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

  ‘Suppose Gavin incited the rough music too? It was so long after the event that he could have stirred Joe Baker up by telling him who the father was, or of course lying to him.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Georgia admitted.

  ‘Shall we explore that thesis?’

  ‘Yes, but I still don’t think it’s the right one.’

  Peter slumped in his chair. ‘Why on earth not?’

  ‘Clemence,’ Georgia said wearily. ‘It all comes back to her. If she was giving us a hint, then I’m sure it couldn’t have been pointing towards Gavin, but to something else.’

  ‘Something in which Gavin could have been involved, even instigated?’ Peter looked unconvinced.

  ‘Yes.’ Georgia watched a spider crawl back to the centre of its web. Who could have spun the Fernbourne Five’s web better than Gavin? Peter had a point, and yet webs were intricate structures, intended to catch the unwary.

  The manor looked solidly reassuring as Georgia and Luke drew up in front of it the next morning. The ground and grass were still wet from the dew as the sun hadn’t yet reached them, but the shade was peaceful rather than threatening. The scene would make an imposing setting for next year’s opening. She had seized the opportunity to come with Luke when he had told her he was meeting Janie in the library, so that he could look through the entire range of the Five’s work. It was Saturday, and Molly was at a conference, but she had agreed that Georgia could come with him. ‘After all, it’s mostly published stuff, even though it’s not yet out of copyright,’ Luke had pointed out. He had been somewhat guarded over his enthusiasm for Georgia’s company this morning, but had eventually given way.

  Janie was positively friendly, perhaps because she saw Luke first, Georgia thought meanly. Or perhaps, it occurred to her, it was because Janie lived too much in Clemence’s shadow, and a solo appearance allowed her space for her own identity. Who could blame her for that?

  ‘You’re lucky,’ Janie told them. ‘The library is one of the few rooms we’ve finished working on. It was my father’s study, so already well equipped with bookshelves. We’ve kept his desk, and added a showcase. The room through there –’ she pointed to an inner door – ‘is to be a computer and study room, but that’s still on the waiting list.’

  ‘Do you have any unpublished material here?’ Luke asked, as she showed them around.

  ‘I doubt if there’s anything you’d think worthy of printing, but you’re welcome to have a look. Most of the manuscript stuff is still in the study room, waiting to be sorted. I’ll be making a start soon. I’m already in overall daily charge of the centre,’ Janie added, with modest pride. ‘Whose work are you particularly interested in?’ she asked Luke.

  ‘I’ve made an offer for A Mourning in Spring and Verses for Dorinda. That takes care of representing both Alwyn and Roy. I really want The Flight of the Soul, of course, but Molly’s talking that one over with the trust.’

  A recipe for going nowhere, Georgia thought.

  ‘I’d like to get to grips with Elfie’s work today,’ Luke continued. ‘That’s been rather overlooked.’

  Georgia thought she could see why. Elfie somehow tended to float in and out of her general picture of the Five. Perhaps that was because there wasn’t much in her work for today’s readership. From the look of the shelves and showcase here, Elfie had been a prolific writer. The showcase displayed an open children’s book of poems with charming line illustrations, like the ones she had seen on the Internet.

  ‘I can guess how many that sold,’ Luke commented wryly.

  ‘Quite well, perhaps,’ Georgia suggested. ‘It would sell to adults buying for children, poor things.’

  ‘The originals of the illustrations would fetch a good sum on the market today, but I wouldn’t think a reprint would go far,’ Luke said. ‘They’re way out of fashion now. Elfie was a hangover from Eleanor Farjeon and Walter de la Mare. Not exactly mass-market material for the computer game generation.’

  ‘I think this is her weirdest,’ Janie called from behind them, waving a slim volume which she handed to Luke. Georgia peered over his shoulder.

  ‘The Woods Beyond the Stream,’ Luke read out, which gave Georgia an instant foreboding. Which stream? Which woods?

  ‘It was written in the fifties,’ Janie explained, ‘after Alwyn’s death, and when Elfie was living at Shaw Cottage.’

