Death and the Decorator

FIVE

That evening the two women met at High Tor. Usually, if it was coffee, they sat in the kitchen. But Jude had brought a nice cold bottle of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and, for some complex reason related to her middle-class upbringing, Carole insisted they should drink it in the sitting room.

Jude was easy with this. Unlike her neighbour, she was easy with everything that didn’t matter. She didn’t, in the words of a self-help book she really deeply disliked, ‘sweat the small stuff’. (Like almost all self-help books, in her view, almost every sentence in it was just another way of saying the message in the title.)

So, they sat in the sitting room, which at High Tor was exclusively a room for sitting in. Not a room for lounging or flopping in, like the one at Woodside Cottage.

Both women had major news to impart, but Carole insisted they shouldn’t start talking about ‘the case’ until they were both seated in the sitting room’s rather hard armchairs with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc in their hands.

Then, she managed to get in her bombshell first. ‘I’ve met this wonderful man!’ she said.

‘Well, congratulations!’ Jude responded. ‘I kept telling you that, if you waited long enough, the right one would come along.’

Carole’s pale cheeks coloured and, behind their rimless glasses, her eyelashes fluttered with annoyance. ‘No, not that kind of “wonderful man”! Really, Jude, you do, on occasion, have something of a one-track mind. The man I am referring to is wonderful because he is a potential source of information.’

‘Oh,’ said Jude, appropriately subdued but with the slightest bubble of laughter in her voice.

Carole described her encounter with Malk Penberthy, concluding, ‘And he really does know everything that’s happened in Fethering for the past fifty years. He could be terribly useful to us if we have another murder investigation after this one.’

Jude looked at her neighbour quizzically. ‘Are you saying the Anita Garner case is a murder investigation, Carole?’

‘Well, of course it is! Why else would we be getting so interested in it?’

Jude reflected for a moment before saying, ‘You could be right.’

‘Of course I’m right! What else do you think happened to the poor girl?’

‘That’s a question to which nobody has found the answer for the past thirty years.’

‘Well, maybe. But we weren’t on the case then. We’ve only just started investigating.’

Jude grinned. Though Carole could sometimes be almost crippled by self-doubt, it was wonderful to see her in an up mood, with the bit between her teeth.

‘Anyway, the main question,’ Carole galloped on, ‘is who knew about her relationship with Pablo? And whose nose did it put out of joint?’

‘Sorry, just a minute. Pablo? Who’s Pablo?’

‘Oh, didn’t I tell you?’

‘No.’

Carole recounted what Malk had said about what was possibly Anita Garner’s most serious relationship.

‘And what was his source for that information?’

‘Someone we’ve met, Jude.’

‘Who?’

‘Shona Nuttall.’

‘Oh yes, I remember her. Used to be landlady of that ghastly pub on the Fether. The Cat and Fiddle. We met her when we were investigating the poisoning at the Crown and Anchor.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Is she still around?’

‘Don’t know. Malk talked to her around the time of the disappearance, so we’re talking thirty years ago. It was at the Cat and Fiddle, though, that Anita and Pablo met.’

‘Ah. And did Anita say to anyone that she was planning to join this Pablo in Spain?’

‘Not in so many words, no.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means she didn’t say anything to anyone,’ said Carole, a little shamefacedly.

‘Incidentally …’ Jude suddenly produced a scrap of paper from her pocket. ‘I know when she applied for the passport.’

‘How?’

‘I wrote down the details before I gave the handbag to the police.’ She pointed. ‘There’s the date of issue. Does that tally with the date of her disappearance?’

Carole nodded. ‘Issued exactly three weeks before. So, it definitely looks as if she was planning some kind of trip abroad.’

‘All right …’ Jude sighed. ‘Let’s follow this theory a little way. Anita, who has never before expressed any interest in leaving the UK, suddenly applies for a passport, with a view to joining lover boy in Cádiz. Her departure is imminent, which is why she has her shiny new passport in her handbag.’

