The Killing in the Café

THIRTEEN

It was on the Tuesday that the police finally gave a press conference. And identified the body that had been found on Fethering Beach.

His name was Amos Green, aged sixty-four. He was a retired chartered surveyor who was married and lived in Kingston.

The photograph of him shown on the South Today coverage of the story was very blurred, a detail blown up from a group picture at a wedding or some other social event. Neither Carole nor Jude could recognize in it the swollen and discoloured face they had seen on Fethering Beach.

The cause of the man’s death was not drowning. He had been killed by a gunshot. Police investigations were continuing.

By the time the Fethering Observer was published on the Thursday a better photograph had been found. The face that stared out from the front page had very dark eyes, thinning grey hair and a slightly roguish expression.

He apparently had no connection with Fethering. He had lived and worked all his life in Surrey and had been a local councillor in the Kingston area for some years.

The Fethering Observer confirmed that he had been shot and that police investigations were continuing.

Jude had resisted the impulse to ring Sara Courtney until the Thursday, but with the synchronicity which had featured so much in her life, just as she was about to pick up the phone, Sara rang her.

‘I’ve just seen the Observer,’ she said, her voice high and taut, just as it had been when she first came to Jude.

‘I thought you would. Or have heard about it on the news.’

‘I haven’t heard or seen any news till today. I’ve been away.’

‘Well, if there’s anything I can—’

‘Jude, I need help. Can I come and see you?’

‘Of course.’

‘Jude, what I’m asking you to do is completely forget what I told you about seeing the body.’ They were sitting in the cluttered sitting room of Woodside Cottage with cups of green tea.

‘That may not be easy. The mind has a mind of its own. You can’t just tell it to forget something.’

‘Well, all right. Not forget it, but swear to me you’ll never tell anyone about what I told you.’

Jude felt a little awkward, because she had already told someone – or that someone had winkled out of her – the details of what Sara had confided in her. But she said, ‘I won’t tell anyone’, hoping that the implication was that she wouldn’t tell anyone in the future. ‘But what are you going to do, Sara?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, the situation’s changed rather. When you first told me about the body in the store room, you weren’t even sure that you’d seen it. You were afraid you were hallucinating.’

‘I’m still not sure I saw it.’

‘Oh, come on. You can’t claim that any more. The fact that you’re here, the fact that you recognized the photo in the Observer – that must mean you did see Amos Green’s body.’

Sara looked very crestfallen, but had to accept the truth of Jude’s words.

‘And was he someone you recognized?’

‘Well, if I did see the body in the store room—’

‘No, I mean did you recognize him in the photograph as someone you had met before – while he was still alive?’

Sara Courtney shook her head firmly. ‘I’d never seen him before. And I wish I’d never seen him at all!’

‘I can understand that.’

‘I just want to forget that I ever saw him at all. Just wind back time.’

‘Can’t be done, I’m afraid. And the big change is that now the man’s death is the subject of an official murder inquiry.’

‘It wasn’t necessarily murder. It could have been suicide.’

‘Oh yes? And whereabouts did you tell me you’d seen the gun in the store room?’

‘On the windowsill,’ Sara had to admit.

‘So, for the suicide theory to hold water, Amos Green must have shot himself in the temple, then, before falling down dead, have moved across the room to put the gun on the windowsill. Do you really believe that’s what happened?’

‘No,’ came the grudging reply. ‘But it’s possible that he shot himself and the gun dropped to the floor as he fell down, and then someone else came in, found the body and moved the gun to the windowsill.’

‘All right, I suppose it’s possible. But who might have done that, Sara? Another member of Polly’s Cake Shop staff? And, if they did do it, why didn’t they tell anyone? Why didn’t they raise the alarm? Why didn’t they call the police?’

‘They may have had their reasons. Like I did. I didn’t call the police.’

‘No, you didn’t. But don’t you think you should get in touch with them now?

‘Why?’ Sara Courtney sounded really frightened of the idea.

‘Because you have evidence that is material to the police investigation. I don’t know how much they know about Amos Green’s movements before he died, but if he could be placed in Polly’s Cake Shop’s store room on the Saturday afternoon four weeks ago … well, I would imagine that would be of considerable help to their inquiries. What is more, presumably you still have the handkerchief with his blood on it. Now the police have a body, they could check the DNA on that.’

‘Jude, you’re not being very sympathetic.’

It was true. Jude realized she was behaving more like Carole might have done in the same circumstances. She was a healer. Her primary concern should be for her client rather than for some obscure ideal of justice.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I was just thinking you might feel better if you were to go to the police. Then you could put the whole business behind you.’

