The Fethering Mysteries 11; The Shooting in the Shop

by Simon Brett

  This did finally have an effect. Anna Carter looked up from the tissue in which she had been hiding her face and said, “Oh, so that’s it, is it? I’m now a suspect in some game of murder investigation you’re playing?”

  “You can’t blame us for being intrigued,” said Jude.

  “I suppose not,” Anna said bitterly. “Nobody has any secrets anymore, do they? Everyone’s common property. All right, I’ll tell you what happened – if only to stop you from adding more lies and insinuations to the Fethering grapevine. I told you about when my affair with Ricky started, Carole, and I’m sure you passed it all on to Jude, didn’t you? And yes, as Old Garge overheard, that Sunday before Christmas Ricky did talk about breaking it off. It was just as we were leaving Gallimaufry. Normally, we’d leave separately to avoid being seen together. That night, just as I’d gone out of the back door, Ricky came after me and we had the conversation Old Garge described to you. I was pretty furious, nearly hysterical, which was why Ricky suggested we talked in the car. I think he was worried about someone hearing the commotion. That was why I was in the Mercedes with him that evening. We never had been at any other time. Anyway, we sat in the car and talked and it seemed to be OK. We kind of realized how much we did mean to each other. Ricky said he’d ring me over the Christmas period, but he never…” Her lower lip wobbled.

  “Had he talked about leaving you before?” Jude used the soft voice of a therapist.

  “No. Well, only in the way lovers do. He’d say, ‘You know, we shouldn’t be doing this’, but that was more as a come-on than an expression of guilt. It added to the excitement of the times when we were together.”

  “And was there anything different about him that Sunday evening? Was he particularly tense or nervous?”

  “Yes, he was. He tried to hide it – Ricky never liked showing any weakness – but I could tell he was strung up. And it seemed worse after he had the phone call.”

  “Phone call?” Carole repeated, instantly alert. “Did he have his mobile with him?”

  “No, he’d forgotten it, left it at home. The call came through on the landline at Gallimaufry. There was a handset in the flat, not in the bedroom, in one of the other rooms. When it rang, I told him to leave it, that it would just be some customer checking our opening hours running up to Christmas or something like that, but he insisted on answering.”

  “Did you hear what he said?”

  “No. He was in the other room.”

  “Did he say who it was on the phone?”

  “No, but I would assume it was Lola. Who can’t have been over the moon to find him answering the phone in the shop at that time, anyway. The call unsettled him, though, really put him off his stroke. Straight afterwards he said we should get dressed and get out. And I’m sure it was the phone call that made him suggest we should split up.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, if Lola had tracked him down to Gallimaufry on a Sunday evening, she must have been suspicious of something, mustn’t she? Why else would she have rung the shop?”

  “Maybe. And then yesterday…” Jude prompted. “Tell us what happened yesterday.”

  “All right. I hadn’t heard from him since that Sunday, and I was feeling pretty low about it and thinking that he really had dumped me, but hadn’t got the guts to tell me so. And I thought I could see him at their New Year’s Eve party, but when the time came, I hadn’t the nerve to go. Then I had a call from him early yesterday afternoon. He said he wanted to meet. I felt so happy that I…”

  The realization of her changed circumstances threatened to overwhelm her again, but she bit her lip and struggled on, her voice taut with the effort of will. “He said we’d meet down by the Fethering Yacht Club, where he usually parked the car, where we’d been when I last saw him. I got there at the time he’d said. The car’s engine was switched off, but the headlights were on. I looked inside. Ricky was dead.”

  “And you didn’t see anyone else around?” asked Carole, trying to work out the sequence of people discovering the body, whether Kath had been there before Anna.

  “No.”

  “So what did you do then?”

  “I came straight back here. I started crying, which is more or less what I’ve been doing ever since.”

  “You didn’t think of reporting the death to the police?”

  “No!” replied Anna with a sudden, blazing bitterness. “His dead body’s nothing to do with me. That’s something for his bloody family to sort out!”