‘But then someone’ – Carole picked up the thread – ‘took that handbag and shut it away behind a panel in Footscrow House for thirty years. Why would they want to do that?’

‘More importantly,’ asked Jude, ‘who would want to do that?’

It was a long time since Jude had been to Fethering Yacht Club but the interior was unchanged. The main feature of the bar was a sea-facing window that filled an entire wall. It muffled the sound of metal cables clacking against masts in the winter wind. And the eternal swishing of the sea. And it enabled the owners to look out at their boats, lined up on the hardstanding between clubhouse and beach.

After dark, the window picked up reflections of the rows of bottles behind the bar opposite. By day, it opened on to the restless vista of the English Channel, rendered more turbulent by the waters of the Fether, which ran along the side wall of the yacht club. The river was tidal until way beyond Fedborough on the edge of the South Downs, which meant that twice a day the phenomenon would be seen of water flowing upstream. (This set up a complex system of currents where the Fether met the sea, a hazard which had caused a good few fatalities over the years. The bodies of those unfortunates who fell in the river tended, within a few days, to wash up on the beach. They had been known for many years as ‘Fethering Floaters’.)

The fascination exerted by the sea was such that, though there were stools by the bar, the most popular seats were lined up in front of the drinks shelf that ran along the big window. There, members could while away the hours, nursing a pint, watching the shifting seascape and thinking whatever thoughts they wished to think. That Saturday, the vista which opened out to them was icy, steel-grey and fretful.

Jude had been surprised when Pete had said he was a member of Fethering Yacht Club. One of her previous contacts there, a former vice-commodore called Denis Woodville, now long dead, had been insistent on the club’s exclusivity and unwillingness to admit ‘riff-raff’. And, though many of the locals would strenuously deny the accusation, there were very rigid social divisions in Fethering. Even in the twenty-first century, there was still a distinction between people in the professions and those in trade. How would the average decorator get through the arcane membership selection process for the yacht club?

The question just made Jude more aware of how different Pete was from ‘the average decorator’. As was often repeated round Fethering, nobody had a bad word to say about Pete. His enthusiasm for sailing and his skill at the sport were unquestioned. Over the years, he had won most of the club’s available trophies. And maybe he had been admitted to membership at a time of less social snobbery.

When Jude entered the bar, Pete was sitting at the counter with a pint in front of him, talking to a couple, one of whom she recognized. It was Lauren Givens, the woman she’d encountered earlier in the week on Fethering Beach. And the way they sat together suggested that the man beside her was her husband, the rich one who reputedly spent his weeks working at marketing in London while his wife crafted ceramic toadstools in Fethering.

Jude saw that, as ever, there were other members by the window, contemplating the unending sequence of the tides, the ever-changing image of the English Channel.

Pete, who’d clearly been on the lookout, rose from his stool to greet her. ‘Glad you could make it, love. What can I get you?’

‘Sauvignon Blanc’d be good. New Zealand if they’ve got it.’

‘Sure they have. Don’t know if you know Fred and Lauren Givens …?’

Jude grinned at the woman, ‘We’ve sort of met, haven’t we?’

Lauren nodded a little awkwardly. While Pete attracted the barmaid’s attention, her husband rose and held out a hand to Jude. Fred Givens was a tall man with expertly groomed grey hair. He wore leisurewear so immaculate that it contrived to look like formalwear.

‘Jude – my husband Fred.’

‘Nice to meet you.’

‘Jude, the pleasure’s all mine.’ His manner was as smooth as his appearance. ‘And I hope to see a lot more of you.’

‘Oh?’ said Jude, slightly puzzled.

‘The fact is, Jude, that I’m hoping to get to know a lot more Fethering residents a lot better. I was just talking to Pete about it.’

‘About what?’ She gratefully took the drink that Pete held out for her.

It was the decorator who answered her question. ‘Fred was telling me about the benefits of “working from home”. During all that lockdown caper he had no choice, no office to go to. And now he’s got a taste for it.’

