Murder in Paradise Read Free

explanation to Erland of the sensitive domestic situation he had left in Edinburgh, the one fly in the ointment so to speak. The young woman he was keeping company with, Lizzie Spark, had an illegitimate son Vince, aged twelve, who hated him.
    As they left the alehouse, waiting outside was the most extraordinary conveyance Faro had ever encountered. There was certainly nothing in Edinburgh to equal the horse-drawn coach with curtains made of leather and a canvas, chintz-lined canopy. Erland explained that it had been specially built at Morris’s instruction by Philip Webb, the designer of Red House. Faro wondered what passers-by thought of this relic from another age that bore a weird resemblance to something from a medieval tapestry. As it swayed and pulled up the hill to swing along the road, Erland pointed out a few labourers’ cottages built from the remains of the Augustinian priory suppressed during the reign of King Henry VIII.
    Thin plumes of smoke rising into the clear air indicated Upton, which Erland explained, as its name suggested, was an upper or higher settlement within the large parish of Bexley with ninty-seven dwellings; homes to farm workers, gardeners, carriers, plus an alehouse – the Royal Oak.
    The approach suggested an early development of suburban villas, the march of bricks and mortar over the fields of Bexley as London’s population sprawled ever outwards.
    Later he read in his guidebook that by the Thirties Bexley’s new town was growing in popularity with more than 2000 inhabitants and ten years later the vicar instigated the building of a new chapel close to Watling Street for his parishioners. Soon afterwards the railways arrived: one line running through Bexley via Lewisham and another further north through Woolwich.
    As they entered the village street, Faro begged to be excused, saying that he must first call at the local police station, which Erland pointed out was conveniently, or inconveniently for the criminally minded, almost directly opposite the alehouse.
    He thanked the groom, saying that he would walk the rest of the way, but Erland would have none of it.
    ‘We will wait for you,’ he said cheerfully. ‘There is no hurry.’
    That this was a peaceful community was indicated by the fact that there was no constable in evidence in response to the bell on the counter.
    Returning to the wagonette, Erland laughed at his stern expression.
    ‘No one there, eh? My dear old chap, the explanation is perfectly obvious. Not at all unusual. This is a haven of peace and as so little crime is anticipated, Constable Muir is either out after the local poacher or at home having his supper. And having come all this way, surely your business can wait until tomorrow morning.’
    As they approached their destination, Erland pointed out Brettle Manor, on the east side of Red House.
    Faro was immediately interested, and as the wagonette lacked windows, he slid along the leather curtain and stuck his head out for a closer look, to see a thin thread of smoke drifting skywards from a decrepit thatched cottage. Almost hidden by an overgrown garden of hedgerows and trees, it was very much at odds with this area of neat suburbia encountered thus far.
    Bewildered, he turned to Erland: ‘Brettle Manor?’
    Erland laughed. ‘No! You can’t see it from this angle. That is Hope Cottage on the edge of the Brettle estate – belongs to a wily old devil who refused to sell out to Sir Philip. The manor is in fact a new villa built just before Red House, carved out from the original orchards.’
    A short distance and a long wall followed. ‘There’s the manor now. Near neighbours. Not long now.’
    Craning his neck, Faro glimpsed a projecting porch flanked by square window bays as, with a gesture to take in the countryside, Erland continued, ‘Once this heath was pitted by sand and gravel diggings traversed by Watling Street, the old Roman road linking London, Canterbury and Dover and in the last century it was