It was Carole’s view that this level of security was unnecessary. Had the cupboard contained copies of Shakespeare’s First Folio, there might have been some point. But back numbers of a local newspaper …? And the Fethering Observer at that …? Graciously restrained, however, she did not share her opinion with the librarian. Just waited patiently while Di Thompson dealt with an elderly enquirer at the issue desk.
There was always a shelf of flyers for local events in the library. Yoga classes, cookery courses, a book group. Carole was not attracted to participate in any of them. She was not by nature a joiner. If the subject of such activities ever came up, she would say she was far too busy to get involved. Busy, busy, busy. The real reason was that she was afraid of exposing herself to the scrutiny of others.
There was a pile of flyers for a Pottery Open Day the following Wednesday. An invitation to visit the studio of Lauren Givens. Carole gave a mental snort (she was good at mental snorts). She had better things to do with her time than find out how ceramic toadstools were made.
Di Thompson, now free, helped her carry the blue-bound volumes to the desk that Carole had appropriated. The previous day, the librarian had explained the indexing that applied to the individual issues. The system had proved very inadequate, supplying far too little information. One or two major local topics, like the endless proposals for rerouting the bypass around Fedborough, had multiple references listed, but following lesser stories through was a matter of trial and error.
The two women knew each other well enough to exchange pleasantries. Carole had rejoined the library for those weekends when her two granddaughters, Lily and Chloe, came down to stay. She knew the fun the little girls could have there and, in a rather old-fashioned way, she preferred the idea of them reading books at High Tor than watching television. For her, words on a page would always be more worthy than images on a screen.
But Carole and Di Thompson would never have revived the other topic that had brought them together. Some years before it had happened – the murder of a visiting author in the library car park, for which Jude was at one stage the chief suspect … Well, that wasn’t the kind of thing Carole Seddon would have continued to discuss with a librarian. When it came to polite conversation, she had her standards.
Her research that morning felt desultory. She had left the library the previous day, feeling that the back numbers of the Fethering Observer could yield a lot more information but, as she flicked through the pages, the law of diminishing returns kicked in. Most of the obvious stuff about Anita Garner’s disappearance she had found the previous day. She was now shuffling through the newspapers’ pages almost at random, hoping to chance on some new detail. And without marked success.
She recalled the other names which had been mentioned in the Crown and Anchor the previous evening. See if she could find any references to them. The Benyons’ son Kent had been at school with Anita Garner. So had the extremely fortunate Glen Porter, who perhaps claimed to have had an affair with her … well, a ‘thing’ if not an affair … at least it had been asserted that he’d ‘got inside her knickers’.
Then there was Roland Lasalle, builder’s son, whose parents had put him through private school and university …
Carole did actually find a reference to Roland in a Fethering Observer from some twenty-five years ago. There was half a page of congratulatory flannel about the completion of his architectural training and his being offered a job at a very prestigious London practice ‘working on many international projects’. He was referred to as ‘son of well-known local builder and character Harry Lasalle, who is currently vice-commodore of Fethering Yacht Club’. Harry claimed to be ‘chuffed to bits’ about his son’s success. As was the boy’s mother Veronica. ‘Roly’s always been a hard worker and I’m glad to see it’s paid off for him’.
Until he took up his job in London, Roland Lasalle would be ‘getting his hands dirty, helping out on various maintenance jobs that his father was working on in the Fethering area’.
There was a photograph of father and son. It didn’t ring any bells for Carole, though. Had Jude been there, she would have recognized in the younger Harry Lasalle the greybeard she’d seen storming out of Footscrow House on the day Anita Garner’s handbag was discovered.
A shadow came across the page Carole was reading. She looked up to see an almost emaciatedly thin man standing over her. His face was blotchy with age. A few tufts of hair rose proud of his cranium’s tight skin. He wore what used to be called ‘cavalry twill’ trousers above thick sandals with socks and a pale blue zip-up ‘windcheater’ from another age.
‘I’m so sorry to interrupt you,’ he said, ‘but it is rarely that a writer witnesses someone reading his own work. Of course, it might be more prestigious if the work being read were in the form of a literary novel published by Faber & Faber or Jonathan Cape, rather than in the pages of the Fethering Observer, but it is still a rare honour, of which I am appropriately aware.’
Carole was so surprised by this long speech that it was one of those rare moments when she could think of nothing to say. A smile crinkled across the old man’s face as he continued, ‘I’m sorry. I should have introduced myself. Though, in fact, I do conveniently have a visual aid for just such a purpose.’
He pointed down to the by-line of the piece about Roland Lasalle that Carole was reading. ‘“Malk Penberthy”,’ he read out. ‘At your service. And for many years at the service of the Fethering Observer and its diminishing number of readers. A career of dedicated journalism which, while it may not have scaled the heights of front-page terrorist atrocities in the national dailies, did keep the good burghers of Fethering apprised of new brides’ honeymoon plans, thefts of underwear from washing lines, and the all-important results of local dog shows. May I ask whom I have the honour of addressing?’
‘My name is Carole Seddon.’
‘Enchanted to meet you. And would I be imposing on your goodwill were I to ask you what prompts your avid perusal of that fine, though underestimated, organ, the Fethering Observer?’
She could see no point in dissembling. ‘I am trying to find out more about the disappearance of Anita Garner.’
‘Ah. Some time ago – thirty years we’re talking now – but still one of the great Fethering mysteries. One of the great unsolved Fethering mysteries, I should say.’
‘And one that you covered in your professional capacity?’ She found that, inadvertently, she was dropping into his rather old-fashioned mandarin style of speech.
‘Oh yes, I did. Many was the unprovable theory, false lead and wild rumour I pursued in that quest.’
Carole caught a look from Di Thompson. Though the old cartoon image of library staff constantly saying ‘Ssh’ no longer obtained, the expression did suggest that her domain was not the ideal setting for extended dialogue.
‘I wonder, Malk,’ said Carole, ‘would you have time to join me for a cup of coffee?’
The two of them were united in regret at the closing, some years previously, of Polly’s Cake Shop on the Fethering Parade. Malk was no longer working at the time of the murder that took place there, but he still knew everything about it. His interest in all things Fethering, nurtured throughout his life, was not going to be diminished by something as trivial as retirement.