And she reminded herself that when Sara had come to see her a couple of Sundays before, it hadn’t actually been in the context of a healing consultation. But to use that fact to justify a breach of confidentiality would, she knew, be mere casuistry. She decided that the only way she could share the information she wanted to with Carole was by not naming names. It might be clumsy, but it would not compromise her principle.
‘Listen, there are reasons why I can’t give you all the details …’
‘I see,’ said Carole, her nose immediately put out of joint.
Might as well be honest. ‘It involves client confidentiality.’
‘Oh yes?’ There was a particular brand of scepticism that Carole reserved for conversations about her neighbour’s work as a healer. Though never voicing the opinion in quite those terms, she secretly thought a lot of what Jude did was ‘mumbo-jumbo and psychobabble’.
‘The fact is, Carole, I heard from someone—’
‘A patient?’
‘As you know, I prefer to call them “clients”.’
‘Oh yes, of course. But it was from a client, was it?’ Carole’s tone was already implying the unreliability of the source.
‘Yes, it was. And she said—’
‘A female client then?’
‘Yes,’ Jude conceded. ‘Anyway, I saw her … let me think, when was it? Yes, exactly four weeks ago. On the Sunday. And she said she’d seen the dead body of a man …’
‘Really?’
‘… with a bullet hole in his temple.’
‘Where did she see it?’
‘Right here in Fethering.’
‘What, on the beach?’
‘No.’ Jude was realizing how difficult it was going to be to keep her source anonymous under Carole’s beady interrogation. ‘No, she saw it in Polly’s.’
‘In Polly’s? What, when it was full of people?’
‘No, no. After everyone had gone, when she was locking up.’
Carole pounced. ‘So she works at Polly’s, does she?’ Jude could not deny it. ‘So we’re talking about Sara Courtney, aren’t we?’
‘Well …’
‘Don’t deny it. How many other clients of yours work at Polly’s Cake Shop?’
‘Yes, it was her.’ Well, she’d tried. And, despite a residue of guilt, Jude felt quite relieved the truth was out. It would make her conversation with Carole a lot easier.
‘So where did she see the body?
‘In the store room. Well, that is … she wasn’t absolutely sure whether she’d seen it or not.’
‘“Not sure whether she’d seen it”? I think generally speaking, when people see dead bodies, they know whether they’ve seen them or not.’
‘Sara had been very ill.’
‘Huh.’ Like many people who conduct their lives on the edge of an emotional precipice, Carole Seddon was contemptuous about the concept of mental illness. She went on, ‘Was she alone when she saw – or didn’t see – the body?’
‘Yes.’
‘Nobody in the flat upstairs?’
‘Apparently not.’
‘Was there any sign of a gun in the store room?’
‘Yes. Sara said she saw one.’
‘Suicide then?’
‘Except that the body was lying on the floor, and the gun was on a windowsill, way out of reach of the victim.’
‘Murder then,’ said Carole.
THIRTEEN
It was on the Tuesday that the police finally gave a press conference. And identified the body that had been found on Fethering Beach.
His name was Amos Green, aged sixty-four. He was a retired chartered surveyor who was married and lived in Kingston.
The photograph of him shown on the South Today coverage of the story was very blurred, a detail blown up from a group picture at a wedding or some other social event. Neither Carole nor Jude could recognize in it the swollen and discoloured face they had seen on Fethering Beach.
The cause of the man’s death was not drowning. He had been killed by a gunshot. Police investigations were continuing.
By the time the Fethering Observer was published on the Thursday a better photograph had been found. The face that stared out from the front page had very dark eyes, thinning grey hair and a slightly roguish expression.
He apparently had no connection with Fethering. He had lived and worked all his life in Surrey and had been a local councillor in the Kingston area for some years.
The Fethering Observer confirmed that he had been shot and that police investigations were continuing.
Jude had resisted the impulse to ring Sara Courtney until the Thursday, but with the synchronicity which had featured so much in her life, just as she was about to pick up the phone, Sara rang her.
‘I’ve just seen the Observer,’ she said, her voice high and taut, just as it had been when she first came to Jude.
‘I thought you would. Or have heard about it on the news.’
‘I haven’t heard or seen any news till today. I’ve been away.’
‘Well, if there’s anything I can—’
‘Jude, I need help. Can I come and see you?’
‘Of course.’
‘Jude, what I’m asking you to do is completely forget what I told you about seeing the body.’ They were sitting in the cluttered sitting room of Woodside Cottage with cups of green tea.
‘That may not be easy. The mind has a mind of its own. You can’t just tell it to forget something.’
‘Well, all right. Not forget it, but swear to me you’ll never tell anyone about what I told you.’
Jude felt a little awkward, because she had already told someone – or that someone had winkled out of her – the details of what Sara had confided in her. But she said, ‘I won’t tell anyone’, hoping that the implication was that she wouldn’t tell anyone in the future. ‘But what are you going to do, Sara?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, the situation’s changed rather. When you first told me about the body in the store room, you weren’t even sure that you’d seen it. You were afraid you were hallucinating.’
‘I’m still not sure I saw it.’
‘Oh, come on. You can’t claim that any more. The fact that you’re here, the fact that you recognized the photo in the Observer – that must mean you did see Amos Green’s body.’
Sara looked very crestfallen, but had to accept the truth of Jude’s words.
‘And was he someone you recognized?’
‘Well, if I did see the body in the store room—’
‘No, I mean did you recognize him in the photograph as someone you had met before – while he was still alive?’
Sara Courtney shook her head firmly. ‘I’d never seen him before. And I wish I’d never seen him at all!’
‘I can understand that.’
‘I just want to forget that I ever saw him at all. Just wind back time.’
‘Can’t be done, I’m afraid. And the big change is that now the man’s death is the subject of an official murder inquiry.’
‘It wasn’t necessarily murder. It could have been suicide.’
‘Oh yes? And whereabouts did you tell me you’d seen the gun in the store room?’
‘On the windowsill,’ Sara had to admit.
‘So, for the suicide theory to hold water, Amos Green must have shot himself in the temple, then, before falling down dead, have moved across the room to put the gun on the windowsill. Do you really believe that’s what happened?’
‘No,’ came the grudging reply. ‘But it’s possible that he shot himself and the gun dropped to the floor as he fell down, and then someone else came in, found the body and moved the gun to the windowsill.’