Murder to Music

Ian was silent for a moment. ‘And you’re sure it was real? And no one was playing the piano?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then it was probably one of the only sensible things you’ve done. Someone was trying to scare you off the place.’

‘So will you look into it?’

Ian sighed. ‘I suppose I’ll have to, although strictly speaking we haven’t much to go on. If I take it to the Chief he might not want to waste any time on it.’

‘Really? When it might be a murder?’

‘I might have to do a bit of snooping around on my own.’

‘Snooping? Oh, we’re good at that!’ said Libby.

‘I know you are, but you stay out of it until I say so. Why were you there in the first place, anyway?’

Libby told him about Rosie and the dreams.

‘Then she needs to be questioned. You said even Fran thought she must have been there in the fairly recent past.’

‘But why would she want Fran to investigate? Or me, for that matter?’

‘I don’t know. Perhaps you should go back and ask her. Meanwhile, I’ll bring it up with the Chief and see what he says. I’ll get back to you.’

‘Well, that’s that,’ said Libby, switching off the phone. ‘I suppose Fran and I should go back to Rosie.’

‘Perhaps not until Monday?’ suggested Ben. ‘Then we could have a nice relaxing weekend.’

‘We always have nice relaxing weekends,’ said Libby. ‘Except that, if you remember, we invited your mum and dad to Sunday lunch here for a change.’

Libby and Ben usually went up to the Manor for one of Ben’s mother Hetty’s legendary Sunday lunches, sometimes with Peter, who was Ben’s cousin and Hetty’s and Greg’s nephew, Harry, of course, sometimes Peter’s younger brother James and very occasionally Adam. However, on summer Sundays Harry kept The Pink Geranium open, so neither he, Adam nor Peter would be there and James was somewhere in Europe with his latest girlfriend.

‘Why won’t that be relaxing?’ asked Ben.

‘Because I’ll have to cook and I shall be nervous in front of Hetty. She’s the gold medal winner of Sunday roasts and I’m certain I won’t do it properly.’

‘Then cook something else. It doesn’t have to be a roast.’

‘They’ll think it’s sacrilege,’ said Libby.

‘No, they won’t. Tell you what – compromise and do that lamb shanks thing you did for Fran and Guy. That’s a roast in a way.’

Libby brightened. ‘Oh, good idea. And I can do dauphinoise spuds and – what veg have you got in the Manor garden?’

‘I’ll have a look tomorrow,’ said Ben. ‘And now, phone Fran and tell her what Ian’s said and then come and watch television.’

Fran agreed they should go back and talk to Rosie and volunteered to ring her the following morning.

‘We’ll have to leave it to her to suggest the time. She’s very busy.’

‘I thought your creative writing classes had finished for the summer?’

‘She does write books, Lib, she doesn’t just teach.’

‘Oh, yes. OK, I’ll leave you to make the arrangements.’

‘Oh, and let me know if you hear from Ian.’

‘I have a feeling I will,’ said Libby. ‘I think he took it seriously, even if his Chief might not.’

Sure enough, while Libby was doing her Saturday morning blink-and-you’ll-miss-it dust and vacuum ritual, the phone rang.

‘I was right,’ said Ian. ‘I had to phone the Chief at home and he didn’t think we’d got enough to make an official enquiry. He did say, though, that if I can come up with anything more he’ll review it. Which means – do it on your own time, Inspector Connell.’

‘Well, that’s good, isn’t it?’ said Libby.

‘I’m glad you think so. I do have a private life, you know.’

Suppressing a desire to ask exactly what private life, Libby apologised. ‘But you know what I mean. Fran and I are going to see Rosie again, and we could always ask for a return viewing of White Lodge.’

‘That would be just plain daft. If someone was trying to scare you off yesterday they might get even heavier a second time.’

‘You know,’ said Libby thoughtfully, ‘that’s a puzzle. Because how did they know someone would be viewing the house?’

‘Two reasons come to mind,’ said Ian. ‘One, they’ve fitted up some kind of trip switch to start up a mechanism when it’s triggered, or two, and more worrying, is that someone in the estate agent’s office is passing information.’

‘Oh, I don’t think so. After all, they seem to be keen to allow people to view the property unaccompanied. To then scare them off is a bit of a contradiction in terms.’

‘Possibly.’ Ian didn’t sound convinced. ‘Anyway, no going back there unless I’m with you.’

Libby sighed. ‘You know best,’ she said, privately thinking that he didn’t. ‘But I’ve had an idea. I told you about Jane mentioning children, and Fran being sure they were buried in the garden? And that she didn’t think they were workhouse children?’

‘Yes?’ Now Ian sounded wary.

‘Well, I thought, how about County Records? See if there’s a historian or something in the archives? Or an archaeological survey or something?’

‘You’re not getting Time Team in, Libby.’

‘No, I know,’ said Libby, wishing she could ask television’s favourite archaeology programme to come and do one of their three-day investigations, ‘but don’t you think it would be a good idea?’

‘You can go and root about in County Records all you like,’ said Ian. ‘Just stay away from White Lodge until I say so.’

Chapter Six

FRAN CALLED TO SAY Rosie had agreed to see them on Monday afternoon and the lamb shanks in red wine went down very well with Hetty and Greg on Sunday. On Monday morning, Libby went online to see what she could find out about County records. Unfortunately, searching the archives meant physically going to Maidstone and the County Library. She looked up “Archivists”, but no names were given. Stumped, she went back to looking up Cherry Ashton and White Lodge, hoping that something would leap out at her.

Eventually, she had the brainwave of putting “Cherry Ashton child deaths” into the search engine. However, all this produced was a proliferation of genealogy sites. “Infant mortality” simply produced unconnected articles containing mainly statistics. “Workhouse deaths” came up with a mixture of the two and several of the pieces she’d found before.

‘I know,’ she said out loud. ‘Archaeology societies.’

This produced enough results to keep her busy for an hour, jotting down names and numbers. Before going any further she decided she ought to confer with Fran, but, wary of pushing too hard, felt it would be better to leave it until the afternoon.

‘Well,’ said Fran that afternoon, while driving toward Rosie’s cottage, ‘it’s an idea. What we really want is a local amateur historian. They always find one on Time Team.’

‘That’s the second time Time Team’s come up.’

‘Oh?’

‘Ian mentioned it. But I had thought how great it would be if they could come in. I mean, they’re always finding remnants of things they didn’t know were there, and bodies that don’t match the evidence.’

‘That’s what you’re thinking, is it? About the bodies – the children?’