Death and the Decorator

EIGHT

It was Jude’s suggestion that they should go for an early evening drink at the Crown and Anchor. The weather was so miserable, with icy rain sheeting down from the dark heavens, that she wanted the comfort of sitting by an open fire. She couldn’t do that at Woodside Cottage because Pete had covered all the furniture with paint-spattered sheets. As for open fires at High Tor … well, they only happened when its owner had guests. And Jude was too frequent a visitor to count as a guest.

When they arrived at the pub, unsurprisingly, Barney Poulton was generating conversation … or no, ‘conversation’ implies a two-way process, and he didn’t go in for that. The fact that no one in the bar was taking any notice did not deter him one iota. While he pontificated, Jude went up to the bar and ordered two large New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs from Zosia, Ted Crisp’s Polish bar manager.

Of course, Barney was talking about the death of Harry Lasalle. Though he was not a member of Fethering Yacht Club, he had many golfing friends who were, so he felt confident of his facts. (When do the Barney Poultons of this life not feel confident of their facts?)

‘Obviously, it’s related to the Anita Garner case. From the moment that handbag was discovered at Fiasco House’ – Barney was very punctilious about using Fethering local patois – ‘he knew he was on borrowed time. The revived investigation into the girl’s disappearance was going to end up on his doorstep sooner or later.

‘Harry Lasalle’s suicide couldn’t be a clearer admission of guilt. Now it’s just a matter of the police tracking down where he hid the body. My instinct is still that it’s somewhere up on the South Downs … shallow grave, you know. I’ve known Anita Garner was murdered from the moment I first heard about the case.’

Though unwilling to get involved in conversation with Barney Poulton, Carole couldn’t help herself from asking, ‘And when was it you first heard about the case? We’re talking about events thirty years ago, and you’ve been in Fethering … what? Four years?’

‘Nearly five,’ he said, somewhat piqued. ‘And since I’ve been here, I have made it my business to find out everything I can about the village.’

Carole should have realized. Barney Poulton was like the Wobbly Man her son Stephen had played with as a child. However many times you pushed him down, he still sprang right back up again.

Returning with the drinks, Jude thought it worth seeing whether Barney might actually have some useful information. ‘Terribly sad about Harry,’ she said. ‘Have you heard any more details about it … you know, round the yacht club?’

She knew full well that Barney Poulton wasn’t a member and he was forced to admit as much. But he quickly bounced back. ‘A lot of my golfing friends are members there, though, so I have heard a bit of the inside stuff.’

Of course, thought Jude. It went against Barney’s principles ever to admit ignorance about anything.

‘It was Glen Porter who went out in search of Harry’s Dream, wasn’t it?’ she prompted.

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘You know him, don’t you?’ she asked casually.

‘Not well.’ For which, when it’s Barney Poulton talking, read: Hardly at all.

‘You said you played golf with him.’

‘Yes. Well, we’re members of the same golf club.’ Barney was backing off. The close relationship he’d earlier implied that he had with Glen Porter was perhaps not so close when it came under scrutiny. ‘He travels a lot. And keeps himself to himself when he’s here in Fethering. In fact, it’s interesting what happened to him. He unexpectedly came into a lot of money when—’

‘We know all about that,’ said Carole tartly.

‘Oh.’ But it was only a momentary diversion from the vertical as the Wobbly Man bounced back. ‘He doesn’t work at all, Glen Porter, you know.’

‘Yes, we do,’ said Carole in the same tone as before.

She could see that he was desperate to come up with something they hadn’t heard before. Anything. And, of course, according to Barney Poulton’s scale of values, it didn’t have to be something true.

‘It’s an open secret,’ he said confidentially, ‘that there was history between Glen and Anita Garner …’

‘Oh?’

‘They were at school together …’ Carole couldn’t be bothered to say that they knew that too. ‘And Glen was a bit of a Jack-the-Lad back then. Good-looking and he knew it. Worked his way through most of the girls in his year.’

‘Including Anita Garner?’ suggested Jude.

‘More than likely,’ said Barney Poulton sagely. ‘So, you see, when she started working at Fiasco House and Harry Lasalle came on to her … well, Glen’s nose might have been put out of joint …’

‘Are you implying,’ asked Carole sharply, ‘that Glen Porter might have killed Harry Lasalle?’

