“So you don’t know who Brian’s father was?”
A shake of the head. “No idea. I don’t know anyone who knew. It was a long time ago. Brian must be nearly forty now.”
“Do you know him?”
“I know who he is. I’ve never had a conversation with him.” Jenny Grant didn’t sound as though that was a situation she was in any hurry to change.
“And Pauline used to work as a cleaner in Weldisham. For Graham Forbes and his first wife.”
“That’s right.”
Still there was no curiosity as to how Carole had got this information or why it was of any relevance to her.
“His first wife was also a Helling, I believe?”
“Yes. Sheila.”
“Did you know her?”
“Oh yes. I went to the same school as she did. Many years afterwards, of course.”
Suddenly Carole realized what kind of school it had been that the two attended. An upmarket girl’s private school. Jenny Grant’s manner of speech was so lacking in animation that its vowels had been ironed out, but now she concentrated, Carole could detect the upper-class languor underneath. Harry Grant had married a few grades above himself. Maybe Jenny’s social status had made up for her lack of more obvious attractions.
So those who had borne the Helling name went through the strata of class, Sheila Forbes and Jenny Grant aiming at the top, Pauline Helling and Lennie Baylis’s mother down at the bottom, with no doubt many social nuances in between.
“Did you know Sheila Forbes well?”
“Quite well.”
“Were you surprised when you heard she’d gone off with another man?”
“It did seem odd, certainly.” But nothing seemed to have the power to surprise Jenny Grant for long. She shrugged. “Still, that’s what she did. Maybe a romantic heart beat beneath that forbidding exterior.”
“Was she forbidding?”
“Perhaps the wrong word. She was very correct, though. Always did the right thing. British, in the old– fashioned sense. You know, didn’t let her emotions show on the surface. I’m sure that’s why she and Graham went down so well abroad.”
“The archetypal British couple.”
“That’s it, yes.”
“And would you say their marriage was a happy one…You know, before the split?”
Jenny Grant’s hands lifted and flopped ineffectually back on to her lap. “Who can say? A marriage may look fine on the surface, but nobody except the two inside know what it’s really like.”
There was a slight change in her tone as she said this. Carole wondered if a comment was being made on the Grants’ own marriage. But Jenny didn’t seem about to expand on the hint and, intriguing though the subject might be, it wasn’t what Carole was there to find out about.
“Graham and Sheila Forbes were quite well heeled, I gather. Someone said he had private money.”
“‘Had’ being the operative word. I don’t think he’s got much now.”
“Oh?”
“Well, presumably he’s got a British Council pension. Not much else, though.”
“You know that for a fact?”
“Harry told me. I don’t know where he got it from, but he’s usually pretty reliable. There aren’t many secrets round here.”
“So where did Graham Forbes’s money go? Has he got a secret vice or something?”
“Don’t think so. But I would imagine he’s like the others.”
Carole looked quizzical.
“Most people round here who’ve lost a lot of money – I don’t mean from firms going to the wall, I mean investment income…Well, it doesn’t do to talk about it, but with most of them it was Lloyd’s.”
“Ah.”
The crash of many Lloyd’s syndicates had hit a lot of ‘names’, as the major investors were called. In a well- cushioned area like the part of West Sussex around Weldisham, there had probably been many casualties.
“Moving on, Jenny…do you remember when exactly Pauline Helling had her pools win?”
“Well, let me think…” Jenny’s brow wrinkled, and the effect was to make her look younger, suggesting that she might once have had more spark and vivacity. Maybe it wasn’t just her social position that had drawn Harry Grant to her. “She moved into Weldisham round…I don’t know…I should think about 1988…so presumably some time round then.”
“Did she put all the money into buying Heron Cottage?”
“I don’t know. I’ve no idea how much she actually won. I don’t think anyone knew. I’m sure Pauline would have put a cross in the box for ‘No Publicity’.”
“But you don’t know whether she celebrated by taking a trip abroad or anything like that?”
“I don’t think so. I didn’t know her that well. She could have done all kinds of things I never knew about.”
“Of course. So, as far as you know, she never did travel abroad?”
“No, I don’t think…She wasn’t the kind to…” Something came through the fogs of memory. “Oh, just a minute, though…Yes, she did. I remember being surprised when Harry told me. He’d bumped into Brian, who said his mother had suddenly got herself a passport and was going off on a jaunt somewhere. It seemed so out of character, that’s why I’ve remembered it.”
“You don’t remember where she went?”
Jenny Grant shook her head. “I don’t think I ever knew. I don’t even know if she actually did go. I just remember Harry mentioning about the passport.”
“And when did this happen…presumably after the pools win?”
“I suppose it must have been…except…” Again Jenny Grant screwed up her face with the effort of recollection. “No, because Harry was out working on a development in Spain for most of 1988 and ‘89, so it must’ve been before that. End of ‘87, I suppose.”
“Really?” said Carole, suppressing the excitement that spurted inside her.
They talked a little longer, but nothing else emerged that was relevant. Not that Carole minded. She’d already got more than she’d dared hope for.
Jenny Grant seemed as unsurprised when Carole said she must go as she had been by her arrival.
“Very good of you to see me, Jenny.”
“No problem. Lucky you called today, though.”
“Oh?”
“Harry and I are off to Portugal tomorrow. For a week. To celebrate the planning permission on the barn.” She made it sound like a death sentence.
Beneath the stained glass of the open front door, Carole shook her hostess’s hand, and it was then that she saw something in the woman’s eyes that maybe explained her unquestioning passivity.
Jenny Grant was on tranquillizers, Carole felt sure. A hefty dose of Librium or something similar was needed to maintain that placid equilibrium. Maybe that was the only way this rather quiet woman could survive being married to a social climber like Harry Grant.
? Death on the Downs ?
Thirty-Eight
She desperately wanted to talk to Jude, but Jude was up at Sandalls Manor and Carole couldn’t wait. The speed with which her ideas were moving and conjoining and producing new ideas meant she had to talk to someone. And, in a sense, there was only one right person to talk to.
Lennie Baylis answered his mobile straight away. He was up at Weldisham, doing some interviews with local
