‘I did.’
‘What, you opened the envelope? The police aren’t going to be very pleased when they—’
‘It wasn’t in an envelope. Just lying there on the table. I didn’t have to touch it to read it.’
‘What did it say?’
‘I can’t remember the exact wording, but the usual stuff . . . “can’t go on . . . no talent as an artist . . . everything too painful . . . hate myself . . . simpler for everyone if I . . . ” You know.’ Once again Jude was surprised by tears in her eyes.
‘Did it read convincingly to you?’ asked Carole gently.
‘Oh yes. That’s the kind of thing people write in suicide notes. It always sounds terribly banal in retrospect, but . . .’ Jude reached under layers of garments to produce a handkerchief on which she blew her nose loudly.
‘So it sounds like it really was a suicide.’
Reluctantly, Jude nodded her head. ‘Except . . . when we talked that evening . . . yesterday evening – God, it was only yesterday evening – Fennel sounded so positive about everything.’
‘So positive about everything you can remember,’ said Carole sniffily. The lack of a phone message still rankled. ‘Come on, concentrate, Jude. Was there anything else you saw at the scene of the crime that you think might be relevant?’
‘That’s the second time you’ve used the expression “scene of the crime”. Are you suggesting that it wasn’t suicide?’
‘I’m keeping an open mind on that.’ Though whether Carole Seddon’s mind, cluttered as it was by a tangle of prejudices, could ever be described as ‘open’ was an interesting topic for discussion. ‘Anyway, suicide was a crime in this country right up until 1961. And a lot of people still think it is. But don’t let’s get sidetracked. I’m asking you if you saw anything odd at the scene of the crime.’
Jude gave another firm wipe to her nose and put away the handkerchief. ‘Well, the was one thing, but it’s more “a dog in the night-time”.’
‘Something you were expecting that wasn’t there?’ asked Carole, instantly picking up the Sherlockian reference.
‘Yes.’
‘So what was it?’
‘Fennel’s mobile phone. She certainly had it with her during the evening. I even have a vague recollection of her holding it when she went out of the yurt. But there was no sign of it at the . . . all right, I’ll use your expression . . . at “the scene of the crime”.’
ELEVEN
The phone call from the police to Woodside Cottage came the following morning, the Sunday. The woman’s voice said that it was in relation to the death of Fennel Whittaker and asked whether it would be convenient for a Detective Inspector Hodgkinson to visit Jude and discuss a few details with her. The request was put in the form of a question that was very definitely not expecting the answer no.
Detective Inspector Hodgkinson, who arrived just before noon, turned out to be female. She was a tall woman, a large woman actually, though she moved with considerable grace. She was not in uniform, but wore a light green fleece, well-cut jeans and pointy-toed ankle boots. Her manner was easy and her vowels sounded privately educated.
‘Call me Carmen,’ she said, after accepting the offer of coffee. (‘Just black, please.’)
Jude made a broad gesture towards the variously swathed items of furniture in her front room. ‘Sit where you want.’ And she went off to make the coffee.
By the time Jude returned, Carmen Hodgkinson had a reporter’s notebook open on her lap and was consulting some sheets of printed-up emails. ‘Just checking what you said to my colleagues yesterday.’
‘Ah.’ Jude handed across one cup of coffee and sat down opposite the Inspector with the other one, waiting for the interrogation to begin.
The first question was not one she would have predicted in a hundred years. ‘Do you ever watch rugby, Jude?’
She admitted that she did. ‘I’m not a diehard fan, but come the Six Nations, I’m sometimes found to be glued to my television screen.’
‘Me too. I used to play, for my school and at uni.’
Jude let out another cautious ‘Ah’, not quite sure in which direction the conversation was leading.
‘Well, if you’ve watched a game recently, you’ll know that they now have a “TMO” – television match official, video referee, and it frequently happens that the match referee will consult him when a try appears to have been scored, but there’s a slight doubt about whether the ball was touched down properly. And the match referee will ask the TMO: “Is there any reason why I shouldn’t award this try?” Well, that’s really why I’m here today. I’m asking you: “Is there any reason why we should not feel that the death of Fennel Whittaker is as straightforward as it appears to be?” Do you get my drift?’
‘I do, yes.’
‘It’s the old “if it looks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.” This looks like a suicide.’
Jude was silent for a moment, as the realization sank in that, for all her folksy roundabout manner, Carmen Hodgkinson was a highly intelligent woman.
‘So,’ the Inspector nudged, ‘do you have any reason to believe that Fennel Whittaker didn’t kill herself?’
‘Well . . .’
Hodgkinson picked up on the hesitation. ‘Right, so you do have some doubts. Can we establish a few background facts first of all? You spent the night in the yurt with Fennel Whittaker. Was that because you were in a relationship with her?’
‘“In a relationship”? Are you asking if we were lovers?’
‘It seems a reasonable question to me. What you have to remember, Jude, is that you have a lot more information than I do. I heard this morning that I was being assigned to this case. I’ve read the existing paperwork which, given the fact that the death only occurred yesterday, is pretty minimal. I’m starting really with a tabula rasa.’
‘A blank slate?’
‘Yes. I know nothing about you or the Whittakers. All I do know is that you and Fennel spent last night in a yurt in the grounds of Butterwyke House, a house where she had her own bedroom. So I ask myself why you did that. And I come up with a possible explanation.’
‘That I’m lesbian?’ said Jude with a smile, imagining how Carole would have reacted to the suggestion if it had been aimed at her.
‘Yes. A lot of us are,’ said Detective Inspector Hodgkinson calmly.
‘Well, no, not in my case. My main relationship with Fennel was a professional one.’
‘Of what kind?’
‘I’m a healer, alternative therapist, whatever you want to call it.’
Jude anticipated the reaction that statement quite frequently elicited from more conventional members of the public, but it didn’t come. Instead Carmen Hodgkinson asked. ‘And you were treating Fennel Whittaker?’
‘That’s right.’
‘For depression, bipolar tendencies?’
‘Yes.’
‘So you knew that she had a history of self-harming and suicide attempts?’
‘Of course.’
‘Hm.’ Detective Inspector Hodgkinson wrote something down. Though she couldn’t read the words, Jude noticed that the handwriting was very neat, almost calligraphic in its precision. ‘What kind of treatments do you use, Jude? Acupuncture?’
‘No. I’m not qualified to do that.’
‘I’ve found acupuncture very effective . . . for quite a lot of complaints . . . both physical and mental.’
Jude had not been expecting this kind of openness from a police officer. She said, ‘I have no doubts about its efficacy. I keep telling myself I should get trained in it, but never get round to it.’