The Killing in the Café

by Simon Brett

  ‘I won’t hold my breath,’ said Binnie.

  ‘But if it were to reopen …’ Carole began tentatively, ‘under a professional manager … and with a different sort of volunteers … and you were asked to help out …?’

  Jude was pleased to hear Carole’s words. They meant that she hadn’t rejected out of hand the possibility of managing the Volunteer Rota in a revamped Polly’s.

  ‘Who knows?’ was Binnie’s reply. ‘I’ve seen too many local Community Projects fall apart to get overexcited about the chances of Polly’s rising from the grave.’

  ‘Well, I hope you’re wrong,’ said Jude.

  ‘Oh, so do I. Nothing I’d like more than being back waitressing there … under any regime. That is, any regime but one. I’d be quite happy if Hitler or Stalin was in charge, but there’s no way I’m ever again going to work under Phoebe Braithwaite.’

  Jude chuckled. ‘You’ll be all right on that score. The Braithwaites are completely out of the equation now. They have adjourned to focus their considerable energies on messing up some other charity.’

  ‘I’m very glad to hear it.’

  ‘So if the café does reopen,’ Carole persisted, ‘you might consider working there for free?’

  ‘Oh yes. If it happens. It’s not the money, you see. I can manage all right on my pension. And …’ she waved around at her personal museum ‘… none of this paraphernalia is expensive. I just buy stuff I like. No, it’s the people I miss at Polly’s. I’d happily work there for free.’

  ‘Well, we’ll see what can be done,’ said Jude.

  The old woman shook her head. ‘I’m not optimistic.’

  ‘Going back to another matter, Binnie …’

  ‘Yes, Carole?’

  ‘This is a long shot, but presumably from the back of this house you get a very good view of the sea?’

  ‘Yes, I like it. One of the reasons why we bought the place.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Yes. I was married when I came to Fethering.’

  ‘Oh? And …?’ Carole put the enquiry as delicately as she could.

  ‘My husband died within two years of our arriving here. Pancreatic cancer. Three weeks from diagnosis to death.’

  ‘I’m frightfully sorry.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Carole. It’s been a while.’

  Jude observed that Binnie didn’t wear a wedding ring.

  ‘No, I took it off after he died. To my mind a marriage involves two people. Take one away, it’s no longer a marriage. Also, wearing a wedding ring can inhibit other possibilities in one’s life. I didn’t want to announce to the world that I was hors de combat so far as sex was concerned.’

  ‘And did the plan work?’ asked Jude, with the smallest twinkle in her eye.

  Binnie’s eyes twinkled back as she said, ‘I had my moments. Not love, obviously. My husband was the only one I was ever going to love, but … I had my moments.’ She looked puzzled for a moment. ‘How did we get on to that?’

  ‘I was asking about the view from the back of your house.’

  ‘Oh yes, that’s right, Carole. Yes, I love it. My bedroom faces out the back. I don’t sleep too well these days and I like nothing better than looking out over the night-time sea, watching the lights of the ships as they cross to and fro. Making up stories for them, where they’ve come from, where they’re going to, that kind of thing. And of course in the daytime I enjoy watching the little boats too. I know who a lot of them belong to, you know, from my time at the Fethering Yacht Club. There are some very good sailors round here. Some very bad ones too. Weekenders from London who buy the biggest boats they can to show how much money they’ve got while they haven’t got the first idea of how to actually sail the things. Quite funny sometimes. From my bedroom I see them leaving the yacht club moorings and then getting swept out by the current of the Fether. Haven’t a clue what they’re doing. More often than not, their first few trips end up with calls to the coastguard for someone to come out and tow them back in. Then they don’t come down to the Fethering Yacht Club so often. Take up golf at Goodwood instead, perhaps. You’d be surprised how many of those big boats moored at the Fethering Yacht Club don’t get taken out to sea from one year’s end to the next. Their owners are actually afraid to use them.’

