‘And are you interested?’
‘Why should I be?’
‘If he made you a big enough offer …?’
‘I don’t need money,’ said Glen, in a way that somehow closed the subject.
He took a sip of coffee, put the cup and saucer down firmly and focused his eyes on hers. He was as aware of the serious nature of their encounter as she was.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Let’s get a bit of clarity into things, shall we?’
‘What things?’ asked Jude, with deliberate faux naivety.
He smiled wryly, recognizing the game she was playing. ‘Let’s say that you and your friend Carole have been digging into things that don’t concern you.’
‘How do you define “concern”?’
‘Things that aren’t your business.’
‘That’s just saying the same thing in other words. You may not think it’s our business – or concern, come to that – but we clearly feel differently.’
‘Why? Your motivation is basically nosiness. You’ve got time on your hands, so you get involved in other people’s business … regardless of what harm that might do to the other people concerned.’
‘Glen, you said we needed clarity. It might help then if we were clear about who is actually involved, who might be hurt by our investigations.’
He didn’t answer her direct enquiry by coming up with names. Instead, he looked straight into Jude’s brown eyes and said, ‘I’m assuming that you and your friend don’t get pleasure from causing pain to other people …?’
Jude could have come up with an angry response to that, but instead she just said evenly, ‘You assume correctly.’
‘So, why do you go to such efforts to try to expose people’s secrets?’
‘Because …’ Jude sighed. ‘This is going to sound very pious, I’m afraid, but it’s because we don’t like seeing injustice done. And we don’t feel so bad about causing pain to people who have caused pain to others.’
‘Hm. Very neat. And, as you say, pious.’
‘It’s hard to explain without sounding pious.’
‘Hm.’ He took a long swallow of coffee. ‘And where are your pious enquiries directing you at the moment?’
‘Carole and I think the timing of Harry Lasalle’s death was rather suspicious.’
‘Interesting.’ Was Jude being fanciful to see a slight relaxation of tension in Glen Porter’s face?
‘How much do you know about how Harry died?’ he asked.
‘We know that he was found dead in his boat, Harry’s Dream. In fact, we know that you were the one who found him dead in Harry’s Dream.’
‘I see.’ Another crooked grin. ‘And, following the hackneyed crime fiction trope that the person who finds the body is always the first suspect …?’
Jude was annoyed to feel herself blushing. She was also aware that Glen Porter was very much running the interview. He had summoned her to his beachside stronghold and he was dictating the terms of their conversation. He was also revealing himself to be much more intelligent and articulate than she had expected.
‘I suppose that might be a view,’ she said. It was not nearly as strong a response as she had wanted.
‘Do you, incidentally,’ asked Glen, ‘know what caused Harry Lasalle’s death?’
‘I heard from Pete the decorator that it was carbon monoxide poisoning.’
‘Pete the decorator was right. And do you know how carbon monoxide poisoning works?’
‘Pretty much, I’d say. Not the chemical or biological details but, basically, it chokes you, doesn’t it?’
‘Yes, that’s about right. You die of asphyxiation. But it does take a long time for the gas to build up.’
‘So?’
‘So, if you wanted to examine your theory about me being the first suspect for murdering him because I was first out to Harry’s Dream, let’s go through what I would have had to do. I would have had to get out to the boat in my own boat, board it, sabotage the heating system while Harry wasn’t watching, make idle chatter for what … an hour maybe, while he drank himself insensible … and then make sure that he was lying down in the lowest part of the boat so that the carbon monoxide could do its stuff. I’d have to watch him choke to death … while ensuring that I didn’t succumb to the carbon monoxide myself, and then what? Go back on my own boat to Fethering Yacht Club to raise the alarm? Would you call that a likely scenario?’
Jude was forced to concede that she wouldn’t.
‘And if I didn’t do that,’ Glen Porter pushed on, ‘do you think anyone else is likely to have done it?’
‘No,’ a shamefaced Jude agreed.
‘So, we’re back to two other possibilities, aren’t we? Either poor old Harry died as a result of an accident or … he topped himself. Not being of a romantic or fanciful nature, I favour the accident.’
‘Hm.’
‘You sound disappointed.’
‘Maybe. A little.’
‘All right then, Jude … following the more romantic or fanciful theory … why would a harmless old codger like Harry want to top himself?’
‘Perhaps there was some secret he wanted to keep hidden and he knew it was about to be revealed.’
‘What secret?’
‘Something that would disgrace him … or get him in trouble with the police, maybe?’
Glen Porter’s mouth twisted with scepticism. ‘I don’t think much of that as a theory.’
‘Nor do I,’ said Jude, with renewed spirit. ‘In fact, I much prefer my murder scenario.’
‘Oh God.’ A wry smile. ‘Not with me still featuring at the top of the cast list, I hope?’
‘Maybe not. But murder makes the stakes higher.’
‘Inevitably. I come back, though, to a rather similar question to the one I recently voiced. Why would anyone want to murder a harmless old codger like Harry?’
‘Perhaps because, yes, he did have a secret. But it was a secret whose revelation didn’t threaten him. It threatened someone else.’
‘So that someone else killed him to keep him quiet?’
‘Makes sense to me.’
‘I don’t think it’d make much sense in a court of law, Jude. Depending, of course, on what Harry Lasalle’s combustible secret was. I don’t suppose, by any chance, you know, do you?’
She could only admit another ‘No’.
Once again, she sensed relief in his reaction.
‘So, I suppose, Jude, in your alternative scenarios … be it suicide or murder … the secret that Harry Lasalle was either trying to keep quiet or have kept quiet by someone else … there was a woman involved?’
‘Yes. I think there was.’
‘A woman who would be hurt by the revelation, in whichever direction that revelation went?’
She nodded. ‘That’s the way my thoughts have been moving.’
‘So, the motive for the murder – or suicide – was to protect that woman?’
‘Well, I think we ought to get clear who—’
Glen Porter was interrupted by a tap at the door. He looked up in some surprise. Jude got the impression he didn’t expect unscheduled visitors at his beach hut, that it was his private space.
An even greater surprise was that the door was then pushed open to reveal Lauren Givens standing there. She was smartly dressed and carefully made-up. Smiling. But her expression changed instantly when she saw Jude.
‘Oh, hello, Glen,’ she said. She looked down to her hand, which held one of the flyers for her Pottery Open Day. ‘Do come along to this tomorrow if you get the time.’
She placed the flyer on a table, turned tail and hurried out, closing the door behind her.