  The stream must surely be that stream, then. And the woods, those woods, where Georgia had sensed a silent watcher waiting for her. Sensed or imagined? Georgia couldn’t be sure now, but now she suspected that those woods might have been as creepy to Elfie as they were to her. She took the book from Luke, while he went to another bookcase, and looked through the illustrations. It was all she could do to stop herself from handing the book straight back to him. It had skilled line drawings with firm black curves and shapes, binding the trees and the mischievous faces peering through them into one. Mischievous? Bordering on evil in some of them. It was difficult to tell whether human or supernatural eyes were watching in Elfie’s woods, but neither boded well for those caught lingering. Were they the spirit of the wood or Elfie’s own nightmares, perhaps about Alwyn’s death? The thought was not a pleasant one. Poems for children though? Hardly. One caught her eye:

  The stream hurries by

  And so do I

  Lest those woods so dark

  Reach out to seize me

  It’s best by far to hurry by …

  ‘Not guaranteed to win prizes,’ she said ruefully. She couldn’t see Luke reprinting this one. Come to that, she thought idly, she couldn’t see Luke himself. Where had he vanished to? ‘I suppose the ideas and illustrations might have had a fascination for children in the same way as Disney villains.’

  ‘Elfie would have agreed with you,’ Janie said, obviously pleased at her judgement.

  ‘Even so, it’s a dated concept.’ Where was Luke?

  ‘There are other possibilities,’ Janie said. ‘Elfie wrote one or two children’s novels in the late fifties rather like Mary Norton’s or Norman Hunter’s, once she was over Alwyn’s death. They were working up towards Roald Dahl’s style but not so sophisticated then, of course. And there’s this one.’ She picked a very thin volume off the shelf and handed it to Georgia. ‘This one was a complete flop. Flowers, it’s called.’

  Georgia’s stomach turned. Each illustration and poem was of a different flower, but the flowers held only ugliness. The rose petals curled round an ugly mocking face; the lupin held a black elf with frightening menacing eyes; the hollyhock carried a worm in every bloom. And … she turned the pages … of course. Love-in-a-mist concluded the small booklet – but the poem was called ‘Black Seeds’.

  Love needs its gentle mist

  Lips only to be kissed

  For when the veil is drawn

  Black seeds spill upon the earth

  But give no second birth

  For love lies bleeding and forlorn

  Ah it needs its gentle mist.

  ‘This must have been written after Alwyn’s death.’ Georgia was repelled, remembering Birdie quoting from it. Love is blind. She wondered if Elfie had believed the story about Jenny Baker.

  ‘It was published in 1950. She was bitter about his suicide. She felt betrayed,’ Janie said.

  ‘Is that the trust’s view or yours?’ Georgia asked pointedly, but before Janie could answer, they were interrupted.

  ‘Could I ask why, once again, you are present, Miss Marsh?’

  Matthew Hunt’s furious voice from behind made her jump, and she turned to see the guardian of the party line with a look as angry as his voice.

  She bit back her first reply, aware that Luke was back with them now, holding one of the Elfie books that they had been looking at. Keep it cool, she told herself. ‘Certainly you may, Mr Hunt. I’m looking at the library with Mr Frost, with Molly Sandford’s permission.’

  He pointedly ignored her. ‘I was told a publisher was coming, Janie, not Miss Marsh.’


  Janie proved to be of sterner stuff than Georgia had given her credit for. ‘Why shouldn’t she be here, Matthew? The manor and its collections will be open to the public next year.’

  This was ignored too. ‘If Molly gave you permission, she was wrong to do so, Miss Marsh. There are private family papers here and as you are intent on sabotaging the reputation of the Fernbourne Five, I’d be grateful if you would kindly leave.’

  There was the snap of a book closing. ‘We’ll both leave, Mr Hunt,’ Luke said smoothly. ‘I like to know what and whom I’m dealing with before I issue contracts. A disunited board doesn’t bode well.’

  If Luke had expected Matthew to retreat from his position, he was obviously mistaken. The full force of Matthew Hunt’s displeasure was turned on him, as he replied venomously: ‘There are other publishers, Mr Frost.’

  ‘Indeed there are,’ Luke agreed. ‘And you are most welcome to find them. The trust should consider my previous offers to Miss Sandford withdrawn.’

  ‘Was it something I said?’ asked Georgia weakly, once they were outside. ‘I’m sorry I caused this. You don’t really want to pull out, do you?’

