by Simon Brett
‘And why, after this long break, did you suddenly get in touch with her?’
‘There was a query about Burton St Clair’s writing that was raised in the Q & A session after his talk. I wanted to check a factual detail with Megan.’
‘I see. Well, we’ll be able to see her emails when we get in touch with her.’
‘I can show you the text of what I sent right now,’ said Jude, as near to being rattled as her habitually serene temperament allowed.
‘That won’t be necessary,’ said Detective Inspector Rollins. For the first time, she looked down at her iPhone, woke up the screen and consulted some notes she had written there. ‘Now, according to Vix Winter, the junior librarian who found Mr St Clair’s body in the car park this morning, last night, just as she and her boss were leaving, she saw you getting into Mr St Clair’s car. She also said that, by then, all of the other people who’d attended the talk had gone home.’
‘Yes. That’s what happened. It was pouring with rain. Burton had offered to drive me back here.’
‘But he didn’t drive you back here. The dry patch under his car suggested that it hadn’t moved since he arrived at the library earlier in the evening.’
‘That’s entirely possible, yes.’
‘So why didn’t he drive you home, Jude?’
‘We had an argument.’
‘Did you?’
‘Yes.’
‘And could you tell me what that argument was about?’
‘Very well.’
‘In fact, could you tell me exactly what happened last night, from the moment—’ Rollins looked down at her screen to check the name – ‘Di Thompson locked up the library and left in her car with Vix Winter, until you left Burton St Clair in his car … assuming that is what happened?’
The level of scepticism in the Detective Inspector’s attitude and body language did not lessen as Jude began her narrative. If anything, it increased.
Jude was punctiliously accurate in her reconstruction of the events inside Burton’s BMW. They were so recent that she didn’t have to dig too deep into her memory. But as she replayed the awkwardness of the encounter, she was annoyed to find herself blushing. And at the end of her narration, she could sense that Rollins did not believe the truth she had just been told.
Before the Detective Inspector could pass any comment, however, the iPhone on her lap rang. ‘Rollins,’ she said. ‘Ah, Megan Sinclair. Thank you for getting back to me.’
She rose to her feet. ‘I’ll take this in the hall,’ she announced as she left the room.
Detective Sergeant Knight and Jude looked at each other. Neither had much to say. The silence felt heavy between them.
SEVEN
Burton St Clair’s death was reported on Radio 4’s World at One. It was the last item on the bulletin – one of the ‘and we’ve just had a report that …’ ones – so no details were supplied. Nor was there any trailer to say that his work and legacy would be discussed on the evening’s arts programme Front Row. Burton himself would no doubt have reckoned he deserved such a tribute. The producers maybe did not think that one successful novel qualified him for that kind of accolade.
All the one o’clock news report did say was that he had been found dead in his car in Fethering, ‘a village on the South Coast, whose library he had been visiting.’
Jude listened to the bulletin in the irreproachably tidy environs of High Tor’s kitchen. Carole had rung – characteristically, rather than going next door in person – as soon as the Panda car had departed, and invited her neighbour for lunch.
The cottage cheese salad that Carole produced did not really qualify under Jude’s description of ‘lunch’, but she was far too polite to mention the fact. Anyway, she was in no state to be assertive. The shock of Burton’s death, followed so quickly by the interview with the two mistrustful detectives, had shaken Jude’s customary equilibrium.
She felt vulnerable and, in spite of Carole’s assiduous probing, was unwilling to divulge what had been said that morning in the sitting room of Woodside Cottage. After dutifully consuming her cottage cheese salad, she announced that she would go back home to have a sleep.
Carole recognized that this was very unusual behaviour from Jude. She also found it surprisingly difficult to persuade her neighbour that they should meet up later and have an early evening drink at the Crown & Anchor. Which again was most unlike Jude.
Her neighbour’s mood seemed only to have improved a little when they met at six in Fethering’s only pub. Later in the year that might have been the time when Carole would be walking her Labrador, Gulliver, but in January it was virtually dark by four o’clock.
