crooked smile and said, “Well, isn’t that luck? Somebody to buy me a drink just at the moment I need one.”
“I’ll do it,” said Carole, moving up to the bar and opening her handbag. “White wine, Jude?”
“Please.”
“And is yours still the large Jameson’s?” She tried to sound as though she spent all her life ordering drinks for knife-wielding ex-jockeys at racecourse bars.
“Could you make that a quadruple? Gets too crowded in here to do a second round.”
He backed away and leant against the shelf round the edge of the bar, designed for the eaters to balance their paper plates of food. “So…Jude isn’t it?”
“That’s right.” She perched on one of the few tall stools.
“And what can I do for you? Is it a tip you’re after?”
“Might be glad of a tip later. I’ve had a disastrous afternoon so far.”
“Well, I can tell you what’ll win the next. It’ll cost you, though.”
“Cost more than a quadruple Jameson’s?”
“Maybe.”
Jude found it strange that he’d made no mention of their most recent encounter, given how dramatic it had been. Maybe he was ashamed of what had happened, but he didn’t show any signs of embarrassment. He behaved instead as if he had forgotten about the incident, as if it had never taken place.
Carole joined them with the drinks. The white wine came in little bottles containing two modest glasses’ worth. Her instinct would have been to buy only one for the two of them, but she wasn’t sure such parsimony would be appropriate to Jude’s expansive mood on the racecourse. Still, bearing at mind that they’d come in the Renault, Carole determined only to sip at hers.
Donal almost snatched his quadruple Jameson’s and, as ever without thanks, took a long sip. Jude didn’t beat about the bush. “When we last spoke, you were talking about blackmail.”
“Was I now?”
“Yes,” said Carole incisively, “and, in case you’ve forgotten, when we last spoke was in the Crown and Anchor, where you attacked the landlord with a knife.”
“So? Are you suggesting that gives you some kind of hold over me?”
“I’m suggesting that, if you don’t want to have even more dealings with the police, you might be wise to cooperate with us.”
“Hm.” Donal assessed this for a minute, then turned, with the satirical look of a submissive lapdog, to Jude. “So how can I help you?”
“You implied that you knew something about a married couple, and you were prepared to demand money from them to secure your silence on the matter.”
“‘Demand’ is a strong word.” He grinned. “I’d prefer ‘ask.’”
“Whatever. I want to know whether the married couple you’re putting the squeeze on are Yolanta and Victor Brewis.”
The fact that she knew the names shocked him. Thrown for a moment, he took a long shuddering swallow of Jameson’s. Seeming calmed, he smiled mischievously. “No. There’s all the answer I’m giving you. No.”
“So it’s the Dalrymples?”
The flicker of Donal Geraghty’s eyelids told Jude she’d hit a bull’s eye, but of course he denied the assumption. “I think you’re narrowing down your suspects too much. There’s going to be more than one couple having extramarital flings in a place like Fethering. Surely you know that.”
“I do. But, till you told me, I didn’t know it was an extramarital fling we were talking about.”
His face registered annoyance at his carelessness. “Ah, well now, I didn’t say…”
But backtracking was hopeless. Emboldened by the information she had procured, Jude pressed her advantage. “And might this extramarital fling have something to do with Walter Fleet’s murder?”
He smiled enigmatically. “I don’t think the change of circumstances there are going to stop me from getting my little meal ticket.”
“What change of circumstances are you talking about?”
“You mean you don’t know?” Teasing out his narrative, he took another long pull at his glass of Jameson’s and smacked his lips elaborately before continuing. “The case is over.”
“How do you mean?”
“The police know who killed Walter Fleet.”
“How?”
“Because they’ve had a confession.”
Jude looked appalled. “Not that poor girl?”
“Poor girl? I don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s a man who’s confessed.”
“Who?” asked Carole.
“Alec Potton. Now do you want this tip for the next race or don’t you?”
He gave them a horse’s name. Chateau Dego. Jude put twenty pounds on it at sixteen to one. Carole desisted, not wishing to risk the precious three pounds fifty she had won on Becktrout. As a result, she missed out on the three hundred and twenty pounds that Jude won when Chateau Dego romped home by a mile.
But neither the winning punter nor the nonpunter showed much emotion. They reacted numbly, as in a daze. Carole and Jude were both preoccupied by the news they had heard about Alec Potton.
29
Carole Seddon was normally a very organised shopper. She planned ahead, making elaborate lists before her weekly forays to Sainsbury’s. (There was also a Tesco’s near Fethering, but, in spite of the huge rebranding and massive success of the company, Carole couldn’t stop thinking of Tesco’s as slightly common.) Surprise and shame were therefore her dominant emotions when, after her day’s racing at Fontwell, she got back to High Tor to find she had run out of dog food. She had been somewhat preoccupied with Walter Fleet’s murder and worries about Stephen and Gaby; she just hadn’t noticed the dwindling stocks of Gulliver’s favourite Pedigree Chum.
There was nothing else in the larder she could fob him off with. And there was no way she could endure an entire evening of reproachful looks from a hungry dog. So there was nothing for it but to put her coat on again and take a brisk walk down to Allinstore.
Even though she avoided using the local supermarket whenever possible, Carole still knew exactly where the pet food section was, and quickly filled her basket with enough tins-and no more-to see Gulliver through till her next scheduled Sainsbury’s run. She wasn’t planning to pay more Allinstore prices than she had to.
At that time of the evening, between the postschool-run rush and the returning commuters’ flurry, the store was fairly empty, and Carole couldn’t have been more surprised to see, sitting behind one of the tills, Hilary Potton. If her ex-husband’s arrest and the possible effect of that on Imogen had been enough to make her take time off work, why on earth wasn’t she staying at home after the news of his confession? Maybe Carole was about to find out.
She took her purchases up to the counter and received a beam of recognition. For a moment this surprised her, but then she remembered that she had only had Hilary’s shouting at Jude reported to her. Carole herself was in the clear; so far as Hilary Potton was concerned, she had nothing to do with the treacherous Jude.
“Glad to see you back,” she said uncontroversially. “Are things a bit more settled at home?”
“Well, I suppose they are in the sense that I now know where I am.”
“Oh?” As usual in her encounters with Hilary, Carole reckoned only the smallest of prompts would be required.
Her surmise proved correct. “Look, I may as well tell you this, Carole, because soon enough it’ll be all over Fethering-not to mention the known world. The fact is that Alec, my ex-husband, has now been shown up as the monster he always was.”
“Well, I heard he’d been taken in for questioning by the police.”
“Things have moved on from there. It seems the police had very good reasons for questioning him. Alec has confessed.”
