by Simon Brett
‘All right, I got pissed,’ said Steve Chasen, his aggression returning with a vengeance. ‘What the hell business is that of yours?’
‘It isn’t our business, but—’
‘Then why the hell are you wasting my time?’ He stood up, ready to walk out.
But Oliver Parsons’ next words stopped him. ‘We aren’t wasting your time. We’re talking to you because the police are now treating the death of Burton St Clair as murder. And on Tuesday evening you were heard in front of a lot of witnesses threatening and badmouthing him.’
Slowly Steve Chasen sank back into his chair.
‘Have the police been in touch with you?’ asked Jude. She nearly added ‘yet’, but she thought that would be overdoing things.
‘I had a message on my mobile,’ Steve mumbled. ‘I haven’t got back to them.’
‘They’ll keep trying,’ said Oliver.
‘Well, yes,’ Steve conceded. ‘Presumably, if they think it’s murder, they’ll want to talk to everyone who was at the library on Tuesday night.’
‘Yes, everyone,’ Oliver agreed. And then, perhaps unfairly, he added, ‘But they’ll want to speak to some people more than others.’
‘Meaning me?’
Oliver shrugged, as if the answer to Steve’s question were self-evident. The younger man coloured. ‘But I haven’t got anything to do with murdering anyone.’
‘I’m sure you haven’t. Nor has Jude. But the police have talked to her, and given her quite a rough ride, so we thought we could probably help prepare you for when they do talk to you.’
Jude had to admire the way he’d brought the argument round, so that now it seemed they were supporting Steve Chasen, rather than just picking his brains.
The younger man nodded. ‘OK. Well, like I said, on Tuesday at the library I just got pissed. That’s all. And all right, the guy got up my nose, but I certainly didn’t murder him.’
‘We’re not suggesting you did,’ Jude reassured him. ‘But if we share our recollections of what happened that evening, then we’ll be better placed to knock down any suspicions the police may have about us.’
‘Yes, I can see that,’ Steve Chasen agreed slowly.
‘First thing we ought to clear up,’ said Oliver, ‘is whether you had had any previous dealings with Burton St Clair? Had you met him before?’
Jude detected a moment’s hesitation before Steve replied, ‘No. He just represented everything I hate about a certain type of writing. Making it to the bestsellers with some middle-class, menopausal romance … Don’t know what his bloody book’s called, but I know what I think of it.’ He made a retching sound. ‘God, that’s not what writing should be about – not about ordinary people doing bloody ordinary things. Writing should involve imagination. Books shouldn’t copy life, they should create life.’
‘Like yours do?’ Jude suggested.
‘Yes, exactly like mine do. All right, I know I haven’t had the success that some useless tosser like Burton St Clair has had, but in time my books will be recognized for what they are.’
Jude didn’t think it was the moment to point out the ambiguity of what he had just said, but Oliver asked, ‘You mean, your work might be discovered posthumously? Like Gerard Manley Hopkins?’
Steve Chasen looked puzzled. ‘Don’t think I know him. Did he write science fiction?’
Leaving his question unanswered, Jude moved the conversation in another direction. ‘The police say that what killed Burton St Clair was an allergic reaction to walnuts. Did you know that?’
‘No, of course I bloody didn’t. You’ve only just told me he was murdered.’
‘Did you know he was allergic to walnuts?’
If this was an attempt by Oliver Parsons to wrong-foot Steve into an admission he had met Burton St Clair before, it didn’t work. ‘No,’ came the reply. ‘Of course I didn’t. I told you, I never met the guy.’
‘Well,’ said Jude, ‘the police seem to think that someone who did know about his allergy managed to get some walnut – I don’t know, ground walnuts, chopped walnuts, walnut essence – into something Burton drank at the library that evening. It seems unlikely anything could have been got into a sealed water bottle, but the bottle of red wine that was open in the staff room … well, that might be more feasible.’
