Murder on the Edge by Lesley Cookman

Author:Lesley Cookman [Cookman, Lesley]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: Upload
ISBN: 9781472278302
Published: 2020-10-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

Libby sat up straight. ‘Boulders?’

‘Yes. Does that mean something?’

Libby opened her mouth to speak just as Tim leant over the bar and called, ‘Libby! Sandwiches.’

‘I ordered enough for both of us,’ said Jemima. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’

‘Of course not,’ said Libby, getting up to collect the tray.

‘So,’ she said, helping herself to a sandwich as she sat down, ‘you thought he’d been moving boulders.’

‘Yes. When I’d been before, there were outcrops of rock, the sort of thing you often find on cliff tops, and when I went back, it looked as though a couple of them had been moved.’

‘Did you tell the police?’

Jemima frowned. ‘No. I didn’t think of it at the time, and I suppose I didn’t think it was relevant. You obviously think it is.’

‘Yes.’ Libby nodded slowly. ‘You see, another body has been found there. On Nick Nash’s land.’

Jemima stopped chewing, her cheery face losing a little colour. ‘Oh, no!’

‘It’s all right,’ said Libby, ‘it wasn’t done then – the body, I mean. It had been in the ground a long time. Years.’

Jemima ate for a little while in silence. Libby followed suit.

‘I suppose that’s why you were asking what I knew about him,’ she said eventually.

‘Yes, and you were actually helpful,’ said Libby. ‘It sounds as if he wanted to hide – or obscure – something, doesn’t it? Especially moving boulders.’

‘It does.’ Jemima stared at her empty plate. ‘I’ve just remembered.’

‘What?’ Libby sat up, alert.

‘Nothing to do with Nick Nash,’ said Jemima with a small smile. ‘I just remembered you’ve got some kind of connection with Mike Farthing, haven’t you?’

‘Yes, he’s my cousin Cass’s partner.’ Libby grinned. ‘And Joe up at Cattlegreen told me he knew your dad, and you used to play with Owen when he was young.’

Jemima laughed. ‘Well! How the hell have we avoided one another for so long with all these connections?’

‘I’ve no idea! I sometimes think everyone in this part of Kent must be linked by invisible wires.’

‘I suppose you get connections within any business community. Mine’s gardens and nurseries, but if you were a musician it might be the same.’

‘It is. We ran a little beer festival here a couple of years ago,’ said Libby, ‘just behind the pub, and we were amazed at how many of the little bands and musicians knew one another.’

‘Food producers are the same,’ said Jemima. ‘All the little independent ones.’

‘And that’s one of the problems.’ Libby leaned back in her chair with a sigh. ‘Nick Nash hadn’t any connections. He left the area twenty years ago.’

‘Oh? I had the impression he came back a lot.’

‘He came back, yes, but his old connections had all gone. He used to be a churchwarden at St Aldeberge, down on the coast.’

‘Really? And he was retiring to Spain? He didn’t sound like an old man. And I couldn’t really see from the cliff.’ She shuddered. ‘I didn’t want to look any closer.”

‘He wasn’t.’ Libby stared into the remains of her drink.

‘There’s more to this than meets the eye, isn’t there?’ said Jemima shrewdly, after a pause.

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