by Simon Brett
‘But he’d probably have covered his tracks legally in other cases as well.’
‘Yes, but there are a few other people he shafted before me. Both in this country and in Turkey. I’ve been making contact with them, and they’re all more than happy to dish the dirt on Barney Willingdon.’
‘Presumably, they can’t get him on a legal charge any more than you can?’
‘Maybe not. But there’s one guy in particular called Kemal …’
‘Turkish?’
‘Yes. One of the former partners out there. He’s got some very interesting personal stuff on Barney.’
‘Oh? How do you mean – personal?’
‘Have you met his wife?’
‘Henry? Yes.’
‘Well, she is the number two model.’
‘I got that impression.’
‘And what happened to number one model, Zoë, was very interesting.’
‘Oh?’
‘She died in an accident …’
‘Right.’
‘Or rather she died in something that appeared to be an accident.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning that this guy I met, Kemal, is pretty convinced that Barney engineered that accident. That he actually murdered his first wife.’
FIVE
Jude was troubled by her encounter with Fergus McNally, who incidentally wouldn’t elaborate further on his reasons for suspecting his former partner of being a murderer. Either Kemal hadn’t told him the circumstances of the first wife’s death or Fergus was keeping the details to himself. She knew she’d been listening to the ramblings of a disappointed man with an axe to grind, but some of the things he’d said about Barney had struck chords with her. Back at the time when they had had their affair (the one that Carole must never find out about), she’d recognized Barney as a chancer – and that had, indeed, been part of his appeal. And it had also been part of the reason why she’d chosen to end the relationship. Though she’d found him charming and sexy – and enjoyed his spontaneous craziness – at a very basic level there was something she didn’t trust about him. She also knew that his business ethics had been at least as dodgy as the ones he followed in his personal life.
And, though the affair had been a long time ago, before either of them was married for the first time, Jude still didn’t have total trust in Barney Willingdon. Now surrounded by the trappings of success with his beautiful Mark Two wife, he remained a chancer. Close to the wind was his natural habitat.
Jude also wondered whether the stress-related back pain for which she had treated Henry Willingdon reflected the strain of sharing her husband’s life of perpetual risk-taking. The perfection of Chantry House might present the ultimate image of security, but Jude knew that no one living with Barney Willingdon would ever feel completely safe. Henry might appear to have him under her thumb, but he was elusive, a hard man to pin down.
Whether Barney Willingdon was capable of having murdered his first wife was, however, another matter altogether. There, Jude thought, Fergus McNally’s animus against his former partner had just got out of control.
The suggestion was an intriguing one, though. Jude wouldn’t mind finding out more about the circumstances of the first Mrs Willingdon’s death.
But any investigation she did conduct was another thing that must be kept a secret from Carole. Her neighbour was already sufficiently ambivalent about the holiday in Turkey. If there was any suggestion that they were there enjoying the hospitality of a murderer, Jude could all too readily predict Carole’s reaction.
Though, actually, she thought she already knew Carole’s decision about the whole holiday idea. Turkey was just too far out of her neighbour’s comfort zone for her to think seriously of going there. Jude went to bed that night, expecting the next day to bring a resounding no from Carole.
It was the telephone that woke her. ‘Hello,’ she said, a little blearily.
‘Just to say I’ve confirmed them.’ Carole’s voice was strong, almost bouncy.
‘Confirmed what?’
‘Well, the flights to Dalaman, obviously.’
‘Oh. Really? Well. Good.’ Jude tried to assemble the diffuse parts of her brain. ‘Is this for a week or a fortnight?’
‘A fortnight. The trouble with just a week is that you don’t relax properly. By the time you’ve untwitched you’re starting to worry about the return journey.’ Carole apparently didn’t find anything odd about repeating Jude’s words back to her almost verbatim as she went on cheerily, ‘We’ll have to make quite an early start on the Monday, but if we catch the five fifty train from Fethering, we’ll be at Gatwick in time.’