There was no doubt, from the minute the two of them walked in, about what the Crown & Anchor’s main topic of conversation was going to be that evening. The first words they heard from the shaggy-haired and bearded landlord Ted Crisp were, ‘So, either of you two know anything about this stiff up at the library?’
‘Why should we?’ asked Carole.
‘Well, you two are more in the range of literary types than me, aren’t you? Ex-stand-up comics don’t go in so much for the reading lark.’
‘I know no more than what we’ve heard on the radio.’
‘Ah. And does your intonation imply, by any chance, Carole, that, while you know no more, Jude perhaps does know more.’
‘That wasn’t what I meant to imply.’ But Carole still looked at her neighbour expectantly, as if prompting some revelations.
The uncomfortable moment was interrupted by an accented voice saying, ‘For heaven’s sake, Ted. Are you forgetting what a landlord’s job is? You are meant to ask your customers what they would like to drink.’
It was his Polish bar manager Zosia, of permanent blonde pigtails and normally permanent smile. Jude noticed, however, that that evening the girl’s usual sparkle was absent. There was a sadness in her pale blue eyes. Jude, a creature of instant compassion, made a mental note.
Zosia had arrived in Fethering following the murder of her brother Tadeusz, and had become a fixture as bar manager of the Crown & Anchor. It was her efficiency, together with the culinary skills of the chef, Ed Pollack, which had transformed a shabby local into one of the go-to destinations on the South Coast. The hostelry had even been described by some online travel guides, in a term Ted Crisp loathed, as a ‘gastropub’.
‘I don’t have to ask these two what they want to drink,’ the landlord protested. ‘It’ll be a couple of large Sauvignon Blancs, won’t it?’
‘Well, if you know what they’re going to drink, there’s nothing to stop you pouring them out, is there?’ Zosia tutted and sighed in a mock put-upon manner. ‘I’ll do it.’ She reached for a bottle from the ice-filled tub on the counter.
The diversion had given Jude a moment to plan her response. Still feeling the shock of what had happened, she had no desire once again to go through the events of the night before. So, with a convincing giggle, she said, ‘You shouldn’t be asking us, Ted. We are, after all, in the Crown & Anchor, a much more efficient source of rumour and conspiracy theories than Facebook or Twitter. Compared to that, we know nothing. I’m sure you heard a few speculations about the death at lunchtime.’
‘You’re not wrong there. Yes, everyone had their own view of what had happened.’
‘I’m surprised they even knew about it,’ said Carole. ‘We heard the news on The World at One.’
Jude flashed a quick smile of gratitude at her neighbour, who could easily have opened a whole can of worms by saying how the information had come into Woodside Cottage. But Jude knew she only had a brief reprieve before all Fethering would know about her connection to Burton St Clair. The news of the body’s discovery had spread quickly, no doubt originating from Vix Winter, Di Thompson or someone else working at the library. It was only a matter of time before the knowledge of who had joined Burton in his BMW at the end of the evening was also revealed to the village.
For the time being, though, Jude knew s
he had to maintain her mask of insouciance. ‘So, give us the headlines, Ted,’ she said. ‘Don’t bother with the really wacky ones. Just tell us what Fethering’s current theories are about the death?’
‘Well, obviously, it’s a murder …’
‘Why “obviously”?’ asked Carole.
‘Because that’s the way the good citizens of Fethering think. Basically, they’ve watched too much television. They’ve already named the case “The Body in the Library”.’
‘Oh, bad luck,’ said Jude. ‘I think they’ll find that title’s been used.’
‘And, anyway,’ Carole picked up, ‘it’s inappropriate. The body was not found in the library. It was found outside the library.’
Seeing that Ted was about to ask how her neighbour knew that, Jude came quickly in with, ‘Doesn’t have the same ring, does it? “The Body Outside the Library”? Anyway, who does Fethering reckon committed this ghastly crime?’
