The Killing in the Café

SEVENTEEN

It was two days later that Jude received a telephonic summons from Phoebe Braithwaite. Could she come at ten o’clock the following morning, the Thursday, for coffee at Hiawatha? Jude suggested it might be more convenient for them to meet at the Crown and Anchor or Polly’s Cake Shop, but those venues did not fit in with Phoebe’s preconceived plans. Maybe, like her husband, she liked to ensure home advantage.

Part of Jude wanted to tell Phoebe to get lost, but saying something like that was not in her nature. She was intrigued too as to what her conspiratorial hostess wanted to talk to her about. And a residual investigative instinct in connection with Amos Green’s death made her want to glean any information she could about anyone with a connection to Polly’s Cake Shop.

Jude felt her customary claustrophobia as she entered the Shorelands Estate. Though the main gates were never closed it did still have the feeling of a ‘gated community’. The list of regulations behind glass on a board nearby also seemed designed to discourage freedom. Presumably the Shorelands residents knew when they were allowed to mow their lawns and hang out their washing, so having the list as the first thing visitors saw presumably had the sole aim of making them realize just how exclusive the estate was.

The whole complex with its huge, expensive, well-spaced houses in a variety of architectural styles felt about as welcoming to Jude as Colditz.

She hadn’t known what to expect. Maybe this would be a large meeting with a lot of Joannas and Samanthas. But it was clear when she arrived and was ushered into the state-of-the-art kitchen that the occasion was just going to be a tête-à-tête for her and Phoebe Braithwaite.

While her hostess busied herself with the state-of-the-art Italian coffee machine, Jude looked out at the best view of the house. A long, over-titivated garden, all of whose plants had been dragooned into straight lines, sloped down towards a tall fence with double gates in it. Beyond that, because of the gradient, the mess of dunes, shingle and khaki sand could not be seen. Just the sparkling of the English Channel, which turned bluer the further it was away from the shore.

Against the fence at the end of the garden stood a neat hut and a blue rowing boat on a manoeuvrable two-wheeled trailer. Along the top of the fence and gates were coils of razor wire. Undesirable people would at all costs be kept out of the Shorelands Estate.

‘Anyway,’ said Phoebe as she placed their coffees on the table (showing off the range of her Italian machine, she was having a skinny latte, Jude a cappuccino with sugar), ‘the first thing you must do is have a look at this.’ She gestured to an expensive-looking blue cardboard box on the table in front of Jude.

‘May I open it?’

‘Of course.’

The contents were revealed to be very good-quality headed notepaper. Under a naval-looking design involving an anchor and a cannon was the legend: ‘SPCS Action Committee’. Centred beneath that in the same large font were the words: ‘Chair: Commodore Quintus Braithwaite’. No other names featured.

Jude did rather tentatively recall that there had been an agreement that the committee’s other officers should get a name-check, but Phoebe swiftly swept away that objection, saying, ‘No, it’s a design thing. The little girl from the printers who advised us on layout – charming she is, ex-Roedean – said it’d look bolder with just the one name.’

Bolder maybe, thought Jude, but not what the committee voted for. However, she kept her opinion to herself.

Phoebe smiled at her ferociously. ‘Now, I’m sure you’d like to know the reason why I wanted to have this little chat.’

‘Well, I was mildly intrigued, yes.’ Jude was once again struck by how confident Phoebe Braithwaite was in the absence of her husband. Gone was the twitchy nervousness that she’d demonstrated when lurking in the kitchen during committee meetings. Now she was a woman fully in control of everything – to the point of actually being bossy. Jude wondered whether the twittery Phoebe was an act created during the course of their marriage to build up her husband’s confidence and demonstrate her utter dependence on him. It wouldn’t be the first time she had seen the same kind of ritual in a relationship.

‘Well, it was, needless to say, in connection with Polly’s Cake Shop that I wanted to talk to you, what with you being on the committee and everything …’

Jude thought she should sound an early note of caution. ‘I may not be staying on the committee for very long.’

‘No, but you are on it at the moment, which means that you must be in favour of Quintus’s plans for the development of Polly’s Cake Shop as a Community Project.’

The logic of what Phoebe had just said would not have stood up to close scrutiny, but Jude let it pass as her hostess went on, ‘Now would you believe that muggins here has got delegated to sort out the Volunteer Rota for when the Community Project starts.’