‘I doubt that. It’d just get me more involved. I’m sure there’d be endless questioning. And I’d probably become a suspect for having murdered the poor bastard.’

‘You’d soon be able to prove you had nothing to do with it.’

‘Maybe. But I just don’t feel strong enough for the stress of it all. Even though things seem finally to be going better for me, I’m still very fragile.’

‘I know. But I’d be here to support you.’

‘Yes, Jude. You’d be here. But you wouldn’t be in the interview room when the police started grilling me about my entire life history, would you?’

Jude was forced to admit that was true. There was a silence. Then she asked, ‘What did you mean by “things finally going better for you”?’

Sara blushed. ‘Oh, nothing really. Just, you know, thanks to you and thanks to other factors, I do feel I’m finally emerging from the state I’ve been in since … well, since things went wrong. I feel continuing life is now a possibility.’

‘And might one of the “other factors” be Kent Warboys?’

The blush deepened. ‘I have seen him a few times. But we’re taking things slowly. We’re being discreet.’

Jude wondered how being seen by Ted Crisp ‘all over each other’ in the Crown & Anchor came under the heading of ‘discreet’, but all she said was, ‘And it’s going well?’

‘I was beginning to dare to think so … but now I feel everything’s been shattered again.’ She looked pleadingly at Jude. ‘I’m just terrified of going back down to where I was.’

‘You won’t go back there,’ came the reassuring reply. ‘Yes, you’ll have setbacks, and each time you’ll fear the whole cycle is starting again, but it won’t. You’ll bounce back more quickly every time it happens.’

Sara Courtney grunted dissent, not willing to believe this was true.

‘Tell me about Kent. How did you meet him?’

‘At Polly’s. He came in a few times for coffee. He kept asking me questions. At first I thought he might be interested in me, but then I realized he was assessing the place, working out its development potential.’

‘Was this after Quintus Braithwaite had asked him to become involved in the project?’

‘Oh no, way before then. Kent had had his eyes on the development potential of Polly’s and other properties on Fethering Parade for ages. The way he told it, he heard Quintus going on about the SPCS Action Committee in the yacht club and thought they might have mutual interests.’

Which wasn’t exactly the way the Commodore had presented their connection, thought Jude without surprise.

‘And, Sara, when you discovered that it was the property Kent was interested in, were you disappointed?’

Sara nodded. ‘Yes. I felt stupid for having dared to hope that a man might even notice me. I went right back down to my lowest again. No confidence … thoughts of self-harming … you know, you’ve heard it all before.’

‘Yes. But Kent came back?’

‘Yes.’

‘And no longer asking questions about development potential?’

‘No. He asked me out for a drink. I thought he just wanted to pick my brains about Polly’s, but he didn’t mention the place. It was me he wanted to see.’ She sounded bewildered by the idea.

‘And why shouldn’t he? You’re gorgeous, Sara.’

‘Huh. Anyway, we got together and then it seemed to cool off, and I got all paranoid again. But he got back in touch and the last few weeks … We even went away together for a couple of nights earlier in the week … Actually to Paris.’

‘Very nice too.’

‘Yes, it was. And I felt really good. And now I’ve come back to this. The photo on the front of the Fethering Observer. And I just don’t need any more complications in my life.’

‘I can see that. So you’re not going to go to the police?’

‘No,’ said Sara Courtney firmly.

‘Seeing the photo should have cheered you up, you know.’

‘How do you work that out, Jude?’

‘Because, at the most basic level, it proves you’re not mad. When you saw the body, when you came to tell me about it, you didn’t know whether you’d seen it or not. You thought you might be hallucinating. At least what you saw in the paper this morning proves that what you saw was real.’

‘Yes. At the moment, though, I’m not sure whether that does make things better.’

‘Of course it does,’ said Jude briskly. Though the most empathetic person on God’s earth, she knew there were times when people needed a little nudging along. ‘So listen, Sara, you are faced with a dilemma. And I can’t tell you what you should do about it. It’s entirely your decision. Either you contact the police about what you saw in the store room at Polly’s, or you don’t. Over to you.’

Sara Courtney grimaced. ‘I can’t face it.’

‘All right,’ said Jude, being very careful to keep her voice unjudgemental. ‘Then what you saw in the store room at Polly’s is a secret between the two of us.’

She felt bad about lying. But she didn’t feel bad about having told Carole. Then something she saw in Sara’s face made her ask, ‘What, is there someone else who knows?’

The woman nodded. ‘I did mention it to Kent.’