‘Or we could just get a cab,’ Jude suggested.
‘No, we don’t want any unnecessary expenditure,’ said Carole quite sharply. Her words reminded Jude that the two of them had rather different attitudes to money. These had really been of little significance when the issue had only been who bought the drinks in the Crown and Anchor, but might feature more forcibly when the two of them were spending a whole fortnight together.
‘Anyway, I must get on,’ continued Carole. ‘Quite a lot to sort out if we’re off a week today.’
‘Oh, there’s not that much to do,’ said Jude, whose holiday preparations would only involve chucking a few garments into a suitcase and ensuring that she had an adequate supply of trashy poolside books.
‘Well, I’ve got a lot to do,’ said Carole primly. ‘Not least finding a suitable kennels for Gulliver.’
‘Isn’t there one you’ve used before?’
‘No. If I go to Stephen and Gaby’s I take him with me. Since I’ve been in Fethering I haven’t been away and had to leave him.’
This brought home to Jude what a big deal going away was for Carole. And made her feel a little more forgiving of her neighbour’s vacillation. ‘So what suddenly made you decide?’ she asked.
‘Decide what?’
‘Decide that you would go to Turkey with me?’
‘Oh,’ said Carole airily, ‘I’d decided that as soon as the idea was mentioned.’
Something snapped in Jude. Uncharacteristically splenetic, she demanded, ‘Then why the hell didn’t you tell me?’
The two women’s preparations during the next week were very different. Jude, who didn’t really need any holiday planning, was kept busy with work. Because of going away at short notice there were appointments for her healing services that had to be postponed or, in more cases, fitted in before she left. She was a soft touch with her regular clients and soon found that she was booked up right through to the end of the Sunday. She would certainly need the break by the time they left for Dalaman on the Monday morning.
Carole’s approach was, of course, different and involved a lot of time researching on her laptop. (Having for a long time resisted the allure of computers, she now spent hours a day googling. Never for trivial things though. Carole Seddon didn’t believe in time-wasting.)
Her first task was, as she’d said, to find suitable accommodation for Gulliver. Though she wasn’t one to be soppy about animals, she felt a strong sense of duty towards her Labrador and wanted to ensure that he was put up in a reputable establishment. So she assiduously googled ‘Dog Boarding Kennels’, eliminating some on grounds of distance and others on details that she didn’t like on their websites, until she came up with a shortlist of four. These she contacted, but rather than making the choice and immediately booking online, being Carole Seddon, she arranged to visit all four – with Gulliver – before reaching her decision.
If she’d hoped the dog might express some preference, she was disappointed. But he clearly knew something upsetting was about to happen, and at each of the four kennels he fixed her with the same expression of betrayed reproach.
When they returned to High Tor, after trying to assuage her guilt by giving Gulliver a dog biscuit, Carole went straight up to the spare bedroom where her computer lived. (Though she was aware that one of the advantages of a laptop was its mobility
, guided by some Calvinist proscription of mixing business with pleasure, she never worked on it anywhere else in the house.) Online, she made the booking at the kennels she had selected (with no help from Gulliver). Having never before made a comparable transaction, she was a little shocked by how much it cost. Though they were getting the use of Morning Glory for nothing, Carole still felt a little guilt at how much the additional costs of the holiday might be. Paying for the flights on her credit card had taken a substantial sum, and Jude hadn’t yet given her the promised cheque for her share. She had a Carole Seddon moment (and she would have more before their departure) of wondering whether the trip to Turkey was such a good idea after all.
Then there was the matter of clothes. Carole didn’t enjoy any kind of clothes shopping, though in recent years, since Lily had been born, she had derived a lot of pleasure from buying garments for her granddaughter. But as a general rule, Carole reckoned buying clothes for herself was self-indulgent. It was not an experience she enjoyed, and her aim in what she wore was to be as anonymous as possible. She favoured light browns and white and navy (she remembered her mother saying, ‘You’ll never go wrong with white and navy.’). During her working life at the Home Office she had worn a lot of black, but since then black had got dangerously trendy and made too much of a statement for Carole Seddon. So she didn’t wear it any more.
