But, of course, that Wednesday morning, Carole had a higher purpose. So, she entered Starbucks with Gulliver and, quickly working out that you ordered at the counter, asked for a black coffee. She saw no sign of Bet Harrison; maybe the woman worked a different shift. Offered the choice of espresso, Americano or filter, she chose filter. Carole Seddon knew where she was with filter coffee. And, ignoring the Starbucks special names for the available sizes, she said she’d have a small one.
While she waited for it at the other end of the counter, she looked around at the clientele. Huh, whatever happened to loyalty, she asked herself, as she recognized many of the regulars from the Polly’s Cake Shop days. Though she knew who quite a few of them were, there were only a couple to whom she felt she had to give the minimal local greeting, a ‘Fethering nod’.
Roddy Skelton did not appear to have noticed her arrival. He sat, vague and disconsolate, looking out of the window. Carole felt no guilt in walking straight up to his table, coffee in one hand, Gulliver’s lead in the other and saying, with uncharacteristic heartiness, ‘Penny for them?’
Roddy looked up. He recognized but couldn’t place her.
‘Carole Seddon. We met on Monday night in the Crown & Anchor.’
‘Oh, yes,’ he said, still uncertain.
‘Mind if I join you?’ asked Carole, in a manner that was even more out of character. She sat herself opposite before he had time to object.
Anyway, he was far too well bred to make a fuss. ‘Nice dog,’ he said. ‘Aged Ps always had Labradors. Not now. They were getting a bit frail, so they didn’t get a replacement after the last one popped his clogs. And now, of course, my mother’s gone too. I think the old man misses having a dog about the place. What’s this beauty called?’
‘Gulliver.’
‘Ah. Nice name.’
‘Alice not with you today?’ asked Carole, realizing as she said it that it was rather a stupid question.
But Roddy appeared not to notice. ‘No. Things to do. Wedding-related, needless to say. She and her mum have got it all worked out, nothing left for me to do. Alice said she wanted me around down here in the run-up to the big event, so I took the leave, but … they seem to have the whole shooting match sorted out, down to the last detail. I feel like a spare prick at a wedding.’ He seemed suddenly to realize the appropriateness of his words. ‘Oh, rather good, eh?’ And then, a little crestfallen. ‘That is, pardon my French.’
‘No worries,’ said Carole, to her own great surprise. She had never said ‘No worries’ before in her life. She went on, ‘I imagine it’s been a rather stressful time for you, the last few months.’
‘What, you mean, with the engagement, wedding arrangements, all that?’
‘I was thinking more of Leonard Mallett’s death.’
‘Ah, yes, of course. So close to the wedding, I agree. Very sad.’
She tried fishing for information. ‘And always particularly sad, isn’t it, when you don’t know the actual cause of someone’s death …?’
‘We do know. He fell downstairs.’
‘Yes, but do we actually know what caused him to fall downstairs?’
For the first time in their conversation, Roddy gave Carole a rather old-fashioned look. Maybe, she worried, her approach had been a little too direct, in the circumstances.
‘I do wish people would stop talking about it,’ he said, with sudden bitterness. ‘Alice is upset enough, as it is. I suppose we should have realized that, in a place like Fethering, there’s bound to be a lot of gossip, but it’s getting her down. People don’t seem to talk about anything else.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Carole, who had no more intention of changing the subject than she had of flying. ‘But you have to admit that the way your fiancée behaved after the funeral was … well, likely to cause comment.’
‘I agree. Don’t know what came over her. But Alice was in a bad state, you have to make allowances. She was obviously grieving for her father. Then she’d had too much to drink. And what she actually said wasn’t that bad.’
‘I was there, Roddy. I heard exactly what she said.’
‘Ah.’
‘You and I did meet then, at the wake, very briefly.’
‘I’m sorry. I … Rude of me to forget. There was a lot going on.’
Carole was not going to be guilty of saying ‘No worries’ again. Instead, she told Roddy it wasn’t important. ‘What was important, though, was what happened on Monday night.’
‘This Monday night?’
‘Yes. When we were having drinks in the Crown & Anchor.’
‘I don’t recall anything important happening then,’ he said uneasily.
‘The business about you having been on a course at GCHQ at the time Leonard Mallett died.’
‘Ah.’ He looked even more uncomfortable. Carole felt pretty sure that his future mother-in-law had pointed out the indiscretion to him.
She elaborated. ‘Which of course means that you weren’t with Alice, choosing table decorations in London at the time. Were you?’
He shook his head. ‘No.’
‘So why did you tell that lie?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Oh, come on.’
‘All right, I know why I told the lie. Because Heather asked me to. But why she wanted me to do it, that I don’t know.’
Carole looked at him, a typical product of the English squirearchy and minor public school. Dressed in tweeds and a shirt with large checks. And yet Roddy Skelton worked for Intelligence in the Army. Could he really be as boneheaded as he appeared?
‘Doesn’t it seem an odd thing for her to ask you to do?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said again. ‘Look, I’ve known Alice’s family a long time. Since I was in my teens. But, at the same time, I hardly know them at all. I certainly never knew what went on inside her father’s head. And I’m kind of aware that both Alice and her mother have had difficulties … you know, psychological problems. All I do know for sure is that I love Alice and, once we’re married, I’m going to make every effort I can to keep her from ever going back to the dark places where she has been.’
This was quite a speech to come from the mouth of someone like Roddy Skelton. Carole felt it was one of those many occasions when Jude would have come up with a better response than she could. All she said was: ‘That’s very admirable.’ And then, because there were some things she just couldn’t leave alone, she went on, ‘You must know Alice pretty well.’
‘I certainly hope so. I’m marrying her on Saturday.’
But Roddy’s attempt at levity didn’t deflect his interrogator. ‘So, you must have a pretty accurate idea of what her relationship was with her father.’
‘It’s not something we’ve discussed. We’re much more interested in our relationship. That’s what matters to us.’
‘I’m sure that’s the case. But, still, given the uncertainty about how Alice’s father died, there must—’
‘There is no uncertainty about how Alice’s father died. He fell downstairs. Accidentally.’ Roddy was talking with new authority. For the first time, Carole could see him giving orders to the troops under his command. Behind his blimpish façade, there was a deeply serious person.
Still, she wasn’t about to be put off by this discovery. She demanded, ‘How do you actually know that his death was accidental?’
But she’d gone too far. Roddy Skelton rose to his feet and, with considerable dignity, announced, ‘I’m afraid this conversation is at an end.’ And he walked out of the Starbucks.
‘I thought we’d agreed you weren’t going to tell Carole anything.’ Heather’s voice, from the other end of the line, was distinctly angry.