The Liar in the Library

TWENTY

Jude woke on the Monday morning in a totally different frame of mind. The news from Oliver Parsons about the negative forensic tests on the wine bottle from the library staff room, though not yet officially confirmed, had brought back her old joie de vivre. She berated herself for the unaccustomed gloom into which she had sunk over the previous few days.

Now she no longer felt she had to find Burton St Clair’s murderer to save her own skin. But that had not diminished her interest in the case. If anything, it had increased her enthusiasm for solving it.

After breakfast, she went on to her little-used Facebook account and made the contact she wanted to. Then she bounced ebulliently round to High Tor.

Even before Carole had produced coffee, Jude announced, ‘I’m back on the case. I’m no longer going to be bossed around by the likes of Detective Inspector Rollins.’

‘That’s very good news, but can you tell me what’s made you change your mind?’

Quickly, Jude brought her neighbour up to speed with what she’d heard from Oliver Parsons.

‘Excellent,’ said Carole, though an unworthy part of herself felt a little put out. She had been pleased with the way the investigation had been proceeding with her in sole charge. The idea of having Jude back at full throttle caused a momentary pang. From a child, Carole Seddon had never been that good at sharing.

‘Anyway,’ she went on, ‘I have decided that, for the next stage of our investigation, we need to contact—’

‘Persephone St Clair!’

Carole was miffed by the interruption, because that was exactly what she had been about to say. And her nose wasn’t immediately set back in joint by Jude going on, ‘What’s more, I’ve just this morning made contact with her.’

‘How? Have you got their home number?’

‘No, I did it through Facebook.’ Carole’s sour expression said everything about her views of social media. ‘And what’s more, she’s agreed that we can go over to Barnes to talk to her this morning!’

From Carole’s point of view, in that sentence the ‘we’ was the only word that was welcome. She had had her own plans as to how she was going to contact Persephone St Clair, and she didn’t like having them pre-empted. Still, she worked hard not to let her annoyance show, as Jude rushed back to Woodside Cottage to fetch a warm coat.

As Carole closed the front door of High Tor, Gulliver looked up wistfully from his station by the Aga. It was as if he could tell when his owner was busy on a case.

Having not had long to adjust to the idea of being a wife, Persephone St Clair seemed to have acclimatized very quickly to being a widow. There was a dramatic quality to the way she carried herself, as though preparing to deliver a great speech of bereavement.

She was very pretty in a slightly Kensington way. Round the thirty mark, so a good twenty years younger than Burton. Nor had he just gone for a younger model of Megan. While his first wife had been dark and petite, Persephone was blonde and willowy. She had the kind of upper-crust looks which, Carole recalled, used to feature on the inside pages of Country Life.

The interior of the house in Barnes might have come from the pages of a more contemporary lifestyle magazine. Money from the royalties and international sales of Stray Leaves in Autumn had been poured unstintingly into the pockets of interior architects and designers. There was no feeling of an individual stamp on anything. Al Sinclair, Jude recalled, like many writers, had been almost completely unaware of his surroundings, so any personal touches must have come from his new wife. Looking around the house, Jude reckoned that Persephone, thrilled with the unlimited budget she’d been given, had just opted for the most expensive of everything.

This was reflected in the brand-new BMW sports model parked outside the house. His and Hers Beamers.

The kitchen was further evidence of conspicuous consumption. It was an archipelago of islands, of marble, granite, glass and brushed steel. Every appliance was state-of-the-art. Its antiseptic cleanliness made even the kitchen at High Tor look welcoming.

Having taken their coffee orders and set the state-of-the-art machine in motion, Persephone volunteered to Carole and Jude that she had worked in the publicity department of the firm which published Stray Leaves in Autumn. ‘Still working there. Well, haven’t been in there the last week, obviously. Work under my maiden name. Persephone Sackwright-Newbury.’ As this would suggest, her voice combined the tinkle of cut glass with the crackle of fifty-pound notes. ‘The idea was that I would continue working until …’ Her dark blue eyes glazed with tears.

