Lesley Cookman - Murder to Music

‘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.’

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?’

‘Yes. And I don’t understand what’s so mysterious about them. If Jane knows about it, and Campbell McLean knows too, even though he didn’t come back to us, he must, it must be general knowledge, so why isn’t it coming up in searches?’

‘Someone will tell us. Perhaps Rosie knows.’

‘In that case why didn’t she tell us in the first place?’

‘Why,’ said Libby darkly, ‘didn’t she tell us a lot of things?’

Rosie received them a little less enthusiastically than the first time, but took them through to the garden again, where once more tea things were set out.

‘Have you made any progress?’ she asked, after pouring tea.

‘In a way,’ said Fran, ‘but we’ve got several questions.’

‘Questions?’ Rosie looked wary.

‘First,’ said Libby, ‘when did you first see the house?’

Rosie seemed taken aback. ‘Oh, years ago. Then I was driving that way to see a friend and I saw it again. And it was after that I started dreaming about it.’

‘See, the thing is,’ said Libby, ‘in your dreams you saw the place empty, and described it to us exactly as it looks now. And we don’t think it’s been empty more than a couple of years. So how would you know?’

‘You’ve been there?’ Rosie avoided the question.

‘Yes, we’ve been there.’ Fran kept her eyes on Rosie’s face. ‘And, as Libby says, it’s exactly as you described it. And if you’re a psychic, why did you ask me to investigate?’

‘I’m not a psychic.’ Rosie avoided their eyes and took a sip of tea.

When no more seemed forthcoming, Libby said, ‘In that case you have to tell us what’s behind all this. And why you don’t know the history of the house. It was easy enough to find out, even for us.’

‘At least, part of it was,’ said Fran.

‘What do you mean, part of it?’ asked Rosie, looking up. Ahh ! thought Libby.

‘That White Lodge was part of the Cherry Ashton workhouse.’

Rosie looked embarrassed. ‘Yes, I knew that.’

‘Right,’ said Fran, ‘so now tell us the rest of it.’

‘The rest of it?’ echoed Rosie.

‘Yes,’ said Libby firmly. ‘How you know exactly what the house looks like, inside and out, and why you bothered to get us involved. Are we some kind of research for one of your novels? How to hoodwink two gullible middle-aged ladies?’

‘Libby!’ said Fran, shocked.

But Rosie was looking even more embarrassed. In fact, a slow blush was creeping up her neck.

‘All right, I’ll confess.’ She leant back in her chair and cradled her cup in her lap. Her long hair had escaped from its clip and drifted over her shoulders. She looked, thought Libby, like the good witch from a fairy tale.

‘First, what I told you was quite true. I’m positive I have a connection to White Lodge, although I have no idea what it is. As soon as I saw it – oh, must be a year ago now – I remembered seeing it before, years before, as I said. But then I started dreaming about it. Not empty, as I told you, but mainly the outside and that garden, although it wasn’t overgrown. So I looked it up, as you must have done, on the internet, and found it was for sale.’

She paused for another sip of tea. ‘So I made an appointment to view. The agent who took me seemed strangely ambivalent about the viewing, as though she didn’t want to go, but on the other hand was keen for someone to buy it.’ She looked at Fran and Libby. ‘Is that how it seemed to you?’

They nodded.

‘So we went to see it. I knew the minute I went inside I’d been there before. And all the time we were going round the house I was aware that the agent was very uncomfortable. I was fine. Whatever she felt, I knew the house had been happy at one time.

‘She didn’t want to take me upstairs, so I went on my own, and saw that room with the bath and the kitchen sink. And then -’ she paused ‘then I thought I could hear piano music.’

Libby and Fran both drew a deep breath and Rosie nodded. ‘So I went downstairs to ask the agent if she could hear it, but she was already outside the front door. I insisted we go round the back and, very reluctantly, she let me lead the way. Then we saw the garden.’ Rosie stopped and looked away towards the trees, although Libby felt she wasn’t actually seeing them. ‘And I heard the music again – very faintly. So I turned to ask the agent if she could hear it, and there she was, the other side of that rotting gate, looking terrified. Of course she could hear it.

‘Anyway, she said she knew nothing about it, knew nothing about the house except that it was a probate sale, and hightailed it back to her car. I stayed and prowled round the garden for a bit, but the music had stopped and I couldn’t find anything else except those stones.’

‘So why didn’t you tell us all this to start with?’ asked Libby.

‘I didn’t want to prejudice you. I thought if I told you about the music you would be expecting to hear it, or you’d think I was a mad old fool.’

Libby’s expression could have told anybody that was exactly what she did think.

‘And about the workhouse?’ asked Fran, after giving Libby a warning glare.

‘Yes, of course I knew about that. But it was closed at the beginning of the last century.’

‘Demolished, actually,’ put in Libby. ‘In 1909.’

‘Right.’ Rosie looked at her with respect. ‘So what did you mean about half the history?’