  She seemed exhausted by her narrative. There was a long, long silence. The landlady, who couldn’t have failed to hear Anna’s recent outburst from anywhere in the house, must have wondered what was happening.

  It was Jude who finally broke the silence. Her voice was softer and more soothing than ever. “Anna, did Ricky say why he wanted to see you yesterday? Did he say that he wanted your affair to continue?”

  “Not in so many words. But what he said implied that we would have a future together, that we would go on seeing each other. He said I was one of the few people he could trust, and he wanted me to look after something for him.”

  “Did he tell you what it was?”

  “He said it was a flash drive…you know, one of those memory sticks. He said it was very precious to him, and he didn’t want to leave it lying around at home because he didn’t feel his home was secure.”

  Jude had the passing thought that her finding Polly’s mobile might have something to do with his risk assessment.

  “Did you get the flash drive?” asked Carole, trying without great success to hide her urgency.

  “How could I have done?”

  “It was probably on his key-ring, or in his pocket.”

  “Look, I’d just come across the dead body of the man I loved, possibly the only man I really loved. I wasn’t about to start riffling through his pockets.”

  “No, of course not,” said Carole, properly abashed for her insensitivity.

  Jude asked the important question. “Do you know what was on the flash drive, Anna?”

  “Ricky said it was a copy of a book that his stepdaughter Polly had written.”

  ∨ The Shooting in the Shop ∧

  Thirty-Eight

  “The agent,” said Jude, as soon as they got back into the Renault. “We’ve got to get in touch with the agent who read Polly’s book.”

  “The one who’d been at Cambridge with Lola and Piers?”

  “That’s right. Serena Somebodyorother, if my memory serves me right.”

  “I suppose we could try to contact Piers. If he’s still at Fedingham Court House.”

  “We don’t need to do that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m pretty sure I’ll have Serena’s number at Woodside Cottage.”

  “Oh?” said Carole.

  “Because that’s where Polly’s mobile is.”

  “Ah,” said Carole.

  ♦

  Sure enough, in the Contacts list on dead girl’s phone, there was an entry for ‘Serena’. On the assumption that the name was unusual and this must be Serena Fincham, Jude rang the number straight away. As soon as she said she was calling about Polly Le Bonnier, the rather Sloaney voice at the other end became very concerned.

  “That was terrible. I only got the news from a chum a couple of days ago. I’d been away skiing over Christmas. What a disaster – poor Polly. Do you know anything about exactly what happened?”

  “I know quite a bit, and I’m trying to work out the rest. I wonder, would it be possible for us to meet?”

  “Sure. When?”

  “Sooner the better. Is tomorrow possible for you?”

  “No, I’m staying with my parents in Gloucestershire. Back to work on Monday, though. Could do after work, sixish. My office is in Earls Court.”

  “Would it be possible to make it a bit earlier?”

  “Not sure. There’s bound to be a log-jam of manuscripts. Aspiring writers don’t seem to observe public holidays.” />
  “It is rather urgent.”

  “Oh. Well, I suppose I could nip out for a coffee sometime in the morning. Since it’s about Polly. I mean, I really am devastated.”

  They fixed to meet in a coffee shop near Serena’s office at eleven o’clock on the Monday morning. Anticipating the reaction when she relayed this to Carole, Jude said, “And you’ll be there too.”

  ♦

  She was on her own in Woodside Cottage at about half past nine on the Sunday evening when the phone rang. It was a very weary-sounding Lola.

  “How’re you holding up?”

  “Pretty grim. But it helps having to do stuff with the children. Though I’m still no nearer breaking the news to Mabel. I fobbed her off this evening with something about Daddy being away, which has been the case often enough so she didn’t suspect anything. But there’s only so long I can keep doing that.”

  “You’ll find a way to tell her.”

  Lola sighed deeply. “I’m sure I will, though I can’t for the life of me imagine what it’ll be.”

  “Is Piers still with you?”

