The Fethering Mysteries 11; The Shooting in the Shop

by Simon Brett

  “It sounds as if you don’t mind them getting that impression.”

  “Well,” he said, rubbing a scaly hand through his white whiskers, “never does any harm to have a bit of mystique, does it?”

  “What did you do,” asked Carole boldly, “before you started on your current way of life?”

  “What makes you think I haven’t always done this?”

  “Something in your manner.”

  “Ah, but what?”

  “That I can’t currently say.”

  The man turned an intense gaze on her. Through the layers of wrinkles around them, his eyes were a pale blue, not unlike her own. He seemed to be assessing whether or not to give her the information she had asked for. After a moment, Old Garge decided in Carole’s favour.

  “I used to be an actor,” he said. “In the view of many people, I might still be an actor.”

  “Playing the part of Old Garge?”

  “Exactly. How very perceptive of you. A role which suits me, possibly the most comfortable piece of casting I’ve ever encountered. Old Garge fits me like a glove.” He gave her another piercing look. “Do you have anything to do with ‘the business’?”

  Carole felt very proud that she recognized the expression from conversations with Gaby. “My daughter-in-law is a theatrical agent. Well, that is, she was, until she had her baby. I dare say she’ll go back to it soon.” And yet Carole couldn’t really see that happening in the near future. Gaby seemed so happy and fulfilled with Lily that more babies and full-time motherhood might well keep her away from the agency for quite a while. To her surprise, Carole found the prospect appealing.

  “So when,” she went on, “did you give up acting?”

  “I thought we’d just established that I haven’t given it up.”

  “When did you give up being paid for acting?”

  “A better question, but one which I fear I find rather difficult to answer. It’s not so much that I gave up acting as that acting gave up me. Calls from my agent dwindled, reflecting a comparable dwindling in enquiries for my professional services. Then I received the news that my agent had died, and I was faced with the question of whether I should endeavour to get a replacement or not. I fairly quickly decided there wasn’t much point. So I moved out of London and down here, to an area which I have known and loved since my childhood. That would be…some three years ago…probably more. I’ve reached the age where, in discussions of the past, I have to double the number I first thought of. And it may have been some years before that when I last had a professional booking. I still receive occasional, minuscule repeat fees for long-dead television series being sold to Mongolian cable networks, but the last occasion when I received a fee for a current project is lost in the mists of time.”

  “Presumably you didn’t act under the name of ‘Old Garge’?”

  “No, that would have been a trifle fanciful, wouldn’t it? Going way beyond the demands of having a mystique.” He rose from his seat, reached up to exactly the right spot in his shelves, and pulled down a fat book jacketed in two shades of green. “Spotlight,” he announced. “The actors’ directory. This volume dates from 1974, which is perhaps the nearest my career experienced to a ‘heyday’.”

  From much usage, the book opened immediately at a page revealing the photographs and agent details of four actors. “I graced the ‘Leading Man’ section in those days. Later I was downgraded to ‘Character’.”

  He held the book across to Carole. In spite of the changes wrought by time, she had no difficulty in identifying the right actor. With dark hair and eyebrows, a long, rather delicate face, Old Garge was still recognizable. Very good-looking in a dated, matinee idol way. The name beneath the photograph was ‘Rupert Sonning’.

  Its owner looked fondly at the image. “Yes, me just about ‘on the turn’, I would say. Even then the photograph was a good seven years younger than I was. By that time the waist had thickened, the face spread, the veins in the nose become more visible. No longer in the market for romantic leads, moving towards seedy aristocrats, venal politicians and child molesters.” The thought seemed to cause him pain.

  Remembering what she had thought after seeing Flora Le Bonnier in Her Wicked Heart, Carole couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Is it as depressing for a man to lose his looks as it is a woman?”

  Old Garge – or Rupert Sonning – burst into laughter. “Full marks for tact, Carole. I know you used to be a civil servant, I think I can now rule out the possibility that you worked in the Diplomatic Service.”

  “I’m sorry.” She was flustered both by her social gaffe and also again by his detailed knowledge of her life story.

  “Don’t worry, I’ve always favoured the direct approach myself. And the answer to your question is probably yes. In my young days my face was – literally – my fortune. ‘You want a handsome young devil – call for Rupert Sonning!’ Oh yes, I was put through the Rank Charm School, learned how to deal with the press, not to tell them anything except the stories the publicity department had dreamed up for me. Then I did a few of those Gainsborough costume dramas, had a very nice time, thank you very much. And, looking like I did, I was also rather successful as a ladies’ man.” He chuckled, but there was sadness in the expression with which he looked again at his Spotlight photograph. “Still, those times are gone, and I suppose life now has other compensations. Though, inevitably…lesser compensations…”

  There was a silence, then Carole asked, “In your acting career, did your path ever cross with that of Flora Le Bonnier?”

  He grinned. “Ah, the lovely Flora. Lady Muck herself. Oh yes, our paths crossed. And how.” He chuckled at some fond reminiscence.

  “Have you seen her recently?”

  A hint of caution came into his pale blue eyes. “Why should I have done?”

  “She spent Christmas not far away from here. Near Fedborough. With her son and family.”

