The Shooting in the Shop

Twenty-Four

“Come in,” said a voice, old but remarkably resonant.

Mentally holding her nose in anticipation of squalor, Carole stepped into Pequod. The first surprise was the cosy warmth that hit her. The second was the lack of unpleasant smells; only a slight resinous aroma from logs on a wood-burning stove and the smoky tang from oil lamps. Their friendly light flickered on the spines of the books with which the whole space seemed to be walled.

In the centre of it Old Garge, dressed in usual down-at-heel style, sat in a subsiding leather armchair. On a small table beside him stood a mug of coffee and, face down, a paperback book of John Clare’s poetry. The piece of classical music ended and was followed by speech, suggesting that his portable was tuned to Radio 3. Curled up on a rug at the man’s feet sat his Jack Russell, ears pricked at the arrival of a newcomer, but otherwise welcoming.

“So…” said Old Garge. “Carole Seddon. And what brings you here?”

“How do you know my name?”

“Most people in Fethering know most people’s names, even if they never speak to each other. I’m afraid the cloak of invisibility in which you imagine you walk around just isn’t very efficient. Where’s Gulliver? You’ve usually got Gulliver with you.”

“He’s at the vet’s.”

“Nothing serious, I hope.”

“Just a couple of stitches in his gums. I’m picking him up later.”

Remembering his manners, Old Garge gestured to an elderly campaign chair. “Please. Would you like some coffee?”

Carole was suddenly struck by the thought that there was nothing she would like more. Standing on the beach and talking to Ruby Tallis had chilled her to the marrow. She accepted the offer and Old Garge moved across to the stove on which an enamel coffee pot stood. He poured a cup of black for her, as requested, and replenished his own. Then, when they were both sitting with drinks in hand, he smiled at her and said, “No doubt it was Ruby Tallis who sent you across here?”

“Yes, it was. How do you know all this?”

“That bit I knew just by using my eyes.” He gestured to a small window which Carole had not noticed before, but which she could see offered a perfect view of the Promenade and most of the beach.

She took a sip of her drink. Contrary to expectations, it was excellent coffee. In fact, everything about Old Garge seemed contrary to her expectations. Because of his appearance, Carole had written him off as some kind of tramp, unwholesome and probably not right in the head. As they talked, she discovered he was intelligent, even cultured.

She couldn’t curb her curiosity about him, and asked whether the hut was his permanent home.

“I have a room rented up in Downside for post and official stuff, but mostly I’m here.”

Carole looked around the space. “I didn’t think the authorities allowed anyone to live permanently in a beach hut.”

“You’re absolutely right, they don’t. Any number of Health and Safety reasons why nobody’s allowed to live in one.”

“But – ”

“But I’m good at finding out things. I’ve got a friend who works for the Fether District Council. He tips me off when there an inspection due, with the result that when the inspectors arrive, I’m in my rented room. I just pop in here for the odd hour, that’s all, so far as the authorities are concerned.”

Carole was surprised how snug and relaxed she felt in Old Garge’s company. He seemed to have his life sorted. Covertly, as she took a sip of coffee, she scrutinized him. In spite of its whiskery roughness, his face was rather distinguished and must once have been handsome. And though his clothes were torn and discoloured, they seemed perfectly clean. He looked not so much like a tramp as like someone playing the part of a tramp. He also seemed to be aware of – and rather amused by – her scrutiny.

“Seen everything you want to see?” he asked, and she blushed furiously. “Oh, don’t worry. I don’t mind people looking at me. It’s quite rare these days. Most of them avert their eyes when they walk past me, or change direction to avoid walking past me. Best I usually get is a Fethering nod.”

Carole knew he was teasing her, by giving such an exact description of her own behaviour.

“Doesn’t worry me,” said Old Garge. “There’re plenty of people who do talk to me, so I keep my gossip reserves well stocked up. So what was Ruby Tallis telling you about this morning? Or rather, which of her husband Derek’s opinions was she telling you about this morning?”

“We talked a bit about dogs.”

“And…?”

“And…local events.”

“Local events, right.” He nodded, still just slightly making fun of her. “And which local events were you talking about?”

“Oh, you know, Christmas and – ”

“I wouldn’t have described Christmas as a local event. I would have said it was very much an international event.”