‘Oh, they wheeled out the usual suspects. Russian intelligence agents, Romanian drug traffickers, Chinese triads from Brighton … And, of course, there were the regular moans about travellers and migrants – legal or illegal.’
Jude noticed a tiny reaction to Ted’s last words from Zosia, who was standing behind him. She hoped that didn’t indicate the bar manager had suffered any recent slights about her nationality. Though the nice middle-class people of Fethering liked to think of themselves as liberal and tolerant, the undercurrent of racial feeling in the village could all too easily come to the surface. Antisemitism sometimes reared its ugly head, and discussions of immigration could all too quickly lead to a kind of kneejerk xenophobia … though of course in Fethering all such thoughts were expressed in the best possible taste.
‘So,’ asked Carole, ‘no theories about the death that sounded vaguely plausible?’
‘Ah now, I didn’t say that. There were a couple of very interesting theories put forward, of course unimpeded by any knowledge of the facts …’
‘… as is customary in the speculations of Fethering …’
‘Exactly, Carole, yes. Well, a theory that was put forward quite convincingly by one of the lunchtime regulars – don’t think you know him, tends to spend his evenings in the Yacht Club. Anyway, he said that the victim, whoever he was, was a writer—’
‘That’s true.’
‘And he’d just had a big success with some book …’
‘Stray Leaves in Autumn.’
‘Title doesn’t mean anything to me. I’m not much of a reader. Anyway, this Hercule Poirot of the Yacht Club, he reckoned that the murder must’ve been done out of jealousy by a less successful author. He says that kind of thing’s always happening in literary circles.’
‘And he doesn’t base this on any inside knowledge?’ asked Carole.
‘No inside knowledge, no outside knowledge, no knowledge of any kind – like I said, as usual in Fethering.’
‘Yes.’
‘You mentioned “a couple of theories”,’ said Jude. ‘What was the other one?’
‘Right. This was some American woman sounding off.’
‘Did you know her, Ted?’
‘Never seen her before in my life. Anyway, she said that this kind of murder is almost always domestic, and it always starts with the husband having an affair. Then she said there are three possible scenarios that can happen, and she gave each of them, like titles. Now what was it …?’ His eyes beneath their shaggy brows screwed up with the effort of recollection. ‘Yes, “HKW” … “WKM” … Those were the first two.’
‘And what in heaven’s name do they mean?’ asked Carole.
‘“HKW” means “Husband Kills Wife”, and “WKM” means “Wife Kills Mistress”.’
‘Well, neither of those works in this case,’ she observed tartly, ‘because it’s the husband who got killed.’
‘Yes, I know that. Now, what were the other categories she had …?’
‘You seem to remember her words very clearly,’ said Jude, ‘if this was just a casual conversation.’
‘I do remember them well, because she talked like she was a teacher. Whole bar went quiet when she started, everyone was listening to her.’
‘Was she very tall?’ asked Jude. ‘And blonde?’
‘Yes, she was. Why, do you know her?’
‘No. It’s just there was someone at the library talk yesterday who fitted that description. She said she taught mystery fiction.’
‘Do people actually teach that?’ asked a bemused Ted.
‘You bet. Particularly in the States.’
‘Oh.’
‘Anyway,’ said Carole, wanting to move the conversation on, ‘what was this woman’s view of the current case?’
Again, the landlord screwed up his eyes. ‘Right, she said in this case we were up against either “WKH” or “MKL” …’
‘“Wife Kills Husband” or “Mistress Kills Lover”,’ Carole translated unnecessarily.
‘Yes. Or—’ Ted Crisp concluded with some triumph – ‘“WAMKH”.’
‘“Wife And Mistress Kill Husband”,’ said Jude drily.
‘You’re spot on! So, this American bossy-boots reckoned all you got to do is to … “churchy”? “Churchy” something …? She said it was French.’
‘Cherchez la femme?’ Carole suggested.
‘That’s it – right. She said all you got to do is find out who in Fethering this writer chap had ever had an affair with – and she’ll be your murderer!’
