Carole would have liked to challenge that, but came to the rueful realization that he was probably right. Time to move back into investigative mode. “Old Garge…I feel a fool calling you Old Garge. As if I’m in some third-rate stage play.”
“But you are.” The old man gestured around the hut. “Look, we’re on the set of a third-rate stage play.”
“Well, I’d rather call you Rupert, if that’s all right with you?”
He inclined his head graciously. “I would be honoured.”
“Rupert, you still haven’t answered my question about whether you’ve seen Flora Le Bonnier recently.”
“True, I haven’t.” He was silent for a moment, teasing her. “But I will answer it now. No. It’s years since I’ve seen Flora.”
“Though at one stage you did see quite a lot of her?”
“We worked together on a few films, just after the war, in the late forties.”
“But was your relationship…”
He grinned, as he repeated firmly, “We worked together on a few films, just after the war, in the late forties. Inevitably, we saw a lot of each other.”
It was the practised ‘We are just good friends’ answer from someone who knew a bit about talking to the press. He did, however, manage to incorporate into it the practised cheeky implication that they might have been more than good friends. Carole recognized she wasn’t going to get anything else out of him on the subject, so she changed tack. “Do you know that Ruby Tallis describes you as ‘the eyes and ears of Fethering Beach’?”
“I wasn’t actually aware of that, but it doesn’t surprise me.”
“Well, having talked to you, I’d say it was a pretty accurate description.” He nodded acknowledgement of the compliment. “So I would have thought you know more than anyone else about what happened the night Gallimaufry burnt down.”
“‘More than anyone else’? I don’t think you can be taking account of the sterling efforts of the official investigators into the incident, the British police. For the sake of our country’s security, I would like to believe that they know more about what happened than I do.”
“Yes, maybe, but…Just a minute, have the police actually questioned you?”
“We did have a brief conversation. Up in my room in Downside.”
“Why not here?”
“As I may have indicated, my presence here may not conform to every last detail of certain regulations. I wouldn’t wish to add the constabulary’s not inconsiderable workload by forcing them to investigate my circumstances. So I thought it would save trouble all round were I to tell them I had spent very little time here over the Christmas period.”
“So you said you weren’t here the night Gallimaufry burnt down?”
“That was exactly what I told them, yes. They had no reason to disbelieve me.”
“Whereas, in actual fact, you were here?”
“You’re a woman of very acute perception, Carole.”
She knew she was being sent up, but was too excited to let it worry her. “Why did you lie to the police?”
Her question seemed to pain him. “It has been my experience that it is always wise to minimize one’s contact with them.”
Had she been less preoccupied by the details of Gallimaufry’s incineration, Carole might have enquired into the reasons behind his reply, but instead, breathlessly, she asked, “Did you see anything that night, Rupert?”
He gestured once again towards the window, through which the blackened ruins of Gallimaufry were clearly visible. “Hard to miss a major conflagration at this distance.”
“So what did you see?”
He was silent and looked at her. The shrewdness in his eyes was so penetrating she once again had to turn away. “Why should I tell you, Carole?”
“You must have told other people. Surely it’s impossible to talk to any of the Fethering Beach Dog-walking Mafia without the subject coming up?”
“The subject certainly comes up and I’m certainly prepared to listened to other people’s theories about it – mostly the theories of Derek Tallis, it has to be said – but I haven’t as yet contributed much of my own to the debate.”
“But there must have been things you saw that night.”
“I’m not denying it. All I’m saying is that I’m very selective about who I’m prepared to share that information with.” Their eyes locked. Yet again it was Carole who looked away first.
“Why are you so selective?” she asked meekly.
“Because the stakes are quite high, aren’t they? When there might be a murder involved. I mean, say I have information that could send someone down for life?”
Carole couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Have you?”
“Let’s keep our discussion in the world of hypothesis for the moment, shall we? But say I did have such information. Whether I share it or not raises rather a substantial moral dilemma.”
“There’s really no dilemma. Relevant information should be passed on to the investigating authorities,” said Carole with the pious rectitude of someone who’d spent all her working life in the Home Office.
“No, I’m sorry, I don’t hold with moral absolutes like that. The question I ask myself is: ‘Who’s likely to be harmed by my passing on this information?’ Is it someone who I think deserves to suffer, or is it someone for whom I feel sympathy?”
“You mean someone who you feel you should protect?”
“Yes, Carole, exactly. That is the question that is currently exercising my mind – and my conscience, and – ”
“But if you actually saw – ”
“
“But can’t you at least tell me
“Oh, Carole…” He shook his head pityingly. “You’ll have to do better than that. Were I to tell you the name of the person who might need protection, you’d know almost the whole story, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, but a young woman has died here and everyone has a moral duty to – ”
Her appeal was interrupted by a brisk rapping on the hut door. As they looked towards it, Piers Duncton entered, the habitual cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. He reacted with a narrowing of the eyes to Carole’s presence, but his words were for the benefit of Old Garge – or maybe Rupert Sonning.
“I’ve just come from Lola’s,” he said. “The police are on their way to interview you.”
? The Shooting in the Shop ?
Twenty-Five
As she drove to the vet’s, Carole tried to find explanations for what had happened at the beach hut after Piers’s arrival. She had been unceremoniously sent on her way, and, when she left, the young man was also chivvying Old Garge to gather up his belongings and leave. The actor raised no objections, evidently as keen as Piers was that he should get out of the place. Presumably the reason for his departure was to avoid further interrogation from the police. And he had dropped that clue about trying to minimize his contact with the constabulary – was that because he’d had uncomfortable experiences with them in the past? Everything that had happened in Pequod again raised the intriguing questions of how much Old Garge knew and whom he was trying to protect. Carole, having come so close to hearing the actor’s account of Gallimaufry’s burning-down, felt acutely frustrated at being denied her breakthrough on the case.
She didn’t see Saira Sherjan at the vet’s. Gulliver was brought out by one of the green-clad nurses while Carole paid the receptionist the usual eye-watering bill. The dog seemed none the worse for his hospitalization, and greeted his mistress with heart-warming enthusiasm. She was advised that he should have no adverse reactions to the surgery, but she should try for a week to keep him from eating dried food and chewing bones or sticks, to give the gum a chance to heal.
Gulliver seemed very pleased to be back in High Tor and wolfed down the plate of (soft) dog meat that Carole