  ‘Half and half. The half of me that publishes good Kentish books would like to start a Kentish classics list, and with a ready-made outlet like this, it’s very tempting.’

  ‘And the other half?’

  Luke put on a mock growl. ‘No one speaks to my girl like that.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Georgia said evenly. ‘Now tell me the truth.’

  ‘The trouble is that living with a person leads to their reading you too well,’ he complained. ‘I’ll come clean. While you were peering into books with Janie, I wandered into the next room. If you think I have a problem with storage, have a look there. There were boxes everywhere, and I happened to peer into a trunk marked “Elfie”. In the middle of a lot of very strange drawings I found a file marked The Flight of the Soul. I picked up one of the sheets inside to have a look and then found another batch of papers at the back of the file, with the top one visible.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Both had verse written on them. The handwriting was different, but the poem was the same.’

  Georgia thought about this. ‘Alwyn would have copied Roy’s work in manuscript, not just typed them, if he wanted to do a thorough job. Since Roy was dead, he could hardly have copied Alwyn’s work. So where does that take you?’

  ‘I don’t know yet.’

  ‘Yet?’

  ‘I took them to compare, and pinched a couple more as well.’

  ‘You what? Is this really Luke the let’s-follow-every-letter-of-every-law man who stands by my side?’ Georgia was astounded.

  ‘Let’s say Luke the very-cautious publisher. At that point I was still publisher-elect for these books, but any sniff of a copyright problem and I run a mile.’

  ‘With the evidence in your pocket, it seems.’ Georgia began to laugh.

  ‘I always thought,’ Peter said approvingly, having heard this story over Sunday lunch at Medlars, ‘that you would make a superb son-in-law.’

  ‘Peter!’ Georgia said in warning.

  ‘I agree,’ Luke meekly contributed.

  ‘Shall we look at these again?’ Georgia wasn’t going to get drawn on to personal territory, and Peter should know that by now. She refused to be bullied. ‘Can we tell by ourselves which is the original, and which is the copy, or do we get them compared by a graphologist? Cousin Charlie knows one, I think.’

  ‘We’ll do both.’

  ‘We can have a good try now.’ Once lunch was out of the way, Georgia pored over the scripts that Luke had laid before them on the table.

  ‘While you were nicking these, Luke,’ she said ruefully, ‘you might have pinched something else in Alwyn’s or Roy’s handwriting, so that we could compare them.’

  ‘Funny you should say that,’ Luke rejoined. ‘I also pinched this book autographed by Roy. That should give us a clue.’

  Peter was ignoring this exchange in favour of scrutinizing the four pieces of paper. ‘I know I’m prejudiced in favour of unlocking some dastardly secret here,’ he said finally, ‘but look at this.’ He pointed to one of the poems. ‘The word perchance has been scrawled out and the word perhaps written in above it.’

  ‘Your meaning, sir?’ Georgia asked.

  ‘Look at the correction. The “e” is heavier than the rest of the word in this copy, but the writing is even in the other copy. It’s thicker in this one, as if not done the first time to the writer’s satisfaction. And further down the same thing has happened with the letter “r”. There are similar examples in the other two sheets.’

  ‘You mean these alterations were faked? Flimsy evidence,’ Georgia decided.

  ‘Why? The four sheets of paper are in two different handwritings. Two of them have to be copies and two the originals. The question is, which – and why,’ Luke said reasonably. ‘Either we have Roy’s originals and Alwyn’s fakes, or vice versa. The heavier marking on the amendments would be the indication of which came second. They don’t necessarily have to be Alwyn’s set just because Roy died earlier.’

  For a moment Georgia didn’t follow his reasoning, but then she understood. ‘You mean if it’s Roy’s handwriting that has been forged, then it was a deliberate plot against Alwyn.’

  Peter chortled. ‘All right, let’s look at the autograph in Roy’s book, Luke,’ he said, and Luke brought Verses to Dorinda over to the table where they could all see it.

  ‘These two,’ Peter said, after studying the handwriting in the book, ‘are Roy’s – or rather the ones that look like his handwriting.’ He was pointing to the ones with the heavier ink amendments.

