Lesley Cookman - Murder to Music

‘So, professor, would you care to come inside? One of the things I’m anxious to find out is if anything appears to have been altered recently, and you’d be able to tell us that better than most.’

‘I’m not sure about that,’ said Andrew, ‘I’m not that much of an expert in buildings. I do know a buildings archaeologist.’

‘You’re a member of the Kent Archaeological Trust, though, aren’t you?’ said Libby.

‘Yes, but my particular area is records research. I can do a reasonable visual analysis, but, as I said, I’m not an expert.’

‘That’s probably enough for us,’ said Ian. ‘Is this place listed, do you know?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Andrew. ‘Only Grade Two, but that’s probably why it’s still standing.’

‘Then we’ll be very careful,’ said Ian, ‘and all the more reason for you to be here.’

Ian led the way to the back door of the house, with Andrew explaining on the way about the TB sanatorium.

‘Those are the children, then, Fran?’ Ian turned to her.

‘I think so. But I’m still not sure.’

‘Do you think you could be tuning in somehow to the modern grave?’

Fran frowned. ‘Honestly, Ian, I don’t know. I’m not even sure I felt anything any more.’

‘How do you know about the grave being new?’ asked Libby, as Andrew led the way along the hall, staring around him as he went.

‘You thought it was, didn’t you? It was fairly obvious. The area would have returned to the overgrown state it had been before if it had been any more than a year old, and, according to one of our forensic experts, it’s probably within six months.’

‘But the music’s been playing for longer than that,’ said Fran. ‘If the grave’s only, say, six months old, why did they need the distraction before then?’

Ian looked serious. ‘That’s that we need to find out.’

They took Andrew all over the house. The music had started as they went up the stairs, which puzzled Libby.

‘ Clair de Lune ,’ said Andrew. ‘Where’s it coming from?’

‘That’s what we want to know,’ said Ian. ‘And how it’s triggered.’

‘Why didn’t it start in the garden?’ said Libby.

They all stopped on the third floor landing and looked at her.

‘Why didn’t it?’ said Fran. ‘What’s different about today?’

‘We can’t hear it very well up here,’ said Libby. ‘It’s clearest in the garden.’

‘So it’s the garden that’s the key,’ said Ian.

‘Of course – that’s where the grave is.’ Libby turned to go back down the stairs. ‘That’s where we should be looking.’

‘But we need to know where the equipment is, and that’s definitely in the house.’ Ian followed her. ‘Professor, have you noticed any, shall we say, anomalies so far?’

‘Nothing that would be out of keeping, but it’s only a cursory inspection and we haven’t much light. If you’re right about recorded music, there should be hidden speakers somewhere.’ Andrew peered at the panelling on the staircase. ‘But not here.’

‘But what triggered it?’ persisted Libby. ‘It didn’t start in the garden.’

‘What was different about the garden today?’ asked Fran, bringing up the rear. ‘Had anything been disturbed since we last came, Libby?’

‘Only the gate, and I expect you pushed that right open, didn’t you, Ian?’

He stopped at the bottom of the staircase. ‘No, I didn’t. That was how I found it.’

‘Do you remember,’ said Libby to Fran, ‘that when Rosie came to view the house she first heard the music from upstairs?’

‘Then there are two triggers,’ said Ian. ‘One on the stairs and one in the garden.’

‘The gate,’ said Libby and Fran together.

‘We had to squeeze through,’ Libby explained, ‘which meant we set something off. Ian didn’t. The gate was already open. When you came before, Ian, did you have to squeeze through? You said you heard the music.’

‘No, it was wide open both times. I heard it going up the stairs, just as we did now.’ He frowned. ‘There’s no point in us investigating before my team get here, we’d ruin any evidence there is, but it certainly means someone’s been here.’

‘After we’d been,’ said Fran, ‘and before you came.’

‘Which means someone knew.’ Libby looked at Ian. ‘This is a bit scary.’

‘Professor, can you see any evidence of speakers on this staircase?’ Ian ignored Libby and turned to Andrew.

‘I haven’t, but I wasn’t looking closely.’ Andrew frowned at the dark panelling. ‘I think you’d need floodlights to see.’

Ian nodded. ‘We’ll go outside again then, and wait for the team to turn up.’ He started across the landing to the other staircase.

‘I don’t know why he wanted us to come,’ grumbled Libby, following slowly in his wake.

‘He said we could come if we liked,’ said Fran. ‘I don’t suppose he actually wanted us.’

‘All he wanted was Andrew, really.’

‘He didn’t know about Andrew until this morning. Neither did we.’

Libby shrugged. ‘He wants him now,’ she said.

Ian lead them out of the front door. ‘Better this way,’ he said. ‘Less disturbance.’ He went back to the side of the house leaving them to contemplate the gloomy frontage.

‘He seems very efficient,’ said Andrew.

‘Oh, he is,’ said Fran.

‘Just slightly unorthodox,’ added Libby.

‘I can see that. Will he want me again?’

‘Oh, yes.’ Libby smiled grimly. ‘I think you’ve just become his favourite expert.’

Andrew looked worried. ‘I did say I wasn’t an expert,’ he began.

‘But you know a lot more about old buildings than anyone on Ian’s team will,’ said Fran.

‘Look,’ said Libby. ‘Here come the troops.’

A minibus, a white van and an unmarked car drew up alongside the house and Ian appeared from the side. Libby, Fran and Andrew watched, fascinated, as the team of men and women assembled equipment and donned blue scene-of-crime suits and disappeared in Ian’s wake back round the side of the house.

‘Now what do we do?’ said Libby after a minute. ‘Do you think he’s forgotten us?’

‘No, I haven’t.’ Ian poked his head round the corner. ‘Come and show us what you did on Friday. Andrew? Will you stay and give us a hand inside?’

Libby and Fran repeated their movements, including their discovery of the “grave”.

The men and women watched and listened in silence, then put up the hoods on their suits and the masks on their faces and turned to the undergrowth. Libby saw that a dead bouquet was lying on one of the stones in a plastic evidence bag.

‘Is that what you found on the grave?’ she asked Ian.

‘It is. I doubt if we’ll get anything from it, but we can try.’

‘Do you want us any more?’ asked Fran.

‘No,’ said Ian. ‘You’d probably be better out of the way, but I may want to talk to you later.’

‘Andrew came in my car, will you give him a lift home?’

‘Of course.’ Ian patted them both on the shoulder. ‘Off you go. Don’t touch anything on the way back to the cars.’

‘They’re not going to exhume that body now, are they?’ said Libby as they picked their way through the undergrowth. ‘In broad daylight?’

‘It didn’t look like it,’ said Fran. ‘Perhaps the authority hasn’t yet come through. I thought they always did it at night?’

‘I suppose that’s probably only on the telly,’ said Libby. ‘I must say, I thought he’d have been a bit more grateful to us.’

‘Grateful?’ Fran looked at her, amused.

‘Well, we put him on to the case, and we introduced him to Andrew. He ought to be grovelling.’