Murder in the Museum (Fethering Mysteries) (17 page)

Graham Chadleigh-Bewes had moved quickly in contacting Sheila Cartwright. There was a message from her on the answering machine when Carole got back from Bracketts. While Gulliver fussed around her legs, as though she’d been away for six months, she listened to the playback.

‘This is Sheila Cartwright. The police are about to make a statement to the press about the discovery in the kitchen garden. It is very important that we all sing from the same hymn-sheet on this one. So I’m calling an Emergency Trustees’ Meeting to discuss the situation and the appropriate responses to it. The only time Lord Beniston can make is tomorrow evening, Friday, at seven. Seven o’clock in the dining room at Bracketts tomorrow evening. Do attend if it’s humanly possible. This is very important. Message ends.’

Carole Seddon smiled wryly. Sheila had realized that the secret could not be kept much longer, and made a pre-emptive strike. Regardless of whether it was her job to do it or not, she’d summoned the Trustees. How would Gina Locke react to this latest usurpation of her authority? The meeting the following night held the promise of a considerable firework display. It would not be an occasion to be missed, under any circumstances – least of all by someone who suspected some kind of skulduggery was going on at Bracketts.

There was a brief mention of the body on the local news at six-thirty. A presenter who was going to have to have her teeth fixed before she made it on to national television announced, ‘At Bracketts House, near South Stapley, the former home of writer Edmund Chadleigh, there has been a grisly discovery. Human remains buried in a shallow grave were discovered during digging the foundations for a proposed museum at the tourist site. A Sussex Police spokesman said that the body belonged to a man, and he is thought to have died at least fifty years ago. There is no information yet as to his identity or the cause of death.’

The report was accompanied by library footage of Bracketts looking at its best in summer sunshine. Then the presenter moved on to the story of a seven-year-old girl in West Durrington who had enlisted her primary school class-mates into a team of majorettes.

So much for the profile of Esmond Chadleigh in the wider world outside Bracketts – even a professional news service got his name wrong. Carole wanted to share her reaction to the bulletin with Jude. In fact, she would rather have been watching the news with Jude. But the presence of Laurence Hawker in Wood-side Cottage inhibited her from going round or picking up the phone.

Jude had said she and Laurence were going to have supper at the Crown and Anchor, and had, with her customary openness, invited her neighbour to join them. Characteristically, Carole had invented a reason why she couldn’t.

But she was desperate to talk to Jude. On her own.

Jude and Laurence had had quite a lot to drink, and he poured himself another large whisky when they got back to Woodside Cottage. She wasn’t so worried about the drinking, but in the course of the evening she had managed to tackle him about his smoking.

To no effect, of course. ‘It’s what I do,’ he said. ‘It’s part of me. Like English literature. Take it away, and there’s nothing of me left.’

Jude had put her plump arm around his thin waist and pulled him to her. ‘There’s not much of you left, as it is.’

‘True,’ he agreed. ‘Not much.’ And he had planted a small kiss on her nose. ‘I’m glad to see you again, Jude. You mean a lot to me.’

She cherished the rareness of the moment. Though physically affectionate, Laurence Hawker had never committed himself much verbally. Supremely articulate though he was, he was wary of voicing feelings of attraction. (Cynically, Jude had often wondered whether this was the caution of a man who spent time with so many different women that he didn’t want to risk the danger in a moment of intimacy of getting a name wrong.) And, though someone with his knowledge of English Romantic Poetry must have realized the relative feebleness of ‘You mean a lot to me’, Jude recognized, from that particular source, the sentiment’s true value.

As if in punishment for this lapse in his customary reticence, Laurence had been immediately attacked by a ferocious fit of coughing. During which he lit up another cigarette.

Jude had had her mobile off in the Crown and Anchor, but found there was a message when she switched it back on in her sitting room. ‘I’ll just check this,’ she said.

‘Right. See you in bed.’ Taking the whisky bottle by its neck, Laurence left the room. She heard his cough receding up the stairs.