And I wonder who did the delegating, thought Jude, and had no difficulty finding an answer. It struck her that Quintus Braithwaite had no right to take that kind of decision off his own bat. The organizer of the Volunteer Rota was an appointment that should be made by the whole SPCS Action Committee. Though Jude herself didn’t care about the niceties of ‘meeting protocol’, she knew a lot of her colleagues on the committee would deeply resent the Commodore’s unilateral action. But she got the feeling the Braithwaites were very practised in running things their own way.

She was also amused by Phoebe’s reference to ‘muggins here’, implying that she had unwillingly taken on the burden of the Volunteer Rota rather than being chuffed to bits at being given the responsibility.

‘Now, a little bird told me, Jude, that in the course of your varied career, you did at one stage work in a restaurant …’ It was true, but how did she know that? Jude didn’t let the question trouble her for long. She had lived in Fethering long enough never to be surprised by the efficiency of its bush telegraph. Any piece of information dropped casually into conversation with anyone very quickly became public property. Fethering had had its own highly efficient non-electronic social media long before the creation of Facebook or Twitter.

‘So I was wondering,’ Phoebe went on, ‘whether when we set up Polly’s as a Community Project, we could count on your expertise …?’

‘In what way?’ came the cautious reply.

‘Well, you know, pick your brains about things.’

‘My brains are open for picking at any time. You’re welcome to anything you can find in them.’

‘Thank you, that’s very generous.’ Phoebe Braithwaite smiled graciously. ‘The fact is, I also wondered whether you might be ready to help in a more active capacity …?’

The ‘Oh?’ with which Jude responded was also cautious.

‘I think we’re so fortunate in Fethering to have such a wonderful supply of hidden talents. You meet people for the first time and you know nothing of their history, and then slowly you discover that there are all these things they can do. I mean, for instance, until Quintus mentioned it on Monday, a lot of people didn’t know about my running coffee mornings when we were posted to Dar es Salaam. And I mean, I’m not blowing my own trumpet about it or saying that I did anything particularly wonderful out there, but the fact remains that the whole thing was my initiative and, though I say it myself, it was damn well run.’

‘I’m not quite sure how this relates to my experience in restaurants.’

‘No, well, it was just an example about hidden talents. And I was thinking that, with you having worked in a restaurant … I mean, what exactly did you do?’

‘It was a long time ago, but I suppose I … well, I helped out with the cooking when required, but basically I ran the place.’

‘You were, kind of, the manager?’

‘Yes.’

Jude wondered whether Phoebe had picked up on what she’d said on Monday about Polly’s Cake Shop possibly needing a paid manager, and was planning the excuses that she would make if offered the job, when Phoebe said, ‘Well, I was wondering whether I could include you in my rota of volunteer waitresses?’

Jude was too shocked to speak. The way the offer was put forward, it was as though she were being offered a rich gift, of which she was not really worthy.

‘I mean, obviously,’ Phoebe Braithwaite went on, ‘I do have to have a quality control of the people who act as waitresses for Polly’s. We have standards to maintain. And some of my friends were a little dubious as to whether I should ask you.’

I see, thought Jude, with a seething fury that rarely visited her. My name has been bandied round with all the Joannas or Samanthas to see if I qualify to be one of their number.

But Phoebe hadn’t finished. ‘Some of them thought you dressed a bit scruffily, you know, and ought to spruce up appearance-wise.’ She smiled magnanimously. ‘But I came to your rescue and pointed out to them that, as a waitress, you would be wearing the black and white livery of Polly’s Cake Shop – or whatever livery we end up using – so nobody would see what you normally wore. And then some of them said: What about your hair? But I assured them that it was not beyond the wit of man to come up with a less flamboyant style which would fit neatly under a Polly’s mobcap. So I was very much your defender, Jude, and I said you should definitely be considered as one of our volunteer waitresses,’ she concluded, Lady Bountiful graciously vouchsafing charity to her inferior.

‘Well, thank you very much,’ said Jude with an uncharacteristic iciness. ‘I am obviously very grateful for your offer. But what you seem to be forgetting is that I already have a full-time job.’

‘Do you?’ Phoebe Braithwaite looked confused for a moment, but then reminded herself, ‘Of course, you do that healing business, don’t you? But surely that’s only a side-line?’

‘It is my profession,’ said Jude with some dignity, ‘and it is one whose demands, I’m afraid, preclude the possibility of my taking on any other work, voluntary or otherwise.’

