The Hanging in the Hotel

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Carole’s second appointment with Donald Chew was the following afternoon, but before revising her will she went for coffee at Woodside Cottage, and she and Jade pooled their new information.

‘What seems to be happening,’ said Jude, ‘is that the divergent elements of the case are drawing together. For a long time we couldn’t find a single connection between the world of Rick Hendry and the world of the Pillars of Sussex, but now we’re spoilt for choice.’

‘Yes. I can’t imagine what pressure was put on him to take on this auctioneering job.’

‘From what I know of Rick, it must have been pretty strong. He’s never been known for his charity works. Having long pockets is part of the image he’s so carefully built up. He deliberately refused to take part in the Live Aid recording, regularly refuses to have anything to do with Children in Need, Red Nose Day and all those other telethons. So the idea of him turning out for the Pillars of Sussex . . . somebody’s twisted his arm pretty hard.’

‘Suzy?’

‘I doubt it.’

‘Well, maybe you could ask her?’

Jude grimaced. ‘She’s trying to freeze me out at the moment. Doesn’t want to talk to me.’

‘Is that permanent?’

The narrow thread of jealousy in Carole’s nature meant she couldn’t help hoping the answer would be yes, but Jude shrugged off the suggestion. ‘No We’ve been friends for too long for anything like that to be permanent.’

‘Oh,’ said Carole.

‘Anyway, you will talk to Donald Chew about the alibi he’s supposed to be providing for Kerry?’

‘I don’t quite know how easy it’ll be to bring the conversation round to that.’

‘Won’t be a problem, Carole. He’ll probably volunteer the information. I’m sure the Pillars of Sussex grapevine has been busy overnight. Bob Hartson will know that his daughter’s changed her story, and the damage limitation work will be well under way.’

‘All right. I’ll do my best.’

‘Meanwhile I’m going to recontact Wendy Fullerton – you know, Nigel Ackford’s on-off girlfriend. There may be something else she can tell me about his background.’

‘Might be useful, yes.’ But Carole didn’t sound very convinced. What we really still need is a timetable of the movements of everyone in the hotel that night.’

‘And in Suzy’s house as well.’

‘And don’t let’s forget the stable block – the staff quarters. How many potential murderers have we got in there?’

‘Me?’ Jude suggested. ‘Kerry – Max – Ooh, and of course, Bob Hartson’s driver, Geoff.’

‘Is he in the frame then?’

‘Wish he was,’ said Jude wistfully. ‘But Inspector Goodchild seemed to rule him out. Anyway, Geoff wouldn’t have had a key to the hotel and, according to Max, he was snoring away in his bedroom after the kitchen door was locked.’

‘Which was before Nigel Ackford was killed.’

‘Yes.’

‘Max could have been lying,’ Carole suggested.

‘He could have been. He’s lied about plenty of other things. But we don’t know for sure, do we? Frustrating business, solving murder mysteries, isn’t it?’

‘Mm.’ Carole picked up her handbag in a determined fashion. ‘Well, let’s see what I can find out this afternoon from my friendly local solicitor.’

As soon as her neighbour had left, Jude did an hour of yoga. Her mind was filled with permutations of the suspects at Hopwicke Country House Hotel and of how Nigel Ackford might have died and the yoga, she knew, would empty and cleanse her, leaving a more effective brain in a more relaxed body.

She went through the comforting movements which were by now almost instinctive, and which left no spare concentration available for niggling thought. In the privacy of her bedroom her plump body posed and balanced with surprising grace, and at the end of the session she felt, as she had known she would, completely recharged.

Jude was just rolling up her mat when the phone rang. It was Max Townley. He sounded ill at ease; he wanted to talk. Jude suggested lunch at the Crown and Anchor.

‘Your death’s made it to the Fethering Observer,’ said Ted Crisp.

‘What?’ said Jude, spluttering in to her Chilean Chardonnay. ‘But I haven’t even been ill.’

‘Listen, I do the jokes. Actually, I was talking about that solicitor you mentioned up at Hopwicke House.’

