Murder In Bloom Part 30

'Yes,' said Libby, eyeing it doubtfully. 'Thank you.' She put it on the bar. 'The cat? Balzac? Oh, he's fine. Living with Fran and spoilt rotten.' Balzac had been adopted by Fran when his previous owner died.

'And what about ' George lowered his voice and nodded significantly towards the door. 'Her?'

'Bella? As well as she can be, you know.' Libby tried the coffee and got a foam moustache. 'You still keeping an eye on the cottage?'

'Go in once a month or so,' said George. 'More if the weather's bad. Will she ...?'

'Come back to it? No idea,' said Libby, feeling uncomfortable talking about her friend who had such a bad time eighteen months ago. 'Anyway, George, I wondered if you knew anything about a couple called Frank and Bren who run The Fox over at Creekmarsh?'

'Cor, bless you, love! Known old Frank since we first came into the trade. Here,' he leant forward confidentially. 'You're not on the trail again, are you?'

'No,' said Libby, feeling the telltale colour creeping up her face. 'Just Fran and I had lunch there today, and we were wondering about the old smuggling pa.s.sages in his cellar.'

'Oh, there's always been talk about them,' said George. 'I'm supposed to have them, too.'

'Are you?' said Libby in surprise.

'Any pub not far from the sea along this coast was supposed to have been involved in the trade. Don't know much about Frank's.'

'So he's been there some time?' said Libby, sipping her coffee.

'Good few years,' said George. 'Good friends round there, he has.'

'There don't seem to be many houses,' said Libby.

'Ah, no, but that didn't matter, see. His best mate was the bloke who owned the big house.'

Chapter Twenty-seven.

'GERALD SHEPHERD?' MANAGED LIBBY, after spluttering on a mouthful of cappuccino.

'That's him. Went off with his daughter-in-law a few years back, didn't he?' George leant back and stared at Libby. ''Course, that's what it is, isn't it? That skeleton. They reckon it's the son, don't they? You're on that, aren't you?'

'Um,' said Libby.

'Well, I don't mind telling you what I know. Old Frank used to know him, see, the actor bloke, from London. In fact, it was because he what's-'isname'

'Gerald Shepherd.'

'Yeah come down to visit Frank he found the big house. So he bought it.'

'How long ago was that?' asked Libby.

'Years and years. The son was still at home, then.'

'And when Shepherd vanished, did the police look for him?'

'Cor, bless you, no! It was obvious what had happened, wasn't it? While the son was in that telly thing, his dad and his missus went off together. Not been seen since, have they?'

'Er ' said Libby.

'Oh, 'course, they must be looking for 'em now.' George rubbed at a spot on the bar with a tea towel. 'They could always ask old Frank,' he said diffidently. 'I always reckoned he knew a bit more about it than he said. But he was a loyal bloke, even if he did think they was doing wrong.'

'You really think he might know where Gerald went? The police have been searching for him for weeks now,' said Libby.

'Couldn't say for certain,' said George, 'but it'd be worth a try, wouldn't it? Not that I reckon he did it or anything, but well, best be sure, eh?'

Libby thanked him effusively, drained her coffee and fished for her mobile. Outside she punched in Fran's number.

'Fran? Are you still at The Fox?'

A crackly voice answered her. Then there was a pause.

'Fran? Are you there?'

'Yes,' said the voice more clearly. 'I was in the cellar. I'm in the bar now. What did you want?'

'You're still there, then. I'm coming back. Have you found anything?'

'Yes, Frank's shown me where he thinks the tunnel used to come out, but what's the matter?'

'I'll tell you when I get there. I'm at The Red Lion I've been talking to George.'

'What? What are you doing there?'

'I'll see you in five minutes,' said Libby. 'Keep him talking.'

Libby turned the Land Rover round with difficulty and set off back to Creekmarsh. It was just over five minutes later when she pulled up in The Fox car park and Fran came out to meet her.

'What did you say to him?' asked Libby, locking the car.

'I said you wanted to see the tunnel entrance,' said Fran, frowning. 'What on earth's up?'

Libby repeated her conversation with George, while Fran's eyes got wider and wider.

'Come on, then,' she said, 'we'll go and ask him.'

'Hang on a minute,' said Libby. 'He knows the police have been looking for Gerald Shepherd. If this friend of his really is him, he must have a good reason for keeping quiet. He may clam up.'

'Then we tell him what we know,' said Fran grimly. 'The general public don't know any of that. Did you say George didn't know Cindy was back?'

'It seemed that way,' said Libby, following Fran into the pub.

'Let me do the talking then,' said Fran. 'And don't put your foot in it.'

Libby opened her mouth for an indignant reply, but was forestalled by the appearance of a large man in a short-sleeved checked shirt, with broad shoulders and an even broader grin.

'This your mate, then?' he said to Fran, and stuck out a large hand.

