‘Of course not. The garden gate has been taken off. There’s nothing to trigger it,’ said Fran.
‘What I want to know,’ said Ben, as he poked along at the bottom of the wall, ‘is why they haven’t traced that music. There’s got to be a wiring system.’
‘Perhaps they have,’ said Libby. ‘You could ask.’
They came up against a wall that blocked their way to the front of the house.
‘Come on then,’ said Ben. ‘Back the other way.’
‘We can go in the back door if it’s unlocked,’ said Fran, ‘or through the french windows into the piano room.’
Back in the garden where white-coated figures still worked, Libby called out to the nearest.
‘Do you know if the wiring’s been traced from the gatepost?’
Three of the figures turned round. The first pulled her mask down. ‘Don’t know anything about it. What wiring?’
‘Wrong sort of investigators,’ said Ben as they entered the passage from the back door. ‘I expect they’re soil samplers or something.’
‘We’ll ask Ian,’ said Libby. ‘Come on, let’s find this cellar.’
But they couldn’t.
‘Do you remember,’ said Libby eventually, as, hot and dusty, they reconvened in the hall of the older part of the house, ‘at Creekmarsh it was inside a cupboard.’
‘I’ve looked,’ said Ben. ‘There’s only one place where it can be.’
‘Where?’ said Fran and Libby together.
‘Under the staircase at the other end of the building. There’s no under-stairs cupboard, and although it looks genuine, I guarantee that the wall is recent.’
‘What do we do? The listing people won’t let you knock that wall down, will they?’ said Fran.
‘I’ll tell Ian,’ said Ben. ‘I’m sure he can get round it. Shame I can’t get a sample of the brick work or plaster to date it.’
‘Shall I go round to the outside and see if it’s the right place?’ said Libby.
‘It’s more or less the right place. And you could be right. It isn’t so much a cellar as an original floor.’ Ben led them to the staircase in question. ‘It looks like a return, doesn’t it?’
Fran and Libby looked.
‘If you say so,’ said Libby. Ben sighed.
‘Let’s see if we can find Ian,’ suggested Fran. ‘He’ll know what to do.’
But Ben was suddenly on his knees again.
‘What is it?’ asked Libby, crouching down beside him.
He waved her away. ‘Get out of my light,’ he muttered, and began feeling his way along the wall until he came to the outer one. ‘There!’ he said triumphantly, and stood up.
‘What?’
‘Wiring. Not sure if it’s going or coming, but that should be enough to allow us – or the police – to knock through.’
‘We’ve found the music?’ said Libby.
‘I think so. Come on, we really must find Ian now.’
One of the white suits confirmed that Ian was still somewhere in the wood, and Fran called his mobile.
‘He’s coming straight back,’ she said switching it off.
When Ian arrived, Ben took him to see the half covered lintel, then into the house to where the wiring confirmed the presence of the hidden cellar. Fran and Libby inspected the sagging door frame in the garden wall.
‘No wiring, but it was here.’ Fran ran her finger down a newish looking scrape in the old wood. ‘How on earth did they manage to come in and dismantle it with all this police activity going on?’
‘There was no police activity last weekend,’ said Libby. ‘Only Ian on Saturday afternoon, and I don’t think he was here for long.’
Ian and Ben appeared round the side of the house. Ian was talking into his mobile and scowling.
‘He’s got to get an expert to look at it to see if it’s genuine. My word isn’t good enough apparently,’ said Ben. ‘Back to the Archaeological Society.’
‘Andrew said he knew a buildings person,’ said Libby, ‘but it might not be tactful to mention it if he and Rosie have had a falling out.’
‘We’ll let Ian sort it out,’ said Ben. ‘I’ve done my bit.’
‘And we’ve found where the wiring was here,’ said Fran, pointing to the door frame.
‘So have we.’ Ian came up putting his mobile in his pocket. ‘And the speakers.’
‘Oh,’ said Libby and Fran, defeated.
‘Very cunningly concealed. It was a real specialist job. Now we can see the other end, thanks to Ben, and I expect we’ll find the equipment in the blocked up cellar.’
‘But if it’s blocked up, how are they getting to it?’ asked Libby. ‘They can’t leave it unattended – or can they? It might go wrong.’
‘Well, it certainly will now we’ve disconnected everything this end,’ said Ian. ‘We’ll have to find the hidden speakers on the staircase next, but if we can get the buildings archaeologist down here, that’ll help.’ He turned to the white coats who had carried on with their careful scraping and sample taking and didn’t appear to be listening. ‘Have we got a dendrochronologist on the team?’
‘In the lab,’ said one.
‘Not on site?’
They all looked up at him blankly and shook their heads. Ian muttered under his breath.
‘Shall we leave you to it?’ asked Libby. ‘You’ve got enough on your plate without us cluttering up the place.’
‘Thanks, Libby.’ Ian held out his hand to Ben. ‘And thanks, Ben. Will you be able to give a proper statement about this?’
Ben nodded. ‘I’ll do a report and email it to you. What’s your address?’
Ian wrote his email address on an official card.
‘Why isn’t it on there already?’ asked Libby, peering over Ben’s shoulder.
‘I’d be inundated,’ said Ian. ‘The only numbers there are the police station switchboard and my dedicated mobile.’
‘Different from the one we use?’
‘Definitely.’ Ian gave them all a grin. ‘Now I’d better make some more phone calls.’
‘Whatever did we do before mobile phones?’ mused Libby as they went back to their cars.
‘Led a different lifestyle,’ said Ben. ‘Shall we go and persuade Guy to come out for lunch at The Sloop?’
‘Good idea,’ said Fran. ‘You suggest it, though. He’s more likely to agree.’
Guy agreed, and half an hour later the four of them were sitting outside The Sloop, the pub at the end of the hard in Nethergate, next to Mavis’s Blue Anchor cafe.
‘Difficult to believe all that horror going on at White Lodge while you’re sitting here,’ said Libby, squinting out over the sea, where ripples sparkled like sequins in the sunlight.
‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ said Guy.
‘And?’ prompted Fran after a moment.
‘You said the bodies were quite recent?’
‘The ones in the barn, yes,’ said Libby.
‘It may be nothing, but you remember Rachanda, Sophie’s friend?’
‘Nice girl, yes. What’s happened to her?’
‘Not to her, but her sister Rachita. She’s been missing for three weeks, apparently.’ Guy sipped his beer and shook his head.
‘When did you find this out?’ asked Libby. ‘It hasn’t been on the local news or in the papers, has it?’
‘No, but I’m not really sure why. Sophie went to see Rachanda yesterday, but the family’s closed ranks and she wasn’t allowed in. Rachanda managed to call her late last night.’
‘The police must think it’s racially motivated, then?’ said Ben. ‘Otherwise they’d have been appealing all over