But one thing that she knew from her online reading was that Turkey could be very hot, possibly too hot for Carole’s existing summer wardrobe. She might have to purchase some cotton tops (definitely not T-shirts) and trousers (definitely not jeans).
And then there was the terrifying matter of a bathing costume. Though she had lived a good few years in Fethering and walked daily on the beach with Gulliver, Carole had never actually been in the sea there, not even to paddle. But she did nonetheless have a bathing costume. It had been bought one summer when she had rented a beach hut at the nearby village of Smalting. The aim of the exercise had been to have somewhere in which to entertain her granddaughter Lily and, after the distractions of a murder investigation, the two of them had had a very successful week together.
But the costume she had bought then had been a one-piece in, to Carole’s mind, a rather daring red, and from some of the things she had read online she wondered whether it was suitable apparel for a Muslim country. Maybe something less flamboyant would be more appropriate.
Having reached this conclusion, Carole Seddon set off in her Renault, without enthusiasm, for the Marks & Spencer’s in Chichester.
The navy-blue swimming costume she bought was of the kind that a nun would not have felt out of place on a beach in. She also, rather daringly, purchased a pair of beige cotton shorts, though she thought it extremely unlikely she would wear them. It was many years since Carole Seddon’s legs had last been seen in public.
Because she would be in Chichester, Carole had also taken a carefully prepared list for a major shopping raid on Boots. Although she had no intention of baring much flesh in Kayaköy, she purchased suntan lotions of various strengths from Factor Fifty downwards. Also after-sun and cold cream. Plasters in various sizes, cotton wool, insect repellent, Anthisan, Savlon, Nurofen and paracetamol (just to be sure). And, of course, Imodium. (One of the online sites said there were a lot of kebabs likely to be served up in Turkey, and Carole Seddon had a deep mistrust of kebabs.)
Boots was followed by an electrical gadgetry shop, where she bought adaptor plugs that would fit Turkish sockets. Once in there, a pure victim of marketing, she also bought a ‘universal all-in-one mobile phone charger’ – though her firm intention was, despite taking her phone with her, not to use it except in the direst emergencies. She’d heard terrible stories about the draconian ‘roaming charges’ that could be incurred by incautious mobile phone users abroad.
As well, although she had already done a lot of research online, she went to Waterstones and bought the Rough Guide to Turkey along with a large map of the Turkish coast. And then she devoted all her spare time to finding out more about the country.
She concentrated first on Turkey’s history and, being Carole Seddon, approached it like someone mugging up their Specialist Subject for an appearance on Mastermind. By the time she and Jude left for Dalaman, Carole could have answered questions on the Hittites and the First Anatolian empire, the funerary monuments of the Lycians, the Battle of Kadesh, Cyrus the Great, Roman domination, the Macedonian Dynasty, the Janissaries, Süleyman the Magnificent and the modernizing achievements of Kemal Atatürk.
Carole Seddon had always had qualities of a completist.
On Friday evening the phone rang in Woodside Cottage. Jude was exhausted after a day of back-to-back healing sessions. The effort of concentration always left her drained.
‘Hello?’
‘Oh, it’s Barney.’
Jude wondered why he was ringing. They’d had a fairly exhaustive conversation earlier in the week about the practical details of the forthcoming fortnight at Morning Glory – keys, the electrical system, numbers for the pool man and the plumber, advice on the best supermarket in Kayaköy. Still, maybe there was some minor item he had forgotten to mention.
So, indeed, it proved. Barney told her that his ex-holiday-rep friend Nita Davies was going to meet them at the airport. He wanted to check the time their flight got in.
‘That’s very kind of her. Are you sure she won’t mind?’
