‘So you’re saying “Don’t rock the boat”.’
‘Exactly.’
‘You can’t deny you saw that note.’
‘I can’t deny it to you, Jude, no, because you saw it too. But I can sure as hell deny it to the police . . . or anyone else who asks.’
‘That’s lying, Suzy.’
‘So? For God’s sake, Jude, don’t come on to me like some sort of moral guardian. There are worse things in the world than lying. I happen to think that a murder enquiry at Hopwicke House would be one of them.’
Jude seized on that. ‘So you think it was murder too?’
‘I don’t think anything,’ her friend replied wearily. ‘I think what happened yesterday morning was another piece of incredibly bad luck, and I don’t know how many more of them I and this business can survive. I will do anything to keep the wrong kind of publicity for Hopwicke House down to a minimum. If that involves a little lying . . . then so be it.’
‘But don’t you want to know the truth about what happened?’
‘No, Jude, I really don’t.’
It was true. Suzy wanted to protect her business and her reputation. Not everyone, Jude reflected wryly, was like her, desperate to get to the bottom of every mystery that life offered.
‘Listen,’ the voice on the phone went on, ‘over the years I’ve had enough prying into my private life. I don’t want to put at risk—’
‘This is hardly prying into your private life.’
Suzy sounded thrown by this, as if she were covering up. ‘No, I . . . well, I didn’t mean—’
‘You had nothing to do with Nigel Ackford.’
‘Try telling that to a tabloid journalist. They’ll have fabricated an affair between us within seconds. And no doubt, along with that, the implication that I murdered him when he tried to break it off. In a fit of jealous rage. I can see the headlines now. “Fading sixties beauty Suzy Longthorne . . .”’
‘Are you telling me you will never admit to the existence of the threatening note Kerry found?’
‘Yes, Jude. That is exactly what I’m telling you.’
After she had put the phone down, Jude felt troubled. Not because she feared the disagreement might end her friendship with Suzy – Jude was not prone to flouncing – she knew they’d stay in touch. What had troubled her, were Suzy’s words about prying into her private life. The guard had dropped then; she had sounded vulnerable, ill at ease. Almost guilty. As if concern for her business was not the only reason why she wished to minimize the level of investigation into Nigel Ackford’s death.
The local phonebook had proved surprisingly helpful. There was only one ‘Fullerton, W.’ and the address was in Shoreham, a few miles along the coast from Fethering.
‘Is that Wendy Fullerton?’
‘Yes.’
‘You don’t know me. My name’s Jude.’
‘Oh?’
‘I’m calling in connection with Nigel Ackford.’
This news prompted an entirely different ‘Oh’. A metal shutter had come down.
Jude rushed ahead before she could be cut off. ‘I was working at Hopwicke Country House Hotel that night. I think I was probably the last person to see Nigel Ackford alive.’
‘I’m not interested in—’
‘He said something about you.’
‘He said something about me?’
Jude had the girl’s attention now. ‘I wonder if it would be possible for us to meet?’
Wendy Fullerton’s consent was grudging, but, intrigued in spite of herself, she did want to know about her former boyfriend’s final hours. She worked for a building society in Worthing. She could nip out for a coffee the following afternoon. Three o’clock. Only for a quarter of an hour, mind. She was keeping her escape routes covered.
‘It’s good I’ve got an excuse to go up to Hopwicke House, to check it out for Stephen.’
‘Yes.’ Jude agreed distractedly.
‘So maybe I could do some follow-up investigating?’ Carole suggested.
‘I’ll tell you for free, you won’t get anything out of Suzy.’
‘Another member of staff might be more forthcoming.’
‘If you see another member of staff. The one I really need to talk to is Kerry.’
‘What’s all this “I”, Jude? I thought we worked together.’
‘Yes. Sorry. It’s just . . . since I know the set-up at Hopwicke House . . .’
‘Of course.’ But Carole didn’t sound completely mollified.
‘What we really need to do,’ said Jude, trying to make up for the unintentional slight, ‘is to find out more about the Pillars of Sussex. I wouldn’t be surprised if Nigel Ackford’s death had something to do with one of them.’
She crossed to an old bureau, and from its crowded surface produced the guest list she had retrieved from her apron before leaving Hopwicke House, and handed it across.
‘Any of these names mean anything to you?’
‘There’s one I know,’ said Carole.
Chapter Eleven
‘Hello. Could I speak to Barry Stilwell, please?’
There was a slight delay, during which Carole visualized the solicitor. Thin. Thin face. Lips thin almost to the point of absence. And so eternally pin-striped that she had idly wondered whether his flesh was pin-striped too. Fortunately, she had never been put in the position of verifying that speculation – though not for want of trying on Barry Stilwell’s part. The recollection of his face-flannel kisses could still send an involuntary shudder through her body.
‘Well, well, well, Carole. This is a voice from the past. An unexpected bonus in my boring day.’
‘Good to talk to you again too, Barry,’ she lied.
‘To what do I owe this? Business or pleasure?’
Well, it wasn’t really business. She was neither getting a divorce, nor moving house, nor sorting out a will, and those were the three areas of limited expertise from which Barry Stilwell, as a solicitor, made a very good living.
‘Can we have a third category?’ asked Carole. ‘It’s not business, it’s not pleasure. It’s really, I suppose, brain-picking.’
He sounded disappointed at that, but was still eager to meet. An unexpected cancellation (oh yes?) meant he was actually free for lunch that day. Could Carole make it? Wonderful. Why not go back to the Italian in Worthing? Yes, Mario’s. ‘Of happy memory?’
Carole’s memories of dinner with Barry Stilwell at Mario’s weren’t particularly happy. As she put the phone down, she wondered if the solicitor had once again misinterpreted her interest in him. Surely not, though. When they’d last met, he’d been a widower. Now he was remarried to the widow of a fellow Rotarian. Surely he wouldn’t be looking for other female company, would he?
Oh yes, he would. The enthusiastic – though dry – kiss he placed on her lips when he greeted her, the hand in the small of her back guiding her to their table, the grin of masculine complicity to Mario as they sat down, all suggested that perhaps Barry Stilwell wasn’t totally fulfilled in his new marriage.
Carole reckoned the best deterrent was to bring up the subject of his wife straight away. ‘Congratulations. I heard you had remarried, but I don’t know any of the details.’
‘Oh, thank you,’ he said dismissively. ‘Now tell me about yourself. What have you been up to during this age since we last met? We mustn’t leave it so long next time,’ he added, with a chilly squeeze of her hand.
Removing her hand from the table, Carole persisted, ‘I don’t even know your wife’s name.’
‘Pomme.’
‘Pomme?’
‘Pomme.’
They were in danger of sounding like an entry for the Eurovision Song Contest. ‘It’s French for apple,’ Barry elucidated unnecessarily.