The Killing in the Café

by Simon Brett

  ‘I hadn’t got you down as a Mail on Sunday reader, Jude.’ Ted Crisp had appeared from the kitchen door. His faded summer T-shirt had given way to a faded sweatshirt, perhaps another homage to the ending of British Summer Time. Winter was definitely on its way.

  ‘I like to vary my reading occasionally,’ said Jude. ‘See how the other half thinks.’

  ‘I see. Now if it had been Carole reading the Mail on Sunday, I wouldn’t have thought anything odd about that. She sounds like she’s quoting from it every time she opens her mouth.’

  ‘Now that’s unfair, Ted.’

  ‘Only slightly.’ He grinned behind his scruffy beard. ‘You have to admit Carole’s opinionated, don’t you?’

  ‘I’ll give you that.’ Jude grinned back, not for the first time amazed to recall that Ted and Carole had once had an affair. Inevitably it hadn’t lasted very long, but there was still a tenderness between the two of them. ‘Anyway, big news on the Carole front is that she has just become a grandmother for the second time.’

  ‘Oh, great. What was it? A baby?’ Ted Crisp could never quite escape his past as a stand-up.

  ‘Ha. Ha. Very funny. Little girl called Chloe. Born Friday morning. Carole’s up in Fulham with them now.’

  ‘Oh well, do pass on my congratulations to her.’

  ‘Course I will.’

  Ted looked around the bar. There were very few customers. ‘The good burghers of Fethering haven’t got used to the time change yet.’

  ‘No.’

  He leant forward conspiratorially against the bar. ‘What about this body you two found then? Any more information?’

  Jude shook her head. ‘Not a squeak. Police seem to be playing things very close to their chest.’

  ‘Presumably that forensic stuff takes time. Identifying the poor sod, checking his DNA, all that malarkey.’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Hm.’ The landlord shrugged. ‘Oh well. Basic thing is, he’s dead and we’re still alive.’

  ‘That’s a very philosophical thought, Ted.’

  ‘Yes. I do have my introspective moments, you know.’ He looked very gloomy. ‘So we should continue to enjoy everything life brings us, shouldn’t we?’

  ‘Sounds like the best approach, yes.’ Jude changed tack. Ted Crisp, from all the people he encountered and conversations he heard over the bar was a useful source of Fethering information. ‘Have you come across a man called Kent Warboys?’

  ‘Architect, property developer? Yes, I know him. He comes in here every now and then.’

  ‘And what do you know about him?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘“Property developer” can have so many different meanings, can’t it? For a lot of people round here it’s usually a term of abuse.’

  Ted chuckled. ‘Take your point. Well, from what I know of him, and what I’ve heard about him from other people, Kent Warboys is one of the good guys. Yes, he’s in the business for the money – and has done very well out of it – but he also seems genuinely to care about the projects he gets involved with. You know, he wants to build stuff that kind of fits the area, not the kind of monstrosities you see all along the coast here. You should have a look at his own place.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘Right here in Fethering. Other side of the Fether estuary, opposite the yacht club. He converted a bunch of old fishermen’s huts. Won an award for it, I think, you know, for sympathetic, environmentally friendly conversion. All that bloody Green nonsense.’ He looked directly into Jude’s eyes. ‘I gather he’s got an interest in developing Polly’s Cake Shop.’

  ‘News travels fast.’

  ‘Surely you’ve been in Fethering long enough not to be surprised by that?’

  ‘True.’

  ‘Kent was in here on Wednesday night.’

  ‘Was he?’ Jude thought back. He must have gone to the Crown and Anchor after the SPCS Action Committee meeting at Hiawatha.

  ‘And he seemed to have got a new girlfriend.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘All over her he was … well, they was all over each other. And he was showing off in that way that men only do right at the beginning of a relationship. Before they start taking the woman for granted. Know what I mean?’

  Oh yes. Jude knew exactly what he meant. ‘Did you recognize the woman?’

