excitement.
‘It’s an idea, isn’t it?’ Greg watched her with amusement. ‘You’d better see what you can find out on that computer of yours.’
‘I will.’ Libby stood up. ‘Say hello to Ben when you see him.’
‘Aren’t you going to?’
‘Not till this evening.’ She went over to give Greg a kiss. ‘Thank you so much. There is such a wealth of knowledge and information in this village, I don’t know why anyone goes anywhere else.’
The local hunt did indeed cover the areas of both Anderson Place and Ashton Court and had an impressive website with an informative history page, where Libby was delighted to discover a Willoughby Weston as Master immediately before and after the war. It unfortunately didn’t say anything about his business interests, but now she had a name to search for.
She rang Fran.
‘Excellent!’ said Fran. ‘Are you looking him up?’
‘Yes. It’s mainly ancestor-type pages.’ Libby groaned. ‘Oh, God. We’ve been here before.’
‘I’ll do it. You go and make yourself some tea and I’ll call you when I’ve found something.’
‘Thank you,’ said Libby. ‘That coffee at George’s seems a long time ago.’
She’d barely poured her tea when the phone rang.
‘Got it,’ said Fran. ‘You’ll never guess.’
‘He was on the board of the sanatorium?’
‘No, you’d already guessed that,’ said Fran. ‘No better than that.’
‘Oh – I don’t know! What?’
‘He was also a director of Riley and Naughton.’
‘Wh-? God! The estate agents?’ Libby sat down with a thump.
‘Yes. And what’s more, he didn’t appear until after Paul Findon died.’
‘What do you mean he didn’t appear? What does that mean?’
‘Think about it. After Paul Findon died, however he died, the house was rented out. Then the body was discovered, the ghost was supposedly seen, and at the same time this Weston buys into the estate agency and the house falls empty. It doesn’t appear on anyone’s radar until it goes on to Riley’s website a year or so ago.’
‘After which it’s taken down,’ said Libby. ‘But not by Willoughby. He’s long gone.’
‘Supposing his father left Hugh Weston not only his whole estate but business interests, too?’
Libby was silent sipping tea and thinking.
‘Do you see what I mean?’ said Fran.
‘Yes, but that would mean that if Willoughby was involved in something nasty at White Lodge way back when, his son knows about it.’
‘And why not?’
‘You wouldn’t confess nasties to your children.’
‘Perhaps he found out? Whichever way you look at it, it’s suspicious.’
‘Doesn’t help us with finding Rosie, though.’
‘It does if Hugh Weston’s guilty of covering up his father’s crime, whatever it was.’
‘Doing trials on those poor girls, I expect,’ said Libby. ‘But what does that have to do with Rosie? She only knew White Lodge after Paul Findon bought it. She wasn’t here when those girls died.’
‘So what do we do now?’ said Fran. ‘I feel we ought to let Ian know, but I’m not sure how he’d take it.’
‘You never know – he might already know.’ Libby thought for a moment. ‘After all, he did warn us off this morning. Perhaps he was doing research and that’s why we beat him to it.’
‘Oh – hang on, the other phone’s going. I’ll ring you back.’ Fran switched off.
Libby took her mug into the kitchen. This was a turn-up for the books, and thank goodness for the internet. It was a wonder how detectives ever found anything out before the wonderful web came into being.
The phone rang again.
‘A bit of good news,’ said Fran. ‘Rachita’s back.’
‘Oh, thank goodness,’ said Libby, going quite weak at the knees. ‘Do we know where she’s been?’
‘Yes, apparently camping out with a friend. Rachanda’s being allowed out again now, so Sophie’s going to meet her. She said there’s quite a lot to the story.’
‘We might not get to hear about it, then,’ said Libby. ‘It might be personal.’
‘They’ve had to tell the police she’s home and someone wants to interview her, but there’s a problem there. Appropriate adults, or something.’
‘I expect they want her to be questioned without the parents and they don’t want that,’ said Libby. ‘The parents, I mean.’
‘Well, I’m sure Sophie will tell us what she can,’ said Fran. ‘I’ll keep you updated.’
‘And what do we do about Hugh Weston and Ian?’
‘Wait, I suppose. That’s all we can do.’
Libby wasn’t surprised not to hear anything from anyone for the rest of the day. The rain stopped, so she made a pretence of weeding, and, after preparing dinner, turned the television to a rolling news channel hoping for some mention of either of the local stories. There was none. The only vaguely local item was the fact that the two builders found murdered in Medway had been named. And they were both Asian.
There was absolutely no reason to connect this with the White Lodge murders, but it was inevitable that Libby would. She rang Fran.
‘Why should they be anything to do with our barn bodies?’ said Fran, who was trying to control a pan full of spitting oil.
‘They could be the murderers,’ said Libby.
‘Hired assassins?’ suggested Fran. ‘Oh, Libby, go back to the television and leave me to cook my stir fry.’
Hired assassins, thought Libby. Good one. I wonder if Ian’s thought of that?
But it wasn’t until the following day that Libby found out what Ian thought about anything.
On Friday morning Adam called.
‘Can you come down to the flat, Ma? I think we need a council of war.’
‘We do?’ Libby’s heart jumped. ‘What about?’
‘I’ll tell you when you get here.’
‘OK. I’ll be there in five minutes,’ said Libby, who was still in her dressing gown.
‘No, Ma, not there. Sophie’s flat.’
‘Oh, right. OK – half an hour, then.’
Head filled with all sorts of images, none of them good, Libby dressed hurriedly and set off for Nethergate, keeping a close eye on the petrol gauge which was hovering dangerously close to the red line.
The nearest she could park to Guy’s shop-cum-gallery was way beyond Coastguard Cottage. This was a Friday towards the end of August, and the holiday-makers and weekenders were out in force – as were their cars, parked like a shiny metal sea wall all the way along Harbour Street.
Guy was in the shop on his own when Libby pushed open the door. He jerked his head in the direction of the stairs and made a face. ‘They’re all up there.’
‘Don’t you want to go, if it’s Sophie…?’ Libby trailed off.
‘It’s not Sophie.’ Guy grinned. ‘It’s a case for Castle and Sarjeant.’
‘Right,’ said Libby in surprise, and made for the stairs.
In the little sitting room over the shop sat Fran, Adam, Sophie and a beautiful Indian girl.
‘Hi, Libby.’ Sophie stood up and came to kiss her. ‘This is my friend Rachanda. She’s told us some things that we think you ought to hear.’
‘Me? Why me?’
‘Because you know all about the case. I wanted to call you last night, but Ad said it would be better if we did it this morning when Rach could be here.’
Libby smiled at Rachanda, who smiled sweetly back. ‘It’s lovely to meet you, Rachanda, especially as we’ve heard so much about you.’
‘That’s why we thought you ought to know what’s been happening,’ said the girl in a barely accented voice. ‘You see, there’s more to Rachita’s adventure than we first thought, and I think we must tell the police. My parents
