[Peter and Georgia Marsh 05] - Murder in the Mist Read online

  What, Georgia thought, shaken, was all that about? Matthew had walked out, leaving her to go back to her drink as though nothing had happened. She’d have loved a coffee but the Laycocks were in conference, and she didn’t want to disturb them. She found it interesting that Hunt had pulled his punches to some extent with her, as if trying to cling to his urbane chairman of the trustees’ role, but what was the relationship with the Laycocks? Just a question of the lease? Ted was a trustee, the village representative, so she and Peter had assumed, but in the battle this morning he had seemed almost to be on Matthew’s side, if only by his silence. But why? Adam was his grandson, and Ted must know he was entirely innocent in the fight outside the pub that evening.

  Georgia felt like crawling back home and washing her hands of the whole sorry business, but obstinacy prevailed. She asked herself whether, if she had been just a casual passer-by when Emma was being attacked, she would have walked away? No, she would have plunged right in and then lingered to ensure Emma was all right. And that’s what she would do now, despite the chance that Emma was so besotted with Sean that, having recovered a little, she too might accuse Georgia of having attacked Sean unprovoked. Luckily she felt the chances of Emma’s parents believing that were remote. Besides, she needed some shopping, and the Bakers stocked some rather good home-made frozen curries that Luke and she had both liked.

  The minute she walked into the shop, she realized that something had changed. As soon as she saw her, Sarah’s face lit up.

  ‘Nick,’ she yelled. ‘Nick. Look after the shop, will you? I’ve got to talk to this lady here. That’s if you’ve a moment?’ she asked Georgia. It was a rhetorical question as she was already leading the way, and a sulky-looking Nick passed them, with a curious look at Georgia. So the news had travelled.

  ‘How’s Emma?’ Georgia asked, as she was shown into their living room, and ushered to the sofa.

  ‘In bed. Doctor’s coming to check her over.’

  ‘She’s not worse, is she?’

  ‘Thanks to you, no, Mrs Marsh.’

  ‘Georgia, please.’ So Emma’s mum knew her name – well, nearly. Village grapevines were highly efficient.

  ‘Ken!’ Sarah shouted, and her husband duly appeared through the door to the kitchen wiping his hands on the towel. She’d seen him before. Thinning hair, thin-featured and a pleasant face. ‘Just seeing the dairy stuff stored,’ he said to his wife, and then to Georgia, ‘So many rules and regs. You daren’t breathe on a tin of beans in case it takes a writ out.’

  ‘Now,’ Sarah said in determined fashion, ‘we wanted a word with you, Georgia, didn’t we, Ken?’

  Ken nodded. ‘We wanted to thank you for looking after Emma.’

  ‘Thank my self-defence trainer,’ Georgia said. ‘It’s just lucky I was passing.’

  ‘I don’t think he’d have really harmed her,’ Ken said. ‘Just wanted to scare her and get his own back on us Bakers.’

  ‘Because of Nick and this alibi business?’ Georgia asked. She was by no means as sure as Ken, but it wasn’t politic to say so.

  ‘Could be. We don’t know. That’s between Nick and Sean. Good thing that Emma’s going away after Christmas. Sean doesn’t know our Em. She won’t forget this – she’s not daft. Takes after you, Sarah.’

  His wife smiled, altogether a different person than the one Georgia had been used to up until today.

  ‘So that’s one thing,’ Ken continued. ‘The next is this business up at the manor.’

  ‘An important step forward for the village, isn’t it?’ Georgia said.

  ‘Good for trade, no doubt of it. Bob’s all for it and so are we. But trade isn’t everything. Trent’s been murdered, and we don’t know why. He seemed to think he might be related to us, but that was news to me. I just told him Joe was dead. Least said, soonest mended. Now you’re here, and we choked you off too.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’m not a long-lost relation,’ Georgia assured him.

  He looked at her seriously. ‘No, but you’re interested in that poet who hung himself at Shaw Cottage. It may not be connected, but you’d been good to our Emma and we don’t want to see you go the same way as Damien Trent. We gave you the brush-off and we reckon the trust is doing so too. And it may be not a polite one.’

  ‘Well put,’ Georgia said wryly.

