by Simon Brett
‘Ah,’ he said with a masculine chuckle. ‘Something for the ladies, anyway.’
‘No. In fact, kinesiology is a highly respected natural health care system.’ What on earth was happening? Carole Seddon defending alternative therapies?
‘I’m sure. Anyway, very grateful to you for organizing it. And will you be at the auction of promises itself, Mrs Seddon?’
Carole hadn’t entirely decided about this, but she thought she probably should be. A hundred and fifty pounds was a huge amount to shell out for what would most likely be an uncongenial evening, but contact with Hopwicke Country House Hotel remained important. And if, as it seemed, Jude was temporarily persona non grata there . . .
‘Yes, I would like to. The trouble is, I don’t know anyone—’
‘Nonsense. You know Brenda. Have a word with her. She’ll see you’re put on our table.’ He decided this was perhaps more than he could promise on his wife’s behalf. ‘Or at least on a table with a nice bunch of people.’
‘I’ll give her a call about it.’
‘Good. Good.’ He looked out at the sea through his office window. ‘Never tire of that view, you know. Lovely, isn’t it? The sea. Never still, always changing.’
This moment of poetry from the solicitor was unexpected, until Carole realized he was just playing for time. Donald Chew was tense. There was something he needed to say to her, and he was having difficulty getting round to it.
She agreed the view was lovely, and waited.
‘You remember last time you were here, Mrs Seddon . . . we discussed the young man who used to work here. Nigel Ackford, you know, who was up at the hotel.’
‘Oh yes,’ Carole recalled, as if she hadn’t heard the name since Donald Chew last mentioned it.
‘There was an announcement of his death in the Fethering Observer.’
‘Really? I haven’t seen it yet.’
‘No mention of the cause of death.’
‘Presumably there’ll be an inquest?’
‘There has been a preliminary one; adjourned until there’s more evidence,’ said the solicitor, confirming what Jude had heard from Inspector Goodchild. ‘Postmortems, that kind of thing I suppose.’
‘Yes.’
Donald Chew sighed wearily. ‘I feel rather bad about it.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, because I was actually at the hotel the night he died. You know, you always have the feeling perhaps there was something you could have done. Probably not true, but . . . And those Pillars of Sussex dinners can get a bit rowdy and I’m afraid too much gets drunk and . . . I don’t know. Always a tendency to feel guilty after someone’s died. I’m sure I’ll get over it.’
Carole felt certain he had not yet unburdened himself of everything he needed to, and sure enough, after a silence, Donald Chew continued, his eyes still fixed on the sea. ‘I suppose I feel guilty because I’d drunk more than I intended that evening. In fact, I’d intended to drink virtually nothing, but . . . the road to hell and all that.’
Carole let him run on. ‘I even went on drinking after we’d left the bar. Bob Hartson offered to share a bottle of whisky with me up in his room, and I’m afraid I succumbed to that temptation too. Must have been up there for an hour, drinking with Bob – and his daughter Kerry. Goodness, for a child of her age, can she put the drink away?’ He chuckled, but still hadn’t finished what he had to say. ‘So, do you know, it was about quarter past three by the time I actually fell into my bed. Bob and I staggered downstairs to say goodnight to Kerry. She had a room in the stable block out the back, staff quarters, same place the chef and Bob’s chauffeur spent the night. And then I tottered off to bed.’
He shook his head; his eyes were full of self-loathing. ‘Dear oh dear. Don’t we ever learn? Why is alcohol so seductive while we’re drinking the stuff, and why does it make us feel so – uncomfortable afterwards.’ He had nearly let out a stronger adjective, but bowdlerized for Carole’s benefit.
From that point the conversation moved away from Nigel Ackford. Donald Chew talked further about the auction of promises. Carole said how much she was looking forward to it. Their meeting ended with great apparent cordiality.
And it left Carole feeling exactly as Jude had felt after her conversation with Max Townley in the Crown and Anchor. Someone was very deliberately orchestrating the alibis of the people present at Hopwicke House on the night Nigel Ackford died.
