much bigger than you realize, Jude.”
She must have looked shaken when she finished the call, because Carole asked if she was all right. Jude repeated what Ricky had said.
“Then I’m going to be here when he comes,” announced Carole.
“I’m sure it’ll be all right.”
“Jude, a person who has killed once to keep something quiet may not be troubled by the thought of killing again for the same reason.”
“I find it hard to think of Ricky as a killer.”
“It’s hard to think of anyone as a killer, but there are still a lot of people who have been sent to prison for murder.”
“Yes, I know. I’ll get us some lunch.”
“Not before you’ve checked that mobile, you won’t.”
The charger was so secure in its packaging that Jude had to take a pair of scissors to the obdurate plastic. When she’d finally freed it, she pushed the three-pin plug into a wall socket and pressed the small connector into the bottom of Polly’s phone. She switched the handset on and navigated through to the voicemail.
Only a couple of messages had been saved. One was from Piers, another from one of Polly’s actress friends. Both dated from before Ricky’s daughter had come down to Fethering, and concerned arrangements for social meetings. It was hard to imagine that either could have any relevance to the girl’s death.
“That’s very disappointing,” said Carole glumly. “I really thought we were going to get a breakthrough there.”
“Don’t give up hope. We haven’t checked her text messages yet.”
These were stored in the in-box with the most recently received message first. That had been sent at 7.29 p.m. on the Sunday before Christmas, the date of Jude’s open house. The message read:
SOMETHING REALLY IMPORTANT HAS COME UP ABOUT THE BOOK. DON’T GO TO LONDON. MEET ME IN GALLIMAUFRY AT NINE THIS EVENING. DON’T TELL ANYONE ABOUT YOUR CHANGE OF PLANS UNTIL WE’VE SPOKEN.
Jude checked the number from which the text had been sent against the mobile number on the card Ricky Le Bonnier had given her. They were identical.
? The Shooting in the Shop ?
Thirty-Four
Four-thirty passed, so did five and five-thirty, and there was still no sign of Ricky. After six Jude tried ringing his mobile number, but was only asked to leave a message. She didn’t.
They discussed having a drink. Carole was of the opinion that a drink might weaken their defences for the confrontation that lay ahead. Jude reckoned that a drink would strengthen them for the confrontation that lay ahead. Her counsel prevailed. She poured out two large glasses of Chilean Chardonnay. (The booze for the open house still showed no signs of running out.)
Soon after a quarter past eight, Jude’s landline rang. She snatched at the handset, expecting to hear Ricky, but the voice at the other end was a woman’s.
“Jude, I have some news for you, strange news.” The voice sounded so weird and ethereal that Jude took a moment to recognize it as Kath’s. “Do you wish to know where Ricky Le Bonnier is?”
“Yes, I do.”
“I felt his aura. I knew he was coming to Fethering today.”
“He was coming to see me, but he hasn’t arrived.”
“I will tell you where you will find him. He is in his car near the Fethering Yacht Club. He has parked it in the same place as where I saw him the Sunday before Christmas.”
Immediately, Jude had a vision of Ricky once again taking risks to see Anna. “Is he alone?” she asked.
“Oh yes,” replied Kath with considerable satisfaction. “He is alone. The Devil Women have no power over him anymore. Their power is broken. I am the only one who now has power over Ricky.”
The woman was beginning to sound as nutty as an entire fruit cake factory, but there was something in her words that disturbed Jude. She felt a sudden urgency to find Ricky Le Bonnier, to check that he wasn’t in danger. She ended the phone call.
Walking to the Yacht Club would not have taken long, but they went in the car. Jude’s sense of emergency had communicated itself to Carole and neither of them spoke as the Renault hurtled through Fethering.
The Mercedes 4x4 was exactly where Kath had said it would be. Parked facing the sea between the end of the shopping parade and the entrance to Fethering Yacht Club. Its lights were on, sending strips of brightness out across the shingle of the beach until their glare faded into darkness.
Carole parked the Renault, and Jude was first to the Mercedes. She could see Ricky Le Bonnier slumped in the driver’s seat.
The door was unlocked and when Jude opened it the interior light went on. There was no sign of any injury on Ricky’s body, no blood, no evidence of a weapon.
And yet neither Jude nor Carole had any doubt that he was dead.
? The Shooting in the Shop ?
Thirty-Five
“I just don’t know what to tell Mabel. She adored Ricky. He was her Daddy and nobody could replace him. I haven’t told her about Polly yet, but she didn’t see Polly that often, so I can break that to her gently. But Ricky…”
Lola was very near to tears. Jude had rung through to Fedingham Court House on Saturday morning. Her motive had little to do with criminal investigation. She just knew from previous encounters how fragile Lola was beneath her glamorous carapace.
“Mabel will survive,” she said. “Children are very resilient. But what about you, Lola? How are you feeling?”
“Numb at the moment. Every now and then I almost forget what’s happened, my imagination can’t cope with the idea of it being true. But then the reality crashes back in with a hideous thump and I’m left winded and weepy and…Ricky was the love of my life, Jude. There’ll never be anyone else. I daren’t think what the future’s going to be like.”
“Like Mabel, you will survive. It’ll be grim, but you will come through this.”
“It’s hard to believe that at the moment.”
“I’m sure it is, but what I say is true. And, in the meantime, you’ll have a lot of practical things to do…”
“Yes. Arranging the funeral.” A sob caught Lola unawares. “I suppose I always knew that I’d outlive Ricky, that at some point I would have to face life without him. But not so soon. Not so soon.”
“Presumably, you’ll have to wait a bit before fixing a date for the funeral, won’t you?” asked Jude, with all the delicacy of which she was capable.
“Why?”
“Well, until the police allow you to have Ricky’s body.”
“What have the police got to do with it?” Lola sounded appalled at the idea of their being involved.
“When there’s a suspicious death…”
“There’s nothing suspicious about Ricky’s death. There’ll have to be a post mortem, yes…” The image of her husband’s body being carved up shook her for a moment. “But all that the post mortem will find is that he died of a heart attack.”
“Oh?”
“There’d always been a risk of that happening. Before we got married, Ricky told me that he’d had a couple of minor heart attacks, that his heart was weak. He was very honest with me, he didn’t want me to go into the marriage not knowing everything about him.”