  ‘We can’t do much about Trent now, but we can look out for you, and the best way to do that is to help you – for what you did for Emma. I can see you’re not the sort to give up.’

  She smiled, uncomfortably aware that at times she was very tempted.

  ‘So I’ve been asking around a bit,’ Ken continued. ‘My parents are gone now, and my grandparents, but there are still a few around who remember when Field hung himself. One titbit is that a chap came to the village in the mid-1970s. He was asking questions about the Five, and about that poet’s suicide, and about where he could find Joe Baker. Trent wanted to talk to Joe about the poet too. Bit of a coincidence, yes? Not what you might call first-class evidence, but it might be of interest to you.’

  ‘It is,’ Georgia agreed. ‘Great interest. Do you know any more about this man in the 1970s?’

  ‘No one heard any more. It was generally reckoned at the time, so I was told, that he fell foul of Mr Hunt – Gavin Hunt, that is, Matthew’s father. I remember him, nice chap, but I wouldn’t want to rub him up the wrong way. Very …’ Ken paused. ‘Correct.’

  ‘What about Joe Baker and Damien Trent?’

  Ken looked awkward. ‘I told him I didn’t know anything about Joe except the name. We’ve always been touchy about Joe, so we don’t talk about him. He was my granddad’s brother. He was alive in the 1970s, of course, when that other chap came, but he never said anything about a visit from him to my grandparents or parents. Not that they passed on to me anyhow. Joe probably sent him off with a flea in his ear. He was a crotchety old so and so.’

  Georgia saw another door slam in her face. ‘Could you tell me who it was remembered his coming here?’

  ‘Best not,’ Ken said awkwardly. ‘Might not like their name given to strangers – if you’ll pardon the word.’

  She would. She was getting used to it now. ‘I understand. Is there nothing else you can tell me about Alwyn Field?’

  ‘Oh, yes, quite a bit,’ Ken replied grimly, to her amazement. ‘I kept schtum to Trent about this, because the family isn’t proud of it. Trent asked me about the rough music. Heard of it?’

  She seized the opening with gratitude. ‘Yes, I have. Was there rough music connected with Alwyn? Was he the victim or was it on his behalf, because he’d been unfairly treated?’

  ‘No doubt about that. Against him, Georgia.’

  ‘What for?’ At last, at last, she rejoiced. ‘Because of his love affair with Elfie?’

  ‘No way. Look, I knew Joe as an ancient great-uncle in the background. He was the butcher here, and his brother, my granddad, ran the grocers, which is now this place. Joe was always going off the deep end. His wife, Auntie Min, she was different, the doormat type. Don’t believe in being a doormat, do you, Sarah?’ he joked.

  Sarah looked complacent. ‘Poor old Auntie Min missed women’s lib. I didn’t. It’s only the time we’re born into it, and, after all, we can’t choose that.’

  ‘Well,’ Ken continued, ‘my parents were the buttoned-up sort, no scandals in our family sort of folk. Joe and Min had a child, a daughter called Jenny, and that was what the rough music was about. She left the village during the war and never came back. Neither Joe nor Min ever spoke of her and my dad was only a kid when she left, so my generation didn’t know much about Jenny. Anyway, I found out later that this Jenny was raped by Alwyn Field, who wouldn’t stand by her when she fell pregnant. She left the village and there the trail goes blank. What that did to Min, I can’t imagine. She died long before Joe.’

  ‘Rape?’ exclaimed Georgia. ‘But Alwyn was in love with Elfie.’ This was a corker to take on board, and one that left a far from pleasant ta
ste.

  ‘Doesn’t stop some men, does it?’ Ken observed. ‘Maybe he was consoling himself when Elfie refused to leave Mr Hunt.’

  ‘When was this?’ Georgia asked.

  ‘Not sure. Most say it was early in the war. People were coming and going all the time so no one really knew it had happened at the time, let alone about the baby.’

  ‘But if there was rough music then they must have known,’ she argued.

  ‘No, the rough music was later, after the war. Not long before Alwyn’s death.’

  Now her head really was spinning. ‘But that’s so long after the event, particularly if Jenny wasn’t in the village any longer. It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Perhaps not, but that’s what happened. She could have come back for a visit and Joe found out about the baby then or she confessed later who the father was. Or maybe when this story about his pinching poor Mr Sandford’s work came out, Joe remembered his grievances. Whatever, Joe was at the head of the crowd. He organized the rough music.’

