The Killing in the Café

TWELVE

Jude woke up on the Sunday morning and switched on Radio Four. She wasn’t a regular listener to the channel, but now awaited in every bulletin something about the Fethering Beach body. She was rather confused to find that she wasn’t hearing the regular news programme, and took a moment to realize that British summertime had ended and she’d gained an hour during the night.

Jude also woke up with something of a dilemma. She hadn’t seen Sara Courtney again after the woman had taken her order in Polly’s Cake Shop the previous morning. Presumably she’d been busy in the kitchen. Anyway, even if they had met again, the café was a rather public arena in which to have the kind of conversation Jude needed to have with Sara.

It was because she knew about the woman’s fragility that she felt the conversation just had to take place. So far Sara hadn’t apparently made any connection between the body she saw (or hallucinated) and the one found the previous Thursday on Fethering Beach. But it was only a matter of time before the news emerged that the man had been shot rather than drowned. The information would probably be revealed in a police news conference and then spread around all of the media. It’d be front-page news in the Fethering Observer. There was no way Sara could avoid knowing about it.

And, given the woman’s previous history, Jude was worried about the effect the revelation would have on her. If the case of the Fethering Beach body became a murder inquiry, Sara Courtney would either have to become involved or live in fear of being investigated.

So Jude wanted to talk to her, fill her in on what was likely to happen, to cushion the prospective blow.

But that Sunday morning there was no reply from either her landline or her mobile. Jude left messages on both, asking Sara to ring back but not giving any clue as to why she wanted to talk.

Jude got up in a leisurely fashion and had a long bath, laced with essential oils, while incense burned around her.

She was surprised how much she wanted to talk to Carole, to share with her speculation about the body they had discovered. But she’d heard nothing since her neighbour had set off for Fulham on the Friday morning. Jude could have rung the mobile, but didn’t want to intrude on the euphoria and anxiety of Chloe’s arrival. Carole would communicate in her own good time.

So, relaxed by her bath and still feeling self-indulgent, Jude decided that she would treat herself to lunch at the Crown and Anchor. Having picked up a copy of the Mail on Sunday (really just to make her cross), she arrived on the dot of twelve, just as the pig-tailed blond bar manager Zosia was unlocking the door for Sunday opening.

The Polish girl enveloped her in a huge hug. Zosia had adored both of them ever since Jude and Carole had investigated the death of her brother Tadeusz. Had Carole been there, she too would have received a huge hug, which would have pleased and embarrassed her in equal measure.

Zosia went straight behind the bar and, without asking for the order, poured a large glass of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. ‘If you’re lunching, Ed’s Sunday Special is a cassoulet. And we’ve got all the usual joints as well.’

‘Cassoulet sounds wonderful. Real winter warmer. Funny how the clocks changing always makes you feel that winter’s on the way.’

‘Would you like me to put your order through straight away?’

‘I’m not in a hurry, Zosia.’

‘Well, look, shall I put it through in half an hour? I only say that because we’ve got a big family party booked in at twelve thirty. Might be wise to get your order in before the kitchen gets really busy.’

‘Good thinking. Yes, if you could put it through in half an hour, that’d be great. Thus giving me half an hour’s drinking time to get really cross with the Mail on Sunday.’

‘I hadn’t got you down as a Mail on Sunday reader, Jude.’ Ted Crisp had appeared from the kitchen door. His faded summer T-shirt had given way to a faded sweatshirt, perhaps another homage to the ending of British Summer Time. Winter was definitely on its way.

‘I like to vary my reading occasionally,’ said Jude. ‘See how the other half thinks.’

‘I see. Now if it had been Carole reading the Mail on Sunday, I wouldn’t have thought anything odd about that. She sounds like she’s quoting from it every time she opens her mouth.’

‘Now that’s unfair, Ted.’

‘Only slightly.’ He grinned behind his scruffy beard. ‘You have to admit Carole’s opinionated, don’t you?’

‘I’ll give you that.’ Jude grinned back, not for the first time amazed to recall that Ted and Carole had once had an affair. Inevitably it hadn’t lasted very long, but there was still a tenderness between the two of them. ‘Anyway, big news on the Carole front is that she has just become a grandmother for the second time.’

‘Oh, great. What was it? A baby?’ Ted Crisp could never quite escape his past as a stand-up.

‘Ha. Ha. Very funny. Little girl called Chloe. Born Friday morning. Carole’s up in Fulham with them now.’

‘Oh well, do pass on my congratulations to her.’

‘Course I will.’

Ted looked around the bar. There were very few customers. ‘The good burghers of Fethering haven’t got used to the time change yet.’

‘No.’

He leant forward conspiratorially against the bar. ‘What about this body you two found then? Any more information?’