‘Jude. It’s Sandy. Ring me as soon as you can, please.’

The voice of Austen’s Education Officer was tight with anxiety. Jude rang back straight away. There was the sound of a car’s engine in the background, though of where she was going, and who with, as ever Sandy Fairbarns made no mention.

She told the news as soon as Jude got through.

‘It’s Mervyn. He’s gone over the wall. He’s escaped.’

There were small paragraphs in the national broadsheets the following morning about the body found at Bracketts, but no detail was given. The papers didn’t have enough information to voice suspicions or make insinuations.

The local press, however, were not so restrained, as Carole Seddon found out at about a quarter to ten. She had just come back from an extended sunny walk with Gulliver on Fethering Beach and was wiping the sand off his feet with an old towel, when the telephone rang.

‘Hello.’ She was so surprised by the brusqueness of his tone that she didn’t take in the name. ‘I’m from the
Fethering Observer
.’

‘Oh yes?’

‘That is Mrs Seddon?’

‘Yes.’

‘Mrs Carole Seddon?’

‘That’s right.’

‘And I believe you’re a Trustee of Bracketts . . .?’

‘I am.’

As the voice continued, it sounded increasingly boyish. Cub reporter on one of his first assignments, Carole reckoned. Seen too many movies about hardbitten journalists.

‘Could you give me a statement about the discovery of a body buried in the house’s kitchen garden.’

‘I’m not sure that I’m the right person to ask,’ said Carole, wishing she’d had a briefing on how much the press should be told, now the story was public property. ‘I would have thought it would make sense for you to ring the Administrative Office at Bracketts.’

‘Don’t think I haven’t tried,’ came the bitter reply. ‘All I get there is a recorded message, saying the house and gardens are closed until further notice.’

Carole noted the information. They hadn’t managed to keep Bracketts open right through to the end of the season. But they’d only fallen short by two days. Whatever Sheila Cartwright’s delaying tactics had been, they had worked pretty well.

‘I wish I could tell you something,’ said Carole, ‘but I’m afraid I don’t have any information.’

‘Oh, come on. I’ve asked everyone else,’ complained the boy, giving away his inexperience, ‘and none of the other Trustees’ll talk to me.’

She grabbed the lifeline. ‘Then I’m afraid I can’t talk to you either. I’m sure a press statement will be issued by the Board of Trustees at the appropriate time,’ she concluded primly.

‘For heaven’s sake! This is the appropriate time. The story’s only just broken. It could be really big.’

‘The
Fethering Observer
. . .’ said Carole, now fully in control of the situation, ‘is published on a Thursday. I really can’t believe that the deadline for your copy is today, nearly a week ahead.’

‘That’s not the point.’ The cub reporter’s callowness was revealed again. ‘The nationals’d be really interested in a story as juicy as this.’

I see the way his mind’s working, thought Carole.
JUNIOR REPORTER ON FIRST ASSIGNMENT GETS SCOOP OF A LIFETIME!

She could have just rung off, but didn’t. ‘What makes you think it’s a juicy story?’

‘Because of the secrecy. The body was actually found over a week ago, and the news has only now been released.’

‘I would have thought it was up to the police when they informed the press about this kind of thing.’

‘No, it’s definitely a cover-up,’ the boy insisted. ‘And it’s often the case that the cover-up is worse than the original crime. Look at Watergate.’

Oh dear. One of the movies of which he watched too many had evidently been
All The President’s Men
.

‘You use the word “crime”,’ said Carole. ‘There’s no evidence that any crime has been committed.’

‘There was a bullet-hole in the back of the skull.’

She wondered where he’d got that from. If it was information released by the official investigators, then it was very significant, the first confirmation that the body in the kitchen garden had been the victim of a shooting. ‘Did you hear that from the police?’

The boy was evasive. ‘No. But I heard that there was a hole in the skull.’

