Murder by the Sea

Book 4: A Libby Sarjeant Murder Mystery Series

by Lesley Cookman

Genres: Female Sleuths; Thrillers

Synopsis

When a body is discovered on a rocky little island in the middle of Nethergate Bay the media swoop on the seaside town. Soon an enquiring hack discovers that local resident Fran Castle, has previously aided the police using her psychic abilities. Brought into the investigation, Fran naturally asks her friend Libby Sarjeant, the middle-aged actress and crime-solver, to help, but they soon find themselves up to their knees in more mud and murder than they could possibly have anticipated.

Release date: May 1, 2012

Publisher: Accent Press

Print pages: 258

Sample

Chapter One

THEY DID BOAT TRIPS around the bay. George took the Dolphin chugging round the uninhabited island in the centre every other day and Bert took the Sparkler to the little cove round the point. The next day they changed over. Tourists asked them if they didn’t get bored doing the same thing all summer from Easter to September, but they just shrugged and smiled. The sea was always different, they said, the people were always different and the weather – well, the weather could be even more different. Sometimes they couldn’t go out for a week; one year they hadn’t gone out for the whole of August. Then they would sit in the Blue Anchor by the jetty, drinking tea and smoking, until the government forced them outside, where Mavis supplied them with a cheap canvas gazebo and an environmentally unfriendly heater.

But this year the weather was good. This year the regulars came back with smiles on their faces and the odd present of a bottle of whisky, which George and Bert would share on board the Dolphin or the Sparkler when the tourists went back to their hotels and apartments.

This year, too, there were the other visitors. Dark, olive-skinned, wary-looking, who worked in the hotel kitchens, cleaned the lavatories and worked on the farms outside the town. The tourists, for the most part, ignored them; the hoteliers and café owners despised them and paid them as little as they could get away with. The rest of the town’s residents were divided in opinion. Those, like Mrs Battersby and Miss Davis, who complained bitterly to anyone who would listen and to a lot more who would not, that these people should not be allowed and should be sent back to their own countries, and those whose determinedly liberal attitude drove them to be fiercely defensive on the immigrants’ behalf.

There were those, of course, who viewed both sides with amusement and detachment. George and Bert, and their friend Jane Maurice, who worked for the local paper, were among them. Jane would go down to the Blue Anchor and chat to George and Bert, and occasionally go out on the Dolphin or the Sparkler and help them entertain their passengers.

Which was what she was doing one day in July at the beginning of the school holidays. It was George’s turn to go round the island, and, due to the unusually calm sea, the Dolphin was packed with families, nice middle-class families who preferred a traditional British seaside holiday to the dubious delights of sun, sea and Malibu, with unbearable temperatures and incomprehensible currency. Those families who, had they chosen to fly to the sun, would not have dreamt of looking for English bars, breakfasts and nice cups of tea, but who were secretly pleased that these essential delights did not have to be foregone.

It was Jane who spotted it. Something had been washed up, or dumped, on the far side of the island, but what made her look harder was its position, well above even the waterline from the high equinoctial tides.

‘George, what’s that?’

George squinted through his cigarette smoke, keeping one hand on the wheel while pushing Jane out of the way with the other. Then he reached for the radio.

‘What’s going on down there?’ Libby Sarjeant peered round her easel in the window of her friend Fran’s cottage.

‘Hmm?’ Fran wandered in from the kitchen with an enamel jug full of flowers.

‘Down at the end by The Sloop.’ Libby stood up and leaned out of the open window. ‘There’s a police car and – what’s a blue and yellow car?’

‘Eh?’ Fran came forward and leaned over Libby’s shoulder. ‘Oh – Coastguard, I think.’

‘I didn’t hear the lifeboat, did you?’

‘No, but they don’t always send up a flare, you know. Anyway, perhaps the lifeboat hasn’t gone out.’ Fran turned away from the window and looked round for somewhere to put the jug. ‘Much as I love my fireplace,’ she said, ‘I wish it had a mantelpiece.’

Libby turned round. ‘Instead of a bloody great wooden lintel? I know which I’d prefer.’

‘I just need somewhere to put my flowers.’ Fran sighed and put the jug on the hearth. ‘I also need some more furniture.’

‘Ooh, look!’ said Libby suddenly. ‘The lifeboat had gone out. It’s on its way back.’

Abruptly the window went dark.

‘Oh, dear,’ said Libby and Fran together as the ambulance passed the cottage.