‘Oh well, that’s that then,’ said Phoebe, not sounding too upset by the reaction. ‘Just as well, probably. There were still one or two of the others who were a bit dubious about including you.’

Jude, who was not very good about staying angry for long, found that her mood was shifting. The humour of the situation now seemed more compelling than its offensiveness. That Phoebe Braithwaite could be completely unaware of how insulting she was being … Jude couldn’t wait to tell Carole about it.

Another thought struck her at the same time. The public announcement of Kent Warboys’ purchase of Polly’s Cake Shop had been made at the EGM on the Monday. Only three days before. Phoebe Braithwaite hadn’t had time to marshal all her Joannas or Samanthas into a Volunteer Rota by then. Quintus must have tipped her the wink and she must have started her planning before the news was public knowledge. That casual disregard for democracy, she was beginning to realize, would have been entirely characteristic behaviour for the Braithwaites.

‘Anyway, Phoebe,’ she said, ‘I’m sure you’ll be able to find a full rota of volunteer waitresses without me.’

‘Yes,’ Phoebe agreed, ‘no problem about that.’

Now, as each unwitting insult slammed home, Jude was beginning to feel an irresistible instinct to giggle. To avoid giving into it, she looked out down Hiawatha’s back garden towards the sea. ‘Lovely position you have here,’ she said, just as if she were one of Phoebe Braithwaite’s regular coterie of Joannas or Samanthas.

‘Oh, it is, isn’t it?’

‘Pity you have to have the razor wire on the fence and gates.’

‘Oh, I couldn’t agree with you more, Jude. So unsightly, isn’t it? But I’m afraid one has to adjust to the times one lives in, doesn’t one? I’d get rid of all the razor wire tomorrow … if there weren’t so many immigrants around.’

‘Oh?’

‘It used to be the Poles, now it’s Romanians and Bulgarians, I believe. I’m the last person to be racist, but …’ And as Phoebe Braithwaite’s rant continued, Jude wondered how many times Josie Achter had heard similar sentences started like that. She wasn’t part of the latest influx from Romania and Bulgaria; she belonged to a race that had arrived in the British Isles many centuries before. But maybe Josie’s allegations of anti-Semitism in Fethering weren’t so far off the mark, after all.

Jude came out of her reverie to hear Phoebe continuing, ‘… steal anything that’s not nailed down. Do you know, some Romanian youths actually tried to steal that dinghy down the garden only a few weeks back.’

‘Oh, did you see them doing it?’

‘No.’

Then how, Jude was tempted to ask, did you know that they were Romanian? Or youths, come to that?

‘But there was no doubt there’d been a break-in. Quintus found the evidence the following morning. They’d used wire-cutters to get through the chain that holds the gates together and they’d definitely been messing about with the dinghy.’

‘But it was still there, was it?’

‘Oh yes. Though Quintus wondered whether the youths might have actually taken it out during the night and rowed it about in the sea.’

‘Why would they do that?’

‘Sheer vandalism. That’s what happens if you grow up in a country that has no respect for property. Places like Romania and Bulgaria may not still be called communist states, but that’s what they are. And the communists have never had any respect for property.’

Jude had a feeling that what was being quoted at her were the undiluted opinions of Commodore Braithwaite. She looked down to the end of the garden to the blue rowing boat under discussion.

‘Anyway, that morning, when Quintus inspected the dinghy, he found there was water and some shingle in it. He was convinced the youths had actually taken it on the sea during the night.’

‘Well,’ Jude said with a grin, ‘at least they had the good manners to bring the boat back.’

‘Huh,’ said Phoebe, who clearly didn’t believe that any excuses should be made for the Romanian youths (or whoever actually broke into Hiawatha’s garden).

‘And when did you say this was?’ asked Jude. ‘A few weeks back?’

‘I remember exactly when it was, because Quintus and I had just come back from visiting one of our sons who’s at university in St Andrews. We arrived back late on the Saturday, the third. So Quintus found that the boat had been tampered with on the morning of the Sunday. Sunday the fourth of October.’

Jude didn’t show any outward sign of the impact that Phoebe Braithwaite’s words had had on her. The fourth of October was, of course, her birthday.

Not only that, it was also the morning that Sara Courtney had found no sign in Polly’s store room of the corpse she had seen there the previous night.

A corpse which might have been rowed out to sea, had weights tied to its legs and then been dropped off the side of a small boat.