‘You can say that again,’ Fred Givens enthused. ‘Enlightenment came upon me as I sat in my delightful house in De Vere Road. Why should I have this divided life? Weekdays in London, weekends in Fethering … doesn’t make sense. So, during the lockdown, I got into a very nice routine, turned one of the spare bedrooms into a home office, set up all the technology I need there. Marketing these days is mostly a matter of dealing with figures and you don’t need an office to do that – you just need a laptop. So, now I can move around again, if I’ve got meetings, I go up to London … what, one day, two days a week? And the rest of the time I can benefit from the delights of Fethering. Works a treat. I’ve got my little workstation upstairs, Lauren potters around with her pottery downstairs – it’s the perfect work/life balance.’

The expression on his wife’s face suggested that she didn’t fully share his enthusiasm for the situation. And, also, that she’d heard the witticism ‘potters around with her pottery’ many times before. ‘Perfect for you, maybe, Fred,’ she said.

The level of venom in Lauren’s words made Jude think a change of subject might avert a marital row. So, in classic English style, she fell back on the weather. ‘God, the heavens opened that day when I saw you on the beach, didn’t they, Lauren?’

‘What? When?’ A look of confusion.

‘Thursday. We met just by the beach huts.’

‘Oh yes, of course.’

‘I walked back slowly, getting soaked to the bone. And you ran off home, like a murderer leaving the scene of the crime.’

Lauren still looked confused. Jude chuckled. ‘What’d you been doing that you shouldn’t have been, Lauren?’

But there was no response. This time, Pete came to the conversational rescue. ‘Of course, I was just pointing out to Fred that working from home is all right for some. If I tried it, soon I wouldn’t be able to move for the layers of paint and wallpaper.’

Fred Givens enjoyed the joke. ‘Good one, Pete,’ he said with just a hint of condescension. Jude got the impression that, in his attitude to the decorator, he was very definitely demonstrating his ‘common touch’.

Maybe Pete was aware of the slight because he said, ‘Need to sort out stuff with Jude,’ and steered her away from the couple at the bar. As he did so, he caught the eye of someone he recognized who’d arrived only a few minutes earlier. A tall man with foppishly long grey hair.

‘Hello, Glen,’ said Pete.

Jude couldn’t believe her luck. Carole had fallen on her feet meeting Malk Penberthy and now she was being offered an equivalent moment of serendipity. There couldn’t be that many people in a village like Fethering called Glen. There was a strong chance this must be the financially fortunate Glen Porter, the man who had been at school with Anita Garner and who claimed to have been inside her knickers.

‘Oh, hi, Pete,’ came the reply, as the new arrival scanned the room, starting with the sea-gazers by the window and ending with the groups at the bar. Jude waited to be introduced.

But at that moment, Glen Porter clapped his hand on the back pocket of his trousers, said, ‘Oh damn, I’ve left my phone in the car’, and departed the bar.

Almost exactly in the way that Lauren Givens had behaved on Fethering Beach. A more paranoid person than Jude might have begun to take it personally. What was it that made people invent elaborate excuses to avoid meeting her? Well, actually not that elaborate. Claiming to have forgotten one’s mobile must be about the most obvious excuse there is these days. Still, not much of a booster for her self-esteem.

She sat with Pete, looking out of the window. Low tide and the sea was almost out of sight. Beyond the stout seawalls that contained the outflow of the River Fether, acres of sand and another line of dark shingle were exposed.

‘Oh, while I think …’ said Jude, handing across a spare key.

‘Thanks.’ Pete pocketed it. Had he been a man of burglarious tendencies, the decorator could have stripped the contents of almost every house in Fethering. Over the years, he’d had so many keys and plenty of time to get them copied. But the thought would not have entered his head. (And, anyway, a light-fingered workman would never be employed again in a community like Fethering.)

‘Do just come and go as you please,’ Jude went on. ‘You said you reckoned you’d be finished within the week …?’

‘Shouldn’t even take that long.’ Pete grinned. ‘Depending, of course, on how many “Oh-while-you’re-heres” we get.’

