Death and the Decorator

FOURTEEN

Fortunately, Lauren Givens’s phone number was on the Pottery Open Day flyer. Also fortunately, it was her mobile, not the landline. After what she had just heard from Fred, Jude wasn’t sure how likely she was to find his estranged wife at home. Only a week before, of course, Jude had seen Lauren at Fethering Yacht Club. Given the events of the past seven days, Jude thought it unlikely she’d be there again the following Saturday.

When she left High Tor for Woodside Cottage, Jude hadn’t told Carole what she was about to do. This wasn’t being deliberately secretive, though her neighbour would of course think it was. Jude just felt she was better suited to conduct this part of the investigation. She would report back to Carole when, hopefully, she had something to report.

‘Hello?’ Lauren Givens’s voice was taut, ready to end the call quickly if she needed to.

‘Hi. It’s Jude.’

‘Oh yes?’ Still not convinced but waiting to hear more.

‘Fred came to see me and my friend Carole.’

‘Did he?’

‘I’m sorry to hear about your … problems.’

‘Oh. He told you everything, did he?’

‘He told us a surprising amount.’

‘Bloody typical. Right through our marriage, Fred never talked to me about his feelings but he’ll happily unburden himself to complete strangers.’

‘The reason I’m calling you, Lauren, is because of something Fred said about you and Glen Porter.’

‘Oh yes? Well, if you’re thinking of adding marriage guidance counselling to your healing work, I can tell you now, you’ll be wasting your time. Fred and me is over. The relationship has been moribund for a long time. Now it’s officially dead.’

‘I wasn’t actually calling in an attempt to mend your marriage. Not part of my business.’

‘Thank God you recognize that.’

‘It’s between the two of you. No, the reason I’m calling is about something Fred said Glen Porter told you.’

‘Oh?’ The suspicion in Lauren’s voice had eased a little over the past few exchanges but now it was back at reinforced strength. ‘And what was that?’

‘Apparently, he told you he knew what had happened to Anita Garner.’

Instantly, the line went dead. Slowly, Jude replaced the receiver on its cradle.

Hoping her prediction of what would happen next was correct, she sat down and waited.

She thought she was right. Within ten minutes, her phone rang. But the caller wasn’t the one she was expecting. It was Carole.

‘Jude, I thought I’d let you know that I’ve enlisted help.’

‘“Help”? Sorry, what do you mean?’

‘Now we’ve got a definite lead on Anita Garner’s disappearance …’

‘I’m not sure that we have quite got that.’

Carole steamrollered on, ‘I thought we needed help from someone who knows more about the case than anyone else.’

‘You don’t mean you’ve been in touch with the police?’ Jude was appalled. If there were any rules in the business of being an amateur detective, the predominant one was never to consult the police. The ‘proper authorities’ had no place in the world of untutored sleuthdom.

‘No, of course I haven’t,’ said Carole curtly. ‘I have enlisted the help of my journalist friend, Malk Penberthy.’

‘Oh.’

Jude must have sounded underwhelmed because Carole went straight into reassurance mode. ‘He covered the case at the time she actually disappeared. He talked to all the relevant people. He really does know more about it than anyone else.’

‘Possibly. So, what have you actually told him?’

‘I’ve told him that we know the identity of the person who holds the key to the case,’ said Carole enthusiastically.

‘Have you actually said it’s Glen Porter?’

‘No. I said I’d wait until I talked to you before I gave him the name.’

‘Thank God for that,’ was Jude’s immediate thought. What she said, though, was, ‘Can you hold fire till after the weekend?’

‘Why?’ Carole sounded miffed and disappointed.

‘Just, please do. There are a couple of things I need to sort out.’

‘“Things” that will take you the whole weekend? I thought we were doing this investigation together.’ Carole was moving into full martyr mode.

‘Please, Carole. If I can get them sorted sooner, I’ll let you know immediately.’

‘Very well.’ The words were said in Carole’s unique way of saying that things were far from ‘very well’.

After their call ended, Jude didn’t feel comfortable. It was a kind of role reversal. Usually, Carole was the one who was hypersensitive about potential slights, about the idea that she was being excluded from any part of their investigation. But now Jude was getting something of that feeling.

She knew her neighbour well enough to understand what was going on. Carole had cultivated Malk Penberthy as her own private source, someone separate from Jude. She hadn’t suggested even introducing the two of them.