Jude didn’t like the look her neighbour was giving her. She knew, however much she insisted she was telling the truth, Carole would still believe that there had once been something between Jude and Burton.
And if Carole thought that, it would only be a matter of time before the rest of Fethering thought the same.
EIGHT
The wine and the company in the Crown & Anchor had cheered Jude up, but when she said goodnight to Carole at the gate of Woodside Cottage, she felt the darkness closing in again. The reality of Burton’s death and the unpleasant recollection of her police interview in the morning dominated her mind.
It wasn’t yet eight o’clock and she hadn’t had anything to eat since Carole’s cottage cheese salad, so she knew she ought to be assembling some kind of supper. But the urge wasn’t there. She didn’t feel hungry.
Jude opened the laptop to check her emails. There was one from Megan. It read simply: ‘Yes, we should be in touch.’ No ‘Love’. No ‘Good Wishes’. No home address. Just a mobile number.
Jude consulted the large-faced watch fixed to her wrist by a broad ribbon. It was a perfectly reasonable hour to ring someone. She dialled the number.
‘Hello?’ The voice was breathless and slightly actressy. But also guarded, cautious, as if expecting a call it didn’t want to take. Very familiar, though. Though they had been such close friends, Jude remembered the voice’s tautness, its owner’s inability ever quite to relax, her habit of watchfulness, always anticipating some kind of slight.
‘Megan, it’s Jude.’
‘Ah. I thought you’d probably be in touch quite soon.’ Megan made it sound as though Jude’s quick response was in some way shameful.
‘I just wanted to say I heard about Burton … Al.’
‘Well, of course you did. You were there when it happened.’
‘You know that because the police have talked to you?’
‘I was spending a long weekend with a friend in Scarborough.’ So Detective Sergeant Knight’s information had been correct. ‘There was no mobile signal at her place. I only found out they’d been trying to contact me when I got on the train. I rang them as soon as I could. They checked out my alibi with my friend. It was when I was talking to Detective Inspector Rollins that I found out about you being there.’
‘Let’s be clear, Megan, I was at Fethering Library for his talk in the evening. I wasn’t actually there when he died.’
‘No, of course not.’
Again, there was an edge of scepticism i
n the voice. Jude was the last person in the world to get paranoid, but events of the last twenty-four hours had unsettled her deeply.
‘I think we ought to meet, Megan.’
‘As I said in my email, yes, I think we should.’
‘Where do you live now?’
‘Still in Morden.’
‘Oh.’
‘The same house. I got it as part of the divorce settlement.’
Jude didn’t have a car. Morden was the southernmost stop of the Northern Line. Trains from Fethering terminated at Victoria. ‘Probably make sense if we were to meet in London … what, for lunch maybe?’ she suggested.
‘I don’t go to London,’ said Megan.
‘What?’ Jude reminded herself that she was talking to Megan Georgeson, who at the height of her television fame was photographed at every first night and queened it into the small hours at the Groucho Club and Soho House. Her not going to London was inconceivable. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t go to London,’ Megan repeated with no further explanation.
‘Well, do you want me to come to the house?’
‘No, I don’t like people coming to the house. That’s an invasion of my privacy.’
Jude tried to keep the exasperation out of her voice as she asked, ‘Is there anywhere you would like to meet?’
‘There’s a restaurant in Morden called Ancient Persia. I go there quite often. The owners know me.’
‘So, shall we meet there?’
‘Very well.’ Megan made it sound as though she was making a big concession.
‘When? I think it should be as soon as possible.’
‘I agree.’
‘Tomorrow?’
There was a moment of hesitation from the other end of the line. ‘Yes, all right.’
‘Fine.’
‘One o’clock. Ancient Persia.’
Jude had a couple of healing sessions set up for the Thursday, but she rang the clients and rescheduled them. This was unusual. In her professional life, her loyalty to her clients was paramount. She knew how dependent they were on their regular therapy. That she took such action was a measure of how important she considered her meeting with Megan Sinclair to be.
