Guilt at the Garage

by Simon Brett

  ‘Mm.’ Jude was thoughtful for a moment. Then, ‘Right.’ She whipped out her mobile. ‘I’ll ring Tom now.’

  Again, the phone was answered by the gatekeeper of Troubadours, Natalie Kendrick. Again, Jude wished she’d got Tom’s mobile number. And yet again, she wondered about the precise dynamics of the family relationship there. Was Tom Kendrick’s lethargy and lack of ambition a direct result of his mother’s omnicompetence? Did he just not bother because he knew that, ultimately, she’d do everything for him?

  ‘What do you want?’ There was an edge of aggression in his voice. He clearly thought that, by meeting them in Brighton, he had done as much as he wanted to do for the two nosy women.

  By pointing and mouthing, Jude indicated to Carole that she was going to put him on to speakerphone.

  ‘When we last met,’ she said, ‘we talked about your time working at Shefford’s …’

  ‘Incidentally,’ he said, ‘I can tell you’ve got me on speakerphone. So, I gather I’m broadcasting to the other gossiping granny as well, am I?’

  ‘Any objections?’ asked an affronted Carole.

  ‘No, no, invite in the whole of Fethering, so far as I’m concerned. They’ve already said so much about me, a little more’s not going to do any harm. And, by the way, you know I agreed to talk to you in Brighton because I thought it might put an end to the gossip …?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, it hasn’t worked. Whenever I go out, it still feels like I’ve got a big arrow stuck over my head, saying “Prime Suspect”.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I’ll survive. So come on, what is it you want now?’

  ‘It just struck me,’ Jude replied, ‘that you haven’t really told us about how you took your car in for repair at Shefford’s.’

  ‘Well,’ Tom said, as if he was talking to a couple of five year olds, ‘my car needed repairing, so I took it to Shefford’s.’

  ‘No, I meant what kind of dialogue did you have with Bill Shefford when you took the car in? If, as you said, you’d left his employment in uncomfortable circumstances.’

  ‘Not that uncomfortable. By mutual agreement. He thought I was crap, I thought his job was crap. Fair exchange, you could say.’

  ‘So, no recrimination when you took the car in?’

  ‘No. He didn’t want me as his employee, I didn’t want to be his employee. But me turning up at the garage as a paying customer … that was different.’

  Carole could not keep herself out of the conversation. ‘Why did you take the car in?’

  ‘Because it had a problem with the gearbox,’ Tom replied, with diminishing patience. ‘How technical do you want me to be?’

  ‘Minimally,’ said Jude.

  ‘All right. Basically, my mother bought me the Triumph three years ago. Mr Kendrick had had one when the model first came out and she seemed to think that I … It doesn’t matter. She bought me the car. It went OK for a while, then it started to keep slipping out of gear. I thought it was the clutch, took it to Shefford’s. Bill had a look at it, said, no, it was the actual gearbox.’

  ‘How long ago are we talking?’

  ‘Three months back, maybe. Anyway, an old car like that, you can’t get a gearbox just off the catalogue. Normal parts dealers wouldn’t carry them. You’d have to source it from a Triumph enthusiast. Bill said he’d look out for one. He was quite excited about the job, dealing with an old car where he could actually access the engine. He was always complaining that car maintenance was all done by computer these days. First tool you need is an iPad.

  ‘Anyway, a few weeks later he rang me to say he’d tracked down the right gearbox. I could still drive the thing, had to keep my hand on the gearstick most of the time, but I could get it to the garage. Which is what I did.’

  ‘And when was this?’ asked Carole.

  ‘It was … let me think … two days before he died.’

  ‘And did Bill say anything unusual to you when you brought the car in?’ asked Jude.

  ‘Nothing unusual, no. We both knew what required doing. We’d talked about it before. Gearbox talk, which I don’t think would interest you very much. So, I just parked the Triumph round the back, gave him the key and he told me how long he reckoned the job would take.’

  ‘Did he tell you how much it would cost?’ asked Carole beadily.

  ‘We’d discussed that earlier.’ Tom sniggered. ‘Mrs Kendrick would be picking up the tab, anyway.’