They were meant to complete the unfinished sentence in their minds. Until she became pregnant, they both surmised. They were also meant to complete the implication, that it now would be Persephone’s tragedy never to carry Burton’s child. Jude, not a habitual cynic, suspected that, just as he had with Megan, the author would once again have put off permanently the creation of any rival to his pre-eminence in his own household.

Persephone did not seem to need any prompts to continue her heartbreaking narrative. ‘We got to know each other when I was looking after Burton on the publicity tour for the hardback of Stray Leaves. We just clicked.’

In some hotel in Manchester, Jude surmised. Or maybe Glasgow, or Leeds. Two people thrown together by work – a fifty-something author of waning charms and wandering hands, a beautiful younger woman impressed by his success and watching her twenties drift away. A few drinks at a talk and book signing, more drinks in the hotel bar, then the minibar in one or other of their rooms – it was not difficult to fill in the details of how the affair started. The only surprise, really, was that it had gone the distance into marriage.

‘Presumably,’ said Carole, feeling it was about time they got down to the business of investigation, ‘the police have talked to you about your husband’s death?’

‘Oh yes,’ Persephone replied in tragic mode. ‘It was from them that I first heard about it. I hadn’t worried about Burton not coming back on Tuesday night. He’d left it open whether he’d come home or stay in a hotel.’ (Softening his new wife up for when he embarked on future infidelities, thought Jude cynically.) ‘But then on Wednesday morning … The knock on the door that you’ve heard so often on television dramas, but which you never thought would be for you. It was terrible.’

‘It must have been,’ Carole agreed briskly.

‘Just so appalling … the idea that Burton will never write another book like Stray Leaves.’

Jude could think of a lot of little old ladies in Fethering who would agree with that sentiment. She thought she herself would probably manage to survive the tragedy. But she felt one of them ought to show a little sympathy for the girl and, not expecting it to come from Carole, said, ‘It must be terrible for you, Persephone, to be widowed so early into your married life.’

‘It is,’ the girl acknowledged with a devout lowering of her head. ‘I will never get over it. I will never love again.’

Entirely appropriate sentiments for a woman not a week widowed, but somehow Jude suspected that Persephone was young enough to bounce back. She’d got the impression that one of the attractions of marriage had been the prospect of starting a family, and felt sure there were plenty of young men out there who’d be more than happy to have such a beautiful mother for their children. Jude also wondered whether Persephone’s parents might not be happier with a new son-in-law nearer their daughter’s age than their own. She did not think the girl’s future would be wholly grim.

Carole was still keen to get on with the business of detection. ‘Apart from the police’s notifying you of your husband’s death, they have presumably also interviewed you about how it happened?’

‘Oh yes. Of course, I was in a terrible state of shock, but I tried to answer their questions as well as I could.’

And you enjoyed every minute of it, thought Jude. She was slightly surprised that the girl brought out such deep cynicism in her. Maybe it reflected the ambivalence she’d always felt towards Burton himself. She had a feeling that, in his marriage to Persephone, shallow had called to shallow.

‘Presumably,’ Carole persisted, ‘you were told that your husband died from anaphylactic shock after ingesting something with walnut in it?’

‘They told me that, yes.’

‘And you were aware of his walnut allergy?’

‘Of course. It was heavily marked up on his notes. When we were touring the country promoting Stray Leaves, I had to check the menu for literary lunches, that kind of thing. And also ensure that he never went anywhere without his EpiPen.’

‘He did have it with him when he left here on Tuesday for Fethering?’

‘Oh, certainly.’

‘Where would he carry it?’ asked Jude. ‘In his jacket pocket?’

‘Most of the time. If he was driving, he’d put it in the glove compartment of the car.’

‘So it’s possible that’s where he put it on Tuesday?’

‘Yes. He definitely did. The police told me so. That’s where they found it. Though why he couldn’t get to it in time when he felt the anaphylactic shock coming on, I’ll never know …’ Once again, she dissolved into self-regarding tears.

‘Where did Burton usually carry his car keys?’ asked Carole suddenly. ‘In his trouser pocket?’

