“Rather relevant to the death of Virginia Hargreaves. Would you like to see it?”
“Very much indeed.”
“It’s through here.” A door was opened to the back part of the houseboat. “After you.”
Jude stepped into the other room.
Too late she heard the door closing behind her, and the sound of a key turning in the lock.
? The Torso in the Town ?
Thirty-Seven
By seven o’clock Carole was beginning to feel a little uneasy. Where could Jude be? Then again, she’d always been a law unto herself, going off without explanation and reappearing equally unannounced.
But the niggle of anxiety didn’t go away.
Then a new thought came to Carole, a thought that was almost reassuring. Jude had mentioned the one lead they had yet to follow up. Bob Bracken, the old owner of the Fedborough boatyards. Yes, Jude must’ve followed up on him. She was probably even now talking to the old boy.
But the surge of confidence brought on by this thought soon started to dwindle.-If she had tracked down Bob Bracken, Jude was spending a very long time with him. And why hadn’t she phoned to say what she was doing? Carole knew she had the mobile with her.
By eight o’clock the anxiety was becoming paranoia. Two people in Fedborough had died in suspicious circumstances. The person responsible was still probably at large in the town. If that person knew that Jude was investigating the crimes, she might well be next on the list to be silenced…
Carole couldn’t stand the uncertainty any longer. She had to find out where Jude was.
The only pointer she had was the name of Bob Bracken.
And there was only one way she had of finding him. She reached for the phone and dialled the number of the Crown and Anchor.
Jude prayed as she switched on her mobile again. But once again there was no vestige of a signal. That escape route was barred.
“You can’t keep me here for ever,” said Jude through the door to her captor.
“I’m well aware of that.”
“People will come looking for me. People will come here to see you, anyway.”
“Yes.”
“So why not let me out now, and we’ll forget this ever happened.”
“I can’t do that. You know too much.”
“I don’t. I hardly know anything. I certainly don’t know how Virginia Hargreaves died.”
“No. But you’re curious. You won’t let things rest until you do know the truth.”
“Let me out,” said Jude in a reasonable voice. “You can’t keep me quiet for ever.”
“Why not? I managed to do it with Roddy Hargreaves.” The sound of the tidal flood of the Fether was suddenly loud against the hull of the houseboat.
“Look, I’ve had enough of this!” Ted Crisp braked sharply, mounted the pavement and switched off the ignition. “Enough of what?”
“You sitting there in silence.”
“I’m worried about Jude.”
“That’s only part of what’s happening, Carole, and youknow it. I don’t mind that you’ve suddenly contacted me after four months of silence because you need my help. I don’t mind that, on a busy Saturday night, I’ve had to leave the pub in the hands of two very inexperienced bar staff. But now we’re together, you can at least talk to me!”
She tried to remonstrate, but he didn’t give her the chance.
“OK, we both know what happened between us, and we both know it didn’t work out, and we both suffered some hurt feelings over that. But now we’re back in each other’s company, the least we can do is to be polite to each other.”
“I’m not being impolite. I just feel embarrassed.”
“And how do you think I feel? Do you think it’s easy for me, suddenly being with you again? Knowing how punctiliously you’ve avoided seeing me, walking the long way down to the beach so that you don’t even go past the Crown and Anchor? Making me feel as though I’m some kind of infection, a plague-spot that you must keep away from at all costs? I may be clumsy and inept and a bloody
“I’ve never doubted it, Ted. Just, after what happened, I – ”
“And what did happen? What did bloody happen? Go on, you were there at the time. You tell me what happened.”
“Well, things didn’t work out…”
“No. We were attracted to each other, maybe for a time we thought we’d got a relationship that’d last. Maybe we thought this was the big one, maybe we even thought it was ‘love’.” He couldn’t keep a sneer out of the word, but then he softened as he said, “I certainly did. And then we got to know each other better and we went to bed together, and I think we both realized at the same time, no, this wasn’t the big thing. Perhaps we’re both too old, too set in our ways, to make the changes necessary to accommodate another person. Perhaps neither of us really wants a long-term relationship. Perhaps we’re both too prickly, too afraid of being hurt…I don’t know why, but it didn’t work. We both know that.”
“Yes,” said Carole quietly.
“But that’s no reason for either of us to send the other one to Coventry. We live in the same place. It’s inevitable that, however elaborate the avoiding action you take, we are going to bump into each other. And I’d like to think that, when that happens, we could at least be pleasant to each other.
“All right, it didn’t work out, but the only casualties were a few uncomfortable feelings and maybe a few adolescent dreams. We may both have been guilty of crass insensitivity – I’m sure I was – but we didn’t deliberately try to hurt each other.”
“I know that.”
“So all I’m saying is, let’s stop this stupid stand-off. We started out by liking each other. That was the basic feeling. OK, different backgrounds, different attitudes, different priorities, but we felt an attraction. That became stronger, and we perhaps misinterpreted it as love. Now we know it wasn’t love, but that doesn’t mean the attraction between our personalities has just disappeared.” He pushed both hands through his beard in a gesture of exasperation. “What I want to say is probably the biggest cliche in the book, Carole. Can’t we still be friends?”
He slumped back in his seat, exhausted by one of the longest speeches she had ever heard him deliver, exhausted also by the release of so much bottled-up emotion.
“Yes,” said Carole softly, “I’d like to.”
“Thank God for that.” Brusquely, he turned the key in the ignition. “Now let’s find Jude.”
? The Torso in the Town ?
Thirty-Eight
It was near to the longest day of the year, and the light was slow to give in to night. There were no longer dappling reflections on the ceiling of her prison, but Jude could still see out through the porthole windows. They were set in polished brass and far too small to let her body through even if she could open them. Which she couldn’t. She had tried, but they seemed designed to stay closed. So she couldn’t call out to attract anyone’s attention.
She’d seen people walking by, few on the houseboat side, a lot more on the Bracken’s Boatyard side. Carefree families with dogs and picnic baskets trailing back to the car parks, then, as the light dwindled, furtive young lovers going the other way towards the openness and licence of the Downs. Pleasure boats had chugged