“Yes, well, but how people spend their individual Christmases, that’s of local interest.”

“And how did you spend yours, Carole?”

She was glad to be able to have a normal-sounding answer to give him. “My son and daughter-in-law and granddaughter came down for lunch on Christmas Day.”

“Very nice too.” He paused for a ruminative sip of coffee. “So you didn’t spend Christmas Day on your own, like you have the last few?”

Carole turned her face away, unwilling to meet his gaze. The ‘eyes and ears of Fethering Beach’ were proving far too well attuned for her taste. Without looking at Old Garge, she asked, “And how did you spend yours?”

“None of my days are very different from each other. Christmas Day I spent here, just like usual. Walked on the beach with Petrarch – that’s the dog – doing my usual ‘Care in the Community’ impression, listened to Radio 3, read some poetry. Do you know, quite often I read poetry out loud in here. No problem this time of year. This time of year I can read away all through the night, if I want to – sleep not being something I’m very good at these days. In the summer, though, when I’ve got the doors open and I’m reading poetry, I do get some funny looks. Parents putting protective arms round children, hurrying them away.” He seemed embarrassed for a moment, as though an unwanted memory had invaded his mind, before hurrying on, “They seem to feel that there’s something unnatural about poetry being read aloud. Makes them think I’m some kind of weirdo.”

“It sounds as if you don’t mind them getting that impression.”

“Well,” he said, rubbing a scaly hand through his white whiskers, “never does any harm to have a bit of mystique, does it?”

“What did you do,” asked Carole boldly, “before you started on your current way of life?”

“What makes you think I haven’t always done this?”

“Something in your manner.”

“Ah, but what?”

“That I can’t currently say.”

The man turned an intense gaze on her. Through the layers of wrinkles around them, his eyes were a pale blue, not unlike her own. He seemed to be assessing whether or not to give her the information she had asked for. After a moment, Old Garge decided in Carole’s favour.

“I used to be an actor,” he said. “In the view of many people, I might still be an actor.”

“Playing the part of Old Garge?”

“Exactly. How very perceptive of you. A role which suits me, possibly the most comfortable piece of casting I’ve ever encountered. Old Garge fits me like a glove.” He gave her another piercing look. “Do you have anything to do with ‘the business’?”

Carole felt very proud that she recognized the expression from conversations with Gaby. “My daughter-in-law is a theatrical agent. Well, that is, she was, until she had her baby. I dare say she’ll go back to it soon.” And yet Carole couldn’t really see that happening in the near future. Gaby seemed so happy and fulfilled with Lily that more babies and full-time motherhood might well keep her away from the agency for quite a while. To her surprise, Carole found the prospect appealing.

“So when,” she went on, “did you give up acting?”

“I thought we’d just established that I haven’t given it up.”

“When did you give up being paid for acting?”

“A better question, but one which I fear I find rather difficult to answer. It’s not so much that I gave up acting as that acting gave up me. Calls from my agent dwindled, reflecting a comparable dwindling in enquiries for my professional services. Then I received the news that my agent had died, and I was faced with the question of whether I should endeavour to get a replacement or not. I fairly quickly decided there wasn’t much point. So I moved out of London and down here, to an area which I have known and loved since my childhood. That would be…some three years ago…probably more. I’ve reached the age where, in discussions of the past, I have to double the number I first thought of. And it may have been some years before that when I last had a professional booking. I still receive occasional, minuscule repeat fees for long-dead television series being sold to Mongolian cable networks, but the last occasion when I received a fee for a current project is lost in the mists of time.”

“Presumably you didn’t act under the name of ‘Old Garge’?”

“No, that would have been a trifle fanciful, wouldn’t it? Going way beyond the demands of having a mystique.” He rose from his seat, reached up to exactly the right spot in his shelves, and pulled down a fat book jacketed in two shades of green. “Spotlight,” he announced. “The actors’ directory. This volume dates from 1974, which is perhaps the nearest my career experienced to a ‘heyday’.”

From much usage, the book opened immediately at a page revealing the photographs and agent details of four actors. “I graced the ‘Leading Man’ section in those days. Later I was downgraded to ‘Character’.”

