The Shooting in the Shop

Fourteen

She woke the next morning still glowing with success. The relief that she normally experienced on reaching Boxing Day was a much more positive sensation than she had felt in recent years, and she decided to put into action a plan she had been toying with for the previous twenty-four hours.

Boxing Day might be a fine time for professional policemen to pursue murder inquiries, but amateurs found things more difficult. Everyone battened down their hatches over the Christmas period; it was not the ideal opportunity for casual calling on people by those with investigative intentions.

But certain imperatives overrode seasonal considerations and, as Carole was never left in any doubt by Gulliver, dog-walking was one of them. The rhythm of a dog’s life cannot be interrupted by public holidays or international events. When a dog needed to be walked, it very definitely had to be walked.

Carole was banking on the fact that her quarry’s dog had the same sense of priorities, and in this conjecture she was proved to be correct. Though she had woken soon after six, she resisted Gulliver’s heavy hints that he wanted to go out for his walk at the normal time and waited till just before seven-thirty. At that time, given the fact that it was Boxing Day, she knew the only people on Fethering Beach would be dog-walkers.

And, as she had hoped, one of them was the owner of a West Highland terrier with a Black Watch coat on. It was Anna from Gallimaufry, her blonded hair again hidden by a thick scarf. Normally, on seeing someone she knew – and even more someone she didn’t know – on Fethering Beach, Carole Seddon’s reaction would have been to take a route as far away from them as possible. But on this occasion she led Gulliver straight towards the woman. The two dogs circled each other warily.

“Hello. Anna, isn’t it?” said Carole.

“Yes, that’s right. I recognize you from the shop, but I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.” The woman spoke strangely, almost surprised at hearing her own voice. From her own experience, Carole knew this was because she had not spoken to anyone for the last twenty-four hours. Anna had spent Christmas Day on her own.

“Carole Seddon.”

“How nice to meet you properly. And I’m Anna Carter.” She seemed almost pathetically grateful to be talking to someone. Gulliver and the Westie had reached a mutual conclusion that the other dog was no threat. Not even very interesting. They had loped off in different directions to snuffle about in separate piles of shingle.

“I hope you don’t mind my just coming up to you like this, Anna, but I did want to say how sorry I was about what happened to…” Carole couldn’t bring herself to say ‘Gallimaufry’ – “the shop.”

“It was terrible. God knows where I’ll get another job around here.”

Carole hadn’t considered that consequence of the fire. “Oh, I’m sure you’ll be able to find something.”

“I don’t know. It took me a while to find the vacancy at Gallimaufry. No one’s been recruiting much recently, and I’m sure it’ll be worse after Christmas.”

“Something’ll turn up,” said Carole, doing a passable impression of the kind of person who always looked on the bright side. “Do you live here in Fethering?”

“Yes, I moved in in September. I haven’t met many people yet.”

“Oh, I’m sure you soon will. You’ll find we’re a friendly bunch.” Carole didn’t know why she found herself saying things like that. In her own mind she had formed many descriptions of the denizens of Fethering. The one she had never come up with was ‘a friendly bunch’.

“Have you moved here from far away?”

“Quite a distance.” Carole recognized the intonation Anna used on her answer. It was one she’d often resorted to herself and was designed to deflect further questions. Well, that was fine. Carole didn’t particularly want to know the woman’s life history. She did want to know, however, any information Anna might have that would shed light on the recent tragedy at Gallimaufry.

Without discussing where they were going, they both seemed to agree to walk in the same direction, while the two dogs made ever wider loops around them. The tide was low, the sea a sullen sludge-green with small scummy waves that lapped against the shore. The air was cold enough to give their faces a light scouring. “I’m sorry to ask you the question that everyone in Fethering must have been asking you for the last few days…”

“I haven’t seen that many people,” said Anna, confirming Carole’s perception of her loneliness.

“Oh. Well, I’m afraid it still is an obvious question. Do you have any idea what started the fire?”

“Not really.”

“I was assuming some of the draping stuff must have caught alight from being too close to all those candles and fairy lights.”