  ‘Sure did. I’ve forgotten her name but I’d recognize it if someone said it. Spanish looking, she is. Works as a waitress in Polly’s.’

  ‘Sara Courtney?’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  Jude felt rather pleased to have confirmed the suspicion that had been born when she talked to Kent Warboys after the last SPCS Action Committee meeting at Hiawatha.

  By the time Jude’s cassoulet had arrived, the Crown and Anchor was very full. Sunday lunch was one of its busiest times and she was glad she’d taken Zosia’s advice about ordering before the rush. She felt very mellow working her way through Ed Pollack’s winter warmer and down her second large New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. And the bigotry of the Mail on Sunday was keeping her at a pleasant level of simmering irritation.

  A text arrived on her mobile. She was surprised to see it was from Carole. Not surprised that her neighbour was contacting her, but that she should be using the medium of text. Carole was always slow to take on new technology (though once she had taken it on, she became almost obsessively enthusiastic about it – that had certainly been the case with her laptop).

  The message simply said that she had arrived back at High Tor and wondered where Jude was. A quick call brought her down to the Crown and Anchor, where she accepted Jude’s offer of a large Sauvignon Blanc ‘to wet the baby’s head’. She also followed her neighbour’s recommendation and ordered the cassoulet.

  Jude wanted to get straight down to talking about the Fethering Beach body, but knew she had to ask first about the new arrival. And she found Carole in a rare state of ecstasy verging on the poetic when she talked about her new granddaughter. Chloe was the most beautiful creature who had ever been born, totally unlike her sister in appearance but retaining that baby’s ability to look like both of her parents (just as Lily had done). And equally beautiful.

  Lily, incidentally, was being extraordinarily good about the new arrival, positively welcoming. Absolutely no signs of jealousy yet, though Carole did concede that it was early days in the relationship between the two.

  Then, to Jude’s amazement, Carole pulled out her phone to show her some photographs of the new arrival. The amazement arose not from the fact that photographs had been taken, but that they had been taken on a phone. Though it had other capacities, Carole had always regarded her mobile as a device for the making and receiving of phone calls, differing from a landline receiver only in its portability. And suddenly, within two days, she had started using it to send text messages and to take photographs. Jude wondered what had caused the change.

  Though she had never had children of her own, and did not feel the lack of them in her life, Jude was not immune to the enchantments of the young, and cooed appropriately at the pictures she was shown. Chloe Seddon looked to be a perfect newborn baby and, like many newborn babies, seemed resolutely unwilling to open her eyes, especially when being rather cautiously cuddled by her older sister. There was even a photograph of Chloe being tentatively held by her grandmother. The whole family looked relieved and happy, and on the face of Gaby was an expression of exhausted triumph.

  Jude did not wish to appear uninterested by moving the conversation on, but fortunately Carole herself changed the subject. ‘Anyway, what with all that’s been going on, I haven’t seen much news for the last couple of days. Listened to Radio Four when I was driving down from Fulham this morning, but there was nothing about the Fethering body. Have I missed anything?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. Total news blackout on the subject from official sources … though, needless to say, there’s been a lot of unbridled local speculation.’

  ‘Yes, I bet the
re has. Any of it worth listening to?’

  ‘Well, the trouble is, as ever in Fethering, a large number of theories are being put forward, but none of them is based on any solid facts at all.’

  ‘Sounds familiar. And have the police been in touch with you again?’ Jude shook her head. ‘No, nor me. I kept checking my mobile for messages, but there was nothing. Nothing on my answering machine at High Tor either.’

  ‘But, so far as we know, the police are continuing to conduct their investigations?’

  ‘One would assume so, yes. But, as ever, they’re not rushing to share their findings with the amateur sleuths of Fethering.’

  ‘No.’ Carole grimaced and then looked sharply at Jude. ‘And what have you found out? I’ll bet you know more than you did when we last met.’

