Leslie Benyon stirred himself as if about to rise from their alcove, but Jude managed to get her question in quick enough. ‘Do you know of anyone who Anita actually did have a relationship with?’
‘Not for certain, no,’ the old woman replied. ‘Well, Glen Porter said he’d had a thing with her, but then he claimed back then he’d been inside every pair of knickers in Fethering.’
This time Leslie really had had enough. Rising briskly, he announced, ‘Time we were off, Vi.’
She didn’t argue. With muttered goodbyes, the couple left the Crown and Anchor.
Jude looked up at Ted Crisp behind the bar. ‘Glen Porter? You know him?’
‘Know who is. Not a regular. He’s one of the bunch who do their drinking at Fethering Yacht Club. Rarely comes in here.’
‘Oh, I know him.’ The speaker was, inevitably, Barney Poulton. He, of course, knew everything about Fethering, far more than the people who’d lived in the village twenty times longer than he had. ‘We play golf together.’
Jude caught a perfect snapshot of Ted’s reaction to this. Behind its shaggy hair and beard, his expression summed up a whole catalogue of thought. The first was: Of course, you bloody would know Glen Porter. Then: And I know you play golf – you bloody go on about it enough. Finally, a plea: So, why don’t you hang around the golf club bar – which is, after all, the natural habitat for bores – boring everyone to tears in there, rather than in my bloody pub?
‘What does Glen Porter do?’ asked Carole. ‘I haven’t heard of him.’ Which, in Fethering, was unusual.
‘He doesn’t do anything,’ Barney replied. ‘Lucky bugger. Hasn’t done anything for decades. Still way below retirement age.’
‘He inherited money, didn’t he?’ said Ted.
But Barney Poulton didn’t want outside contributors to his narrative. As if the landlord hadn’t spoken, he went on, ‘Glen had a very rich uncle, called Reefer Townsend. Don’t know how he got the name. He was a widower … we must be talking thirty years ago now … and his son was lined up to inherit everything. Son suddenly dies – and Glen cops the lot.’
‘How did the son die?’ asked Carole, antennae instantly aflicker.
‘Don’t know that,’ Barney was forced to admit, a little miffed at having his image of omniscience dented. ‘Anyway, since school Glen had been doing odd jobs locally, behind bars, stacking shelves, portering in hospitals and care homes, nothing permanent. Suddenly, out of the blue, he inherits Reefer Townsend’s big house up on the Downs beyond Fedborough, beach hut here in Fethering, and enough in investments to ensure he never has to work again. All he has to do for the rest of his life is to splash the cash, live the life of a playboy. Very nice, thank you.’
‘Strange, that I’ve never even heard the name,’ Carole persisted. ‘Has he moved away from the area?’
‘No, still keeps the house – and the beach hut. Travels a lot, though … South Africa … Caribbean … Mexico … you name it. All right for some, eh?’
Barney Poulton looked at his watch. ‘Anyway, I can’t sit here gossiping all day.’
Jude caught another snapshot of Ted Crisp’s face, which read: Well, you bloody seem to be able to.
‘Must get back home,’ Barney went on as he rose from his bar stool. ‘Don’t want a rocket from Her Indoors, do I?’
Ted Crisp’s face expressed the fervent wish that Her Indoors would provide a constant supply of rockets – ideally armed with nuclear warheads – or anything else that would keep her husband out of the Crown and Anchor.
But he didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. Carole and Jude intuited what he was feeling.
‘Incidentally, Ted,’ asked Jude, once the unwelcome regular had departed, ‘have you come across a guy called Roland Lasalle?’
‘Sure have. He’s a waste of space if ever there was one.’
‘Oh?’ Both women had great faith in Ted’s judgement when it came to the locals.
‘Roland’ – he put a snide, upper-class accent on the word – ‘is the prime example of First Generation Posh.’ They waited for elaboration. ‘His parents are Harry and Veronica Lasalle. He’s a local builder, Harry. Good at his job but, know what I mean, no pretensions. Made pots of money over the years and he – or I think probably more she – invested a lot of it into private education for her precious Roland. Almost did too good a job, Veronica. Turned the boy into someone so posh he hardly acknowledges his own parents.’
The description fitted the bad-tempered man Jude had heard being so offensive to Pete. If ever she’d met someone with a sense of entitlement, he’d fitted the bill.
‘Well, you know the old saying: You can polish a …’ Ted had been planning a stronger word but checked himself to come up with a more acceptable alternative – ‘piece of dirt, but that doesn’t stop it from being a piece of dirt.’
‘And is Roland Lasalle,’ asked Jude, ‘involved in what’s currently going on down at Footscrow House?’
‘“Involved”? You could say that. Only his project, isn’t it? Dad’s a builder, but Roland’ – the same dismissive intonation – ‘can’t get his fingers dirty with cement and sawdust, can he? Not with his university degree and architectural qualification. No, Roland Lasalle’s a property developer now, isn’t he? Hoping to clean up when the holiday flatlets are finished. Mind you, if this caper follows the pattern of everything else that’s happened to Fiasco House …’ Ted Crisp didn’t need to complete the sentence.
‘Is it his own money he’s putting into the project?’ asked Carole, always shrewder than her neighbour on questions like that.
The landlord shrugged. ‘Who knows? Bit of his own, maybe. I’d’ve thought he’d got backers, though – sure to have. His old man might be involved. Harry’s not short of a few bob. If Roland had asked Veronica to twist his arm, the old boy wouldn’t have said no.’
‘Sounds like she wears the trousers in that household,’ Carole observed.
‘And how! Poor Harry has to get permission before he can …’ another hastily decorous substitution – ‘go to the toilet.’
‘Well, I had my first encounter with Roland Lasalle recently,’ said Jude.
‘Oh, yes?’
‘Down at Footscrow House …’
‘Yeah?’
‘… where he was bawling out Pete the decorator.’
‘Bawling out Pete?’ The landlord looked as affronted as if he himself had been bawled out. ‘But no one has a bad word to say about Pete.’
‘Roland Lasalle did.’
‘Typical.’ Ted swept a hand up through his matted hair. ‘Proves my point, I’d say.’
Carole was curious. ‘You say his father’s a builder?’
‘Was a builder. Pretty well retired now, I think. His back’s knackered.’
‘Would he be involved in the current work on Footscrow House?’
‘Bound to be. Probably not hands-on, but his company will be in on it. Lasalle Build and Design. Harry’s had a hand in virtually every other renovation of Fiasco House.’
‘Then I wonder if, back when it was a care home—?’
But Carole’s incipient investigation was cut short by the arrival in the bar of a newcomer, who came straight towards the two women.
‘Brandie!’ Jude announced.
‘You said you might be in here later.’
‘Which, as you see, I am.’ Jude gestured towards her neighbour. ‘This is my friend, Carole. Brandie.’
‘Brandie?’ The echo contained Carole’s disbelief that the word could actually be a name.
‘Drinks,’ said Jude hastily. ‘Sauvignon Blanc right for you, Brandie?’
‘Fab.’