‘You mean …?’
‘He did sound pretty low when we talked to him on Saturday.’
Pete nodded thoughtfully. ‘I hadn’t thought of that possibility.’
‘But he could have deliberately sabotaged the heater?’
‘Certainly could. For anyone who’d been in the building trade as long as Harry, to set that up would not have been a problem.’
While Jude was dressing, she had a moment’s doubt. Thinking of the phone call she’d had on the Saturday evening, was there any justice in Veronica Lasalle’s accusations? Harry Lasalle’s wife had berated Carole and Jude for ‘stirring things up’. And now her husband was dead, possibly by his own hand.
Instinctively, Jude didn’t feel any guilt, but she wondered whether she should. Whatever accusations had been made about Harry Lasalle at the time of Anita Garner’s disappearance had been ‘very hurtful’. They had even affected his business. Which must have meant the allegations were pretty serious.
But, from her brief acquaintance with the man, Jude hadn’t got the impression of someone hypersensitive, who needed to be cotton-wooled. If he felt guilty enough to kill himself, then Jude reckoned he must have committed some offence against Anita Garner and was worried about the truth coming out, thirty years on.
This conclusion made her even more determined to find out the facts of what had happened. To which end, she went next door to High Tor and invited herself in for a cup of coffee. She had plenty to tell her neighbour.
Armed with the news of Veronica Lasalle’s call to Jude and her husband’s subsequent death, Carole announced that she was going to talk further to Malk Penberthy.
When the wind blew in directly off the sea, Fethering could be seriously cold. And that morning it was. But Jude had wrapped herself up in a long floral, faux-fur-lined coat she had bought for a fiver at a jumble sale. By way of fastenings, it had rope loops and toggles. She knew, if she didn’t go out for a walk, she would never get her circulation going, and feel cold all day. Her other fallback heating option, lighting a fire in the sitting room, was off the menu because Pete was painting in there.
She pulled a burgundy woollen hat a long way down over her hair, shoved her hands in the coat’s faux-fur-lined pockets and set off on her warming-up exercise. Reckoning the wind straight off the sea would be too chilling, she avoided the beach and walked along the residential streets north of Fethering Parade. As ever, she couldn’t stop her mind from creating backstories to the lives lived behind all those respectable front windows.
But these speculations could not entirely shut out of her mind thoughts of Harry Lasalle and Anita Garner.
She heard her mobile ring. Damn, it was in the pocket of her fleece, under the coat.
By the time she had negotiated the toggles and the faux-fur, the caller had resorted to leaving a message.
Brandie. Jude called her back. ‘How’re you doing, love?’
‘Fine. Just wanted to ask you something.’
‘Ask away.’
‘About Ted Crisp.’
‘Oh?’
‘What kind of person is he, Jude?’
‘What kind of person? Well, he’s … er …’
‘I think he has a good soul.’
‘Yes. Yes, Brandie. Nothing wrong with his soul.’
‘You said that as if there are other parts of his personality where things aren’t so healthy.’
‘Did I? I didn’t mean to. No, Ted’s … well, he’s … He’s very kind. He’s been a good friend to me over the years. He’s … um … well, he’s probably not exactly at the sharp end of the political-correctness spectrum. And his sense of humour is … Well, he used to be a stand-up comic but it didn’t really work out for him. Even Ted himself would admit that his jokes are lousy. Sorry, Brandie, why are you asking me this?’
‘Because I’m going to have lunch with him today.’
‘Oh. Very nice. Where? At the Crown and Anchor?’
‘No, at a vegan restaurant in Brighton.’
Vegan? Ted Crisp? What the hell was going on?
Inevitably, it was Starbucks again. Malk Penberthy looked less relaxed than he had at their previous meeting there.
‘You’ve heard, presumably, about Harry Lasalle?’ Carole began in a businesslike way, once they were at a table with their coffees.
‘Yes. I may not still have the range of information conduits I once had, but that news did filter through the Fethering bush telegraph.’
‘My neighbour Jude met him for the first time on Saturday. He was very down, she said. The consensus seems to be that he committed suicide.’
He smiled. ‘Is there anywhere on God’s earth where a consensus can build up more quickly than in Fethering? As to the verdict of suicide, I wouldn’t be qualified to comment on that. One thing my journalistic training did teach me is that one should never announce conclusions until one has enough facts to back them up. In this case, I don’t know enough about the background to offer an opinion.’
‘Oh, come on, Malk. You know as much about the background as anyone in Fethering.’
‘Maybe I did once,’ he said, rather primly, ‘but I’m retired now.’
‘The events we’re talking about occurred long before you were retired.’
‘I thought we were talking about Harry Lasalle’s death. That only happened yesterday.’
Carole looked at the old journalist beadily, certain that he was being deliberately obtuse. ‘What I am interested in is the cause of Harry Lasalle’s death.’
‘I thought the consensus on that was carbon monoxide poisoning.’
‘Malk, you know what I mean.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t.’ He took refuge in a long swallow of coffee.
‘When we met before,’ Carole persisted, ‘when I asked you about possible relationships Anita Garner might have had while she was working at Footscrow House, you talked in general terms about the common phenomenon of bosses “coming on” – with impunity – to members of their staff.’
‘Did I? I really don’t remember.’ He suddenly sounded very old and confused. Carole felt convinced, however, that it was a ploy to make her back off.
And she wasn’t about to fall for it. ‘Were there any rumours back then of Harry Lasalle “coming on” to his staff?’
Malk Penberthy physically squirmed with discomfort. ‘As I said, such allegations are made about the bosses in any organization. But there was not so much publicity about that kind of thing back then. Women were conditioned to be less assertive. No junior employee would have contemplated taking a senior member of staff to court for sexual harassment … even for rape. Incidents like that got covered up. The complainant would just be moved to another job. In those days, a boss with wandering hands could get away with murder.’
His expression showed he’d just realized the implication of his words.
Carole rubbed it in. ‘Unfortunate thing to say … given the circumstances.’
‘Maybe.’ He looked appropriately cowed.
‘So, Malk, all I’m asking is … At the time of Anita Garner’s disappearance, was there talk of Harry Lasalle having “come on” to her – or even of their being in a relationship?’
‘There was all kinds of talk round that time … as you can imagine in a place like Fethering.’ He was silent.
‘That doesn’t answer my question,’ Carole prompted.
‘No.’
‘Were there actual accusations of sexual harassment levelled at Harry Lasalle?’
Another silence. Then, ‘All right, yes, there were. A couple of the other younger care staff claimed that Harry had … touched them up.’
‘And did they say whether he’d done the same to Anita?’
‘I don’t think they had any proof of it, but they suggested it was likely that he had. Listen,’ he pleaded, ‘these were two young girls, still in their teens, and suddenly they’re the centre of media attention … not just me from the Fethering Observer, but the nationals were briefly interested in Anita Garner’s disappearance. Radio reporters, television crews. So, these kids loved their moment in the spotlight, and they probably embellished their stories to keep the focus on themselves. They told the national press what the national press wanted to hear.’