‘No. He always said he didn’t like to spoil the line of his trousers by having more than a handkerchief in the pockets.’ Persephone let out a tragic little chuckle. ‘I’m afraid even someone like Burton did have his little vanities.’ They were the main component of his personality, thought Jude, as the widow went on, ‘He always put his car keys in his jacket pocket. And his wallet. And his small change, come to that.’

Carole and Jude exchanged looks. They were both thinking the same thing: that the author’s leather jacket had been left in the Fethering Library staff room, from where his car keys could have been extracted by anyone who wanted to get into his ‘Beamer’.

The mention of the car’s glove compartment started a new thought in Jude’s mind. ‘Back when I spent time with Al … Burton,’ she began tentatively, ‘he used to drink quite a lot.’

Persephone chuckled. ‘Occupational hazard for writers. For publishers too, come to that. Friend of mine once described publishing as “an industry floated on a sea of alcohol”. Certainly, Burton and I always used to bond over a bottle of wine … or two.’ The recollection brought a catch to her throat. With an effort, she continued, ‘Anyway, Burton concentrated so ferociously when he was writing, that when he stopped he always needed what he called “a couple of stiff ones”, to bring him back into the real world.’

‘Would you have said he had a drink problem?’ asked Carole, who didn’t know where Jude’s enquiry was leading.

‘Oh, good heavens, no, Burton could hold his drink. He never appeared drunk. I’ve never seen him drunk. He’s always – that is, he always was – very articulate when he’s – when he was – drinking. Had the odd hangover, of course, went with the territory, but that never stopped him from being behind his keyboard, writing, at nine o’clock in the morning. He was like Hemingway, in that respect.’

And saw himself as like Hemingway in many other respects. Not just the great drinker, but the great adventurer, the great womanizer, the great innovating writer. None of which he was, thought Jude uncharitably. Though that was not what she said. ‘Back when I saw a lot of Burton …’ she began.

‘Back when he was with his first wife?’

‘Yes.’

‘That bitch Megan.’

‘She was a friend of mine,’ said Jude, scrupulously fair in such matters. ‘She was never a bitch to me, not back then, anyway. But I’m sure you’ve heard a different version of her from Burton. Ex-partners are not always each other’s best character witnesses.’

‘Huh. Well, from everything I’ve heard, Burton was well out of that marriage.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Megan totally ignored him. All she thought about was her career.’ Jude did not make any further comment. ‘And she didn’t like sex, that’s for sure. Burton had to beg and plead to get even a kiss from her. From everything he said about her, it was pretty clear that she was frigid.’

Still, Jude bit her tongue, as she listened to the litany of complaint that so many men over the ages have levelled at their former partners. But she wasn’t prepared for what Persephone said next.

‘It was Megan’s frigidity that drove Burton into your arms, Jude.’

Oh God, that was completely typical. Burton had taken over Megan’s lie about their affair and made it his own. Perhaps, with the passage of the years, he had convinced himself of its truth just as much as his ex-wife had. Or, more likely, he had used the story to provide some kind of justification for the break-up of his first marriage. Either way, he had convinced Persephone that the relationship had happened.

Jude looked across at Carole and saw from the beadiness in her eye that she’d get no support from that quarter. Carole’s wild fantasies about her neighbour’s sex life had just received further confirmation.

The record would have to be set straight at some point, but right now Jude had more important priorities. ‘Back when I saw a lot of Burton,’ she repeated, ‘it wasn’t just the wine that he drank. He also got through a great deal of whisky. In fact, he always used to carry around a hipflask full of the stuff.’

‘Oh, yes, he still did that,’ said Persephone St Clair. ‘He had this horrible old pewter thing. I bought him a new silver one as a wedding present. But whenever Burton went off to a speaking gig, he always had the hipflask in the glove compartment of his car.’

In the immaculate Renault on the way back to Fethering, Jude didn’t say how exultant she felt, but Carole could sense the euphoria bubbling up from the passenger seat. It was only now the threat had been lifted, that Jude realized just how much stress the suspicions of the last week had put on her. As soon as the car stopped outside Woodside Cottage, she rushed inside to make an essential phone call.