‘I’ll try to keep them to a minimum.’

‘Everyone says that.’

‘We’ll see. Anyway, you can spread yourself, no need to tidy up at the end of the day. I won’t be using the room. No clients booked in for the whole week. A few I may visit in their homes. But I’ll be safe to take bookings again for Monday week, will I?’

‘Sure.’

‘Won’t still be a smell of paint? Some clients might find that off-putting.’

‘It’ll have the weekend to clear. So long as you keep the room well ventilated, should be all right.’

‘Fine. I’ll see the windows are open.’

Pete looked at her with his toothy grin. ‘Anything else you want me to do while I’m there?’

‘What do you mean? Decorating?’

‘No. Other stuff. Over the years I’ve been asked to take on a lot of … extra responsibilities. Before so many people had answering machines and then mobile phones, I was sometimes like a blooming social secretary when I was in their houses. Unpaid babysitter, and all, at times. “I’m just nipping out to the shops. He’ll be asleep for at least an hour, so I’ll easily be back before he wakes.” And then, of course, her closing the front door is the little one’s cue to wake up bawling with a dirty nappy.’

‘That’s one problem you won’t have at Woodside Cottage,’ said Jude.

‘No, but I’m also up for paying the window-cleaner, letting in the man to mend the Aga, cat-sitting, dog-walking, watering plants … you name it, I’ve done it. These days, mind you, it’s mostly taking in deliveries from Amazon.’

‘You won’t have that problem either. I don’t believe in Amazon.’

‘Good for you. All I’m saying, Jude, is: anything like that you need doing, fine by me.’

‘Thank you. I’ll let you know if anything’s likely to come up.’

‘No probs.’

There was a silence. Jude looked out at the sea. Pete caught the eye of someone sitting on his own at the far end of the window and nodded acknowledgement. Jude looked across and recognized the heavily built grey-bearded man she’d seen hurrying out of Footscrow House the day they’d found the handbag. In profile, she could see that his lower jaw jutted out more than the upper, so that his bite did not align. Maybe that was why he had grown the beard.

She hoped Pete would go across and introduce her, but the decorator had other priorities.

‘It seems,’ he said, ‘that all the old gossip about Anita Garner’s starting up again.’

‘Yes, I’ve heard a bit,’ agreed Jude, sounding as casual as she could. She didn’t want to acknowledge that she and Carole might have been partly responsible for that ‘starting up’. ‘You found out anything more?’

The decorator looked momentarily shifty, then leaned close and whispered to her, ‘I found out exactly when that handbag was left there, you know, when that decorating job was done.’

‘Really?’

‘Footscrow House was still a care home then, but the owner had decided things weren’t working out. It was his first go at running one. And his last. He was always trying to expand the business into different areas, and reckoned there was easy money to be made in care homes. But he bit off more than he could chew there – and no mistake.’ The decorator chuckled softly, still unwilling to be overheard.

‘Who are we talking about, Pete?’

‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ Now in a whisper, ‘Harry Lasalle. Harry Lasalle and his wife Veronica ran Fiasco House when it was a care home.’ He nodded towards the grey-bearded man. ‘That’s him over there.’

This time, again catching the older man’s eye, Pete stood up and said, to Jude’s great satisfaction, ‘Come and meet him.’

Introductions completed, Pete asked, ‘How’re you doing?’

‘Can’t complain.’ Harry Lasalle laughed bitterly. ‘Not that that stops me from complaining all the bloody time.’

Pete pointed to the empty tumbler on the shelf. ‘Get you another? What are you on?’

‘Whisky. It’s that bad.’

‘Any particular one?’

‘Teacher’s’d be great.’

‘Coming up. And you’ll have another of them Cab Sauves, Jude?’

‘It really should be my turn.’

‘Nonsense. Only members allowed to buy drinks in Fethering Yacht Club.’

Whether that was true or not, Jude accepted gracefully. She turned to Harry Lasalle, whose face had a mournful, even haunted, look. ‘Actually, I saw you earlier in the week.’

