The Killer in the Choir

TWENTY

It was worth having a look, thought Carole, as she navigated the Renault, well within the speed limit, back to Fethering.

She put the car in the High Tor garage and walked down towards the Fethering Yacht Club. The weather had now turned almost summery. The Seaview Café, which opened out on to the beach, had, for the first time that year, put some tables and chairs outside.

And another denizen of Fethering had returned to summer habits. As Carole rounded the side of the Fethering Yacht Club, the sea wall which contained the ferocious flow of the River Fether was revealed. And, leaning against it, looking out to sea, was Elizabeth Browning.

In the sunlight, the colour of her long hair looked even less natural. And her French Lieutenant’s Woman pose looked even more affected.

Before going up to the woman, Carole paused for a moment. It struck her that she was quite possibly now at the scene of Heather Mallett’s murder. The body had certainly gone into the river, to return within only a few hours as a ‘Fethering Floater’. Was it not likely that the confrontation which ended with her strangling had taken place right here, conveniently close to the sea wall?

But she didn’t let this thought change her plans. In fact, it gave her an idea for an opening gambit. She walked towards Elizabeth Browning. (In normal Fethering resident mode, Carole would never have gone straight up to someone to whom she hadn’t been properly introduced. But Carole in investigative mode was a totally different creature. Her interest in murder had done a lot for her social skills, helping to overcome her natural shyness.)

‘Good morning, Elizabeth,’ she said.

The woman turned and squinted, trying to identify the outline against the bright sunshine.

‘Carole Seddon. We’ve met at the Crown & Anchor a few times.’ Well, once, anyway. And then we didn’t actually address a word to each other. But never mind, there are questions I want to ask you.

‘Oh yes. Good morning,’ said Elizabeth vaguely.

‘Looking at the river, it’s hard not to think about Heather Mallett, isn’t it?’ asked Carole.

But her opening gambit failed to produce any very significant reaction. ‘I suppose so, perhaps.’ Elizabeth Browning’s mind had clearly been on anything other than the murder victim.

‘Did you know her well?’ Carole pressed on.

The woman shrugged. Close to, Carole could see that her make-up was very skilfully and meticulously done. It took a good ten years off her real age. ‘Well, we sang in the church choir together for some years. But Heather was very buttoned-up and quiet. She wasn’t the kind of person you bonded with. Turned up for rehearsals and then left, no socializing. She did relax a bit after her husband died, but I still didn’t get close to her.’

‘Did you ever meet her husband?’ Carole was determined to investigate any links Elizabeth Browning might have to the Mallett family.

‘Not meet, really, no. I saw him sometimes. On a few occasions he’d pick Heather up after rehearsal, but he always stayed waiting in the car, didn’t come into the church. He and I never spoke to each other.’

‘Ah.’ Carole gestured towards a bench, commemorating some long-gone Fethering resident, who ‘enjoyed his afternoons here looking at the sea.’ ‘Would you like to sit?’

Elizabeth shrugged again. The movement suggested she’d rather stay by the sea wall, but wasn’t going to make a fuss about something so trivial. Perhaps she was curious as to why she had been accosted by someone she hardly knew. Or, according to Carole’s more sinister interpretation, perhaps she wanted to assess how much her interrogator knew.

But it was Elizabeth who began this latest round of questioning. ‘You’re not married, are you, Carole?’

‘Divorced,’ came the short reply. She didn’t really see that her marital status was anyone’s business but her own.

‘And you and Jude … you’re not an item, are you?’

‘Certainly not.’ In spite of the sunshine, the temperature suddenly dropped.

‘Sorry. But you know how rumours spread in a place like Fethering.’

‘I do indeed. But that is one that, I can tell you, should be permanently scotched. Isn’t it possible, in this day and age, for two women to be friends, without anything else being involved?’ Carole realized she was perhaps protesting too much.

Elizabeth Browning was unruffled. ‘Sure, I’m cool with that. Mind you, I’d be cool with the two of you being a couple. I think there’s far too much emphasis on gender identity these days. Let people do what they want to do.’