But that was a step too far for Barney. He didn’t mind insinuating, but he’d stop short of accusing. ‘I’m just saying that is a possible theory that’s going around among the more gossipy denizens of Fethering.’

Huh, thought Jude. Takes one to know one. Be hard pushed to find anyone more gossipy than you.

‘And there’s another theory that—’

His further theorizing was stopped by Ted Crisp, issuing out of the kitchen area into the bar. ‘You’ve come out without your phone again, Barney.’

‘What?’

‘Your wife just rang, wanting to know where the hell you are. Have you forgotten you’ve got – her words – “a bloody bridge game at seven”?’

‘Oh, damn. Yes, I must go.’

He scurried out of the bar, looking less like ‘the eyes and ears of Fethering’, more like an old-fashioned henpecked husband. And somehow his image of the horny-handed depository of village folklore was undermined by the fact that he played that most middle-class of games, bridge.

The landlord watched him go, then said to Carole and Jude, ‘I think I might use that one again.’

‘What?’ asked Jude.

‘Telling him the missus had been on the phone.’

‘What, wasn’t she?’ asked Carole. ‘Did you make it up?’

‘Not this time I didn’t, no. But seeing the speed with which he scarpered at the summons from home, I might resort to that tactic on one of the many occasions when I can’t stand listening to another bloody word from him.’

‘Certainly worth trying,’ said Jude.

‘Was he going on about Anita Garner again?’ asked Ted.

‘Barney? Oh yes.’

‘Him and his bloody theories.’

‘You got any new thoughts on it?’ asked Carole.

‘Why should I have? You know full well it all happened years before I took over the Crown and Anchor. Before I’d even heard of Fethering.’

‘Yes, I do know that. But, standing behind your bar, you do hear a lot of gossip.’

‘I hear it, but I don’t listen. Manage to tune it out mostly.’

‘So, no new theories?’

‘Nope. Plenty of rehashing of old ones.’

‘Hm.’

‘Actually, I wanted to have a word with you two …’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘Ask your advice, as it were. Pick your brains.’

Jude grinned. ‘You’re welcome to anything you can find there.’

‘Right.’ Ted Crisp paused, rather more momentously than was his custom. Then he asked, ‘Do you think it’d be a good idea for me to have a vegan menu here at the Crown and Anchor?’

‘Ted Crisp talking about veganism? I didn’t think he even knew what veganism was. What on earth’s going on, Jude?’

They were walking back from the pub. It wasn’t actually raining but the air felt damp, clinging and icy.

‘I think it might be the company he’s been keeping,’ Jude suggested.

‘But Ted doesn’t keep any company. Just the staff at the pub.’

‘Ah. Well, he took someone out to lunch the other day. At a vegan restaurant in Brighton.’

‘Who? Who on earth would he be taking out to lunch?’

Jude told her. Carole was surprised how much it hurt. A long time ago, in a distant world of unlikely events, Carole Seddon and Ted Crisp had had a brief affair. It hadn’t lasted. Their expectations of what life might offer, their expectations of each other, were so different, it couldn’t have lasted.

And Carole thought she’d put it completely behind her, with a mixture of embarrassment and a slight frisson at the recollection that she could still interest a man in that way.

But she felt disturbed and undermined by the fact that the landlord was now showing interest in another woman.

Or maybe what upset her was that the woman in question was Brandie Neville, an aspirant healer.

Jude had a strong belief in synchronicity. Not a subject she raised in Carole’s presence, to avoid the inevitable derision it would prompt.

So, given the fact that they’d been discussing Glen Porter in the Crown and Anchor, she was totally unsurprised to come back to Woodside Cottage and find a message from him on the answering machine.

She rang back immediately.

‘Hello?’ The greeting was cautious.

‘This is Jude. You left me a message.’

‘Ah yes. I wonder if we could meet …?’

This was going better than she dared hope. ‘That would be fine.’

‘You live in Fethering – is that right?’

‘Yes.’

‘I wonder … would you be able to join me for a cup of coffee tomorrow morning at about eleven?’

‘I could do that. What – Starbucks?’

‘Do you actually like Starbucks?’

‘No.’

‘I don’t think anyone does. Its success is one of the unsolved mysteries of the last fifty years.’

‘You could be right.’