‘Oh?’ He didn’t sound that interested.

‘You were coming out of Footscrow House.’

‘Could have been.’

‘I was there to meet up with Pete.’

‘Right.’ He didn’t give the impression of finding that any more interesting.

‘And did you hear – we found Anita Garner’s handbag in there.’

He was clearly shaken, but his only response was, ‘That’s a name I haven’t heard for a while.’ And he moved quickly on. ‘Yes, we’re doing some work down at Footscrow. Well, I say “we”, like I was still involved. In fact, my son’s in charge now. It’s his project, not Lasalle Build and Design.’

There was a lot of bitterness in his voice. ‘Still, you shouldn’t expect to get gratitude from your kids these days. Oh no. You look after them, you subsidize them, you make excuses for them, you cover up for them – and do you get a word of thanks? Do you hell? I think there comes a time when parents should call in the debts their kids have built up. Do you have children?’

‘No.’

‘Then you’re bloody lucky. You won’t get one of your kids acing you out of a juicy work contract. Not, of course, that I can do much actual work these days, but my bloody son could have brought me in on a consultancy basis. It’s not like I don’t know the business inside out.’

‘You say you can’t do much actual work …?’

‘Back problems.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ Maybe she could genuinely help him, using her healing skills. But the thought wasn’t purely altruistic. She also saw the opportunity to find out more about his dealings with the missing woman. ‘If you want someone to check out your back, I’m actually a qualified—’

‘I don’t want anything, thank you! Been to the quack, they can’t do anything. What’s wrong with my back is down to a lifetime of heavy lifting. Can’t be cured.’

‘Well, if you would like me to—’

She was interrupted by the return of Pete with the drinks. He’d got another pint for himself. They clinked and cheersed.

Pete looked down at the boats drawn up in symmetrical formation on the hardstanding. ‘Harry’s Dream still afloat, is she?’

‘Oh yes,’ said the builder grimly. ‘More than can be said for her owner.’

‘Which one is she?’ asked Jude, pleased to get the pronoun right.

Harry pointed down to a tarpaulin-covered boat on a trailer below. ‘Cornish Shrimper 19 she is. Well, she is now. Hardly was when I bought her. Just a hull then. Damage to the fibreglass shell, interior wood rotting. I replaced virtually every stick of timber in her.’

‘Real labour of love, wasn’t it, Harry?’

‘You can say that again, Pete. And I built berths in there, equipped a galley with a gas cooker and what-have-you. Interior heating, ship’s toilet, all mod cons. Took me years.’

Harry Lasalle looked more cheerful than he had since their conversation started. ‘You know, I done all kinds of major building projects along the South Coast – big houses, conversions, civic developments … you name it. And still, the thing I’m proudest of is that boat down there.’

‘That’s why you called it Harry’s Dream – right?’

‘Yup, Pete, that’s right.’ Gloom suddenly reasserted itself. ‘Mind you, I don’t know how much longer I’m going to keep her.’

‘You thinking of getting rid of Harry’s Dream?’ The decorator sounded shocked. ‘You can’t be serious.’

The old man grimaced. ‘Well, what’s the use of a boat if you don’t take it on the water?’

‘You said she was fine. There’s nothing wrong with her, is there?’

‘Nothing wrong with her, no. Get on to me and that’s another matter.’

‘Don’t do yourself down, Harry.’

‘It’s true, Pete. I used to be able to sail her on my own, no problem. Cross-Channel trips, booze cruises, you name it. Then sometimes the wife crewed for me, but the arthritis got into her legs and she can’t do it no more. And way back, my boy’d come out with me, but he’s got other fish to fry now. So, there’s no way I can actually sail her, not with my back.’

‘I’d be happy to crew for you, Harry.’

‘I know you would, Pete, and I appreciate the offer. But fact is, helming in anything but the calmest of conditions is painful, back gives me so much gyp. So that means … what? I can take the boat out, using the motor, but that’s not what I built her for. Harry’s Dream’s a sailing boat, a yacht, we’re here in a yacht club. No, I think I’ll sell her.’

