‘So if we do find out anything else …?’
‘Why not tell the police? That’s the right thing to do, isn’t it? Then if they think what you’ve told them has any relevance to my life, well, they can get in touch with me, can’t they?’ Janice Green stood up.
‘Just one more question before you go,’ said Carole.
‘Mm?’
‘Apart from a jealous husband, can you think of anyone else who might have wanted to kill your husband?’
‘No. As I said, it was difficult not to like Amos. Most people did … except for jealous husbands.’
As Jude saw Janice Green out of the front door, she reflected on the different ways in which different people coped with bereavement.
SIXTEEN
There was no news of an inquest on Amos Green. No news at all about Amos Green, as October slipped into November. Carole became prematurely obsessed with what she was going to give her two granddaughters for Christmas.
Jude continued a busy programme of healing. She didn’t hear much from Sara Courtney, which was good news. Not because she didn’t want to hear from her, but the fact that Sara was uncommunicative indicated that mentally she was healthy. And on the one occasion in November that Jude saw her in Polly’s Cake Shop, she gathered that her mental health was in no small measure due to the development of her relationship with Kent Warboys. All of which was excellent news.
Carole and Jude were frustrated by their lack of progress on the investigation of Amos Green’s murder, but there didn’t seem much they could do. Though they spoke on the phone to the dead man’s widow, she could add little to what she had told them at Woodside Cottage. She was, however, annoyed that the police had not yet released her late husband’s body, and so she couldn’t arrange the funeral which she hoped would bring final closure to that chapter of her life.
Carole and Jude seemed to have no further leads to follow. And, as ever, they had no idea what was going on in the official inquiry. Carole was of the opinion that the police were probably building up evidence to ensure that, when the inquest finally happened, the coroner would have no difficulty in passing a verdict of suicide.
Early in November there was another meeting of the SPCS Action Committee. And it was clear, in spite of Quintus Braithwaite’s customary bluster, that the impetus for action was trickling away. Except for the announcement that the order for SPCS Action Committee headed notepaper had been put through to ‘these very good people Phoebe knows in London’, nothing much seemed to have advanced since the previous meeting.
Numbers attending were down. There were considerably more ‘apologies’ recorded under the first item on the Agenda. Jude herself had been tempted just not to turn up and effect her resignation by continuing non-appearance rather than by any public statement.
But some residual loyalty to Sara did drag her along to Hiawatha, where she was royally bored. Flora Claire went on at great length about her latest idea for an alternative use for Polly’s Cake Shop, as a Naturopathic Health Centre as well as a café. She tried to inveigle Jude into this plan, saying that her brand of healing would be a fitting complement to the hot stone massage, body brushing and chocolate spa treatments that she was envisaging. Jude was uncharacteristically sharp in her rejection of any possible involvement. Her healing was a private and serious business, not a pampering resource for the idle rich of West Sussex.
When they got on to the Agenda item ‘Publicity and Profile’, Lesley Tarquin once again whipped out her iPad mini. On this occasion she was dressed in ultra-tight black leggings and a pink silk top so diaphanous that everyone knew she was wearing a red bra. Quintus Braithwaite’s eyes burned with ill-concealed lust every time he looked at her.
Lesley assured the committee that she was still in close contact with Vince at the Fethering Observer and was in regular touch with the West Sussex Gazette and Sussex Life. Jezza from FOAM FM was still on board, as were Will at Radio Solent and Flick at Radios Surrey and Sussex. And it would only need a phone call for Barry at South Today and Fizz at Meridian to drop everything and rush to Fethering to cover the next SPCS Action Committee event.
Lesley was unfazed when Wendy Roote was uncharitable enough to ask whether she had actually got any publicity for anything yet. No, she said she was as yet just ‘getting her ducks in a row’, so that she could ‘co-ordinate a big media splash’ when ‘the time was right’. Wendy persisted, asking when the time might be right, and Lesley replied that it would be when the SPCS Action Committee had a ‘mega-story’ with which they could ‘carpet-bomb the punters’.
Quintus Braithwaite said that all sounded very good. Then he and Arnold Bloom became involved in a long argument on the choice of venue for the next meeting, which stayed only just the right side of insulting. (In fact Arnold Bloom’s description of the interior décor of Hiawatha probably was insulting.)
After ‘Any Other Business’, when diaries were brought out to arrange ‘Date of Next Meeting’, the level of unavailability or uncertainty about availability amongst the committee members and the argument as to whether Wednesdays were the best night for meetings suggested that the SPCS Action Committee, like so many local initiatives before it, was about to spiral away into nothingness. Jude didn’t think she would have to tender her formal resignation. Pretty soon there wouldn’t be any committee for her to resign from.
She was therefore very surprised to receive the following day an email summoning her to an EGM of the SPCS Action Committee at Hiawatha on the following Monday. The reason was not explained. When Jude mentioned this to her neighbour, whose Home Office experience meant she knew her way around committee protocol, Carole said this was illegal. Members of a committee summoned to an Extraordinary General Meeting must be informed of the purpose of the meeting, otherwise any resolutions they pass are invalid.
Jude rationalized that the EGM had probably been called to accelerate the process whose symptoms she had witnessed at Wednesday night’s meeting. The SPCS Action Committee was about to be put out of its misery and wound up.
She couldn’t have been more wrong.
Though the coup that was announced on the Monday evening at Hiawatha was not Quintus Braithwaite’s, characteristically he wanted to claim credit for it. So he took a long time to weave his introduction to the evening’s undoubted star.
‘… and I like to think that our efforts on the SPCS Action Committee have helped to raise the profile of Polly’s Cake Shop and the issue of its survival and the form in which it survives. It is often the case – frequently through the input of organizations like this one which I have initiated – that ground-roots lobbying produces better results than approaches through more official channels. And I think that is undoubtedly the case in this instance.
‘I am very pleased that my idea of bringing Kent Warboys into our discussions has proved so fruitful. Because Kent has some news for us.’
The Commodore smiled patronizingly at the younger man, as though introducing his protégé. Jude remembered what Sara had told her about Kent being interested in Polly’s Cake Shop long before Quintus Braithwaite ever talked to him about it.
But the architect wasn’t about to mention that fact. If the Chair of the SPCS Action Committee wanted to take on unmerited glory, that didn’t bother him.