  ‘Well …’ Jude was faced with a dilemma; one which she had known would come up at some point. Maintaining the confidentiality of her clients was a strong principle with her, and this was not the first time that principle had been threatened in the course of an investigation.

  She tried to think of a way in which she could tell Carole why she thought the mystery man had been murdered, without giving away the secrets which Sara Courtney had confided to her in her professional capacity.

  And she reminded herself that when Sara had come to see her a couple of Sundays before, it hadn’t actually been in the context of a healing consultation. But to use that fact to justify a breach of confidentiality would, she knew, be mere casuistry. She decided that the only way she could share the information she wanted to with Carole was by not naming names. It might be clumsy, but it would not compromise her principle.

  ‘Listen, there are reasons why I can’t give you all the details …’

  ‘I see,’ said Carole, her nose immediately put out of joint.

  Might as well be honest. ‘It involves client confidentiality.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ There was a particular brand of scepticism that Carole reserved for conversations about her neighbour’s work as a healer. Though never voicing the opinion in quite those terms, she secretly thought a lot of what Jude did was ‘mumbo-jumbo and psychobabble’.

  ‘The fact is, Carole, I heard from someone—’

  ‘A patient?’

  ‘As you know, I prefer to call them “clients”.’

  ‘Oh yes, of course. But it was from a client, was it?’ Carole’s tone was already implying the unreliability of the source.

  ‘Yes, it was. And she said—’

  ‘A female client then?’

  ‘Yes,’ Jude conceded. ‘Anyway, I saw her … let me think, when was it? Yes, exactly four weeks ago. On the Sunday. And she said she’d seen the dead body of a man …’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘… with a bullet hole in his temple.’

  ‘Where did she see it?’

  ‘Right here in Fethering.’

  ‘What, on the beach?’

  ‘No.’ Jude was realizing how difficult it was going to be to keep her source anonymous under Carole’s beady interrogation. ‘No, she saw it in Polly’s.’

  ‘In Polly’s? What, when it was full of people?’

  ‘No, no. After everyone had gone, when she was locking up.’

  Carole pounced. ‘So she works at Polly’s, does she?’ Jude could not deny it. ‘So we’re talking about Sara Courtney, aren’t we?’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘Don’t deny it. How many other clients of yours work at Polly’s Cake Shop?’

  ‘Yes, it was her.’ Well, she’d tried. And, despite a residue of guilt, Jude felt quite relieved the truth was out. It would make her conversation with Carole a lot easier.

  ‘So where did she see the body?

  ‘In the store room. Well, that is … she wasn’t absolutely sure whether she’d seen it or not.’

  ‘“Not sure whether she’d seen it”? I think generally speaking, when people see dead bodies, they know whether they’ve seen them or not.’

  ‘Sara had been very ill.’

  ‘Huh.’ Like many people who conduct their lives on the edge of an emotional precipice, Carole Seddon was contemptuous about the concept of mental illness. She went on, ‘Was she alone when she saw – or didn’t see – the body?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Nobody in the flat upstairs?’

  ‘Apparently not.’

  ‘Was there any sign of a gun in the store room?’

  ‘Yes. Sara said she saw one.’

  ‘Suicide then?’

  ‘Except that the body was lying on the floor, and the gun was on a windowsill, way out of reach of the victim.’

  ‘Murder then,’ said Carole.

  THIRTEEN

  It was on the Tuesday that the police finally gave a press conference. And identified the body that had been found on Fethering Beach.

  His name was Amos Green, aged sixty-four. He was a retired chartered surveyor who was married and lived in Kingston.

  The photograph of him shown on the South Today coverage of the story was very blurred, a detail blown up from a group picture at a wedding or some other social event. Neither Carole nor Jude could recognize in it the swollen and discoloured face they had seen on Fethering Beach.

  The cause of the man’s death was not drowning. He had been killed by a gunshot. Police investigations were continuing.

  By the time the Fethering Observer was published on the Thursday a better photograph had been found. The face that stared out from the front page had very dark eyes, thinning grey hair and a slightly roguish expression.

