‘I’d rather … I don’t know! All I do know is that, now I have found out about it, the rest of my life is completely ruined.’
‘I was interested,’ said Carole, ‘in what you said about Glen Porter’s generosity. Round Fethering, if he has any reputation, it’s for being selfish and tight-fisted. Everyone knows how wealthy he is, but people I know connected with local charities have tried to get donations from him and drawn a blank every time.’
‘I wouldn’t know about that,’ said Fred. ‘But Lauren doesn’t want to talk about anything else. It’s galling enough for a man to know he’s been cheated on. Being told how much better a person his replacement is only rubs salt in the wound.’
Jude was intrigued. ‘That is a new light on Glen Porter, though. Setting up charitable institutions abroad? I suppose not everyone believes that charity should begin at home.’
‘I don’t care what he believes,’ said Fred petulantly. ‘I just never want to hear his name again! Which, since he seems to be her only topic of conversation, I suppose means never seeing Lauren again.’
‘Is that what you want?’ asked Jude gently.
He lowered his head into his hands and raked his fingers down his forehead. ‘I don’t know what I want. I’m still in shock, I suppose.’
‘Do you hate Lauren for what she’s done?’ Jude’s gentle tone was maintained.
‘I can’t answer that. Ever since we got married, I kind of assumed that I loved her. Not something I thought about much – perhaps, in retrospect, something I should have thought about more – but if anyone had asked me – and fortunately I don’t know many people who’d ask that kind of question – I’d say yes, I loved Lauren. It’s hard to unpick all that in a couple of weeks.’
‘I’m sure it is,’ said Carole, with surprising empathy. She remembered how long it had taken her to convince herself that her marriage to David was going nowhere.
‘So now,’ Fred went on, ‘I don’t know where I am. I daren’t ask Lauren if she wants to move out and shack up with lover boy. I suppose I’m afraid of the answer … though, equally, I don’t know if that’s an outcome that he would relish.’ He sighed wearily. ‘I’m just totally confused.’
‘Lauren hasn’t mentioned moving in with him?’ asked Carole.
‘God, she’s mentioned so many things, I can hardly tell. But no, I have no recollection of her talking about moving in with him. She just goes on about how caring he is, how much more open he is than I am.’
‘“Open”?’
‘Yes. Apparently, among my many faults, I’m too … “buttoned-up” … that was the expression Lauren used. I’ve never talked to her about my feelings, never asked her about her feelings. Now she tells me. Though it seems she thought that, even before we got married. She hoped that I’d become more communicative with the passage of the years, though apparently that hasn’t happened. Another black mark to me, in comparison with the new paragon, whose name I don’t want to sully my lips with.
‘He’s sensitive. He’s caring. He asks Lauren what she’s feeling all the time. If I’d known that was what she’d wanted, if she’d ever told me that was what she wanted … well, maybe I could have offered it. I could have met her halfway, at least. But she never said anything.’
He was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘I think the fact that we found we couldn’t have children is at the back of it all.’
There was a long history of pain in his words, but not something to be followed up at that moment.
‘It’s strange,’ Carole mused, ‘given the reputation that Glen Porter has round the village, that he turns out to be this caring paragon of masculine sensitivity.’
Fred grimaced. ‘Well, according to Lauren, that’s what he is. He shares all his secrets with her.’
‘I’m sure he doesn’t,’ said Jude.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, at least in his wild youth, it seems that most of Glen’s secrets concerned other women. He had a reputation as a proper Jack-the-Lad, working his way through the young females of Fethering. I wouldn’t think those were the kind of secrets that he would want to share with a new lover.’
‘According to Lauren,’ said Fred, ‘he did. He talked about all of the women in his past, only to make the point how much more he loved her than any of them.’
Jude could imagine that was the kind of thing a man might say to a new lover. It had been said to her on more than one occasion. And she knew it to be duplicitous nonsense, just an ingratiating masculine ploy to get more sex. But she didn’t say anything.
Carole suddenly saw an opening for another part of their investigation. ‘Did Glen Porter tell Lauren whether he’d ever had sex with Anita Garner?’
‘He did talk about her, yes. And, according to him, they never did.’
‘Have sex?’
‘No.’
‘Oh?’
‘But he did tell Lauren that he knew what had happened to Anita Garner.’
FOURTEEN
Fortunately, Lauren Givens’s phone number was on the Pottery Open Day flyer. Also fortunately, it was her mobile, not the landline. After what she had just heard from Fred, Jude wasn’t sure how likely she was to find his estranged wife at home. Only a week before, of course, Jude had seen Lauren at Fethering Yacht Club. Given the events of the past seven days, Jude thought it unlikely she’d be there again the following Saturday.
When she left High Tor for Woodside Cottage, Jude hadn’t told Carole what she was about to do. This wasn’t being deliberately secretive, though her neighbour would of course think it was. Jude just felt she was better suited to conduct this part of the investigation. She would report back to Carole when, hopefully, she had something to report.
‘Hello?’ Lauren Givens’s voice was taut, ready to end the call quickly if she needed to.
‘Hi. It’s Jude.’
‘Oh yes?’ Still not convinced but waiting to hear more.
‘Fred came to see me and my friend Carole.’
‘Did he?’
‘I’m sorry to hear about your … problems.’
‘Oh. He told you everything, did he?’
‘He told us a surprising amount.’
‘Bloody typical. Right through our marriage, Fred never talked to me about his feelings but he’ll happily unburden himself to complete strangers.’
‘The reason I’m calling you, Lauren, is because of something Fred said about you and Glen Porter.’
‘Oh yes? Well, if you’re thinking of adding marriage guidance counselling to your healing work, I can tell you now, you’ll be wasting your time. Fred and me is over. The relationship has been moribund for a long time. Now it’s officially dead.’
‘I wasn’t actually calling in an attempt to mend your marriage. Not part of my business.’
‘Thank God you recognize that.’
‘It’s between the two of you. No, the reason I’m calling is about something Fred said Glen Porter told you.’
‘Oh?’ The suspicion in Lauren’s voice had eased a little over the past few exchanges but now it was back at reinforced strength. ‘And what was that?’
‘Apparently, he told you he knew what had happened to Anita Garner.’
Instantly, the line went dead. Slowly, Jude replaced the receiver on its cradle.
Hoping her prediction of what would happen next was correct, she sat down and waited.
She thought she was right. Within ten minutes, her phone rang. But the caller wasn’t the one she was expecting. It was Carole.
‘Jude, I thought I’d let you know that I’ve enlisted help.’
‘“Help”? Sorry, what do you mean?’
‘Now we’ve got a definite lead on Anita Garner’s disappearance …’
‘I’m not sure that we have quite got that.’