‘Distress to whom?’
‘The individuals concerned,’ he replied unhelpfully. ‘But you seem to have come here to bargain, Jude. We’ve established you don’t want money. So, what is your price for not unleashing your high-powered investigative journalist?’
‘According to Lauren, passed on to us by her husband, you know what happened to Anita Garner.’ There was a silence. ‘Are you denying that?’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘You asked what my price is. My price is you telling me what you know, you telling me what happened to Anita Garner.’
‘Then you’ll not give your journalist my name?’
‘Definitely won’t, no.’
‘And see that my name is kept out of further investigations by you and your nosy neighbour?’
‘You have my word on it.’
Glen Porter was silent for a moment, assessing his options. Then he said, ‘All right.’
And he told Jude what had happened to Anita Garner.
Jude felt pretty good on the icy walk back to Woodside Cottage. Her little plan had worked.
And she thought Malk Penberthy, formerly of the Fethering Observer, might have been flattered by being presented as someone with the combined investigative skills of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward from All the President’s Men – and better than either of them.
As for the lies she had told to achieve her desired result, she felt no guilt about them. Truth was, as ever, a justifiable casualty in pursuit of the greater good.
Her only small disquiet arose from the condition Glen Porter had insisted on before he gave her the information. That she mustn’t share it with anyone. Not even Carole. Though in fact that suited her own intentions well, she knew it would inevitably lead to conflict some way down the line.
FIFTEEN
Carole Seddon slept fitfully that Saturday night. She wasn’t quite sure what she felt. While cheered by her excellent idea of getting Malk Penberthy on board, she was less cheered by Jude’s demand for a delay in the investigation. Always potentially paranoid, Carole got the feeling that something was being kept from her. She decided that, when she and Malk Penberthy did finally get on to Glen Porter’s case, she might withhold some of their findings from Jude. Two could play at the secrecy game.
On the Sunday morning, after she’d taken Gulliver for his constitutional on an Antarctic Fethering Beach, as soon as they returned to High Tor, she rang through to Woodside Cottage. There was no reply.
Knowing – and disapproving – of Jude’s lax morning regime (particularly lax at weekends), she went round and knocked on the front door. No response. Where had Jude gone without telling her?
In a fit of pique, Carole rang Malk Penberthy. She wasn’t about to break the undertaking she’d given to Jude and give him Glen Porter’s name, but she reckoned there were other advances the two of them might make on the investigation.
By half past eleven, Starbucks was like the interior of a cocoon, toasty warm, with the outside world shut off by condensation on the windows.
Though forbidden from telling Malk about Fred Givens’s final revelation, Carole saw no reason why she shouldn’t share other details they had learned from the distraught husband. The old journalist was interested to hear about Lauren Givens’s affair with Glen Porter, but clearly couldn’t see what relevance it had to their investigation of Anita Garner’s disappearance. Carole felt very frustrated by not being able to explain the full situation to him, but she kept her word to Jude.
There were other areas she could go into, though. ‘One interesting thought that Fred Givens did plant in our minds, though, was how the sabotage on Harry’s Dream could have been effected.’
‘Oh?’
‘If we’re following the scenario that Harry Lasalle was murdered …’
‘Last time we discussed his death, I thought we were favouring the scenario of suicide.’
‘Yes, but murder is another possibility.’
‘I suppose so.’ He thought it through. ‘Someone other than its owner sabotaged the heater on Harry’s Dream?’
‘Exactly. And Jude and I were trying to think who might have sailed out to where Harry was anchored and—’
‘Why would they bother doing that? Be much simpler to sabotage the boat on land, while it was at Fethering Yacht Club.’
Carole felt suitably chastened. Both Fred Givens and now Malk Penberthy had reached the same obvious conclusion, the one that she and Jude hadn’t.
Malk went on, ‘But, following your scenario, who would want Harry Lasalle dead?’
‘Well, if the secret of his affair with Anita Garner was about to be revealed …’
‘Which was thought of as a motive for him to top himself …’
‘Yes, but it might as easily have been a motive for someone to kill him.’
‘Why?’
‘Revenge, maybe?’ She knew as she said the words how feeble they sounded.
‘Yes. I find a more plausible possibility – if we’re talking murder – is that someone set up the death deliberately to look like suicide …’
‘With a view to …?’
‘Silencing Harry? Stopping the truth coming out? Stopping him from incriminating someone else?’
‘The murderer?’
‘Quite possibly, Carole, yes.’ After his initial scepticism, Malk was now becoming enthused by the murder theory. ‘So, who would be our suspects? To have access to the hardstanding where Harry’s Dream was, they’d have to be members of Fethering Yacht Club.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Security’s tight there. Those boats are quite valuable. Not so much likelihood of their being stolen, but vandalism was always a worry at the yacht club. Way back in the day, when I was reporting for the Fethering Observer, I covered a good few break-ins there – some just to nick booze from the bar. Then I also reported on the new security system the yacht club brought in. CCTV and what-have-you. They were keen there should be lots of coverage for that in the Observer, a warning to any potential vandals about the risks they’d be taking. Later, they upgraded to a key-card system. Only someone with a card could get in.
‘So, what we have to ask ourselves is … which members of Fethering Yacht Club might have had a motive to kill Harry Lasalle?’
‘Apparently, somehow Harry knew about the affair between Glen Porter and Lauren Givens. Either of them might have wanted to silence him,’ suggested Carole, hoping Malk wasn’t about to go down the route of suspecting Glen.
To her relief, he replied, ‘She has more at stake than he does. Glen’s unmarried. Lauren has a marriage that is capable of being destroyed … which, from your account, is what has happened to it.’
‘And we know both Givenses are members of the yacht club.’
‘Yes, Fred and Lauren made a big fuss about some new boat they’d bought when they first came down here. So, who’re our other suspects?’
‘Apparently, Pete the decorator is a member of the yacht club.’
‘And what motive might he have for topping Harry Lasalle?’
‘No idea. Though it seems there’s bad blood between him and the old boy’s widow.’
‘What about her as a suspect? The stony-faced Veronica? Most murders seem to emerge from the cradle of family relationships.’
‘They certainly do, Malk. Which of course could bring Roland Lasalle into the equation. I don’t know whether he would still be a member of the yacht club. He used to be, in his teens, I think. Crewed for his father. But he’s hardly set foot in Fethering since then. Only come back now he’s masterminding the newest version of Fiasco House. He’s worth bearing in mind, though.’