‘Shall we go and have a look?’ said Libby, wiping a brush on a piece of rag.

‘Libby!’ Fran looked shocked. ‘Don’t be such a ghoul. Anyway, we wouldn’t be allowed to get near the place.’

‘We could go to The Sloop for lunch?’ suggested Libby hopefully.

‘The Sloop will be cordoned off.’

‘The Blue Anchor?’

‘No, Libby! Really, you’re incorrigible.’ Fran went back towards the kitchen. ‘If you’re going to behave like this, I shan’t let you paint from my window any more.’

Libby grinned and turned back to the easel, knowing this was an empty threat. She’d been painting pictures of this view for years without having been inside. Both she and Fran had owned pictures of this view as children, and now Fran actually lived here.

‘How’s Guy?’ she asked now, considering where to position the next blob of white cloud.

‘OK, I think.’

‘You think? Don’t you know?’

‘I’m still trying to keep him at arm’s length,’ said Fran, and held up the kettle. ‘Tea? Coffee?’

‘Tea, please. But why?’

‘Why am I keeping Guy at arm’s length? I told you before I moved here. If I wasn’t careful he’d have moved in within a week, and I want time on my own.’

‘You can’t really feel much for him, then.’ Libby stabbed at her painting.

‘Hello, pot? Who are you calling black?’

‘Ben and I are – what’s it called – Living Together Apart. Or something. We’ve got our own spaces’

‘Well, so have Guy and I.’

‘But you never see him.’

‘I do, so.’ Fran put a pretty bone china mug on the windowsill in front of Libby. ‘Almost every day. And he’s been very helpful with things like tap washers and radiators.’

‘Taking advantage,’ said Libby, with a sniff.

‘Not at all. He notices things when he’s round here and offers to put them right.’

Libby swung round to face her friend. ‘And are you still keeping him at arm’s length in the bedroom?’

‘Libby!’ Fran’s colour rose and she turned away.

‘Look, we’ve had conversations like this in the past, and I know how difficult it all is, but for goodness sake! You’ve known him for a year, now, and I can’t believe he’s still hanging on in there. He’s still an attractive man, and you’re no spring chicken, pardon the cliché.’

‘Well, thanks.’ Fran sat down in the armchair beside the inglenook fireplace.

‘Oh, you know me,’ shrugged Libby, with a sigh. ‘Speaks me mind.’

‘I had noticed.’ Fran stared down into her coffee mug. ‘As it happens, he has got past the bedroom door. No –’ she held up a hand to stop Libby, ‘I’m not saying anything else. We respect each other’s space. He’d still like to be round here every night, but I really do want to savour this experience on my own for a bit.’ She looked round the room with a smile. ‘It’s just like a fairy tale. I still can’t quite believe it.’

Libby regarded her with an indulgent expression. ‘Well, I’m glad to hear it,’ she said. ‘You deserve your cottage, and you deserve Guy. Mind you, I don’t know how you kept it from me.’

‘We don’t live round the corner from each other any more, that’s why, and Guy lives almost next door.’

Guy Wolfe lived above his small art gallery and shop a few yards along Harbour Street from Fran’s Coastguard Cottage.

‘He might know what’s going on by The Sloop,’ said Libby, turning to peer out of the window again. ‘The ambulance is still there.’

Fran sighed. ‘Drink your tea, and we’ll go and see if Guy knows anything,’ she said. ‘You’ll never settle otherwise.’

Libby smiled broadly. ‘How well you know me,’ she said.

In the event, it was Guy who came to them.

‘I was going to take you both to The Sloop for lunch,’ he said, after kissing Fran lightly on the cheek, ‘but it looks as though it’ll have to be The Swan.’

‘That’ll be lovely, thank you,’ said Fran.

‘Do you know what’s happening?’ asked Libby.

‘Not sure, but an ambulance arrived as I was walking here, so whatever it is, it’s serious.’

‘We saw it,’ said Libby. ‘I’ll go and wash my hands.’

‘Look, the Dolphin’s come in,’ said Guy as they left the cottage. They walked over to the sea wall and leaned over. Sure enough, the Dolphin was gently rocking at its mooring outside The Sloop while the passengers trooped off, watched over by a couple of yellow jacketed policemen.

‘Perhaps that was it,’ said Libby, ‘an over-boarder.’

‘Perhaps.’ Guy frowned. ‘I hope not.’