‘Well, Jude, since neither of us likes Starbucks … and Fethering doesn’t boast one of those friendly one-off coffee shops beloved of American sitcoms, I’m suggesting that you join me for coffee at my beach hut. That’s on Fethering Beach.’

‘I know the one. I’ve walked past it many times.’

‘Eleven o’clock tomorrow morning then?’

‘That’ll be fine.’

There are women who might have been cautious about fixing a meeting alone with a man who featured high on their list of murder suspects. But Jude wasn’t one of them.

Coming down the next morning to find the decorator already painting away, as she put the kettle on for her tea and his coffee, she didn’t mention her upcoming tryst. But she did raise the name of Glen Porter. ‘Were you at the same school as him, Pete?’

‘Yes. Went to the same primary. Only one in Fethering. Mind you, I’m a few years older. Didn’t know him at school.’

‘And how well do you know him now?’

Pete shrugged. ‘To say hello. If I see him down the yacht club. Like we did on Saturday. But I don’t see him that often. He travels a lot.’

‘So I’ve heard. Just for pleasure?’

‘Guess so. Certainly no one’s ever heard of him doing any work. Still, maybe if I could afford it, I’d do the same.’

‘And he has a reputation as a bit of a lady’s man, I’ve heard.’

‘Did have, apparently. Though we’re talking a long time ago. When he was at school and in his early twenties. Haven’t heard so much about the lady’s man stuff since he came into Reefer Townsend’s money. Still, maybe that’s what Glen gets up to on his travels. A woman in every international resort …? I really don’t know.’

‘He’s never been married?’

‘Don’t think so.’

‘And no current relationships round Fethering?’

‘Not as far as I know.’

‘Hm.’ Jude shivered. ‘Feels a bit cold down here to me. I’m going to take my cup of tea up to bed.’

From an upstairs window at High Tor, Carole saw her neighbour setting out from Woodside Cottage at about half ten. She couldn’t suppress a tickle of curiosity about where Jude might be going. No planned excursion had been mentioned in the Crown and Anchor the evening before.

Maybe it was a client …? Having the sitting room decorated ruled out seeing the deluded and hypochondriac of Fethering in her usual workspace … and Jude had talked about visiting some clients in their own homes … Yes, that was a possible scenario.

But Carole concluded it was more likely her neighbour was going to visit another of the lovers she’d kept quiet about.

Of course, there was no way she was going to feel jealous about the situation. Having had as many lovers as Jude had was, to Carole’s mind, definite proof of neediness and mental instability.

And she herself had far too many other priorities in her life to worry about men. Carole had always felt rather sorry for women whose whole identity was predicated on having a man around. Granted, her own track record in that area had not been particularly distinguished. Her marriage to David had ended in divorce. And her other major romantic excursion, with Ted Crisp, had been … well …

And now that same Ted Crisp had the nerve to be planning vegan menus with Brandie Neville!

Carole’s seething fury knew no bounds.

The impression Jude had got from the exterior of Glen Porter’s beach hut – that it looked Chekhovian – was reinforced by being inside. The seasoned wooden rafters had faded to grey and the low slopes of the ceilings gave the feeling of a pre-revolutionary dacha. The view the leaded windows afforded on to the English Channel felt somehow wrong. The building’s rightful place was in a forest clearing, preferably blanketed with snow.

Though the place had not been modernized, it had been punctiliously maintained. Many beach huts are kept in a state of casual scruffiness, seaside equipment left out for easy access and the basic principle of cleanliness being, ‘Well, since everything’s going to get covered with sand, anyway …’ Not in this beach hut, though. Any surface that should have been polished gleamed with recent ministrations, and not a single cobweb had been allowed to secrete itself behind a rafter. Since Glen Porter himself did not have the air of a do-it-yourself cleaner, he must have had a highly efficient team on the job. But presumably, Jude surmised, if money’s no object …

She wasn’t quite sure what she had been expecting from meeting Glen, but he didn’t conform to any of the obvious stereotypes. He certainly didn’t demonstrate the flamboyance implied in Barney Poulton’s assertion that he could just ‘splash the cash’. Glen was dressed in well-cut leisurewear but nothing extravagant. And, though the beach hut was well looked after, there was no evidence of excessive expenditure on the décor and set dressing.

As for the vaunted Jack-the-Laddishness, that seemed to have been toned down too, possibly just with maturity. Jude was accorded a look of quiet appreciation, acknowledgement that she was an attractive woman, but nothing more overt than that.