‘Don’t worry about Nita,’ said Barney airily. ‘She owes me a few favours. She’s happy to do it. Besides, while she’s driving you from Dalaman to Morning Glory she can fill you in a bit about the local area.’
‘That’d be great,’ said Jude. ‘Thank you very much for fixing it.’
‘No problem. Like I say, I can fix anything out there,’ said Barney. ‘Anything you need, just give me a call on the mobile.’
‘Thanks very much.’ And Jude gave him the details of their flight to Dalaman.
But then it became clear that obtaining practical information was not the only reason for Barney’s call. He sounded as bouncy as ever, but there was something almost surreptitious about his ebullience. ‘Jude, I just wanted to say that I will be out in Turkey during the time you’re there.’
‘Oh? Yes, you said you might be. Are you telling me that you’re going to need Morning Glory after all?’
‘Heavens, no. I’ve got plenty of other places to stay out there.’
‘Good. Well, Carole and I will look forward to seeing you.’
‘I will very much look forward to seeing you.’ The way he said it sounded warning bells.
‘Oh?’
‘Listen, Jude …’ His voice became deeper, more intimate. ‘It’s been really great seeing you again.’
‘It’s been nice to see you,’ she said cautiously.
‘When you came to the house last week with your friend, I was just blown away.’
‘By Carole? She’ll be very flattered,’ said Jude, hoping to joke her way out of what was about to come.
‘No, of course not by Carole. By you, Jude. It just all came back to me, how much we meant to each other all that time ago. Don’t you feel the same?’
‘My recollection,’ she replied carefully, ‘is that yes, we had a very good couple of months, which I look back on with pleasure. But it was a long time ago, and a lot has happened since. We’ve both been married twice, for one thing. You still are married.’
‘Yes, but things haven’t been working out with Henry recently.’
‘I don’t want to hear anything about that, Barney. Presumably Henry’s not going out to Turkey with you?’
‘No. Which is all the more reason why you and I—’
‘Look, Barney, if you’re going to come on to me while we’re out in Turkey, then we may as well pull the plug on the whole idea of going there – right now.’
‘Jude, I wouldn’t put you under any pressure to do anything you didn’t want to do.’
‘Good. I’m very glad to hear it.’
‘It’s
just the thought of us both being out there at the same time and … well, it would be good to get together.’
‘I’m sure we will. Meet for a meal or something. But you seem to be forgetting, amongst other things, that I’ll have Carole with me.’
‘I’m sure you’d be able to get away from her for the odd hour.’
‘You don’t know Carole. She hangs on like a Rottweiler,’ said Jude, again trying to neutralize Barney’s advances with flippancy.
‘Jude, look, we’re both grown-ups. And I’ve got to an age when, if I feel an attraction for someone, I—’
‘Stop it, Barney. May I make it entirely clear to you that nothing is going to happen between us in Turkey?’
‘You say that now, but it’s a very romantic place. When we get out there …’
‘When we get out there nothing will have changed. And, Barney, will you please promise me that you will not come on to me at any point while we’re in Kayaköy?’
‘Very well,’ he said grudgingly. But in his voice there was another tone Jude recognized of old. Barney Willingdon was one of the most cocksure men she had ever met. It never occurred to him that any woman he fancied might not reciprocate his feelings. And, to her considerable annoyance, she found that she did still feel a small tug of attraction towards him.
His phone call unsettled her. The trip to Turkey and Barney’s generous offer of the use of Morning Glory had all seemed so straightforward. But now it had become potentially complicated. It’s true, Jude thought ruefully, there is no such thing as a free lunch.
She was also annoyed with herself for not posing some questions to Barney about something else while she’d had the opportunity. She’d liked to have asked him what happened to his first wife, Zoë …
SIX
Carole Seddon spent the Sunday before they left ticking things off the many lists she had made. Her tasks included taking Gulliver to the kennels she had chosen for him. The look of reproach he cast upon her as they parted made her feel as if she had been solely responsible for the Massacre of the Innocents.