  ‘So that was it?’ Carole pressed. ‘No further conversation?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. And now, if you don’t mind, you’ve probably wasted enough of my valuable time. Your call did actually interrupt a very good Netflix series I was watching.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Jude said meekly. Carole gave her a look. She wouldn’t have apologized for something like that. ‘Sure there was nothing else?’ Jude pleaded.

  ‘Oh, I do remember something,’ said Tom. ‘Just as I was about to go home – walk back to Mrs Kendrick’s house, that is – Bill Shefford asked me if I could do something for him.’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘Witness his signature on some document.’

  ‘What was the document?’ demanded Carole.

  ‘He didn’t show me. The paper was folded down, so I could just see where he signed.’

  ‘And you did it, you signed?’ asked Jude.

  ‘Yes. No skin off my nose.’

  ‘And what did he do then?’

  ‘He said he had to get another witness to sign.’

  ‘Did he say who?’

  ‘He didn’t say, but he went straight through to the office bit … you know, where Frankie sits and works out what colour she’s going to have her hair done and where she’ll have her next perforation.’

  ‘And she signed it?’ asked Jude breathlessly.

  ‘I assume so, yes.’

  TWENTY

  Because she had had more dealings with Frankie than Jude, it was Carole who made the call to Shefford’s. When she said she wanted to talk, she was told she was welcome to call at the garage whenever was convenient. When Carole added that she wanted to talk about Bill’s will and she wanted Jude to be with her, Frankie said they’d better come to her flat that evening. She didn’t bluster or deny she knew anything about the will, which Carole thought was promising.

  She lived in Spray Lodge, an eight-storey block of flats near the Yacht Club, just where the River Fether met the sea. The properties on the shore side commanded magnificent views and prices to match. Frankie’s faced north and was on the ground floor. So potential views to the undulations of the South Downs were blocked by the backs of the shops on Fethering Parade.

  Carole had been to Spray Lodge before, but a long time ago. She’d visited a rather poisonous old woman called Winnie Norton, whose son-in-law had died in suspicious circumstances. Winnie’s sea-view flat had been full of exquisite antiques. Frankie’s could not have been more different.

  For a start, the whole place smelt of cigarettes. It was a long time since Carole or Jude had been inside a smoker’s home. They had both forgotten how pervasive that stench used to be.

  Then again, the walls in Winnie Norton’s flat had been white, reflecting back the sparkle of the English Channel. In Frankie’s, all were dark; if not actually black, giving the impression that they were. And all were covered with posters and photographs of pop stars. Carole didn’t recognize any of them, but Jude, having been more aware of the zeitgeist of the times she lived through, identified them as the movers and shakers of Britpop. Oasis, Blur, Suede, Pulp … the in-your-face faces of their members leered down from the walls.

  Maybe they reflected a period when Frankie had been a genuine rock chick, but with them time had stopped still. The images now looked as dated – and dating – as Miss Havisham’s wedding dress.

  Frankie’s appearance that evening was almost as bizarre. She wore a sleeveless black lace top over a scarlet bra, and tight leggings in a random pattern of psychedelic ne
on. Her hair was still in its jet-black phase, and the ensemble was rounded off by glittering gold trainers. With all the rings they carried, her ears seemed to have more perforations than a teabag.

  She led them silently through the dark hall to an equally dark sitting room. Here again there were more posters and photographs. Jude noticed that they’d all been professionally framed. Frankie cared for her memorabilia.

  She gestured them to a black leather sofa. In front of her black leather chair was a low table. On it were glasses, an ice bucket, a bottle of Captain Morgan’s rum and a two-litre Coca-Cola.

  ‘Can I get you something? As you see, I’m on the rum and Coke.’

  ‘Do you have any white wine?’ asked Jude.

  ‘Sure. Bottle of Chardonnay in the fridge.’ She went through to get it.