That afternoon Carole and Jude went for a stroll on Fethering beach. It was such a beautiful day – April coyly demonstrating how lovely an English spring can be – that Gulliver got the bonus of a second walk among the infinitely intriguing smells of seaweed, salt and tar.
‘Rick Hendry’s got to be behind it,’ Jude announced. ‘He’s the only one who benefits from this new scenario that’s been spoon-fed to us. And the alibis he’s set up have nothing to do with the murder. They’re just to cover any time he might possibly have been alone with Kerry.’
‘Suggesting that he did spend some time alone with Kerry that night?’
‘I’d say almost definitely, yes. And if news of that got out, with the current interest in Rick and underage girls, the tabloids’d go into a feeding frenzy.’
‘Yes, Jude, but what if Kerry herself talks?’
‘She’s been very effectively bribed to maintain her silence. Coincidence of timing, don’t you think, that she suddenly passes an audition to be on Pop Crop?’
‘Rick Hendry using his media power?’
‘Exactly. Just as he did with Max Townley. Amazing what people will do for the promise of television fame.’
‘But how did he persuade Donald Chew to fall in line?’
‘No idea, but he did somehow. The coincidence is too great for it to be above board. Just think of the unnecessary detail Donald gave you. He was fulfilling his part of an agreement to back up what Max told me.’
Carole nodded and looked thoughtfully out over the sea. ‘Yes, it all makes sense. But I’m sure Bob Hartson’s involved somewhere.’
‘Not in this alibi business. Rick, Suzy, Kerry and Max are in the clear, but Bob Hartson – and Donald Chew – are left wandering around the hotel just at the time when Nigel Ackford was most likely killed. Neither one of them has any alibi at all.’
Chapter Thirty-One
Jude had just parted from Carole and entered Woodside Cottage when her mobile rang. ‘It’s Wendy Fullerton.’
‘Oh, hello. How are you?’
‘Fine,’ the girl said shortly. She didn’t want to dwell on how she was. ‘Listen, you know you asked me to ring if anything else came up about Nigel.’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, there is something. I don’t know whether it’s important or not, but it’s . . . odd. I don’t know if you remember, but I was using Nigel’s mobile.’
Jude had forgotten, but said, ‘Yes.’
‘His latest bill arrived yesterday. He must’ve given a change of address to the phone company when he moved in with me, and then forgotten to say he’d moved out, and then of course . . .’
The sentence died away, and Jude was aware of the tension in the girl’s manner. ‘So what’s odd about it, Wendy? Presumably you opened the bill?’
‘Yes. Like I said, I’d been using the phone, so a lot of the calls – particularly the later ones – were mine, but it was the ones before that seemed odd.’
She ran out of steam again. ‘How, odd?’ Jude prompted.
‘In the itemized listing there were some numbers I recognized. A lot of calls to me obviously, and some to Renton and Chew and . . .’
‘Yes?’
Wendy Fullerton took the bull by the horns. ‘There were also a lot to a number I didn’t recognize.’
‘A local number?’
‘Yes. 01903 prefix. I just—’ She was getting quite emotional now. ‘It’s not a number I know and—’
‘You haven’t rung it, have you, Wendy?’
‘No, I kind of want to, but . . .’
J
ude understood completely. Wendy Fullerton had taken comfort in the news that Nigel Ackford had wanted to marry her. Maybe the knowledge was helping her cope with the complexities of bereavement. Now she was faced with the evidence, from his telephone bill, that Nigel had been ringing someone else a lot in the last weeks of his life. Wendy’s comforting image was threatened. Maybe she wasn’t the woman he had loved.
‘What you’re asking,’ said Jude softly, ‘is whether I’ll call the number for you and find out who all the calls were to?’
‘Yes.’ The girl’s relief was almost palpable. ‘If you wouldn’t mind?’
‘Of course I wouldn’t. Give me the number.’ Jude wrote it down on the back of a shopping receipt. ‘And I’d better take your mobile number too. That is, presumably you do want me to let you know who it is?’ There was a pained silence from the other end. ‘Even if the news, from your point of view, is bad?’
Wendy Fullerton summoned up her courage. ‘Yes. Whoever it is, let me know.’