  ‘It’s remembered that clearly in the village?’

  ‘Yes and no. These things lie buried and gradually die out of public memory, but if something reawakens it – like Damien asking questions, or you – then you find it’s still there. It was the last time that rough music took place, so perhaps that made it stick, but the bad feeling that it was the manor and their mates against us villagers lingered too, I guess. We aren’t proud of what Joe did, so we don’t boast about it. None of us do. But this old lady I spoke to had written an account of it in her diary. She wasn’t much more than a kid at the time, and it made a big impression on her.’

  ‘You don’t have the diary, I suppose?’ Too much to hope for.

  Ken laughed. ‘Afraid not. You sleuths can’t have everything your own way. I was allowed to read it and then it was whisked away. This lady’s parents went round collecting pails and pots and pans, and she was given a washing-board and a washing dolly to bang it with. This was late in 1948, and they went up there quite late one evening, carrying flares to light the way. Rough old lane it was then. Alwyn Field came to the door, but old Birdie was out there like a flash to protect him, swearing at them to get away because Alwyn was innocent, and a wonderful brother. They were all dolts, she said. Only it made things worse because Alwyn was then shouted down before he could speak. Birdie went back into the cottage with him and they kept it up for two hours or more.’

  ‘Did the police come?’

  ‘We had a village policeman then, and the lady wrote in her diary that he was banging away with the rest of them. Jenny Baker was his sweetheart.’

  ‘Good day?’ asked Peter idly as Georgia walked in late that afternoon.

  ‘I’ve known better.’ She sank into the chair, exhausted. She had felt honour-bound to let Peter know everything that had happened and a phone call seemed the wrong way to do it.

  ‘How was Alice?’ he added.

  ‘Alice?’ Georgia asked blankly.

  ‘You were going to see her,’ he reminded her gently.

  She’d completely forgotten. ‘I had to take a rain-check on her,’ she said, and explained why.

  Peter listened attentively and in silence, obviously distressed when she told him of the Emma and Sean episode. Finally he remarked, ‘Ill winds bring silver linings, but I don’t like this particular ill wind. Or last night’s. You’re getting too blown about by them.’

  ‘At least today’s could be a lever to blow open the case. Suppose the rape was what Damien came to see Molly about?’

  ‘It wouldn’t seem to be any kind of motive for murder now. In fact rather the contrary, since it gives another reason for Alwyn’s suicide.’

  ‘You’re right,’ she agreed glumly. ‘We needed to explore reasons for murder, not more for suicide.’

  ‘Unless you put Joe Baker in the frame.’

  ‘Revenge best served cold? But why leave it so late? I suppose it’s possible Jenny didn’t tell him who the father was until after the war. We don’t know they never met again, only that she didn’t return here to live.’

  ‘That could explain it.’

  ‘Then Joe’s so hopping mad that he murders Alwyn.’

  ‘Having let the whole village know that he is the chief suspect by encouraging them into rough music.’

  ‘People don’t think clearly in those circumstances. Or,’ Georgia thought this through with a seed of excitement growing, ‘perhaps he did. The rough music provided the reason for Alwyn’s suicide. All Joe has to do now is come along and murder him in a way that looks like suicide.’

  Peter stared at her. ‘Georgia, have I ever told you I have a remarkable daughter?’

  Seven

  Peter must have been even more worried than he had disclosed on Friday about her experiences in Fernbourne, as the intervening weekend had done little to calm him. On the Monday morning he greeted her without any preamble, echoing Luke’s sentiments.

  ‘It’s good that the Bakers have come on board, but Fernbourne is beginning to show its teeth, and they’re being gnashed at you. Do you think we should call this off?’

  ‘Any community has hidden teeth.’ Georgia tried to be fair. ‘Troubles rumble along in the background until a tiny incident makes it explode. I was in the way, that’s all.’

  ‘It’s an ominous sign. Have you told Luke what happened?’

  ‘Not yet.’ He had been hard at work on the accounts and autumn publications over the weekend. A chink of light had arisen over the bleak financial horizon, however, in the form of a large prompt payment from his wholesaler. ‘Anyway,’ she objected, ‘we can’t head him off from his joyride with Molly Sandford just because Alwyn turns out to be even more of a rotter than we thought him. Or because of a lovers’ quarrel that has nothing to do with it.’