A passenger from the Dolphin broke away from the others and spoke to one of the policemen. Libby peered round Fran and tried to see what was happening.

‘What’s she doing?’ she said.

‘How do we know?’ said Fran, exasperated. ‘Come on Lib. We’re going to The Swan.’

‘I’m with the Nethergate Mercury,’ said Jane. ‘Can you tell me anything?’

The policeman looked her up and down. ‘If you’ve just got off the boat, miss, you know more about it than I do.’

‘Can I write it up for my paper?’

The policeman frowned. ‘Don’t know about that,’ he said.

‘Do you need me any more, then?’ Jane had visions of bylines in the nationals and wanted to get to her phone.

‘All passengers over there, miss. Names and addresses.’

Jane sighed and went over to the group of passengers huddled round George, who was holding forth in aggrieved tones to another, harassed-looking policeman. Under cover of the argument, which seemed to centre on George’s rights as a citizen being undermined, she dragged her daily paper out of her shoulder bag, looked up the number of the news desk and punched it in to her mobile phone. Several other people were on their phones, so her quiet conversation didn’t appear out of the ordinary, neither did her second one to her own paper, which had been put to bed earlier in the day. Her excited news editor promised to try and halt production until they could get in a stop press report and Jane, satisfied, put her phone away and moved up to hear what was being said by George and his policeman.

Fifteen minutes later, she and George were sitting outside The Blue Anchor with large mugs of coffee, supplemented, in George’s case, with a generous tot of Mavis’s whiskey.

‘Treatin’ me like a suspect,’ huffed George, lighting a cigarette with his ancient Zippo.

‘No, they weren’t, George,’ said Jane. ‘They had to get down exactly what happened, didn’t they? And they talked to me as well.’

‘Hmph,’ said George as Jane’s phone rang.

Her news editor said that he had wangled half an hour for her put in a full report, so could she do so now? Jane filled in what she could, and being an honest girl, told him which national newspaper she had rung.

‘No bloody scoop, then, is it?’ grumbled the news editor.

‘More local people will see the Mercury tomorrow, though,’ comforted Jane, ‘and I can also do an in-depth follow up, can’t I? I know the area.’

‘If you can think of an angle, yes.’

‘Anyway, it’ll have been on the local news before then, won’t it? Radio Kent will have got it, and so will Kent and Coast.’

‘I know, I know,’ sighed the news editor. ‘Gets harder and harder for the poor newspaperman.’

‘Who do you think it was, George?’ said Jane, returning to the table.

‘How do I bloody know? Couldn’t see its face, could I? Wouldn’t be a local. More sense ’n to go gallivantin’ on Dragon Island.’

‘Looked as though it’d been dumped, though.’

‘Hmph,’ said George again.

‘I wish I could find out.’

‘Course you do, you’re a bloody reporter ain’t you? Police’ll give a statement, won’t they?’

‘I suppose so.’ Jane sighed. ‘They won’t give much away. I wonder who’ll be in charge of the investigation.’

‘That there Connell, it’ll be. If ’tis murder, anyhow.’

‘Inspector Connell? He’s scary.’

‘Nah. That woman was scary.’

‘What woman?’

‘The one what ’e got involved in that murder last winter. The body in the ole Alexandria.’

Jane looked along the bay to where The Alexandria Theatre stood on the promenade, now surrounded by scaffolding.

‘Weren’t there two women? Oh –’ Jane pointed a finger. ‘You mean that psychic, don’t you?’

‘Lives along ’ere, she does.’

Jane looked surprised. ‘Does she?’

‘Didn’t you find that out when you was coverin’ the story?’ George looked sly.

‘I didn’t cover it,’ said Jane. ‘Bob did.’

‘Ah, the boss. Stands to reason. Anyway, she moved in round about that time, far as I remember. Coastguard Cottage, ’er lives.’

‘Does, she now,’ said Jane, looking thoughtful.

‘Look, now.’ George pointed. ‘Ain’t got it all to yerself, now, ’ave you?’

A TV van was moving slowly along Harbour Street. Jane sighed.

‘It must be serious,’ said Fran, as they watched the Kent and Coast Television van stop by The Blue Anchor.

‘Not necessarily,’ said Libby, evincing a cynical view of local reportage.

‘They were quick, weren’t they,’ said Guy, wiping his soup plate with the last of his bread.

‘Media wire,’ said Libby knowledgeably. ‘A reporter must have got onto it straight away.’

‘It’ll be on the local news tonight, then,’ said Fran.

