Murder at the Gorge Read online

  Murder at the Gorge

  Frances Evesham

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Acknowledgments

  More from Frances Evesham

  Also by Frances Evesham

  About the Author

  About Boldwood Books

  1

  Apple cake

  Sand blew fiercely across Exham on Sea beach, slicing into any intrepid walker brave enough to venture out. Max Ramshore shivered, despite the padded jacket he’d zipped right up to his chin. The late-November wind from the sea always found the slightest chink in his clothing. He pulled his beanie lower over his forehead and made a mental note to buy a warmer scarf.

  In summer, the eight miles of sand were a delight, the air tangy with ozone and fish and chips, and the beach dotted with cheerful holidaymakers eating ice cream, balancing small children on obliging, mild-tempered donkeys, and helping to build sandcastles.

  In winter, the seafront belonged once more to the locals.

  Max and Libby were determined, today, to reach the wooden Low Lighthouse. ‘I have mixed feelings when I walk here,’ Libby said. She pointed. ‘Look, that’s where I found the first body, lying against one of the wooden legs. It still sends shivers down my spine to remember poor Susie, slumped there like a sack of coal. At least her murder brought us together.’

  ‘Ramshore and Forest, detectives extraordinaire,’ Max teased.

  ‘Forest and Ramshore,’ Libby insisted, as she always did. No wonder they’d never agreed on a letterhead or logo for their private investigation business, even though it now took up almost as much time as producing her famous cakes and chocolates.

  Libby stood by Max’s side, watching the two dogs cavorting in the sand. She had a smile on her lips. That smile was almost constant, these days.

  Max forgot the cold seeping into his neck, and counted his blessings.

  In almost two weeks, they’d be married.

  Bear, Max’s huge, now rather elderly, Carpathian sheepdog decided an interesting morsel lay just beneath the sand under the lighthouse and dug furiously with giant paws, sand flying in every direction.

  ‘Watch out,’ Max shouted, too late, as sand hit him squarely in the left eye. Blinking furiously, trying not to rub the eye, he staggered upwind of Bear just as Shipley, his springer spaniel, dropped a stick twice his own size at Max’s feet.

  Max’s curse was lost in Shipley’s excited barking and Libby’s shout of laughter. She retrieved the stick and threw it for Shipley to chase.

  ‘Come here,’ she told Max, ‘let me wash the sand out of your eye.’

  His back to the wind, Max let her dribble bottled water from her rucksack into his eye and scrub around it with a tissue. She’d never make a nurse, but he decided the embrace that followed was worth the pain.

  ‘I shall enjoy married life if you look after me like that,’ he murmured. ‘You’re a useful person to have around.’

  ‘For the first aid or the cooking?’

  ‘Both. I’m expecting to sample every single one of the cake recipes in your “Baking at the Beach” books.’

  Libby pulled back a little to look into his face, ducking as the breeze hurled more sand their way. ‘Baking at the Beach is a great title, but not a sensible activity in November,’ she admitted.

  ‘You can call book three, Baking in a nice warm kitchen.’

  She laughed. How he loved that sound; a proper, deep chortle. His ex-wife had laughed with an affected noise designed, he was sure, to sound like tinkling bells.

  He took Libby’s arm, whistling for the dogs. Shipley, who’d recently undergone strict retraining, returned at once, but Bear went on digging.

  ‘Do you think he’s getting deaf?’ Libby asked. ‘He used to come when I called, but lately he’s been ignoring me.’

  Max studied Bear. ‘Hard to say. He’s not as young as he used to be and I’ve noticed he limps a little. Rheumatism, maybe.’

  Libby was frowning. ‘I know twelve is old for a Carpathian, but I can’t imagine life without him. Maybe he needs a visit to the vet? To be checked out?’

  ‘I’ll take him, if you’ll please agree we can go home now and get out of this wind?’

  ‘Wimp.’

  The wind blew them back to Max’s Land Rover, parked near the jetty, in half the time it had taken them to reach the lighthouse.

  As they flung open the doors and the dogs scrambled on board, Max’s phone rang. He shot a glance at the screen and his stomach lurched. Stella. His ex-wife. He hadn’t heard from her for years. His finger hovered over the red button for a second, but he knew she’d just call again. Reluctantly, he answered.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Max, I need your help. I’m in Bristol. Come and see me. Now.’

  Max stared at the phone, stunned into silence.

  Libby climbed into the passenger seat. ‘Who is it? Business?’

  Max croaked into the phone, ‘I’ll call you back,’ ended the call and dropped the phone into his pocket as though it had burned his fingers.

  Libby pulled her seat belt tight. ‘That was a bit abrupt. You’ll frighten customers away. You could take a lesson from the way Mandy answers the phone at work. Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, these days.’

  She chattered happily about Mandy, her lodger and chocolate-making apprentice, soon to become the sole tenant of Hope Cottage when Libby moved into Max’s house near the sand dunes. She didn’t seem to notice that Max still stood by the open driver’s door, answering in grunts, not hearing a word she said.