Jude would have made the call straight away, had the sound of a car stopping not drawn her to the front window. A smart new BMW Mini had parked outside Woodside Cottage, and out of it, elegant in burgundy silk shirt and white jeans, stepped Suzy Longthorne.
The hug enveloped Jude in a perfume far too exclusive for her to be able to name, let alone afford. ‘I’m sorry,’ said Suzy. ‘I’ve hated holding out on you. I felt so guilty, I thought I’d just come straight round and talk.’
‘Bless you.’ Jude grinned in surprise. ‘Almost time for a drink. I could stretch a point. How about you? Or are you waiting for the one glass after you’ve tidied up dinner.’
‘No,’ Suzy replied. ‘I’ll have one with you. No one booked in tonight.’
Another lie from Max, thought Jude as she fetched a bottle of white Bordeaux from the kitchen fridge. He hadn’t had to rush off from the Crown and Anchor to prepare a lobster dish for that evening’s diners. But she didn’t say anything, as she handed her friend a glass.
‘Thanks. Listen, Jude, I don’t know everything Rick’s been up to, but I gather he’s been messing you about.’
‘I’m not sure he’s been messing me about. He’s certainly been ring-fencing himself in alibis, so he’s covered for every minute of that Tuesday night he spent at your place.’
Suzy Longthorne smiled ruefully as she sank into one of Jude’s much-draped armchairs. ‘Rick is just so paranoid about publicity.’
‘Isn’t that a bit of a pot and kettle situation? You’ve had your moments too.’
‘Yeah, OK. But I’ve never been as bad as Rick. As soon as he heard about that solicitor dying, he went into complete damage-limitation overdrive. I wasn’t to breathe a word to anyone. I must let him know the minute anyone asked about what’d happened, the minute anyone showed any signs of suspicion.’
‘So all your early holding out on me – were you just following orders from Rick?’
‘Not entirely. Things’ve been dodgy at the hotel for a while. The death was just the last straw, and if I could do anything to keep it quiet, then I was damn well going to try.’
‘That’s why you didn’t tell the police about the threatening note?’
‘That’s why I tried not to tell anyone about anything. And that included you. I’m sorry.’ Suzy reached across and squeezed her friend’s hand. ‘Forgive me?’
‘Nothing to forgive,’ said Jude lightly. ‘But what’s changed? Why’re you no longer clamming up on me?’
‘I think the threat of bad publicity has blown over.’
‘What makes you think that?’
Suzy shrugged. ‘The young man’s death has been reported in the newspaper. That hasn’t prompted any further enquiries. I like to think the danger’s passed.’
‘Yes, I saw that in the Fethering Observer.’ Jude looked shrewdly at her friend. ‘Very minimal reporting. Not even the name of the hotel mentioned. Do you have any explanation for that?’
‘Just got lucky.’ Suzy looked as though she believed the explanation. But over the years, under a lot of different circumstances, Jude had seen the same innocence in the famous hazel eyes. So she reserved her judgment, and changed the subject.
‘When did Rick arrive at your place that evening?’
‘Seven o’clock, eight o’clock. I went across and said hello to him just before we started serving the dinner.’
‘You were expecting him?’
‘Oh yes. He’d rung to say he was going to be working in Brighton and could he stay? I didn’t particularly want to see him, but I didn’t want to make a big deal of saying no.’
‘And do you know what he did during the evening while you were looking after the Pillars of Sussex?’
Suzy shrugged at the unimportance of the question. ‘I’ve no idea. He cooked himself something – and left the dirty plates, as usual. Maybe he watched television, fixed a few deals on his mobile phone. Quite honestly, I’m no longer interested in what he does.’
‘Was he still up when you finished at the hotel?’
‘Yes. Rick always did keep late hours. Required part of the rock and roll lifestyle, I suppose.’
‘And was Max with him when you got back to the barn?’
‘Max?’ Suzy was incredulous. ‘No. Why on earth should he have been?’
Jude mentally ticked off another lie told by the chef. And probably engineered by Rick Hendry. ‘So did you and Rick talk before you went to bed?’
