had passed it countless times and popped into the Brewery Tap more than once, but he’d never studied it particularly. It was simply part of Salthaven. He couldn’t imagine the town without the faint tang of malt and hops on the wind. Now he looked at the Victorian building with fresh eyes. It was made of red-brown brick and stretched back - he judged - as far as the network of small lanes around the market square. The Brewery Tap stood on one side of an imposing arched door with the front office on the other. The tall tower of the brewery itself loomed behind, with stables to the rear of that. The brewery horses featured on a thousand postcards of Salthaven, still pulling the dray through town for local deliveries.

  “Iain’s often in the yard,” said Penny, heading for the alley that ran alongside the brewery. New Cut was wide enough for the dray until it got to the stables, then it narrowed and turned inwards towards the market lanes. The dray wasn’t being loaded at the moment, so the alley was clear.

  Leo followed Penny to the corner, the rich smell of malt filling the air this close to the tower. On their left was the open gate of the brewery yard, with casks piled up and the soft shuffling noise of horses. Ahead of them was a high wall sporting a disproportionate number of ‘Private Property’ and ‘Keep Out’ signs.

  “That doesn’t seem very friendly,” he observed.

  Penny harrumphed. “That’s the back of Market House. It’s an enormous place. Georgian, I think, or maybe earlier. It was built for a rich merchant as his private residence plus his shipping office. It must have been one of the grandest houses in Salthaven in those days. I don’t know how long it stayed as a family house, but Granny Astley told me it was a private school by the time she was young. I’ve always known it as the council offices, with a nice walled garden where the public could sit. Then ten years or so ago, the council moved themselves in over the new library because it was cheaper, and sold Market House to some faceless investment group. It’s all separate companies inside there now - including Terry Durham’s, by the way. You can see why people would choose it. It gives the firms a good address, but they don’t have to bother with their own upkeep.”

  Leo chuckled at her expression. “You just don’t like change.”

  She rubbed her nose shamefacedly. “I’m in a rut. I know.” She put her head through the gate to the Seagull yard. There was a covered well in the centre against which a lad was leaning, evidently on his break. “Is Iain about?” she called.

  “Indoors,” said the lad, jerking his head.

  “We’ll go round the front then.” Penny waited for a woman pushing a buggy to go past, then led the way back down New Cut again. As they went through the brewery arch, she made a grimace of distaste at the hooked-open door. “Ugh, more graffiti. It’s just so horrible.”

  The graffiti was certainly out of place, here on the picturesque riverfront. The word GREED had been spray-painted on the brewery door in acid green, and underneath it was a toxic purple fish with its mouth wide open and jagged teeth showing. “Attractive,” murmured Leo.

  The door to the office opened. A slim girl in overalls emerged, her wiry red hair tied up in a yellow scarf. “Don’t worry, it’ll be gone by the end of the afternoon. Hi, Penny, you’re looking nice.”

  “Thank you.” Penny kissed the girl on the cheek. “This is Leo Williams, from the Messenger. Leo, meet Caitlin Ramsay, Noel’s fiancée. Are you having trouble, love?”

  The girl used a screwdriver to lever open a tin of grey paint. “As you can see, we appear to have been decorated since yesterday. Would you believe the CCTV camera, the one we pay rates for, was pointing the other way all night? The first thing I did after reporting the graffiti to the police was to get that changed at least.”

  Startled, Leo glanced along the riverfront. He was slipping. Time was he’d have noted the camera at the same time as the spray-paint and already had a call logged to the operator to view the footage. He made a mental note to ask his editor how one got a sight of security films in Salthaven. “When was it done?” he asked.

  “Some time between last orders yesterday and six this morning when the men arrived to open up for the day.” The girl’s voice was grim. “The idiots who did it should try working for a living like the rest of us, then they wouldn’t have the energy to mess around with other people’s property.”

  Leo’s thumb hovered over his phone. “Do you want me to get a photographer down from the Messenger? It’ll take about twenty minutes. I was going to write a graffiti story anyway. You might as well get a bit of free advertising out of it. It could encourage people to keep a look out.”

  Caitlin’s eyes widened enthusiastically. “Yes please. That’d be fantastic. Thank you.” She put the lid back on the paint tin again.

  Penny said, “I want to introduce Leo to your dad, but have you got time to give us a quick tour of the brewery for a bit of background first? The reason I’m all dressed up is because we’ve just been to Terry Durham’s ridiculous ‘Salthaven Partnership’ launch. I mentioned the Seagull’s conflict with Terry to Leo and he’d like to hear your side of the story properly.”

  Left to himself, Leo would have phrased it less blatantly, but he couldn’t fault Penny for looking out for her family. If he was ever allowed to be in a similar position with his own son, he’d do exactly the same. For a moment he thought of Daniel on one of Leo’s recent visits, on the bus to a friend’s birthday party, his legs swinging with excitement. He heard again Daniel asking when he could come and see Leo’s boat, felt his thin, eager body as they hugged goodbye.

