The Wickenham Murders

by Amy Myers

  ‘That doesn’t mean there isn’t one,’ Georgia whipped back. Time to slow down Peter’s stampede towards that denehole. She would concede there might be a link, but only when there was evidence to point the way.

  ‘It doesn’t rule out this Guy Randolph’s return either.’

  ‘You’re just hoping for a “Jack’s Return Home”, like the old melodramas. Is Guy Randolph mentioned in the Times reports?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So where was he?’

  ‘In the denehole,’ Peter finished with relish.

  Reluctantly Georgia laughed. ‘Don’t you think you are rather ahead of the facts? You have a skeleton with no identification on him as to who he was or when exactly he was put there. You might just as easily work on the thesis that Guy Randolph killed Ada and then did a runner on the next train out.’

  ‘We’ll find evidence, I’m sure.’

  ‘Aren’t you forever insisting we should proceed from evidence to theory not from theory to evidence?’

  ‘I am, and I’m breaking my own rule. I frequently do,’ he announced with dignity. ‘After all, fingerprints on Time are a sort of theory in themselves. You admit that.’

  ‘I’m only prepared to admit,’ Georgia continued doggedly, ‘that Guy Randolph should be a line to be investigated and if there’s no evidence he should be ruled out as a possible murderer, who then fled back into his former status of missing person. Without proof to the contrary, the denehole has to be a tangent.’

  ‘Why?’

  She’d play her ace. ‘If this missing Guy was in your denehole and he murdered Ada, who murdered him?’

  Her ace was capped. ‘So what? Now we’re looking for two murderers.’

  Sometimes Peter went too far. It was high time to drag him back to reality. Even theories – or new lines of inquiry, as she preferred to think of them – needed a plan of investigation. Her job.

  ‘Look,’ she said as patiently as she could manage, ‘we have three choices if Davy is innocent. Choice One: Ada made a mistake in the day, went for her walk across the fields expecting to meet Davy, but instead met a chance attacker whom she fought off for a while. Then this stranger succeeded in strangling her to keep her quiet and made his escape – or, if you must, he accidentally fell down a denehole. Choice Two: you’re right and Guy Randolph is mixed up in this somewhere. Choice Three: someone else killed her for some specific reason as yet unknown.’

  ‘I’ll take Number Two, Randolph and the denehole,’ Peter said promptly. ‘You can take A. N. Other. Tally ho, daughter, follow me.’ He whirled his chair round, heading back to his beloved bookshelves, where he made a beeline for the row of Kelly’s Directories to Kent. ‘The invaluable Kellys await us.’ He stretched out both hands and brought down the heavy 1901 edition. ‘Here we are. Thank heavens for class distinctions in those days. Only the wealthy and professional folk of the village get special mention. Here they are. We need another look at this. Major Stewart Randolph, Hazelwood House, Wickenham. That must be it. Can’t be two Major Randolphs in a village that size.’

  Georgia remembered Jim Hardbent showing her a postcard of it. A brick nineteenth-century mansion, at the other end of the village from the Manor, on the other side of the road from where, according to Jim Hardbent, the Proctors had lived. That figured. The boy next door syndrome.

  ‘So let’s look at the 1938 edition.’ No putting the first volume back, she noticed. It was usually Georgia’s or Margaret’s job to round up stray books at the end of the day. Sometimes she suspected Peter imagined house gnomes popped in during the night to tidy up after him.

  ‘No,’ Peter said, after checking this too. ‘Hazelwood House is listed, but a Mrs Hubert Wilson is the owner. Let’s try 1929.’ A pause while he manoeuvred the next book in front of him. ‘Mrs Wilson here too. So the Randolphs wouldn’t have been here at the time of the murder as this volume presumably reflects the 1928 position.’

  ‘They left after Guy went missing in the war. Unhappy memories.’

  ‘If Guy Randolph did come back from the dead,’ Peter mused, ‘he would have returned to Wickenham and found his family gone, then. Either he made inquiries and followed their trail or . . .’

  Their eyes met. ‘You don’t stand a chance,’ Georgia said firmly.

  ‘Oh, come on. Even Mike Gilroy needs help on this skeleton.’

