‘I was rather in the same boat,’ she said. ‘Whatever he did need, I don’t think it was my kind of healing.’
‘Or mine. I thought he needed – to use a technical psychotherapeutic term – a kick up the backside.’ Jude giggled. ‘He seemed to me to be just a layabout – and nothing was going to change that situation, until his mother cuts off the very generous allowance she was giving him.’
‘I came to the same conclusion.’ A pause. ‘But why did you suddenly bring him up, Jeremiah?’
‘Because of his connection to Shefford’s.’
‘I didn’t know Tom Kendrick had a connection with Shefford’s.’
‘Oh yes. Amongst the many courses and things that his mother set up for him, he did spend some time working at the garage.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘Just on a casual basis. I think the idea was that, if it went well, it might be formalized into some kind of apprenticeship. But, needless to say, because it involved Tom Kendrick, it didn’t go well.’
‘Did he learn anything?’
‘A bit of basic mechanics, I gather. Bill Shefford had been very generous in taking him on. The Kendricks’ family cars were always serviced at the garage and she persuaded him to give the boy a chance.’
‘I can imagine.’ Jude had encountered too many women of Natalie Kendrick’s type to have any doubts about their powers of persuasion.
‘But, of course, Tom screwed up. After a couple of months, he was asked to leave.’
‘What for? Anything specific?’
‘I don’t think so. Just general inefficiency, turning up late, skiving, you name it. The customary behaviour of a layabout with a private income.’
‘Ah.’
‘Apparently, Bill Shefford was very upset by Tom’s behaviour. He’d bent over backwards to give the boy a chance, and he’d had his generosity thrown back in his face. According to what I heard, Bill Shefford was the mildest of men, never lost his temper, never even raised his voice. But when he finally sacked Tom Kendrick, there was a great shouting match.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. In front of all the staff and customers, I gather.’
‘Who told you this?’
‘Tom himself. Well, his version was slightly different from what I’ve just told you. In his version, he’d done nothing wrong. He was just trying to do his job, but Bill Shefford kept picking on him. Tom was still clearly very angry.’
‘Was he?’
‘Yes. There was a lot of bad blood there.’
ELEVEN
‘I don’t know about cars,’ said Carole, with some pride. There were some areas of life where she felt it was permissible – even admirable – to admit ignorance.
‘But you must have noticed,’ Jude insisted. ‘You saw the car that was over the inspection pit, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, of course I did.’
‘Then what make was it?’
‘As I told you, I don’t know about cars. But someone told me’ – she was still circumspect about mentioning Adrian to Jude – ‘that it was a Triumph.’
‘What kind of Triumph?’
‘I can’t remember.’
Jude sighed with exasperation, sat back in their Crown and Anchor alcove and produced her mobile from a pocket. Her fingers flew over the tiny keyboard.
Carole watched with suspicion and a tinge of jealousy. She distrusted the fluency with which some people conducted their whole lives on mobile phones. Rather in the way her neighbour was doing at that moment. It couldn’t be healthy. It was part of some Faustian pact. What would happen if all of the mobile networks in the world ceased to function simultaneously? Carole Seddon was big on apocalypse scenarios.
But then she reminded herself she must be on top of the video-making capacity of her new phone before her granddaughters arrived in March. All that WhatsAppery, she must get it right.
Jude found what she was looking for and thrust the screen towards her friend. ‘There! That is a Triumph Tr6. Was the car whose gearbox killed Bill Shefford a Triumph Tr6?’
‘It does look quite like it,’ Carole admitted. But she wasn’t going to give up her treasured ignorance so easily. ‘But I don’t really know about cars.’
‘You have made that point,’ said Jude, with a rare flash of asperity. ‘At least I presume you can tell me what colour it was.’
‘Red,’ said Carole penitently. It was so unusual for her neighbour to snap at her that she felt a little subdued.
‘Then,’ said Jude triumphantly, ‘I’m pretty sure I know who owns it. And I also think that we may have to reconsider our conclusion about Bill Shefford’s death being an accident.’
Excitement sparkled in the pale blue eyes behind Carole’s rimless glasses. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked breathlessly.
So, Jude told her about seeing Tom Kendrick’s Triumph Tr6 at Troubadours. This obviously led to questions from her neighbour about what had taken her to the Shorelands Estate. And her answer prompted the entirely predictable response of a sniff and ‘Oh, one of your healing things.’
‘As it turned out, it wasn’t “one of my healing things”.’
‘Oh?’
‘I didn’t reckon he needed healing. Tom Kendrick is just a lazy young man who has his mother entirely wrapped around his little finger.’
‘Really?’
‘And if I was doing any healing there, I certainly wouldn’t be talking about him.’
‘Oh yes, of course. Your precious client confidentiality.’
Jude sighed. It was sometimes very tiring engaging in conversation with Carole. But she did relay what she’d heard from Jeremiah about the bad blood between the young man and Bill Shefford. ‘I don’t know,’ she concluded. ‘May be simple coincidence, but if one was looking for evidence of foul play …’
‘I’m definitely looking for evidence of foul play,’ said Carole, completely hooked. She didn’t realize until that moment how disappointed she had been by the accident theory of Bill Shefford’s death.
‘I think the first thing we need to find out,’ said Jude, ‘is whether the murder method is feasible.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Would it be possible to sabotage a Triumph Tr6 in such a way that the gearbox could fall down on top of someone inspecting it? I suppose I could look online. There’s always plenty of stuff about vehicle mechanics, but I’m not sure that kind of information would be easy to track down. Or indeed whether I’d understand it if I did track it down.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Carole, once again feeling ascendancy. ‘I can find that out.’
‘How? As you keep saying, you know nothing about cars.’
‘No,’ Carole agreed complacently, ‘but I know a man who does.’
‘I know there’s nothing one can say about foreigners that isn’t classified as racist these days.’ The pontificating voice came, unsurprisingly, from Barney Poulton. He was incapable of being in the Crown and Anchor without pontificating, and how long he’d been at it could usually be judged by the thickness of the glaze on Ted Crisp’s eyes. Customers like Barney Poulton were one of the hazards of a landlord’s life. Every pub had at least one person who fitted the brief and the Crown and Anchor had quite a few. Unfortunately, that night Barney was the only one of them present, which ruled out the possibility of someone else with an equally large ego interrupting his monologue.
‘But,’ he went on, ‘if you aren’t allowed to mention people’s nationality, then how are you going to pass any comment? Whether that comment be commendation or criticism?’