The Marsh & Daughter Casebook by Amy Myers

Author:Amy Myers [Myers, Amy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Media
Published: 2018-10-18T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter Two

The sounds of altercation reached Georgia’s ears even before she had opened her father’s front door. It was only the familiar argument of whether work or lunch came first – an argument that Margaret, his indispensable part-time shadow, rarely lost.

‘Georgia, thank heavens!’ came the cry. ‘Kindly tell Margaret,’ whose ears were presumably closed, ‘that sandwiches can wait.’

‘Not toasted ones,’ Margaret said equably. Margaret came daily, her hours being a movable feast depending on who needed her most, Peter or her ailing husband. When Margaret found time for herself was one of those great mysteries of life. She had been a doctor’s receptionist and had therefore had ample experience with stubborn patients. Peter of course did not see himself in that category. He saw it as an equal partnership between them – led by him.

‘Margaret’s right,’ Georgia said. ‘Anyway, I’m hungry, if I’m included.’

‘You have no soul,’ Peter said fiercely.

‘And you no stamina,’ Margaret rejoined. ‘Have one of these, Georgia, and I’ll make some more,’ she said as she passed en route to the kitchen. Georgia advanced on both father and sandwiches.

‘What’s so urgent?’ she asked.

‘The case.’ Peter condescended to pick up a square of toasted cheese and half a tomato.

‘Case?’ she asked guardedly, suspecting where this was going. She and her father had adjoining terraced cottages in Haden Shaw’s main street, and she had therefore been aware that Peter had been suspiciously quiet for several days. ‘Nothing becomes a case until there’s something to investigate.’

‘Unsolved murder. That’s enough, surely. And, Georgia, I’m sure I know now who the victim at Woodring Manor was.’

She had fully expected he would have despatched her forthwith to the Maidstone reference library to check the local newspapers for the whole of the 1970s, and had been surprised to receive no such summons. However, it was too much to hope that he’d have forgotten. Despite herself, her own curiosity was roused. A quarrel between staff? A guest at the hotel? A lovers’ tiff? An unsolved murder was somewhat harder to track down than a solved one, which would have an ensuing trial, but Peter, it seemed, had already done so.

‘It was fully covered in The Times,’ he said.

Was it indeed? That must mean there was quite a story attached. Her curiosity grew. ‘Who was it?’

‘Patrick Fairfax.’ Peter sat back complacently, obviously awaiting her cry ‘of course’.

‘Who?’

Peter sighed. ‘I suppose it’s my age. Growing up in the Fifties, I had an overdose of the derring-do of Spitfire pilots.’

A jolt ran through her. ‘Spitfires?’ she asked guardedly. Five shadowy elderly men marched through her mind.

‘Correct. Patrick Fairfax, DSO, DFC. Thought to have narrowly missed the VC. Flew hard, played hard during the war. Anonymous author of This Life, This Death in 1942, reprinted under his name countless times after the war. Popular in society. Found murdered one evening at Woodring Manor in 1975.’

‘In May?’ Each step led onwards to the unwelcome truth.

‘Correct again, Georgia. Saturday the tenth. Shot after a reunion. I don’t need to tell you which squadron.

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