“True. Though we’ve no idea whether Flora ever did marry.”
“No mention of any weddings in her autobiography. Which, of course, takes us straight back to the question of who Ricky’s father was.”
“Yes.” Carole felt acutely frustrated. If only she’d realized the importance of the information at the time, she might have pressed Old Garge on the subject of possible paternity. But then Piers had interrupted their discussions. And, come to that, why had Piers suddenly arrived at that moment? What was his connection with the former Rupert Sonning?
“Well,” said Jude, “we know that at school Ricky was known as Ricky Brown. So the logical answer might be that he was the son of Flora Le Bonnier and a ‘Mr Brown’.”
“Do you think Kath’d know more about that?”
“I doubt it. She said Ricky never mentioned his father. What she did talk about, though, which might be relevant, was the time when Ricky left her to go and work in the music business in London, when he was seduced away by the first of his ‘Devil Women’.” Carole’s eyes looked up to the ceiling in exasperation. “I was wondering if that was when he changed his name. Realizing, perhaps, that Le Bonnier was a name that might carry some weight in the world of show business?”
“It’s possible,” Carole conceded. “and clearly at some point there was a big change in Ricky’s relationship with his mother. During his childhood she appears almost to have denied his existence, but when she was here at your party she seemed close to hero-worshipping him.”
“Yes.” It was Jude’s turn to look frustrated now. “If only I’d thought to ask these questions when I went to sort out Flora’s back.”
“Maybe she’ll have a relapse and summon you again.”
“Maybe…” A new thought came to Jude, spreading a beam across her rounded face. “But of course we will be seeing both Ricky and Flora on tomorrow evening.” Carole looked puzzled. “Their New Year’s Eve Party at Fedingham Court House.”
“Oh yes.” Puzzlement gave way to anxiety on Carole’s face. “Are you sure I’m invited to that? I mean, I haven’t received an invitation.”
“Of course you’re invited. I asked specially. And, given the number of questions to which we need answers, it’ll be a good thing to have us both there.”
“Yes, it will.” Carole drummed her fingers impatiently on the kitchen table. “So what can we do till then? In terms of investigation?”
“Well, I suppose tomorrow morning you can have another attempt to talk to the Devil Woman who Kath saw in Ricky’s car on the evening of the fire.”
“Anna. Yes, I’ll try that. And at least tomorrow morning I’ll have Gulliver with me, so I won’t look such an idiot.”
Jude smiled inwardly at this latest of her neighbour’s neuroses as she said, “The other thing we can do is try to find Old Garge again.”
? The Shooting in the Shop ?
Twenty-Seven
The Wednesday morning was not so cold. The entire country was still in its state of holiday torpor, but for Carole Seddon Christmas seemed a distant memory. She had survived – even enjoyed – the day itself, but now normal life had to continue. She wanted to put the last week behind her. Going to the Le Bonniers’ New Year’s Eve Party would be an incongruous reminder of the season.
Gulliver, who appeared to have suffered no ill effects from his surgery, watched the well-practised preparations for a walk with tremendous tail-wagging enthusiasm. When they reached Fethering Beach, Carole didn’t have the heart not to let him roam free. The tide was low. Gulliver lolloped off to practise emergency stops in the sand. Carole sat in the shelter where she had last talked with Anna, and waited. Her timing was precise again; it was twenty past seven.
And this time she got a result. Anna must have started her walk a little earlier than usual, because she and her Westie appeared round the corner of a weed-covered wooden groyne way down on the beach. Gulliver gambolled towards them, had a momentary exchange of sniffs with the other dog and then returned to his high- speed braking exercises. What a useful herald he is, thought his mistress, alerting Anna to my presence.
It seemed quite natural for Carole to rise from the shelter and walk down across the shingle towards her dog, and what she could almost call her dog-walking friend. Except that what she had to talk to Anna about might put a severe strain on their embryonic friendship.
After mutual greetings and an exchange of very English sentences about the comparative mildness of the weather, Carole decided she had to leap straight in. “You remember last time we met, we talked about the fire at Gallimaufry…?”
“Yes.”
“Have the police talked to you about it?”
“They asked me about security arrangements at the shop.”
“Not about anything else?”
“Why on earth should they ask me about anything else?”
“Just because you were seen with Ricky in his car near Fethering Yacht Club earlier that evening.”
The approach had been clumsy, but Carole couldn’t have asked for a more dramatic reaction. All the colour left Anna’s cheeks, making the red of her lipstick, by contrast, brighter than ever. She swayed as if she might be about to faint, and Carole reached out a hand to steady her. As soon as Anna felt the touch on her sleeve, she burst into tears. Not slow tears, but hysterical ones that shook her entire body as though electric shocks were coursing through her veins.
“Come on,” said Carole, uncharacteristically gentle. “Come and sit down.”
Leading the way up to the shelter on the Promenade with an arm over Anna’s shoulders, she could feel her body’s uncontrollable shuddering. Blackie, her West Highland terrier, uninterested in human suffering, trotted off to nose his way through piles of seaweed.
It took a while before Anna was calm enough to speak coherently, and her first intelligible words were: “I’ve been terrified of this happening. I knew it’d all come out one day.”
“All what?” asked Carole. Feeling awkward, she detached her arm from Anna’s shoulders.
“About me and Ricky. Why would the police want to know about us being there?”
“They are investigating a suspicious death. They’re bound to be checking everyone who has a connection with Gallimaufry.”
“God, then it’ll all come out.”
Patiently, Carole repeated, “All what?” There was a silence, broken only by Anna’s rasping breaths. “You don’t deny you were in the Mercedes with Ricky?”
“I don’t deny anything. I knew it’d all end in disaster. But I do love him.” That prompted a renewed burst of weeping.
As it subsided, Carole asked, “Are you saying that you and Ricky Le Bonnier were having an affair?” Anna nodded miserably. “Had it been going on for long?”
“A couple of months. No, nearly three. I started working at Gallimaufry as soon as the place opened in September. I was there on the first day at the gala celebration. And it was early October when…” The memory was too painful for her to supply more details. “Oh, I was very stupid, I know, but very vulnerable. It had been so long since any man had shown any interest in me, in that way…I thought, coming here to Fethering, I could make a fresh start, be someone new. But you can never get away from who you really are.”
“And the hair and the make-up,” asked Carole gently, “was that part of being someone new?”
Another sad nod. “Yes, and that probably just made me look ridiculous. But it gave me confidence for a time when I first came here. I thought I’d really got away from…the situation I was in before. But then the first thing I do when I arrive in Fethering is to screw up totally and start having an affair with a married man.”
Carole couldn’t stop herself from saying, “In this case, a much-married man.”
“Yes, but it seemed to
