The Hanging in the Hotel

Chapter Ten

‘Listen, Jude, if there’s one subject I know about, it’s publicity. Good and bad.’

It was true. Suzy Longthorne had suffered the attentions of the press pack ever since she was in her teens. She had been flattered by them, fawned on, extravagantly praised, worshipped even. Then she had been criticized, carped at, pilloried, vilified. She, of all people, knew how quickly a media darling could become the target for all the mud that could be slung. And she knew how irrelevant the actual behaviour of a celebrity was to the press’s treatment of it. Suddenly, on a whim, they could turn against you, at the flick of a switch converting every positive to a negative.

‘I’ve put a lot of time and money into building up Hopwicke House,’ she went on at the other end of the phone. ‘I’m not about to throw all that away because of a burst of bad publicity.’

‘What are you saying?’

‘I’m saying that a suicide at the hotel is about the worst thing that can happen. But it’s containable. The poor young man’s family won’t want it blazoned all over the papers. The Pillars of Sussex certainly won’t want that either. And the police, for once, seem quite inclined to be discreet. OK, there may be some publicity when the inquest happens, but hopefully that can be kept to the minimum too.’

‘So you’re saying “Don’t rock the boat”.’

‘Exactly.’

‘You can’t deny you saw that note.’

‘I can’t deny it to you, Jude, no, because you saw it too. But I can sure as hell deny it to the police . . . or anyone else who asks.’

‘That’s lying, Suzy.’

‘So? For God’s sake, Jude, don’t come on to me like some sort of moral guardian. There are worse things in the world than lying. I happen to think that a murder enquiry at Hopwicke House would be one of them.’

Jude seized on that. ‘So you think it was murder too?’

‘I don’t think anything,’ her friend replied wearily. ‘I think what happened yesterday morning was another piece of incredibly bad luck, and I don’t know how many more of them I and this business can survive. I will do anything to keep the wrong kind of publicity for Hopwicke House down to a minimum. If that involves a little lying . . . then so be it.’

‘But don’t you want to know the truth about what happened?’

‘No, Jude, I really don’t.’

It was true. Suzy wanted to protect her business and her reputation. Not everyone, Jude reflected wryly, was like her, desperate to get to the bottom of every mystery that life offered.

‘Listen,’ the voice on the phone went on, ‘over the years I’ve had enough prying into my private life. I don’t want to put at risk—’

‘This is hardly prying into your private life.’

Suzy sounded thrown by this, as if she were covering up. ‘No, I . . . well, I didn’t mean—’

‘You had nothing to do with Nigel Ackford.’

‘Try telling that to a tabloid journalist. They’ll have fabricated an affair between us within seconds. And no doubt, along with that, the implication that I murdered him when he tried to break it off. In a fit of jealous rage. I can see the headlines now. “Fading sixties beauty Suzy Longthorne . . .”’

‘Are you telling me you will never admit to the existence of the threatening note Kerry found?’

‘Yes, Jude. That is exactly what I’m telling you.’

After she had put the phone down, Jude felt troubled. Not because she feared the disagreement might end her friendship with Suzy – Jude was not prone to flouncing – she knew they’d stay in touch. What had troubled her, were Suzy’s words about prying into her private life. The guard had dropped then; she had sounded vulnerable, ill at ease. Almost guilty. As if concern for her business was not the only reason why she wished to minimize the level of investigation into Nigel Ackford’s death.

The local phonebook had proved surprisingly helpful. There was only one ‘Fullerton, W.’ and the address was in Shoreham, a few miles along the coast from Fethering.

‘Is that Wendy Fullerton?’

‘Yes.’

‘You don’t know me. My name’s Jude.’

‘Oh?’

‘I’m calling in connection with Nigel Ackford.’

This news prompted an entirely different ‘Oh’. A metal shutter had come down.

Jude rushed ahead before she could be cut off. ‘I was working at Hopwicke Country House Hotel that night. I think I was probably the last person to see Nigel Ackford alive.’

‘I’m not interested in—’

‘He said something about you.’

‘He said something about me?’

Jude had the girl’s attention now. ‘I wonder if it would be possible for us to meet?’

Wendy Fullerton’s consent was grudging, but, intrigued in spite of herself, she did want to know about her former boyfriend’s final hours. She worked for a building society in Worthing. She could nip out for a coffee the following afternoon. Three o’clock. Only for a quarter of an hour, mind. She was keeping her escape routes covered.

‘It’s good I’ve got an excuse to go up to Hopwicke House, to check it out for Stephen.’

‘Yes.’ Jude agreed distractedly.

‘So maybe I could do some follow-up investigating?’ Carole suggested.

‘I’ll tell you for free, you won’t get anything out of Suzy.’

‘Another member of staff might be more forthcoming.’

‘If you see another member of staff. The one I really need to talk to is Kerry.’

‘What’s all this “I”, Jude? I thought we worked together.’

‘Yes. Sorry. It’s just . . . since I know the set-up at Hopwicke House . . .’

‘Of course.’ But Carole didn’t sound completely mollified.

‘What we really need to do,’ said Jude, trying to make up for the unintentional slight, ‘is to find out more about the Pillars of Sussex. I wouldn’t be surprised if Nigel Ackford’s death had something to do with one of them.’

She crossed to an old bureau, and from its crowded surface produced the guest list she had retrieved from her apron before leaving Hopwicke House, and handed it across.

‘Any of these names mean anything to you?’

‘There’s one I know,’ said Carole.