  ‘No, he doesn’t and, anyway, it’s up to Darenth Area not the Stour. It’s too old to be a police case, now the missing persons’ list has been checked. He’s already said you don’t stand a chance of a DNA search, quite rightly pointing out there’s no lead on a possible match. Nor do we know there were any signs on that skeleton that the poor chap was murdered.’

  Peter surrendered. ‘You win – for the moment. Anyway, the Randolphs were obviously quite well established. I’ll try an Internet family search request for info. When are you off to Wickenham again?’

  ‘No time like the present. Tomorrow anyway. I might stay a day or two. Okay?’

  ‘Splendid. And make sure you come back with Ada’s voice.’

  *

  Luke was a wonderful antidote to an overdose of Peter, Georgia thought, as she drove back to his South Malling home, watching the tail lights of his car. He had plenty of professional push of his own, not to mention the occasional short fuse, but he presented the calm tones of reason, especially when Peter had enthused over the Guy Randolph theory this evening. Despite that, it had been an enjoyable dinner in Canterbury. Peter had been delivered to his bed, and Luke had suggested she come back for the night en route to Wickenham. She had leapt at the chance. To hell with the washing and ironing. She’d catch up later. Peace after the storm was Luke. How would she react to peace all the time? she wondered. Would she long for the storm? That was her dread, and she pushed it from her.

  Luke lived in a rambling Edwardian house in the grounds of which were the offices of Frost & Co. It was no small local publishing venture, but a list that could compete even in these competitive times with the big conglomerates in publishing. It had three specialties: real crime, the military history-cum-memoir, and the Kentish history-cum-guide book series. Georgia was interested in all three.

  ‘I always breathe the smell of common sense here,’ she said gratefully, as he unlocked the door of the offices to show her the latest advance copies.

  ‘Wishful thinking. All you can smell is laminated book jackets and the smell of being away from Haden Shaw.’

  ‘That’s what adds up to common sense.’

  ‘Is this new book going to work out?’ Luke asked bluntly. ‘I still have my doubts after listening to Peter this evening.’

  ‘Too early to tell.’

  ‘Too early for a contract, you mean.’

  ‘Never too early for that,’ she said wrily. A lot of money disappeared in trails that led nowhere, although she didn’t yet see the Wickenham murders as being one of them. When her father complained about the lack of voice, she knew all he was implying was that there was no case yet to write about, only snatches from out of the past, guesses that might add up to a path forward, but that as yet Ada herself, the core of the problem, remained elusive.

  This was nothing new. Most of their cases had a point at which they changed from isolated snatches of information into a definite trail. Waiting for this, as they were now, was the worst possible time for both Peter and herself. Unless that turning point came soon, they knew they would be left with the unsolved, intangible nothingness that spelled Rick. That was the spur that drove them on.

  Luke, however, carted none of their kind of baggage. Baggage of a different sort, certainly, as did everybody, but not the intangible mess that leaves a sickness in the stomach. Luke was five years older than her, and his baggage consisted of a marriage in his youth, which had ended in a row that sent his wife storming off to meet her lover only to crash her car en route. She had died, and Georgia suspected Luke blamed himself for her death, regardless of the fact that it had been his wife who brought about
the separation. His baggage had turned him into a workaholic – only alleviated by his care for Peter and, she thought, herself. Was that good? She could never decide, but in bed that night with his arms around her it didn’t seem to matter one jot.

  *

  ‘So tell me why this one grabs you,’ Luke said at breakfast the following morning.

  ‘Mary Elgin and the sight,’ Georgia answered promptly. That had really shaken her, and she was glad Luke had chosen the objective light of morning to press her on it.

  ‘That might be a trick she pulls on everyone.’

  ‘I have to take that chance. The unfinished-business atmosphere stems from her, I’m sure of it.’

  ‘It’s really getting to you. You were talking about Davy Todd in your sleep.’

  ‘Was I?’ She had had no idea of course. Living alone, one was free to sing the Hallelujah Chorus in one’s sleep without knowing anything about it. To be called to account, even in the nicest possible caring way, was unnerving. What else might she speak of while her soul was absent in sleep? One handed more to a lover than just the physical; one put one’s inner self in trust. Is that what she wanted? The thought was both comforting and scary, too much for today. Tomorrow she must think about it. Yes, tomorrow. Today, there were things to do.