  “Ah, did she?”

  Carole couldn’t tell if this was news to him, but she rather thought it wasn’t. For the first time in their conversation Old Garge had become cagey. But, she reasoned, there was no way he couldn’t know the Le Bonnier connection with Fethering. If he could summon up so many details of her own life – even embarrassing ones about how she’d spent recent Christmases – he must have been aware of Gallimaufry’s opening and of Lola’s connection to Flora Le Bonnier.

  “I think you know she did,” said Carole firmly.

  The actor spread his hands wide to indicate the end of his small subterfuge. “Yes, all right, I knew that.”

  “So have you seen Flora recently? In the last few days?”

  “You’re very persistent, Carole, aren’t you?”

  “I can be.”

  “Hm.” He thought about this. “I don’t think I ever had that quality. Of being persistent. Something lacking in my genetic make-up. Perhaps, had I been more persistent, I might have sustained a more enduring career as an actor.” He shrugged. “Still, one cannot change one’s nature, can one?”

  “One can try.”

  He considered this assertion, then asked, “Have you tried, Carole? Have you tried to change your nature?”

  “At times, yes.”

  “Didn’t work, did it?”

  Carole would have liked to challenge that, but came to the rueful realization that he was probably right. Time to move back into investigative mode. “Old Garge…I feel a fool calling you Old Garge. As if I’m in some third-rate stage play.”

  “But you are.” The old man gestured around the hut. “Look, we’re on the set of a third-rate stage play.”

  “Well, I’d rather call you Rupert, if that’s all right with you?”

  He inclined his head graciously. “I would be honoured.”

  “Rupert, you still haven’t answered my question about whether you’ve seen Flora Le Bonnier recently.”

  “True, I haven’t.” He was silent for a moment, teasing her. “But I will answer it now. No. It’s years since I
’ve seen Flora.”

  “Though at one stage you did see quite a lot of her?”

  “We worked together on a few films, just after the war, in the late forties.”

  “But was your relationship…”

  He grinned, as he repeated firmly, “We worked together on a few films, just after the war, in the late forties. Inevitably, we saw a lot of each other.”

  It was the practised ‘We are just good friends’ answer from someone who knew a bit about talking to the press. He did, however, manage to incorporate into it the practised cheeky implication that they might have been more than good friends. Carole recognized she wasn’t going to get anything else out of him on the subject, so she changed tack. “Do you know that Ruby Tallis describes you as ‘the eyes and ears of Fethering Beach’?”

  “I wasn’t actually aware of that, but it doesn’t surprise me.”

  “Well, having talked to you, I’d say it was a pretty accurate description.” He nodded acknowledgement of the compliment. “So I would have thought you know more than anyone else about what happened the night Gallimaufry burnt down.”

  “‘More than anyone else’? I don’t think you can be taking account of the sterling efforts of the official investigators into the incident, the British police. For the sake of our country’s security, I would like to believe that they know more about what happened than I do.”

  “Yes, maybe, but…Just a minute, have the police actually questioned you?”

  “We did have a brief conversation. Up in my room in Downside.”

  “Why not here?”

  “As I may have indicated, my presence here may not conform to every last detail of certain regulations. I wouldn’t wish to add the constabulary’s not inconsiderable workload by forcing them to investigate my circumstances. So I thought it would save trouble all round were I to tell them I had spent very little time here over the Christmas period.”

  “So you said you weren’t here the night Gallimaufry burnt down?”

  “That was exactly what I told them, yes. They had no reason to disbelieve me.”

  “Whereas, in actual fact, you were here?”

  “You’re a woman of very acute perception, Carole.”

  She knew she was being sent up, but was too excited to let it worry her. “Why did you lie to the police?”

  Her question seemed to pain him. “It has been my experience that it is always wise to minimize one’s contact with them.”

  Had she been less preoccupied by the details of Gallimaufry’s incineration, Carole might have enquired into the reasons behind his reply, but instead, breathlessly, she asked, “Did you see anything that night, Rupert?”

  He gestured once again towards the window, through which the blackened ruins of Gallimaufry were clearly visible. “Hard to miss a major conflagration at this distance.”

  “So what did you see?”

  He was silent and looked at her. The shrewdness in his eyes was so penetrating she once again had to turn away. “Why should I tell you, Carole?”

  “You must have told other people. Surely it’s impossible to talk to any of the Fethering Beach Dog-walking Mafia without the subject coming up?”

  “The subject certainly comes up and I’m certainly prepared to listened to other people’s theories about it – mostly the theories of Derek Tallis, it has to be said – but I haven’t as yet contributed much of my own to the debate.”

  “But there must have been things you saw that night.”

  “I’m not denying it. All I’m saying is that I’m very selective about who I’m prepared to share that information with.” Their eyes locked. Yet again it was Carole who looked away first.

  “Why are you so selective?” she asked meekly.

  “Because the stakes are quite high, aren’t they? When there might be a murder involved. I mean, say I have information that could send someone down for life?”

  Carole couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Have you?”

  “Let’s keep our discussion in the world of hypothesis for the moment, shall we? But say I did have such information. Whether I share it or not raises rather a substantial moral dilemma.”

