Murder in the Monastery (Libby Sarjeant Murder Mystery series) Read Online Free PDF

should go back to where it came from.’
    ‘Yes, but he was suggesting they sold it to raise funds to buy the monastery.’
    ‘Well, good for him, poor sod,’ said Libby. ‘So presumably, whoever knocked him off sold it to this collector, pretending to be descended from the monks.’
    ‘Not very good title, is it?’ said Fran. ‘If the monk’s family pinched it.’
    ‘They were looking after it,’ said Libby. ‘I expect that would be their story. I wonder who they were?’
    ‘I wonder if there’s a history of the Tredega monastery, if that’s what it was called.’
    ‘Worth a prowl round the internet,’ said Libby.
    ‘OK. Let me know if you find anything and I’ll do the same.’
    But there was no Tredega Monastery, Abbey or anything else. Libby found a site where she could look for historical sites by century, and although there were plenty in Wales, none were near Tredegar. Libby tried the Tredega Relic, which she’d tried before, but there were only vague references to it. Searching for St Eldreda was similarly ineffective, although she did have a brief history of her life online. There wasn’t even much on the rather limited website of the current Abbey. Libby sighed in frustration and went to make a cup of tea.
    She was sitting in the bar/foyer of the theatre that evening waiting for Peter to start rehearsals, when Fran came in with a smile of triumph.
    ‘Found it!’
    ‘You haven’t?’ Libby was frankly disbelieving. ‘I couldn’t find anything, whatever search terms I used.’
    ‘Did you try Mercia?’
    ‘No! I never thought of it.’
    ‘Well, I did.’ Fran sat down opposite Libby and pulled some papers from her bag. ‘You told me Patti said Eldreda had come from Mercia and the relic, although called the Tredega Relic, was probably from nowhere near the actual place.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Well, Mercia is the modern day Midlands and doesn’t go into Wales. The other thing is, the Mercians and their king Wulfhere were only Christian from 658, so any monastic institutions would be after that.’
    ‘So? The relic wasn’t stolen until the dissolution.’ Libby frowned.
    ‘But there must have been someone back then who wanted her relic.’
    ‘But it could have just been her family. It could have been a chapel, or something that became a monastery later. I wonder,’ said Libby slowly, ‘if it was her family.’
    ‘What? Who wanted the relic back?’
    ‘Well, yes, but whose name was Tredega – not the place?’
    ‘Well!’ Fran sat back in her chair. ‘Of course, that could be it. But they didn’t have Christian and surnames as we do back then, did they?’
    ‘No, but perhaps they came from Tredegar originally. Anyway – you said you found it. Where was it?’
    ‘I think I’ve found it, and it’s in Herefordshire, and it was one of the first Anglo-Saxon Christian religious houses. There’s an eighteenth century church on the site now, but they’ve excavated the Anglo-Saxon building and a Tudor one.’
    ‘Why do you think it’s our one?’ asked Libby.
    ‘Because the website mentions Eldreda.’
    ‘So how come Sister Catherine didn’t know that?’ said Libby.
    ‘She didn’t know much, did she? Her order are Anglican Benedictines, not the original Augustines. But she got the area right. It is on the borders of Wales, near one of the castles that were built to keep the Welsh out of England, although it pre-dates that. I suppose everyone assumed it was near Tredegar as there actually is a place called that.’
    ‘Can we find out if Eldreda’s family were called Tredega?’ said Libby.
    ‘We can have a go. Might have to take a trip to the area to look at any written records there are – although there won’t be many.’
    ‘But what we really want to know,’ mused Libby, ‘is who took the relic during the dissolution and kept it for all those years.’
    ‘Or how it turned up with poor Bernard Evans.’
    ‘And was in the hands of the late collector.’
    Fran and Libby