'Libby Sarjeant,' said Libby, smiling nervously back.

'You want to see where the tunnel was, too?' said Frank, standing back from the open bar. 'Come on, then.'

Fran nodded to Libby, and they went behind the bar. Libby peered at a trapdoor from which led a steep stepladder.

'I'll go first, shall I?' said Frank, and with surprising agility he lowered himself through the hole and down the steps. Libby followed and Fran brought up the rear.

The cellar was brightly lit, smelt slightly damp and was crowded with crates and crates of bottles and barrels of beer, positioned under another trapdoor which Libby guessed led up to the outside of the pub for the draymen.

'Here you are then,' said Frank, going right to the end of the cellar, where the stone ceiling began to slope downwards. She could just about make out the shape of a low, arched doorway, which had obviously been painted over many times.

'That's where it was, right enough,' said Frank.

'Bren didn't seem to know,' said Libby. Fran frowned at her.

'Oh, Bren takes no notice of things like this. Lives in the moment, you might say.' Frank let his hand wander over the outline of the door. 'I'd love to open this up, but I think the whole place might come down if I tried.'

'Where do you think it goes?' said Libby. Fran sighed and rolled her eyes.

'To the Place and the church,' said Frank. 'I got a coupla old maps upstairs they say was drawn by an old parson at the church. I was just telling your mate. Want to see 'em?'

Libby could hardly contain her excitement, and Fran had to keep digging her in the ribs to remind her to keep calm. In the bar, Frank told Bren he was taking them upstairs, prompting some ribald comments from the regulars who still sat at a corner table.

'Don't mind them,' said Bren. 'You go and enjoy yourselves.'

Upstairs, Frank took them into a pleasant living room with views to the back of the pub. From a gla.s.s-fronted bookcase, he took a large leather folder, which he opened on a coffee table.

'There,' he said, pointing. 'See, it looks a bit like one of those old treasure maps, don't it? Bloke I took it to reckons it's genuine because it's a bit rough, like, and could be a plan for when they dug the tunnel.'

'Why do you think it was the parson who drew it?' asked Fran.

'Bloke says because he was the only educated one. This would be in the mid 1700s, he says.'

'When the smuggling was at its height,' nodded Libby, 'and the revenue men were being posted all round the coast. Lots of churches were involved, weren't they?'

'Some even had their towers raised,' said Frank, 'so they could be seen from the sea, and they reckon ours was, so they could get into the inlet.'

'But if the big house and the church and the inn were all involved,' frowned Libby, 'why did they need tunnels? There wasn't anyone else around.'

'Ah, yeah, but it was them dragoons, you see,' said Frank with delight. 'This little bit, almost an island '

'Peninsula,' suggested Fran.

'Yeah, well, it was all on its own, see, so the dragoons, or revenue men, were always sniffing around. There's an old diary they've got in the county library that talks about it.'

'So, wouldn't the squire, or whoever owned the Place, have drawn this map?' asked Libby.

'Squire couldn't read or write properly,' said Frank. 'Parson was his sort of secretary.'

'The Clerk!' said Libby, delightedly.

'Ah.' Frank beamed at her. 'Rudyard Kipling.'

'So can we tell where the tunnels came out the other end?' asked Fran.

Frank pulled the map round. 'See this? That's the old church. Burnt down about a hundred years later. Some say because of the smugglers.'

'They were getting much hotter on the enforcement by then,' said Libby. 'The French had been using the smuggling routes to escape, and the Napoleonic spies had got in through the same routes.'

Frank gave Libby an approving nod. 'That's right. So the original church was destroyed and they reckoned the pa.s.sage and whatever was down there went with it.'

'What about Creekmarsh Place?' asked Fran. 'Where did the tunnel come out there?'

'Same place as here,' said Frank. 'In the cellars.'

Fran and Libby looked at one another. 'I didn't know Creekmarsh had cellars,' said Libby.

''Course it has,' said Frank. 'Hasn't your mate been down there, yet?'

'You mean Lewis?' said Fran. 'I don't think he knows they exist, either.'

'Where do they go?' asked Libby.

'What, the other end? The ice-house,' said Frank. 'You know what an ice-house is?'

'Yes,' sighed Fran and Libby together.

'We were trying to find out where the tunnel to that was, too,' said Libby.

'One and the same,' said Frank. 'The ice-house was down by the river, somewhere, so they could get ice from boats and cut it from the river in the winter, so it made sense to have that as the smugglers' tunnel.'

'Might have known,' muttered Libby.

Fran sat back in her chair. 'And do you mean to say the police haven't been here asking you questions about the house?' she said to Frank.

'Why should they? No one's told 'em I know anything about it.'

'But when the skeleton turned up and they started asking questions ' began Fran.

'Only came and asked me some general questions, like,' said Frank.