There was an almost hippyish laissez-faire tone in her voice. Carole, becoming intrigued by the woman’s personality, found herself asking, ‘What about you? Are you married?’

‘No. Never found a man I liked that much.’ Carole had expected the answer to be self-pitying, but Elizabeth seemed very much in control, relishing her single freedom. ‘And I’ve road-tested a few along the way,’ she added.

She looked directly at Carole for the first time. Her eyes were of a brown so dark as almost to be black, hinting perhaps at a heritage from the Mediterranean – or even further east. ‘Anyway, what’s this about?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Carole, we don’t really know each other. Yet you have deliberately sought me out and initiated a conversation with me. Why?’

‘Well—’

‘And immediately started talking about Heather Mallett’s death. So, what are you doing – working through the list of murder suspects?’ This was so uncomfortably close to the truth that, for a moment, Carole was silent. ‘What do you want to know? Where was I on the night of the seventeenth, the evening of the wedding?’

Aware that the initiative had been taken away from her, Carole changed the line of attack. ‘I’ve just come from talking to Ruskin Dewitt.’

‘Have you? On the premise that his public humiliation by Heather about singing at the wedding was sufficient motive for him to have strangled her?’

Carole, surprised by how forceful her adversary was, tried to regain ground. ‘Ruskin Dewitt couldn’t have had any involvement in the crime. He was in the Holy Land last weekend.’

‘Lucky Holy Land,’ said Elizabeth drily. ‘How much he must have added, by his mere presence, to their national well-being. But Russ, no doubt, had some dirt to spread about me, which is why I have the pleasure of your company this bright and sunny morning?’

‘He did mention one or two things.’

‘I’m sure he did. And he no doubt suggested that Heather had somehow found out what that dirt was, and confronted me with it. And that I had been so appalled by the thought of my secrets being spread to the world that I strangled her. Was that the way Russ’s thoughts – and yours – were inclining?’

‘Well …’ Again, so uncomfortably close to the truth that Carole was lost for words.

‘Right, so shall I guess what this famous “dirt” was. My terrible secret, whose exposure would shame me before the entire world? Was part of it the fact that, in spite of constantly going on about my career there, my only appearance at Glyndebourne was when some kids from local primary schools were drafted in to sing “The Children’s Chorus” in a production of Carmen. Is that part of what Russ told you?’

Carole was forced to admit that it was.

‘If that’s the case, then I’ve no doubt about the rest of his revelations. That I never worked professionally as a singer. That I never had a problem with nodules on my vocal chords, which cut short that promising career. That I was basically a fraud. Was that the … burden of his message?’

Again, there was no escaping a yes.

‘Good. I’m glad we’ve got that straight. Well, Carole, I’ve owned up to you readily enough, haven’t I?’

‘Yes. Yes, you have.’

‘So, do you really believe that keeping people from knowing about my small imposture is sufficient motive for me to kill someone?’

‘It does sound unlikely.’

‘It sounds more than unlikely. It sounds impossible. So, may I now perhaps be allowed to resume my morning routine of gazing wistfully out to sea?’

‘Yes. But can I just ask you one thing?’

‘What?’

‘Why do you do it?’

‘Gaze wistfully out to sea?’

‘Well, that too, but I really meant why do you build up this tissue of lies about yourself, all that Glyndebourne stuff, the nodules …?’

‘I do it, Carole, for the same reason you do it.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘To retain my privacy as a human being. To resist the curiosity of others.’

‘Sorry?’

‘You haven’t been in the choir, so you wouldn’t know, but I can assure you that none of the other members have ever asked me any personal questions. I’ve overheard them saying, “Oh, don’t for heaven’s sake, don’t get Elizabeth going. Don’t ask her anything, or you’ll get the full routine about her having been a rising star at Glyndebourne, until nodules on her vocal chords cut her career tragically short.”’ The woman spread her hands wide with satisfaction. ‘And in that way, I retain my privacy.’

‘I see.’

‘Except, of course, I do apparently run the risk of people coming up to me out of the blue and accusing me of murder.’