Jude still felt uneasy about their recently acquired information being shared with a third party.

But then a thought came to her of how the situation could be used to her advantage.

Shortly after, came the call she had been expecting. Her conjecture had been proved right. Her mention of Anita Garner had prompted Lauren Givens to contact her lover immediately.

‘Hello, Jude. This is Glen Porter.’

‘Hello.’

‘I gather you’ve been stirring things up again.’

‘Ooh, I don’t think I’d go as far as that.’

‘I would. More meddlesome talk about Anita Garner.’

‘Did Lauren say why I’d raised the name?’

‘Yes. She was stupid. Something I mentioned to her in confidence – and then she goes and tells her bloody husband!’

‘So, you’re not denying you said it?’

‘No, I’m not. But I am telling you to put a stop to all this destructive gossip.’

‘I’m not sure that I can.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘There’s already a journalist sniffing round the case.’

‘Bloody hell!’

‘A very pertinacious journalist. One who won’t rest until he finds out the truth.’ This was perhaps bigging up Malk Penberthy excessively, but Jude knew what she was doing. She wasn’t going to spoil her little plan by mentioning the journalist’s age or the fact that he had been long retired.

It worked. ‘Can you come to the beach hut?’ asked Glen Porter.

There had been a sprinkling of snow that morning. It hadn’t settled on the sand, just dusted the rooftops of the village. It certainly accentuated the Chekhovian look of the beach hut. The cold stung Jude’s cheeks as she crossed Fethering Beach.

She had half-expected Lauren to be there, but Glen was on his own.

No offers of coffee this time. Straight to business.

‘This journalist you talked about … what’s his name?’

‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you that.’

‘Why not?’

‘He asked me not to.’ Jude was not above telling the odd white lie in the cause of justice.

‘Lauren swore blind to me that Fred was the only person she’d told that I’d said I knew what happened to Anita Garner.’

‘Yes.’

‘Did he tell you anything more than that?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Absolutely sure. But it was sufficient to spark my interest.’

‘Yes,’ said Glen wryly. ‘I’m getting the impression it doesn’t take much to do that.’

‘Maybe not.’

‘So, Jude, what’s the current state of play? Should I be preparing myself for a call from said journalist?’

Time for a bit of tactical white lying. ‘That may not happen for a while. May not happen at all.’

‘Sorry, what do you mean? You said he was “sniffing around” Anita’s disappearance.’

‘Yes. Let me explain. I haven’t met him. He’s known to my neighbour Carole. Do you know who I mean?’

‘Oh yes. Fethering’s other menopausal meddler. I know about her.’

Jude didn’t react to the insult. Time for another white lie. ‘Because Carole’s journalist friend knows we’re interested in the case, he’s offered to help us. It was through her that I got the message he didn’t want his name bandied about. It’s certainly a name you’d recognize,’ she lied blithely. ‘He’s got quite a reputation for investigative journalism.’

‘Has he? And your friend Carole asked him to help solve Anita Garner’s disappearance?’

‘She hasn’t yet said definitely whether she wants him to or not.’ Another lie easily slipped in. ‘That’s why I said his intervention may not happen.’

‘Ah.’ A light of hope came into Glen Porter’s eyes. ‘So, he could still be headed off, could he?’

‘Might be possible,’ said Jude, deliberately capricious.

‘I would be very grateful if you could head him off,’ said Glen firmly.

‘How grateful?’

‘What do you mean? For God’s sake! Are you asking me for money?’

‘No.’ Jude was shocked that he might think that. But then she reflected that someone chiefly known locally for being rich must get many such requests. It would be reasonable to assume that money was what everyone was after.

‘No,’ she repeated. ‘I’m asking for information. You’re not about to deny that you know what happened to Anita, are you?’

‘No. But I have reasons for keeping that information secret.’

‘Really? I wonder what they could be …?’

‘I don’t think it’s really your business, Jude.’

‘Perhaps not. But I can’t stop myself from being intrigued by it.’

‘Evidently not,’ Glen said drily. ‘I imagine there are few things you can stop yourself being intrigued by.’

‘You’re probably right. But listen, your reasons for keeping the information you have about Anita Garner secret …’

‘Yes?’

‘The way I see it, either you’d want secrecy to avoid incriminating yourself …’

‘Oh, last time it was Harry Lasalle I was supposed to have bumped off. You’re accusing me of murdering the girl now, are you?’