  “Yes, and getting to be a bloody nuisance. Emoting all over the place. It’s quite honestly the last thing I need at the moment.”

  “He’s a sensitive soul.”

  “Huh. Is that what you call it? A self-appointed ‘sensitive soul’. His only real concern is his own emotions, he never considers anyone else’s. Anyway, Jude, reason I rang…”

  “Yes?”

  “I just wanted to say thank you for being such a support over the last few days. I don’t know how I’m going to get through what lies ahead, but at least I’ve got friends like you to help me through.”

  “Of course you have,” said Jude. “If there’s anything I can do, just ask.”

  And she felt very guilty that Lola Le Bonnier was still on her list of suspects.

  ∨ The Shooting in the Shop ∧

  Thirty-Nine

  They’d travelled up from Fethering to Victoria on the first cheap train, and were in Earls Court well before eleven. From the wide array offered by the coffee shop, Carole asked frostily for ‘an ordinary black, please’. Jude opted for a cappuccino, and also had a sticky pain aux raisins. Serena Fincham was late. It was after twenty past eleven and they were beginning to think she might have ducked the encounter when a red-haired girl in her thirties came rushing in through the door, clutching a battered leather briefcase overflowing with papers. She identified the only two women sitting together and came bustling across to them.

  “So sorry. All hell breaking loose at the office. Now which one of you is Jude?”

  Introductions sorted and a ‘tall skinny latte’ ordered, Serena Fincham sat down at their table. She was glowing with health from her skiing. The sun had brought out the freckles on her nose, and her brown skin made the other customers in the coffee shop look pale and wintry. “I’m still reeling from the news about Polly,” she said. “Are you two relatives of hers?”

  “No,” Jude replied. “Just people who want to find out how she died.”

  “Yes, well, it seems to get ghastlier the more details I find out. Shot dead before the shop was burnt down around her – horrible.”

  “How did you find out about it?”

  “Oh, the Cambridge Mafia. I deliberately refrained from checking any emails while I was in Davos, because I knew they’d just be from needy paranoid authors, so I didn’t get the news till Saturday.”

  “You haven’t spoken to Lola, have you?”

  “No, I thought she’d have enough on her plate with her stepdaughter having been killed. Her husband must be devastated.”

  Ah, so it seemed Serena hadn’t heard about Ricky’s death. Probably nothing to be gained by telling her unless she asked after him.

  “What about Piers? Have you spoken to him?”

  “Texted him. Said how devastated I was. How ghastly it must be for him. I mean, whatever he may have thought about Polly, they had been together for, I don’t know, twelve years, something like that.”

  “You say ‘whatever he may have thought of Polly’. What do you mean?” asked Carole.

  “Well, I gather from mutual chums that things haven’t been too good between them recently. And Piers always treated her a bit as though she was second best. I mean, when we were doing Footlights revues and things, Polly was always the hanger-on, the outsider, you know, not at Cambridge, not part of the group. But maybe Piers’d treat any woman he was going out with like that.”

  “Oh?”

  “Not lacking in self-esteem, our Piers. Biggest ego on the planet. The only thing he really cares about is his writing, his bloody career, and now with this sitcom of his apparently going into production, all his ambitions are going to be realized.”

  “The real reason why we arranged to meet you, Serena,” said Carole, “is that we wanted to find out more about this book Polly had written. She was talking to me about it when I met her the afternoon before she died.”

  “Oh yes, the book.” The agent sighed as this was a subject that had already caused trouble.

  “She did offer it to you to read, didn’t she?”

  “Yes. Happens quite a lot. This terrible myth that ‘everyone’s got a book in them’. And, in most cases, that is precisely where it should stay. But because people know I’m a literary agent, I get lots of manuscripts passed on from second cousins and friends of friends…you know how it is.”

  “So Polly sent her manuscript to you through Piers?”