‘Probably on the local radio news now,’ said Guy. ‘Shall we go back to mine and see if we can find out?’

‘No, thanks,’ said Fran quickly, as Libby opened her mouth eagerly. ‘Libby will have to finish her painting, or clear things away, anyway.’

‘OK.’ Guy shrugged. ‘Will you be around this evening, Libby?’

‘No.’ Libby sighed. ‘Peter wants a production meeting.’ Libby and her friend Peter Parker helped run The Oast House Theatre, owned by Peter’s family, in their home village of Steeple Martin.

‘For what?’

‘The next panto, would you believe?’ Libby sighed again. ‘I’ve written it this year, but I want to be in it, not direct.’

‘Is it mutually exclusive?’ Guy regarded her with bright brown eyes full of amusement. ‘Would you be struck off if you did both?’

‘It’s too difficult to do both, to be honest. Anyway, I don’t want to strain my poor brain any more than I have to, and directing’s such a responsibility.’

‘Are you going to do it again, Fran?’ Guy looked over at Fran, whose serene gaze was fixed on the horizon, her dark hair framing her face like a latter day – and slightly mature – Madonna.

‘No.’ Fran looked back at him. ‘I don’t learn lines as well as I used to, and it’s one thing turning out every night if you live round the corner, and quite another with a twenty minute drive each way.’

‘Shame,’ said Libby. ‘I’ll miss you.’

‘I said I’d help, Lib. Props, or something. As long as I don’t have to be there all the time.’

Guy was looking pleased. ‘So you’ll be here more often,’ he said.

‘More often than what?” asked Fran, looking surprised. ‘I’m here all the time at the moment.’

‘I meant more often than if you had been doing the panto,’ said Guy, with a cornered expression.

‘Ah,’ said Libby and Fran together.

‘Come on, then,’ said Fran. ‘Let’s go back and see how that picture’s coming along.’

Chapter Two

LIBBY WATCHED THE KENT and Coast local news programme with her cat on her lap. Sidney the silver tabby rarely condescended to quite this much intimacy, and Libby concluded that he was intent on obliterating all scent of Fran’s cat Balzac, an altogether more accommodating animal.

According to the reporter, standing on the hard outside The Sloop, where The Blue Anchor could just be seen on the left and the mast of the Dolphin bobbing in and out of the picture on the right, an unidentified body had been spotted by holidaymakers on the far side of what was known locally as Dragon Island. The body had been brought in by the lifeboat, summoned by boat owner George Isles. The reporter turned to George.

‘’Tweren’t me, son, it were Jane over there. She spotted it.’ The camera swung quickly away from the reporter’s discomfited expression to where a young woman sat at a table outside The Blue Anchor.

‘That’s the person we saw speak to the policeman this morning,’ Libby told Sidney.

‘A holiday maker on your boat?’ asked the reporter.

‘No, she’m a local. Works for the newspaper,’ said George, obviously pleased with the effect he was having. ‘Helps me on the boat sometimes.’

‘Thank you, Mr Isles,’ said the reporter, ‘and now back to the studio.’

‘I wonder why they didn’t edit that bit,’ said Libby, realising that the interview had been recorded not long after they had seen the television van that afternoon. ‘Made the reporter look very silly.’

‘Who are you talking to?’ Ben Wilde appeared from the kitchen.

‘Oh! You made me jump.’ Libby put Sidney on the floor and stood up. ‘I wish you’d call out when you come in the back way. I was talking to Sidney.’

Ben came over and gave her a kiss. ‘I did.’

‘Not until you got in here,’ said Libby.

‘What were you talking to Sidney about?’ asked Ben, going to a tray of drinks on the table in the window and pouring himself a scotch. ‘Want one?’

Libby shook her head. ‘A bit early.’ She turned off the television. ‘We saw a television van in Nethergate this afternoon, so I was watching to see what had happened.’

‘Oh, that body,’ said Ben. ‘It was on the national news this afternoon.’

‘Really? I wonder why?’

‘It’s summer – the silly season. And it sounds as though this is a holiday-maker tragedy. That always goes down well with the public.’

‘Ben! That’s awful.’ Libby sat down again and lit a cigarette.

‘I thought you were giving up?’

Libby scowled. ‘I object to being forced into it by the government,’ she said.

Ben raised an eyebrow. ‘I would never have known,’ he murmured. ‘What time is this production meeting?’