‘No, I’m not.’

‘I’m relieved to hear that. There were so many nasty allegations going round just after her disappearance, I don’t want all that starting up again.’

‘All right, Glen, but just bear with me a moment. If you had murdered her and knew where the body was hidden, then fine, that’d be a reason for keeping the facts secret.’

‘I would go along with that.’ In spite of the potential seriousness of the situation, he was enjoying this intellectual sparring. ‘And if – just to offer a more charitable interpretation of my behaviour – I didn’t murder her … what then?’

‘Then, the reason for your silence could be that you know who did murder her and are keeping quiet to avoid shopping them.’

‘I understand the logic of that, yes.’

‘There are other possibilities,’ said Jude.

‘Mm. Infinite numbers, I would imagine.’

Jude decided she needed more facts. ‘What has prompted all this speculation over the years is that nobody knows what was the precise nature of your relationship with Anita Garner at the time.’

‘No, they don’t … however much they invent scenarios of romance and loathing. Nobody knows anything. And, for me, that seems a very satisfactory state of affairs. And one whose continuation I see no reason to stop.’

‘Maybe not. You know Vi Benyon?’

‘Do I?’

‘Mother of Kent, who you were at school with.’

‘Oh yes. Then I know who you mean.’

‘According to Vi, Kent said that you “got inside Anita’s knickers”.’

‘Good old Kent. I wonder where he got his information from.’

Glen didn’t seem inclined to continue, so Jude pressed on, ‘Apparently, you had quite a reputation as a Jack-the-Lad back then, working your way through the adoring young women of Fethering.’

He gave a wry smile, not of triumphalism, more of doubt. ‘That reputation was, I suppose, justified at the time. Like most young men, I enjoyed sex and wasn’t too bothered about the emotional side of things.’

‘Are you implying you’ve changed?’

‘Yes. Sex without emotional engagement has lost its lustre for me.’

‘So, your relationship with Lauren—?’

‘We are not here to talk about my relationship with Lauren. We are her to talk about my relationship – if any – with Anita Garner.’

‘Very well. So, what was it?’ asked Jude bluntly.

‘I’m not particularly proud of my behaviour in my late teens and early twenties. My approach to women was very much of the “notches on the bedpost” variety. I have changed considerably since then.’

Jude, ever the investigator of human behaviour, couldn’t restrain herself from asking, ‘What caused the change?’

Glen Porter grinned. ‘My suddenly becoming wealthy. You hear frequently that “money is the root of all evil”.’

‘To be accurate, “the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil”,’ Jude pointed out.

‘I stand corrected. Anyway, in my case, the reverse proved to be true. My acquisition of money was the root of all good in me. For the first time, I had the freedom to ask myself what I really wanted from life. I no longer had to scrape a living, working behind bars, stacking shelves, portering in hospitals. I could leave Fethering. I could do things.’

‘So, what “things” did you do?’

‘First thing was to go to university. It had never been an option before. My parents hardly knew what a university was, and the local comprehensive wasn’t exactly grooming its students for academia. So, first I did evening classes to get the requisite A levels, then spent three mind-expanding years doing English and Philosophy at the University of Liverpool.

‘And, perhaps being that much older than most of the undergraduate intake, I didn’t immediately embark on an orgy of wild promiscuity. I had already been through that phase of my life. Instead, I learned to take relationships more seriously, to realize – perhaps for the first time – that the other person involved was a sentient being too.’

‘Quite a breakthrough,’ said Jude drily.

‘Yes, it was. I also spent a lot of time thinking about how I should spend my unexpected fortune.’

‘Fethering thinks you spend it on living the high life abroad. Mention your name and expressions like “splash the cash” and “playboy” will infallibly occur in the next sentence.’

‘If you think I give a shit what Fethering thinks, Jude, then you have seriously misjudged my character.’

‘I haven’t had much of a chance to make a judgement about your character.’

‘No. Nor I yours. You were, however, I should point out, quite recently willing to believe me capable of murdering Harry Lasalle.’

‘Yes,’ said Jude with mock-winsomeness. ‘But I didn’t know you so well then.’

That earned a grin. Though she still didn’t fancy him physically, Jude found herself attracted at an intellectual level.

‘Anyway,’ she went on, ‘I know more about how education transformed your character’ – another grin from him – ‘but I still don’t know the nature of your relationship with Anita Garner.’