‘And you made the deduction that it must have been made by a bullet?’

‘Yes,’ he replied, with a degree of pride in his detective skills. ‘What else is going to make a hole in a skull?’

‘Quite a lot of things,’ said Carole severely. ‘I go back to my point that there is no evidence of any crime having been committed.’

‘The woman who phoned the office talked about a “crime”. She even used the word “murder”. Well, actually, she said “moider”.’

The cub reporter’s attempt at an American accent gave her the information she needed, but Carole still asked, ‘Which woman was this?’

‘I’m sorry,’ the boy said staunchly, remembering another movie he’d seen. ‘I can’t reveal my sources.’

There was no sign of life from Woodside Cottage all day. Jude hadn’t phoned, and Carole was damned if she was going to be the one to make contact. Let Jude get on with her love affair, or whatever it was. She, Carole, was quite capable of conducting the investigation on her own.

The weather changed as she drove the Renault sedately towards Bracketts. The spine of the South Downs frequently broke the climatic pattern. The coastal plain down to Fethering and the sea could be bathed in sunshine, while north of the ridge was drowned in rain. The demarcation wasn’t quite so pronounced that afternoon, but the air did grow darker the further north the Renault went, and heavy leaden clouds hung truculently in the sky. Autumn was killing off the last stragglers of the retreating summer.

Carole looked at her watch as she stopped the Renault in the almost empty car park. Not even half past six. Her habit of being extraordinarily early for everything did annoy her. The only thing that would annoy her more was being late. She had always wished she could be one of those people who ambled up to appointments at just the right time. For Carole Seddon, any prospective encounter with another human being involved a certain amount of trepidation and realignment.

Still, she wouldn’t waste the time. She’d go and have a word with Gina before the Trustees’ Meeting started. In doing this she had double motives. For a start, she could find out what the official line should be for the Trustees when approached by the press. And she could also perhaps do something for the Director’s self-confidence, demonstrating that some of the Trustees still thought she was the one in charge at Bracketts.

As Carole approached the former stable block, however, she heard the voice of Gina’s rival, raised in anger. Carole stopped awkwardly. Out of sight round the corner, there was clearly a major row going on, and, in a very British way, she didn’t relish walking into the middle of that. She looked back towards the car, but what she heard stopped her from retracing her steps.

‘I can assure you,’ Sheila Cartwright was almost shouting, ‘that Bracketts is bigger than you are! Esmond Chadleigh is bigger than you are! And your attempts to sully his reputation will soon be shown up for the kind of gutter journalism they really are!’

‘We’ll see about that.’ The other voice was Marla Teischbaum’s, no less angry, but more controlled. ‘And I don’t take kindly to having my writing referred to as “gutter journalism”. I am a serious academic writer, and all I am seeking is the truth. I’m not setting out to find muck or filth or sleaze or whatever you want to call it in the life of Esmond Chadleigh. I am trying to find out the truth about that tortured man.’

‘He was not tortured! He was a man of great personal happiness, who spread happiness to those around him!’ Sheila Cartwright sounded like a religious fundamentalist, the basis of whose belief was being challenged.

‘I have evidence to the contrary,’ said Marla Teischbaum coldly. ‘And I will write nothing that is not fully supported by evidence. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to pay a call on Graham Chadleigh-Bewes.’

‘I can save you the trouble, Professor. He’s out for the afternoon, with his aunt. And they’ll be back just in time for a meeting tonight at seven. So you won’t have an opportunity to talk to him today.’

‘Then I’ll have to find another day.’

‘He still won’t tell you anything.’

‘We’ll see about that.’ Professor Teischbaum’s voice took on a new intensity. ‘You can’t stand in the way of the truth, Mrs Cartwright. My biography is going to be completed. It’s going to be published. And nothing is going to prevent that from happening.’

‘Don’t you believe it!’ Sheila Cartwright now sounded dangerously out of control. ‘I’ll prevent it from happening!’