‘We know that you went into the staff room, Steve,’ said Oliver, ‘I imagine to get more drink at the end of the evening …’
‘All right, what if I did? I didn’t go in there with a pocketful of chopped walnuts, I can assure you.’
‘We’re not suggesting you did,’ said Jude soothingly, ‘but we just wanted to know what you saw when you were in there.’
‘What kind of thing?’
‘Well, was there a bottle of red wine by the sink?’
‘Yes.’
‘A full bottle?’ asked Oliver.
‘Yes.’
‘With its screw-top off?’
‘Yes.’
‘So, what did you do with it?’
‘What do you think I did with it? I went in there with an empty glass because I wanted a drink.’
‘You poured yourself one?’ asked Jude.
‘No. I would have done, but then that interfering librarian came in and stopped me. She said I couldn’t have any more, because the speaker hadn’t had a drink yet.’
‘And she poured a glass for him?’ asked Oliver.
‘Yes.’
‘Was it just Di with you in the staff room?’
‘No, that sidekick of hers, grumpy kid who was running the bar.’
‘Vix Winter,’ said Jude.
‘I don’t know her name. She was the one who kept trying to stop me topping my glass up in the actual library.’
‘So, what happened after Di had poured the glass for Burton?’
‘Well, there was still three-quarters of a bottle left, so I reckoned I was due a top-up and I reached for the bottle, but both the girls reached for it at the same time and it got knocked over and smashed on the floor. Which I thought was a bloody waste of good red wine … well, not that good red wine, but still a waste.’
Jude and Oliver exchanged looks, both thinking the same thing: that if the walnut – in ground form or whatever – had been put in the wine bottle, seeing that it got smashed might be a good way of destroying the evidence, after Burton’s glassful had been poured. Jude remembered Vix Winter telling Di Thompson that she’d tidy up the mess.
‘So,’ said Oliver, ‘assuming you didn’t put the walnut into the wine bottle, Steve—’
‘Which I bloody well didn’t!’
‘We should think who else might have had the opportunity to do it. In other words, who else went into the staff room that evening.’
‘Well, all right, I’ll hold my hand up,’ said Jude. ‘I went through to the Ladies at the end of Burton’s talk, so I had an opportunity to do it. An opportunity which, as it turns out, I didn’t take.’
‘There was quite a lot of traffic to the loos,’ said Oliver.
‘So any one of the old biddies of Fethering could have doctored the drink,’ suggested Steve sarcastically. ‘Out of thwarted love for the author of Stray Leaves in Autumn perhaps …?’
That revealed that, despite his earlier avowal, Steve knew full well what Burton’s book was called. Indeed, he would have had to be pathologically unobservant to have sat through the entire Tuesday evening in Fethering Library without knowing. Jude wondered if there were other, more relevant, details of which he claimed ignorance. Everything about Steve Chasen’s manner and body language suggested to her that he was hiding something.
She caught Oliver Parsons’ eye. His expression implied that he didn’t think they were going to get any more useful information out of their interviewee.
So they left Steve Chasen to the excitements of his night shift at Sainsbury’s in Clincham. And asked him to let them know if he had any contact from the police.
He wasn’t the first person on the police contact list, thoug
h.
Jude had considered asking Oliver in for a drink, but when the Range Rover drew up outside Woodside Cottage, there was another vehicle parked outside. A Panda car. Detective Inspector Rollins and Detective Sergeant Knight emerged from it to welcome her home.
‘Would it help if I were to come in?’ suggested Oliver Parsons.
‘No. Thank you, but no.’
‘There are quite a few things that interest us about your behaviour,’ said the Inspector.
‘Oh?’
They were once again on the sofa and chairs of the front room at Woodside Cottage. Never before had three bottoms perched so unrelaxedly on their welcoming contours.
‘For instance,’ Rollins went on, ‘we find it interesting that you feel the need to be in contact with potential witnesses of events in the library on Tuesday …’
Jude offered no more than another ‘Oh.’
