stayed hidden in the stables and it was so ghastly-”
Jude let her get no further. Brown eyes sparkling, she exclaimed, “But, Sonia, if Alec Potton was with you for all that time, then there’s no way that he could have killed Walter Fleet.”
“I know, I know.”
And Jude finally understood the magnitude of the secret that had been torturing Sonia Dalrymple.
39
Hilary Potton’s kitchen was surprisingly old-fashioned for someone whose husband worked in the fitted kitchens business. Maybe it was just another reflection of the state of their marriage, of Alec’s priorities lying increasingly outside the domestic nest. But Hilary put together an excellent lunch, pasta with tuna and broccoli in a creamy sauce. She had good domestic skills. Maybe they would be put to good use one day in another marriage. Because, from the way Hilary talked about the future, meeting a nice caring New Zealander was included in her plans.
Carole kept trying to get the conversation back to Alec, and indeed to Walter Fleet’s murder, but without marked success. The marriage, along with everything else that had happened in Fethering, would soon be in the past, and Hilary didn’t want to talk about them. A few necessarily uncomfortable months lay ahead of her, until her husband was finally behind bars for a good long stretch, and then her new life would begin to blossom.
“What’s Imogen’s reaction to the idea of New Zealand?” asked Carole when she could get a word in edgeways.
“Oh, I haven’t talked to her about it in great detail yet. I don’t want to worry her. She’s got enough on her plate at the moment.”
Yes, thought Carole, she certainly has. And she wasn’t sure that playing a supporting role in her mother’s “new life” in New Zealand would be the best outcome for Imogen.
Carole found it strange how her attitude to Hilary Potton had changed. When they first met, she had thought her a potential kindred spirit. But the more time Carole spent with her, the more she became aware of the woman’s deep selfishness and taste for self-dramatisation. She knew it was never possible to look inside another marriage and find the real truth, but she was beginning to feel a little sympathy for Alec Potton.
Hilary’s clearing up the pasta bowls and fetching fruit and cheese gave Carole an opportunity to redirect the conversation. “Going back to that awful night when Walter Fleet was stabbed…”
“Do we have to go back to it?” Hilary laid out the second course on the table. “You can imagine what it’s like for me, particularly in the new circumstances, you know, with Alec. And the thought that I’ll have to go through it all over again when the trial starts-have the media spotlight on me, all those endless television interviews-it doesn’t bear thinking of.”
But the mock shudder with which she uttered these words suggested that she already was thinking of it quite a lot. And with considerable enthusiasm.
“Well, I was just working something out.”
“Yes?”
“That night was a Tuesday, wasn’t it?”
“Was it? I can’t remember.”
“Take my word for it, it was.”
“All right.” Hilary Potton shrugged. “I don’t really see that it’s important.”
“It may not be. But please, just indulge me for a moment while I try to work this thing out.”
Another shrug, this time of uninterested acquiescence.
“And obviously you weren’t anywhere near Long Bamber Stables at the relevant time…”
“No.”
“…because you were here at home with Imogen.”
“That’s what I said, yes.”
“And yet, every weekday except Wednesday, you do a four-to-eight shift at Allinstore.”
“Oh yes. Yes, I do, but…that evening there was a delay. Imogen got held up at school, so I had to call in to Allinstore to say I’d be late, and then,” she concluded lamely, “I somehow didn’t make it.”
“And is that what you told the police when they questioned you?”
“Yes, of course. Or I would have done if the police had asked me about it in detail. But in fact Alec had told them that Imogen and I were here, and I was just asked to confirm what he’d said.”
“But how could Alec have known you were both here at relevant time…”
“Sorry?”
“…if he was at that very moment at Long Bamber Stables stabbing Walter Fleet to death?”
Hilary Potton looked straight at Carole, and there was a new hardness in her eyes. Their conversation had definitely reached another level. Whether that level would have incorporated denial or outrage or negotiation was impossible to say.
And nor was Carole about to find out, because at that moment the front doorbell rang, and Hilary Potton went out to the hall, to return with a jubilant Jude. “Don’t you understand-it’s all all right,” she was crowing, as she followed Hilary in, leaving the door open behind her.
“No, I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”
“Oh, hello, Carole.” Jude gave only a glancing acknowledgement to her friend before bubbling on. “Your husband could not have killed Walter Fleet. He has an alibi for the time when the murder took place.”
There was no disguising the effect this news had on Hilary Potton. Disappointment burned in her eyes. Images on the screen of her mind of nice caring New Zealanders were instantly switched off.
“What was his alibi? Where was he?”
Given the facts, Jude thought it more diplomatic not to answer at that particular moment. “The person who can vouch for him is contacting the police direct. I don’t think anyone else should be told at this point.”
“I’m Alec’s wife. I have a right to know.”
“I’m sure you will hear the details from the police very soon.”
“Well, I…” Hilary Potton was momentarily lost for words. Then exasperation returned, exasperation with its usual target. “Isn’t that typical of bloody Alec? Presumably, if someone else had an alibi for him, he knew about it too. He could have stopped all this nonsense about going in for days of questioning and confessing to the murder.”
“Then why do you think he didn’t?” asked Carole softly.
“Hm?”
“Why did he confess to a murder he didn’t commit? When there was someone who could give him an alibi all the time?”
“Well, presumably…I don’t know. God only knows what goes on inside that man’s head.”
“Suppose,” suggested Jude, “that the revelation of who he was with might have injured that person.”
“I don’t see how it could.”
“If that person were a married woman…”
“Oh God. Alec wasn’t with one of his floozies, was he?”
“I’m just saying that might be a possible explanation for his behaviour.”
“That he was saving a lady’s honour?” asked Hilary cynically. “What a chivalrous gesture. Pity he never gave a thought to saving my bloody honour.”
Carole picked up the conversation-or had it now become an interrogation? “As Jude says, that’s just one possibility. Another possibility is that Alec confessed to protect someone else.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that he knew who had committed the murder, and he was prepared to take the rap for him. Or her.”
“But why the hell would he do that?” Hilary Potton was blustering now.
“Love? Duty? Who can say? Who can say what goes on inside a marriage?”
“Carole, are you suggesting that I killed Walter?”