He held the book across to Carole. In spite of the changes wrought by time, she had no difficulty in identifying the right actor. With dark hair and eyebrows, a long, rather delicate face, Old Garge was still recognizable. Very good-looking in a dated, matinee idol way. The name beneath the photograph was ‘Rupert Sonning’.

Its owner looked fondly at the image. “Yes, me just about ‘on the turn’, I would say. Even then the photograph was a good seven years younger than I was. By that time the waist had thickened, the face spread, the veins in the nose become more visible. No longer in the market for romantic leads, moving towards seedy aristocrats, venal politicians and child molesters.” The thought seemed to cause him pain.

Remembering what she had thought after seeing Flora Le Bonnier in Her Wicked Heart, Carole couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Is it as depressing for a man to lose his looks as it is a woman?”

Old Garge – or Rupert Sonning – burst into laughter. “Full marks for tact, Carole. I know you used to be a civil servant, I think I can now rule out the possibility that you worked in the Diplomatic Service.”

“I’m sorry.” She was flustered both by her social gaffe and also again by his detailed knowledge of her life story.

“Don’t worry, I’ve always favoured the direct approach myself. And the answer to your question is probably yes. In my young days my face was – literally – my fortune. ‘You want a handsome young devil – call for Rupert Sonning!’ Oh yes, I was put through the Rank Charm School, learned how to deal with the press, not to tell them anything except the stories the publicity department had dreamed up for me. Then I did a few of those Gainsborough costume dramas, had a very nice time, thank you very much. And, looking like I did, I was also rather successful as a ladies’ man.” He chuckled, but there was sadness in the expression with which he looked again at his Spotlight photograph. “Still, those times are gone, and I suppose life now has other compensations. Though, inevitably…lesser compensations…”

There was a silence, then Carole asked, “In your acting career, did your path ever cross with that of Flora Le Bonnier?”

He grinned. “Ah, the lovely Flora. Lady Muck herself. Oh yes, our paths crossed. And how.” He chuckled at some fond reminiscence.

“Have you seen her recently?”

A hint of caution came into his pale blue eyes. “Why should I have done?”

“She spent Christmas not far away from here. Near Fedborough. With her son and family.”

“Ah, did she?”

Carole couldn’t tell if this was news to him, but she rather thought it wasn’t. For the first time in their conversation Old Garge had become cagey. But, she reasoned, there was no way he couldn’t know the Le Bonnier connection with Fethering. If he could summon up so many details of her own life – even embarrassing ones about how she’d spent recent Christmases – he must have been aware of Gallimaufry’s opening and of Lola’s connection to Flora Le Bonnier.

“I think you know she did,” said Carole firmly.

The actor spread his hands wide to indicate the end of his small subterfuge. “Yes, all right, I knew that.”

“So have you seen Flora recently? In the last few days?”

“You’re very persistent, Carole, aren’t you?”

“I can be.”

“Hm.” He thought about this. “I don’t think I ever had that quality. Of being persistent. Something lacking in my genetic make-up. Perhaps, had I been more persistent, I might have sustained a more enduring career as an actor.” He shrugged. “Still, one cannot change one’s nature, can one?”

“One can try.”

He considered this assertion, then asked, “Have you tried, Carole? Have you tried to change your nature?”

“At times, yes.”

“Didn’t work, did it?”

Carole would have liked to challenge that, but came to the rueful realization that he was probably right. Time to move back into investigative mode. “Old Garge…I feel a fool calling you Old Garge. As if I’m in some third-rate stage play.”

“But you are.” The old man gestured around the hut. “Look, we’re on the set of a third-rate stage play.”

“Well, I’d rather call you Rupert, if that’s all right with you?”

He inclined his head graciously. “I would be honoured.”

“Rupert, you still haven’t answered my question about whether you’ve seen Flora Le Bonnier recently.”

“True, I haven’t.” He was silent for a moment, teasing her. “But I will answer it now. No. It’s years since I’ve seen Flora.”

“Though at one stage you did see quite a lot of her?”

“We worked together on a few films, just after the war, in the late forties.”

“But was your relationship…”

He grinned, as he repeated firmly, “We worked together on a few films, just after the war, in the late forties. Inevitably, we saw a lot of each other.”

