The Vice-Commodore was in, though on his home territory he seemed diminished, less assured than he had been in the surroundings of the Fethering Yacht Club. Jude sensed in him a reluctance to invite her in, which was overcome only by ingrained good manners.
When he ushered her through to his sitting room, she could see why. In marked contrast to the neatness of its exterior, the house’s interior was distinctly shabby. Some months had elapsed since the sitting room had experienced even the most cursory of cleaner’s attentions. In the air, as well as stale Gauloise smoke, hovered the sickly smell of rotting fruit.
Denis Woodville’s awareness of, and embarrassment about, the state of his home suggested he very rarely had visitors. “I’m sorry, bit of a tip,” he barked, with an attempt at bluffness. “Fact is, I was never up to much on the domestic front and, since my wife passed away, I…Not that I spend any longer here than I have to…Busy at the club a lot of the time anyway…”
Escaping to the club, Jude translated. The squalor of the room brought home to her the emptiness of the old man’s life.
“Do take a seat.” He gestured vaguely to a selection of subsiding armchairs, none of which looked particularly inviting.
“No, I’m fine. If you could just find that number…”
“Yes, yes, of course.” Moving aside an ashtray and a couple of smeared beer mugs from a dresser, he riffled through a pile of dusty newspapers and unopened letters. “I’ve got it here somewhere.” He had shown no surprise at being asked for Tanya’s number and no curiosity as to why it might be wanted. “Tell the young lady when you do get through to her that, if she’s changed her mind, she can have her job back. I haven’t found a replacement yet… that is, unless of course you were serious about wanting to do it?”
Jude grimaced. “Still finding my feet round here, actually. Bit early for me to commit myself to anything.”
“Yes, yes, of course. Damn, it doesn’t seem to be here. Maybe it’s in this lot.” He moved across to attack another pile of detritus on a coffee table.
“Nice-looking dinghy you have in the front there,” said Jude, to make conversation.
“Yes, she’s a Mirror.”
“Ah.” This meant nothing to her. “I’m surprised you don’t keep it down at the Yacht Club.”
“Well, I used to, but, erm…well, times change…” Jude suddenly understood. Denis Woodville was saying that he could no longer afford to keep his dinghy at the Yacht Club. “I probably won’t keep her that much longer. Dinghy like that’s a bit of a handful. I’m thinking of selling her…and getting something else…more suitable for my advanced years,” he added, with an unconvincing flourish of bravado.
“Good idea,” said Jude, not believing a word of it.
“Damn, it’s not here. I know I’ve got the number down at the club.” The very mention of the word seemed to raise his spirits. He looked at his watch. “Should be opening up there soon anyway.” The confidence in his voice mounted as the moment of leaving his squalid home drew closer. “Damned place can’t function without the Vice- Commodore, you know. If you wouldn’t mind coming along with me…”
There was a little knot of elderly cronies already waiting for Denis Woodville to unlock the clubhouse.
They called out raucous comments about his timekeeping and did not let the fact he had a woman with him pass unremarked. The Vice-Commodore glowed in their attention.
Inside the bar-room, with the lights switched on, he whispered to Jude, “Have to get their drinks sorted out first or I’ll never hear the end of it. Can I get you a little something?”
Jude refused, anxious to get away. She had a sense that the pace of the investigation was accelerating.
Denis Woodville lit up another Gauloise and then made a great meal of pouring the drinks, with constant comments about how unsuitable it was for the Vice-Commodore to be involved in such menial tasks. Though it was clear he’d been doing it every night since Tanya left.
None of the others moved to help him. They just sat and pontificated on the appalling state of the world and how much better everything would be if they were in charge. One of them harked back to when he’d been stationed out in Singapore and pretty well ran the show out there. If the half of what these elderly gentlemen said was true, Jude was privileged to be in the company of the finest political and logistical brains in the entire world.
Eventually everyone was supplied with a drink. Denis Woodville took a long swig of his brandy and said, “Now, let’s find that phone number for you…”
He turned to a neat address book by the telephone. Whatever chaos might reign in his home, here at the Fethering Yacht Club the Vice-Commodore kept everything shipshape. As he picked up the book, he noticed the message light flashing on the answering machine. “Excuse me. Better just check this. Might be the coastguard,” he said importantly.
The message wasn’t from the coastguard. It was the voice of a bored young woman. “Vice-Commodore, it’s Tanya, calling on Monday afternoon. First, I wanted to say thanks for the lunch last week…”
Though spoken with total lack of enthusiasm, this still prompted ribald comments from the cronies round the bar.
“…and the other thing is, could you let me know whether those repairs on the sea wall have been finished yet? It’s just, um…well, I was thinking of coming for a walk to Fethering and I didn’t want to if the building’s still going on, you know…Could you call me on…”
Jude scribbled the number down on the back of an envelope. “And could I have her address please?”
“How very odd,” said the Vice-Commodore, as he passed the address book across. “What on earth does the girl want to know about the sea wall for?”
Jude had a potential answer to that question. An answer that might make a connection she’d been seeking for some time. The girl’s reason for wanting the information had been so clumsily fabricated that Jude felt a little charge of excitement.
“It’s in code,” one of the Fethering Yacht Club members announced. “It all has special meanings for the Vice-Commodore, eh? That’s how he and Tanya have managed to keep their affair secret all these years.”
The remark was greeted by some token joshing, but soon the old men moved on to more serious matters. When Jude slipped away from the clubroom, Denis Woodville was launching into his views on how the Northern Ireland problem should be solved. His recipe required rather lavish use of a reintroduced death penalty, but ‘in the long run, it would only be being cruel to be kind…’
The Vice-Commodore was in his pomp. Jude felt sure none of his surrounding pontificators had ever seen him in the drabness of his home surroundings.
¦
“Have you talked to Ted Crisp?”
It was the first thing Jude asked when she arrived and Carole was proud to be able to say, “Yes. He’s game for a bit of body-hunting…round seven.”
“Good.” Jude pulled out her mobile phone. “I’ll see if Tanya’s there now.”
“You can use my phone.”
“Mm?” She was already keying in the numbers. “Oh, it’s OK.”
“But using a mobile is a lot more expensive.”
“Is it?” asked Jude, as though the idea had never occurred to her. “Ah, hello, is that Tanya? My name’s Jude. I don’t know if you remember, we met in the Crown and Anchor at Fethering on Friday. Yes, that’s right. Well, I wanted to talk about a body that got washed up on the beach here last week…”
With a rueful expression, Jude turned to Carole. “Maybe the direct approach isn’t always the best one. She hung up on me.”
“Ah. Still, wouldn’t you say that’s a sign of guilt or complicity or something? If she had no idea what you were talking about, she’d have said so, not hung up.”
“You could be right.” Jude looked down at the envelope on which she’d written Tanya’s address and phone number. “I think I’d better go and see her.”
“In Brighton?”
“Yes. I know she’s at home, don’t I? At least at the moment.”
“How will you get there? I’d offer to drive you over, but if I’m meeting Ted at seven, I – ”
“No, no, don’t worry. I’ll get a cab.”
“A cab?” Carole was shocked. “All the way to Brighton?”