Jude shook her head. ‘Not a squeak. Police seem to be playing things very close to their chest.’

‘Presumably that forensic stuff takes time. Identifying the poor sod, checking his DNA, all that malarkey.’

‘Probably.’

‘Hm.’ The landlord shrugged. ‘Oh well. Basic thing is, he’s dead and we’re still alive.’

‘That’s a very philosophical thought, Ted.’

‘Yes. I do have my introspective moments, you know.’ He looked very gloomy. ‘So we should continue to enjoy everything life brings us, shouldn’t we?’

‘Sounds like the best approach, yes.’ Jude changed tack. Ted Crisp, from all the people he encountered and conversations he heard over the bar was a useful source of Fethering information. ‘Have you come across a man called Kent Warboys?’

‘Architect, property developer? Yes, I know him. He comes in here every now and then.’

‘And what do you know about him?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘“Property developer” can have so many different meanings, can’t it? For a lot of people round here it’s usually a term of abuse.’

Ted chuckled. ‘Take your point. Well, from what I know of him, and what I’ve heard about him from other people, Kent Warboys is one of the good guys. Yes, he’s in the business for the money – and has done very well out of it – but he also seems genuinely to care about the projects he gets involved with. You know, he wants to build stuff that kind of fits the area, not the kind of monstrosities you see all along the coast here. You should have a look at his own place.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Right here in Fethering. Other side of the Fether estuary, opposite the yacht club. He converted a bunch of old fishermen’s huts. Won an award for it, I think, you know, for sympathetic, environmentally friendly conversion. All that bloody Green nonsense.’ He looked directly into Jude’s eyes. ‘I gather he’s got an interest in developing Polly’s Cake Shop.’

‘News travels fast.’

‘Surely you’ve been in Fethering long enough not to be surprised by that?’

‘True.’

‘Kent was in here on Wednesday night.’

‘Was he?’ Jude thought back. He must have gone to the Crown and Anchor after the SPCS Action Committee meeting at Hiawatha.

‘And he seemed to have got a new girlfriend.’

‘Oh?’

‘All over her he was … well, they was all over each other. And he was showing off in that way that men only do right at the beginning of a relationship. Before they start taking the woman for granted. Know what I mean?’

Oh yes. Jude knew exactly what he meant. ‘Did you recognize the woman?’

‘Sure did. I’ve forgotten her name but I’d recognize it if someone said it. Spanish looking, she is. Works as a waitress in Polly’s.’

‘Sara Courtney?’

‘That’s the one.’

Jude felt rather pleased to have confirmed the suspicion that had been born when she talked to Kent Warboys after the last SPCS Action Committee meeting at Hiawatha.

By the time Jude’s cassoulet had arrived, the Crown and Anchor was very full. Sunday lunch was one of its busiest times and she was glad she’d taken Zosia’s advice about ordering before the rush. She felt very mellow working her way through Ed Pollack’s winter warmer and down her second large New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. And the bigotry of the Mail on Sunday was keeping her at a pleasant level of simmering irritation.

A text arrived on her mobile. She was surprised to see it was from Carole. Not surprised that her neighbour was contacting her, but that she should be using the medium of text. Carole was always slow to take on new technology (though once she had taken it on, she became almost obsessively enthusiastic about it – that had certainly been the case with her laptop).

The message simply said that she had arrived back at High Tor and wondered where Jude was. A quick call brought her down to the Crown and Anchor, where she accepted Jude’s offer of a large Sauvignon Blanc ‘to wet the baby’s head’. She also followed her neighbour’s recommendation and ordered the cassoulet.

Jude wanted to get straight down to talking about the Fethering Beach body, but knew she had to ask first about the new arrival. And she found Carole in a rare state of ecstasy verging on the poetic when she talked about her new granddaughter. Chloe was the most beautiful creature who had ever been born, totally unlike her sister in appearance but retaining that baby’s ability to look like both of her parents (just as Lily had done). And equally beautiful.

Lily, incidentally, was being extraordinarily good about the new arrival, positively welcoming. Absolutely no signs of jealousy yet, though Carole did concede that it was early days in the relationship between the two.

Then, to Jude’s amazement, Carole pulled out her phone to show her some photographs of the new arrival. The amazement arose not from the fact that photographs had been taken, but that they had been taken on a phone. Though it had other capacities, Carole had always regarded her mobile as a device for the making and receiving of phone calls, differing from a landline receiver only in its portability. And suddenly, within two days, she had started using it to send text messages and to take photographs. Jude wondered what had caused the change.

