Jude’s response was stopped by the sudden change in Brenda Tyson’s expression. Dashing away the incipient tear, she beamed broadly as she looked out towards the garden.
Framed in the French windows was the stocky, powerful figure of her son, whose face was irradiated by a huge smile.
‘Jonny darling.’
‘I’m jolly hungry, Mummy. Isn’t lunch ready yet?
‘Not quite, love. Very soon. But first, I’d like you to meet Jude.’
‘How do you do?’ Beautifully schooled, he reached his large hand across and shook hers.
‘Jude’d like to have a little talk to you before lunch.’
Chapter Twenty-Nine
‘Is this Carole Seddon?’
‘Yes.’
‘Marla Teischbaum.’
‘Good morning.’
‘Listen, I’m sorry to interrupt your Sunday, but I wanted to talk about what happened at Bracketts on Friday.’
‘Fine.’ Carole remembered the caution that had been given to all the Trustees about talking to the Professor. But she was intrigued. Marla Teischbaum wasn’t the sort of woman to phone her for no reason.
And so it proved. ‘I believe you were actually with Sheila Cartwright when she was shot.’
‘That’s true, yes. We were walking to the car park together.’
‘So where was the shot fired from?’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t see what relevance this has to you. I’ve given an account of what happened to the police, and I think I should probably leave it at that.’
‘No, you gotta tell me. This is important!’
For the first time in their brief acquaintance, Marla Teischbaum sounded as though she were losing it. Carole had seen her angry before, during her exchange with Sheila Cartwright at Bracketts, but the woman had still sounded totally in control. Now she was nearly hysterical.
‘Why’s it important?’ asked Carole, her own cool increasing as Marla grew more heated. ‘Are you planning to add an appendix to your biography about Sheila Cartwright’s death?’
‘No, I just . . . want to know.’ The Professor slowed down, regaining mastery over her emotions. ‘All I’m asking is whether you can say exactly where the bullet was fired from?’
There didn’t seem to be much harm in answering that. ‘Then the answer’s no. It was dark, it was raining, we were walking away from the house. It took me a minute or two to realize that a gun had been fired, and that Sheila had been hit.’
‘Was she hit in the front or the back?’
‘Back.’ Again that was hardly classified information.
‘So the gun was fired from the house rather than from the car park?’
‘From somewhere near the house, yes. From that direction, anyway.’
‘But you can’t be more specific? You didn’t see anyone with the gun?’
‘I’ve told you. My first instinct was to find out what had happened to Sheila. It was only when I saw the blood I realized she had been shot. By the time I looked back towards Bracketts, any self-respecting murderer would have been well out of sight.’
‘Yes. That’s true.’ And the news seemed to bring some comfort to Professor Marla Teischbaum. She certainly sounded more relaxed, less threatened, as she went on. ‘I was wondering whether recent events might have changed the situation . . .?’
‘What situation?’
‘The situation with regard to co-operation on my biography from the Bracketts set-up.’
Carole was appalled. ‘Marla, Sheila Cartwright hasn’t been dead two days. The Trustees haven’t met since the tragedy, and I think when we next do, cooperation with you on your biography may not be at the top of our agenda.’
‘Aw, come on, don’t go all snooty on me. I’m American, I’m direct. If there’s a question that matters to me, I ask it. The worst anyone can say to you is no.’
‘And I’m afraid, at the moment, that is the only answer I can give you. Maybe, when the Trustees next meet, the situation will be reassessed.’
Carole knew she was sounding pompous, but . . . the sheer gall of the woman. Sheila Cartwright had been one of the main opponents of Marla Teischbaum’s biography of Esmond Chadleigh. With Sheila conveniently – though tragically – out of the way, the Professor was coolly asking whether she was now in with a chance.
On the other hand, if co-operation from the Bracketts Trustees was the outcome she anticipated, it would have given Marla a very good motive to kill Sheila Cartwright. But, as with Gina Locke, the awareness of her advantage from the crime was so overt that surely she couldn’t be the perpetrator? No self-respecting criminal would be quite that obvious.
‘But I will, if you like,’ Carole continued, feeling she ought to offer some kind of sop to the Professor, ‘ask Graham if there’s any more Esmond Chadleigh material he’s willing to part with.’
‘Forget it. If it’s as useful – and as incompetently doctored – as the last lot, he can keep it.’
‘Fine. I was just trying to be helpful.’
‘If you’re talking to Graham, by the way, will you thank him profusely for sending me the material, and tell him I’m not that stupid. You can also tell him that I have found a new research source – through the County Records Office – that he knows nothing about, but which is providing me with some wonderfully different insights into the history of the happy Chadleigh family.’
The emphasis with which Marla Teischbaum swooped on certain phrases was deeply ironic. Carole couldn’t know whether the messages she was being given were true, or whether they were being sent just to upset Graham Chadleigh-Bewes. She thought probably, given the battering Esmond’s grandson have been given, first by Sheila at the Emergency Trustees’ Meeting and now presumably by the police, it might be kinder to omit passing on the messages, anyway.
Carole Seddon was thoughtful after she had put the phone down. Both Gina Locke and now Marla Teischbaum had been very keen to talk to her, and yet neither had used their conversation to do much more than spell out – in very blatant terms – the strong motives they had for wanting Sheila Cartwright dead.
Jude. She needed to talk to Jude.
But there was no reply from Woodside Cottage. Carole returned to High Tor for a thoughtful but uninspiring lunch based on the remains of a fish pie.
Gulliver nudged hopefully at her knee, hoping to deflect her mind towards thoughts of walks, but she was too preoccupied to notice him.
There were one or two things Marla had said on the phone that prompted at least speculation, possibly even investigation. She’d talked about a new ‘research source’. Perhaps that was a phrase academics used all the time, but the last time Carole could recall hearing it was from George Ferris at the Emergency Trustees’ Meeting. On that occasion he’d also talked of speaking to Marla ‘this afternoon’. Was it possible that he’d given her a lift over to Bracketts and they’d talked in the car? George Ferris lived in Fedborough, Marla Teischbaum was staying at the Pelling Arms in Fedborough, there would be a logic to it.
And if George Ferris had driven her to the house, did he also give her a lift back afterwards? Given that was the case, what did Marla Teischbaum do while the Emergency Trustees’ Meeting was going on? Was she still at Bracketts when Sheila Cartwright was killed?
Carole knew her mind was racing, making connections from insufficient facts, and she tried to curb its gallop. Come on, whatever else she might be, Carole Seddon was always sensible.