‘Really?’

‘Look.’ The landlord thrust over the counter a copy of the local paper, folded to an inside page. There, amid two-inch reports of thefts from cars in Littlehampton car parks, monies raised by a sponsored cycle ride, and the appointment of a new primary school head, was a snippet that read:

‘How do they do it?’ asked Jude in disbelief.

‘Do what?’

‘Keep all the facts out. Look, no mention of the Hopwicke Country House Hotel. No mention of the Pillars of Sussex.’

‘I think your last four words have answered your own question, Jude. The Pillars of Sussex have got fingers in most of the local pies. If they want to control what gets printed, I’m sure they can lean on someone at the Fethering Observer.’

‘But that’s illegal, isn’t it?’ Jude protested. ‘Leaning on people?’

‘Good heavens, no.’ Ted Crisp adopted a mock-posh accent as he went on, ‘The Pillars of Sussex only lean in the most elegant and discreet way. They don’t send round the heavies with nail-studded baseball bats, nothing crude like that. Oh no. But they might offer someone fast-track entry to the exclusive local golf club, or smooth the granting of planning permission for a new extension, or issue an invitation for an all-expenses-paid week in a Spanish villa. None of it’s actually illegal, it’s just the way business has always been conducted in this country. And to think all that’s continuing under a so-called Labour government . . .’ Ted Crisp’s beard shook with fury. ‘Don’t get me started.’

‘No,’ said Jude hastily. ‘No, I don’t want to.’

‘I mean, the thing is’ – apparently he hadn’t heard her – ‘the thing is, the Labour Party was founded to look after the working people of this country, to challenge the kind of unfair system of privilege by which a tiny percentage of the people controlled a huge percentage of . . .’

Jude was quite relieved that Max Townley chose that moment to enter the pub. He was in his black leathers – no doubt the precious Ducati was parked outside – and he looked distinctly nervous.

Jude introduced him to Ted, whose flow he had so mercifully interrupted. ‘What would you like to drink?’

‘No, I should do this, Jude.’

‘Come on.’

‘All right. Don’t normally drink at lunchtime, but I’ll have a half of Guinness.’

‘I’m going to eat something. What about you?’

‘Well . . .’

‘It’s only pub food, but—’

She knew she’d said the wrong thing as soon as the words were out. ‘Only pub food?’ Ted Crisp repeated. ‘Only pub food? What is this?’

‘I’m sorry, it’s just that . . .’ this was going to make things sound even worse, ‘Max is a chef.’

Framed by beard, the landlord’s mouth opened and closed in soundless affront. Fortunately, before he could say anything, Max eased the situation. ‘Yes, I’m a chef, but I’ve served my time working in pubs, and that’s where I’ve come across some of the best food I’ve ever encountered.’

‘Too right,’ said Ted Crisp, somewhat mollified.

‘So what do you recommend today?’ asked Max, continuing the fence-mending.

‘You won’t go wrong with the pork chops Normandie.’

‘Done with apple, calvados and cream in the sauce?’

‘Exactly.’

Max nodded. ‘I’ll go for that.’

Ted Crisp grinned with satisfaction and looked at Jude. ‘And for madam?’

‘I suppose I’d better go for the same.’ But she was bewildered. ‘Doesn’t sound like your usual menu, Ted. I was expecting fisherman’s pie and sausage and mash.’

‘New chef,’ the landlord confided with a conspiratorial wink. ‘At catering college in Chichester, but moonlighting here a couple of days a week.’

Max approved. ‘That’s the time to get them. I did some of my best stuff while I was training. I’ll look forward to my pork chops Normandie. Wish the chef luck from Max Townley. Ooh, and let me pay for the food.’

This assertion of his own fame and the chat with Ted Crisp seemed to have relaxed Max, but once he was seated in a booth opposite Jude, his nervousness returned. ‘Suzy sent her love,’ he said.

‘Oh. So she knew you were meeting me?’

He shrugged. ‘I just mentioned it.’