Though she had never had children of her own, and did not feel the lack of them in her life, Jude was not immune to the enchantments of the young, and cooed appropriately at the pictures she was shown. Chloe Seddon looked to be a perfect newborn baby and, like many newborn babies, seemed resolutely unwilling to open her eyes, especially when being rather cautiously cuddled by her older sister. There was even a photograph of Chloe being tentatively held by her grandmother. The whole family looked relieved and happy, and on the face of Gaby was an expression of exhausted triumph.

Jude did not wish to appear uninterested by moving the conversation on, but fortunately Carole herself changed the subject. ‘Anyway, what with all that’s been going on, I haven’t seen much news for the last couple of days. Listened to Radio Four when I was driving down from Fulham this morning, but there was nothing about the Fethering body. Have I missed anything?’

‘I’m afraid not. Total news blackout on the subject from official sources … though, needless to say, there’s been a lot of unbridled local speculation.’

‘Yes, I bet there has. Any of it worth listening to?’

‘Well, the trouble is, as ever in Fethering, a large number of theories are being put forward, but none of them is based on any solid facts at all.’

‘Sounds familiar. And have the police been in touch with you again?’ Jude shook her head. ‘No, nor me. I kept checking my mobile for messages, but there was nothing. Nothing on my answering machine at High Tor either.’

‘But, so far as we know, the police are continuing to conduct their investigations?’

‘One would assume so, yes. But, as ever, they’re not rushing to share their findings with the amateur sleuths of Fethering.’

‘No.’ Carole grimaced and then looked sharply at Jude. ‘And what have you found out? I’ll bet you know more than you did when we last met.’

‘Well …’ Jude was faced with a dilemma; one which she had known would come up at some point. Maintaining the confidentiality of her clients was a strong principle with her, and this was not the first time that principle had been threatened in the course of an investigation.

She tried to think of a way in which she could tell Carole why she thought the mystery man had been murdered, without giving away the secrets which Sara Courtney had confided to her in her professional capacity.

And she reminded herself that when Sara had come to see her a couple of Sundays before, it hadn’t actually been in the context of a healing consultation. But to use that fact to justify a breach of confidentiality would, she knew, be mere casuistry. She decided that the only way she could share the information she wanted to with Carole was by not naming names. It might be clumsy, but it would not compromise her principle.

‘Listen, there are reasons why I can’t give you all the details …’

‘I see,’ said Carole, her nose immediately put out of joint.

Might as well be honest. ‘It involves client confidentiality.’

‘Oh yes?’ There was a particular brand of scepticism that Carole reserved for conversations about her neighbour’s work as a healer. Though never voicing the opinion in quite those terms, she secretly thought a lot of what Jude did was ‘mumbo-jumbo and psychobabble’.

‘The fact is, Carole, I heard from someone—’

‘A patient?’

‘As you know, I prefer to call them “clients”.’

‘Oh yes, of course. But it was from a client, was it?’ Carole’s tone was already implying the unreliability of the source.

‘Yes, it was. And she said—’

‘A female client then?’

‘Yes,’ Jude conceded. ‘Anyway, I saw her … let me think, when was it? Yes, exactly four weeks ago. On the Sunday. And she said she’d seen the dead body of a man …’

‘Really?’

‘… with a bullet hole in his temple.’

‘Where did she see it?’

‘Right here in Fethering.’

‘What, on the beach?’

‘No.’ Jude was realizing how difficult it was going to be to keep her source anonymous under Carole’s beady interrogation. ‘No, she saw it in Polly’s.’

‘In Polly’s? What, when it was full of people?’

‘No, no. After everyone had gone, when she was locking up.’

Carole pounced. ‘So she works at Polly’s, does she?’ Jude could not deny it. ‘So we’re talking about Sara Courtney, aren’t we?’

‘Well …’

‘Don’t deny it. How many other clients of yours work at Polly’s Cake Shop?’

‘Yes, it was her.’ Well, she’d tried. And, despite a residue of guilt, Jude felt quite relieved the truth was out. It would make her conversation with Carole a lot easier.

‘So where did she see the body?

‘In the store room. Well, that is … she wasn’t absolutely sure whether she’d seen it or not.’

‘“Not sure whether she’d seen it”? I think generally speaking, when people see dead bodies, they know whether they’ve seen them or not.’

‘Sara had been very ill.’

‘Huh.’ Like many people who conduct their lives on the edge of an emotional precipice, Carole Seddon was contemptuous about the concept of mental illness. She went on, ‘Was she alone when she saw – or didn’t see – the body?’

‘Yes.’

‘Nobody in the flat upstairs?’

‘Apparently not.’

‘Was there any sign of a gun in the store room?’

‘Yes. Sara said she saw one.’

‘Suicide then?’

‘Except that the body was lying on the floor, and the gun was on a windowsill, way out of reach of the victim.’

‘Murder then,’ said Carole.