‘A bit. We rarely see each other face to face, and there’s always financial stuff lingering on that we have to sort out.’
‘So how long did you talk?’
‘I don’t know, Jude. A quarter of an hour, maybe, twenty minutes – I was beat, so we went to bed.’
‘Separately?’
Suzy gave her friend a look of long-suffering, as if the question didn’t need an answer. But she still gave one. ‘Yes. Separately. The break between Rick and me was so total, and so painful, that there’s no danger of anything like that being rekindled – on either side.’
‘Just asking.’
Suzy smiled a weary forgiveness.
‘And Rick didn’t leave the house again during the night?’
‘No. I’m certain he didn’t. I’m a very light sleeper, and that barn’s like a sounding box. You can hear when someone drops a sock, let alone opens the front door.’
‘So you didn’t hear anything during the night?’
‘No. For the few hours I was allowed, I slept very deeply. And if I slept deeply, that means there was nothing to hear.’
Jude felt it was about time she said, ‘I’m really sorry to be asking all this stuff.’
‘Don’t worry.’ Suzy grinned wryly. ‘You’re still convinced that young man was murdered, aren’t you, Jude?’
‘Yes.’
‘Huh. Always were a lover of the dramatic. He topped himself. That’s all there is to it.’
‘You’re probably right.’ It was worth one more try. ‘But, Suzy, going back to that night . . .’
Suzy Longthorne rolled her eyes in mock-horror. ‘Again? All right, what about that night?’
‘The note. You’re not going to deny we both saw that note.’
‘I’m not denying it any more. The note existed.’
‘And Kerry found it in the four-poster room before six o’clock that evening.’
‘That’s what she said.’
‘So who put it there, Suzy?’
The famous face took on the expression which had crushed generations of tabloid journalists and paparazzi. ‘I hope you’re not looking at me.’
‘No, I’m not. And, actually, I didn’t put it there either.’
‘Well, that doesn’t leave many people who were around the hotel during the relevant period. The chambermaid had done the four-poster room about eleven that morning. She’d have told me if she found anything like that. So either Kerry was playing out one of her fantasies . . .’
‘Or Max put it there – for reasons I can’t imagine.’
‘Or . . .’ Suzy twisted her face in mock-concentration – and still managed to look beautiful. Then her expression changed. ‘Just a minute. There is one other person who could have planted the note.’
‘Who?’
‘The old bald bloke. You know – the Pillar of Sussex who arrived early.’
‘Donald Chew?’
‘That was his name. He was asleep in the bar, wasn’t he? But we don’t know how long he’d been there. Technically he could have had time to put the note in the four-poster room.’
‘And he was Nigel Ackford’s boss, so there are definite connections between them.’
‘Yes . . .’ Suzy Longthorne took a thoughtful sip of wine, then shook away introspection. ‘Still, I really don’t want to think about the hotel. Actually, as I was driving over, I was – for no very good reason – thinking about that photographer who kept coming on to us – you know, back in the sixties. Czech I think he was. Kept saying –’ she assumed an exaggerated accent ‘– “I want you both to come back to my studio, so that we can see what will develop.” Always the same joke. He was dreadful. What was his name?’
And they were into half an hour of giggly nostalgia.
Then, her all-too-short moment of freedom at an end, Suzy had to return to Hopwicke House. She kissed Jude on both cheeks and asked plaintively, ‘Friends?’
‘Friends,’ Jude confirmed.
Only when she was tidying up prior to bed did Jude come across the receipt on which she’d written down the number Wendy Fullerton had given her.
She looked at the large round watch, strapped to her wrist with ribbon. Ten past ten. A bit late for a social call, but . . .
She was answered after two or three rings. To her surprise, it wasn’t a woman’s voice. A young man’s, quite educated, but tense and urgent. ‘Hello?’
‘Could you tell me who I’m speaking to, please?’
‘Karl Floyd. Who’re you?’
‘My name’s Jude.’
‘What’s this about?’
‘I believe you knew a young man called Nigel Ackford . . .’
‘So?’
‘He died recently.’
‘I know that.’