It was the practised ‘We are just good friends’ answer from someone who knew a bit about talking to the press. He did, however, manage to incorporate into it the practised cheeky implication that they might have been more than good friends. Carole recognized she wasn’t going to get anything else out of him on the subject, so she changed tack. “Do you know that Ruby Tallis describes you as ‘the eyes and ears of Fethering Beach’?”

“I wasn’t actually aware of that, but it doesn’t surprise me.”

“Well, having talked to you, I’d say it was a pretty accurate description.” He nodded acknowledgement of the compliment. “So I would have thought you know more than anyone else about what happened the night Gallimaufry burnt down.”

“‘More than anyone else’? I don’t think you can be taking account of the sterling efforts of the official investigators into the incident, the British police. For the sake of our country’s security, I would like to believe that they know more about what happened than I do.”

“Yes, maybe, but…Just a minute, have the police actually questioned you?”

“We did have a brief conversation. Up in my room in Downside.”

“Why not here?”

“As I may have indicated, my presence here may not conform to every last detail of certain regulations. I wouldn’t wish to add the constabulary’s not inconsiderable workload by forcing them to investigate my circumstances. So I thought it would save trouble all round were I to tell them I had spent very little time here over the Christmas period.”

“So you said you weren’t here the night Gallimaufry burnt down?”

“That was exactly what I told them, yes. They had no reason to disbelieve me.”

“Whereas, in actual fact, you were here?”

“You’re a woman of very acute perception, Carole.”

She knew she was being sent up, but was too excited to let it worry her. “Why did you lie to the police?”

Her question seemed to pain him. “It has been my experience that it is always wise to minimize one’s contact with them.”

Had she been less preoccupied by the details of Gallimaufry’s incineration, Carole might have enquired into the reasons behind his reply, but instead, breathlessly, she asked, “Did you see anything that night, Rupert?”

He gestured once again towards the window, through which the blackened ruins of Gallimaufry were clearly visible. “Hard to miss a major conflagration at this distance.”

“So what did you see?”

He was silent and looked at her. The shrewdness in his eyes was so penetrating she once again had to turn away. “Why should I tell you, Carole?”

“You must have told other people. Surely it’s impossible to talk to any of the Fethering Beach Dog-walking Mafia without the subject coming up?”

“The subject certainly comes up and I’m certainly prepared to listened to other people’s theories about it – mostly the theories of Derek Tallis, it has to be said – but I haven’t as yet contributed much of my own to the debate.”

“But there must have been things you saw that night.”

“I’m not denying it. All I’m saying is that I’m very selective about who I’m prepared to share that information with.” Their eyes locked. Yet again it was Carole who looked away first.

“Why are you so selective?” she asked meekly.

“Because the stakes are quite high, aren’t they? When there might be a murder involved. I mean, say I have information that could send someone down for life?”

Carole couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Have you?”

“Let’s keep our discussion in the world of hypothesis for the moment, shall we? But say I did have such information. Whether I share it or not raises rather a substantial moral dilemma.”

“There’s really no dilemma. Relevant information should be passed on to the investigating authorities,” said Carole with the pious rectitude of someone who’d spent all her working life in the Home Office.

“No, I’m sorry, I don’t hold with moral absolutes like that. The question I ask myself is: ‘Who’s likely to be harmed by my passing on this information?’ Is it someone who I think deserves to suffer, or is it someone for whom I feel sympathy?”

“You mean someone who you feel you should protect?”

“Yes, Carole, exactly. That is the question that is currently exercising my mind – and my conscience, and – ”

“But if you actually saw – ”

“And”, he continued firmly, “I haven’t yet decided whether my instinct to protect someone is stronger than the call of my civic duty.”

“But can’t you at least tell me who you’re feeling the instinct to protect?”

“Oh, Carole…” He shook his head pityingly. “You’ll have to do better than that. Were I to tell you the name of the person who might need protection, you’d know almost the whole story, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, but a young woman has died here and everyone has a moral duty to – ”

Her appeal was interrupted by a brisk rapping on the hut door. As they looked towards it, Piers Duncton entered, the habitual cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. He reacted with a narrowing of the eyes to Carole’s presence, but his words were for the benefit of Old Garge – or maybe Rupert Sonning.

“I’ve just come from Lola’s,” he said. “The police are on their way to interview you.”