Murder on the Tor: An Exham on Sea Cosy Mystery (Exham on Sea Cosy Crime Mysteries Book 3) (10 page)

Mandy’s face melted into that dreamy expression only first true love could conjure. The gig had been wonderful, Steve had been amazing, and the audience had been phenomenal. Mandy’s enthusiasm, pink cheeks and ear-to-ear grin lifted Libby’s mood an inch or too from the mire of gloom. So what if Max didn’t share her feelings? Who cared if Trevor hadn’t died of natural causes? The world was still turning.

Libby yawned and forced a smile. “I’m truly happy you had such a good evening. Sorry to be grumpy. Hope I didn’t spoil things.”

“You go to bed. I’ll take the bread out when it’s cooked. Everything will look better in the morning.”

Tears welled in Libby’s eyes. Somehow, she and Mandy had reversed their roles. “I’m sure it will,” she mumbled, like a tired child. Her life was a mess. She didn’t want to think about it any more. Far better to keep her mind busy with the murder on the Tor. She’d forget about Max and Trevor and concentrate on Jemima Bakewell, Catriona and Professor Perivale.

Tanya

Bear tugged on the lead, dragging Libby through the door of the vet’s surgery where Tanya Ross was reaching for a pack of worming tablets. The dog reared up on his hind legs, placed a pair of heavy front paws on her shoulders and licked the vet’s face. Libby tugged his collar. “Get down, Bear.”

He dropped to all fours as Tanya wiped drool from her cheek. “I haven’t had a hug like that all day.” She eyed Libby. “There’s not much wrong with him today, so how can I help you?”

“I wanted to have a word with you about Jemima Bakewell.”

Tanya’s eyes slid away. “I’m sorry. Who did you say? Bakewell? Like the tarts?” Tension in the vet’s voice killed the lame joke.

“I think you know her. Weren’t you at University together?” The vet was motionless, as though holding her breath. “With Jemima Bakewell and Professor Perivale? Bristol in the sixties?” Libby waved at the certificate on the wall. “According to that, you were contemporaries.”

Tanya Ross swallowed. “So what if we were? I haven’t seen either of them for years.” She made a show of looking at her watch. “Now, the receptionist will be back soon, and I’ve got appointments, so I’ll have to ask you to leave.”

“Oh, no. You’re not getting rid of me that easily. People have died.”

“Is that any of your business? You don’t know them. You’ve only...”

Libby cut her off with a sigh. “I know, I’ve only lived in the area for a short while. If I had a pound for every time one of you locals told me that, I’d be living in one of those houses by the golf course.”

The ghost of a smile spread over Tanya’s face. She pushed past Libby. “Come into my room.” Bear sniffed at Tanya’s pockets and the vet brought out a handful of dog treats. She beckoned Libby to follow and opened a door marked
Private
, where racks of professional journals climbed the walls and a computer covered most of the surface of a small desk.

The two women perched on small brown tub chairs, on opposite sides of a cheap, deal coffee table. A textbook lay open on the desk. Libby averted her eyes from a lurid diagram of the lungs and heart of some unknown animal. Tanya snapped the book shut. “Coffee?”

Libby shook her head. “Information.”

“I don’t see why I should tell you anything.”

“You won’t put me off by saying, ‘It’s none of your business.’ I was there, up on the Tor with no one else around except a child, and just after I left, John Williams’ body was dumped with a plastic bag round his head. That makes it my business.” Libby remembered every detail. “That poor child could have found it, and the thought of that makes my blood boil. So don’t tell me to walk away. I’m determined to find out what’s been going on. If you know something, you’d better tell me.” Libby paused, waited and added, “For Catriona’s sake.”

The shot hit home and the vet’s mouth dropped open. “What do you know about Catriona?”

“I know she was your friend. There was a group of you, all at University together. Catriona was one of that group and she died. At a party.” The vet shifted, crossing and uncrossing her legs. “Were you there, the night Catriona died?”

Tanya chewed her lip, her eyes on the table, focused on the closed veterinary textbook. She murmured, “None of us was in the room when Catriona fell out of the window. We were all downstairs.”