  The sharpness of longing was broken by Caitlin’s voice. “Don’t talk to me about Terry Durham, Penny. I’m not safe on the subject of anything to do with him. But I can give you a tour easily. You’re new to the area, aren’t you, Leo? Have you been in the Tap yet?”

  “Yes, several times. Good beer. Not much room to sit down.”


  She grinned. “No, we’re more of a quick-pint-on-the-way-home outlet. But we supply a lot of Salthaven pubs, so you’ll have had our beer locally. I’m gradually extending us outwards.”

  “I had heard,” he said mildly, as he and Penny followed her through the arched door, “that the brewery was in financial difficulties.”

  The girl’s head came up. “It’s all lies. You’ll be able to put the record straight in your article.”

  “You’d trust a newspaperman?”

  “I don’t believe Noel’s mum would go out with anyone stupid.”

  “We aren’t going out,” said Penny.

  “Uh huh,” said Caitlin, clearly not believing her.

  Leo chuckled.

  The brewery was much like others that he’d seen. Just past the office, one small room had been fitted out as a tiny museum on the history of the Seagull and brewing in Salthaven in general. He marked it in his mind for a future visit. He loved snippets of the past.

  Being essentially non-technical, he was less interested in the compact tower with its mash tun and copper boilers than he was in the measured, unhurried movements of the brewery workers themselves. Chief amongst them, dressed in overalls like the rest, was Caitlin’s father, Iain.

  “Leo’s going to get our graffiti in the paper this week, Dad,” said Caitlin once she’d finished showing them around. “That’ll stop the vandals.”

  “Either that or they’ll see it as a challenge,” replied her father dourly. “What we need is a good downpour. Nothing like heavy rain for stopping vandalism in its tracks.”

  “Don’t say that, Dad. Noel’s home this weekend. We’re going for a bike ride.”

  “You’ll be lucky, lass. According to the forecast, there’s some filthy weather on the way.” Iain Ramsay nodded at Leo. “Nice to meet you. I’d best get on. Orders to fill. Big one just in from the Green Dragon, Caitlin.”

  The girl frowned. “Really? They weren’t that interested last time I went in.”

  “They’ve got a function booked, apparently. I’ve put the paperwork on your desk.”

  “It was good of you to spare me the time,” said Leo. “Is it just the three beers you make here? No seasonal ones?”

  “Just Bosun, Topsail and Deepwater as a rule. We do Master Mariner at Christmas, and we trialled Deckhand lager over the summer, but we’ve not really got the space, not with the fine job our Caitlin’s doing at scaring up custom. I’d like to have a few short-length craft beers now and again, but...”

  Caitlin made a face. “That’s one of the things Mr Durham went on about at the last shareholder meeting, wasn’t it? Expansion. ‘Just think, Ramsay, if you moved to Lowdale Enterprise Park, you’d have all the space you want. You could really build a presence in the brewing world.’ Pah.”

  “He’s got a point, girl. Stainless steel equipment. More space, high ceilings, clean floor, easier access. No limit on increasing our production, because the smells from the copper wouldn’t affect the town.”

  This was a fair-minded man, thought Leo. “Then why don’t you?” he asked.

  Iain smiled. “Lowdale is all very well in its way, but it’s got no soul. The Seagull Brewery has been in Salthaven town for a hundred and fifty years. Every drop of our beer is steeped in history. It wouldn’t taste the same if we made it anywhere else.”

  Penny’s mobile phone rang the following day just as she was wrestling a recalcitrant leg of lamb out of the chest freezer.

  “Hi Penny, I thought you’d be interested to know the graffiti is back.”

  “Pardon?” Penny wedged the mobile under her chin. The lamb was jammed under an ice-cream tub to one side, which would have been shiftable except for the large bag of chicken thighs at the back that slithered into any space available, given the slightest encouragement.

  “The graffiti,” said Leo’s voice. “On the brewery door. Caitlin painted over it after my photographer had got his pictures, but it’s back. It’s a different design to yesterday, but the same style and the same colours. Have you spotted any more anywhere?”

  “Any more what? Graffiti? When would I have had the chance? I came straight home after seeing you and I haven’t been out since.” As Penny tugged the joint free, the phone shot out from under her chin and fell into the freezer, bouncing off the chicken thighs and coming to rest in a small pocket of space next to the petit pois.

  “Oh blast, I’ve dropped the phone,” she shouted into the freezer. “It’s no good talking to me, Leo, because I can’t hear you. Stay there, I’ll fish you out.” She burrowed in, cursing as the mobile slithered past a batch of stock and teetered on the edge of an apple pie. “Please don’t move...” She made a final dive, then pulled it out. “Got you. Crikey it’s cold that far down. Are you still there?” She brushed the ice crystals off the phone with a tea towel, then blew on her fingers, trying to get the feeling back into them.