  Both of them were far too well brought up to say that, though they used to drink a lot of Chardonnay, they had gone off it. While Frankie was out of the room, Carole and Jude didn’t say anything, but they exchanged meaningful looks. Both were intrigued. They’d anticipated resistance, an unwillingness to answer their questions, but here was Frankie making the evening into a social event. Carole’s eyes darted about the room. They settled uncomfortably on the louring face of Liam Gallagher.

  Frankie emerged with their drinks. The Chardonnay was served in goblet-style glasses, with an old-fashioned blue and gold band around their rims. She sat down and raised her rum and Coke. ‘Here’s mud in your eye,’ she said. Like the glasses, the expression felt old-fashioned.

  Carole and Jude exchanged looks, settling who was going to speak first, but both were pre-empted by Frankie saying, ‘You want to talk about Bill’s will. Presumably, you heard how I was involved from Tom Kendrick …?’

  They made no attempt to deny it.

  ‘I still don’t feel guilty about what I did. It was the right thing.’

  ‘Tom,’ said Jude, ‘didn’t know what the document he was signing was. Apparently, Bill folded it over, so just the space for the signatures was showing.’

  ‘He didn’t make any secret about it with me. He said, “Put your monicker on this, love. It’s my new will.”’

  ‘Was that unusual?’ Carole enquired. ‘Him asking you to do that?’

  ‘God, no. Documents I’ve countersigned for Bill over the years … must be in the hundreds. Particularly after Valerie died. If you live on your own, you often have to get signatures witnessed at work.’

  ‘And did he take the will back after you’d signed?’

  ‘No. He told me to put it in an envelope addressed to his solicitor and post it the next day.’

  ‘And, again, was that an unusual thing for him to ask you to do?’

  ‘Not at all. I do all the office work at Shefford’s. Have done for years. Sending out invoices, paying bills … anything that goes in the post, that’s down to me. Always has been.’

  ‘But I assume,’ said Jude gently, ‘that in this case you didn’t do as Bill told you? You didn’t put the will in the post to the solicitor?’

  ‘No,’ Frankie admitted.

  ‘Why not?’ demanded Carole, steelier than her neighbour.

  ‘Because I didn’t think what he was doing was a good idea.’

  ‘And did you know what he was doing? Did you read the will?’

  ‘Didn’t need to, did I? I knew what was in it.’

  ‘How? Had you seen an earlier draft or—?’

  ‘No. Well, I’d seen a draft of his earlier will, one he made after Valerie died. Up until then, he’d always assumed he’d go first, so he hadn’t bothered with a will.’

  ‘Why did he show it to you, the earlier will?’

  ‘Like I said, he’d never made one before. He wanted me to check through, see it all made sense before he sent off the final draft to the solicitor.’

  ‘And did it all make sense?’

  ‘Perfect sense. He left everything, including the business, to his only child, Billy.’

  ‘And how did you know that the provisions of the new will were going to be different?’

  The look Frankie gave Carole made her realize it had been a rather stupid question. ‘Because why else would he make a new one? Anyway, Bill said to me when he handed it over, “Must see that Malee’s looked after if I pop my clogs.”’

  ‘So, you didn’t read the new will?’ asked Jude, taking on the more conciliatory Good Cop role.

  ‘I didn’t need to. He’d virtually told me, hadn’t he? He was going to disinherit Billy and give the lot to his “Mail Order Bride”!’

  Carole was clearly about to reveal the real provisions of the will, but a small flick of the head from Jude dissuaded her. She let her neighbour continue with the questioning.

  ‘And how did that make you feel?’

  ‘Absolutely furious! After all the hard work Billy had put in over the years to keep Shefford’s going, his Dad was just riding roughshod over him. I couldn’t allow that to happen.’ Frankie was overwrought. She gulped down what remained in her glass and topped it up from the Captain Morgan’s bottle. She didn’t bother to add any more Coke.

  ‘So, what did you plan to do?’ Jude persisted. ‘Did you argue with Bill? Did you tell him what you thought when he asked you to sign the will?’

  ‘No. He could be bloody-minded. If you’d got something serious to say, you had to catch him at the right moment. So I thought I’d just … well, obviously not put the envelope in the post … but wait, catch him when he was more relaxed and ask if he really had considered the effects of what he was doing.’

