something of my life’. So I came down here. I do that quite often. Nobody knows I’m here and – ”
“Yes, all right. What happened?”
“Well, I heard voices. On this side of the river. Which is quite unusual, because the only people who come along here are the ones who live in the houseboats, and they come and go at different times, so you don’t often hear them talking.”
“Go on!”
“I looked up through the grass. They couldn’t see me…” Recognizing the exasperation in Jude’s face, he speeded up. “And I saw this man with a purple nose, who I now know was Roddy Hargreaves.”
“Who was he with?” murmured Jude. “Did you recognize who he was with?”
“Yes. Someone you know too.”
“For heaven’s sake!” She was unable to maintain her customary serenity. “Who was it, Harry?”
“That man who came to dinner at our place the same night you did, the night I found the…the torso.”
“Which man?”
“The one who was dressed in black.”
“Alan Burnethorpe?”
“That’s right,” said Harry Roxby.
? The Torso in the Town ?
Thirty-Two
Harry hadn’t had a lot more to say. The only conversation he’d overheard had been the two men bemoaning the unhappy fate of their plans for Bracken’s Boatyard. Interestingly, though, Roddy Hargreaves had sounded more genuine in his sadness than Alan Burnethorpe. Roddy Hargreaves had also sounded drunk. According to Harry, he had been walking very unsteadily.
Which could, Jude reflected, support the theory that his death had been accidental. It had rained on the previous Saturday – Harry said his hideaway had been very damp and uncomfortable – so the towpath would have been slippery. A drunken man, despairing at the sight of the project which had ruined him financially, totters on the muddy bank of a fast-flowing river…maybe the slip that landed him in the current had been half willed, half involuntary…?
But, if that was the case, why had he been talking to Alan Burnethorpe?
Harry said he’d seen the two men walking back towards the town, saying something about needing a drink. Then, because he was wet and hungry, he’d gone back to Pelling House for the next round of the ongoing row with his father. And, looking at his watch a week later, he concluded he’d better do the same thing now. Mum did lunch at half-past one on a Saturday.
Jude walked back to the bridge with him, lost in thought. She waved distracted thanks and goodbye and watched him scamper off up the High Street through the rabble of performance artists. Harry Roxby’d be all right, she decided. Just going through a difficult stage of his life, which had been exacerbated by the move out of London. His real problem was the relationship with his father. If Grant could be persuaded to be less competitive, things’d be smoother. Jude knew the situation was archetypal. Grant Roxby was less secure than he appeared, aware that he was ageing, aware of the inevitable dwindling of his powers. A new rising generation would take over from him in time, and Harry represented that generation. By constantly diminishing his son’s achievements, Grant was trying to extend his period of control.
Maybe, in time, Jude thought, she might be able to help the easing of that relationship. But she had two more pressing priorities at that moment. One was working out how Virginia and Roddy Hargreaves had met their ends.
The other was getting something to eat. She’d only had coffee at breakfast and the white wine had sharpened the pangs of hunger. Jude was starving.
Fortunately there was a fish and chip shop on the other side of the road. She looked at her watch. One- twenty. She had an idea of paying a return visit to Debbie Carlton’s when the Art Crawl opened again at two. In the meantime, a large cod and chips, open, with lashings of salt and vinegar.
Jude ate her lunch on a bench overlooking the Fether. As she licked the last delicious fishiness off her fingers, she took another look at the large face of her watch. Only twenty-five to. Still a little time to kill.
Oh, the post she’d snatched up as she left Woodside Cottage. The post which, unbeknownst to her, had caused Carole such moral angst.
Jude looked at the three letters. She had a pretty good idea what two of them would be, but the third, the one just addressed to ‘Jude’, could have come from anywhere. It wasn’t unusual for her to get letters like that. In the world of therapies and alternative medicine everyone knew her as simply ‘Jude’. Her surnames were used only on more official communications.
Using a finger as paperknife, she opened the letter. On a small blue sheet were typed the following words:
If you think you know how Virginia Hargreaves died, meet me on the towpath opposite Bracken’s Boatyard on Saturday afternoon at four o’clock.
Jude looked along the towpath. The rendezvous appointed in the letter was only yards from where she was sitting. Exactly where she had met Harry Roxby less than an hour ago. She didn’t find this odd. Jude was a great believer in synchronicity. She’d seen its workings too often to have any doubts as to its authenticity. Events did not happen randomly.
This had to be Harry playing his espionage games again. The coincidence of the location was too great for any other explanation. He must’ve posted the letter the day before, then that morning, unable to cope with the suspense he’d created for himself, used the phone to call Jude and move the rendezvous forward. It would have been completely in character.
Jude looked at the paper. Small, blue, with matching envelope. Probably Basildon Bond or something like that. The kind of notepaper that is sold in packs by newsagents throughout the country. But not the kind of notepaper to be used by Harry’s computerized generation. They’d have their printers permanently set for A4 copier sheets and print out everything on that.
She held the note up to the sunlight. Yes, definitely typed, she could see the indentation of the keys. Different quality from the smoothness produced by a laser or bubblejet printer.
On the other hand, given the enthusiasm Harry Roxby was investing into his game of espionage, he was quite capable of disguising an anonymous communication, giving it a deliberately misleading appearance.
Yes, Jude would put money on the fact that the letter came from Harry. Still, she’d probably come back to the towpath at four. Just to be sure.
The downstairs door was unlocked, but when Jude climbed up to Debbie Carlton’s sitting room/gallery, the space was empty. Still, it was two o’clock sharp. Maybe Debbie had been delayed.
Jude moved across to look at the picture she owned, noting with pleasure that a couple of the other frames nearby had red dots on them. The Fedborough Festival promised to be a deservedly profitable period for Debbie Carlton.
The terracotta urn still looked wonderful, full of the warm South. It would bring a breath of Italy into Woodside Cottage. Of all the pictures on display, this remained the one Jude would have chosen.
A door opened behind her, and she turned to see a rather flustered Debbie Carlton coming into the room. She was straightening her pale blue shirt and running a tidying hand through her ash-blonde hair. “Oh. Jude. Hi.”
“Sorry. I was in town, and I just couldn’t resist having another look at my purchase.” That was the cover story she had prepared. What she really wanted to get the conversation around to was the anonymous letter sent to the police. Jude had pondered the strangeness of that a good few times. Debbie’s assertion that she’d assumed the letter to be a product of Francis’s paranoia had sounded genuine at the time, and yet she remained the only person with a motive for disrupting her ex-husband’s life. Jude wanted to find out more.
The pretended reason for her presence was, however, one that no artist could resist. Debbie Carlton coloured prettily and said, “It’s yours. You’ve paid for it. You can look at it as much as you want.”
“Glad to see you’ve sold a few others.”
“Yes. Yes.” Debbie appeared distracted, nervous, rather as Carole had described her when Francis was on
