A Season for Murder Read online

  A Season

  For Murder

  Ann Granger

  Copyright © 1991 Ann Granger

  The right of Ann Granger to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2012

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

  eISBN : 978 0 7553 7715 2

  HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  An Hachette UK Company

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  About the Author

  Also by Ann Granger

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ann Granger has lived in cities all over the world, since for many years she worked for the Foreign Office and received postings to British embassies as far apart as Munich and Lusaka. She is married, with two sons, and she and her husband, who also worked for the Foreign Office, are now permanently based in Oxfordshire.

  As well as the highly acclaimed Mitchell and Markby novels, Ann Granger is also the author of the hugely popular Fran Varady mysteries; the Victorian series featuring Inspector Benjamin Ross and his wife Lizzie, and a new crime series set in the Cotswolds featuring Superintendent Ian Carter and Inspector Jess Campbell.

  Ann Granger’s previous novels have all been highly praised:

  ‘A good feel for understated humour, a nice ear for dialogue’ The Times

  ‘This engrossing story looks like the start of a highly enjoyable series’ Scotsman

  ‘An intriguing tale, with period detail interwoven in a satisfying way’ Oxford Times

  ‘Enjoyable crime featuring credible characters in a recognisably real world’ Belfast Telegraph

  By Ann Granger and available from Headline

  Mitchell and Markby crime novels

  Say It With Poison

  A Season For Murder

  Cold In The Earth

  Murder Among Us

  Where Old Bones Lie

  A Fine Place For Death

  Flowers For His Funeral

  Candle For A Corpse

  A Touch Of Mortality

  A Word After Dying

  Call The Dead Again

  Beneath These Stones

  Shades Of Murder

  A Restless Evil

  That Way Murder Lies

  Fran Varady crime novels

  Asking For Trouble

  Keeping Bad Company

  Running Scared

  Risking It All

  Watching Out

  Mixing With Murder

  Rattling The Bones

  Campbell and Carter crime novels

  Mud, Muck and Dead Things

  Rack, Ruin and Murder

  Lizzie Martin and Ben Ross crime novels

  A Rare Interest In Corpses

  A Mortal Curiosity

  A Better Quality of Murder

  To John, always my first reader

  One

  The tall young woman jumped back and put her thumb to her mouth to stanch the bright spurt of scarlet blood. When she took her thumb away the puncture mark was clearly visible in the reddened flesh and had begun to throb. She glared resentfully at the cause of the damage. Affixed with sticky tape to the front door of the cottage was a large, garish plastic holly wreath. The leaves were lime green and daubed with white paint and silver glitter. The wreath had luminous puce plastic berries protruding on bits of wire, one of which had been driven into her thumb, and it was topped with a bird of unrecorded species inadequately disguised as a robin, with all the charm of a carrion crow. A banner across the centre of the wreath read: ‘Merrie Xmas’.

  She made a second and more cautious attempt to remove the seasonal decoration. She was not against Christmas goodwill but this thing went beyond the bounds of acceptability by any yardstick. She could not imagine who had put it there. The cottage had been empty for some weeks, awaiting her arrival. She leaned the wreath against her suitcase on the path beside her and felt in her pocket for the key and turned it in the lock, pushing against the door as she did so. It swung inwards and there was a soft shuffling sound as it caught against papers lying on the hall floor. She squeezed through, carrying suitcase and holly wreath, and found herself in someone else’s home which would be, for the next year at least, hers.

  The unretrieved morning mail littered the carpet. She picked it up and riffled through it. Three circulars, a free newspaper, a letter for the Russells, owners of Rose Cottage, which she would have to send on and one large white envelope addressed to ‘Miss Meredith Mitchell, Rose Cottage, Pook’s Common near Bamford’ and postmarked ‘Oxford’.

  ‘That’s me!’ she said aloud, her voice echoing in the empty hall and turned the envelope this way and that, wondering who knew she was expected here. She had just finished a stint as British consul in Yugoslavia and had received what all Foreign Service personnel know must come eventually: a home posting. It was not surprising. She had been abroad for a number of years. But it meant a new kind of life altogether. Now it would be her turn to struggle into London with other commuters every morning and spend a desk-bound day there before fighting her way home again at night. Her turn also to find suitable accommodation which she could afford.

  But here she had been lucky. The Russells, to the female half of which pairing she was related, were currently in Dubai where Peter had taken up a medical post. They were happy to let her have their home at a peppercorn rent and, although it would mean getting up at six sharp every morning to get into Bamford where there was a mainline station, she could – just about – commute from here. If she lived modestly, she had calculated grimly, she would be able to afford the price of a British Rail season ticket.