“That’s what Miss Bakewell said.” Was that a tiny sigh of relief? Libby let it go, for the moment. If the vet thought she’d sidestepped a difficult question, she’d be likely to open up and tell Libby more than she intended. “Tell me about Catriona?”

Tanya looked up from the book on the table. Her eyes were too bright. “She was beautiful. She cared about people. If you had a problem, she’d always listen―really listen.” A smile lit the woman’s face, then faded. “We shared a house, Jemima, Catriona and me, and while we were there, I was happier than I’d ever been in my life. My own home was a place where we kept a stiff upper lip and spoke when we were spoken to. I came to University to escape, and I found Catriona.” Tanya pressed a balled-up tissue to her eyes. “I’m sorry. I haven’t talked about it for so long.”

Libby, careful not to shatter the woman’s mood, kept her voice low. “You found Catriona and...?”

The vet drew a shaky breath. “Everything was fine until that night.”

“What night? What happened?”

“It was the May Ball. We were all there. I wore a long, velvet dress. Navy blue. Catriona said it matched my eyes. She had a red top with enormous sleeves. She looked wonderful; like a queen. Even Jemima seemed pretty, that night, but the two of them had far too much to drink, and they had a fight over that stupid necklace…” The vet fumbled in her pocket for a new tissue.

“The beads belonged to Jemima, didn’t they?”

Tanya’s lip curled. “Malcolm Perivale gave them to her. She said she found them, but no one believed her. Malcolm stole the necklace from some dig he was working on in Glastonbury, and gave them to her. They were going out together, you see. What he saw in her, no one could understand.”

“What happened to the beads, that night?”

The vet shrugged and stood up. Her voice rang with spite. “Oh, it was just a storm in a teacup at first, but it ended in disaster. Jemima accused Catriona of taking the necklace; as if Catriona would steal things. Or, maybe it was the other way round. It was so long ago. I can’t remember exactly. Anyway, they had a quarrel.” She shrugged. “It was hot, and the music was loud. Catriona went upstairs to cool down. The next thing we knew, she’d fallen out of the window.”

“She fell? You mean...”

“No one saw her fall.” Tanya’s eyes were narrow slits, “but someone found her on the pavement.” She shuddered. “We all ran out to see. There was blood all over the paving stones and Catriona was dead. Her skull was crushed by the fall, you see.”

Libby let the vet sit in silence for a moment, reliving that night, before she asked, “Had Catriona taken LSD?”

Tanya threw her hands in the air. “Catriona tried everything. She said LSD made her think she’d died and gone to heaven. She saw multi-coloured angels and flowers, and heard music. Psychedelic. That’s what we called it, in those days.”

“And taking LSD makes people believe they can fly.”

The vet nodded. “We were such fools.”

Deer Leap

“Weather doesn’t look too good.” Mandy leaned from the kitchen window, eyes on a system of grey clouds scudding across the sky. “Still, Glastonbury isn’t Snowdonia.”

“We won’t need climbing boots, but we’d better wear waterproofs,” Libby agreed. Mandy was silent, staring at her landlady’s hands. She’d taken to watching Libby, like an anxious guardian angel, since the midnight baking episode. It was touching and infuriating at the same time. Libby looked down. A dozen expensive chocolate wrappers lay under her fingers, shredded into tiny pieces. She tossed the ruined gold foil in the bin.

The first item on the day’s agenda was a visit to the Dear Leap stones. Max decreed it was a wild goose chase. He was probably right, but Libby refused to ignore even the most unlikely clue, and he’d agreed to come along. Bear, at least, was enthusiastic. His head on Mandy’s lap, he spent the drive to the Mendip Hills panting, mouth wide. Jumping from the car, he led the way up the path to the stones with tail aloft, sniffing the grass as though on the trail of some truly sensational scent, but when they arrived, he refused to go anywhere near the stones.

Rain clouds hung low, hiding the distant summit of the Tor. Libby pulled her jacket close, shivering from more than the cold. Bear snuffled her leg and she touched him, gently, behind the ears. “You remember it, too, don’t you?” Libby whispered. “That morning on the Tor. It feels like that, here. I don’t like it, either.”

They stood in the field and gazed round, disappointed. “No sign of a tunnel,” Max pointed out.

