‘Oh. So how long had they known each other?’
‘Met in Manchester, at uni, I think. Sang in some choir together. I kind of got the impression that at one time they might have been quite close. But it was difficult to get her to talk about that kind of thing, about anything that happened before she met Dad, really.’
‘Hm. Blake Woodruff’s message sounded like he still meant something to her.’
‘Maybe.’
‘You don’t know how long ago they last met?’
Alice shook her head. ‘Not since she married Dad, I’m sure of that. He didn’t let her see anyone – and certainly not another man.’
‘No. One odd thing …’
‘What?’
‘When Blake Woodruff’s name came up at a church choir rehearsal, Heather told Jonny Virgo that you were the one who knew him, not her. Why do you think she’d say that?’
Alice grimaced wryly. ‘I’d imagine she wanted people to think that I’d got the gig with Blake off my own bat. She didn’t want to look like she’d been calling in favours for me. She was always very protective when the subject of my career came up. She tried to cover up the fact that I hadn’t really got much of a career.’ This wasn’t spoken with self-pity, it was just a bald statement of fact.
‘Ah.’ There were still some unanswered questions there, but Jude let the subject rest and moved on. ‘Dare I ask if you’ve heard anything from Roddy?’
‘Nothing.’ The tears that she had managed to hold at the edge of her eyelids spilled over now.
‘I was thinking … about the row you had on your wedding night … If you don’t want to talk about it, of course I don’t mind,’ Jude lied.
‘I might as well talk about it. You already know so much about my life, why should you be spared the full misery of it?’
Jude let the silence ride. If she was going to get any further confidences, she had to let the girl take her time.
Then Alice spoke. ‘It’s just another thing that was totally screwed up by my father. You’ve no idea how much he damaged me. All my relationships with men have been disastrous. I thought, with Roddy, I could finally get things right, but Dad managed to ruin that too.’
‘How?’
‘Look, I’m not a virgin, obviously, after my bloody father had fiddled with me for years, but … here’s something you don’t hear very often in this day and age … Roddy and I hadn’t made love before we got married.’
Jude was surprised, but all she said was, ‘Fair enough. Your choice.’
‘My choice, initially. Then his choice. The fact is, we did go to bed together a few times. We tried, but on every occasion I … I remembered Dad touching me, and I just froze. I couldn’t. Roddy and I loved each other, but I … couldn’t.
‘He was amazing about it. Must be hard for a man, any man, but particularly in this day and age. Of course, he’d never admit he wasn’t having sex with me, but, particularly in a masculine world like the army, with all his mates boasting of their conquests and … Anyway, like I say, he was amazingly good with me, didn’t put any pressure on. He kept saying it would be different when we were actually married. Once we’d got rings on our fingers, everything would turn out all right.’ Alice lapsed into silence.
‘But it didn’t?’ Jude prompted gently.
‘No. Perhaps our expectations had been too high. The day of the wedding had been wonderful. We both genuinely thought we could put the past behind us, that the future was ours. And the hotel was lovely. The room was beautiful, champagne laid on. If ever there was a romantic setting, ripe for love … But the memory of my father was still there. At first, the kissing, the gentle kissing was … But when Roddy touched me, intimately … just like every other time … I recoiled. I couldn’t stand it!
‘And of course, it had an effect on him. Having your wife turn away from you on your wedding night … it doesn’t do a lot for a man’s potency. He couldn’t, kind of … And suddenly, we’re shouting at each other, and …’ Alice crumpled in despair.
‘And did Roddy know why you behaved like that? Had you told him about your father, about what he did to you?’
‘No. I kept getting near the subject, I kept being about to tell him, but then I got scared I’d frighten him off. I thought he’d be disgusted with me when he knew what I had done with my father, for my father. I was afraid. Then, only a few hours later, I hear that Mum’s been murdered.’
Again, Jude let the silence run its course, before saying, ‘Roddy shouted at you, you said.’
‘Mm.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He said it was all Mum’s fault. He said that she was frigid, and the way she brought me up had made me frigid too. He said he’d had enough of her interfering in every aspect of our lives. He said he was going to sort her out, once and for all.’
The two women looked at each other bleakly. They didn’t need to voice the identical thoughts which were going through both of their minds.
EIGHTEEN
It had stopped raining by the time Jude left Sorrento for the walk back to Woodside Cottage. The capricious May weather had decided it was summer, after all. The sun was hot enough to raise steam from the wet paving. Fethering Beach looked breathtakingly beautiful, but Jude’s mood was far from sunny. Alice’s words echoed and re-echoed around her head. What she had heard had not surprised her, but it was chilling to have her worst conjectures confirmed.
As she walked along the promenade, lost in gloomy speculation, Jude became aware of a couple coming towards her. From a distance, she thought she knew who they were; the wheelchair was a giveaway. And as they got closer, she waved at Jonny Virgo and his mother. The old lady was again immaculately turned out, in her camel coat with the brown handbag clutched on her lap.
She showed no signs of recognizing Jude, but smiled benignly as Jonny greeted her.
‘Weather’s picked up a bit,’ he began, uncontroversially.
‘Certainly has.’
‘An hour or so back, I didn’t think we’d be able to go out all day. And Mother does so like her “turn along the prom”. But …’ He spread his hands wide ‘… lo and behold – sun!’
Though Mrs Virgo was probably not taking anything in, Jude still felt she had to move circumspectly towards the subject that was uppermost in her mind. ‘I thought the music at the wedding was wonderful, Jonny,’ she said. ‘You really were playing out of your skin.’
‘Thank you.’ He spoke modestly but was clearly delighted by the compliment.
‘Terrible,’ said Jude, edging towards her goal, ‘that such a joyous occasion should have such a tragic outcome.’
‘Yes.’ Jonny Virgo looked appropriately sobered by the reminder.
‘It just seems awful. Heather had come so far.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The way she reinvented herself after her husband’s death.’
‘Ah, yes. Well, I suppose people react to bereavement in different ways. Heather was perhaps the resilient type. She recognized that one chapter of her life had closed and was moving quickly on to the next one.’
He spoke as if unaware that there had been anything wrong in the Malletts’ marriage. If that’s what he thought, Jude wasn’t about to disillusion him. There was no reason why he should know, after all. ‘You’re probably right. Anyway, you won’t be surprised to know that everyone in Fethering has a different theory as to the identity of Heather’s murderer.’
‘Oh, really? Yes, I suppose they would. I don’t hear much local chat, I’m afraid. Except for these “turns along the prom”, and of course my church choir commitments, Mother and I don’t leave the house much.’
‘Well, believe me, the Fethering gossip machine has been going into overdrive.’