‘Particularly since these contacts follow on from your meeting with Megan Sinclair on Thursday.’ This time Jude was silent. ‘So, on Thursday evening you contact Oliver Parsons who, so far as we know, you had not met before the Tuesday.’
‘No, I hadn’t. And, incidentally, I didn’t contact him. He contacted me.’
‘Of course,’ said Rollins, clearly disbelieving. ‘Then this evening you both go and talk to Steve Chasen.’
Jude had always known there were few secrets in Fethering. Once the police became involved, it seemed there were absolutely no secrets in Fethering.
‘So why do you find this odd behaviour?’ asked Jude.
Detective Sergeant Knight took it upon himself to answer that one. ‘The Inspector means that your actions would seem to show an excessive interest on your part in the details of Burton St Clair’s death, almost as if you were trying to find out how much other people know about the circumstances of that death – which actions could be construed as guilty behaviour.’
For the first time, Rollins did not express disapproval of her junior’s intervention. Jude wondered whether this implied some collusion between the two detectives, some prior planning as to how they were going to conduct this latest interview.
‘For someone in my situation,’ said Jude calmly, ‘your approach seems calculated to make me feel guilty.’
‘What exactly do you mean by that?’ asked Rollins.
‘You’re behaving as though you think I had some connection with Burton’s death.’
The Inspector did not deny this. Instead, she came up with some standard police verbiage. ‘We’re at a very early stage of our enquiries, Jude. We haven’t ruled out any possibilities. We’re just trying to gather as much information as we can about the background to the case.’
‘So are you saying I am not on your list of suspects?’
‘I am not saying that, no.’
‘Are you denying that I am your Number One Suspect?’
The Inspector’s brow wrinkled with distaste. ‘I’m afraid expressions like “Number One Suspect” tend not to be used outside the confines of television police dramas.’
‘Let me put it another way then. Am I high up on your list of suspects?’
‘I’m afraid, until we have solid evidence that will remove you from that list, you will remain there.’
‘But it should be obvious that I had nothing to do with it.’
‘Obvious to you, maybe. Perhaps less obvious to us. Listen, Jude, when we investigate a crime, we start off with almost no information. We don’t know the place where the offence happened, we don’t know the people involved. So we start gathering information – and that’s something we’re very good at. We have much more experience than the average amateur.’ She slightly leant, with a hint of criticism, on the last word. ‘And the information we gather leads us towards certain hypotheses as to what might actually have happened. So, if a lot of facts that we get together seem to point in a certain direction, we follow the logic through until we find a new fact which renders that particular hypothesis invalid. In this case, we have yet to find the fact that makes our current hypothesis invalid.’
‘Your current hypothesis being that I murdered Burton St Clair?’
‘I didn’t say that, Jude. It’s not our habit to share the details of our investigations with people who might be significant witnesses.’
‘Or who might be the perpetrator of the crime?’
‘I didn’t say that either.’
‘No, but the implication was there.’
The Detective Inspector shrugged. ‘What you infer is up to you.’
From her relish for language, Jude was getting the firm impression that Rollins must have been a fast-track graduate entrant to the police force – perhaps another cause of disharmony between her and the Detective Sergeant.
But it wasn’t the moment for such sociological observations. ‘So what you’re looking for, Inspector,’ she asked, ‘is a piece of evidence that would rule me out as a suspect in this case?’
‘That would be enormously helpful,’ Rollins replied, ‘both to us and to you.’ But she couldn’t resist adding, ‘If such a piece of evidence exists.’
Jude was silent.
‘Look at it from our point of view,’ the Inspector went on. ‘We know the cause of Burton St Clair’s death. We think it likely that chopped walnut, ground walnut – something containing walnuts – was put into the bottle of red wine in the staff room at Fethering Library. We know you were aware of the deceased’s allergy to walnuts.’
‘You only have Megan Sinclair’s word for that.’
‘We also only have Megan Sinclair’s word for the fact that your affair with her husband broke up their marriage.’
‘And I keep telling you that that affair never happened.’ Jude was beginning to lose her cool.