  If the availability, comfort and cheapness of Rose Cottage had been the chief reasons for her decision to take up the Russells’ offer, she had to admit that secretly the name ‘Pook’s Common’ had exerted its own lure. ‘Pook’ appeared in other place names up and down the country and was, she assumed, the same as ‘Puck’ as in ‘puckish’ and of course, as the character in Shakespeare. She had looked it up in a dictionary and found that the word existed also as ‘pooka’ and that it meant a hobgoblin which generally appeared or was depicted as a horse. The chance to live for a while in a spot haunted by the spirit of a magical horse wasn’t to be turned down lightly.

  Certainly Pook’s Common, even today, had a slightly wayward and unreal air to it. It was one of those strange places with no obvious raison d’être, hardly worthy of bearing individual names since they contained so few buildings. Obviously of ancient origin, it had somehow survived into the twentieth century without either being abandoned and going under the plough or being absorbed by lar
ger communities nearby. It lay on the B road between the village of Westerfield and the market town of Bamford. She had even driven through it several times on her previous visit to the area when she had stayed at Westerfield, and scarcely realised it was there. On the B road itself, Pook’s Common consisted of a signpost, a row of six pre-war council houses and a garage. The garage buildings were surprisingly smart and declared themselves on a brightly painted hoarding as ‘J. Fenniwick. Repairs. Estimates. Exhausts. Tyres. Taxis.’ The last presumably came into use when all attempts at repairs failed or the estimates priced them too high.

  But this was a false Pook’s Common, an offshoot. ‘Real’ Pook’s Common lurked down a side turning, a narrow single-track lane, ill-maintained (probably with the connivance of the inhabitants to discourage casual visitors), and lined on either side by hedgerows. When you reached it, it consisted of a smattering of cottages built of solid stone. They were all well kept up and had neat, tidy gardens. Little to see in these at this time of year but in spring purple and mauve aubretia would cascade down over the drystone walls which bordered the road, orange marigolds would sprout, self-set, all over the place, delphiniums would raise royal blue spikes of blossom, wisteria and clematis would burst into flower and the rose bushes come into bud.

  Significantly, unlike true cottagers’ gardens, none of these showed any sign of vegetable beds. No last abandoned cabbage stalks rotted on the ground. In spring no upturned, holed bucket would force a crown of rhubarb and in summer no runner bean frames would stand like Indian tepees in an alien land. In addition, one or two of the cottages and gardens were more than a little ‘twee’. One had a palpably false wishing well in its front lawn, another an old hand-turned mangle, painted bright blue and standing sadly out-of-place by the front porch. Pook’s Common had survived at a price. The price was to have become in part a resort of ‘second homes’ belonging to people lawfully engaged all week in town who came out here at weekends or during holiday breaks. To be fair, the Russells had lived here all year round before departing for Dubai. But that was because Peter Russell, a doctor, had worked out of the medical centre in Bamford and commuted there from Rose Cottage every day. Meredith would strike out even further and go up to London. It would be, she realised ruefully, a tiring business. Most people’s work meant they had to live somewhere a good deal handier and less isolated.

  The result of this was that for much of the time Pook’s Common must be pretty well abandoned, a ghost hamlet. Perhaps the pookas returned, when the humans departed in their Volvos and BMWs, and pranced round the false wishing well on their tiny hooves and tried in vain to curdle the UHT milk in sealed waxed packets.

  Meredith made her way down the narrow hall and opened a door at the far end. It led into the kitchen, immaculately tidy and basking in pale winter sunshine. It still had its original stone-flagged floor which struck cold through the soles of her shoes. On the scrubbed pine table, propped against a potted plant, was a note. It said, ‘I have put some food in the fridge to tide you over. M. Brissett.’ The plant was a kalanchoe and probing it with a finger Meredith found the compost to be bone dry and the fleshy leaves rubbery. She carried it to the sink, turned on the tap with an effort, filled the dish in which the pot sat and put it on the windowsill in the light. The action gave her a glow of virtue as if she had done someone a good turn.

  She next turned her attention to the fridge. It contained a vacuum pack of streaky bacon rashers, half a dozen eggs, butter and a jar of home-made marmalade. She opened the freezer compartment and discovered a sliced loaf which she took out and put to thaw on the table. Further investigation turned up a motley collection of tins and bottles in the larder probably left behind by the Russells and including, she was thankful to see, a jar of instant coffee and a tin of evaporated milk. Meredith filled the kettle at a recalcitrant tap and while it heated went in search of the gas-fired boiler which controlled the central heating. It was in a cubbyhole under the spiral staircase together with hand-written instructions for its use. An air vent had been punched in the outside wall beside it and a cold draught streamed through. No wonder the cottage was like an icebox. After bumping her head painfully on the stairtreads above and barking her shins on the newel post against which the boiler was wedged on the other side, she managed to light it. By now the kettle summoned her with a shrill shriek and she scuttled back, unhooked a mug from a wooden rack and made her coffee. Now at long last she was able to sit down, still well muffled in her anorak, and open the letter addressed to her.