  ‘Rather more at stake than that,’ Peter replied grimly. ‘I don’t like the way Alwyn Field is shaping up as chief candidate for Rat of the Year award. Seducer of friend’s wife, plagiarist and now rapist. Quite a fellow – if it’s all true, of course. Does the victim of a soulful, idyllic romance take revenge by raping another woman? It seems unlikely.’

  Georgia agreed. ‘Whether he did it or not, Joe Baker certainly believed he was guilty.’

  ‘Mike would still take some convincing that a suicide or murder in 1949 really is connected with Damien Trent. He’s still only playing with the idea at present, even though I’ve filled him in on the latest developments. He’s already checked Damien’s family tree, but there was no trace of a Baker.’

  ‘Could he have been adopted?’

  ‘If you’re thinking about his being Jenny Baker’s child,’ Peter said sweetly, ‘forget it. Damien was born in 1978. Anyway, we should recheck …’ He caught sight of her expression. ‘All right. Mike’s territory. I’ll ask him to do it. Sometimes,’ he added, ‘I find his insistence on boundaries a little frustrating.’

  Georgia imagined Mike’s quizzical face if he’d overheard that little gem. ‘Practical though,’ she murmured. ‘We admit ourselves it will be hard to find much evidence for Alwyn’s murder, even though we now know about the rape.’

  ‘Difficult but not impossible. There are lots of cases of suicide that at first looked like murder, including a poor chap in the 1930s who was convicted for the murder of his partner who was found strangled in her own bed, almost certainly by herself. Mike’s told me that the Field inquest report confirms the lack of evidence of a struggle, and that the alcohol and sedatives were the only reason for the open verdict. Field would have needed a lot of manhandling if he was unconscious, though.’

  ‘Joe Baker could have been a Tarzan. He was a butcher after all. But he’d have to know Birdie was away, if he was going to have a drinking session with Alwyn and then kill him.’

  Peter ruminated. ‘Too many unanswered questions.’ He picked up Matthew Hunt’s The Freedom Seekers and turned to a photo of Alwyn, in which he was pictured with one arm round his sister, the other round Elfie, and was smiling into the
camera. ‘This was taken in the spring of 1939. I know it means nothing, but he simply doesn’t look like a rapist. He looks like a victim.’

  Georgia took a closer look. Alwyn was dressed in flannels, pullover and shirt with rolled up sleeves and his relaxed body language suggested he was between his two great supporters. ‘You’re right.’

  Peter sighed. ‘No help for it. It’s back to the Dragons’ Lair about the rough music and rape. If you’re sure about going on, is it Dragon Birdie or Dragon Clemence for you?’

  ‘Clemence,’ said Georgia at once.

  ‘On second thoughts, let’s both go to see Clemence. It will send a message to the trust.’

  ‘Doubting my abilities?’ Georgia asked amiably.

  ‘Is that likely? I’m thinking of how best to get results. Has it occurred to you that Matthew Hunt isn’t going to forgive you easily for his son’s misfortunes, not once but twice? Georgia, I really am doubtful about this case. It’s all very well walking into a minefield when one is convinced of a mission. To take an afternoon stroll into one is just plain stupid. We have no clear path yet, and it looks increasingly likely that we never will.’

  Georgia pondered this. Quite a few of their potential cases landed up on the shelf and it was tempting to put Alwyn Field’s right there next to them.

  ‘I’d hate to give up,’ she said at last. ‘It would mean Matthew Hunt had won.’

  ‘Is that a good reason for the decision?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you still want to go ahead anyway?’

  ‘Yes, with the next step at least.’

  ‘Then we both need to be there.’

  When Peter telephoned, however, it appeared Clemence was not available even to speak to them on the phone, let alone meet them. Janie anxiously explained that her mother had been overtaxing herself physically and her doctor had told her to concentrate on her work, not irrelevant matters. Into which category it seemed that Georgia and Peter fell. A second attempt the following day produced an even more anxious Janie and the news that Clemence was visiting a friend. At the third attempt later that day Peter called with the same result.