For herself, she could recognize his attractiveness, but it wasn’t the kind that threatened her equilibrium. Behind the long grey hair and the laid-back leisurewear, she could detect in his manner a detached canniness, a level of calculation. It was a personality trait that, she knew, could quickly flip into intransigence.

He prepared their coffee – needless to say he had the latest machine, which did the full grind-to-pour routine – in the kitchen, calling through casual pleasantries about the ghastly weather. Jude sat on the comfortable tweed sofa on to which she had been directed. Her anticipation was tinged with excitement. She felt sure Glen Porter had something to tell her about the death of Harry Lasalle … which might well lead to information about the disappearance of Anita Garner.

‘This is a fabulous building,’ she said, as he came back into the sitting room. ‘Fabulous position.’

‘Yes. You’re not the only person to think that.’

‘Oh?’

‘A lot of people want to buy it off me.’ Having placed her coffee – in a nice bone-china cup and saucer – on the table next to the sofa, he took a seat in the armchair opposite. ‘Latest,’ he went on, ‘is Roland Lasalle, the property developer.’ He put a lot of unexplained irony into the last two words. ‘He’d like to turn it into a swish restaurant, to cater to all the people who he hopes will be filling out the holiday flatlets he’s making at Footscrow House.’

‘And are you interested?’

‘Why should I be?’

‘If he made you a big enough offer …?’

‘I don’t need money,’ said Glen, in a way that somehow closed the subject.

He took a sip of coffee, put the cup and saucer down firmly and focused his eyes on hers. He was as aware of the serious nature of their encounter as she was.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Let’s get a bit of clarity into things, shall we?’

‘What things?’ asked Jude, with deliberate faux naivety.

He smiled wryly, recognizing the game she was playing. ‘Let’s say that you and your friend Carole have been digging into things that don’t concern you.’

‘How do you define “concern”?’

‘Things that aren’t your business.’

‘That’s just saying the same thing in other words. You may not think it’s our business – or concern, come to that – but we clearly feel differently.’

‘Why? Your motivation is basically nosiness. You’ve got time on your hands, so you get involved in other people’s business … regardless of what harm that might do to the other people concerned.’

‘Glen, you said we needed clarity. It might help then if we were clear about who is actually involved, who might be hurt by our investigations.’

He didn’t answer her direct enquiry by coming up with names. Instead, he looked straight into Jude’s brown eyes and said, ‘I’m assuming that you and your friend don’t get pleasure from causing pain to other people …?’

Jude could have come up with an angry response to that, but instead she just said evenly, ‘You assume correctly.’

‘So, why do you go to such efforts to try to expose people’s secrets?’

‘Because …’ Jude sighed. ‘This is going to sound very pious, I’m afraid, but it’s because we don’t like seeing injustice done. And we don’t feel so bad about causing pain to people who have caused pain to others.’

‘Hm. Very neat. And, as you say, pious.’

‘It’s hard to explain without sounding pious.’

‘Hm.’ He took a long swallow of coffee. ‘And where are your pious enquiries directing you at the moment?’

‘Carole and I think the timing of Harry Lasalle’s death was rather suspicious.’

‘Interesting.’ Was Jude being fanciful to see a slight relaxation of tension in Glen Porter’s face?

‘How much do you know about how Harry died?’ he asked.

‘We know that he was found dead in his boat, Harry’s Dream. In fact, we know that you were the one who found him dead in Harry’s Dream.’

‘I see.’ Another crooked grin. ‘And, following the hackneyed crime fiction trope that the person who finds the body is always the first suspect …?’

Jude was annoyed to feel herself blushing. She was also aware that Glen Porter was very much running the interview. He had summoned her to his beachside stronghold and he was dictating the terms of their conversation. He was also revealing himself to be much more intelligent and articulate than she had expected.

‘I suppose that might be a view,’ she said. It was not nearly as strong a response as she had wanted.

‘Do you, incidentally,’ asked Glen, ‘know what caused Harry Lasalle’s death?’

‘I heard from Pete the decorator that it was carbon monoxide poisoning.’

‘Pete the decorator was right. And do you know how carbon monoxide poisoning works?’

‘Pretty much, I’d say. Not the chemical or biological details but, basically, it chokes you, doesn’t it?’

