“I would say that’s exactly what he’s doing, Jude. Which could mean quite a lot of things…”
“The most obvious being that he knows the truth of what happened and doesn’t want us to get too close to it.”
They were both silent as the implications of this sank in.
“I also,” said Jude eventually, “witnessed the two little Pre-Raphaelite models playing that ridiculous game.”
“Oh, God. The Wheel Quest.”
“Yes. What on earth is all that about? I couldn’t make head nor tail of it.”
“I agree. Tolkien’s got a lot to answer for,” said Carole darkly.
“You can say that again. But the girls were so caught up in the whole thing. I’m afraid I’ve never seen the attraction of all that Dungeons and Dragons nonsense or any of those fantasy computer games.”
“Be careful, Jude. Never compare the Wheel Quest to a computer game when Dorcas Locke is present. She’ll bite your head off. She did mine.”
“Well, I thought it was all nonsense. Honestly, the way those two girls went on, all about Gadrath Pezzekan and Biddet Rock and the Vales of Aspinglad…just a load of meaningless words.”
“Like today’s
“Sorry?”
“I’ve got almost nowhere with it. Couldn’t even do the anagrams, and I can normally spot those a mile off. Today the clues were like a jumble of nonsense words.”
“Well, maybe the answers are too, Carole. Try putting in some of that stuff from the Wheel Quest: ‘Ordeal of Furminal’… ‘Prince Fimbador’ or – ”
“Fimbador?”
“Yes, that was the name of one of the characters. The hero, so far as I could gather. Why?” Jude looked curiously at her friend’s puzzled face.
“It’s just something…Prince Fimbador…Fimbador…There’s something at the back of my mind that…” She suddenly clapped her hands together. “Fimby! The family nickname for Nathan is Fimby!”
“And you think that’s short for Fimbador?”
“Yes.”
Jude was less than convinced. “Well, it could be I suppose, but – ”
“Come on, come on. Was there anything else the girls said that could have applied to Nathan?”
“Well, only…Let me think…Oh, they did say – that is, Chloe, in the character of Prince Fimbador, said: ‘I defy you and your false accusations!’”
“Did she?” Carole’s pale eyes were sparkling with excitement. “And just a minute – what did you say the name of the castle was? The castle where Prince Fimbador was going to escape by the Wheel Path?”
“Biddet Rock.”
“How many Ds? Quick, write it down, write it down!”
Jude found a pen and scribbled the letters down in a space next to the crossword. (It was a measure of her neighbour’s excitement that she made no comment – normally she hated anyone touching her copy of
“Treboddick!” she shouted. “Treboddick! ‘Biddet Rock’ is an anagram of ‘Treboddick’.”
“You know,” said Jude, “I’ve a feeling we could be on our way to Cornwall.”
¦
Jude had inherited a laptop from a former lover, Lawrence Hawker, who had died of cancer a few years back at Woodside Cottage. It was connected to the internet, though she had never mentioned this fact to Carole. Partly this was because the subject had not come up in conversation and also her neighbour was of the view that, having managed this far through her life without the new technology, there was no need to embrace it in her fifties. Another reason for Jude’s reticence was the fact that she used email a lot to keep in touch with a wide variety of friends and lovers from her varied past. Knowing Carole’s exclusive and jealous nature, Jude did not want to complicate matters by bringing to her friend’s attention the life she had outside Fethering.
But for the task they faced that Tuesday evening the internet was the perfect tool, so they adjourned next door, where Jude immediately led her neighbour upstairs to the nest of a bedroom which spread across the whole frontage of Woodside Cottage. Carole had rarely been in this inner sanctum, and she could not help thinking of the lovers who had shared that broad bed – Lawrence Hawker for certain, but also many others (most of whom, it has to be said, existed only in Carole’s fevered imagination).
“I don’t know what you think this is going to achieve,” she said stuffily. “It’s not as if we even have an address for this place the Lockes have in Cornwall.”
“We have a name, though. That’ll be enough.”
“How do you mean?”
“Ssh. Let Google work its magic.”
Carole watched in silence, as Jude summoned up a screen and typed into a dialogue box the single word ‘Treboddick’. Within seconds a list of references appeared.
“Well, that wasn’t so hard,” said Jude. “Got the right one first time.”
“Just like that?” Carole looked curiously at the screen.
“Yes, well, I don’t think ‘Treboddick’ is that common a word. Quite possibly the one in Cornwall is the only one there is.” She scanned down the listings. “Ah, here we are.”
Leaning over her friend’s shoulder, Carole read: “‘Treboddick Holiday Cottages – Perfect tranquillity in exquisitely renovated miners’ homes in one of the most beautiful seaside settings in the British Isles.”’ There was a colour photograph of a terrace of stone buildings capped with slate roofs. Nearby were picturesque ruins of chimneys and outhouses, presumably vestiges of the mine workings. The position certainly was stunningly beautiful. Beneath the illustration were contact numbers. “So what do we do – ring up the unfortunately named Mopsa and see if we can book in?”
“Let’s make email contact first. Don’t want to risk the phone being answered by Rowley Locke and him recognizing our voices.”
“But he’s not down in Cornwall, is he?”
“Who knows? He wasn’t at the house this afternoon when I went to see Bridget. I think it’ll be safer if we remain anonymous at first.”
“Well, you can’t remain anonymous on email, can you? Surely, if you want to get a reply, you’re going to have to give your name?”
“You’re going to have to give a name. I’ve got a ‘Jude’ account, but I’ve also got others in the name of ‘Nichol’ and ‘Metarius’.”
Carole was excited by the direction the conversation was taking. Since she’d moved into Woodside Cottage, Jude had always been vague about the precise details of her past, particularly of her marital history. Now Carole was being given the perfect opportunity to get a little concrete information on the subject. She had heard the names from Jude before, but never had their provenance denned. “Now one of those is your married name, isn’t it?” she asked.
“They’re both married names,” said Jude, muddying the waters even further.
“So you mean you have a third name too – the one you were born with?”
“That’s right.” But before any supplementary questions could be asked, Jude had, as ever, moved on. Scribbling down the Treboddick email address, she announced, “I think this is a job for Mrs Metarius.” As she made her way into the relevant account, she continued, “Just a general enquiry first. Came across your details on the net…hear that the cottages are in a lovely part of the country…wonder if you have any availability…”
“When?”
“As soon as possible. We could leave tomorrow, couldn’t we?”
“What?” This went against Carole’s every instinct. Granted, they were going in the cause of investigation, but a trip to Cornwall sounded very much like a holiday to her, and you couldn’t just shoot off on holiday without preparation. She remembered organizing family trips when Stephen was little. They had to be planned months and months ahead, with all the attention to detail of a major military offensive. First, dates had to be agreed with David, who always needed a lot of warning and thinking time before he got close to making a decision about anything. And then there had to be long discussions about the venue and the optimum form of transport to be used, and then…