‘Very well. I’ll tell you. It’s a disappointing answer … for lovers of the prurient. Nothing happened. I never made love to her.’

‘And was that … for lovers of the accurate … not for want of trying?’

‘You’re right, I’m afraid. I did regard her as a challenge, back in what you would probably call my “Jack-the-Lad” phase. I took her out a couple of times. But I didn’t get anywhere.’

‘Could you be more specific?’

‘God, you ask a lot, Jude. Are you asking for details of my every thwarted fumble?’

‘That’s exactly what I’m asking for.’

‘Very well then. Since you have such a persuasive manner … I will tell you that I came on to her very heavily. I had certain techniques which had proved effective with other girls. None of us had our own places back then. We mostly still lived with our parents, so opportunities for … what? Carnal interaction? Such opportunities were rare. I was a bit ahead of the pack. I had my own van. That was the scene of most of my … what shall I call them?’

‘Conquests?’ Jude suggested.

‘I suppose so. Sounds a bit shabby in these post-MeToo days.’

‘Were probably pretty shabby at the time.’

‘Yes. Thank you, Jude. I’m sure I deserved that.’

‘Anyway, you and Anita …?’

‘Basically, I came up against the brick wall of her religion. Catholicism has a lot to answer for when it comes to sex. If you ban contraception, you’re bound to cause poverty and domestic violence. If you insist on a celibate priesthood, you cannot fail to engender paedophilia. But you don’t want to get me started on all that.’

‘No, I certainly don’t. Let’s just talk about you and Anita.’

‘OK. Well, as I said, I came on to her. I tried to seduce her. She wouldn’t let me. Sex before marriage was against her religion. I think she did genuinely believe that. I think also, though, she was terrified of her father. He was the one who – literally – put the fear of God into her. She said if he found out she’d had sex before marriage – even worse, if she were to get pregnant before she got married – he would turn her out of the house and cut off all communication with her.’

This conformed with everything else Jude had heard about the late Mr Garner. ‘Tell me, Glen,’ she asked, ‘did Anita ever have a boyfriend?’

‘Not that I heard of. Certainly not one she went to bed with, I’m pretty sure of that.’

‘Hm. The name “Pablo” doesn’t mean anything to you?’

‘No. In what context?’

‘He was someone Anita worked with at a pub called the Cat and Fiddle. We heard from the former landlady of the place that they were very close.’

Glen Porter shook his head. ‘Never heard anything about that.’ Then he seemed to feel they’d done enough intellectual skirmishing. ‘Can we get back to this journalist of yours, Jude?’

‘By all means.’

‘For reasons of my own … yes, I’ve said that before – but you’ve got to believe me, they are solid, humanitarian reasons – I don’t want the investigation of Anita Garner’s disappearance restarted. And I certainly don’t want your hotshot journalist sniffing round the case. That could only cause a lot of distress.’

‘Distress to whom?’

‘The individuals concerned,’ he replied unhelpfully. ‘But you seem to have come here to bargain, Jude. We’ve established you don’t want money. So, what is your price for not unleashing your high-powered investigative journalist?’

‘According to Lauren, passed on to us by her husband, you know what happened to Anita Garner.’ There was a silence. ‘Are you denying that?’

‘No, I’m not.’

‘You asked what my price is. My price is you telling me what you know, you telling me what happened to Anita Garner.’

‘Then you’ll not give your journalist my name?’

‘Definitely won’t, no.’

‘And see that my name is kept out of further investigations by you and your nosy neighbour?’

‘You have my word on it.’

Glen Porter was silent for a moment, assessing his options. Then he said, ‘All right.’

And he told Jude what had happened to Anita Garner.

Jude felt pretty good on the icy walk back to Woodside Cottage. Her little plan had worked.

And she thought Malk Penberthy, formerly of the Fethering Observer, might have been flattered by being presented as someone with the combined investigative skills of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward from All the President’s Men – and better than either of them.

As for the lies she had told to achieve her desired result, she felt no guilt about them. Truth was, as ever, a justifiable casualty in pursuit of the greater good.

Her only small disquiet arose from the condition Glen Porter had insisted on before he gave her the information. That she mustn’t share it with anyone. Not even Carole. Though in fact that suited her own intentions well, she knew it would inevitably lead to conflict some way down the line.