The Fethering Mysteries 03; The Torso in the Town

the scene. Surely he hadn’t come back.

But no, it wasn’t him causing her unease. The door she had come through opened again, and Alan Burnethorpe entered. He was too smooth an operator actually to look flustered, but he wasn’t at his ease.

“Well,” he said, seeing Jude, “what an art-lover you are.”

“Yes. Did you know I’d bought this one?”

“No. Debbie hadn’t mentioned it. Perhaps I should be offended.”

“Why?”

“You buy art here. But from the way you were looking at them, my drawings apparently leave you cold.”

“Wouldn’t you say female nudes appeal more to men?”

“Not exclusively. Some women like them a lot.” There was a slyness in his voice. Clearly Fiona Lister’s slur on Jude’s relationship with Carole had spread right through Fedborough. Jude felt relieved Carole wasn’t present.

Alan Burnethorpe showed no signs of moving, so Jude reckoned it was her cue to beat a retreat. Maybe she’d get another chance to discuss the anonymous letter to the police.

As she opened the door at the foot of the stairs, Jude heard Debbie’s tense voice whisper, “What’s she going to think?”

“Doesn’t matter too much what she thinks.” Alan Burnethorpe sounded sardonically smooth as ever. “She doesn’t know many people in Fedborough. I think our secret’s safe with her.”

? The Torso in the Town ?

Thirty-Three

Carole had chosen a good day to find James Lister. He was propping up the bar when she entered the Coach and Horses, because, as he soon explained with a confidential wink, “Fiona’s organizing a charity lunch and, while the cat’s away…”

Carole wondered if he’d realized how apposite in the context the word ‘cat’ was.

In his wife’s absence, James was once again all flirtatious bravado, and he was clearly very pleased when Carole agreed to have lunch with him ‘in a little French place I know just round the corner’.

She was totally unworried about him making any sexual advances to her. Fiona Lister might not actually be present, but the deterrent qualities of her personality spread outwards like radiation from Chernobyl, guaranteeing her husband wouldn’t – probably couldn’t – do anything physical. And, in the cause of advancing her investigation, Carole was prepared to put up with any amount of clumsy verbal innuendo.

The ‘little French place’ seemed pretty ordinary to her, but James Lister made an elaborate routine of chatting up the owner and insisting on a table in the window, overlooking the High Street. With a wink, as he ushered Carole to her seat, he told her that ‘Jean-Pierre’s always got a table for me’. Since the restaurant was only a quarter full, this didn’t seem such a big deal.

She was slightly annoyed, though, when James, with a sideways look at her as he edged her chair in, and another wink to the proprietor, whispered, “Not a word to the wife, eh, Jean-Pierre?”

“Of course not,” the owner murmured back, “you dog.”

James Lister looked very pleased with himself as he took his seat. Oh well, thought Carole, if that’s how he gets his kicks…If he’s making the outrageous assumption that I might have any sexual interest in him, I suppose it doesn’t do any harm. All I’m here for is to pick his brains, and the more relaxed and intimate we are for that, the better.

“Now what’s the lovely lady going to drink? Stay with the white wine, eh? Jean-Pierre does a very fine Graves.” He pronounced it like the things found in churchyards.

“Bit sweet for me. If he’s got a Chardonnay or something…”

“Very well Jean-Pierre, a bottle of your finest – ”

“Just a glass. I’ve got to drive later.”

He seemed relieved. If they’d got a bottle, he’d have felt obliged to drink wine too, and he really wanted to stay with the beer. He asked for a Stella Artois. Then there was a food-ordering routine with Jean-Pierre, involving a lot of “Do you have any of that wonderful casserole with the truffles and…?”

James ended up ordering a rare steak and chips – “or whatever the French is for French Fries.” Carole chose a mushroom omelette. Unlike Jude, she’d had an adequate breakfast. James went into the masculine knee-jerk reaction of trying to get her to order something more elaborate and expensive, but soon gave up.

Their drinks arrived. He took a long swallow, wiped the froth off his white moustache and then seemed to think he should have made a toast. “What shall it be – to us?”

Carole wriggled out of that by saying, “How about – to the success of the Fedborough Festival?”

Though not what he’d had in mind, as a dutiful burgher of the town he couldn’t fault the worthiness of her suggestion. He raised his glass to hers. “I’m not sure what to make of all this Street Theatre business…”

“It’s not my idea of entertainment,” said Carole tartly. “I take the rather old-fashioned view that the proper venue for theatre is inside a theatre.”

“I wouldn’t disagree with that.” He seemed relieved that he wasn’t lunching with a fervent advocate of the avant garde. “Are you going to see any of the proper theatre in the Festival?”

“I don’t think so. We – ” She remembered Fedborough’s view of her relationship with Jude. “I’ve done a bit of the Art Crawl, but nothing else. Are you seeing much?”

“Oh yes. Fiona’s on various committees and is a Director of the Festival.” She would be, thought Carole. “So we’ll be doing the Mozart in All Souls on Monday, and then The Cherry Orchard on Wednesday.” He made it sound as though root-canal work would be a more attractive option.

“Still, enough about me.” He wiped his moustache again, roguishly this time. “Let’s talk about you, Carole. I hardly know anything about you. Tell me everything.”

That was the last thing Carole ever intended to do. Least of all to James Lister. She shrugged. “I took early retirement from the Home Office.” Still sounded the wrong verb. “I was given early retirement from the Home Office’ would be nearer the truth. But never mind that. And I’m divorced.”

“Ah.” This seemed to confirm something in his mind. “I knew Fiona was wrong.”

“About what?”

“Oh.” He coloured. “Oh, she was just saying…she just thought…”

Carole knew exactly what he meant. Maybe now he’d go back to his wife and tell her she’d got the wrong end of the stick about Carole and Jude’s relationship. James Lister was a straightforward soul. In his scheme of things, the fact that a woman had once been married automatically excluded the possibility that she might be lesbian.

There was an edge of disappointment in his expression, though. No doubt, like a lot of men, he had been intrigued by the chance of finding out what lesbians actually did to each other.

“So your marriage didn’t work out?” he blundered on.

“No.” Which was all Carole was prepared to say on the subject. But, slightly cheekily, she couldn’t resist adding, “Unlike yours.”

“What? Oh yes.” He cleared his throat. “In fact, you know, Carole, what you see on the outside of a marriage can sometimes be misleading. Fiona is a wonderful woman in many ways – ”

No, I can’t stand it, thought Carole. Not the ‘my wife doesn’t understand me’ routine. Anything but that. Time to move the conversation on. And he’d given her the perfect opportunity.

“You’re so right,” she interrupted. “From what I hear, Roddy and Virginia Hargreaves’s marriage looked all right from the outside.”

“Ye-es, to an extent. I mean, there was a feeling round Fedborough that it was a slightly unlikely pairing.”

“Why?”

“Well, she had a title,” he said reverently. “She was really ‘Lady Virginia’…”

“Yes, I know that.”

“And Roddy was…well…”

“From the little I saw of him, he was fairly upper-crust too. Public-school accent, and all that.”

“Yes…” James Lister shook his head knowingly. “But he hadn’t got a title.”

“Oh, look.” Out of the window, Carole had just seen Jude walking up the High Street, picking her way