Murder Takes the Stage (21 page)

Would Tom have tried to see Cherry and failed – perhaps for the mundane reason that she had been out when he called? No, such a meeting would be too painful for both, unless he meant to settle down here for good. Tom seemed to have been the sort of person who might have sacrificed his own happiness in the interests of freeing his former sweetheart from the taint of association with him. That was unlikely to have changed in the years since the murder, and therefore he would be unlikely to seek her out.

It was far more likely, Georgia reasoned, that Tom would try Sandy or Micky, and perhaps even Mavis. Tom's former home would represent unhappiness, so he would not linger there after seeing the neighbour, and he would avoid the pubs. Where in the town might Tom have been happy? One obvious answer was in
Waves Ahoy!
and on the pier where it had taken place. If anywhere, he would go there after seeing Pamela, Georgia decided, especially as he'd come in summer, when there might have been another show on the pier. He was unlikely to have had a car, so probably would have come to Broadstairs by train. After visiting the pier and the site of the former theatre, he would have walked back up the High Street to take the train back to London. No, that was wrong. Tom had taken a bag with him, so perhaps he intended to stay at least one night.

Tom, like Rick, was becoming an increasingly elusive shadow to pin down, but now Luke had agreed to a contract and it had been signed, Marsh & Daughter were committed to push onwards, however foggy the outlook.

Peter had suggested Georgia should make Christine her first port of call today. Apart from being a friendly face, Christine held Micky's diaries from the nineteen seventies, and so far she and Peter had checked only those for the nineteen forties and fifties. The new information meant there was a slim chance of Micky's diaries from the later period indicating something of interest.

To Georgia's relief, Christine looked much better than she had at the funeral. She needed all her energy for the coming baby. ‘Only a month or so to go now,' she said happily as she led the way to the garden, where two easy chairs awaited them. ‘So far the hospital is pleased with me. No complications, so full-steam ahead for the big one.'

‘Not too big, I hope,' Georgia joked.

‘How are you getting on with your Brittany quest?' Christine asked diffidently. ‘Any luck?'

‘We're more or less at a standstill,' Georgia confessed. ‘Just as in the Watson case, there are too many ifs and buts to proceed in a straight line. We've got a lead on Tom though. Could I have a look at the diaries from 1973 onwards?' Better to be on the safe side. Both Pamela and Ron had been unclear about the precise year, although 1974 was the most likely.

‘Just in time. We were thinking of chucking them all out.'

‘Don't do that,' Georgia pleaded.

Christine laughed. ‘Chucking them into the garage, at any rate, just in case the British Library wants to make an offer for them. I'd keep them inside, if they really meant anything to the family, but they don't.'

‘I'm hoping they'll make more sense to us now that we know a little more.' Georgia realized to her surprise that with them actually in front of her she was eager to get started. A new day, a new lead, she thought hopefully.

‘Nineteen seventy-three.' Christine came back with the relevant diary, and Georgia looked quickly through the July entries. There were the familiar jottings of names and the same cryptic comments, but Christine was right. There was little here to aid the entertainment historian of the future, or even the family researcher, and certainly not Marsh & Daughter. She went through the weeks following Pamela's birthday in case Micky had recorded the visit later, but there was nothing that could possibly relate to Tom Watson.

Christine disappeared inside again and came out with the 1974 volume, on which Georgia was pinning her hopes. Again she was disappointed. There was nothing.

With decreasing hope, she opened up 1975 and turned to the fourteenth of July.

‘Hey, jackpot time!' She was staring at a familiar name. ‘Bert Holmes.' That was all Micky had written, but it was enough. It was a bullseye. ‘Thanks, Christine.'

At least she now knew Tom had called on Micky, and possibly Sandy as well, although Sandy had kept quiet about it if so. Another thought: ‘Did Ken ever look at these?'

‘He had them on his shelves, but he never talked about them.'

Could Ken have just chanced on this entry and seen the Watson connection there? Even if he did, Georgia thought, excitement draining away, it was surely too slender a clue for Ken to build his entire scoop on. And yet it was tempting to believe he could and that he, like Peter and herself, had found Mrs Robin and even persuaded Pamela to talk, even though she had been annoyed at his pestering.

