‘Yes, but some of them do have a lighter side. I think Bob Hinkley sets himself impossibly high standards. He’s an idealist.’
‘Not a good thing to be in this day and age,’ said Ted sagely. ‘Can only lead to disappointment.’
‘Yes, it can’t be easy for him. Anyway, Ted, I really wanted to ask you about KK Rosser.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘He didn’t turn up on Monday, expecting the choir to be here, did he?’
‘No. He rang me, asking if I thought anyone’d turn up. I said no. He wasn’t surprised.’
‘You know him quite well, don’t you, Ted?’
‘Well, I’ve known him, on and off, for a good few years. But, of course, that’s not the same thing as knowing him well.’
‘Do you know if he was married?’
The landlord shrugged. ‘I think he may have been some time in the past. So far as I know, he’s had a fairly chequered relationship history. Part of the rock ’n’ roll image he so carefully maintains. Used to pick up girls at gigs; he was always talking about groupies, though how much of it was just bullshit I never really knew. Anyway, he’s probably getting a bit old to do too much of that these days. But I’m sure he still thinks of himself as a babe-magnet.’
‘Hm. You don’t know what his relationship with Heather was, do you?’
Ted chuckled knowingly. ‘You’re very transparent, Carole.’
She reacted as if this was an insult. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Casually coming down here late morning, like you never normally do. Casually bringing the conversation round to the subject of a woman who’s just been murdered. Casually asking about her relationship with someone I know. You’re off on one of your investigations again, aren’t you?’
Carole coloured. ‘I’m just intrigued. As everyone else in Fethering is. It happened right here on our doorstep. Go on, Ted, you can’t deny it. You’re intrigued too.’
‘No, I can’t deny it. We all want to know whodunit. But I think you want to know a bit more than the rest of us.’
Carole could not fault the accuracy of his assessment. So, she just said, ‘All right, I’m not denying that either.’
‘You’re a bit of a Rottweiler when you get your teeth into something like this, aren’t you, Carole?’
‘Guilty as charged.’
‘You and Jude.’
‘Not always with Jude,’ came the frosty response. ‘I am capable of investigating things on my own.’
‘Yes, I’m sure you are.’
‘Go on then, Ted. What do you reckon the relationship was between Heather and KK?’
The landlord shrugged. ‘Well, you know they met because she wanted him to give her singing lessons?’
Carole nodded. ‘Is that something he’s done often, give singing lessons?’
‘I think he’s had an ad in the Fethering Observer for some time. How much take-up he’s got from it, I don’t know. Basically, KK’s always hard up. Being bad with money is another part of the rock god image. If he could have afforded it, KK would’ve been the sort to spend thousands on cocaine and driving sports cars into swimming pools. But he’s never had that kind of cash. And he’s never made much from his gigs. That Rubber Truncheon set-up; I think sometimes he was paying the pubs to let them perform there. And, having a pathological aversion to actually getting a proper job, KK will only allow himself to do stuff that’s music-related. Giving singing lessons, I guess, to his mind kind of qualifies.’
‘But it was strange the way Heather did the singing lessons.’
‘Howja mean?’
‘She kept them secret from her husband. When she went off to see KK, she told Leonard she was just going shopping.’
‘I didn’t know that. No reason why I should, mind.’
‘No. But the way Heather was behaving was exactly the way a wife would if she was having an affair.’
‘Oh, I see where you’re heading. Actually, I’ve seen where you’re heading for the last five minutes. You’re asking me if I know whether KK Rosser and Heather Mallett were having an affair.’
‘That’s exactly it.’
‘Well, the answer’s no.’
‘No, they weren’t having an affair?’
‘No. No, I don’t know whether or not they were having an affair.’
‘Oh.’ Carole sounded really deflated.
Ted looked up as the door opened to admit a party of some dozen index-linked pensioners. ‘Business calls.’
‘Quickly, before you serve them. Do you have a phone number for KK?’
‘Sure.’ He scribbled it down on a menu pad and handed the sheet across to her. ‘Watch yourself, though, Carole. He’s a bit of a ladies’ man.’
She blushed deeply, as the landlord chuckled and went along the bar to greet his new customers.
Carole sat at a table with her Sauvignon Blanc. She was aware of her isolation and reminded herself that she never really had been a ‘pub person’. A third of the contents were still in the glass when she returned to High Tor.
But it was still enough to give her a headache. She castigated herself for drinking so early in the day.
While she was doing a healing session, Jude was very careful to keep the answering services on her landline and mobile silent. For what she was doing to work required total concentration. So, on the Wednesday afternoon, it wasn’t till after she’d finished treating a retired policewoman with long-term back pain that she picked up the message from the Rev. Bob Hinkley. She rang him straight away, as requested.
‘Oh, thank you so much, Jude, for getting back to me. I wanted to talk to you about what’s happened in the village … you know, since last weekend.’
‘Heather Mallett’s murder, you mean?’
‘Yes, I suppose I do. It’s just … an event like that is bound to be a terrible shock, not only to those immediately involved, but to the wider community.’
‘Undoubtedly.’
‘And if the church can’t provide support to people at a time like this, then what is the church for?’
Jude knew there were cynical answers available to this rhetorical question, but it was not in her nature to voice them.
‘I feel it’s a test of me, as a vicar, to provide what succour I can.’ Jude was getting the impression that Bob Hinkley regarded everything as a test of him, ‘as a vicar’.
‘I think people do know,’ said Jude soothingly, ‘that the church is there, as a source of support, a place they can turn to in time of need.’
‘They do perhaps know that in theory, but their track record for turning to the church in time of need is not great. I don’t feel that I am the first person they turn to. I mean, look at the size of the congregation in All Saints on a Sunday.’
‘Well, we do live in an increasingly secular age,’ Jude waffled reassuringly. ‘Traditional habits are changing, and people perhaps have different resources in times of trouble.’ She phrased the next bit carefully. ‘I’m sure the people who believe the church is there for them will turn to it.’
‘That’s not good enough,’ said the vicar sharply. ‘I feel I have to be more proactive than that. I have to go out into my flock to support them.’
‘I’m sure that won’t do any harm,’ said Jude.
‘Anyway, the reason I’m contacting you …’ She had been wondering when he would get to this point ‘… is that I believe you know Alice Mallett.’
‘Well, I’ve met her a few times. I’d hardly say I know her.’
‘You were the first person she came to see after she heard the news of her stepmother’s death.’
Jude did not question how the vicar knew this. She had lived in Fethering long enough to know that no one could go anywhere there without their movements being observed. It was a constant source of amazement to her that some people managed to conduct extramarital affairs in the village.