It was, in many ways, fortunate that at that point a large party of customers entered the Crown and Anchor. Once Ted did start on one of his diatribes, his listeners could be transfixed for a long, long time. With some relief, Carole and Jude crept away to one of the alcove tables. After that day’s lunch with Barry Stilwell, Carole had become more aware of the significance of alcoves. She wondered how many illicit couples had exploited the privacy of the one where they now sat in the Crown and Anchor.
Jude was quickly brought up to date with what had been said during the lunch at Mario’s. ‘I’m certain,’ Carole concluded, ‘that he was just making it up. That dreadful male solidarity thing. Bob Hartson, a fellow Pillar of Sussex, had used Barry’s name to establish an alibi, and Barry wasn’t going to let another chap down. I’m sure he wasn’t in that bedroom with Bob. Apart from the contradiction about drinking whisky, he didn’t know that Kerry was supposed to be there with them.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Jude thoughtfully, ‘he did know that Kerry was there.’
‘What do you mean?’ Carole looked at Jude, and the expression on her face told her exactly what her friend meant. ‘That Kerry was alone in the bedroom with her stepfather. That— Oh, surely not?’
Jude shrugged. ‘Wouldn’t be the first time it had happened to a stepdaughter. She’s a pretty girl. She greeted him very affectionately when he came round to her flat yesterday morning.’
The idea was still too extreme for Carole Seddon’s hidebound mind. ‘Surely not?’ she repeated.
‘Maybe not,’ Jude conceded. ‘But it’s a possibility. Another idea to throw into the mix. What we now know for sure, though, is that there have been cover-ups about that night at the hotel. And I’m still intrigued about Bob Hartson’s driver.’
‘What?’
‘You know – he’s called Geoff. And he’s supposed to have spent the relevant night in the stable block, as I did. But I wonder . . . When I asked about that at Kerry’s flat, she could have been about to say something different when her father interrupted her.’
‘Oh?’
‘So perhaps we should check Geoff out.’ Jude let an exasperated stream of air hiss through her teeth. ‘The one thing that’s clear is that somebody had something to hide. Either Kerry, or her stepfather.’
‘Or possibly Barry Stilwell,’ Carole added.
‘How? Sorry, not with you.’
‘Well, alibis work both ways. Suppose Bob Hartson knew that Barry was up to something that night. He might have volunteered the alibi to save suspicion pointing at his fellow Pillar of Sussex.’
‘It’s possible.’ Jude sounded sceptical, but Carole was quite excited. The thought of Barry Stilwell as a potential murderer did at least make him a little bit more interesting.
Jude was up at the bar getting refills when she saw yet another photograph of Suzy Longthorne. In an open copy of the Daily Mail, which either Ted had provided for his customers or one of them had left behind, was another picture dating back to the time of Suzy’s marriage to Rick Hendry. The pair of them, in suitably glamorous garb, had been snapped going into the Odeon Leicester Square for the preview of some long-forgotten film.
Suzy wouldn’t have thanked the Daily Mail for the caption. ‘Rick Hendry with ex-wife, former beauty Suzy Longthorne’. For someone whose entire career had been predicated on glamour, to be called a former beauty must, Jude estimated, be pretty hurtful.
But even more striking than the caption was the headline. ‘TV’S MR NASTY DENIES UNDERAGE SEX ALLEGATIONS’.
Avidly Jude read what followed.
Yesterday, Rick Hendry, the Hannibal Lecter of Pop, angrily rejected the suggestion that he had taken advantage of young girls auditioning for ITV’s successful Pop Crop series. The girls, who are too young to be named, claimed the ageing rocker “touched them up” in their dressing rooms before they sang for the judges in Norwich. Rick, busy in Brighton with more auditions for the new series, was unavailable for comment, but a statement issued by his agent said, ‘These claims are totally false. The world is full of publicity seeking teenagers, who want their thirty seconds of fame. It’s one of the downsides of celebrity that anyone can make allegations like this and get away with it. If any more of this nonsense is put about, Mr Hendry’s lawyers are more than ready to prove his innocence in court.’
Jude took the paper across to show Carole, who read it and said rather sniffily, ‘Huh. Can’t get away from your friend Suzy, can we?’
When Jude got back to Woodside Cottage, there was a message on the answering machine. A male voice asked her to ring him back and gave a mobile number.
Intrigued, she replayed the message and tried to analyse the voice. Very laid-back, slightly mid-Atlantic, slightly arrogant, but with an undertow of charm. The voice of a man who was used to getting his own way. And distantly familiar.
She rang the number. The same voice answered straight away, with a cautious ‘Hi.’
‘My name’s Jude. You left a message.’
‘Oh, Jude, right. Thanks for getting back to me.’ There was a silence, as if he was selecting an approach for the next stage of his conversation. ‘Listen, my name’s Rick Hendry.’
He left a pause for her to react. He was used to being recognized. Jude had known who he was as soon as he answered the phone, but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of sounding impressed.
‘Yes, we met when you were married to Suzy.’
‘Right.’ He didn’t sound as though he remembered. He had always been media- and celebrity-obsessed, so meeting one of his wife’s friends who had no national profile wouldn’t have registered in his long-term memory.
‘It’s about Suzy I was ringing,’ he went on. ‘And about what happened at the hotel last Tuesday.’
‘Do you mean the death of that solicitor?’
‘Right.’ Again he seemed to consider his options for a moment. ‘Listen, Suze told me you were around the place that night.’
‘I didn’t know you two were still in touch.’
‘Sure, sure,’ he said soothingly. ‘We never lost touch. Very civilized divorce.’
Not in the version Suzy gave me, thought Jude. But then again, she didn’t know of a single parted couple where both participants would give the same account of their split. So she let Rick Hendry go on.
‘Suze is worried.’
‘About what?’
‘About you, to be honest.’
Jude was angry. ‘Then why doesn’t she tell me herself? We’re friends. If she’s got something to say to me, she can say it direct.’
‘Hey, cool it, cool it,’ he said. His voice had a caressing quality, which he clearly thought was sexy. And, although she was annoyed, Jude was not totally immune to its charms. Rick Hendry had a way with women. ‘Yes, OK, Suze could say it to you direct, but I don’t think she will. She feels bad about getting at you because, like you said, you’re her friend. It’s not that she’s set me up to do this. I just know she’s worried, and she wants you to back off.’
‘Back off from what?’ asked Jude, deliberately obtuse.
‘From what you’re doing. Snooping around. I know Suze would feel a lot happier if you . . . let sleeping solicitors lie. Listen, the guy committed suicide. That’s what the police think. That’s what everyone else thinks. So can you just leave it at that?’
‘I’m not sure I can. I want to know what really happened.’
‘Why?’
The direct question was hard to answer. The only formula of words Jude could come up with sounded impossibly righteous – phrases about truth and justice and resolution, which, if she voiced them, would only have sounded priggish. So she kept silent.