  ‘I was just thinking,’ said Jude, ‘back to October the third, you know, the Saturday when you served Amos Green in Polly’s Cake Shop …?’

  ‘Yes, I wondered when you were going to get on to that.’

  ‘Well, I was wondering, that evening after work, when you came back here, did you watch the sea out of your bedroom window?’

  ‘Course I did. I do that every night. Much more interesting than anything I’ve ever seen on the telly. That’s why I don’t have a telly.’

  ‘But you can only see during daylight?’ asked Carole. ‘Presumably once it gets dark, you can’t see anything other than the lights?’

  ‘You can see most of what goes on inshore and, you know, round the estuary. There’s quite a lot of light spillage from the streetlamps along the Parade. They don’t get turned off until eleven.’

  ‘But that particular evening,’ Jude went on, ‘did you see anything strange?’

  ‘What kind of strange?’

  ‘Anyone out there in a small boat …’ Jude hazarded, ‘you know, a dinghy, probably rowing it?’

  Binnie grinned complacently. ‘Yes, I did see someone.’

  ‘Do you know who it was?’

  She shook her head. ‘Too dark to see that.’

  ‘Or how many people were in the boat?’

  Another shake of the head.

  ‘But did you recognize the actual boat?’

  ‘Oh yes. I know who owns all the boats in Fethering.’

  Jude couldn’t wait. ‘And was it,’ she asked, ‘the blue-painted rowing boat that belongs to Quintus Braithwaite?’

  ‘Oh no,’ replied Binnie. ‘It came from much closer than that.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It was an inflatable. A silver rubber dinghy. The one Kent Warboys keeps at the end of his garden.’

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Both Carole and Jude looked flabbergasted. ‘So what do you reckon they were doing in the boat?’ asked Jude breathlessly.

  ‘Well, as I say, I couldn’t see.’ Binnie Swales was clearly enjoying her moment in the spotlight. ‘But, piecing it together, working from the available information …’ Was she actually sending up their roles as amateur sleuths? ‘… one might conclude that the boat was being used to dispose of the body of Amos Green.’

  ‘Why do you say that? How do you know he was dead?’

  ‘You two found his dead body on the beach, didn’t you? He was certainly dead then.’

  ‘Yes, but that was about three weeks later. How did you know he was dead on the evening of the third of October?’

  ‘Well, I’d seen him dead, hadn’t I?’

  ‘You mean you saw him being killed?’

  ‘No, Carole, I didn’t say that, did I? Listen to what I say. I said I saw him dead.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Which means just that. I saw him dead.’

  ‘Earlier that evening?’ asked Jude.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you see him in the store room at Polly’s?’

  Binnie nodded. ‘It was after closing time. I’d said goodbye to Sara, who was the only other member of staff still there. Hammo and the rest had gone home. Then Sara went to take some rubbish out to the recycling bins at the back and I suddenly remembered we were nearly out of doilies for the cake stands. So I thought I’d just check we’d got some in the store room and, if we hadn’t, I’d write them down on the “To Buy” list in the kitchen.

  ‘So I went into the store room.’ She was silent, pacing her narrative.

  ‘And?’ demanded Carole.

  ‘And I saw the body of the man who I’d served with an Americano that afternoon.’

  ‘He was dead?’

  ‘Defin
itely. There was a hole in his temple. Very little blood.’

  ‘Any sign of a gun?’ asked Jude.

  ‘One on the window sill. And no, there was no way he could have shot himself there and then fallen across the room. He was too far away from the gun. Someone else shot him, that’s for definite.’

  There was a long, bewildered silence at the end of this narrative.

  Then Carole said, ‘Binnie, have you told anyone else about what you saw?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Nobody asked.’

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  They didn’t get much more out of Binnie. Not that she was unwilling to speak, she just didn’t have much more to tell them. She had seen the body in the store room, closed the door and gone home. She had never even contemplated informing the police. ‘I thought somebody else’d find the body soon enough, no point in me getting myself involved. And I do remember from the days when I used to watch crime series on the telly that the person who discovers the body is always the first suspect, and I could do without all that hassle of questioning and what-have-you.’

