“Fine. Fine…so long as I get the occasional outside diversion.”
Another masculine chuckle from Francis. “You don’t change, do you, Alan?”
“What about you? You working your way through the busty cheerleaders of Florida?”
“As a matter of fact, I’m not. I don’t expect you to believe this – because the idea’s so alien to your nature – but, since I married Jonelle, I’ve been entirely faithful to her.”
“Oh. Well, congratulations.” It was Alan’s turn for a male bonding chuckle. “Still, if she’s pregnant, that’s going to have an effect on your sex-life. You’ll have to develop some outside interests to get you through that.”
“No.” Francis Carlton spoke with a new seriousness. “The pregnancy is what makes me certain that I’ll stay faithful to Jonelle. That really means a lot to me. Maybe if Debbie had been able to have children I might have stayed with her…” He quickly dismissed the idea. “Anyway, Jonelle and me is for keeps.”
“Are you saying you don’t think you’ll ever make love to another woman?”
“I hope not.”
“God, Francis, you’re no fun any more.”
“Two Steak and Kidneys.” The girl from behind the bar brought over the men’s food. Jude made a silent prayer that the service to her might be slow. She was getting more information than she had dared imagine, and didn’t want the arrival of her Tuna Bake to draw attention to her presence.
There were sounds of the men salting and peppering and starting in on their food, and Jude wondered for a moment if she had heard all she was going to get, but fortunately Alan Burnethorpe picked up the conversation again. “Do you know, Joke never had a clue that Virginia got up to naughties in London. And she was living and working in Pelling House all that time.”
“Yes, but that was in Fedborough, Alan. Like I said, all the fine people of Fedborough cared about was Virginia’s title. And they spent so much time feeling sorry for her because of Roddy’s drunken behaviour, it never occurred to them she might have failings of her own.”
“Mm.”
“I mean, apart from being good in bed – and I won’t take that away from her, she was extremely good in bed – Virginia wasn’t really a very nice person. She wasn’t on speaking terms with any of the rest of her family, I know that for a fact.”
“Might not have been her fault. Perhaps they were even more unpleasant than she was.”
“All right, that’s possible. But presumably, if any of her family had taken any interest in her, she couldn’t have vanished off the face of the earth so effectively for the last three and a half years.”
“No.” Alan Burnethorpe was thoughtful.
Francis Carlton chuckled. “Good thing for you Joke didn’t know about Virginia’s little London habits. Otherwise she might have found out that you shared them for a while. That wouldn’t have been conducive to domestic harmony, would it?”
“You’re right. She’d have taken a pretty dim view of me having screwed her employer. Or anyone, come to that. Joke has a distinctly old-fashioned attitude to adultery,” Alan concluded gloomily, as though his wife’s scrupulousness was a cross with which he had been unfairly burdened.
“So when did you last see Virginia?” asked Francis.
“About a week before she disappeared – or perhaps now we should be saying ‘before Roddy topped her’. We had an assignation in London for that Friday, and I remember I was getting a bit uptight about it, because things had started up with Joke, and I knew soon I was going to have to tell Virginia it was all off. Anyway, she saved me the trouble.”
“What do you mean?”
“She phoned me at the office and said she was ill. Couldn’t make our meeting in her flat on the Friday.”
“Did she say what was wrong with her?”
“No. Quite honestly, I didn’t care. Just breathed a big sigh of relief. Then the next week all Fedborough was talking about the fact that Virginia’d upped sticks and walked out on Roddy. So I was off the hook.”
“Very convenient,” said Francis Carlton.
“Yes,” Alan Burnethorpe agreed, without intonation.
There was a bit of steak-and-kidney-chomping before he went on, “You still haven’t explained what you meant by ‘not giving Debbie the satisfaction’ of you buying a First Class ticket.”
“Ah, no. Well, I told you I only came over because the police were making some nasty insinuations on the phone…”
“What kind of insinuations…assuming at that stage they didn’t know the body was Virginia’s?”
“Just asking how often I went down to the cellar in Pelling House, that kind of thing. It wasn’t actually what they were asking that got me worried; it was the tone inwhich they were asking it. I decided the only way to kind of clear my name was to come and talk to them face to face. And when I got here, I discovered why they were so suspicious of me.”
“Had they had an anonymous tip-off or something?”
“Exactly that. A letter, saying if they wanted to know how the torso got into the cellar at Pelling House, they should ask Francis Carlton.”
There was a silence. Jude held her breath. She noticed with annoyance that the barmaid had disappeared into the pub kitchen. Oh dear, she didn’t want this moment ruined by the arrival of a Tuna Bake.
“Did you see the actual letter?”
“No. But obviously it came from Debbie.”
“What makes you say that? Debbie’s not vicious. I think she’s got a rather forgiving nature.”
“Oh, come on, Alan. You’ve been divorced. You know divorce isn’t a great recipe for sympathy between a man and a woman. Debbie may appear to you to be ‘forgiving’, but she hates me. She hates the fact that I’ve got Jonelle. She hates the fact that I’m happy. She’d do anything to shaft me. And making me have to shell out the cost of an airline ticket from Miami – ”
“Even just an economy one.”
Francis ignored the interruption. “That’d give her a great charge. Pathetic, but it’s the only way she could think of to get at me, and take me away from Jonelle, even just for a few days. I bet Debbie had the idea the minute she heard about the discovery of the torso.”
“Did she sound gleeful when she heard you were going to come over?”
“She’s too subtle to do that. Besides, if she had started crowing, I might have smelt a rat. No, it was very simple. Debbie just wanted to cause me maximum inconvenience – and do something that’d upset Jonelle too. Petty revenge, that’s all.” He coloured at the recollection. “God, I bawled her out when the police told me about the anonymous letter.”
“Did she admit she’d sent it?”
“No, of course she didn’t! She denied it. But then she would, wouldn’t she?” Francis Carlton realized his anger was taking him over and paused to regain control. When he spoke next, his voice was quieter, but very tense. “I can’t wait to get on that plane tonight. I tell you one thing, Alan, whatever else I do in the rest of my life, I’m never coming back to bloody Fedborough.”
Having voiced the thought, he seemed anxious to depart as soon as possible. Alan Burnethorpe made a halfhearted offer to pick up the tab, which Francis accepted with alacrity. In spite of his denials, he really was very mean. Even with Jonelle’s money, he would remain mean. Jude wondered whether his new wife had yet found out about this little characteristic of her husband. To Jude’s mind, it was the worst flaw a man could have.
With hurried insistence that he must go and get his bags from Debbie’s and perfunctory thanks for the lunch, Francis Carlton was suddenly gone. The barmaid at that moment appeared with the Tuna Bake, so Alan Burnethorpe had to wait at the bar before he could settle up.
He looked across to where the girl was, and Jude shrank into her booth. But she wasn’t quick enough. Alan Burnethorpe didn’t make any acknowledgment, but there was no doubt that he’d seen her.
And no doubt he’d deduced that Jude had overheard his conversation with Francis Carlton.
? The Torso in the Town ?
