As she went through to the kitchen, Jude waved vaguely to the array of sofas and armchairs, all covered with brightly coloured drapes and bedspreads. Carole sank tentatively into one. It was surprisingly comfortable. She couldn’t feel the outlines of the structure that lay beneath the patchwork quilt, but the contours settled easily around her thin body.
Jude returned carrying a moisture-beaded bottle of white wine and a corkscrew. “You open this. I’ll get some life back into the fire.”
A few seconds’ ministration with coal, logs and poker set up a promising blaze. Jude squatted back on her heels and looked teasingly across at her friend. “So what have you come to tell me? That you completely misjudged Barry Stillwell? That he is the Mr Right you have been searching for all these years? And that you are going to spend the rest of your lives together?”
“God, no. I’ve got something much more interesting than that. I think I know who…” But she stopped herself. Carole reckoned she had a good story to tell and she didn’t want to give away the best bit first. “You remember the Great Storm, don’t you, Jude?”
“Well, I heard about it. I was living in Australia when it happened.”
“What were you doing in Austr – ?”
“But what’s the Great Storm got to do with the case?”
Never mind Australia. Carole could find out about that another time. What she had to say was much more interesting.
“I think the weekend of the Great Storm has a huge significance in the case. I think that was the date of the murder, the evidence of which I found in South Welling Barn.”
“And you got this from Barry Stillwell? Well, that is a turn-up. You turned the heat on him and he confessed to you, did he?”
“God, no. Barry’s far too boring to do anything as interesting as murder.”
“So who is your murderer?”
“Let’s start with the victim. You know I told you that Graham Forbes had been married twice…”
“Yes.”
“I think the victim was his first wife, Sheila.”
“What do you base that on?”
“Instinct.”
A sceptical lower lip was jutted out.
“What’s the matter with you? Why aren’t you excited?”
Jude slowly shook her head, in some bewilderment. “There’s something wrong here, Carole. I’m the one who’s supposed to respond to instinct. I thought, of the two of us, you were the rationalist.”
“I am.”
“Well, then give me your rationale for saying that the bones belonged to Sheila Forbes.”
“All right. They’re a woman’s bones for a start. Aged between thirty and fifty. That fits.”
“OK.” Jude looked at the fire through the wine she was swirling in her glass. “What else?”
“Graham Forbes is deeply in love with his second wife, Irene.”
“Are you saying that means he must’ve murdered his first wife?”
“I’m saying it would give him a motive to do so.”
“Only if he had met Irene before his first wife died.”
“He must’ve done.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Well, let’s assume he did.” Carole ignored Jude’s sardonic expression as she hurried on, “So, the weekend of the Great Storm, Graham Forbes, tortured by his love for Irene and infuriated by the loveless marriage he shares with Sheila, decides to solve all his problems at a stroke. He murders his wife, hides her body somewhere in the village and on the Monday travels back to Kuala Lumpur alone. Everyone in Weldisham imagines that Sheila went with him. Then on his next leave, he comes back without her and tells everyone she’s dumped him and run off with this academic. Everyone believes him. Why shouldn’t they? He’s a pillar of the local community. When he’s out in Malaysia he happily spends all his time with Irene. Back in England, he does his impression of the miserable abandoned husband. Then when he retires, he brings Irene back to Weldisham as his new bride, maintaining he’s only recently met her.”
There was a long silence. At first Carole was disappointed not to see Jude carried along by her enthusiasm. Then she started wondering quite how watertight the scenario she’d presented was.
Finally, Jude spoke. Shaking her head wryly, she said, “How much did you have to drink this evening, Carole?”
“Only a couple of glasses. What’re you on about? Can’t you see the logic of what I’ve just spelled out?”
“I can see a logic,” said Jude, “but I don’t think it’ll stand up to very close scrutiny. I know Malaysia’s a long way away, but I’m sure somebody would have noticed if Graham Forbes’s wife suddenly vanished off the face of the earth. I mean, they must’ve had staff out there, friends, who’d notice her absence.”
“Also, if her body’s been hidden since 1987, why do her bones suddenly turn up now? And, if they are Sheila Forbes’s bones, why haven’t the police been to question her husband?”
“We don’t know they haven’t,” said Carole truculently. She had been so excited by the edifice of conjecture she’d constructed that she wasn’t enjoying seeing it demolished brick by brick.
“I’m sorry. I’d need more evidence before I could go along the route you’re suggesting. I’d need proof that Sheila Forbes wasn’t seen out in Kuala Lumpur after the weekend of the Great Storm. I’d need proof that Graham Forbes did know Irene before he supposedly murdered his wife. I’d need…I’m sorry, Carole. I’d just need so much more information.”
“What kind of information?”
“Information that presumably the police have access to. Surely these days they can identify human remains by DNA, apart from anything else.”
“Only if they have some sample of DNA to match it with,” said Carole, with a feeble attempt at triumph in her voice. “And if Sheila Forbes had totally disappeared they wouldn’t have that.”
Jude’s mouth was still crinkled with scepticism. “No, but they could probably link the DNA to her through relatives, other family members. We need something a bit more positive. As I say, if we had evidence from someone in Kuala Lumpur that Graham did arrive out there in 1987 on his own…”
“Well, I’ll get that,” said Carole defiantly. “I’ve got a friend who works in the British Council.” It didn’t seem worth mentioning that she hadn’t been in touch with Trevor Malcolm for nearly thirty years.
“OK.” Jude grinned one of her huge, all-embracing grins. “I’m ready to be convinced. Convince me.”
¦
Carole woke the next morning with a hangover. It was partly physical – she and Jude had finished the bottle – but more it was mental. She felt embarrassed by the way she had let her ideas run away with her the night before. Jude was right. The scenario she’d expounded, casting Graham Forbes in the role of murderer, was a fabrication of unsupported conjecture. Its logic was full of holes, and in the cold light of day looked even more threadbare.
Where, Carole thought, did I get the idea that I have any aptitude for criminal investigation? The evidence at the moment does not support the claim. Solving murders should be left to the professionals. The police have all the information; no one who hasn’t got all the information stands a chance.
But greater than all the mental discomforts she felt was the fact that she’d behaved out of character. Carole Seddon had always prided herself on having a rational mind, but the previous evening she had ignored its dictates and followed a path of whimsy. What hurt was that, by her behaviour, she’d lost any intellectual ascendancy she might have had over her next-door neighbour.
Carole had made a fool of herself, and Jude had been the one who was all sober and sensible.
? Death on the Downs ?
Twenty-Two
Still, she could at least do the one bit of follow-up she’d promised. She found the number