  ‘Oh, glory,’ Georgia said softly. ‘And Alwyn’s – provided that is his handwriting, and it seems pretty certain – is this set. Two of the originals that he couldn’t find when the accusations were made.’

  ‘Which means the plagiarism charge was trumped up,’ Peter said flatly. ‘We need that graphologist, Georgia.’

  Mike’s arrival on the doorstep of Medlars early on a Monday morning was unexpected.

  ‘Social visit?’ Georgia asked in surprise. ‘Either way, there’s coffee on the go. Come in.’

  ‘Work, but coffee helps.’ Mike followed her into the kitchen.

  ‘On what front?’ she asked, doling out spoonfuls of coffee into the cafetière. She was no expert on coffee, but Mike was, unfortunately, and so she always tried her best.

  ‘Damien Trent. Could you run me through that conversation one more time? I know I’ve got the words down but the intonation might help.’ He listened carefully and then asked, ‘And he was really interested in Alwyn Field, not just that he happened to be passing?’

  ‘It could be,’ she said fairly, ‘but I’m reasonably sure not. He’d gone so far as to think it odd that Elfie didn’t move in until after Alwyn died. And after all he visited Birdie Field and Molly Sandford, plus he had a visit booked in with Clemence Gale. Pretty conclusive. Why?’

  ‘You might not like this. Trent seems to have had some family connection with the Bakers after all, so it could just have been a research visit to Fernbourne, with a passing interest in anything to do with the Five.’

  ‘You mean he was adopted?’

  ‘No, but his father was. Trent’s mother has been spending time going through all her late husband’s stuff at my request. Eager to help, she said. Well, she has helped. She came up with the fact that in 1976, the year before she married Philip Trent, he had discovered, thanks to the new laws giving him the right to investigate his parentage, that he had been adopted and his mother’s name was indeed Baker. Jenny Baker.’

  At last! Georgia felt a lurch of excitement. ‘That’s good news, a definite link at last.’

  ‘What comes next, you’ll find even better,’ Mike said, ‘although it doesn’t fill me with rapture. She found notes he’d been working on before his marriage. Something must have led him to connect his blood mother with the Fernbourne Five, a
nd he paid a visit to Fernbourne, during which—’

  ‘He saw Joe Baker.’ Of course. Surely this must be the mysterious ‘chap’ of the seventies whom Ken had mentioned. Her excitement grew. ‘Why didn’t he tell his wife he was adopted? Presumably Damien found out through him?’

  ‘Maybe Joe Baker warned him off the story.’

  ‘Yes. You know, Mike, you’re not a bad policeman.’

  ‘Thanks. And you make lousy coffee.’

  ‘He warned him off because he murdered Alwyn,’ Georgia reasoned. ‘He could even have told him that, or more likely Philip guessed that he had done it. Who else, after all? Philip didn’t mention it to his new wife, because he didn’t want to confess that his grandpa was a murderer.’

  ‘I take it Joe Baker is therefore still on your list of possible suspects – if there was a murder.’

  ‘A very short list of two, and he heads it.’

  ‘It adds up, but as he’s no longer alive, and there’s no proof, we can’t even add a note to the file.’

  ‘You can’t write it off, Mike, not with Damien’s death unsolved,’ she said in alarm.

  ‘I knew you’d say that,’ he said glumly.

  ‘What about Sean Hunt?’

  ‘Situation as it was. His alibi holds up, and he claims the gun was stolen. Any one of the lads in the village could have pinched it. The shed wasn’t locked.’

  ‘He admits to having one?’

  ‘Had to. Several witnesses finally agreed he’d been larking around with it. He says it disappeared around the time of the murder. Very convenient.’

  ‘Any doubt that was the murder weapon found on the scene?’

  ‘Still some at present. There are indications of glove prints, but there’s a chance of latent fingerprints underneath. The lab’s still working on it. But you’d expect there to be Sean’s fingerprints on it, so we’re no further forward.’

  ‘Do you still want to go ahead with the poetry reprints if the problems can be sorted?’ Georgia asked Luke on the Monday evening.

  ‘If they come to me, I’ll consider it, but since the main one I’m interested in is The Flight of the Soul, this copyright issue will have to be well and truly sorted first. How long will it take?’