  “There’s really no dilemma. Relevant information should be passed on to the investigating authorities,” said Carole with the pious rectitude of someone who’d spent all her working life in the Home Office.

  “No, I’m sorry, I don’t hold with moral absolutes like that. The question I ask myself is: ‘Who’s likely to be harmed by my passing on this information?’ Is it someone who I think deserves to suffer, or is it someone for whom I feel sympathy?”

  “You mean someone who you feel you should protect?”

  “Yes, Carole, exactly. That is the question that is currently exercising my mind – and my conscience, and – ”

  “But if you actually saw – ”

  “And”, he continued firmly, “I haven’t yet decided whether my instinct to protect someone is stronger than the call of my civic duty.”

  “But can’t you at least tell me who you’re feeling the instinct to protect?”

  “Oh, Carole…” He shook his head pityingly. “You’ll have to do better than that. Were I to tell you the name of the person who might need protection, you’d know almost the whole story, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes, but a young woman has died here and everyone has a moral duty to – ”

  Her appeal was interrupted by a brisk rapping on the hut door. As they looked towards it, Piers Duncton entered, the habitual cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. He reacted with a narrowing of the eyes to Carole’s presence, but his words were for the benefit of Old Garge – or maybe Rupert Sonning.

  “I’ve just come from Lola’s,” he said. “The police are on their way to interview you.”

  ∨ The Shooting in the Shop ∧

  Twenty-Five

  As she drove to the vet’s, Carole tried to find explanations for what had happened at the beach hut after Piers’s arrival. She had been unceremoniously sent on her way, and, when she left, the young man was also chivvying Old Garge to gather up his belongings and leave. The actor raised no objections, evidently as keen as Piers was that he should get out of the place. Presumably the reason for his departure was to avoid further interrogation from the police. And he had dropped that clue about trying to minimize his contact with the constabulary – was that because he’d had uncomfortable experiences with them in the past? Everything that had happened in Pequod again raised the intriguing questions of how much Old Garge knew and whom he was trying to protect. Carole, having come so close to hearing the actor’s account of Gallimaufry’s burning-down, felt acutely frustrated at being denied her breakthrough on the case.

  She didn’t see Saira Sherjan at the vet’s. Gulliver was brought out by one of the green-clad nurses while Carole paid the receptionist the usual eye-watering bill. The dog seemed none the worse for his hospitalization, and greeted his mistress with heart-warming enthusiasm. She was advised that he should have no adverse reactions to the surgery, but she should try for a week to keep him from eating dried food and chewing bones or sticks, to give the gum a chance to heal.

  Gulliver seemed very pleased to be back in High Tor and wolfed down the plate of (soft) dog meat that Carole put in front of him. He then sat up, his tail thumping on the floor, with an expectant look which she knew well. The dog was telling her that he hadn’t had a decent walk in the last twenty-four hours, and she had a moral duty to rectify that state of affairs as soon as possible.

  Carole was sorry to disappoint him, but telling Jude about her morning’s encounters was a more pressing priority. So pressing that she even went round to Woodside Cottage without ringing first to say she was coming.

  ♦

  Jude tapped her chin thoughtfully. “I wonder…”

  “What?”

  “Well, it’s fanciful…and it would probably be too neat to have happened in real life…but wouldn’t it be great if we found out that Rupert Sonning
was Ricky Le Bonnier’s father?”

  “He admitted that he and Flora had worked together,” said Carole cautiously.

  “Yes, though as we well know, women don’t have babies by all the men they work with. Even in the theatre, where a certain laxity of moral standards has always been the norm. But the timing could be about right.” And Jude told Carole about the relevant movie history she had read in One Classy Lady. “You say Old Garge mentioned being in some Gainsborough costume movies after the war. Late nineteen-forties – that’d be about the time Ricky was born. Hm…Pity you didn’t ask whether he and Flora had ever been an item.”

  “I virtually did, though not at the time realizing quite how important the question might be. I wasn’t contemplating the possibility that he might be Ricky’s father. Anyway, the only answer I got from him on the subject was a diplomatic one, which admitted nothing.”

  “Oh, it’d probably be too much of a coincidence.” Jude sounded almost dispirited. “But it all comes back to Fethering, somehow. Ricky was brought up around here by an aunt. He went to school here, which is where he met Kath. And now he comes back to live near here. Then you say Old Garge also has long-term connections with the place. What about Flora? She must have come here sometimes to visit Ricky as a child. And if the aunt who looked after him was her sister…”

  “Have we any means of checking up on this aunt, Jude? Whether she’s still alive, even?”

  “Well, I doubt if we’d get anything out of Flora. The person who definitely would know is Ricky himself. But he’s in London. I heard that when I was over at Fedingham Court House yesterday. Not back till tomorrow. I suppose that Lola might know, but…” She snapped her fingers. “Oh, just a minute, of course! Kath! She would have known about his aunt.”

  Jude rang through to Ayland’s. Again it was Kath who answered the phone, and again she seemed unsurprised by being questioned about Ricky. She remembered instantly. “His Auntie Vi. That’s what she was called – Auntie Vi.”