Bombed Out murder mystery - Higham

St Mary's Church, Higham, Kent

A theatrical event by Alternate Shadows.

Join Rochester's Alternate Shadows for Bombed Out by Bob Cookie

The Air raid siren has roared and a somewhat odd assortment of people find themselves thrown together in a bomb shelter, somewhere in the south-east of England, on a September evening in 1941.

Larry Barton-Smythe helps a young recuperating soldier, Andy Jones, into the bunker and they join Lydia Ludovski, a teacher, dreadfully frightened of all the bombing and Mrs Edna Grimbert, a land army organiser who is fretting about her 'girls' on the 'outside'. They are seated with Sir Mansfield Carpenter, an Industrialist, who finds himself rather partial to the young American socialite Pamela Pinkerton, whilst Sir Mansfield’s wife Lady Millicent, is similarly taken with young Larry Barton-Smythe – a charming young man of means, however, she’s miffed since it appears Larry’s affections appear to also lie with the American socialite Pamela Pinkerton. 

So Lady Millicent turns her affections to the lone recuperating soldier Andy Jones, much to Sir Mansfield irritation. Could this be a motive for murder? 

Stanley Whitworth, in the motor trade, Jean-Pierre Jumper, a Belgian refugee, and Colonel Fortune, who is in civilian dress (the Americans aren’t in the war yet!) were enjoying a pint or two at the White Horse Pub and have joined the mix of relative strangers in the bunker – causing tensions to rise when accusations of war racketeering, and cowardice are raised. Could this be a motive for murder?

With espionage, jealousy, hatred and blind ignorance- there are certainly a few motives for murder in the bunker – but who dies, and how, and more to the point – why? Will your little grey cells solve the puzzle before the ‘reveal’.

For more on the Friends of St Mary's Higham visit http://www.stmaryschurchhigham.com/