“Yes, she has. Don’t pretend you don’t know. She’s been going round with some local solicitor.”
“No, she hasn’t.”
“She has. His name’s Barry Stillwell. Look, Jude, I know Mario, guy who works as a waiter in an Italian restaurant in Worthing. This Barry bloke took Carole out for dinner there last week.”
“Yes, he did, but…” A thought struck Jude. “Is that why you were so standoffish to Carole last time we were in the Crown and Anchor?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ted Crisp mumbled. He had his pride.
“Ted, we haven’t got time to go into all this now, but I can assure you Carole thinks Barry Stillwell is the most boring man on God’s earth.”
“Oh. Oh, does she?” And he couldn’t help a little grin appearing through the foliage of his beard.
“Anyway, time enough for that. What we’ve got to do now is to find her. Better check whether she actually was in the pub last night.”
They couldn’t avoid seeing the blackened shell of Heron Cottage, separated from the road by the police plastic tapes. Neither said anything, but the same dark thoughts were in both their minds as they rang the bell of the Hare and Hounds opposite.
Though the pub wouldn’t open for another half-hour, Will Maples was already there. He opened the door, but didn’t invite them in. “Don’t open till eleven,” was all he said.
“I know.” Jude turned on her full charm, which few men could resist. “But a friend of ours has left her car in your car park and we just wonder where she might be.”
“Usually, when a car gets left overnight in the car park, it’s because someone’s had a skinful and been sensible enough to order a cab. I expect your friend’ll be back later in the morning to collect the car.”
“I don’t think so in this case.”
Ted Crisp held out the bunch of keys. “She dropped these by the car.”
“Are you asking me to look after them until she comes in?”
“No,” said Jude. “We just want you to confirm that she was in the pub last night.”
“Well, since I don’t know who you’re talking about, that could be a bit difficult.” Will Maples wasn’t being exactly uncooperative; but equally he wasn’t making things easy for them.
“Her name’s Carole Seddon…”
He shrugged. “Not a name I know. Not one of my regulars.”
“Thin. Glasses. Grey hair. Light blue eyes. Wears a Burberry raincoat. My sort of age.”
“Oh right, I think I know the one you mean. Yes, she came in before we opened yesterday evening. To talk to Lennie Baylis.”
“The detective?”
“Mm.”
“Do you know what she talked to him about?”
He was affronted. “What do you take me for? I don’t eavesdrop on other people’s conversations!”
The response was so vehement that Jude wondered whether the manager was protesting a little too much.
“And did she leave with Sergeant Baylis?”
“No. She stayed and had a drink.”
“On her own?”
“At first, yes. Then a man joined her.”
“Who was that? Did you recognize him?” asked Ted.
“Yes. Name’s Barry Stillwell. Comes into the pub quite often. He’s a solicitor…in Worthing, I think.”
“Ah,” said Ted Crisp, deflated. Then, unwillingly, he asked, “Did they leave together?”
“I didn’t notice,” Will Maples replied smugly.
“But they didn’t stay in the pub all evening?” asked Jude.
“No. I remember they were sitting in the Snug, and when I looked a bit later, there were some other people in there.”
“What time are you talking about?”
“They must’ve both been gone by seven, seven-fifteen.”
“Well, thank you.” Jude got out a piece of paper and wrote on it. “That’s my mobile number. Could you give me a call if Carole comes back to collect her car?”
“Yes, all right,” Will said grudgingly. “But I probably won’t get a chance to look till after three. We tend to be pretty busy at lunchtime.” He smiled at Ted Crisp in a way that must have meant he knew who his visitor was. “I’m running a very successful pub here, you know.”
The landlord of the Crown and Anchor nearly snapped something back, but was quelled by an urgent look from Jude’s brown eyes.
“If that’s all,” said the manager of the Hare and Hounds briskly, “I’ve got a lot to get on with.”
“Yes, of course. Thank you so much for your help,” said Jude charmingly to the closing door.
They stood for a moment in front of the pub, both still avoiding looking at the wreckage of Heron Cottage.
“So what do we do now?” asked Ted Crisp.
“I think you try to contact Detective Sergeant Baylis. Tell him we’re worried about Carole. Try and find out what she talked to him about last night.”
“I’ll track him down. And what do you do meanwhile?”
“I talk to some people here in Weldisham,” Jude replied mysteriously.
¦
Behind the bar of the Hare and Hounds, Will Maples punched in the number of a mobile phone. “Hi,” he said. “Two people came looking for her.”
? Death on the Downs ?
Forty-Three
Carole had passed a night of misery, probably as close to despair as she’d even been. Immobilized in her cold prison, she envisaged the slow death that she must suffer. Would hunger get to her first, or would the hypothermia win? Either way, it wouldn’t be an easy passage out of life.
After the departure of her captor’s vehicle, the total silence had begun to be broken. Not by human sounds, but by the rustling and scuttering of small animals, to whom the night belonged. In their world, Carole was an intruder, an alien presence. At first they would keep a proper distance from her, but then, when they realized she was incapable of movement, they would become bolder. As the strength drained from her body, they might not wait till death to obey their scavenging instincts. It was not a cheering thought.
She didn’t think she slept at all, but the suddenness with which she was aware of the light outside meant that maybe she had dozed fitfully towards the end of the night. Her body felt bruised, aching from the hardness of the floor and the constrictions of her bonds. In spite of the cold, she had managed to control her bladder through the night, but she knew that couldn’t last for ever.
Carole Seddon was a fastidious woman; she didn’t want to die in a mess of her own making.
She didn’t want to die full stop. Now that death was a realistically imminent possibility, she realized how enormously she wanted to live. She wanted to see Jude again. She wanted to see Ted Crisp. She wanted to experience another bone-headedly enthusiastic welcome from Gulliver. She wanted to walk again on Fethering Beach with the dog scampering manically around her.
But none of that looked very likely, as thin sunlight, reflected in pools of stagnant water, began to play on the slimy dome of the cave. The day had started for the rest of the world. In her prison that was irrelevant. However hard they searched, no one would ever find her here. She had been left to die in her own time. She found herself praying for a big freeze-up so that that time would be as short as possible.
She had reached the point where she could deny the imperative of her bladder no longer, when she heard the sound of an approaching vehicle. Even though she felt certain that it was her captor returning, the fact that he had come back gave a disproportionate lift to her spirits.
