‘Oh, right here in Fethering. That’s why I know the Crown & Anchor. We met at the Yacht Club. My Aged Ps live in Smalting … well, it’s just my father now. My mother passed on a couple of years back, but the old man’s astonishingly fit for his age. Still on the golf course a couple of times a week.’ He spoke with unapologetic pride. ‘So, I’ve always been round this area. And always loved “messing about in boats”. Alice and I’ve known each other since we were … what? Fifteen?’
‘Thirteen,’ Alice corrected him.
‘Thirteen,’ he echoed. ‘The lady is always right. Anyway, we got back in touch after I’d finished at Sandhurst … and here we are.’ He chuckled heartily. ‘If I’m going to get away from her now, I’ll have to do it before Saturday, won’t I?’
Alice smiled indulgently. There was clearly no way she was ever going to let him get away from her.
‘So, Roddy …’ Carole felt it was about time she contributed something to the conversation. ‘What branch of the army do you work in?’
‘Intelligence.’
Jude was glad she didn’t catch her friend’s eye. There was a serious danger she might have giggled. But clearly there was more to Roddy Skelton than one might have expected on first impressions.
‘And does your work take you all over the world?’
‘Seen a fair bit of it, yes. Done tours in the Gulf, a couple in Afghanistan. And then of course sometimes have to go abroad for training.’
‘So, aren’t you fully trained yet?’ KK couldn’t resist asking. ‘Didn’t they teach you anything at Sandhurst?’
Roddy smiled good-humouredly. Whatever he may have thought inwardly, he wasn’t about to rise to such rudeness. ‘Oh, you never know it all,’ he said, ‘particularly in the world of Intelligence. Apart from anything else, the technology is changing on a daily basis. You wouldn’t believe the stuff the techies are coming up with. I was on a week’s course at GCHQ recently, and some of the software the Russians are developing …’ He made a mock shudder. ‘Very scary.’
‘When was this?’ asked Carole.
‘Month or so back. Well, I can tell you exactly when it was, because I didn’t finish the course. Had to come back down here a day before the end, when I heard about Leonard’s death.’
‘I don’t suppose you can give us more detail about this Russian software …?’ asked Bet Harrison.
‘You’re spot on there. I can’t. More than my job’s worth. Probably more than my life’s worth, the way the Russians are behaving these days.’ He guffawed heartily, though the danger he mentioned was quite possibly real.
‘I find it really frightening,’ said Bet Harrison. ‘We seem to be going back to the Cold War. And I don’t want my son Rory to grow up in that kind of atmosphere, you know, of international tension, fear of a nuclear holocaust. Particularly because I’m a single mum and he doesn’t have a strong male role model at home.’ She was back on her familiar tracks.
Jude once again diverted the conversation. ‘Heather, do you know much about the tenor Jonny’s booked for the wedding?’
‘Not a lot. Except that he’s called Toby. Jonny’s worked with him before, and says he’s very reliable, a safe pair of hands. And he has sung the “Ave Maria” a good few times, so he knows it well. But we’ll find out more at rehearsal on Friday, won’t we?’
‘Jude,’ Carole hissed, as they left the Crown & Anchor. ‘Did you notice?’
‘Notice what?’
A bunch of rowdy youths staggered out of the pub after them.
‘I’ll tell you when we’re alone,’ Carole murmured conspiratorially.
‘Fine. Oh, damn,’ said Jude, holding out her empty hands. ‘I left my handbag where we were rehearsing! Wait. I won’t be a moment.’
Carole let out a sharp sigh of irritation.
As Jude approached the Function Room door, she heard a raised voice from inside. Raised in panic and fury. ‘KK,’ it said, ‘keep your hands to yourself! Don’t you ever dare touch me again!’
Jude just had time to slip into the Ladies, leaving the door ajar, so that she was not seen by Heather Mallett as she came storming out of the Function Room.
TEN
Jude’s desire to tell her co-investigator what she had just witnessed was pre-empted. Carole still stood at the edge of the pub car park, stamping her feet against the cold with ill-disguised impatience. As soon as her neighbour was in earshot, she repeated her earlier question with the same urgency. ‘Jude, did you notice?’
‘Notice what?’
‘What Roddy Skelton said.’
‘Sorry?’
‘In the pub just now. About GCHQ.’
Again, Jude could only look puzzled. The headlights of a BMW, leaving the car park far too fast, illuminated the two women briefly. As a streetlight caught the driver’s face, Jude realized it was the deeply affronted Heather Mallett, on her way back to the Shorelands Estate.
‘Roddy,’ Carole explained patiently, ‘said he’d gone on a week’s course at GCHQ …’
‘Yes.’
‘… but then he’d had to come back down here before the course ended, because he heard about the death of his father-in-law-to-be.’
‘Yes,’ Jude agreed again, beginning to wonder whether her neighbour was going to move on from just repeating the conversation they had both heard.
Carole did. ‘Alice Mallett’s alibi for the time of her father’s death was that she was in London, choosing table decorations for the wedding …’
‘Mm.’
‘With Roddy.’
Light dawned. ‘Ah. I see what you mean.’
‘Except, of course …’ Carole filled in the details. ‘Roddy wasn’t in London. He was at GCHQ in Cheltenham. Which means …’ She paused portentously ‘that Alice Mallett has no alibi for the time of her father’s death.’
Carole accepted the offer of a ‘nightcap’ at Woodside Cottage. It was partly that she wanted to talk further about what she was again thinking of as ‘the case’, but also that she wanted to put off as long as possible the moment when she had to return to an empty, Gulliver-less, High Tor.
She murmured something about just needing a cup of tea but did not protest too much when Jude produced a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc from the fridge. The fire had nearly died down while Jude had been at her choir rehearsal, but she quickly resuscitated it with kindling and vigorous use of the poker. The glow of flames flickering across the ceiling soon augmented the subdued lighting of the sitting room.
When they’d both got full glasses, Jude told her neighbour what she had heard from outside the Crown & Anchor’s Function Room.
‘What do you think it means? That Heather was ending their affair?’
‘Hang on a minute, Carole. We don’t know that there was any affair.’
‘Oh, there must have been. Heather claiming she was having singing lessons with KK – I’ve never heard a more blatant cover-up. There must have been something going on between them.’
‘We don’t know that for sure. Anyway, what I heard doesn’t definitely mean she was ending an affair.’
‘So what else could it mean?’ asked Carole sceptically.
‘It could mean that tonight was the first time KK had come on to Heather, and she didn’t want their relationship to move in that direction. She wanted them just to stay friends.’
‘Huh.’
‘Carole, we don’t have enough information to reach any conclusion about it.’
‘Oh, really, Jude! And I thought I was meant to be the wet blanket in this partnership.’
‘In this case, I am happy to take over the role.’ Jude had her own reasons for keeping a curb on their speculations.
‘If you insist.’ Carole sighed in frustration. ‘What we do have enough information about, though, is Alice Mallett’s alibi – or rather lack of alibi – for the time of her father’s death.’