  Rather than stay at the pub, she had chosen a pleasant-looking bed and breakfast called Country Stop, which by coincidence she realized must be somewhere near where Hazelwood House had stood, with the Proctor home almost opposite. It was only after she had settled in and asked the owner her name that she discovered it was Todd, and her heart sank. She supposed in a village the odds against such coincidences were greatly reduced, but nevertheless it could be a hindrance.

  ‘Are you related to Bert Todd?’ she asked.

  ‘Uncle. Olly’s uncle that is. My husband. He’s the butcher.’

  So that was why this B and B did evening meals. Lucy Todd was about fifty, and despite a mask of professional efficiency looked flurried, as if her mind was always on the next job. It probably was. Georgia didn’t envy anyone running a B and B. She wondered if she’d would be making a mistake in nailing her colours to the Todd masthead by staying here, but she could hardly retreat now. Anyway, no one would be bothered by it, save perhaps those elusive Elgin people if she ever caught up with them. Furthermore, so far as she could see, it was the only B and B actually in the village. The others were at farms on the outskirts, which was not what she wanted.

  Georgia passed a conventional remark about its being good to see thriving shops in this day and age.

  ‘Not for much longer,’ was the gloomy and unexpected reply. ‘Not if they have their way.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Them. Supermarket on our doorstep we’ll have, though they’re bribing us with housing as well. Do they care about that? They do not. It’s the supermarket cash they want.’

  ‘Who?’ Georgia was lost.

  ‘The blasted Bloomfields. Selling off the Manor and its land, aren’t they? Kept that very quiet, they did. You’d think they’d have enough cash from running that ritzy hotel, but, no, they want to sell to a supermarket.’

  Enlightenment came. ‘Ah, the football field.’

  ‘And the cricket field. Next door to each other, they are. Generations have played on these fields. And now they’re going to sell them for retail development.’ The last word came out in utter disgust.

  ‘Don’t the sports clubs have a lease?’

  ‘Never bothered with them. Why should they? The Bloomfields have let them play there time out of mind with no trouble at all. Well, they won’t have the cheek to stay in this village any longer. They’ll be living on their ill-gotten gains.’

  ‘Has planning permission been granted for the development?’

  ‘Got it years ago, when they expanded the hotel and made it a company. We had a dozy parish council then, who never realized it affected the sports fields. It probably thought Class Al retail use was some sort of ice-cream stall. Anyway, the estate wasn’t for sale then; so the Bloomfields must have sweet-talked someone. Most of the village thought the fields belonged to the village anyway.’

  ‘What a shame. This seems such a happy village,’ Georgia lied brightly.

  ‘Does it now? Maybe it does to those who don’t have to live here. You ask my husband.’

  Georgia leapt at this suggestion. ‘I’d like to in fact. I’m interested in the Davy Todd case, and he might perhaps be able to help.’

  As she had guessed, Lucy had either never heard of Davy or was very cagey on the Todds’ behalf. ‘I’ll have a word with him,’ was all she replied, with no great enthusiasm.

  The said word must have been duly spoken, however, for after dinner that evening, Oliver Todd emerged from their private sanctum. He was a tall, lean man, far from the stereotype of a jolly butcher, and, judging by the photos and books around, was a cricket enthusiast, as were two teenage boys, presumably their sons, who, from the era of the photos, must now be grown men. Oliver nodded politely to her, but there was a distinct wariness here, she felt. Time to take the initiative.

  ‘I spoke to your uncle Bert a day or two ago about the Ada Proctor case in 1929. Poor Davy Todd was hung for it, but I’m convinced there’s more to it,’ she said earnestly. ‘So much doesn’t add up, there’s a good chance he’s innocent.’ Georgia decided there was no harm in putting herself over as a somewhat dotty but harmless researcher with a fixation on proving Davy’s conviction was wrong.