Detective Inspector Rollins answered at the first ring.

‘It’s Jude.’

‘Ah, yes. I was expecting you to call. I hope you had a pleasant visit to Persephone St Clair.’

A few hours earlier those words would have been deeply unsettling, but now nothing could cast Jude down. ‘I did, thank you very much,’ she replied. ‘And I suggest you can probably lift the surveillance on me now.’

A harsh laugh echoed down the line. ‘If you think we can afford police resources to keep someone like you under surveillance, then you flatter yourself.’

‘Then how did you know?’

‘Mrs St Clair rang to tell us you were going.’

‘Oh. And did she also tell you about the hipflask of whisky that her husband habitually carried with him?’

‘She did, but we’d already known about that for a long time. As have you.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Megan Sinclair said you spoke to her about the hipflask when you met last week.’

‘Well, she reminded me about it.’

‘She said you brought the subject up.’

‘That’s just not true!’

The Inspector’s silence made Jude realize just how guilty her protestations made her sound. She took a deep breath to regain control and said, ‘Presumably you haven’t found the hipflask?’

‘No.’

‘Well, if no trace of walnut was found on the pieces of the broken wine bottle …’ Jude was encouraged that the Inspector did not even question that assertion, ‘… then presumably you might be thinking that the substance might have been put into the hipflask instead?’

‘Of course we have considered that possibility, Jude,’ Rollins said testily.

‘Anyway, whichever way you look at the situation, it means I’m no longer on your list of suspects, doesn’t it?’

‘Why not?’

‘Well, for heaven’s sake!’ Jude contained her anger, and went on calmly, ‘Whereas I might, by some stretch of the imagination, have had the opportunity to infiltrate walnut oil into the open bottle of wine in the library staff room, how am I supposed to have got it into a hipflask in the glove compartment of Burton St Clair’s car? Surely it’s more likely that the hipflask was sabotaged at an earlier time, possibly even before he arrived in Fethering?’

‘Jude, you are the only person known to have got into Burton St Clair’s car that evening.’

‘Yes, but I got into it when he was already in there! Are you suggesting that I sat in the passenger seat, with Burton watching, calmly removed his hipflask from the glove compartment, decanted some huile de noix and made him drink it, while all the time he was trying to grope me?’

‘I am not suggesting that, no.’

‘Thank God for small mercies.’

‘On the other hand, I am saying that Burton St Clair’s leather jacket, in which he carried his car keys, was left unattended in the library staff room. So it would in theory have been possible for someone—’

‘Why not say me?’

‘I said “someone”, Jude … in the confusion of the evening, to have entered his car and poisoned the hipflask.’

‘It sounds pretty unlikely.’

‘In our enquiries the “unlikely” is something we can never rule out.’

‘Huh.’

‘So, if “someone” had done that, and the same “someone” had gone into his car later and encouraged him to take a swig from the hipflask, then—’

‘Look, can you cut the “someone”? Why not name me? You’ve already said I’m the only person who got into his car that evening.’

‘I said you were the only person known to have got into his car that evening.’

‘So, say I did it, where’s your evidence? Where’s the hipflask, come to that? If Detective Sergeant Knight would like to conduct another search of Woodside Cottage, he’s welcome to do it any time he likes. Send him round now, if you like!’

‘That won’t be necessary at this stage, thank you, Jude. Besides, I very much doubt that we would find anything.’

‘Oh?’

‘I don’t need to tell you that Fethering is by the seaside. I would have thought anyone walking from the library along the front to the centre of the village with an incriminating hipflask in their pocket would have taken advantage of the facilities provided.’

‘Chucked it in the sea, you mean?’

‘That’s exactly what I mean. We’d be very unlikely to find it there.’

‘So, what you are saying basically, Detective Inspector Rollins, is that I am still on your list of suspects?’

‘Yes, and I’m afraid you will remain there until we find some actual proof of your innocence.’

‘I see,’ said Jude.

But her mood was no longer feeble and paranoid. Now she was just furiously angry.