‘Yes, that’s about right. You die of asphyxiation. But it does take a long time for the gas to build up.’

‘So?’

‘So, if you wanted to examine your theory about me being the first suspect for murdering him because I was first out to Harry’s Dream, let’s go through what I would have had to do. I would have had to get out to the boat in my own boat, board it, sabotage the heating system while Harry wasn’t watching, make idle chatter for what … an hour maybe, while he drank himself insensible … and then make sure that he was lying down in the lowest part of the boat so that the carbon monoxide could do its stuff. I’d have to watch him choke to death … while ensuring that I didn’t succumb to the carbon monoxide myself, and then what? Go back on my own boat to Fethering Yacht Club to raise the alarm? Would you call that a likely scenario?’

Jude was forced to concede that she wouldn’t.

‘And if I didn’t do that,’ Glen Porter pushed on, ‘do you think anyone else is likely to have done it?’

‘No,’ a shamefaced Jude agreed.

‘So, we’re back to two other possibilities, aren’t we? Either poor old Harry died as a result of an accident or … he topped himself. Not being of a romantic or fanciful nature, I favour the accident.’

‘Hm.’

‘You sound disappointed.’

‘Maybe. A little.’

‘All right then, Jude … following the more romantic or fanciful theory … why would a harmless old codger like Harry want to top himself?’

‘Perhaps there was some secret he wanted to keep hidden and he knew it was about to be revealed.’

‘What secret?’

‘Something that would disgrace him … or get him in trouble with the police, maybe?’

Glen Porter’s mouth twisted with scepticism. ‘I don’t think much of that as a theory.’

‘Nor do I,’ said Jude, with renewed spirit. ‘In fact, I much prefer my murder scenario.’

‘Oh God.’ A wry smile. ‘Not with me still featuring at the top of the cast list, I hope?’

‘Maybe not. But murder makes the stakes higher.’

‘Inevitably. I come back, though, to a rather similar question to the one I recently voiced. Why would anyone want to murder a harmless old codger like Harry?’

‘Perhaps because, yes, he did have a secret. But it was a secret whose revelation didn’t threaten him. It threatened someone else.’

‘So that someone else killed him to keep him quiet?’

‘Makes sense to me.’

‘I don’t think it’d make much sense in a court of law, Jude. Depending, of course, on what Harry Lasalle’s combustible secret was. I don’t suppose, by any chance, you know, do you?’

She could only admit another ‘No’.

Once again, she sensed relief in his reaction.

‘So, I suppose, Jude, in your alternative scenarios … be it suicide or murder … the secret that Harry Lasalle was either trying to keep quiet or have kept quiet by someone else … there was a woman involved?’

‘Yes. I think there was.’

‘A woman who would be hurt by the revelation, in whichever direction that revelation went?’

She nodded. ‘That’s the way my thoughts have been moving.’

‘So, the motive for the murder – or suicide – was to protect that woman?’

‘Well, I think we ought to get clear who—’

Glen Porter was interrupted by a tap at the door. He looked up in some surprise. Jude got the impression he didn’t expect unscheduled visitors at his beach hut, that it was his private space.

An even greater surprise was that the door was then pushed open to reveal Lauren Givens standing there. She was smartly dressed and carefully made-up. Smiling. But her expression changed instantly when she saw Jude.

‘Oh, hello, Glen,’ she said. She looked down to her hand, which held one of the flyers for her Pottery Open Day. ‘Do come along to this tomorrow if you get the time.’

She placed the flyer on a table, turned tail and hurried out, closing the door behind her.

Glen Porter suddenly had an urgent meeting he had to be at rather soon. Jude was quickly and unceremoniously hustled out of the beach hut.

As she passed through the doorway, she breathed in the intensity of Lauren Givens’s perfume.

Jude walked slowly back across Fethering Beach. She remembered when she had surprised Lauren on the sand the previous Thursday. She thought back to the Saturday morning in Fethering Yacht Club. She had thought Glen Porter had hurried out so soon after arriving because he’d seen Harry Lasalle. Wasn’t it just as possible that he’d seen Lauren Givens, sitting with her husband? And then there was the way Lauren and Glen had behaved at his beach hut that morning …

Jude had been a keen observer of human behaviour for quite a while. And she recognized instinctively the signs of a couple pretending that they weren’t having an affair.