  ‘I wouldn’t know about that,’ Oliver replied easily. ‘Uncle Bert knows more about it than me. We don’t talk much, you see. It was a long time ago.’ There was a kindly note in his voice, but his eyes didn’t look at all kind. There wasn’t much giving here.

  ‘I’m not a sensationalist,’ she replied quietly. ‘You needn’t worry about that.’

  ‘I don’t, m’dear.’

  The stonewall approach, and Georgia might not have got any further had not Lucy intervened. ‘There’s no harm in letting her see our photos, Oily. After all, we don’t want –’ she hesitated – ‘her getting the wrong idea because we didn’t do what we could.’

  There was a hidden subtext here but, whatever it was, Oliver grudgingly gave way. ‘I don’t know any more than Uncle Bert can tell you,’ he repeated. ‘No one said anything, see? I didn’t find out myself till I was over twenty and reckoned old enough to know. But I suppose you can see the pictures.’

  Lucy promptly flew out of the room and returned with an album. Georgia began to suspect that Lucy was as eager as she was to enter hitherto forbidden territory, especially since she flicked the pages so speedily to find one of Davy. It suggested it wasn’t the first time she’d pored over it.

  So this was Davy Todd, albeit only when he must have been about ten years old. Georgia studied the snapshot closely. He was sitting on a stone bridge with several other members of the family, judging by the caption underneath the photo, and had a schoolboy grin on a cheeky-looking face. Such photos were always terrifying. These were cheerful young innocents, not knowing what lay ahead for them. In many cases from the last century this would be death in the First or Second World Wars. For Davy it had been at the end of a rope for a murder he probably didn’t commit. Probably. Georgia caught at the word her thoughts had produced and realized she was upgrading the likelihood of his innocence, at least in her own mind.

  She swallowed, and glanced up to see that Oliver Todd’s eyes were still wary. It would be up to her how far she got with this search for the past. He wasn’t vouchsafing any more information to her, even though she suspected he could if he so wished. Tomorrow, however, she would meet the Bloomfields, who had reluctantly agreed to see her, as Jim Hardbent had suggested it, and she was pinning her hopes on them. Drinks at 6 p.m. It all sounded very formal, although she supposed this was an unfair judgement since Trevor must be at the Wickenham Manor Hotel working all day.

  *

  The following morning Georgia walked up to the hotel for coffee, t
rying to gauge what it must have been like as a private home, and what role it had played in the village in the 1920s. She decided that she wouldn’t have liked to live there. Once upon a time the whole of Wickenham would have centred on this house and indeed, with the sale of the land for development, the wheel could be said to be turning full circle. The marble pillars of the entrance hall combined with the dull blue of the carpeting gave a grand but unwelcoming effect, and whatever atmosphere the house had possessed as a private home had long since gone. It did not bode well for her visit to the Bloomfields that evening.

  Trevor and Julia Bloomfield now lived in a large modern mock-Georgian home set back from the road nearly opposite the entrance to the Wickenham estate. They were in their late fifties, she estimated, as they exchanged small talk on her arrival, prompt at 6 p.m. This house, however, with its bricked forecourt set within screening bushes, dark green carpet throughout, and display of expensive vases and antiques, spoke of the comfort the Manor no longer suggested.

  Trevor was not the bland businessman Georgia had expected, but a tanned, grey-haired charmer who looked as though he worked out in the hotel gym every day. Both he and his wife Julia spoke of cash confidence, though Georgia was aware this verdict was unfair for a first meeting. To complement his polish, his wife was an elegant blonde (with help), who seemed to have worn her hostess’s smile so long it stayed in place automatically. Her eyes did not obey the smile, however. Indeed they displayed no curiosity at all in their visitor, merely a resigned determination to play her role. Georgia had been put down as a duty to fit in between sundown and dinner.

  ‘So you’re a writer, Georgia.’ Trevor Bloomfield handed her the glass of white wine she had requested, and Julia pushed a bowl of Japanese crackers towards her. Georgia rather liked these, so this became a minor point in their favour. Otherwise her jury was out on how she reacted to them.

  ‘Yes, I write with my father. He does most of the actual writing and I do the research.’

  ‘I’ve read one of your books,’ Trevor said, sounding genuinely interested. ‘The case in Forest Gate.’