  ‘And where did you put the will? Did you bring it back here?’

  If Jude had hoped the precious document was about to be handed over, she was in for a disappointment. ‘No, I left it in my drawer back at the garage. I knew Bill would never look in there. And I was still hoping for a chance to talk to him about it when he … when he died.’

  Carole felt she had been out of the action for too long. ‘And what did you do with it then?’ she demanded.

  Frankie looked defiantly from one to the other of them and took a long sip of almost-neat rum before replying, ‘I burnt it.’ Although no criticism had been voiced, she continued defensively, ‘It was the only thing I could do! A matter of justice. There’s an incinerator we use round the back of the garage. I used it to burn the will the night after Bill died, when everyone had gone home and I was the only one there. I knew if the revised version never saw the light of day, the old one would still be valid. And Billy would inherit what was rightfully his … as he always should have done.’

  Carole knew this wasn’t true. The law dictated that a new marriage invalidated previous wills. So, Frankie’s rash action wouldn’t have had the outcome that she hoped for. In fact, it would have made things worse. Had the new will been posted off as his father intended, Billy Shefford would have inherited the business. Malee would have just got the house and savings. Still, Carole reflected, there wasn’t much point in telling Frankie that now.

  A look between her and Jude confirmed that they were both feeling the same level of deflation. If Frankie hadn’t leapt to conclusions; if she had only read the new will … But there was no point in considering such variant scenarios. What had happened had happened, that was all there was to it.

  ‘So, what do you reckon now, Frankie?’ asked Jude. ‘When we met in the Crown and Anchor with Barney Poulton, you were pretty convinced that Malee set up Bill’s death. Is that what you still think?’

  ‘What else is there to think?’ But her tone had lost its former conviction. Maybe, with the passage of time, the exact circumstances of her boss’s death had become less important. She was coming to terms with a world in which he was no longer a participant.

  ‘You two’re trying to find out, aren’t you?’ she went on. ‘What happened?’

  Carole, on her own, might have denied it, but Jude nodded.

  ‘Why?’ asked Frankie, very directly.

  It was a good question. ‘I guess we’re just intrig
ued,’ said Jude. But that wasn’t enough. ‘And also, I don’t like hurtful rumours going round the village.’

  ‘Hm.’ Frankie was silent for a moment, making a decision. Then she said, ‘I want to know what really happened with Bill, too. I’ve got something here that might help you. It’s full of stuff I know about. And some I don’t understand.’

  She had clearly prepared for what she was about to do. She reached down in a purple bucket bag beside her chair, pulled something out and offered it to them.

  It was a battered green diary.

  ‘Do you think there was love involved?’ asked Carole, as they walked back towards the High Street. Jude was better at observing that kind of thing than she was.

  ‘Oh yes. Definitely,’ came the reply.

  ‘So, Frankie loved Bill Shefford,’ said Carole.

  ‘No,’ said Jude. ‘She loves Billy.’

  TWENTY-ONE

  Frankie had allowed them to borrow the diary, in the hope that they might be able to make sense of the bits she didn’t understand. Carole and Jude were very excited. They had talked to a lot of people about the case but couldn’t wait to get stuck into the first potentially solid piece of evidence they’d found. Because Carole had got a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc in her fridge and Jude’s supply was still sitting in her shopping bag on the kitchen table at Woodside Cottage, they decided they would inspect their trophy at High Tor.

  Gulliver greeted them blearily from in front of the Aga with a growly cough. Carole asked Jude to sort out the wine while she dealt with the flashing red light on the answering machine.

  The message was from Malee Shefford. Had Carole managed to communicate to Billy and Shannon the provisions of Bill’s revised will?

  She made an immediate call back with the dispiriting news that Jude had tried but failed. Rapprochement still had no place on Shannon’s agenda. Carole decided she wouldn’t at this stage tell Malee what had happened to the actual will. Wait until she had talked to Jude about it. The last thing she wanted to do was to generate more bad blood between the widow and Frankie. Nor did she mention the battered green diary that was currently sitting on her kitchen table.