On the off chance, she leafed through the entire diary and at the very end was rewarded. Micky liked being cryptic, and here was plenty of proof of that. Under ‘Addresses', he had written with heavy underlining:
Notes on Sherlock's Last Case
, and a series of notes: ‘The Adventure at Wisteria Lodge'; ‘Talk about the Three Garridebs' – the Three Joeys, she wondered. Irene Adler was another name noted down – Joan Watson? Micky was devoted to her, as Sherlock was to ‘
the
woman'. ‘The Mysterious Lodger' was another, and at the end a query mark with ‘The Giant Rat of Sumatra', the famous story that Sherlock had never recorded, if she remembered correctly. So to what was that a reference? And if Tom had told Micky the story, why the need for a question mark?

‘Helpful?' Christine asked, obviously curious.

‘Oh indeed it is. I think Tom Watson did come to see your grandfather in 1975, but I need a few months to work out Micky's clues. Could I—'

Christine laughed. ‘Of course you can take it.' Then her face clouded. ‘Do you think my father read this and that he was as excited as you?'

‘It's possible,' Georgia said gently.

A pause. ‘So Tom didn't commit suicide in 1953. This diary seems to be proof, and it's probably what Dad had discovered too.' Another pause. ‘Does Cherry know?'

‘No, and I don't think she should. Not yet, at least. It's unlikely that Tom went to see her, because it would be hurtful for her if he then left again.'

Christine accepted this, to Georgia's relief. She tried to put herself in Cherry's position. Suppose she and Peter discovered that Rick had paid a visit to Kent and not bothered to look in to see them?

Port of call Number Two was Cath for lunch, and Georgia arrived at Marchesi's on the seafront buoyed up with the success of the morning. It was a pleasant place for lunch, and so full of atmosphere that it would be easy to think that the famous Signor Marchesi, who had moved here in the nineteenth century, was still busily baking away in the kitchens. Georgia realized she and Cath had been talking for half an hour without a word of work.

At last, Cath leaned back and said, ‘OK. That was good. Now tell me what I'm here for.'

‘To have dessert.'

‘Sounds good. I haven't got much for you yet in the way of information though. Poor return for your cash if lunch is on you.'

‘It is, and you should have some soon, I hope. How about smuggling and the black market in the nineteen fifties?'

Cath cocked an interested eye at her. ‘Our lads at it, were they? Uncle Tom Watson and all?'

‘Not Tom necessarily, but it would explain Joan's lifestyle.'

‘So would generosity with sexual favours. Anyway, you need my help?'

‘Yes. We need to know if any of the
Waves Ahoy!
company could have been involved.'

‘Ships rowed ashore at dead of night? Smugglers' tunnels – that sort of thing?'

‘Do you know the Gaps, and in particular Botany Bay?' She outlined what Peter had learned from Brian James.

‘I knew there were a lot of tunnels,' Cath said when Georgia had finished, ‘but I don't know which if any were in use in Tom Watson's time, or how distribution was done in the fifties. Actually, we may make light of it,' she added, ‘but it can't have been a barrel of fun living on rationing. And there must have been a thin line between the butcher handing you the best joint and paying for foreign goodies on the black market.'

‘The smuggling going on sounds rather more than that. Anyway, I suppose fun's what you make of a situation.'

‘Are you the family's chief moralizer, Georgia?' Cath pulled a face. ‘If so, warn me now.'

Georgia did a double take. ‘Are you implying  . . .'

‘I'm considering my options,' Cath said hastily. ‘Could you stick me around long term?'

‘I could try. Can you stick Charlie, warts and all?'

‘I guess it's the warts that attract me, so the answer's yes.'

‘They might not attract you so much with a mortgage to pay and housework to be done.'

Cath grinned. ‘Trying to put me off?'

‘No way,' Georgia said fervently. ‘You're the great white hope for Charlie, and therefore for Gwen and also for us. Keep right on.'

‘That's nice. Maybe I'll think about it seriously. Charlie and I might shack up together for a while anyway.'