Mandy remained upbeat. “The Deer Leap stones are here.” Two upright lumps of rock, set ten yards or so apart, stood alone in the field. “They’re like a piece of Stonehenge.”

“It shows we’re in the right place.” Max threw a stick for the dog, but he ignored it, sticking close to Libby.

“Bear doesn’t like it here,” Mandy pointed out. “Maybe there really is a tunnel underground, full of ghosts, and he can sense it.”

“Nonsense.” In an attempt to throw off the gloom that weighed on her shoulders, Libby set off across the field and marched round the boundary, swinging her arms, inspecting the hedges. Mandy and Max followed her example and spread out, searching every blade of grass.

“We’re not going to find anything,” Mandy said at last, “and I’m getting cold in this wind. Shall we give up?”

Max was on the other side of the field, bending low in a corner, peering at the ground. He beckoned. Suddenly excited, Libby and Mandy ran to join him. “Have you found something?”

He straightened up, holding out one hand. “A bead.” It was covered in mud, but Max rubbed away the dirt, uncovering the glow of a reddish-yellow stone.

Mandy breathed, “It’s amber.”

“Now, there’s a coincidence.” Max turned the stone in his hand. “An amber bead, just where we thought it would be.”

Mandy squeaked. “So, it’s all true? There’s a tunnel under here? Someone came through from the Tor and dropped the bead and...” She stopped, deflated by her companions’ expressions. “It’s all nonsense, isn’t it?”

Max grunted. “Afraid so, Mandy.”

“But look at Bear. Why’s he so miserable?”

Max watched the dog. “Bear relies on his sense of smell. What if he’s caught the scent of someone he knows instinctively he can’t trust.”

Mandy breathed. “The murderer?”

Max scratched his chin. “Someone who left the bead for us to find, is leading us up the garden path, and is probably the killer. The question is, who?”

Libby pulled off her hat and let the wind catch her hair. “Do you think Miss Bakewell had anything to do with it? I don’t trust her.”

Max was nodding. “I think another interview with our school teacher is called for, don’t you, to find out why she sent us all on this wild goose chase?”

Libby agreed. “If you ask me, she talks about the amber beads just a little too much, as though she’s trying to make us think about them instead of something else, like some kind of sleight of hand. It’s making me suspicious.”

“Whatever we do, can we please get away from this place? I’m freezing.” Mandy’s face was pinched with cold.

“Let’s find a cafe in Glastonbury, get warmed up and have a walk up the Tor,” said Max.

***

Half an hour later, stomachs full of scones and jam from a cafe near Glastonbury Abbey, they emerged from the trees at the base of the Tor and trudged up the hill. “Cheer up,” Mandy said. The cream tea had given her a second wind.

Max walked by Libby, close, but not touching. She kept her gaze averted, like a nervous schoolchild. “Maybe it’s the weather,” she muttered. “All these dramatic thunder clouds. I think we’re in for a soaking.” They were halfway up the hill, now, and the clouds were gathering fast. “Do you think we should go back? It’s going to rain.”

“Not now,” Mandy pleaded. “I’m in the mood to see a ghost or two.”

Libby’s cry cut her off. “There she is.” She pointed up the hill, where the top of St Michael’s Tower disappeared into black clouds.

Max took her arm. “There’s no one there.”

“I saw her.” Libby pulled away. “Didn’t you? She was there―the little girl.” She whirled round. “And it’s no good making faces at Mandy behind my back, as if I’m crazy. I saw her, I tell you.”

The first heavy drops of rain began. “Well,” said Max, “Whatever you saw, we need to get up to the Tower now, if we’re going. We can shelter there. In any case, I don’t think we’ll make it back down again without getting soaked. In for a penny, in for a pound, as my mother used to say.”

His long legs soon took him ahead. Bear jogged at his side and Mandy did her best to keep up, panting hard. Libby brought up the rear. “I saw her. I did.”

“Hey, I believe you,” Max called back. “You saw something.”

“Not something. I saw the little girl.” They were almost at the top. Rain sliced into Libby’s face as she covered the last few yards to the shelter of the Tower. She found Max, Mandy and Bear in the arch at the entrance. Inside one corner of the Tower, crouched by a stone bench, the child stared from a pink raincoat, wet black curls escaping from the furry hood.