  ‘But didn’t you find it odd,’ Carole had asked, ‘when there was nothing in the media about the body being found in Polly’s?’

  Binnie had shrugged. ‘Yes. But it wasn’t my business.’

  ‘And thinking of who might have killed Amos Green – did you reckon that was your business?’

  ‘Some things it’s best not to get involved in.’

  ‘So …’ Jude had asked, ‘you really haven’t any suspicions at all as to who might be the murderer?’

  ‘Not really, no.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Just that the last thing the dead man did, you know, when I gave him the bill for his coffee, was to ask if Josie Achter was around.’

  ‘And you told him that she was in Brighton for the day.’

  ‘Yes, because that’s what I’d been told. But presumably she came back from Brighton at some stage.’

  In a way they had both known that there would come a moment when the investigation was bound to point towards Josie Achter. Like roads and Rome, everything seemed to lead back to her.

  They had no contact number. She was still either in her hotel in Hove or, if the sale had gone through, in her new flat. Carole and Jude had no idea what either of those addresses were. And Rosalie had very firmly told Jude that her mother didn’t want her new mobile number given out.

  They racked their brains for ways to get in touch with her. Since Josie had mentioned being a part of the Jewish community in Hove, Carole wondered whether they should try contacting the synagogue there. Surely they’d have contact lists for their congregation?

  Then Jude remembered something that had been said at the EGM when Kent Warboys announced that he was the owner of Polly’s Cake Shop.

  ‘What, you think he’d have a number for Josie Achter?’

  ‘I should think he probably would.’

  ‘Well, we’re going to have to contact him at some point.’ Carole grimaced. ‘To ask him about the use of his rubber dinghy on the night Amos Green’s body disappeared.’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t want to do that yet. Not until we’ve got more information about that evening.’

  ‘Very well, but why are you—’

  ‘At that EGM, Kent said the SPCS Action Committee Treasurer had sat in on a couple of his meetings with Josie Achter.’

  ‘And you’re thinking he might have a mobile number for her?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Jude had been right. When she rang Alec Walters he was quite happy to give her the number.

  ‘Shall I ring her straight away?’ asked Jude, uncharacte‌ristically vacillating.

  ‘Yes, definitely.’

  There was no reply and no means of leaving a message.

  ‘Maybe it’s because it’s the Sabbath,’ said Carole. ‘Try again in the morning.’

  On the Sunday morning the phone was answered. When Jude identified herself, it was clear that Josie Achter had not been to charm school since their last encounter. ‘I have nothing to say to you,’ she said.

  ‘I’m ringing in connection with the death of Amos Green.’

  That did get a response – or at least stopped Josie from switching her phone off. ‘What do you know about his death?’

  ‘A friend and I have been doing some investigation.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because we’re intrigued by what happened. We don’t think Amos Green committed suicide. We think he was murdered.’

  ‘We’d better talk,’ said Josie Achter.

  She was still living in the hotel – she hadn’t quite completed on her new flat – but she didn’t want to talk in the lounge there or a place like a pub or café. Though the day before’s rain had continued unremittingly, she led them down to an empty shelter on the sea front.

  ‘So what’s all this about?’ she asked. She came across to Carole and Jude as both tentative and probing. She wasn’t about to give them any information until she knew how much they knew.

  ‘We have discovered,’ said Jude, ‘that the day he died, Amos Green was in Fethering.’

  ‘So what’s that to do with me?’

  ‘He came into Polly’s that afternoon looking for you.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Binnie told us. She served him.’

  ‘Right. You say “the day he died”. When his body was washed up on Fethering Beach he had already been dead for some time. How do you know when he died?’

  ‘His body was seen in the store room at Polly’s late that afternoon. The third of October. There was a gun in the room as well, but too far away for him to have used it on himself.’

  ‘Did either of you see the body?’ Josie was still assessing the extent of their knowledge.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then who did see it?’