‘Not a bad plan. That's what Luke and I did.' Georgia decided not to mention all the agony, the heart searchings, the ‘what ifs' that had preceded their marriage. Cath could reason that out for herself. Georgia realized with some surprise that she had difficulty remembering them now. One step, and on to a new plateau, which seemed wonderfully good so far.

‘This smuggling thing,' Cath hesitated. ‘Suppose I have to take this all the way?'

Georgia knew exactly what Cath meant. Her grandfather, who worked in the US stores. ‘Do you want me to tackle Buck on it?' she asked.

‘No. I'll put my mouth where my heart is. Leave him to me. That's if you trust me.'

Georgia thought about this perhaps rather too long for Cath raised her eyebrows, even as Georgia replied, ‘Yes. In return,' she added, ‘I'll present you with some information. Maybe Buck could help on that. Strictly under wraps at the moment.'

‘I promise. What is it?'

‘We've evidence that Tom came back here, at least briefly, in 1975.'

‘What?' Cath looked incredulous. ‘You really mean the suicide, the presumed death and all that are all so much hot air? Are you sure? Was Ken on to this?'

‘I think so. What we don't know is everything that Tom did when he came back that day, and what happened to him after that. It seems fairly sure he came back primarily to see Pamela, who had been a toddler when he left. What we don't know is who else he saw while he was here, apart from Micky Winton.'

Cath's eyes gleamed. ‘Ken's scoop? You mean Micky kept mum all that time?'

‘He seems to have done, and it's more than possible that that was indeed Ken's last scoop. We need to know who else Tom visited though.'

‘Such as Grandpops?' Cath asked sharply. ‘Well, OK. I'll tackle him, but he tends to be rather good at parrying tackles. How likely is it Ken was about to launch the news of Tom's return plus a “where are you now?” appeal?'

‘It seems a strong probability. It's even possible that one reason for his return was to spill the beans on who did kill Joan.'

‘Then why didn't he do just that?'

‘That,' Georgia said, ‘is open to discussion.'

‘He was stopped?'

‘Nothing to rule that out yet.' She had been hoping Cath wouldn't make the connection. Some hopes! Cath was right there.

‘Then you – we – might be in for a big surprise, like the teddy bears in the old song. You know what I think?'

‘Tell me.'

‘If Tom copped it in 1975 and Ken this year, so could you, so could Peter and so could I, if we go probing too far. Unless it's general knowledge that Tom returned here. I'd be in favour of telling the whole damn world or, short of that, everyone concerned with Tom Watson.'

Georgia considered the merits of this approach, remembering all too clearly that creepy sensation of being followed in London, and of Greg Dale's watching eye.

‘The teddy bears are meeting at Sandy's home on Saturday,' Cath continued, ‘to discuss the reunion concert next month. If we go and play with them, you could throw in your grenade.'

Georgia reached into her bag for her mobile. ‘I'll consult the oracle right away.'

The oracle had agreed. On her return to Haden Shaw Georgia found Peter sitting smugly reading the daily newspaper.

‘We can,' Peter said blithely. ‘In fact, it's all arranged. I phoned Fenella as soon as you rang off. It turns out Fenella knows Janie through the Fernbourne Museum. She did some of the cataloguing for it. Small world, isn't it?'

‘A useful one,' Georgia agreed. ‘Is Janie coming then?' She hoped to sound casually interested, but as usual it failed.

‘I could hardly say no,' he shot back at her accusingly.

Diffuse the situation quickly. ‘I'm glad. Your car or mine?'

He considered. ‘Yours.'

She thought Peter was about to add something, but if so, he refrained. ‘What about our promise to Pamela to say nothing?'

‘I rang her too. I deserve a free dinner at the pub for that. I said we had other sources to confirm Tom had been here in July seventy-five, not seventy-four, as she had thought, but she needed coaxing before she agreed she could be brought into it. I got the impression she was—'

‘Annoyed?' she asked when he broke off.

‘Apprehensive. It's hard to see why unless she's holding something back.'

‘Is there a risk in bringing this into the open?' Georgia asked doubtfully.

A pause. ‘When did risk ever stop us? We have to do it, Georgia. I'm getting superstitious in my old age. I have the feeling that if we can't find out what happened to Tom Watson, we'll never know the truth about Rick either.'