“I’d be surprised if it was that,” said Anna. “The candles were all put out when we closed up the shop. And those lights are special ones, you know. Passed safety regulations. They give out very little heat.”

“Then do you have any idea what might have started it?”

The woman shrugged under her layers of coat and echoed Gerald Hume’s diagnosis. “Maybe an electrical fault.”

“You don’t think it was started deliberately?”

“Why should it be?”

“Insurance? From all accounts the business wasn’t doing that well.”

“So who might have started it, then?”

“The owners?”

Anna stopped in her tracks and looked incredulously at Carole. “Ricky?” Instinctively she added, “Ricky wouldn’t ever do anything like that.” She seemed affronted by the suggestion.

“Or Lola, I suppose.”

“No way. There is just no way either of them would have done that. Ricky’s loaded. I think Gallimaufry was almost a game to him, a bauble he tossed the way of his bored young wife to keep her occupied and to stop her nosing into his business. He never expected to make any money out of it.”

“But is he still loaded? I know he has made a lot of money at times but – ”

“Ricky will never have any money worries. That’s one thing of which I’m absolutely certain.” The woman’s conviction was as strong as Flora Le Bonnier’s had been on the same subject. “He’s just one of those very blessed, very charismatic people for whom everything always goes right.” Her admiration for him seemed as strong as Flora’s, too.

“Well, whatever did cause the fire,” said Carole, “I’m sure the police investigations will discover it.”

“I wouldn’t have thought it was a police matter. There was no criminal involvement. And no one got hurt.”

It was Carole’s turn to look incredulous, before the realization came to her that Anna did not actually know about the death in the inferno of Gallimaufry. The murder.

They had now arrived at the top of the beach, where the straggling grass of the dunes gave way to the stretch of pavement which was rather grandly known as ‘the Promenade’. Anna was busying herself with reattaching the lead to her Black-Watched Westie. They had nearly reached the parting of the ways.

Carole wished desperately she could suggest they go somewhere for a cup of coffee, but she couldn’t have chosen a worse time to put that idea into practice. At eight o’clock on Boxing Day morning there would be very little open in the entire British Isles, certainly nothing in Fethering.

But the Promenade did feature some glass-walled shelters with rusty metal frames. So terrified was she of her recurrent image of an elderly person sitting in one that in normal circumstances Carole kept well clear of them. But these weren’t normal circumstances. With uncharacteristic boldness, she took Anna’s arm and led her to sit down. “There’s something I must tell you. I’m afraid it’s not very good news.”

Gulliver had wandered off down to the shoreline. Perhaps he’d seen the other dog being put back on its lead and was trying to postpone his own similar fate. Anna looked a little surprised at being led into the shelter, but she didn’t say anything. Carole asked if she had heard any news on the radio or television the previous couple of days.

“No, I try to avoid the media. It’s all bloody Christmas stuff, everyone full of bonhomie, comedians dressed up as Santa Claus. I can’t stand it.”

Here was further confirmation of the isolation in which Anna had spent the holiday, but Carole didn’t comment. She simply passed on the information about the discovery of Polly’s body in the wreckage of Gallimaufry, and the subsequent revelation that the girl had been shot.

There was no doubting that this was all news to Anna. She went very white, accentuating the bright redness of her lipstick, and it was a moment or two before she could reply. Finally she managed to say, “How ghastly.”

“Yes. Did you know Polly?”

“I knew of her. I’ve never met her. Ricky talked about her sometimes. Did you really say she’d been shot?” Carole nodded grimly. “Ricky must be in a terrible state.” Anna said that almost as though the thought gave her comfort.

“I don’t know how he’s taking it. My friend Jude – she’s the one I was in the shop with last week – she’s spoken to Lola, but that was just when we’d heard that Polly’s body had been found in the shop. Before we knew she’d been shot.”

“It’s ghastly,” Anna repeated, shaking her head as if she could dislodge the unsettling image of the murder.

“What’s odd is why Polly came back to Fethering. Ricky had apparently taken her to Fedborough Station to catch a train back to London. You don’t have any idea why she might have changed her plans?”

