“So, Carole, now you know everything – as do the police, incidentally. I’ve been quite open with them about my different identities and apparently I’m not breaking any laws. So I’m sorry – none of what I’ve done is even vaguely immoral. Well, except possibly for my lying to you about owning a little Westie called Priscilla.”
There was a long silence, as Carole tried to balance her feelings of surprise and embarrassment. Finally, rather feebly, she asked, “So there’s nothing you can tell me that’ll help me find out who killed Kyra Bartos?”
“Sorry.” He too was silent for a moment, before saying, “Well, there is just one thing…I don’t know whether Nathan Locke killed the girl or not, but I would think finding the boy alive and talking to him might be the best way of getting to the truth.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“No. But I did overhear him once saying something to Kyra when he came to pick her up…something that might be relevant…”
“What was it?”
“I also told the police this, so it’s no great secret. Whether they acted on what I said, I’ve no idea. It’s just…I was in the back room at the salon one evening tidying up, and Nathan came in to fetch Kyra, and she was getting her stuff together and he was talking, rather romantically, of how he’d like to take her away some time, spend a few days with just the two of them. And he said he knew a lovely place, a secret place he’d been longing to show her ever since they met.”
“Where was it?” breathed Carole.
“In Cornwall.”
She still felt sheepish when she got back to the Renault. Theo had compounded the impression that he was patronizing her by giving her a copy of one of Tamsin Elderfield’s paperbacks: The Roundabout of Love. With some force Carole threw it onto the back seat, before starting on the rush-hour crawl back to Fethering.
Twenty-Three
Jude was round at the front door as soon as she saw the Renault slide neatly into the High Tor garage. Unaware of how Carole had spent the afternoon, she had her own news to impart.
So while her neighbour dropped her Times on the table and tried to regain favour with an aggrieved Gulliver by feeding him, Jude opened a bottle of wine and supplied edited highlights of her visit to the house in Summersdale. “But,” she concluded, “I still don’t know why I was summoned there. Bridget Locke had nothing wrong with her, but she was very determined that I should go over. I wonder what she wanted…?”
“I should think it was more a matter of what her husband wanted. Even though Bridget seems to be a strong woman, I get the impression Rowley dictates what happens in that household – and in the whole family, come to that. He’s used to getting his own way and he’ll use any means – even throwing tantrums – to ensure that that state of affairs continues.”
“All right, say she was only following orders…what was Bridget trying to find out? I imagine she must have got what she wanted before she fell asleep, because she didn’t ask me any supplementary questions afterwards.”
Carole was practical as ever. “Just go through everything she said to you again. There must’ve been something that had a special meaning for her.”
Screwing up her face with the effort of recollection, Jude reassembled the conversation that had taken place in Bridget Locke’s spare bedroom. At one point Carole interrupted her. “Well, that’s it!”
“What’s it?”
“She effectively asked you whether you and I were investigating the case.”
“I suppose she did.”
“I think that’s all she wanted – or all Rowley wanted. Confirmation that you and I were working together trying to find out who killed Kyra. And it would also tie in with the way Rowley’s kept insisting that I should tell him any new developments I’ve found out about.”
“You reckon he’s monitoring the progress of our investigation into the murder?”
“I would say that’s exactly what he’s doing, Jude. Which could mean quite a lot of things…”
“The most obvious being that he knows the truth of what happened and doesn’t want us to get too close to it.”
They were both silent as the implications of this sank in.
“I also,” said Jude eventually, “witnessed the two little Pre-Raphaelite models playing that ridiculous game.”
“Oh, God. The Wheel Quest.”
“Yes. What on earth is all that about? I couldn’t make head nor tail of it.”
“I agree. Tolkien’s got a lot to answer for,” said Carole darkly.
“You can say that again. But the girls were so caught up in the whole thing. I’m afraid I’ve never seen the attraction of all that Dungeons and Dragons nonsense or any of those fantasy computer games.”
“Be careful, Jude. Never compare the Wheel Quest to a computer game when Dorcas Locke is present. She’ll bite your head off. She did mine.”
“Well, I thought it was all nonsense. Honestly, the way those two girls went on, all about Gadrath Pezzekan and Biddet Rock and the Vales of Aspinglad…just a load of meaningless words.”
“Like today’s Times crossword.”
“Sorry?”
“I’ve got almost nowhere with it. Couldn’t even do the anagrams, and I can normally spot those a mile off. Today the clues were like a jumble of nonsense words.”
“Well, maybe the answers are too, Carole. Try putting in some of that stuff from the Wheel Quest: ‘Ordeal of Furminal’… ‘Prince Fimbador’ or – ”
“Fimbador?”
“Yes, that was the name of one of the characters. The hero, so far as I could gather. Why?” Jude looked curiously at her friend’s puzzled face.
“It’s just something…Prince Fimbador…Fimbador…There’s something at the back of my mind that…” She suddenly clapped her hands together. “Fimby! The family nickname for Nathan is Fimby!”
“And you think that’s short for Fimbador?”
“Yes.”
Jude was less than convinced. “Well, it could be I suppose, but – ”
“Come on, come on. Was there anything else the girls said that could have applied to Nathan?”
“Well, only…Let me think…Oh, they did say – that is, Chloe, in the character of Prince Fimbador, said: ‘I defy you and your false accusations!’”
“Did she?” Carole’s pale eyes were sparkling with excitement. “And just a minute – what did you say the name of the castle was? The castle where Prince Fimbador was going to escape by the Wheel Path?”
“Biddet Rock.”
“How many Ds? Quick, write it down, write it down!”
Jude found a pen and scribbled the letters down in a space next to the crossword. (It was a measure of her neighbour’s excitement that she made no comment – normally she hated anyone touching her copy of The Times.) Carole narrowed her eyes and focused on the letters of Biddet Rock.
“Treboddick!” she shouted. “Treboddick! ‘Biddet Rock’ is an anagram of ‘Treboddick’.”
“You know,” said Jude, “I’ve a feeling we could be on our way to Cornwall.”
Jude had inherited a laptop from a former lover, Lawrence Hawker, who had died of cancer a few years back at Woodside Cottage. It was connected to the internet, though she had never mentioned this fact to Carole. Partly this was because the subject had not come up in conversation and also her neighbour was of the view that, having managed this far through her life without the new technology, there was no need to embrace it in her fifties. Another reason for Jude’s reticence was the fact that she used email a lot to keep in touch with a wide variety of friends and lovers from her varied past. Knowing Carole’s exclusive and jealous nature, Jude did not want to complicate matters by bringing to her friend’s attention the life she had outside Fethering.