‘Yes.’ Spider smiled at his own cleverness. ‘The text came from, like, her sister’s phone. The King was looking after me.’
‘So what did you do with Chervil’s mobile after that?’
‘I took it with me to the place with the huts that night. I left it there with Fennel’s body.’
‘And was her own mobile phone there too?’
‘Yes. I left them both. I thought that was, like, clever. Anyone who, like, found the body would think it was Fennel’s sister who’d fixed to meet her there.’
So, thought Carole, Chervil must have removed two mobile phones from the scene of the crime. And probably thrown both into the sea. That way the note might still make people think Fennel really had committed suicide.
Carole thought of another detail. ‘The knife,’ she said, ‘the knife you used, Spider – did you take that from the Butterwyke House kitchen?’
He looked puzzled by the question. ‘No, it was just one I had in the workshop.’
‘You used it for your framing work?’
‘No, I kept it here in case anyone threatened Bonita. I won’t let anyone hurt Bonita.’ He turned towards Carole, moving forward, looming over her. ‘That includes you, lady. I don’t know that I can make yours look like suicide, but through in the workshop I’ve got my underpinning machine, and I’ve got the guillotine and . . .’
He reached out suddenly and grabbed Carole’s wrist. His grip was like a steel manacle. She tried to resist, but felt herself being pulled ineluctably towards the workshop door.
‘Gulliver!’ she shouted. ‘For God’s sake, Gulliver, do something!’
Gulliver moved towards Spider and licked his free hand.
‘God, you’re useless!’
Carole was in the workshop now. She could smell the paint and glue. She could see the underpinning machine and the guillotine. And she was not strong enough to prevent herself from being dragged towards them.
‘Spider.’
It was Bonita Green’s voice, calm now and authoritative.
Spider stopped in his tracks.
‘Let her go, Spider.’
His moment of irresolution seemed very long to Carole. But then slowly she felt the iron grip on her wrist relax. He let go of her and shambled across to his seat, mumbling, ‘Anything you say, Bonita.’
Gulliver, realizing that the focus of attention had moved away from the gallery, padded into the workshop. He looked around, moved across the room and licked Spider’s hand again.
THIRTY-FIVE
Contacting Detective Inspector Hodgkinson the following day didn’t feel like a cop-out to either Carole or Jude. Though they had come to a good few wrong conclusions, they had at least proved that Fennel Whittaker’s death had been murder. And since Spider now readily confessed to the crime, there didn’t seem a lot more for them to do on the case.
Carmen Hodgkinson expressed her thanks for their contribution. Spider was arrested, and, standing by his confession, was sent to prison. There his behaviour was exemplary and occasionally in the evenings he would entertain his fellow inmates with his perfect Elvis Presley mime. And he still received messages from the King.
Bonita Green and Addison Willoughby finally got married. The Cornelian Gallery was sold off and its next incarnation on the Fethering Parade was as another estate agents. Bonita moved into Addison’s huge house in the Boltons, he sold his agency and they lived out their lives in great wealth and happiness.
Things turned out all right for Denzil Willoughby too. On his own initiative he came to realize the good sense in what Ingrid Staunton had said to Jude. He gave up conceptual art and explored his skills in drawing and painting. The results were highly appreciated and prices for his work ballooned very gratifyingly. He continued to be a poseur and treat women pretty badly, but he still didn’t find one with whom he wanted to share the sanctity of marriage.
His friendship with Giles Green endured, though Giles went back to cohabit with his wife Nikki. Both continued to have affairs, but there seemed to be something in the marriage that both of them needed.
Whether Giles would have gone back to Nikki if his affair with Chervil Whittaker had continued, who could say? In fact, she dumped him within six months of Fennel’s death.
She also rather lost interest in Walden, moved back to London and got another job in the city . . . something in PR again. The Whittakers brought managers in to run the glamping site. It was successful for a couple more years, then Ned and Sheena changed their minds and developed the site into an alpaca farm. They continued to be courted for sponsorship of a variety of charitable ventures. But however generously they gave, their money just went on accumulating. The marriage remained strong, though Ned Whittaker never ceased to miss his beloved daughter, Fennel.
Sam Torino remarried. A Russian oligarch this time, one who spent most of his life in London and who always liked to have an attractive woman on his arm. It was a good career move for her which was loved by the gossip columns, who devoted a lot of energy to inventing new ‘Beauty and the Beast’ headlines. Force of habit meant that she ignored Jude’s advice and continued to be full-on Sam Torino all the time. She still had a lot of pain from her back, but nobody would ever have known it.
There was no reconciliation between Bonita Green and her daughter Ingrid. But then they’d never had that much in common.
Carole Seddon had her week at the end of May with Gaby and Lily. Of course they didn’t go to Walden. The friends they were coming to West Sussex with had cried off at the last minute, so they ended up staying at High Tor. An arrangement which, to Carole’s surprise, worked rather well. But how could anything fail if it involved someone as gorgeous as her granddaughter? Lily was very pleased with the photograph of her that hung in her grandmother’s sitting room, and she never found out what had happened to the man who framed it.
Next door at Woodside Cottage, Jude continued her work of healing. At times she felt rather claustrophobic in the confines of Fethering, but no one would have known that from the customary serenity of her demeanour.