Murder on the Old Road Read Online Free Page A

one, but would make Peter pay for not confiding in her. ‘That unsolved murder?’
    â€˜So you knew,’ he said accusingly.
    â€˜That’s all I know. Tell me.’
    â€˜Murder on the Old Road in 1967. A new one on me, although we live so near to it, but I didn’t move here with your mother until after that. You were a mere toddler. I’ve spent hours on the Internet since I got back, checking The Times and everything else that I could click on or read.’
    â€˜What set you off?’
    â€˜Simon, our friendly but desperate publican.’
    â€˜Desperate about trade or Tim, do you think?’
    â€˜The former more obviously. And the murder—’ Peter paused for effect.
    She had to know. ‘Whose was it?’
    â€˜Hugh Wayncroft, lord of the manor and Julian’s father.’
    She hadn’t expected that, and found it astonishing. This afternoon Julian had been marching in pilgrimage right past the place where his father had been murdered. True, it was forty years ago, but even so, how could he bear to go there? Then she did her arithmetic. Julian would scarcely have been born or would have been only a toddler when the murder happened, and so his father had no physical reality for him. But for his half brother? Hugh had been his stepfather, and in 1967 Valentine would have been about Sebastian Wayncroft’s age today. Was that significant or was she building without bricks?
    â€˜No one was charged,’ Peter continued, happy now that he had taken her by surprise, ‘and now you confirm there were fingerprints. Wouldn’t that suggest there are still outstanding issues? Where did you feel these fingerprints?’
    â€˜At the far end of Peacock Wood – that’s the first one you come to on the Old Road going towards Canterbury. You can see it from the village. Was he killed there, do you know?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Shot during a shooting party?’ she asked. That might explain why no one was charged – it could easily have been an accident. Then she realized Peter was looking smug, which meant he was holding something back.
    â€˜No. Strangled, and on a pilgrimage.’
    â€˜ What ?’
    â€˜Just like the one you joined today,’ Peter told her. She could see he was enjoying winding her up. ‘In 1967 there was a pilgrimage from Winchester to Canterbury to stage Tennyson’s Becket .’
    â€˜They have this pilgrimage and play every year ?’
    â€˜No. It’s the first time since 1967.’
    â€˜But that really is creepy.’ Too creepy, she thought with foreboding.
    â€˜Someone had the bright idea that it would be good to recreate it. The pilgrimage and play presumably, rather than the murder. The plan is to put the village on the map, rather than just to promote the play. They had an identical plan in 1967, which doesn’t seem to have come to anything. You’d think the murder would have achieved that by itself, but everything went quiet. The sixties pilgrimage, as is this one, was to celebrate the July anniversary. As Aletta said, winter is not a good time for pilgrimages, and my guess is that the monks realized that it wouldn’t attract so many pilgrims as the summer date. And we think we’re publicity conscious. In 1220, fifty years after Becket was murdered, his tomb was moved from the crypt to the Trinity Chapel, and fifty years after that came the first Jubilee remembrance of it. I wonder if the 1967 Chillingham pilgrimage was some sort of trial run for a really big do in 1970?’
    â€˜Was there one?’
    â€˜Not so far as I can see.’ Peter frowned. ‘Strange that. The excitement all died down again, along with all reference to Hugh Wayncroft’s murder. Chillingham seems to have sunk back into slumber again until this year.’
    â€˜Because of the murder, do you think?’
    â€˜Perhaps. But, if so, why the repeat performance?’
    â€˜Doesn’t