‘I don’t follow you.’
‘She wants the murder to be true. Shows he’s nuts about her.’
This was almost telepathic. ‘That’s the word she used. She said he’s nuts.’
‘Look at it the other way round,’ he said. ‘Suppose Rick is lying.’
‘She’d go ballistic. He’d have conned her into sleeping with him. She’d hate that.’
‘So she believes him because she wants to.’
She understood.
He said, ‘You have to make your own judgement. Think about what Rick said, not Gemma.’
‘Rick didn’t say much at all.’
‘But he’s the one who knows.’
‘You’re right. Gemma’s only got his words to go on.’ She cast her thoughts back. ‘Gemma had to drag them from him. He didn’t want me to know.’
‘And that made it more believable?’
‘I’m sure it did. But he was very clear. You couldn’t take his words to mean anything else. He said he took the body to a paper mill in Kent and pulped it.’
He nodded. ‘Rick’s a serious guy. Now see it from his point of view, supposing he made it up about the murder.’
‘Just to get her to sleep with him?’ She thought about that. Up to now she’d relied heavily on Gemma’s account.
‘If he felt she was losing interest,’ said Jake.
‘She was,’ Jo said, remembering. ‘She’d been going on and on to me about Francisco. She even said to me that Rick wouldn’t stand a chance if Francisco asked her out.’ She thought again. ‘But she wouldn’t have told Rick.’
‘He’d pick it up.’
‘You think so?’
‘Men do.’
‘I suppose he might.’ She could see a persuasive cause and effect in what Jake was suggesting with his terse interpretation of the nightmare. ‘If he’d made it up about killing Cartwright just to get back in Gem’s favour, he wouldn’t deny it after she’d slept with him. He’d hope it would be a secret between them.’
‘But Gemma can’t keep secrets.’
‘Right. She insists that Rick confesses to me.’
‘So he’s forced to repeat the lie.’
Her brain was fizzing with this new possibility, one she wouldn’t have considered without Jake’s prompting. Like the horrors of childhood, the fear drained away when it was explained.
‘I’ve spent time with men who killed,’ he said. ‘There’s something about them Rick doesn’t have.’
‘But Mr Cartwright is still missing.’
‘He may be dead.’ He looked away at a seabird skimming the water. ‘Doesn’t mean you have to believe Rick. Or Gemma.’
Hen allowed Gary to drive her to Kleentext, seeing that he was known there. He’d spoken to Gemma Casey, the woman who was running the office while the boss was missing. Hen remembered her as an open talker, freely admitting she’d resented Fiona’s too obvious overtures to Cartwright, the manager. Today she was still in her outer office, and looking under strain. No surprise, considering she was just a PA who found herself trying to run a business.
‘If you’re wondering why we’re back so soon,’ Hen said, ‘you supplied one of my officers with this list of recent clients. I notice you printed some cards for the nature reserve at Pagham.’
‘That’s right. Geese on the ice. Nice for Christmas.’
‘A goose on the plate is better.’
‘My thought exactly,’ Gemma said, ‘but I wouldn’t mention it to the client.’
‘Who was the client?’
‘You said already-the Pagham Harbour people.’
‘Yes, but who came here and placed the order?’
‘A man called Jake Kernow.’
Hen could gladly have goose-stepped around the room. ‘And would he have met Fiona Halliday when he came here?’
Gemma tapped her chin. ‘It’s possible. I took the order, but Fiona was always hovering around this office.’
‘To be noticed by the boss?’
She smiled. ‘You have it. She was supposed be in accounts, but she spent more time swanning in and out of here than checking invoices.’
‘But you can’t say for certain if she and Mr Kernow met on one of his visits?’
‘I didn’t actually see them together.’
‘Was he alone here at any stage?’
‘More than once I had to go downstairs and fetch some samples of card or proofs. I made him a coffee and left him for five or ten minutes.’
‘In that time he could have met Fiona?’
‘I don’t see why not.’
‘I was told he made four visits here.’
‘That’s what I recall.’
‘Seems a lot.’
Gemma reddened. ‘To be perfectly honest, I think he fancied me. Well, I know he did, because we went bowling together.’
‘You went out with him?’
‘Just the once. I felt sorry for him. He gets a bit tongue-tied, doesn’t know what to say to a girl.’
‘But he succeeded with you?’
‘Depends what you mean by “succeeded,” she said with a smile. ‘We bowled a few ends. It didn’t last. I managed to unload him onto a friend.’
‘Not Fiona?’
‘Christ, no. I don’t like speaking ill of the departed, but she was never a friend. One of my yoga chums.’
‘You say you felt sorry for him. It sounds as if he does rather well with girls.’
‘Now that you mention it. He’s not much of a looker, but he appeals to the caring, maternal thing. Not for long, in my case.’
‘Why? Did you have a bad experience with him?’
‘Nothing like that. I got bored, that’s all.’ She held up her forefinger. ‘I’ve just had a thought. When he kept coming back here on any pretext-like insisting on bringing the proof to me in person when he could easily have put it in the post or left it at reception-I took it that he wanted to go out with me. Maybe he was trying to get a date with Fiona.’
‘She didn’t mention going out with him?’
‘She wouldn’t. Not to me.’
‘Is there anyone else she worked with who might know?’
‘Can’t think of anybody. She wasn’t one to have close friends.’
‘But she got on with Mr Cartwright?’
‘Huh!’ It still rankled evidently. ‘She’d be with him behind that door and I’d be told they were not to be interrupted.’
‘You think they were having sex?’
She glanced towards Gary. ‘Close your ears, Sunny Jim. This is girl talk. I saw the smirk when she came out. She was practically rubbing her hands.’
‘You’ve worked here for how long?’ Hen asked.
‘Twelve years.’
