“All he said was that Polly’s death was payback time for Ricky. He said there are some people you offend at your peril.”
“But he didn’t mention any names?”
A resolute shake of the grey, sixties hair. “No names.”
Carole let out a frustrated sigh. “Oh, it’s so infuriating. If only we could talk to Old Garge…”
“I don’t see why you can’t,” said Kath. Both women looked at her. “I’ll lay any odds that what he did the minute he left my place was to go back to his beach hut.”
“When did he actually leave?”
“Yesterday. The minute I’d told him that Ricky had gone to another dimension.”
“How did he react to the news?”
“He said, ‘Good, if Ricky’s dead, then that lets me off the hook’.”
¦
The winter air prickled against their faces. The damp, cold smell of the sea assailed their nostrils. They could see the tiny square of light from Pequod when they reached the Promenade, and as they drew closer they could hear the strains of Radio 3. Rupert Sonning’s anxieties about being found overnighting in his beach hut had clearly been allayed.
Inside Carole and Jude’s heads the same questions were churning. What had he meant by saying that Ricky’s death had ‘let him off the hook’? What precisely had been his movements, in his Old Garge persona, on the night of Polly’s death? And still at the back of both their minds was the thought that he might have some closer tie than he claimed to the Le Bonnier family.
Carole, as the one who had visited Pequod before, knocked on the wooden door. It was a cautious moment or two before a slice of Rupert Sonning’s face appeared at the crack. “Ah, it’s you.” There was the sound of him disconnecting a chain on the inside. “Can’t be too careful after dark. Sometimes get some louts in from Brighton whose idea of a good night out is beating up an old man in a beach hut.”
He ushered them into the warm. Back in his own environment, the Jack Russell Petrarch was totally relaxed, and showed no more than polite interest in the visitors. “Thought I might be hearing from you again,” said Rupert.
“This is my friend Jude.”
“Oh, Jude and I know each other, don’t we?” To Carole’s annoyance, he winked. “Talked on the beach many a time, haven’t we? Always guaranteed to get more than a Fethering nod from the lovely Jude. Usually a nice cuddle, I’m glad to say. Would you find something to sit on? Coffee?”
They both declined the offer and he seemed to note the seriousness of their demeanour. As he resettled into his armchair, he asked, “So what are you accusing me of now?”
“Nothing. We just want a bit of clarification,” replied Carole.
He grimaced. “Sounds ominous. Are you still asking me to admit that I’m the late Ricky’s father?”
Carole blushed. “No.”
“What we do want you to tell us,” said Jude, “is why you said that Ricky’s death ‘let you off the hook’?”
“Oh, is that all?” He relaxed visibly. “Very simple. Ricky’s death will have wound up the investigation into the death of Polly Le Bonnier. There won’t be any homicide police snuffling around Fethering Beach anymore.
Carole wasn’t buying that, it sounded far too well prepared. “Why do you think that Ricky’s death will stop further investigation into Polly’s?”
“It’s obvious.” He explained as if he were talking to a child. “The case is neatly rounded off. Ricky can’t live with the guilt of having killed his stepdaughter, so he comes back to near the scene of her death and tops himself.”
“When we last spoke, you said you had no idea who had killed Polly.”
“Well, I didn’t, did I? Ricky hadn’t topped himself then, had he? But now he has – and I can’t imagine a clearer admission of guilt than that.”
Strangely, in their responses to Ricky’s death, neither Carole nor Jude had considered the possibility of suicide. Such a robust, positive figure would be the last person they could imagine taking his own life. But when Rupert hazarded that there might be a history of depression in Ricky’s family, they were forced to admit that was true.
“And he’d taken a hell of a battering over the last couple of weeks, hadn’t he?” the old actor went on. “God knows how it feels to have killed someone, least of all your own stepdaughter. I’ve never had children – either my own or inherited – but if I had, I’d like to think I wouldn’t raise a hand against them. The sense of guilt must be appalling. And then Ricky had the stress of the police sniffing around everything, and the strong likelihood that they might find evidence to charge him with the murder. All that, plus a relationship breaking up as well, I’m not surprised it was more than he could handle.”
“Relationship?” asked Jude. “What relationship? He and Lola seemed fine.”
“Not his relationship with his wife,” said Rupert Sonning patiently. “His bit on the side.”
“Anna?”
“Yes, the Marilyn-Monroe-lookalike-I-don’t-think-so.”
“But had they split up?” asked Carole. “When I last saw Anna, she spoke as if the relationship was still ongoing.”
“It didn’t sound very ongoing when I heard them talking about it.”
“When was that?”
“That Sunday. The evening before the fire.”
“Tell us exactly what happened,” said Carole.
“Well, I quite often walk along the beach after dark. Petrarch loves it then, somehow the smells seem sharper for him. That night we were on the dunes and I had a clear view of the back of Gallimaufry. I saw Ricky and his bit of stuff coming out – not the first time I’d seen them either.”
“Anna thought no one had ever seen them together.”
“Well, that just goes to show what a short time she’s been living here, doesn’t it? Nothing in Fethering happens unseen. There’s always someone watching.” Ever the actor, Rupert Sonning deepened his voice to increase the drama of his narrative. “Anyway, as I say, Petrarch and I were on the dunes and I could see Ricky and Anna through the tufts of grass, but they couldn’t see me. And I could hear what they were saying too. Quite clear it was. He said, ‘We’ve got to stop this. It’s not working anymore.’”
He took on different voices for the two characters as he continued, “And she says, ‘It is. It is working, Ricky. I need you. I can’t live without you.’ He says, ‘You managed to live without me for a good few years before we met.’ She says, ‘But now I have met you, I can’t go back to how I was before. If you end it, I won’t be responsible for my actions.’ He says, ‘Oh, please don’t try that line. I’ve met more than my share of women who say they’re going to kill themselves. And they never do.’ And she says, ‘Be careful, Ricky. It might not be myself that I kill.’”
There was a silence, then a rather cross Carole said, “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“Because you didn’t ask,” said Rupert Sonning.
Jude looked across at Carole. “I think we’d better find Anna as soon as possible.”
“We’ll have to wait till tomorrow morning, on the off-chance that she’s taking Blackie out for a walk.”
“Oh, surely there must be some way we can find out where she lives.”
“There is,” announced Rupert Sonning. “It’s not for nothing that I am called ‘the eyes and ears of Fethering Beach’. Would you like me to give you Anna Carter’s address?”
? The Shooting in the Shop ?
Thirty-Seven
It might have been better if they’d had a phone number to warn Anna of their visit, but they hadn’t. Anyway, such a call might have alerted her to danger and allowed her time to make good her escape.
Carole and Jude went back from the beach to High Tor and got in the Renault. The address they had been
