‘Are you all right to talk?’ asked Carole.
All the huge body seemed to shake as he nodded.
‘I just wondered, when the police talked to you, you know, when they were investigating Anita Garner’s disappearance, what kind of questions did they ask?’
‘Well, it wasn’t me so much they talked to. I wasn’t there on the day she vanished. I was busy down at a school we was repainting. The Footscrow House job was one of ours, right, but it was the lads who was doing the actual decorating there. So, it was mostly them they talked to.’
‘And do you know what kind of things they asked?’
‘Oh, usual kind of stuff. If any of them had taken a shine to Anita. If they’d come on to her. If they’d seen anyone else come on to her. If they’d seen anything suspicious.’
‘Had they?’
‘None of them told if they had. So, eventually, the cops gave up talking to them.’
‘And did any of your lads talk to you about Anita Garner?’
‘Nothing important. She was a nice-looking kid, though. And they was young boys, always got their eyes out for a pretty bit of skirt – oh, I’m probably not allowed to say that now, am I? Not politically correct.’ He put his idea of a precious accent on the last two words.
‘Don’t worry about that. But one of your apprentices did say he fancied Anita?’
‘Well, yes. But it was just, like, you know, banter.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Just he reckoned she was a bit of all right.’
‘And what was his name?’
‘Pete. You probably know him. Everyone in Fethering knows Pete.’
‘Yes, I know him,’ said Carole. ‘Did he reckon a lot of women were “a bit of all right”?’
‘Yeah. Back then. He was just a kid, like I said. Had an eye for the ladies, like most lads that age. Pete’s all settled down with wife and kiddies now. Has been for years.’
‘Hm.’ Carole nodded thoughtfully. ‘And was he there, at Footscrow House, decorating, on the last day Anita Garner was seen?’
‘He would have been, yes. Unless it was a Thursday. That was his college day, stripping down and repainting his blooming doorway.’
‘The last day Anita Garner was seen,’ said Malk Penberthy with great precision, ‘was a Tuesday.’
‘And where in Footscrow House would Pete have been working?’ asked Carole.
‘Upstairs,’ said Brenton Wilkinson. ‘Pete was in charge of doing the bedrooms.’
ELEVEN
Seeing the decorator’s van outside Woodside Cottage, as soon as she got back to High Tor Carole phoned her neighbour and asked her round for a cup of coffee.
They quickly brought each other up to date. Jude could not suppress a level of shock at the fact that Pete seemed to have lied to her. An uncomfortable feeling about him had been building up for a while, and now she seemed to have confirmation of her worst fears.
Jude also realized that she hadn’t seen Carole since her visit to Glen Porter’s beach hut and gave her the edited highlights of that encounter.
‘And you’re sure he and Lauren Givens are having an affair?’
‘There are certain unmistakable signs.’
‘Oh well, of course,’ said Carole sniffily, ‘you’d know more about that than I would.’ Jude was far too canny to rise to the implied insult, so her neighbour went on, ‘Of course, people having affairs are taking big risks.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Exposing themselves to danger.’
‘Still not with you.’
‘Well, it’s obvious. Someone who’s having an affair wants to keep it secret.’
Jude could actually think of quite a few acquaintances who wanted to shout about their affairs from the rooftops, but she didn’t take issue. She knew it wouldn’t be worth the effort. Just wait and see where her neighbour was going with this.
‘So,’ Carole continued her logic through, ‘people having affairs put themselves at risk of exposure.’
‘Blackmail?’
‘Possibly even that. But news of an affair reaching the betrayed spouse can have pretty devastating effects too.’
‘What are you saying, Carole?’
‘I am saying that if, as you insist – on, it has to be said, very little evidence – that Glen Porter and Lauren Givens are having an affair, they might be prepared to go to great lengths to keep it a secret.’
‘All right. I’ll go along with that. So …?’
‘You know Lauren …’
‘Not very well.’
‘Have you seen anyone threatening her?’
‘Carole, I hardly know the woman. Where would I have seen anyone threatening her?’
But even as she said the words, a little scene she had observed came back to Jude. Fethering Yacht Club, Harry Lasalle on his way out, being accosted by Lauren Givens. Her asking him for something. Him turning her down and leaving the bar.
It could have meant anything. It could have meant nothing. On the other hand, that Saturday had turned out to be the last day of Harry Lasalle’s life. Surely, anything that happens to someone on the last day of their life takes on a special relevance?
‘It might be interesting to talk to her,’ Jude conceded.
‘And we have the perfect opportunity to do just that,’ said Carole triumphantly. ‘The timing is perfect. Today is Wednesday.’
She brandished a flyer picked up off the kitchen table.
‘Fancy going to a Pottery Open Day?’
Neither Carole nor Jude would claim to be an aficionado when it came to ceramic toadstools. Jude had never felt the lack of one in her life and Carole was of the view that they were common, the interior décor version of garden gnomes. And ‘common’ was one of the worst words in Carole Seddon’s lexicon.
Neither of them had been to the Givens’s house before but, like most places in the village, it was within walking distance. In De Vere Road, an upmarket address in Fethering. All of the houses there had at least five bedrooms and substantial gardens. The owners thought De Vere Road was the best place to live in the village – or possibly the world. In this opinion, they were constantly challenged by people who lived on the Shorelands Estate, who were of the view that their seaside location gave them the edge. Basically, the issue was one of money. Residents of the one location were desperate to assert that they had more money than residents of the other location. That was how life worked at the upmarket end of Fethering.
There was a neatly printed notice attached to the gatepost, which read: ‘POTTERY OPEN DAY’. An arrow directed visitors towards the ‘STUDIO’, a kind of conservatory attached to the side of the main building. It had a separate entrance which was crested by another printed notice, again reading: ‘STUDIO’. In spite of the cold weather, the door to this was open, though a thick red velvet curtain was hung across the inside as a draught excluder.
There was no bell or knocker in evidence, so Carole and Jude pushed their way through. The studio was very tidy and well-appointed. No expense had been spared. The kiln and other equipment looked to be new and state-of-the-art. The interior was highly heated and the condensation on the inside of the windows gave the feeling of a greenhouse.
But there were no plants on display. Nor were there any other people inside inspecting what was on offer. The idea of a Pottery Open Day in a village like Fethering might be just about viable in the summer. A few punters, day-trippers and holidaymakers might amble in then. But in a particularly cold February? There weren’t that many art-lovers in Fethering. If you excluded those who didn’t regard ceramic toadstools as up there with Leonardo and Michelangelo, there were even fewer. And the number of those who fancied going out on a cold Wednesday morning … No surprise, really, that Lauren Givens wasn’t fighting off the crowds.