  He apparently had no connection with Fethering. He had lived and worked all his life in Surrey and had been a local councillor in the Kingston area for some years.

  The Fethering Observer confirmed that he had been shot and that police investigations were continuing.

  Jude had resisted the impulse to ring Sara Courtney until the Thursday, but with the synchronicity which had featured so much in her life, just as she was about to pick up the phone, Sara rang her.

  ‘I’ve just seen the Observer,’ she said, her voice high and taut, just as it had been when she first came to Jude.

  ‘I thought you would. Or have heard about it on the news.’

  ‘I haven’t heard or seen any news till today. I’ve been away.’

  ‘Well, if there’s anything I can—’

  ‘Jude, I need help. Can I come and see you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Jude, what I’m asking you to do is completely forget what I told you about seeing the body.’ They were sitting in the cluttered sitting room of Woodside Cottage with cups of green tea.

  ‘That may not be easy. The mind has a mind of its own. You can’t just tell it to forget something.’

  ‘Well, all right. Not forget it, but swear to me you’ll never tell anyone about what I told you.’

  Jude felt a little awkward, because she had already told someone – or that someone had winkled out of her – the details of what Sara had confided in her. But she said, ‘I won’t tell anyone’, hoping that the implication was that she wouldn’t tell anyone in the future. ‘But what are you going to do, Sara?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, the situation’s changed rather. When you first told me about the body in the store room, you weren’t even sure that you’d seen it. You were afraid you were hallucinating.’

  ‘I’m still not sure I saw it.’

  ‘Oh, come on. You can’t claim that any more. The fact that you’re here, the fact that you recognized the photo in the Observer – that must mean you did see Amos Green’s body.’

  Sara looked very crestfallen, but had to accept the truth of Jude’s words.

  ‘And was he someone you recognized?’

  ‘Well, if I did see the body in the store room—’

  ‘No, I mean did you recognize him in the photograph as someone you had met before – while he was still alive?’

  Sara Courtney shook her head firmly. ‘I’d never seen
him before. And I wish I’d never seen him at all!’

  ‘I can understand that.’

  ‘I just want to forget that I ever saw him at all. Just wind back time.’

  ‘Can’t be done, I’m afraid. And the big change is that now the man’s death is the subject of an official murder inquiry.’

  ‘It wasn’t necessarily murder. It could have been suicide.’

  ‘Oh yes? And whereabouts did you tell me you’d seen the gun in the store room?’

  ‘On the windowsill,’ Sara had to admit.

  ‘So, for the suicide theory to hold water, Amos Green must have shot himself in the temple, then, before falling down dead, have moved across the room to put the gun on the windowsill. Do you really believe that’s what happened?’

  ‘No,’ came the grudging reply. ‘But it’s possible that he shot himself and the gun dropped to the floor as he fell down, and then someone else came in, found the body and moved the gun to the windowsill.’

  ‘All right, I suppose it’s possible. But who might have done that, Sara? Another member of Polly’s Cake Shop staff? And, if they did do it, why didn’t they tell anyone? Why didn’t they raise the alarm? Why didn’t they call the police?’

  ‘They may have had their reasons. Like I did. I didn’t call the police.’

  ‘No, you didn’t. But don’t you think you should get in touch with them now?

  ‘Why?’ Sara Courtney sounded really frightened of the idea.

  ‘Because you have evidence that is material to the police investigation. I don’t know how much they know about Amos Green’s movements before he died, but if he could be placed in Polly’s Cake Shop’s store room on the Saturday afternoon four weeks ago … well, I would imagine that would be of considerable help to their inquiries. What is more, presumably you still have the handkerchief with his blood on it. Now the police have a body, they could check the DNA on that.’

  ‘Jude, you’re not being very sympathetic.’

  It was true. Jude realized she was behaving more like Carole might have done in the same circumstances. She was a healer. Her primary concern should be for her client rather than for some obscure ideal of justice.