‘Never mind,’ said Bert, as he, Jane and George sat over a drink outside The Sloop. ‘At least yours will be an authentic eye witness report. Bet you your boss will put it on the front page.’

‘Ha! One in the eye for that bloody telly reporter,’ said George, stubbing out his cigarette.

‘Can we go inside now?’ asked Jane, shivering slightly.

‘You can,’ said George. ‘I’m having another fag.’

Jane sighed.

‘So how did they get on to it so quick?’ asked Bert, taking a blackened pipe out of his pocket. Jane sighed again.

‘Media wire,’ she said. ‘I got on to one of the nationals.’

Bert and George looked at her as though she was speaking a foreign language.

‘Ah,’ said George.

‘Well, you want to get an angle,’ said Bert sucking noisily on the pipe stem while applying George’s Zippo to the bowl.

‘That’s what I told my boss,’ said Jane. ‘An in-depth follow up.’

‘’Ow can you do that without knowin’ ’oo the stiff is?’ George was an avid viewer of the older-style American cop movies.

Jane was silent for a moment.

‘Come on, ducks,’ said Bert. ‘Whatcher got in mind?’

‘I wondered about that lady.’

‘What lady?’ Bert raised his eyebrows.

‘The one George was talking about,’ said Jane.

‘’Er in Coastguard Cottage,’ rumbled George.

‘Mrs Castle.’ Bert sucked on his pipe. ‘What about her?’

‘She was involved with that murder last Christmas, wasn’t she?’

‘Oh, ah.’ Bert nodded. ‘That Ian Connell got her involved. I reckon he fancied her.’

‘Oh.’ Jane looked disappointed. ‘Do you mean she couldn’t really help?’

‘Don’t know as I know,’ said Bert. ‘Some talk of her being psychic, wasn’t there, George?’

‘’Elped ’im afore. Some other murder.’

‘So she’s official, then?’ said Jane, leaning forward.

‘Wouldn’t say official, like,’ said Bert, ‘but done it before, yes.’

‘That’s all right then,’ said Jane and stood up. ‘Anyone for another pint?’

The production meeting was taking place in The Pink Geranium. Harry, Peter Parker’s civil partner, was chef and co-owner with Peter, and occasional helper at The Oast House Theatre. Tonight, there were only a few diners, and Peter, Libby, Ben and stage manager Tom had their favourite table in the window.

‘So that’s it, then.’ Peter leant back in his chair and picked up his glass of red wine. Libby topped hers up.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s the script. And I want to be in it.’

‘So do I,’ said Tom, ‘and I don’t see how I can and stage manage.’

‘He ought to be Dame again, Pete,’ said Libby. ‘He was fantastic last year.’

‘And Bob and Baz as the double act again,’ said Ben.

‘So who’ll be stage manager?’ asked Peter, looking harassed.

‘Trouble is,’ said Ben, ‘the only people who want to do it aren’t experienced enough, and we who are all want to be in it.’

‘I suppose you want to be in it too,’ Peter said gloomily.

‘If there’s a part for me,’ said Ben cheerfully. ‘Is there, Lib?’

‘There’s a couple you could go for,’ said Libby, ‘depending on the ages of the others in the cast.’

‘How about Tom and I overseeing design and build, then we’ll train one of the others up to SM for the run.’ Ben beamed round the table. ‘That would work, wouldn’t it?’

There was a murmur of agreement, and Peter sighed. ‘OK. But what about director?’

‘You,’ said Libby.

Peter groaned. ‘I thought you might say that.’

‘Oh, come on Pete,’ said Ben, ‘You’ve thrown your weight about during the other productions. You could do it legitimately this time.’

Peter scowled. ‘You can push family feeling just so far, you know,’ he said to his cousin. Ben grinned.

‘OK. What do we do about casting?’

Further discussion about auditions and pre-casting took them to the end of the bottle and Harry’s assistant Donna was summoned with another. Harry appeared out of the kitchen and removed his apron.

‘Have I been co-opted for anything?’ he asked, pulling another chair up to the table.

‘You’re too busy every night, love,’ said Peter.

‘I can do the bar a couple of times, can’t I?’ said Harry. ‘I did it for The Hop Pickers and Jack and the Beanstalk.’

‘If you’re free,’ said Peter. ‘Thanks.’

‘How’s Fran?’ asked Harry. ‘I thought of her today when I saw that item about the body at Nethergate.’

‘We were there,’ said Libby proudly. . .