  ‘Sara Courtney told me she’d seen the body in the store room,’ said Jude.

  ‘But Binnie had seen it before she did,’ said Carole.

  ‘Hm.’ The wind lashed against the thick glass of the shelter, wetting their shoes. It was bitterly cold.

  ‘So,’ Jude pressed on, ‘you can’t deny that there was some connection between you and Amos Green.’

  ‘I’m not denying it. So has your assiduous amateur sleuthing worked out what that connection was?’

  ‘We talked to your ex-husband yesterday,’ said Carole.

  ‘God, you have been thorough.’

  ‘He said that your marriage broke up because you’d met someone else.’

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘Or rather, re-met someone else.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what happened.’

  ‘And we know when and where you re-met him,’ said Jude.

  ‘Remind me.’ Josie Achter still retained her carapace of cynicism, but she was clearly shaken by the amount of information they were producing.

  ‘About twelve years ago. At Fethering Yacht Club. At a party to celebrate Becky Granger’s fiftieth birthday.’

  Her face registered that that was a big shock. ‘How on earth do you know this stuff?’

  ‘Hudson was very helpful to us.’

  ‘Yes, he bloody would be.’

  ‘But things didn’t quite work out, did they?’ Carole observed. ‘You got divorced because you’d re-met a former lover, but in the event the two of you didn’t end up together. Had the idea been that he would get divorced too?’

  ‘We’d talked about it.’

  ‘But it seems he didn’t keep his side of the bargain, did he? He went back to his wife … assuming his wife ever even knew that he had cheated on her.’

  ‘His wife knew he had affairs,’ said Josie in a matter-of-fact tone.

  ‘Wasn’t it difficult for you,’ asked Carole, ‘having them living so close to you?’

  ‘Close?’

  ‘You at Polly’s Cake Shop, Quintus and Phoebe Braithwaite in the Shorelands Estate.’


  Josie Achter looked at Carole in amazement, then burst into harsh laughter. ‘You think the love of my life was Quintus Braithwaite? I’m not sure whether that’s more funny or insulting. You imagine that I could even bear to touch that pompous oaf?’

  ‘Well, apparently you were all over each other at Becky Granger’s fiftieth.’

  ‘That is just a measure of how effective my little plan was. I wanted people to talk about how Quintus and I behaved that night at the yacht club, but it never occurred to me they’d still be talking about it twelve years on.’

  ‘What you’re saying,’ suggested Jude, ‘is that dancing with Quintus all evening was just a smokescreen?’

  ‘Exactly that. I loathe him – always have. But that evening I knew the ghastly Phoebe was out of the country. I also knew that he’d respond if I came on to him – he always had been a bit of a groper. What’s more, he’d been at the booze all evening. It wasn’t difficult.’

  ‘And you needed the smokescreen,’ said Jude with sudden insight, ‘because Amos Green was also at the party and you didn’t want people to suspect there was anything between you and him?’

  ‘That was it,’ Josie admitted. ‘I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw Amos in the yacht club. He was having a thing with a friend of Becky’s, not that that lasted once we were back together again. My feelings for him were as strong as ever. And he said he felt the same. And from that moment, I knew I couldn’t continue the masquerade of my marriage to Hudson. I had to be with Amos; that was all there was to it.’

  ‘Except of course he wasn’t good “husband material”, was he?’ said Jude, quoting Janice Green.

  ‘No. Mind you, I’m still glad I divorced Hudson. That wasn’t going anywhere. Never had been.’

  ‘But you must have been aware of the effect that divorce was going to have on Rosalie.’

  ‘Not really. She was entering adolescence, not the best time of a girl’s life. I don’t know that our getting divorced made that much worse for her than it would have been anyway.’ She spread her hands wide in a gesture of helplessness. ‘You can’t make an omelette without …’

  Jude recoiled from the callousness in the woman’s voice. Carole asked, ‘So you and Amos Green never cohabited?’