Jude had a feeling a lot of things were being ‘just mentioned’ on the grapevine between Hopwicke House and the Pillars of Sussex.

‘I haven’t had my usual emergency calls from Suzy to go and help out.’

‘No, well, we just haven’t been busy.’

Jude knew from Carole that the dining room had been crammed full for Sunday lunch. So Max was lying about that. How much else would he lie about?

He took a sip from his Guinness and became more serious. ‘Listen, I owe you an explanation, Jude.’

‘Oh?’

‘When we last talked . . . you know, in that coffee place . . .’

‘Yes?’

‘I wasn’t entirely truthful in what I said.’

She didn’t respond, just waited for him to continue.

‘I said I hit the vodka and just passed out for the night.’

‘Yes. So you didn’t see anything of what other people in the hotel were doing.’

‘That’s right. That’s what I said, but . . .’ He ran his fingers through his short black hair, this wasn’t coming easily to him. ‘In fact, I did see some people that night.’

Jude let the silence expand between them.

‘The thing is . . . I told you about Rick Hendry being there, at Suzy’s place and I said that I’d thought of going to talk to him . . . you know, about my possibilities in television, through Korfilia Productions . . .’

‘You mentioned that, yes.’

‘Well . . . In fact, I did. I didn’t just think about going to see Rick. I did go to talk to him. I mean, knowing he was there so close. I was just in the staff quarters, he was at Suzy’s. When would I get a better opportunity? And I was in such a bad state, having heard that afternoon about the failure of my other television pitch, and, yes, I was a bit pissed, so I thought I’d really go for it.’

Just like Kerry, thought Jude. Clearly the recipe for television success was to ‘really go for it’.

‘So you went and asked Rick Hendry whether he would help launch your career as a television chef?’

‘Yes.’

Max’s confession was interrupted by the arrival of their pork chops Normandie. He sniffed the sauce appraisingly and poked at the dish of vegetables to assess their texture.

‘Sorry, Jude. Occupational hazard.’

‘Can’t you ever forget your work and just enjoy a meal?’

‘Oh, sure. I eat all kinds of rubbish and don’t notice. But when I’m sitting down to a meal where I know the chef’s trying . . .’

‘And this one is?’

‘You bet.’ He dabbed his knife into the sauce and tasted it off the point. ‘He’s succeeding too, I’d say.’

They started eating the food, which was indeed excellent, and Jude waited. This time she knew she wouldn’t need to prompt Max. They were working to his agenda; sooner or later he’d get back into his confession.

Sooner, as it turned out. ‘So, anyway, that night I did go to see Rick at Suzy’s place.’

‘And?’

‘And what?’

‘And did he say he’d take you on, get Korfilia Productions to nurture your television career?’

He seemed surprised by the question. ‘No, he said it wasn’t really their kind of show. But he was OK about it. Generous. You know, he listened to me while we had a few drinks.’

‘What time was this?’

‘I suppose I went over about quarter past twelve.’

Jude did the calculations. At that time the Pillars of Sussex had still been carousing in the bar.

‘And I stayed till Suzy came back from the hotel.’

Half-past two, quarter to three.

‘So that was it? You didn’t see anyone else, apart from Suzy and Rick?’

Max cut off a small cube of pork, put it in his mouth and chewed. When he’d finished, he looked Jude straight in the eyes. ‘Yes, I did see some other people.’

‘Who?’

He dabbed at his mouth with a paper napkin. ‘I went back to my room, full of Rick’s vodka – well, Suzy’s vodka – but I didn’t pass out straight away. I was quite wakeful, actually, so I thought, to put me off to sleep, I’d— You know that thing, when you’ve been drinking a lot, you want just one more drink, the final nightcap?’

Jude nodded.

‘That’s how it was with me. So I went back into the hotel to raid the bar.’

‘What time was this?’

‘Quarter past three, I suppose. Something like that.’

‘I was already in bed by then. I’d locked the kitchen door.’

