The Hanging in the Hotel (Fethering Mysteries)

by Brett, Simon

  The man who let Jude in also seemed to be a relic of an earlier age. Jeans, a faded denim shirt tight over his swelling belly, hair cut long in a style that had been fashionable before the hair became white.

  “Edward Dukesbury,” he said, and gestured to the crammed cardboard boxes in the middle of the room. “You were lucky to catch me. As you see, I’m moving out shortly.”

  “Away from Hove?”

  “Away from Hove. Away from Sussex. London. I’m afraid this place doesn’t have very happy memories for me.”

  Jude did not ask him to elaborate that point. She was still taking him in, forming her own estimation of the man.

  “Do sit down. Can I offer you anything? Coffee, tea, or I’ve got some wine,” he offered vaguely.

  “No, thank you.” Jude subsided on to a low sofa, which only seemed to promise comfort to those who lay on it horizontally. She perched on the edge of the cushion.

  “You said you wanted to talk to me about Nigel . . .”

  “Yes.”

  As he lowered himself on to a narrow wooden chair, Jude noticed there was a list on the box in front of him. She saw the words electricity and gas. No doubt things that had to be done before he left. The handwriting was the same as in the letter she’d seen at Hopwicke House.

  “I heard about you through Suzy Longthorne,” Jude volunteered.

  Edward Dukesbury shrugged and shook his head. “Sorry, the name doesn’t mean anything to me.”

  “What about Rick Hendry . . . or Bob Hartson?”

  “The only Rick Hendry I’ve heard of is the former rock musician, but I’ve never met him. And the other name . . . sorry, never heard it.”

  “What about Donald Chew?”

  “I know that was the name of Nigel’s boss at work, but we never met.”

  “So you haven’t heard what happened to him?”

  “No.” The ignorance in the watery blue eyes appeared genuine. But Edward Dukesbury wasn’t interested in the fate of Donald Chew; he was keen to move on. “You said you wanted to talk to me about Nigel. Did you know him?”

  “I met him once. The night before he died.”

  “How come?”

  “I was working at Hopwicke Country House Hotel.”

  “Ah.” The man looked puzzled. “Then I don’t see why—”

  “I just wanted to be sure that he committed suicide.”

  “What?” There was authentic surprise in the voice.

  “That there wasn’t some other explanation for his death.”

  Edward Dukesbury let out a bitter laugh. “What other explanation could there be? You don’t hang yourself by accident.”

  “No. But I thought . . . You knew him well. Perhaps you could tell me why you think he did it.”

  For the first time there was wariness in the pale eyes. “Why did you come to me? How did you get my phone number?”

  “I happened to see a copy of the letter you wrote to Nigel Ackford the day before he died.”

  “Ah.” Her answer satisfied him, and brought a new resignation into his tone. “Are you police? I’ve already talked to Inspector Goodchild. I thought that would be the end of it.”

  “No, I’m not police. I’m just interested in what happened.”

  Her lack of official authorisation didn’t seem to concern him. “Well, since you’re here, ask what you want to ask. Nigel’s dead. Nothing we say can harm him anymore.”

  “You and he had a relationship?”

  Without embarrassment, he replied, “Yes. We were lovers, on and off, for over a year. Nigel had problems with admitting he was gay. He even moved in with a girlfriend to try and cure himself, but it was never going to work.”

  “Wendy.”

  “That was her name, yes.”

  “Did you ever meet her?”

  He shook his head.

  “Was the sex thing the reason why Nigel killed himself?”

  “Part of it. Like a lot of young men, Nigel was uncertain about his own identity. Sexual orientation was part of the problem, but he was also worried about doing the work he was doing.”

  “Being a solicitor?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why, was there something criminal going on at Renton and Chew?”

  Another short, bitter laugh. “Not so far as I know. No more than in any other solicitor’s office, I imagine. But Nigel sometimes thought he should be doing something more useful to the world, something that actually did some good. We used to talk about it a lot.”

  “Why? Is your work more useful to the world?”

  He smiled cynically. “Might be, if I had any work. I’m an architect by training. Was quite successful in the sixties and seventies, but now . . .” He gestured feebly, needing no more explanation than the flat around him. “Trouble is, I started letting my conscience get in the way.”

  “Oh?”

  “Got rather involved in environmental issues. Tried only to do projects that would actually improve the world around us. . . . Nineteen eighties weren’t the best time to have principles like that.”

  “But surely the climate’s better now? There’s more awareness of the environmental consequences of development.”

  He didn’t look convinced. “There’s a certain amount of lip service, yes. Projects get stopped because they threaten the habitat of some little-known field mouse. And the big developers go through a major charade of environmental consultation before they submit their plans. Some of them even have their own in-house environmental consultants. But, as ever, there’s a big difference between the plans that are approved and what actually gets built.”

  He sighed. “Maybe I’m being too cynical. Maybe, if I were starting out now as a young architect, I’d be full of idealism and the belief that I could actually make changes. And maybe I could. Now, though, at my age . . . I’m too old and defeated.”