‘I’m sorry, I—’

‘Oh, no worries. That doesn’t offend me. Amuses me, if anything. Also, brings home to me how wrong people can be.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, if you’re looking for rifts between Heather Mallett and other choir members, both in the church one and the pub one, by focusing your firepower on me, you are – if you will forgive the mixed metaphor – barking up a completely wrong tree.’

‘You mean there’s another tree I should be barking up?’ Elizabeth just smiled at her, infuriatingly. ‘Who? Who didn’t Heather get on with?’

‘Just a word to the wise … It’s often the case, in a set-up like a choir, that the people who ruffle most feathers are the newest arrivals.’

‘Newest arrivals? Are you talking about Jude?’

‘No, of course I’m not talking about Jude.’

‘Then who?’

‘Ask yourself …’ Elizabeth seemed to be having fun, playing with Carole now, ‘who is the most recent arrival in Fethering?’

‘Bet Harrison. Are you saying that Bet Harrison was at odds with Heather?’

‘Oh, well done. Eventually you got there.’ Elizabeth Browning made a skittish little clapping movement with her hands. ‘But you didn’t hear it from me.’ She looked out towards the English Channel. ‘Mm, I think I should be getting on with my busy task of looking out over the sea.’

‘Just a minute …’

‘What?’

Hesitantly, Carole asked, ‘When you talked about the elaborate way in which you protect your privacy, you said I do something similar – what on earth did you mean by that?’

Elizabeth Browning positively grinned. ‘Oh, come on, Carole. I’ve seen you around Fethering for years, always walking briskly, busy, busy, busy. Rushing from one thing you have to do to the next. Walking that dog of yours on the beach, always with a firm destination in mind, never daring to stop. I know enough about the symptoms to recognize loneliness when I see it, Carole.’

No words could provide a proper response to this devastatingly accurate analysis. But, as Elizabeth moved towards the sea wall, Carole managed to ask, ‘And that, the gazing out to sea, why do you do that? Are you mourning a lost love? Or is that just another act?’

‘It’s a kind of act, maybe,’ came the reply. ‘But also, I do love looking at the sea. It’s like looking at a fire, constantly changing, constantly making new patterns, constantly destroying them and reshaping the pieces. I like that. I find it very soothing.

‘Also,’ she added, ‘you’d be surprised. Out here by the sea wall is, actually, quite a good place to pick up men.’

And she moved back into her tragic French Lieutenant’s Woman pose, looking out over the unforgiving sea. Once again, thought Carole, remembering the words of Ruskin Dewitt, a reminder that it’s the quiet ones you have to watch.

It was later the same day that Jude answered the telephone in Woodside Cottage.

‘Good afternoon,’ said the familiar regimental voice. ‘This is Brian Skelton here. Roddy’s father.’

‘Oh, hello.’

‘Listen, I hope you don’t mind my asking you this – and please say no if it’s inconvenient …’

‘What is it?’

‘Roddy’s come back. I said I’d let you know if anything happened … and he’s come back.’

‘That’s really good news.’

‘Yes.’ Brian Skelton didn’t sound totally convinced.

‘Why, what’s happened? Have you told the police he’s back?’

‘Of course. They’ve been questioning him ever since I told them he was here. They’ve only just finished with him.’

‘And …?’ asked Jude. ‘They haven’t arrested him?’

‘No.’

‘That’s good.’

‘Yes.’ Again, without complete conviction.

‘Did they actually say they’d eliminated him from their enquiries?’

‘Nothing as definite as that. In fact, they implied that they would need to question him further.’ The old man sounded very weary, uncertain how much more he could take. ‘Roddy’s in a bad way, Jude.’

‘Physically?’

‘A few scratches. Nothing that won’t heal. But it’s more the other aspect …’

‘His mental health?’

‘I suppose we have to call it that.’ It was said with the unwillingness of someone who had never in his life spoken of such matters.

‘Would it help if I were to come and see him?’

‘That’s what I was going to ask. I know it’s a cheek, but after what you did for my golfing buddy …’

‘I’ll be there as soon as I can.’