‘I haven’t told her anything,’ Jude insisted.
‘No? Then why do you suggest she collared Roddy this morning and virtually accused Alice of murdering Leonard?’
‘I had no idea that she had done anything of the sort.’
‘Well, she did. In Starbucks. So, God knows how many other Fethering gossips were listening in.’
The ‘other Fethering gossips’ hurt. It was identifying Jude as one of their number. ‘Heather, please believe me, I have said nothing to Carole since you and I spoke yesterday. I haven’t even seen her. I had clients booked in yesterday afternoon and this morning.’
‘Hm.’ Heather clearly still didn’t believe her.
Jude had hardly put the phone down from talking to Heather, when Carole rang.
‘Look, I spoke to Roddy Skelton in Starbucks this morning.’
‘I know.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Just had a call from his mother-in-law-to-be. Virtually accusing you of harassing him.’
‘I wasn’t harassing him. I was just trying to get at the truth about Leonard Mallett’s murder.’
‘We don’t know it was murder …’
‘Yes, we do. And what’s more, I’m pretty sure I know who the murderer is.’
‘Who?’ asked Jude wearily.
‘Alice Mallett,’ said Carole. As Jude had known she would. ‘And I don’t think that’s going to be difficult to prove.’
‘Oh? And how are you going to set about proving it?’
‘I’m sure Heather knows more than she’s letting on.’
‘Look, Heather is up to her ears with preparations for her daughter’s wedding and—’
‘Her stepdaughter’s wedding. And I think it’s that relationship which is at the bottom of this mystery.’
‘There is no mystery,’ said Jude plaintively and, she knew, hopelessly.
‘No? Come on, Jude, where’s your instinct for justice?’
Jude couldn’t think of an answer that wouldn’t sound flippant, so she said nothing.
‘You’re not keeping anything from me, are you?’ With Carole, paranoia was never far below the surface.
‘No, of course I’m not.’ Jude shouldn’t have been surprised at being put on the spot so soon.
‘Are you sure Heather hasn’t said something to you, something that might clarify the position, might help us to prove how her husband died?’
Though Jude at times had the same flexible approach to mendacity as she did to justice, she found it very hard to lie in this situation. The temptation to tell her friend and collaborator the truth was almost overpowering. But she gritted her teeth and said, ‘No.’
‘Well, I think you’re being extremely unhelpful, Jude,’ said Carole.
The words hurt. Torn by conflicting loyalties to the two women, Jude felt uncharacteristically miserable. Though in some circumstances she had told white lies to avoid causing suffering, she did not take naturally to duplicity.
TWELVE
The wedding morning dawned beautifully. It was one of those May days which held promise that there really would be a summer soon.
And the florists that Heather Mallett brought in had somehow contrived to make the forbidding vastness of All Saints Fethering look more welcoming. The bride’s beautifully cut dress made her curvaceous rather than dumpy, and the groom looked better and generally more trim in his dress uniform than he did in civvies. It turned out that he was a Major, which Shirley Tattersall, who for some reason knew about these things, said meant he was no slouch. Making Major before thirty was apparently quite a feat. So, Roddy Skelton couldn’t be as stupid as he appeared to be.
At the back of the church, a group of equally smart uniformed friends from his regiment were ready to form a guard of honour, so that the couple could march out under raised swords at the end of the ceremony.
And, proud in the front row on the groom’s side, was a tall old man with black eyebrows, who could only be the object of Roddy Skelton’s hero worship, his ‘Aged P’.
Bob Hinkley conducted the service with appropriate gravitas and what sounded like genuine affection for the participants.
The church choir excelled themselves. As at the funeral, Heather Mallett had chosen to take her place in the choir stalls, rather than the body of the church. And she joined in a lusty rendition of the two hymns that she and Alice had spent so long choosing. They had finally plumped for ‘Praise My Soul the King of Heaven’ and ‘Jerusalem’. Safe, maybe, but tunes they both loved. From her position at the altar, Alice’s clear soprano could also be heard distinctly.
And the choir had ably supported Toby the tenor as they sang Schubert’s ‘Ave Maria’ during the signing of the register.
Jonny Virgo had demonstrated his talents at the organ as he played the music for the entry of the bride and the newly married couple’s exit from the church. The first piece was an arrangement of Jeremiah Clarke’s ‘Trumpet Voluntary’, and the final one the very traditional Mendelssohn’s ‘Wedding March’. Though she didn’t know much about classical music, Jude could appreciate Jonny’s virtuosity. She wondered whether there had been a point when, before resigning himself to being a teacher, he had contemplated a career as a professional musician. And whether making that compromise had added to the neuroses of his later life.
He had arrived in good time before the ceremony, leading his frail mother and an elderly friend who was going to look after her during the service. He explained to the choir that Heather, who was at that moment checking arrangements outside the church, had readily agreed to his mother attending the service, ‘because the old dear does so like listening to me play.’
Mrs Virgo was almost skeletally thin. Parchment-like skin stretched tightly over the sharp bones of her face, and cocktail-stick legs looked inadequate even to bear her light weight. She had arrived at the church in a wheelchair, pushed by the friend, but once she was out of it, her mobility, with the aid of a stick, did not seem to be too badly impaired.
And she was very smartly turned out. Under the camel-hair coat she wore against the cold could be seen a dress of pink silk, and her thin feet were encased in smart court shoes. Her sparse white hair had been skilfully shaped by a hairdresser’s lacquer. And she clutched a large brown handbag, as though it were a lifebelt in stormy seas.
But when Jonny introduced her to the choir, it was clear that her mental capacity did not match her physical fitness. She looked vague and uncomfortable, not taking in the names her son relayed to her. She kept peering anxiously at him, worried that he was about to abandon her, and when he had to take up his position at the organ, she was very distressed as her friend led her to their pew.
From the choir stalls, Jude had a very good view of the old lady, whose agitation seemed to grow as the church started to fill up. She kept half-rising from her seat, only to be gently pulled back by her friend. But the minute her son’s hands touched the keyboard to play the first notes of pre-ceremony music, Mrs Virgo settled back into peaceful, listening mode. And when Jonny started playing the ‘Trumpet Voluntary’, the old woman looked positively beatific. She remained in that state of calm throughout the service.
Toby, the tenor whom Jonny had brought in to handle the solos, proved to be very amiable. His professionalism had the effect of raising the choir’s talents in the direction of his own, and Jude could see Heather glowing from the quality of the sounds they were producing. Any residual regret that she wasn’t leading the ‘Ave Maria’ as soloist seemed to have long gone.
In fact, Heather Mallett glowed with satisfaction at the realization of all her dreams for Alice’s perfect day. Her meticulous planning had paid off.