“I told you, Carole, I never met her. All I know is that Ricky had a child from one of his previous marriages.”

“Do you know how many marriages he’s had?” Carole knew the answer – Jude had told her – but she thought it might be worth finding out how much Anna knew about Ricky’s past.

“Certainly three. There may have been more. He seems to have gone through relationships like an emotional wrecking ball.”

“Three including Lola?”

“Yes. He was married very young to the girl next door, or at least only a few doors away. Can’t remember what her name was, but they split up when he moved up to London and started in the music business. Then there was a second wife whose name I don’t know either, but I think she was the mother of Polly. Whether Ricky was Polly’s father or not, I don’t know. Finally, after, I’m sure, various and diverse entanglements, he met Lola.”

Carole couldn’t see any reason to tell Anna about Ricky’s other wife. Instead she asked, “And, from what you can gather, that’s a happy marriage?”

The woman’s face froze, as it had done when the subject arose of where she had lived before Fethering. “I have no idea. From what the public sees, everything seems to be fine.”

“But you don’t – ?”

“I don’t know anything more about them than you do!”

Carole took the hint and changed the subject. “How many people have keys to Gallimaufry?”

“Well, Lola does, obviously. And – ” She stopped at the sound of her mobile ringing. The haste with which she snatched it out of her pocket suggested that she was expecting someone to contact her. When she recognized the number, disappointment flickered across her face and she rejected the call. She replaced the phone in her pocket and stretched out her arms. “I must be getting back.”

“Sorry, you were just telling me who had keys to the shop…”

“Yes.” For the first time the look she directed to her interrogator was edged with suspicion. “Why do you want to know?”

Carole shrugged sheepishly. “Just natural curiosity.” Before Anna could say anything, she went on, “I’m sorry, but Fethering’s a very nosy place.”

“You don’t have to tell me that.”

“No, and with something like this happening…a murder…well, I’m afraid you’re going to get a lot of questions like the one I’ve just asked you, Anna. So I suppose you have to decide whether you’re going to just ignore them all or come up with some answers.”

Carole knew this apparent ingenuousness was a risk, and she waited tensely to see how the woman would react. Fortunately, she’d chosen the right approach. “You’re right,” said Anna. “I’d better practise my act, hadn’t I? All right, let’s start with the keys at Gallimaufry…Lola has a set, Ricky has a set, I have a set. There’s also a spare set hidden at the back of the building, in case of emergencies. But I’m not going to tell anyone where they are.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to.”

“No.” Anna was silent for a moment, then said, “I’m still having difficulty taking this in. You say Polly was shot?”

“It was on the television news.”

“Ricky must be in a dreadful state. I can’t begin to think what the situation must be like up at his place.”

“Not the most relaxed it’s ever been, I would imagine.”

“He must be totally preoccupied by the tragedy. Not able to think about anything else.” And again there seemed a perverse note of satisfaction in Anna’s voice. She shook her head in bewilderment. “But Polly…shot dead…”

“Yes.”

“God, that’s amazing. I mean, why on earth would anyone do that?”

“The very question all the inhabitants of Fethering – not to mention the investigating police officers – are asking.”

There was a silence. Unaccountably, Carole found herself tempted to ask how Anna had actually spent her Christmas. She felt sure it had been in bleak solitude, as her own had been for the past few years. But the urge towards empathy was stopped by the remembrance that her own Christmas the day before had been enlivened by the presence of Stephen, Gaby and Lily. To probe into Anna’s life might be intruding on private grief.

So, instead, she pressed on with another investigative question. “Did you know either Ricky or Lola before you moved to Fethering?”

For some reason, this was a step too far. With a curt, “No. Now if you’ll excuse me I must be on my way,” Anna had gathered herself up, brought her snoozing dog up to its feet, and set off into the village.

Leaving Carole sitting in a rusty shelter on Fethering Promenade, the image of unhappy retirement which she had striven so hard to avoid. She was quickly up and off to collect Gulliver. Then she went straight back to High Tor.