‘He used his mobile.’
He hadn’t got a mobile! He’d given his mobile to Wendy Fullerton! But before she could produce that clinching argument, Jude remembered Wendy saying that Nigel had been planning to buy another. Presumably the new phone was now in the hands of the police, yet another piece of the evidence that would be used to help the coroner arrive at a verdict of death by suicide.
Which was the truth. Jude looked back at her past weeks of speculation and excitement, and could only see the wreckage of her false logic. She had never felt lower.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
It was about a quarter to seven when Jude knocked on the door of High Tor, but there was no reply, so she went disconsolately back into Woodside Cottage. She poured a glass of white wine, but forgot about it as she buried herself deep in the draperies of an ancient armchair and gave herself up to gloomy thoughts.
She and Carole had been guilty of breaking one of the most basic rules of investigation: they had ignored the obvious. Once she had found out from Wendy Fullerton that Nigel Ackford had been a depressive, she should have realized that they were on a hiding to nothing. She should have guessed that the police had evidence to justify their ready acceptance of a suicide verdict, and she should have recognized that the many cover-ups she and Carole had encountered were merely symptoms of naturally secretive people trying to avoid damaging publicity for reasons which had nothing to do with their being guilty of murder.
The way she had behaved, in retrospect, appeared naive and melodramatic.
For Jude, who prided herself on her good sense and mental equilibrium, that knowledge hurt deeply. The gloomy thoughts did not lift.
Karl Floyd was as Carole would have expected him to be – young, earnest, full of uncoordinated enthusiasm, and also a bit frightened.
His flat, which he told her was rented, gave the impression of being a transient resting place. He was living out of suitcases and, from the evidence of his small kitchen/diner, out of tins and polystyrene takeaway boxes. He looked as though he’d dressed in a hurry too – shabby suit, top button missing from the shirt, randomly chosen diamond-patterned tie. He had thick ginger hair that refused to lie down at the back.
And yes, he did see himself as a crusading journalist in the mould of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. He confided to Carole that his father, also a newspaperman, though not a great speller, had named him Karl as a homage to Bernstein. This could have prompted interesting speculation about the young man trying to live up to parental expectations, but Carole didn’t have time to go into that.
‘And it was,’ she asked, ‘in connection with an investigation that you were in touch with Nigel Ackford and Donald Chew?’
‘Yes. Nigel approached me first. He was very troubled about things that were going on.’
‘Inside Renton and Chew?’
‘In a way, yes. I think Nigel’s anxiety was more about the way things ran generally, the amount of backhanders and back-scratching that are involved in all kinds of business deals. He saw himself at a crossroads. He could either try to fight to expose the system, or he could close his mind to it and get on with his life.’
‘Continue working at Renton and Chew, get put up for the right golf clubs, become a Pillar of Sussex?’
‘I guess so. When he first got in touch with me, he was very keen to expose stuff like that.’
‘You imply he changed his tune?’
‘Yes, he did seem to back off. He became gradually less enthusiastic.’
‘Do you think someone was getting at him?’
‘That wasn’t the impression I got. More that he’d assessed his options and come down on the side of the easy life. Rising through the ranks at Renton and Chew, getting married, living a well-cushioned middle-class life.’
Exactly the sort of prospects Nigel Ackford had talked about in his drunken ramblings to Jude the night he died.
‘So, Karl, to what extent had Nigel backed off?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Was he actually regretting having got in touch with you in the first place?’
‘I think he probably was. Difficult to tell with him. He was very volatile. Sometimes when he rung, he was full of crusading zeal. A few hours later, he was down in the dumps and thought it was pointless to try to do anything.’
Which could be the behaviour of a potential suicide, thought Carole. But before she made a final decision on that, she had to know more.
‘Was it because Nigel was going cold on the idea of the investigation that you got in touch with Donald Chew?’
‘Yes. There were questions I wanted to ask him.’
‘And he agreed to see you?’
‘He did. I mentioned one or two things that seemed to set alarm bells going with him. We fixed a meeting for this Monday.’
‘Which, sadly, he was unable to make.’
The young man nodded gloomily.
‘Right, Karl. I think it’s time you told me what it was Nigel Ackford started you investigating.’
Jude’s mood hadn’t improved. Her wine glass was still untouched, its contents long risen to room temperature. Restlessly, she was zapping through television channels, which for her was a sure sign of low spirits.
Though she’d occasionally worked as a television actress in the late sixties, the medium had soon lost its interest for Jude. And now that every programme seemed to involve ordinary members of the public, she found it even less alluring. The trend may have been very lucrative for Rick Hendry, but it didn’t do anything for her. Jude met quite enough real people in her daily life; she didn’t feel the need to see them humiliated on television.
Previously she’d had a very basic portable TV with a snowstorm picture and an indoor aerial, but she’d installed a new one with satellite channels for the benefit of Laurence Hawker, a friend and lover who had lived out his last months with her at Woodside Cottage. Since he died, the infinitely wide range of options the television offered had remained unexplored.
Though Jude had been upset by Laurence’s death, this was the first time she had felt low enough for mindless flicking with the remote control. But she couldn’t settle to anything else, and the constant changes on the screen gave her the illusion of something happening.
She was amazed at how little there was on offer that anyone might want to watch. Anyone, that is, who wasn’t interested in sport, make-over programmes, music videos, movies that had failed to strike a chord with cinema audiences, and repeats of cop series that long before should have been allowed mercifully to expire. After the first twenty channels, the challenge of finding something watchable became almost interesting.
At first she didn’t believe what she’d seen. She’d already zapped on to another station; she zapped back.
No good. It was no longer on the screen. She stayed with the channel, watching some dire early seventies British espionage series. The sets were cardboard, the actors more so. The men tried to look tough and gritty, in spite of ridiculous sideburns. The women, with short skirts, lacquered hair and black-lined upper eyelids, seemed to be there only to stick their bottoms out and look winsome.
The scene changed. And she saw it again. This time there was no doubt.
Chapter Forty
They both had so much to say that it was some time after Jude had opened the door before either of them could hear the other. The Renault was parked directly outside Woodside Cottage. Carole must have been really excited to forgo her customary ritual of putting the car in the High Tor garage.