  It turned out to be a rather pretty card with a picture of fuchsias on the front. Inside was written ‘Welcome back! Alan’. She should have deduced what it would be. Sherlock Holmes would have worked out the likely contents in five seconds flat from a mere glance at the envelope, plus a complete description of Alan Markby himself. All post in the area went through the sorting office at Oxford and the Russells must have told him they had let the cottage to her. An image of Alan formed itself in Meredith’s head. She pictured him buying the card, his tall thin figure stooped suspiciously over a rack in some shop, picking through for one which appealed to him. That would be one with flowers or plants on it but not one of those fanciful concoctions with a vague impression of a floral group in unlikely pastel shades. No, this card reflected the man who had bought it. It was specific, a highly professional photograph, and on the inner side of the cover in tiny print was the name of the particular strain of fuchsia depicted. It was called Dollar Princess. Meredith allowed herself a moment’s wild speculation as to whether some kind of compliment was intended, then smiled wryly at her foolishness. Dollar Princess! She couldn’t think of a more unlikely description of herself. She realised belatedly she had been smiling fondly at the card so frowned severely and dropped it back on the table.

  Warming her chilled fingers on the hot coffee mug, she told herself that it was to be expected, now she’d returned to this part of the world, that she and Alan would run into one another again. The prospect filled her with mixed feelings. Their previous connection had been semi-official. He was a chief inspector, CID, at Bamford station and they had met through a murder case. A violent death in which one had been closely involved wasn’t something easily forgotten and even just thinking about it, Meredith felt a sharpening of her senses and a slight prickling of the hair on the nape of her neck. She also felt the dull ache in her heart of recalled personal loss. Yet all this had formed the cement in her previous relationship with Alan, the reason for meeting, the reason for a certain kind of closeness, for asking any number of personal questions, for frank exchange of views. For, in fact, becoming pretty well acquainted. But without the underlying excuse of a murder enquiry, any relationship this time would be based on a blunt acceptance of mutual attraction. That was not something she was prepared to think about. If she must meet Alan, it would be nice if there were some excuse for it. She realised, to her dismay, she was therefore implicitly hoping for another crime. She shuddered – she’d had her fair share of trouble. And one murder in a lifetime was enough. That was not an experience to be repeated.

  She dismissed her thoughts of murder but allowed her mind to continue to run on Alan as she sipped her coffee. It was still too hot and burned the end of her tongue. She blamed the undeniable slight hopping of her heart on this. It couldn’t, she told herself sternly, be the idea of Alan that did it! But she had liked him, liked him a great deal more than she had let him see. He’d been showing signs of being far too keen and, in the circumstances, following on the horrifying sequence of events surrounding the deaths at Westerfield, it really hadn’t been the moment to contemplate romance. She had let him down tactfully, or so she hoped. She had told herself at the time that this was because she didn’t wish to hurt his feelings. If she were to be honest, it was also because she hadn’t really wanted to drive him away for ever.

  All these inconsistencies in her own reactions annoyed her. She was supposed to be good at handling problems; though other people’s problems always s
eemed easier to settle than her own. She’d left her last post as consul with the congratulations of all ringing pleasantly in her ears after several years hard and efficient work. Even the Foreign Office had been very nice about her achievements. But they hadn’t, for all that, given her the kind of posting she’d wanted! They’d assigned her a desk in London, a fate worse than death in her book. What a stupid expression, she immediately thought. She’d just been reflecting on an episode of violent, ugly death and it wasn’t easy to suppose something worse.

  But the FO might have shown its gratitude by offering her some task other than a dreary trek up to London and back every weekday. It wasn’t because she hadn’t done well, they’d assured her. They had even heard about her last emergency, a case involving a visiting British tourist, a local girl and a jealous boyfriend.

  It had all taken place a couple of weeks before the end of her tour and led to her going out in a blaze of glory. Normally she was happy to let yobbos fend for themselves. Unfortunately this one had been aged barely seventeen, technically under-age, and she’d felt obliged to help him out. She’d first persuaded the Croatian police to waive their resolve to lock him in the cells. She’d promised he would pay compensation to the girl’s battered boyfriend and to the bar where the fracas had taken place for broken furniture. That had meant organising the arrival of the said money from England from her protégé’s long-suffering mother. Toby Smythe, the vice consul, had been all for letting him be locked up, pointing out gloomily that she was making herself responsible for someone totally unreliable. Meredith stuck to her guns. She collected her boy from the hospital which had taped up his broken nose, and even persuaded the grumbling Toby to give him a bed overnight on the floor of his flat. The next morning she had personally escorted the errant youth to the airport. He had not shown himself particularly grateful for any of her efforts on his behalf as he’d shambled along beside her. His natural intelligibility worsened by his broken nose, he had indistinctly articulated a desire for the revenge of which he felt he was being robbed while shouting abuse at other travellers.