“And the tasteless angle?”
“Oh, got to be tasteless in comedy these days. If you don’t offend a few people, then you’re not cutting- edge.” Jude took a long swallow from her glass. Isn’t wine wonderful, she thought. And now doctors are even saying it’s good for us. Maybe there is a God, after all.
“So, Ted, apart from the speculations of the Fethering old fogeys, have you heard any intelligent ideas about what might have happened in Fedborough? I’m sure you’ve been keeping your ears open.”
“You bet I have. And I dare say you have too…you and…” Unable to say Carole’s name again, he moved swiftly on. “Even got a theory of my own, and all…”
“What’s that?”
He made a self-deprecating shrug. “Well, not so much a theory, more an idea of where I might start investigating if I was in charge of the case.”
“Really? I didn’t know you knew anyone in Fed-borough.”
“ A few people. In this business you tend to know who runs the local boozers. Meet them from time to time, chat on the phone, keep tabs on dangerous elements, you know.”
“I didn’t think there were any dangerous elements in Fethering.”
“Don’t believe everything you read in the brochure, darling. They’re not all old farts come in here, you know. And even the old ones can be troublemakers. Be amazed how much carnage you can cause with a Zimmer frame.”
Jude chuckled. “So…who? Where would you start your investigations, Superintendent Crisp?”
“Two or three years back,” said Ted, scratching at his beard, “just after I took over this place, geezer came to see me. Wanted to organize pleasure trips down the Fether from Fedborough, and was trying to get some deal to include lunch in the pub here. He’d just bought up the old boatsheds and cafe from an old geezer called Bob Bracken, who I know from way back. And he was working on the project with an architect who sometimes comes in here, so I’d heard a bit about what was going on. Anyway, the new owner’s figures didn’t work out, the discount he was asking would have eaten up any profit so far as I was concerned, so the idea’s a complete non-starter…but he was a nice bloke. Bit of a boozer, but, you know, very well-spoken, real gentleman of the old school.”
“Roddy Hargreaves,” Jude murmured.
“You know him?”
“Met him earlier in the week.”
“Right. Anyway, we had a few drinks together and he started pouring his troubles out, way people do. Occupational hazard in my line of business. And he tells me the lot, how his parents left him with a load of Catholic guilt and a load of money, but how he’s never had much of a business brain. Got stung badly when Lloyd’s crashed, and that seemed fairly typical of the level of his investment success. Sounded like his plans to set up this pleasure- boat deal was going the same way, and all. Just couldn’t grasp the basics of running a business, no mind for detail.
“And the way these things happen, when everything financial’s crashing round his ears, he’s got problems with his marriage and all. He wasn’t vindictive about the wife – quite nice about her, actually – but, reading between the lines of what he’s saying, she – called Virginia, some bone-headed deb ten years younger than him – anyway, I got the pretty firm impression she liked him well enough while he’d got the dosh, but rapidly lost interest once that started trickling away.
“Next thing I hear, through Keith and Janet, the couple who run the Coach and Horses in Pelling Street – that used to be our Roddy’s favourite drinking-hole – ”
“Still is.”
“Anyway, they tell me his wife’s suddenly upped and left him.”
“Where did she go?”
“That’s what nobody in Fedborough seems to know. And if I was in charge of the case,” said Ted Crisp, “that’s the first question I’d be asking now…”
? The Torso in the Town ?
Twelve
On the Sunday morning, before she went to Carole’s for her lift into Fedborough, Jude had a phone call.
“It’s Kim.” Her Pelling House hostess sounded uncharacteristically uptight.
“Anything the matter?”
“Harry.”
“What wrong with him?”
“Well, he’s been quite difficult since we moved down here…you know, keeps going on about having left all his friends in London and having no one he can talk to. And he says he hates his new school. I keep telling him that he’ll soon make friends down here, but…You know what they’re like at that age. They think everything they feel at any given moment is going to last for ever.”
“Yes.”
“But the thing is, since…you know, what he found in the cellar…Harry’s been much worse. Much more uptight and difficult. He’s even been rude to Grant, which is most unlike him. And, well, I’ve got him an appointment with the local doctor down here, and maybe they can refer him somewhere. Or we’ve got friends in London who’ve used behavioural psychologists and could recommend – ”
“Don’t do that yet, Kim. I’m sure Harry doesn’t need a psychologist.”
“No, well, I wasn’t keen. But Grant’s insisting. You know, Grant’s always had that American philosophy that, whatever kind of problem you’ve got in your life, you simply need to find the right professional expert to cure it.”
“Which is fine for architecture and plumbing – and probably computers, but I’m not convinced it always works with human beings.”
“Nor am I. I tried to make that point to Grant, but…” A silent shrug came over the phone. “You know what Grant’s like.”
Jude was getting a much clearer picture of what Grant was like by the minute.
“Anyway, what I said was, before we resorted to doctors and psychologists, I’d ask you to have a word with Harry.”
“Ah…”
“When we first met you in Spain, you were doing that sort of healing stuff, developing a holistic approach to integrating the mind and body.” That wasn’t exactly what Jude had been doing, but she didn’t contest the description. “And you seemed to have great sympathy – I mean, the people there got a great deal out of what you were doing – so I was wondering if you would mind talking to Harry…?”
“Mm…”
“Obviously we’d pay your going rate for…you know, by the hour or a flat fee or – ”
“There’s no need for that. Yes, of course I’ll see if I can help. When were you thinking of?”
“Soon as possible, really. I mean, we’ve got Sundaylunch coming up, and Grant’s a great traditionalist about liking to have all the family round the table for Sunday lunch, and Harry’s going through a phase of not sitting down with us…”
“Like at your dinner party?”
“Yes. Yes, I suppose so.”
“Which suggests that it’s not the shock of the body in the cellar that’s made him like this. That it’s just intensified something that was going on, anyway.”
“See, I knew you’d understand. Anyway, as I say, Sunday lunch is looming, and that’s going to mean another row between Grant and Harry and – ” Kim sounded already exhausted by the prospect, and pleaded, “If you could come…?”
“I can’t do it before lunch, I’m afraid, but I do in fact have to be in Fedborough today. Suppose I dropped in round about three…?”
“Oh, Jude. That would be wonderful.”
