Guns in the Gallery

TEN

Strange how quickly a hangover can vanish. There seemed to be so much happening that Jude didn’t have time to notice her headache. First she’d had the awful task of rousing the owners of Butterwyke House and telling them that their daughter was dead.

She remembered particularly Sheena Whittaker’s response, simultaneously bursting into tears and saying, with something that sounded almost like relief, ‘At least we don’t have to worry about it happening any more. The worst has happened.’

It was a strange reaction, one that Jude would try to analyse when she had more leisure. But the immediate demands on her time included taking Ned to the scene of his daughter’s death, knowing that he’d witnessed something similar before in the Pimlico flat. He seemed physically to shrink with the impact of what he saw. Jude knew quite a lot about the bond between fathers and their first-born daughters, and she knew that the wound that had just been inflicted on Ned Whittaker would never fully heal.

Then there was the calling of the police, the half-hearted drinking of coffee until they arrived, followed by the complete official takeover of the situation. As the one who had found the body, Jude was given some fairly basic interrogation about the details of her discovery. She was asked for her contact details and told that there was likely to be further questioning. But, for the time being, she was free to go home. To her surprise she saw that it was still not yet nine o’clock.

Jude had rung for a cab and, while she waited in the stricken hallway of Butterwyke House, she heard the sound of a car drawing up on the gravel outside. Chervil, presumably snatched from the arms of Giles Green by a telephone summons from her parents, burst in through the doors, seeing Jude and saying, ‘Isn’t this bloody typical? Are there any lengths Fennel wouldn’t go to, to spoil one of my projects?’

Another question to be pondered on when Jude had more leisure. Which she didn’t have in the half-hour cab ride back to Fethering. She was still in shock and the only question in her mind was whether she could have done anything to save the life of Fennel Whittaker.

To Jude’s mind, guilt, like regret, was a completely wasted emotion. Looking backwards and wishing the past undone made for a pointless expenditure of emotional energy. But on this occasion, surprised to find herself sobbing in the back of the cab, Jude did feel some level of responsibility for what had happened.

‘Presumably you inspected the crime scene before you went back to Butterwyke House?’ Carole’s tone turned her words into one of those expressions remembered from school Latin: a question expecting the answer yes.

And she got what she expected. ‘I had a quick look round, yes. But I was in shock and pretty bleary.’

‘I’m not surprised, given the amount of alcohol you say you’d consumed.’ This tart reproof showed that, in spite of Jude’s explanation, Carole hadn’t quite forgiven her lack of communication.

Jude was about to launch into a defence of empathetic drinking. She knew that the previous evening trying to stop Fennel having more wine would not have worked. Matching the girl glass for glass had increased the closeness between them.

But a look at Carole’s face told her that articulating such thoughts would be a waste of breath, so instead she said, ‘It looked like a classic suicide set-up. Alcohol, there were pills on the table too, and the kitchen knife, which had clearly been used to cut the wrists.’

‘Suicide note?’ Jude nodded wearily. ‘I don’t suppose you read it?’

‘I did.’

‘What, you opened the envelope? The police aren’t going to be very pleased when they—’

‘It wasn’t in an envelope. Just lying there on the table. I didn’t have to touch it to read it.’

‘What did it say?’

‘I can’t remember the exact wording, but the usual stuff . . . “can’t go on . . . no talent as an artist . . . everything too painful . . . hate myself . . . simpler for everyone if I . . . ” You know.’ Once again Jude was surprised by tears in her eyes.

‘Did it read convincingly to you?’ asked Carole gently.

‘Oh yes. That’s the kind of thing people write in suicide notes. It always sounds terribly banal in retrospect, but . . .’ Jude reached under layers of garments to produce a handkerchief on which she blew her nose loudly.

‘So it sounds like it really was a suicide.’

Reluctantly, Jude nodded her head. ‘Except . . . when we talked that evening . . . yesterday evening – God, it was only yesterday evening – Fennel sounded so positive about everything.’

‘So positive about everything you can remember,’ said Carole sniffily. The lack of a phone message still rankled. ‘Come on, concentrate, Jude. Was there anything else you saw at the scene of the crime that you think might be relevant?’

‘That’s the second time you’ve used the expression “scene of the crime”. Are you suggesting that it wasn’t suicide?’

‘I’m keeping an open mind on that.’ Though whether Carole Seddon’s mind, cluttered as it was by a tangle of prejudices, could ever be described as ‘open’ was an interesting topic for discussion. ‘Anyway, suicide was a crime in this country right up until 1961. And a lot of people still think it is. But don’t let’s get sidetracked. I’m asking you if you saw anything odd at the scene of the crime.’

Jude gave another firm wipe to her nose and put away the handkerchief. ‘Well, the was one thing, but it’s more “a dog in the night-time”.’

‘Something you were expecting that wasn’t there?’ asked Carole, instantly picking up the Sherlockian reference.

‘Yes.’

‘So what was it?’

‘Fennel’s mobile phone. She certainly had it with her during the evening. I even have a vague recollection of her holding it when she went out of the yurt. But there was no sign of it at the . . . all right, I’ll use your expression . . . at “the scene of the crime”.’