  “And that was the kind of subject you and Nigel used to talk about?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because Renton and Chew works with property developers.”

  “I’m sure they do. Anyone in business is going to need contracts sorted out, that kind of thing. There’s always work for solicitors to do.”

  “But you say Nigel never worried that he was being asked to do anything illegal?”

  “No. I think he just thought he’d reached a crossroads in his life. He could hang on to his principles, the kind of ideas I talked to him about, or he could just get on with his career, take the money and close his mind to the consequences. And that was exactly paralleled in his private life. He could ask this Wendy to marry him, and spend the rest of his days pretending to be something he wasn’t . . . rather as he implied his boss did. . . . What’s his name? Donald Chew, that’s right. Apparently he’s gay, but has maintained a façade of a marriage for a long time. Anyway, those were the pressures that Nigel was under. And the fact that he couldn’t cope with those pressures was the reason why he killed himself.”

  “Had he talked about suicide to you?”

  The white head nodded, and the blue eyes became even more watery. “Yes. He did get bad moods . . . well, he was a depressive. I kept telling him to go to his doctor, get professional help, but Nigel could be very stubborn at times.”

  Jude stayed perched in silence on the edge of the sofa. Then she asked, “Was the letter you wrote the last communication you had with Nigel?”

  “No.” He was almost weeping now. “I wish it had been. I could have done without the phone call.”

  “What phone call? When did that happen?”

  “The night . . .” Tears trickled down his lined face as he tried to get the words out. “The night he was at the hotel, the night he . . . Nigel phoned me in the small hours. He woke me up.”

  “What time would this have been?”

  “Round four o’clock. I don’t know exactly.”

  “And what did he say?”

  Again the words didn’t come easily. “That he was going to kill himself. He said he’d just woken up an
d realised things were never going to get better. He’d made up his mind.”

  “But he was incredibly drunk. I don’t think he was capable of—”

  “I wish you were right, wish he had just passed out that night. But no, Nigel was coherent enough to do what he had to do.”

  “Didn’t you think of calling the police?”

  “No,” the architect replied flatly. “By the time they got there, it would have been too late. Anyway, if that was what Nigel had decided to do . . . Also, quite honestly, I’ve had enough tangles with authority in my life. When I was growing up, just for me to express my sexuality was illegal. I’ve been through plenty with the police over the years, so after Nigel’s call I didn’t fancy the idea of picking through my most painful emotions with some insensitive flatfoot.”

  “But did the police talk to you?”

  “Of course they did. They saw the original of the letter that brought you here. There’s no way they weren’t going to talk to me after that. Oh yes, I did my time with Inspector Goodchild. I’d love to have escaped that pleasure, but I didn’t. I’m afraid, you see, I’m not one of those people who regards the truth as the most important thing in life. I would say, over the years, I have generally received more comfort from lies. Sorry, not a very public-spirited citizen, am I?”

  Jude’s mind was moving fast, trying to find some logical objection to what she had just been told. “The phone call!” She clung to the thought. “If Nigel called you that night, the call would have registered on the Hopwicke House switchboard.

  “He used his mobile.”

  He hadn’t got a mobile! He’d given his mobile to Wendy Fullerton! But before she could produce that clinching argument, Jude remembered Wendy saying that Nigel had been planning to buy another. Presumably the new phone was now in the hands of the police, yet another piece of the evidence that would be used to help the coroner arrive at a verdict of death by suicide.

  Which was the truth. Jude looked back at her past weeks of speculation and excitement, and could only see the wreckage of her false logic. She had never felt lower.

  39

  IT WAS ABOUT a quarter to seven when she knocked on the door of High Tor, but there was no reply, so Jude went disconsolately back into Woodside Cottage. She poured a glass of white wine, but forgot about it. She buried herself deep in the draperies of an ancient armchair and gave herself up to gloomy thoughts.

  She and Carole had been guilty of breaking one of the most basic rules of investigation: They had ignored the obvious. Once she found out from Wendy Fullerton that Nigel Ackford had been a depressive, she should have realised that they were on a hiding to nothing. She should have guessed that the police had evidence to justify their ready acceptance of a suicide verdict. And she should have recognised that the many cover-ups she and Carole had encountered were merely symptoms of naturally secretive people trying to avoid damaging publicity . . . for reasons which had nothing to do with their being guilty of murder.

  The way she had behaved, in retrospect, appeared naive and melodramatic.

  For Jude, who prided herself on her good sense and mental equilibrium, that knowledge hurt deeply.

  The gloomy thoughts did not lift.

  Karl Floyd was as Carole would have expected him to be—young, earnest, full of uncoordinated enthusiasm. And also a bit frightened.

  His flat, which he told her was rented, gave the impression of being a transient resting place. He was living out of suitcases and, from the evidence of his small kitchen/diner, out of tins and polystyrene takeaway boxes. He looked as though he’d dressed in a hurry too—shabby suit, top button missing from the shirt, randomly chosen diamond-patterned tie. He had thick ginger hair that refused to sit down at the back.

