“Don’t worry.” He let out a genial cackle. “I can still remember what a pretty blonde looks like. You’re not a blonde, are you?”
“No,” replied Carole, taken aback by the suddenness of the question.
“I can always tell. Lot of things I see better now I can’t see. There’s a special intonation a woman who isn’t blonde puts on the word ‘blonde’ when she says it.” The old man cackled again.
“So have you seen Jude?” asked Ted. “I’ve put your glass down there beside you.”
“I’ll find that, don’t you worry. My nose is a highly sophisticated whisky-seeking device.”
He reached out and, sure enough, his hand immediately circled the glass on the table. He lifted it to his lips and took a long swallow before speaking again. Carole watched him, the tension building inside her.
At last he put the glass down. “No. No Jude. Haven’t seen any Jude.”
“I was afraid of this!” Carole murmured. “It’s the only lead I had.”
“Don’t worry.” Ted put a reassuring hand on her forearm. “Bob still might have something useful to, tell us.” The old man heard this and smiled knowingly, but said nothing. “You’ve been in Fedborough all your life, haven’t you, Bob?”
“Oh yes, born a Chub, and I’ll die a Chub.”
“And there’s not much happens in the town you don’t know about?”
“That’s true. Used to watch what went on from one side of the Fether when I had the boatyard. Now I watch what goes on from the other side of the Fether.” He laughed and then explained to Carole something he assumed Ted Crisp already knew. “I say ‘watch’, but of course it’s a different kind of watching from what it used to be. When you’re blind, you can’t watch in quite the traditional way. But I still know everything. Got a lot of friends in Fedborough. They still come and tell me things.” He turned to where he thought Carole was, and one of the blue eyes winked.
“Carole and her friend Jude – the one we’re looking for,” said Ted, “have been trying to find out what actually happened to Virginia Hargreaves.”
“Ah. Yes. Popular topic that’s been round the town these last few weeks.”
“The general view,” said Carole, “seems to be that her husband killed her and, when the police got close to pinning it on him, took his own life.”
Bob Bracken snorted. “Rubbish! Roddy’d never kill himself, however bad things were.” He gestured in the direction of the Madonna and Child. “Good Catholic, Roddy. Like me. He wouldn’t commit a mortal sin.”
“Then are you saying it must’ve been an accident? He just fell in the Fether?”
A shake of the head. “He knows this river almost as well as I do. However much booze he’d got inside him, I’d be very surprised if Roddy fell in by accident.”
“So what are you saying?”
“Someone pushed him in, didn’t they?”
“Who?”
“That’s the big question. You want everything at once, don’t you, young lady? I think you may have to wait a bit for the full story. Pains me to say it, but I don’t know everything.”
“You do know something, though, Bob.” Ted Crisp leaned forward to refill the old man’s whisky glass, which had unaccountably become empty. “You know something that might be relevant to the case.”
“Yes, I think I do.” Again, playing the scene at his own pace, he instinctively found his glass, and took a long, contemplative swallow. “Virginia Hargreaves…” he said thoughtfully. “She was a right little madam. Nasty bit of work. A man should wed someone his own age, I always say. Think Miss Virginia – or Lady Virginia did she call herself – made it clear to Roddy early on that their marriage wasn’t going to work.”
“Why didn’t they split up?” asked Carole.
“From his point of view, he never would have done.”
“Because of his Catholicism?”
“Right. And with her, I don’t know…Reckon she wanted to stay around him. Perhaps for financial reasons, as much as anything. She had this title, but I don’t think there was much money on her side.”
“She owned a flat in London.”
“Yes, I remember her mentioning that. But Roddy had bought the place for her. He was quite well-heeled, you see, before he started pouring all his money away into the Fether.” He was silent for a moment, letting the threatening gurgle of water against the boatside provide an illustration for his words. “Anyway, I’m not sure that Virginia had anywhere else to go, apart from the London flat. Not on speaking terms with any of her family, I believe.”
“And once Roddy had lost all his money, she lost interest in him?”
“I think that was it.” Bob Bracken drained his second glass of whisky, and Ted Crisp immediately refilled it. He recognized his role, and was happy to let Carole ask the questions. “Roddy was in a bad way round that time,” Bob went on, “with the booze, what have you. And he was having to cut his losses on the boatyard and sell up.”
“How long was it in his possession?”
“Less than a year. Eight, nine months.”
“Who owns it now?”
“ Some property developer.” The old man spoke the words with contempt for the breed. “He’s been waiting to build a row of nice riverside town houses. Had the plans all drawn up for years…”
“Who did the plans? Who was the architect?”
“Local guy called Alan Burnethorpe. Got his office on the posh houseboat you must’ve come past.”
“Funny, he seems to get everywhere.”
“Oh, his family’ve been round here for ages. Always had lots of fingers in Fedborough pies, they have. Related to half the people in the town, for a start. His mother was one of the real characters of Fedborough. I remember, she always – ”
But Carole had no time for folksy reminiscence. “So when are the houses going to be built?”
“Not yet, that’s for certain. Developer can’t get planning permission. Still, he’s not losing money, like Roddy did. Roddy spent a lot on the place. This guy’s just letting it collapse slowly into the river.” The unseeing blue eyes were pained. “Sometimes quite relieved I can’t witness what’s happened to the place. I can sit here and imagine how it used to be. And I won’t have to see the ‘attractive riverside development’ when it finally is put up.”
“You think it will be?”
“No doubt at all. Local planners round Fedborough…well, it’s like everywhere else. The right politicians get their ears bent, the right palms get greased. Alan Burnethorpe’s very good at all that stuff. It’ll happen…though with a bit of luck when I’m no longer around to see it.”
You wouldn’t be able to see it, anyway, thought the instinctive logician in Carole. But she knew what he meant.
“That weekend,” she began, “the weekend Virginia Hargreaves disappeared…”
“Three years back we’re talking…Februaryish?”
“That’s right. Do you remember anything about it?”
“I remember I was very busy, that’s all. Still had my sight back then, and I was quite fit. Spend a lifetime doing manual work, you don’t get all flabby minute you stop. Anyway, that weekend I had a heavy job on.”
“What was it?”
“Told you Roddy had sold up. Well, suddenly the whole deal had gone through quick and the guy who’s buying the site says he wants it cleared by the following Monday. Roddy wasn’t in no state to do anything useful – and he said something about he was going away to France – so he offers me a hundred quid to empty everything out of the sheds. ‘What shall I do with it all?’ I says. ‘Just chuck it down the dump?’ And he says, ‘Yes. But if there’s anything you’re not sure about, take it up to Pelling House and leave it there. But make sure it’s tidy. Virginia likes things tidy’.”
Bob Bracken was fully aware of the effect his words were having. Carole’s pale eyes were sparkling with anticipation. Slowly he continued, “Most of the stuff was easy. Straight down the Amenity Tip. Couple of things, though, I didn’t know what they was, didn’t know whether Roddy’d want them or not…”
Carole could not keep silent any longer. “And one of them was a large box? A large heavy box?”
“That’s right. Made of strengthened cardboard with, like, plastic corners. Kind of box bulk frozen meat gets delivered in. I didn’t know what was in it, but I put it on my handcart and pushed it up to Pelling Street.”
