he’d been cutting the seals on the cellar door, so Harry was expecting a big rocket when the police came back to Pelling House to continue their investigations.”
“And?”
“And they haven’t come back. Which might suggest that, so far as the police are concerned, they’ve got all the information they want. Even that they might be close to solving the case.”
Which coincides, Carole thought, with them talking to Francis Carlton. But she didn’t voice the connection yet. She was still rationing out her sweeties.
“I find talking to Harry useful,” Jude went on. “He helps as a sounding-board, helping me to sort out my own thinking about the case.”
“I thought that was my role,” said Carole in a moment of potential spikiness.
Easy as ever, Jude defused the situation. “You are. You both are. The more input of ideas we get, the better. Being a sounding-board isn’t a competitive activity. If one person’s doing it, doesn’t mean that nobody else can.”
“No,” Carole wondered for a moment whether her life had always sought for exclusivity. Even from school days she’d wanted a one-to-one ‘best friend’, not a wide social group. And the difficulty of achieving that goal had maybe turned her inward, made her appear standoffish. In her marriage it had been the same, wanting David exclusively for herself. His desire to mix with more people was one of the elements which had started the frost between them. Even with Ted Crisp there had been –
Fortunately, Jude’s voice cut through the cycle of self-recrimination. “You get anything interesting from Debbie?”
“Well, yes.” And it struck Carole that she had really had a rather constructive morning. “For a start, I met Francis.”
“The ex-husband?”
She nodded. “And I found out that, throughout their marriage, he was a serial philanderer.”
“Ooh.” Jude rubbed her hands together with glee. “This sounds terrific. Lovely stuff. You know what we need?”
“What?”
“ A couple of large white wines and some South Downs Something-or-other from the menu at the Coach and Horses. Once we’re equipped with those, you can give me all the dirt.”
Giving the dirt about Francis Carlton had to be deferred. When they entered the pub, they found it full of lunchtime eaters and drinkers, but alone at the bar sat Roddy Hargreaves.
Oblivious to the weather, he was still wearing his Guernsey sweater, and he looked isolated. Presumably that day his cronies all had wives or jobs to go to. Without their support, he slumped on his stool. There was whisky in front of him rather than beer, and the intense way he concentrated on the glass suggested he’d been drinking for some time.
“Hello,” said Jude, as they waited for a barman to be free. “How’re you, Roddy?”
Very slowly, he removed his gaze from the whisky, but found it more difficult to focus on her.
“Jude,” she supplied. “Remember, we met here last week. And this is my friend Carole.” (This time, Carole was too intrigued to find the introduction embarrassing.)
Ah.” He seemed puzzled to be given the information, but was instinctively courteous. “Good afternoon, ladies!
A barman, the same one as on their previous visit, had arrived. “Two large Chilean Chardonnay, please,” said Jude. “And can I get you one, Roddy?”
“Wouldn’t say no to the same again.”
“Large Johnnie Walker,” the barman noted impassively.
“Do you mind if we join you?” said Jude, drawing up a barstool before Roddy had time to answer. “Are we going to get something to eat?”
“I wouldn’t mind a sandwich,” Carole replied primly. “You eating?”
Roddy shook his head. “ Some days eating seems rather to slip down my list of priorities. Today is one such day.”
They got in an order for ‘Generous Sussex-style Tuna Sandwiches’, without pursuing the interesting question of where one might catch a ‘Sussex-style Tuna’. Both of them wondered whether Roddy Hargreaves would need a prompt to continue talking. He didn’t.
“Seem to remember you said you didn’t come from Fedborough.”
“Fethering.”
“Ah, right. Thought you must be from out of town.”
“Why?”
“Because you came right up and talked to me.” Jude looked puzzled. “Why shouldn’t we?”
He took a long swallow of whisky. “Have you ever lived in a small country town?”
“Fethering’s not very big.”
“No, it’s virtually a village. But it’s on the sea, which somehow makes it different. Lets in some air. Different in a land-locked little country town like Fedborough.”
“I’m sorry,” said Carole, once again demonstrating her lack of people-skills, “but what on earth are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about gossip. Have you any idea how corrosive gossip can be in a place like this? I’m used to it – or I should be. Soon as Virginia and I moved here, we very quickly got used to the idea that we couldn’t clear our throats without everyone knowing. It was a bit of a shock, because we’d come down from London. You can be anonymous in a city. Forget that down here. Whatever we did in Fedborough, we just fed the local piranhas a bit more of ourselves. I heard about my plans for converting the old boatsheds down by the bridge almost before I’d made the decision to do it.
“And, of course, when all that started to go wrong, the gossips were in seventh heaven. What a lot of new scandal Fiona Lister and her coven had to get their teeth into. And then my marriage crumbled – partly because of all the gossip, let me tell you – and they were even more ecstatic. When Virginia walked out on me, they all thought Christmas and their birthdays had come at the same time.”
Gloomily he emptied his whisky glass. “But all that’ll be as nothing to what’s about to happen now.”
“What do you mean?” asked Jude.
“I’ll be shunned. At the moment they think I’m just an old piss-artist…not very admirable, perhaps, but nice and safe. A cautionary tale to bolster the harpies’ rectitude. ‘There but for the grace of God we will never go’ A mess, but a harmless mess. They won’t think that any more. Nobody’ll want to talk to me.”
“Nonsense,” Carole snapped. “Your friend James Lister has invited us to dinner tomorrow night. And he said it was your birthday, and you’d definitely be there too.”
“Did he? Oh yes, I remember. He managed to persuade the lovely Fiona that I would behave myself.” The bleary eyes looked sceptical. “I wonder if my invitation will still stand tomorrow.”
“What’s happening tomorrow?” asked Jude softly. “You’ll find out soon enough.” He tapped his glass sharply on the counter. “Could you give me another of those, please. Lee? Are you two ladies ready for another?”
“No.”
“No, thank you.”
“It’s a mess,” Roddy Hargreaves went on, “a total bloody mess. Drink gets you into it, and drink’s the only way out of it.” He shuddered. “Imagine what life would be like if you were sober all the time, if you had to face the reality without alcohol blurring the edges a bit. Intolerable.” He took a long pull from his whisky glass. “Oblivion’s the only hope.”
“When you talk about drink getting you into a mess…” Jude began cautiously, “are you talking aboutthe time when your wife left you? You said last week that all that period was a blur.”
He focused on her for a moment of stillness. “You’re a very intelligent woman. You’re exactly right. That is the time I’m talking about. That’s the time I can’t remember anything about. But that’s the time they keep asking me about.”
“They’ being the police?” asked Carole.
He nodded, rubbing a large hand over his purple nose. “Yes. I’m a coward, really. I was brought up to believe in honour and bravery and facing up to things. Whatever questions arose in life, the Jesuits had an answer to them.