  And yes, he did see himself as a crusading journalist in the mould of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. He confided to Carole that his father, also a newspaperman—though not a great speller—had named him Karl as a homage to Bernstein. This could have prompted interesting speculation about the young man trying to live up to parental expectations, but Carole didn’t have time to go into that.

  “And it was,” she asked, “in connection with an investigation that you were in touch with Nigel Ackford and Donald Chew?”

  “Yes. Nigel approached me first. He was very troubled about things that were going on.”

  “Inside Renton and Chew?”

  “In a way, yes. I think Nigel’s anxiety was more about the way things ran generally, the amount of backhanders and back-scratching that are involved in all kinds of business deals. He saw himself at a crossroads. He could either try to fight to expose the system, or he could close his mind to it and get on with his life.”

  “Continue working at Renton and Chew, get put up for the right golf clubs, become a Pillar of Sussex?”

  “I guess so. When he first got in touch with me, he was very keen to expose stuff like that.”

  “You imply he changed his tune?”

  “Yes, he did seem to back off. He became gradually less enthusiastic.”

  “Do you think someone was getting at him?”

  “That wasn’t the impression I got. More that he’d assessed his options and come down on the side of the easy life. Rising through the ranks at Renton and Chew, getting married, living a well-cushioned middle-class life . . .”

  Exactly the sort of prospects Nigel Ackford had glorified in his drunken ramblings to Jude the night he died.

  “So, Karl, to what extent had Nigel backed off?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Was he actually regretting having got in touch with you in the first place?”

  “I think he probably was. Difficult to tell with him. He was very volatile. Sometimes when he rung, he was full of crusading zeal. A few hours later, he was down in the dumps and thought it was pointless to try to do anything.”

  Which could be the behaviour of a potential suicide, thought Carole. But before she made a final decision on that, she had to know more.

  “Was it because Nigel was going cold on the idea of the investigation that you got in touch with Donald Chew?”

  “Yes. There were questions I wanted to ask him.”

  “And he agreed to see you?”

  “He did. I mentioned one or two things that seemed to set alarm bells going with him. We fixed a meeting for this Monday.”

  “Which, sadly, he was unable to make.”

  The young man nodded gloomily.

  “Right, Karl. I think it’s time you told me what it was Nigel Ackford started you investigating. . . .”

  Jude’s mood hadn’t improved. Her wineglass was still untouched, its contents long risen to room temperature. Restlessly, she was zapping through television channels, which for her was a sure sign of low spirits.

  Though she’d worked as a television actress in the late sixties, the medium had soon lost its interest for Jude. And now that every programme seemed to involve ordinary members of the public, she found it even less alluring. The trend may have been very lucrative for Rick Hendry, but it didn’t do anything for her. Jude met quite enough real people in her daily life; she didn’t feel the need to see them humiliated on television.

  Previously she’d had a very basic portable with snowstorm picture and an indoor aerial, but she’d installed a new one with satellite channels for the benefit of Laurence Hawker, a friend and lover who had lived out his last months with her at Woodside Cottage. Since he died, the infinitely wide range of options the television offered had remained unexplored.

  Though Jude had been upset by Laurence’s death, this was the first time she had felt low enough for mindless flicking with the remote control. But she couldn’t settle to anything else, and the constant changes on the screen gave her the illusion of something happening.

  She was amazed how little there was on offer that anyone might want to watch. Anyone, that is, who wasn’t interested in sport, make-over programmes, music videos, movies that had failed to strike a chord with cinema aud
iences, and repeats of cop series that long before should have been allowed mercifully to expire. After the first twenty channels, the challenge of finding something watchable became almost interesting.

  At first she didn’t believe what she’d seen. She’d already zapped on to another station, but she zapped back.

  No good. It was no longer on the screen. She stayed with the channel, watching some dire early seventies British espionage series. The sets were cardboard, the actors more so. The men tried to look tough and gritty, in spite of ridiculous sideburns. The women, with short skirts, lacquered hair and black-lined upper eyelids, seemed to be there only to stick their bottoms out and look winsome.

  The scene changed. And she saw it again. This time there was no doubt.

  40

  THEY BOTH HAD so much to say that it was some time after Jude had opened the door before either of them could hear the other. The Renault was parked directly outside Woodside Cottage. Carole must have been really excited to forgo her customary ritual of putting the car in the High Tor garage.

  She managed to get in first with what she had heard from Karl Floyd.

  “I thought something like that must have happened,” said Jude.

  “There remains some doubt over whether it’s actually illegal, but Karl’s still on the case. He’s got all enthusiastic about it again now. And his boss at the Fethering Observer has definitely gagged him on the story, so he’s convinced there is something to hide. He’s going to open out his investigation to the whole Pillars of Sussex network.”

  “Great.”

  “I’ve given him your phone numbers as well as mine, so if you get a call from him, you’ll know what it’s about.”

  “That’s good, Carole, but listen to what I’ve got.” The defeatist lethargy was gone. Jude’s whole face sparkled with animation. “You know, this man I went to see this afternoon . . .”

  “No, I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”