The Torso in the Town

Forty

Her customary good manners forgotten, Carole Seddon hammered hard on the door. “I don’t understand why we’re here,” Ted Crisp complained behind her. “I don’t see what the reason – ”

“This is the only lead we’ve got. We must save Jude. I’m certain she’s with the person who murdered Virginia and Roddy Hargreaves.”

When the door was opened by a surprised-looking Alan Burnethorpe, Carole blurted out, “All right, where is she?”

“Joke? She’s not here.”

Pushing past him into the hall of 47 Pelling Street with uncharacteristic force, Carole announced, “I must see her!”

“Joke’s away for the weekend with the kids. In Naaldwijk with her parents. I’m on my own.”

“I wasn’t talking about Joke! You’ve got someone else here!”

“Who’s there? Is that Carole?”

It was a woman’s voice, but it wasn’t Jude’s. Carole looked up to where the words had come from. At the top of the splendid staircase stood Debbie Carlton. Except for a towel gathered hastily round her waist, she was naked.

“Debbie, Jude’s missing! She’s not here, is she?”

“Good heavens, no.”

“I think she’s in serious danger!”

“What the hell’s going on here?” Alan Burnethorpe looked grudgingly out to an embarrassed Ted Crisp, still poised in the doorway. “You’d better come in. We don’t want all Fedborough hearing about this.”

As the door closed behind him, the landlord of the Crown and Anchor stood awkwardly in the hall, looking at anything other than Debbie Carlton’s small pointed breasts.

“Now can we have some explanations?” asked Alan Burnethorpe wearily. “Your friend isn’t here. Nor’s Joke. What is it you want?”

Carole was nonplussed. She had steamed up to 47 Pelling Street, convinced that she was going to find Jude there. Now she had to find some explanation for her arrival that didn’t accuse her unwilling host of abduction and worse crimes.

“It’s to do with the time Virginia Hargreaves disappeared…” she improvized desperately. “The time she was murdered.”

“In that case, I don’t want to hear about it. You have pushed your way into my house and – ”

“No, Alan. I want to hear about it.” Debbie Carlton, completely unashamed – or perhaps unaware – of her nakedness, was moving slowly down the stairs. “What is this?”

Carole’s mind was moving fast. Having rejected one idea, she had stumbled on to something potentially even more promising. She pieced her thoughts together. “The week before Virginia Hargreaves died, she was ill, confined to bed. Joke, as her housekeeper, had to look after her. I wanted to ask Joke the exact nature of her employer’s illness.”

“I can tell you,” said Alan Burnethorpe curtly. “If it means you leave my house quicker, I will tell you.”

“How do you know?”

“Let’s say I was…in touch with Virginia Hargreaves at the time. She was suffering from food poisoning. Salmonella.”

“From something she had eaten?”

“Yes.”

“Something cooked by Joke?”

“Probably.”

As Alan Burnethorpe spoke, Carole looked at Debbie Carlton. Her face was almost as pale as her blonde hair. What had just been said contained some private pertinence for her.

“One more question,” said Carole. “Alan, are you related to the Trollope family?”

“The butchers?”

He looked at her in bewilderment, then turned towards Debbie as she said, “He’s not, but I am. My mother was Len Trollope’s daughter.”