  “No, she didn’t. Apparently she’d suggested that, but he wasn’t keen. Usual Piers thing – he didn’t want any competition. He was the writer in that set-up, didn’t like the idea of having a girlfriend with literary pretensions – in case she might turn out to be more talented than he was. From what Polly told me, he’d positively tried to stop her contacting me. But she was very determined, and she’d met me enough times back in Cambridge to make a direct approach herself. Which is what she did.”

  “So you read it?”

  “Yes, every word. Which, let me tell you, I don’t do with every manuscript that comes thudding into my in-box. I have a fifty-page rule – which I think is bloody generous of me, actually. A lot of agents don’t even go that far. But with me, I give the author a chance. If he or she has failed to engage my interest in fifty pages, then it’s the standard rejection letter.”

  “So what did you think of Polly’s book?” asked Jude. “We’ve heard mixed reports.”

  “She told me you’d liked it,” said Carole, “but Piers implied you’d only told Polly that out of kindness.”

  “Huh. Bloody typical Piers again.”

  “Oh?”

  “As I said, he really hated the idea of Polly having talent in her own right. OK, she was an actor, he didn’t mind that. At least he didn’t mind it, because she wasn’t a very successful actor. If she’d suddenly become a star, I’m not sure the relationship would have survived. He doesn’t like competition.”

  “According to Piers, the relationship wasn’t going to survive, anyway,” said Jude. “He said he was going to wait till they got through Christmas and then give Polly the old heave-ho.”

  Serena Fincham smiled sardonically. “So typical of Piers. Ever the sensitive soul.” It was significant that she used exactly the same phrase as Lola to describe him.

  “Anyway, please tell us,” Carole demanded impatiently, “what did you think of Lola’s book?”

  “Bloody great,” said Serena. “I’d have taken it on straight away – I know a good few publishers who would snap up something like that – and pay a decent advance for it, even in these benighted times. But Polly wanted to do a bit more tinkering with it, so I told her to get back to me when she’d got a final draft she was happy with.”

  “Which, of course, she never did.”

  “No.”

  “What kind of a book was it?” asked Jude.

  “Well, it was a novel, but one of those novels which is clearly very thinly disguise
d autobiography. About a girl – who wasn’t called Polly, but clearly was Polly. And about the difficulties of her upbringing – feckless father, parents both doing drugs, divorce, mother’s remarriage to another unreliable male, break-up of that relationship, second divorce, mother’s death from an overdose…you know, all the cheery ingredients of normal family life. Had it been nonfiction, I suppose you would have called it a ‘misery memoir’, but it was better than most of those are. Better written, for a start. Polly really did write beautifully.”

  “And do you think, if the book were published, it’d be successful?”

  “Oh yes. Though I say it myself, I do have an instinct for these things – which is why I do the job I do. I’ve represented a few turkeys – haven’t we all – but, generally speaking, I’ve got a good nose for a successful book. And Polly’s fell straight into that category, no question.”

  “Presumably, with a book like that,” Carole began, “thinly disguised autobiography, there’s a potential libel risk, isn’t there? I mean, if people in the book recognize themselves, they could take the author to court?”

  “Yes, but Polly had managed that very skilfully. The characters were changed just enough to get round the libel risk. But, of course, particularly because she comes from quite a famous family, everyone would suspect who the originals were. So, come the publicity circus, Polly would have been asked all those questions: ‘Is the irresponsible stepfather Ricky Le Bonnier? Is the dominant grandmother Flora Le Bonnier? Is the arsehole of a boyfriend Piers Duncton?’ And then, of course, in all the interviews Polly would have hotly denied that was the case, which would only feed more curiosity in the listeners and viewers – and would sell more books.”

  “You used the word ‘arsehole’ for the way Piers came across in the book…”

  Serena quickly picked up Jude’s cue. “Yes, and I was being kind. I think Polly must’ve been saving up her spleen for some years. The Edwin in the book is Piers all over, very funny, lots of surface charm and a cold-blooded eye to the main chance. But at bottom a self-centred bully. If the book ever had been published, I don’t think Polly’s relationship with Piers could possibly have survived.”