  Leo was chuckling in her ear. “You are quite barmy, do you know that? Where had you dropped me?”

  “In the freezer. I was getting the lamb out to defrost for Noel tomorrow, though I’m now seriously considering chicken casserole. Are you laughing at me?”

  “Of course I’m laughing at you. Yelling at me to stay there and not move.”

  “I suppose it might have sounded a bit funny,” conceded Penny. “It’s a good thing you weren’t Lucinda. She’s always going on about how much more efficient upright freezers are than my old chest one. She hasn’t got a single thing in hers that she’s forgotten about. I sometimes wonder whether there wasn’t a mix up at the hospital all those years ago.”

  “I notice it doesn’t prevent her eating your Sunday roast.”

  “No, but it does give her a pleasant feeling of superiority to lift my freezer lid and peer at the jumble of food inside. I believe in making one’s children happy if at all possible.”

  “What an excellent parent you are. Back to the graffiti - can we go on a hunt for some this morning, do you think?”

  “We can,” said Penny doubtfully. “But why?”

  Underneath Leo’s light words, she could hear the granite in his voice. “Because I’m a journalist and although I’ve seen a few scrawls of graffiti down here by the river, I don’t remember any elsewhere. I’m awfully bad at taking press releases at face value. I’d like to observe for myself this evidence of disaffected youth that Terry Durham was talking about yesterday.” He paused. “And if we can’t find any, then I’d like to know why he’s exaggerating.”

  “Leo, almost everything he said yesterday was exaggeration. The way he was talking about kids trashing wasteland, for instance. There isn’t any wasteland in Salthaven.”

  “The area round the back of the supermarket isn’t very salubrious.”

  “I suppose not. But there isn’t any graffiti there.”

  Leo’s voice exuded satisfaction. “And yet it is exactly the sort of place that discontented teenagers might gather and where it would start appearing. Can you see the plot thickening yet?”

  Penny sighed. “When would you like to go?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Leo had a map open on his lap as Penny drove. It was certainly interesting, being his taxi-driver and chief sounding board. You never knew where he was going to want to go next. “Show me Salthaven,” he’d said, so she was.

  Now, every time they saw a scribble of paint or chalk, he made a mark on his map. “Main roads,” he murmured, sounding pleased. “Nice visible sites.” He rejected the old faded artwork on the arches of the railway bridge, but took photos of the fluorescent aliens on the bus shelter by Frances’s sixth form college.

  “Why did you mutter yesterday about it being Terry Durham’s fault that there were no new houses?” asked Leo. “We’ve been past at least three building plots.”

  “Building plots, yes, but nothing the youngsters can afford. All new schemes are supposed to include twenty per cent cheap housing. People like Terry invest in developments consisting of a pair of two-bed semis squashed in faci
ng the road with eight four-bedroom or five-bedroom detached homes set well behind them. What good are those to kids wanting to move out of their parents’ houses and start living independently?”

  Leo nodded. “Fair point. It’s the same story country-wide though.”

  “That’s no excuse. Salthaven ought to be able to do things better. Stop laughing at me.”

  “Sorry. I do love it when you get all partisan about your town.”

  They drove back via a couple of suburban murals to an acid-green fish eating a toxic-purple fish on the brewery doors.

  “Whoever did this must be local to the harbour, don’t you think?” said Penny, looking at it with dislike.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Well, they must live or work close by to have seen so quickly that the brewery door had been repainted and then taken the chance last night to graffiti over it straight away.”

  “Maybe, but finding out who by knocking on doors and asking to see their aerosol paint collection boggles the mind somewhat. I’ll do a search for similar designs and see if I can’t narrow it down. There are galleries of them online.”

  “Galleries of graffiti?” Penny was astounded.

  He gave her a quick smile. “Don’t look so surprised. You can find anything on the web. Come back to the boat and I’ll show you.”

  On Firefly he switched on his laptop, then typed ‘street graffiti’. Instantly the screen displayed a whole array of images.

  Penny gasped. “Goodness, some of those are beautiful. But they’re proper trompe l’oeil pictures, not graffiti. They’ve been done in full view of the public. They’re clever. They aren’t crude cartoons on brewery doors.”

  “I’ll refine the search.” Leo copied his photos of the fish and the aliens from the phone to the computer and started typing.

  Penny felt a disquieting stir of memory. “It’s weird. I keep thinking I’ve seen those fish before. It was a while ago, but they’re quite distinctive, aren’t they? The more I see them, the surer I am.” She shook her head. “Unfortunately, I can’t remember where or when. Not on a door, though. Maybe on a wall.”