‘I wondered who’d done that. But’ – he produced a big bunch on a chain from his pocket – ‘I have my own keys. So I let myself in and, while I was in the bar, I heard some people coming downstairs. It was Kerry, and her stepfather, and that old guy – you know, one of the Pillocks – bald, red-faced – the one who arrived early to check the details for the dinner.’

‘Donald Chew?’

‘That’s right. Anyway, they were chatting – sounded like they’d had a few drinks themselves – and I heard them saying goodnight to Kerry, and she went out through the kitchen to her room. Then I came out of the bar, and the old bloke was just going up the stairs to bed, but Kerry’s dad saw me, and he asked if I could find him a bottle of Scotch and put it on his bill. So I did. He went upstairs to bed, and I went back out through the kitchen to my room, locking the door behind me.’

Max finished on a note of barely disguised triumph. He had told her everything he had to tell her.

Jude didn’t believe a word of it.

His duty discharged, as soon as he’d mopped up the last of his Normandie sauce with a piece of bread, Max announced he had to get back to the hotel. There was a special lobster dish that needed preparing for that night’s dinner.

Before he left, he asked permission from Ted Crisp and went through to have a quick word with the chef. When he returned, he took Jude’s hand in his, focused his blue eyes on her brown ones and said, ‘I’m sorry about all the confusion, Jude, but I really do feel better for having made a clean breast of it. Better late than never, eh?’

And Max Townley was gone.

As she quietly sipped her way through another glass of Chardonnay, Jude sorted out the implications of what Max had told her. Rick Hendry and Suzy Longthorne now seemed to be in the clear. Max had been with Rick for the first hours, and presumably Suzy could vouch for him for the rest of the night.

And, assuming there hadn’t been a conspiracy between Bob Hartson, his stepdaughter and Donald Chew, no suspicion could attach to Kerry. She’d been drinking with her father and his solicitor until Max had seen her leave the hotel for the stable block. The kitchen door had subsequently been locked and, though the chef possessed keys, Kerry didn’t. So she couldn’t have had anything to do with the murder.

There were many reasons why Jude felt sure Max had been lying to her: he had betrayed himself by the suddenness of his approach; by the command he’d shown over details of timing; and by the unnecessary production of his hotel keys as a visual aid. Everything was too convenient, too pat, to be spontaneous.

That being the case, the question then arose: who had set him up? Who had wanted him to lie, and what inducements had they used to persuade him to do so?

Jude analysed the benefits of the new set of circumstances, as detailed by Max to various individuals, and soon decided the significant figure in the scenario was Kerry. At the time of Nigel Ackford’s death, the girl was safely outside the hotel, actually locked outside it. But very little suspicion had ever been attached to Kerry. The spelling-out of her movements was not to clear her of implication in the murder. It must have been for another reason.

Suddenly Jude understood. Max had not been leant on by Bob Hartson. Indeed, his new version of events did not help Bob Hartson at all. It left Kerry’s father and Donald Chew both on the loose in the hotel at the relevant time. They had no alibis.

One detail was needed to confirm she was right. With a hurried explanation to the bewildered Ted Crisp, Jude went into the pub kitchen. There she confronted the equally bewildered and very young student chef responsible for their excellent pork chops Normandie.

Yes, he’d been well pleased that Max Townley had liked his cooking. Of course he’d heard of the chef up at Hopwicke House. And yes, Max Townley had asked him for his contact numbers.

‘Why?’ asked Jude.

‘Because there’s a good chance he’s going to be doing a telly series. Going to be a different format from all the other TV cookery programmes – include lots of new young chefs.’ The young man beamed. ‘That’s why Max Townley was interested in me. He’s going to make a pilot programme soon, and he’s looking for young chefs for that.’

Jude had been right. The incentive for Max to lie had been the backing of Korfilia Productions in the realization of his television dreams. And the offer had been made by Rick Hendry.

And the important part of the lie was that it established Kerry was still with her stepfather when Suzy returned to join her ex-husband. In other words, there was no time at which Rick Hendry and Kerry Hartson could have been alone together.

Which, for a television personality being hounded by the tabloids over his interest in young girls, could be a very significant point of self-protection.