see Graham Forbes. That must mean he’s suspicious about what happened to Graham’s first wife.”
“It could mean a lot of other things. Detective Sergeant Baylis has been to see you a couple of times, and that doesn’t mean he’s suspecting you of murder, does it?”
“No, all right,” said Carole testily.
Jude giggled.
“What’s the joke?”
“I’m sorry. This is just such an unfamiliar role for me – playing devil’s advocate.”
“It’s becoming more familiar by the minute. You were doing exactly the same thing last night.”
“Maybe it’s the part I’ll play for the rest of my life. Is that my future – the eternal wet blanket?”
“I can’t see it.” Carole was not going to be deflected. “Look, just let me spell out my scenario, and don’t stop me till I’ve finished. Then pick holes in it, by all means…Though,” she said with an uncharacteristic moment of cockiness, “I don’t think you’ll find any.”
“Well, well, there’s confidence for you. OK, spell away.”
“All right. I’ll take the starting point I did last night. In 1987, on the night of the Great Storm, Graham Forbes, driven mad by the aridity of his marriage and the fact that he’s fallen in love with Irene out in Kuala Lumpur, kills his wife, Sheila.”
Jude opened her mouth to make some comment, but managed to stop herself.
“He buries her body in the old barn. He puts it there, because the barn’s right behind his house and nobody can see him from the rest of the village. Then, on the Monday morning he catches his flight to Kuala Lumpur and is reunited with his beloved Irene. When he next returns to England, he’s alone and he has this hard-luck story about Sheila having gone off with another man. Three years is reckoned to be a decent interval, so when he retires in 1990, he brings back his new bride and they settle down to live permanently in Weldisham.”
Jude could restrain herself no longer. “That’s virtually exactly what you told me last night.”
“No. We have a very important new element – the fact that the body was buried in the barn.”
“Then why was it moved from the barn?”
Carole grinned triumphantly. “I was just coming to that. Graham Forbes’s secret is safe so long as the barn remains a dilapidated wreck. Various people, the latest of whom is Harry Grant, have plans to convert it into a dwelling. But each time the issue arises, the Village Committee makes such a fuss with local objections that planning permission is refused. And who’s Chairman of the Village Cpmmittee? Graham Forbes. So he sees to it that every time his secret is threatened, he coordinates the opposition. And he always succeeds. Until this time.
“This time, a few different members on the Planning Committee and a new government policy about building more homes in Sussex mean that finally Harry Grant gets the go-ahead he’s been waiting for all this time.
“But, of course, that has very serious implications for Graham Forbes. A house won’t have an earth floor. A house will have proper foundations dug. And once those are dug, his thirteen-year-old skeleton in the cupboard – or rather under the barn – is going to be discovered.
“So, as soon as Graham Forbes gets the tip-off that the Planning Committee decision has gone against him, he has to move his wife’s remains.” Carole was trying to sound all sober and objective, but she couldn’t keep the excitement out of her voice as she went on, “However, the night he chooses to perform the grisly task of exhumation happens to be the night that Tamsin Lutteridge, knowing her father’s away on business, has come to visit her mother.”
Jude let out a little gasp as the excitement got to her too. She hadn’t previously made the connection that Carole continued, with mounting triumph, to spell out.
“So now we fit in what you found out from Gillie Lutteridge. That night Tamsin can’t sleep. She’s dying for a cigarette. She goes out into the garden. But it’s cold. So, as she has often done in the past, she goes into the old barn.
“Inside she sees Graham Forbes and she sees what he’s doing. There is a confrontation. He threatens to kill her if she ever breathes a word of what she’s seen. Tamsin is so terrified that she hides herself back in Sandalls Manor, genuinely afraid that she’ll be killed if she ever conies out.”
Carole Seddon stopped and looked across at the passenger seat. Jude was nodding her head slowly, as she tested the junctions of the logical progression her friend had just described. Finally, she said, “No, Carole, that’s good. It’s very good.”
“Thank you.” Carole turned the Renault sedately out on to the main road towards Fethering. “And you’d say that even with your devil’s advocate hat on, would you?”
Wryly, Jude shook her head. “Ooh no. The devil’s advocate in me would want various points proved.”
“Oh. What points?”
“Let’s just start with three obvious ones. The devil’s advocate in me would want proof (a) that Graham Forbes had met and fallen in love with Irene before he returned to England for the leave that ended on the weekend of the Great Storm, (b) that he was definitely on his own when he travelled back to Kuala Lumpur the following Monday, and (c), coming up to date, that he knew the likely outcome of the Planning Committee’s meeting two weeks before it happened.”
There was a silence. Then, bitterly, Carole said, “God, you’re picky.”
¦
“Darling, how too, too wonderful to hear from you!”
It was clear from Trevor Malcolm’s opening words that he’d overcome any reticence he might once have suffered from about his sexual orientation. It was also clear that the lunch he’d returned from had been a good one.
“I’m sorry it’s been such a long time.”
“Carole, my dear, what is thirty years between friends? Presumably you want something?”
“Well…”
“Oh, come on, dearie. I know I made a huge impression on you at Durham and you’ve been holding a candle for me all these years…no doubt in the snug security of your spinster bed…”
“I did actually get married, Trevor.”
“Did you? Little devil. Are you still?”
“No.”
“Thought not. That’s the thing about me. I spoil people for other men. No one really matches up, you know.”
“Mm. You didn’t get married, did you?”
He giggled a tinkling giggle. “No, I don’t think that would have been…um…appropriate. Why make one woman unhappy when you can make lots and lots of men happy?”
“Right.”
“So come on, what is it you want from me…now we seem to have ruled out the possibility that it’s my body?”
“OK. I need some information about the movements of someone who used to work for the British Council.”
“Ooh, how very sinister. What is this, Carole – are you turning detective?”
She laughed. The suggestion was too silly.
“Or is it something to do with your work? Yes, you’re at the Home Office, aren’t you?”
“Was. I’m retired.”
“Oh, my God! I don’t believe it. Anno Domini’s so cruel, isn’t she? The policemen’re looking so young these days, I feel like I’m positively cradle-snatching. And you only have to scan the obituaries to see that people are dying at absurdly young ages. No, it’s dreadful, Carole, I’m the only person of my age I know who’s kept his looks.”
“Ah.”
“Mind you, the picture in the attic is positively wizened. OK, so tell me what you want to find out and I’ll see if I can help you.”
Carole told him.
When she’d finished, he said, “Ooh, how intriguing. I’m far too polite to ask you why you want to know. I’ll just let my little mind buzz with conjecture.”
“Do you think you’ll be able to help me?”