‘Don’t make any hasty decisions,’ said Pete.

‘Won’t be hasty. I’ve been thinking about it for years.’

‘Well, think a bit longer. You still like going fishing from her, don’t you?’

‘I don’t know,’ came the glum reply. ‘I’m getting bored with that, and all. Getting bored with everything.’

‘Don’t sell her, Harry.’

‘Maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll take her out for one last trip … with the bloody motor. See if I can get interested in fishing again. Huh. We’ll see.’ Harry Lasalle looked at his watch. ‘Time I was off. Thanks for the drink, Pete. And nice to meet you …’

Purely automatic politeness. He hadn’t taken in her name.

‘Jude.’

‘That’s right. Cheerio.’ He winced as he rose from his stool and moved a little unsteadily towards the door. Jude wondered whether it was back pain that compromised his movement or the number of double Teacher’s he’d downed. The one Pete had bought him hadn’t lasted long.

On his way to the exit, the old builder was stopped by Lauren Givens, who had left her bar stool to head him off. Jude couldn’t hear what they were saying, but the woman seemed to be asking Harry for something. Whatever it was, he didn’t grant what she wanted. Harry Lasalle tottered on out of the bar. Lauren returned, with a disgruntled expression, to join her husband.

Pete took a thoughtful swallow of beer. ‘Tough for him, poor old Harry. It’ll be tough for me when I get to that point.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Manual labour, Jude. It catches up with you, if you’ve spent your entire life working in a trade where you’re just reliant on your body.’

‘But you’re not just reliant on your body, Pete. Don’t do yourself down. Some of your work I’ve seen definitely qualifies as art.’

He chuckled. ‘Kind of you to say so. And I dare say, over the years, Harry has developed a kind of artistic sense over all the building projects he’s done. But the fact remains that, for both of us, to do our job, we need to be fit. Our bodies have got to work. And, once bits of the old body stop working … well, you can’t go on. I can’t see Harry sitting behind a desk in the office, doing the admin. He’d be bored to tears in no time. Anyway, Veronica’s always done that stuff.

‘So, poor bugger’s going to have to throw in the towel soon and retire. Then what does he do?’

‘Doesn’t he have any hobbies?’

‘Always obsessed by his work, Harry was. Only time he could forget about it was when he was out sailing on Harry’s Dream. And, like you just heard, he can’t do that any more. Again, the old body’s let him down.’

‘Hm.’ Jude took a thoughtful sip of Sauvignon Blanc. ‘And you said it’ll be the same for you, Pete.’

‘Well, it will. Decorators get lots of neck problems, shoulders and knees at risk too. I’m not there yet, thank God, but there’s going to come a time when I can’t shift wardrobes to paint behind them and I can’t spend the whole day up a ladder. Yes, it’ll come to me too.’

‘Let’s hope you’re still able to sail.’ She looked out of the window. ‘Which one’s yours?’

The decorator pointed proudly to a sailing boat which, to Jude’s inexperienced eye, looked just like all the others. But she still let out a suitably impressed ‘Fabulous. And is it called “Pete’s Dream”?’

‘No. Nothing like that. Gull’s Wings.’

‘That’s nice.’

‘I like it. Wife and kids like it. So that’s all fine.’

‘Well, I hope you’re able to sail … her’ – oops, she’d almost said ‘it’ – ‘long into your retirement. And if you can’t … do you have any other hobbies to fall back on?’

‘I do, actually.

‘Oh. What?’

‘I collect eighteenth-century glass.’

The answer was so unexpected that it prompted one of those rare moments when Jude was lost for words.

‘So,’ Pete went on, ‘I’ll be all right. There’s enough to learn about eighteenth-century glass to keep me going for several lifetimes.’ He sighed. ‘But for someone like Harry … how’s he going to fill the time?’

‘How indeed?’

Pete grinned wryly. ‘Hope it’s not with the whisky.’