‘I know that.’ Frankie’s tone was almost pitying. ‘But she didn’t have to be there when he got killed. In fact, she couldn’t have been, because Billy would have seen if she got up to anything dodgy. Certainly, if she went down into the inspection pit. No, she’d sabotaged the Triumph Tr6 earlier, loosened the gearbox screws so that it came down on Bill as soon as he touched it.’
‘When could she have done that?’ asked Jude.
‘Night before,’ Frankie pronounced with great certainty. ‘She’d got keys to the garage, see? Bill’d given her a set, though why she needed them I don’t know.’
‘It wouldn’t be unusual for a wife to have a set of keys to her husband’s place of work.’
‘You reckon?’ Frankie almost sneered at Jude’s suggestion. ‘I think she made him give them to her, so that she could snoop around. I think she looked through the files on my computer.’
‘Why would she do that?’
‘Doing evening classes in book-keeping, wasn’t she? I’m sure she got into my files, looking for some mistakes or dodgy doings, she may even have planted stuff on the computer. Incriminating stuff, so that Bill would be left with no alternative but to give me the elbow. That Malee definitely had her eyes on my job.’
Jude was surprised by the level of paranoia in the woman’s words. ‘If she did do that,’ she said, ‘and I think it’s very unlikely that she did, that still doesn’t mean she committed murder.’
‘It meant she had the opportunity to commit murder,’ Frankie insisted. ‘And she wasn’t just doing evening classes in book-keeping. Car maintenance as well. Why would she be doing that if it wasn’t to find out how to sabotage a car?’
Frankie’s logic was becoming ridiculous. Jude objected, ‘There are lots of reasons why she’d want to do car maintenance. If you marry someone who owns a garage, then it’s quite normal that you’d be interested in his work. You might even want to be able to help him out at times.’
‘Oh yes?’ Frankie very definitely took this the wrong way. ‘So, you’re saying she was after Billy’s job as well as mine, are you?’
‘I am certainly not saying that. I’m just saying that if anyone’s going to go around making public accusations of murder, they should be pretty sure of their ground.’
‘I am sure of my ground,’ Frankie countered. ‘I’d put money on the fact that Malee tampered with the gearbox fixing on the Triumph Tr6. She wanted to kill Bill and she wanted it to look like an accident.’
Carole joined the conversation. ‘If that was the case, and if there was any suspicion of foul play, then surely the police would investigate?’
‘Haven’t heard anything from the police,’ said Frankie. ‘And the garage had recently had an HSE inspection and—’
‘HSE?’ Jude queried.
‘Health and Safety Executive. Everything was up to date there. Then, obviously the ambulance people came. They seemed to think it was an accident. And there was a doctor.’
‘Who was the doctor?’ asked Carole. ‘One from the Fethering Surgery?’ She knew who they were, though she hadn’t been introduced to all of them.
‘I didn’t recognize him,’ said Frankie. ‘But apparently Bill’d been to see him quite recently. So, there was no problem about signing the death certificate.’
‘That sounds rather odd,’ said Carole. ‘Surely the body would have been taken by ambulance to the hospital and—?’
Frankie, however, didn’t want her narrative interrupted. ‘It was all above board, from that point of view. And, as I say, Health and Safety too. But it was made to look like an accident, so the police didn’t need to be involved. I haven’t heard a dicky bird from them.’
‘Maybe,’ Barney Poulton insinuated, ‘the police will only take action if someone tells them there’s a suspicion of foul play …?’
‘Some public-spirited local resident?’
Unaware of the sarcasm in Jude’s voice, the Sage of Fethering replied, ‘Yes. Exactly.’
He and Frankie looked at each other intently. Jude reckoned they were assessing which one of them would take on the role of ‘public-spirited local resident’.
But Frankie hadn’t yet finished with her condemnation. She looked firmly at Jude, as if she had already won Carole round to her way of thinking. ‘And do you know why I’m sure that Malee arranged Bill’s death?’
‘No. And I would like to know, because all the arguments you’ve come up with so far have been—’
‘I’ll tell you why I know,’ Frankie interrupted.
‘Why?’
‘Because, when she saw Bill’s body in the workshop … she didn’t shed a single tear.’
TWELVE
‘Who is this?’
Since she’d phoned Adrian’s mobile, she’d expected him to answer it, so was surprised to hear a female voice.
‘Oh, is that Gwyneth?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s Carole Seddon.’
Was there a slight hesitation before the ‘Hello’?
‘I wanted to speak to Adrian.’
‘Yes, of course. Well, he’s not here at the moment. He’s doing some shopping for me. And left his phone at home again. I’m afraid Adrian has never really bonded properly with mobiles.’
‘They still don’t feel entirely natural to our generation, do they?’
‘Certainly not to his generation.’ There was a sharpness in the response. Gwyneth’s disability had blinded Carole to the age difference, but when she thought about it, she realized that Adrian could be as much as fifteen years older than his wife.
‘Well, if you could just ask him to give me a call …’
‘Of course.’
‘On the landline would be best. He’s got both my numbers.’
‘I’m sure he has,’ said Gwyneth.
Which, after she’d finished the call, Carole thought was rather an odd thing to say.
Adrian didn’t get back to her that day, and her going to Starbucks the following morning had, she told herself firmly, nothing to do with the possibility of seeing him. She was, nonetheless, quite gratified when he did appear at the table where, only a few minutes before, she’d sat down with her Americano.
‘Hello, stranger,’ he said. ‘May I join you?’
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘And less of the “Hello, stranger”. You’re the one who’s been proving elusive.’
His brow furrowed in puzzlement. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean you didn’t return my call.’
‘What call?’
‘Oh? Didn’t Gwyneth tell you?’
‘You rang Gwyneth? On the landline?’
‘No, I rang your mobile and she answered it.’
‘Ah,’ he said. And then, as if it wasn’t important, ‘Oh well, she must just have forgotten to pass on the message.’ But Carole got the feeling it might have been important to him.
‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘the reason I wanted to talk to you was to pick your brains about matters car-related.’
‘I might be able to help there. What is it?’
‘You remember telling me that the car that killed Bill Shefford was a Triumph?’
‘Yes. A Tr6.’
‘I wondered how easy it would be to remove the gearbox.’
‘Ah. So what they say is true.’
‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Adrian grinned. ‘I’m discovering there’s lots of gossip in a place like Fethering.’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘Just like Ilkley, in fact.’
‘And what gossip have you heard about me?’ asked Carole defensively.
‘That you and your friend Jude have a bit of a reputation locally as amateur sleuths.’
‘Oh. Well, as you know, most gossip is ill-informed and inaccurate.’