‘Megan seems convinced it did. And why should she make it up? Has she any reason for wanting to get you into trouble?’
‘I don’t know. Megan is … mentally very confused. She seems to have convinced herself that the affair did happen, so in her mind it did.’
‘Just in her mind?’
‘Yes!’
‘Very well. Then we come on to your recent behaviour. If you had nothing to do with the crime, why have you been going round contacting witnesses?’
‘Well, obviously, to find that vital piece of information, evidence, whatever, that will convince you I had nothing to do with it! Don’t you believe me?’
‘Yes, of course.’ said the Inspector, who clearly didn’t.
Jude felt she was up against a brick wall. ‘Look,’ she asked, as near to despairing as her positive nature ever allowed her to get, ‘short of getting a confession out of me – which you’re not going to get; I am not in the habit of confessing to crimes I didn’t commit – what would be the next stage of your investigation, so far as I’m concerned?’
Rollins looked thoughtful. ‘Well, if we can’t get any more useful information from you, and we don’t get any new information out of any of the other witnesses—’
‘People like Steve Chasen? He said he hasn’t spoken to you yet.’
‘We left a message for him. We’ll get round to him in time.’
‘So, apart from talking to people like him, what would your next step be?’
‘I suppose at some point we would apply for a warrant to search your premises.’
‘To search here? To search Woodside Cottage?’
‘Yes.’
Somehow this news, more than anything else that had been said, made Jude realize how seriously she was being taken as a suspect. ‘And then – what? If you can find some chopped walnuts in my kitchen, that’s it? I must have committed the murder?’
‘I’m not sure that—’
‘Go on then!’ Jude was up on her feet, gesturing towards the kitchen door. ‘Have a look! See what you can find! Do it now, why not? There’s no time like the present!’
There was a silence. The two detectives looked nervously at each other, not quite sure how to take the invitation that had been presented
to them.
‘Well, don’t hang about,’ said Jude. ‘It’s a good offer. Detective Sergeant Knight, I guess this might be your territory. Why don’t you search my kitchen while the Detective Inspector keeps an eye on me to see that I don’t try to escape?’
‘Well …’ Knight looked again at Rollins. ‘We don’t actually have a search warrant.’
‘You don’t need a search warrant, do you,’ demanded Jude, ‘if I’ve given you my permission?’
She appealed to the Detective Inspector, who nodded and gestured the Detective Sergeant to go into the kitchen. As he went through, Knight pulled a pair of rubber gloves out of his pocket. And put them on.
‘Good,’ said Jude. ‘Let’s get this thing sorted out, shall we? Now, while he’s doing that, is there anything else you wanted to ask me?
Rollins had recovered her equilibrium by now. ‘Not so much what I want to ask you, but perhaps a few things I should tell you.’
‘Yes?’
‘Whatever happens next, I think you would be very ill-advised to continue to pursue your own investigations into Burton St Clair’s death.’
‘Oh no!’ Jude clutched both hands to her ample bosom. ‘This happens in every television cop show I’ve ever seen. I’ve been taken off the case!’
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Detective Inspector Rollins did not see the humorous side of this response. She continued as if nothing had been said. ‘I obviously cannot give you orders as to who you should or should not talk to, but your making contact with other potential witnesses might give the impression that you were trying to influence the testimony that they give.’
‘Yes, fine, I get the point. But, Inspector, please tell me you can at least understand why I want to make contact with such people.’
Rollins looked more po-faced than ever. ‘No, I can’t really understand that.’
‘For heaven’s sake!’ Jude was getting really rattled now. ‘To clear my name! To find some evidence which proves that I have nothing to do with Burton St Clair’s death! I just want to get at the truth!’
‘Exactly what we want to do, Jude. But I think we might get to the truth more quickly if you stopped withholding information.’
‘I am not withholding information! And I haven’t lied to you either. I just come back to the same thing. How many more times do I have to say it? I had nothing to do with the death of Burton St Clair!’