  Stella. After all these years?

  ‘Well, let’s go,’ Libby said.

  ‘Yes, sorry.’

  He made an effort to pull himself together, climbed into the car and started the engine.

  ‘Who was it, anyway?’ Libby asked.

  He couldn’t tell her, not now. He couldn’t spoil her excitement over the wedding. ‘Old colleague,’ he muttered, and the lie seemed to hang in the air, like a cloud.

  ‘One of your old business mates? Did you get cut off?’

  ‘That’s right. Might be some work coming my way. I’ll call back, later.’

  For once, Max wished he were anywhere in the world rather than inside Libby’s cosy Hope Cottage.

  They were alone, for Mandy was at Brown’s Bakery, keeping the business turning over until it moved to its newer, bigger, swankier premises in Exham.

  Usually, Max loved to sit at the breakfast bar, smelling Libby’s cooking and guessing wildly at the ingredients of her recipes.

  ‘Is that saffron?’

  ‘In free cakes for the History Society? Not likely. Have you any idea how much saffron costs?’

  This afternoon, Bear and Shipley looked on sadly from the doorway, knowi
ng dogs were not allowed in this professional-grade kitchen.

  Max hadn’t so much as glanced at their mournful faces, this afternoon. He felt like a fraud, hiding secrets from Libby.

  Just tell her, then.

  He knew he should. It was no secret he had an ex-wife. He’d told Libby all about Stella, long ago, so why couldn’t he find the words to explain she’d contacted him?

  Somehow, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Libby looked so happy, pottering round the kitchen, spooning coffee into a cafetière, opening tins, clattering plates and cups, humming quietly with contentment.

  He couldn’t spoil things for her, not just now.

  He made up his mind. He’d meet with Stella, see what she wanted, and then decide how to tell Libby.

  A weight seemed to have lodged in his stomach. Stella must be in a bad mess, if she needed to contact Max. They hadn’t spoken face-to-face for at least ten years, and their divorce had been acrimonious and painful.

  He accepted a slice of apple cake – lovely, plenty of spice, though probably not saffron – and considered how best to meet Stella without telling Libby.

  He turned over various scenarios in his mind. A trip to Cribb’s Causeway shopping centre, just this side of Bristol, to buy new clothes for the wedding? No, Libby loved shopping there. They’d sipped Prosecco at the bar, many times, and eaten Italian food in one of the restaurants, Libby criticising the carbonara sauce as too salty. She’d insist on joining him.

  Maybe he’d suggest he had a business meeting with one of his clients, needing financial advice, which wasn’t unusual, and say he’d take the dogs into the woods at the Avon Gorge afterwards, to make up for cutting their beach walk short.

  His phone pinged with a text message, and at almost the same moment, Libby’s did the same.

  They grinned at each other.

  ‘Jinx?’ Libby said, as she pulled out her phone.

  She squealed.

  ‘What’s the matter? What’s wrong?’

  Libby’s eyes scanned her phone. ‘Nothing,’ she gasped, waving a hand to shush him.

  ‘Come on. Tell me.’

  She raised shining eyes to his. ‘It’s Ali. She’s coming home.’

  ‘You’re kidding. For the wedding?’

  Libby’s eyes sparkled. Her daughter had been in South America for over a year, working for a voluntary agency, after abruptly abandoning her university degree.

  ‘Saving the rainforest, singlehanded,’ as her older brother, Robert, described his sister’s activities from his advanced age of twenty-seven.

  Ali had missed Robert’s wedding, so Max didn’t blame him for being unsympathetic. He secretly thought Libby’s daughter needed what his own mother would have called, ‘a good talking-to’. Not that it was his place to offer one – he’d only met her once, just before she left the country.

  ‘Oh.’ Libby’s face fell.

  Now what’s Ali up to?

  ‘She can’t get here until the nineteenth of December. That’s almost three weeks away.’ Libby’s hand was at her mouth, muffling her words. ‘What are we going to do? The wedding’s on the fifteenth. She’ll still miss it. Unless…’

  ‘We’ll see her when we get back from honeymoon.’ As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Max knew he’d made a big mistake.

  Libby’s eyes opened wide in horror. ‘But… but she’s coming especially. It’s only a matter of a few days. We could postpone, couldn’t we? Please? I really want her there. She’s my only daughter and I miss her,’ she wailed.

  Max could hardly bear to meet her gaze. Her excitement, her happy mood, her smiles, had all vanished. There were genuine tears in her eyes as she sniffed and wiped her nose on the back of her hand. Did Ali not realise how difficult she was being?

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Libby said. ‘I’m being selfish, aren’t I? We’ll stick to our decision and get married as we planned. We’ve wasted enough time, already, wondering whether to keep our relationship confined to business. And there would be so much to reorganise…’

  Max might not be too good at understanding women – after all, the marriage with Stella had ended in acrimonious divorce – but even he recognised that pleading tone, and the look in Libby’s eyes. Any fool could see she was going to be broken-hearted if her daughter wasn’t at the wedding.

