‘Are you sure you can’t remember a name?’
The girl screwed up her eyes with the effort of recollection. The lashes looked as if two large black moths had settled on her face. ‘Oh, there was one boy Marina talked about. Vladimir, I think . . . Vladimir . . . oh, God, what was the surname? Mind you, I don’t know if he even existed. Marina was a great one for her fantasies. Lived in a kind of dream world, you know, where somehow her Russian heritage was going to claim her back at some point. I took everything she said with a large sack-load of salt.’
‘Vladimir . . .? Vladimir . . .?’ prompted Carole patiently, hoping to stir Donna’s memory for a second name.
But she was only rewarded by a shake of the head and the eyes reopening. ‘No, it’s gone.’
‘Are you sure you don’t know the name of—’
‘I’ve told you, I don’t know anything. It’s just, as I said, if I was trying to find out what’d happened to Marina, I’d check out the Russian connection.’
‘Right, thank you.’
‘And the other thing I’d check out,’ said Donna Grodsky as she swept up the juices of her steak with the last few chips, ‘is Marina’s Dad.’
‘Iain Holland?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I always thought he was a shifty bastard. And though he treated her like shit, Marina still kind of worshipped him.’
‘Susan said she was as rude and bolshie to him as she was to her.’
‘Doesn’t mean she didn’t worship him. There’s something about fathers and daughters. My dad treated my mum like shit, treated me like shit, and all . . .’ The grotesquely long eyelashes tried to flick away tears. ‘Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like to see him again. Doesn’t mean I don’t miss him.’
Kyle was now wide awake and crying. Donna Grodsky shoved the last chip into her mouth and swigged down the remains of her third voddy and Coke. ‘Good timing, eh? God knows I’ve had enough practice. Oh, what’s the matter with Mum’s lovely boy then?’
Carole, aware that the last sentence wasn’t addressed to her and that her time was very short, asked, ‘Do you have any way of contacting Iain Holland?’
‘Haven’t got an address or anything, but shouldn’t be too difficult to track him down.’
‘Really?’
‘He’s all over the local paper every week.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he’s a very important local councillor. New squeaky-clean wife, new squeaky-clean kids, new squeaky-clean social conscience. Oh yes, round Brighton, Iain Holland is very definitely a pillar of the community.’
Carole Seddon drove back to Fethering, sedately careful in her Renault, with three strong impressions. One, that Donna Grodsky was an extremely intelligent young woman. Two, that she was also a very good mother. And three, that the prices in the George’s Head in Moulsecoomb were really very reasonable.
And she didn’t at all regret the twenty-pound note she had pressed into the girl’s hand as they parted.
EIGHTEEN
Jude was still in a bad way. She’d had two clients booked in for sessions on the Monday morning, but postponed both of them. She knew from experience that healing required all her focus and energy. When she was preoccupied with something else it just didn’t work.
And she felt bad about what was preoccupying her. The laid-back manner and serenity she displayed to the world were genuine, but they had not come to her without effort. Though the carapace she had built around herself was less instantly visible than Carole’s, she too had created a protective layer to keep her from the worst excesses of her emotions. And one of the ways in which she had shielded herself was by not falling in love.
There had been a good few lovers in Jude’s past – though not as many as her next-door neighbour fantasised that there were. And of course there had been the two marriages. But since she’d moved to Fethering her life had been quieter. She’d indulged in the odd one-night stand, the occasional nostalgic coupling with an ex-boyfriend, and then she had nursed a former lover, Laurence Hawker, till his death from cancer. But that period of her life with Laurence, though painful, had had an elegiac quality to it. Not the heady mania of a new love affair.
But that was what she had tumbled straight into with Piers Targett, and now Jude felt stupid for having been so precipitate. Both of them knew that there were stories from their pasts that must at some point be told. But they were both so enjoying the moment that they didn’t want to spoil it. For Jude and Piers love had come first; getting to know each other could wait.
Not any more. Jude had gone over again and again the scene with Piers and Jonquil Targett. His wife had spoken of ‘the house we jointly own’. Did that mean they still cohabited there? Was that why Piers had hardly mentioned the place to Jude? And why he had made no attempt to invite her there?
On the other hand, the Goffham cottage’s state of neglect did not suggest that it was regularly occupied. So maybe Jonquil Targett’s arrival there on the Saturday had just been a coincidence? Or maybe Piers had summoned her there to have a final confrontation, to get her agreement to his putting their shared property on the market?
Jude tried not to dwell on it, but she couldn’t help remembering what Piers had been talking about just before Jonquil’s arrival. He’d said that what made him want finally to sell the house was having met her. Jude. He wanted to ‘close that chapter’ of his life. Did that mean he was looking forward to a new life that included her?
These thoughts circled infuriatingly round and round in her head and she despised herself for letting them. It was so unlike her. This wasn’t the Jude she felt comfortable with, the strong Jude she had so carefully constructed over the years. She hated behaving like a snivelling schoolgirl.
Shilly-shallying wasn’t in her nature. Her instinct was to get everything out in the open, have a confrontation if necessary, but at least not bottle things up. A hundred times on the Sunday she had contemplated just picking up her phone and ringing Piers. But each time she restrained herself, thinking, no, the ball’s in his court. When he’s sorted out whatever he needs to sort out with his wife, then he’ll get back to me.
By the Monday morning the temptation to ring Piers hadn’t weakened. In fact, through Jude’s largely sleepless night it had got stronger. But still she resisted it.
She was hugely relieved, though, when mid-morning the phone rang. She pounced on it, feeling sure it must finally be Piers.
It wasn’t. The voice was the extremely cultured one of a mature woman who had been to all the right schools and moved in all the right circles.
‘Good morning. Is that Jude?’
‘Yes.’
‘This is Felicity Budgen. We met at Lockleigh House tennis court during the Secretary’s Cup.’
‘Yes, of course, I remember.’
‘I’m sorry to trouble you, but it’s in connection with dear Reggie Playfair’s death.’ Felicity Budgen was far too genteel to use the expression ‘poor old bugger’.
‘Oh yes?’
‘Now, Oenone Playfair’s a very dear friend of mine, and I understand from her that you were actually with Piers Targett when he discovered poor Reggie’s body . . .’
‘Yes, I was.’
‘I’m so sorry you had to experience that. It must have been a terrible shock.’ She spoke with the practised empathy of an ambassador’s wife comforting the bereaved.
‘Yes, it was a shock, but don’t worry, I’m fine.’
‘I’m very glad to hear that. Now, I don’t know whether you know, Jude, but Reggie’s funeral is on Thursday.’
‘Yes, I had heard.’
‘I don’t know whether you’ll be coming with Piers . . .?’
No need for Jude to say that the two of them were currently not communicating. ‘He hasn’t mentioned it. And it’s not as if I knew Reggie Playfair well. Just met him very briefly on that Sunday.’