  ‘She can’t get here any earlier?’ It was a last-ditch hope.

  Libby showed him the text message.

  All flights booked because of Christmas.

  Max raised an eyebrow. Oh yeah?

  Silently, he counted to ten. That didn’t sound like the full story. What was Ali up to? Still, his priority was Libby. He wanted her to be happy on the day they began their new life together. He gave in. ‘We’ll rearrange the wedding. I’m sure it’s possible. Good job we didn’t invite too many guests. But you have to promise, even if a dire tree emergency crops up and Ali can’t get here, we’ll go ahead.’ He sighed. This meant another round of organisation. ‘We’ll have to see if we can find a date when your Robert, my son, Joe, and their wives can be there.’

  Libby jumped up, flung her arms around Max’s neck and hugged him tight. ‘I’ll talk to Angela. We’re planning to meet in half an hour at the new café premises, before this evening’s History Society meeting. She’s a fanatical organiser and she’ll help me with the planning. I suppose you won’t be sorry to miss the History Society meeting?’

  Max gave an exaggerated shudder. ‘You know how those History Society members terrify me. Talk about formidable citizens – and if it weren’t for them, we’d have had fewer incidents to investigate in Exham.’

  Libby chuckled. ‘I think the bad eggs have left. We were sadly depleted at the last meeting, but Angela’s determined to pull in new members – preferably ones with no secrets in their past.’

  ‘Good luck with that,’ Max snorted.

  ‘I can’t wait to tell Angela about Ali’s plans. She’ll be so pleased – she hasn’t met Ali.’

  That’s because your daughter doesn’t bother to visit her mother.

  Maybe he’d give Ali that talking-to, after all, but he’d wait until after the wedding.

  2

  Leigh Woods

  Max had little faith in Ali’s reliability. What could have kept her in South America – Brazil, in fact – for so long? It must be that boyfriend she’d travelled with. What was his name? Andy, that was it. Just Andy. The man must surely have a last name. He’d ask Libby. Presumably, Andy No-name would show up for the wedding, as well.

  The two of them had just better bring a decent present.

  At least Libby hadn’t enquired further about Max’s ‘business’ in Bristol. Used to his occasional disappearances on financial investigations, some of them on government business, she’d hardly batted an eyelid. Her only request, as Max prepared to leave, was that he should take the dogs. ‘I feel so mean, when they’re with me in the cottage and I have to keep them indoors, but if I let them into my tiny garden, they make the lawn even worse. It’s full of ridges and bare patches as it is, not to mention those yellow rings.’

  Max joined her at the window where she stood, surveying the forlorn winter garden.

  She said, ‘It’s a good thing I changed my mind about selling the cottage. Who’d buy a place with a garden that looks like a ploughed field?’

  Always happy to have the dogs for company, Max kissed Libby and left the cottage. He turned to wave at the door, but she was already on the phone, presumably announcing the news of the rescheduled wedding to Robert. Robert would have a word or two to say about his sister.

  The weather made Max’s trip up the M5 a penance. Nevertheless, he wished Bristol was further away. He dreaded meeting Stella. Whatever news she had for him, it was bound to be bad.

  Thinking about his ex-wife left him depressed, balanced on a painful axis of guilt and relief. Their marriage had resulted in two great gifts; Joe, their son, now a detective inspector in the West Mercia police service, and their daughter, Debbi
e. The old Max had thought himself the luckiest of men, with a glamorous, if demanding, wife, two children, and a job in finance that brought in enough money to keep Stella in expensive dresses and send the children to good London schools.

  In one terrible day, that whole world had collapsed, when Debbie fell from her horse and suffered a fatal head injury.

  Max, devastated, had been unable to help Stella. She’d been furious with him for quarrelling with Debbie that day. ‘You shouldn’t have let her ride when she was upset,’ Stella had insisted, over and over again, as though he hadn’t blamed himself enough.

  Max had buried himself deeper in work, while Stella drowned her pain in alcohol.

  Their divorce had been the result.

  For years, Max had believed he’d lost his son as well, for Joe had stayed with his mother, but recently, the broken bond between father and son had begun to regrow.

  Wrenching his thoughts back to the present, Max pulled together the little he knew of Stella’s current life, most of it relayed by Joe. She lived in Surrey with a glamorous young entrepreneur, younger than Joe, reputed to have made millions from property development. Ivor Wrighton, that was the name. Max had exchanged an occasional, formal Christmas card with Stella over the past ten years or so, but they hadn’t met. She’d seemed as reluctant as he to keep in touch.

  The mere idea of seeing her in person tied his stomach in knots.

  He drew up next to Leigh Woods and parked, making bets with himself over which car belonged to her. Not the Porsche. Too flashy. Stella’s faults had never included ostentation.