Her neighbour nodded and the two women got out of the car with, in Jude’s case, some discomfort. Even in the short journey from Smalting, as the shock of the impact wore off her individual injuries were starting to give her a lot of pain.
Carole knocked on the door, which was promptly opened. Mimi Lassiter looked unsurprised to see her visitors, though perhaps a bit disappointed that one of them was Jude.
‘I think you know why we’ve come to see you,’ said Carole, very Home Office.
‘I think I probably do. Come in.’
The sitting room into which she led them reminded both women of Gordon Blaine’s. It was not just the small dimensions – in this case due to the original builder rather than the owner’s DIY conversion – but the furniture, the ornaments and the pictures on the walls were all from an earlier era. The house had been decorated in the time of Mimi’s parents and she had either not wanted to – or not dared to – change a thing.
It wasn’t an occasion for pleasantries or offers of coffee. Mimi Lassiter sat in a cracked leather armchair, set facing the television, and her guests in straight-backed chairs either side of the box.
‘Rather rash of you this morning, wasn’t it?’ said Carole. ‘Making a public attack on Jude by driving straight at her? There’d have been lots of witnesses on the seafront at Smalting. I’m sure someone would have taken note of your registration number.’
‘I wasn’t thinking very straight this morning,’ said Mimi, sounding as ever like a rather pernickety maiden aunt. ‘I was upset.’
‘Do you often get upset?’ asked Jude.
‘Not very often, but I do. My mother used to look after me when I got upset, but since she’s passed, I’ve had to manage it on my own.’
‘And,’ said Carole, ‘do you regard trying to run someone down in cold blood as “managing it on your own”?’
‘It made sense. I couldn’t see any other way out. And when I heard from Elizaveta that you two were actually investigating Ritchie Good’s death … as I say, I wasn’t thinking very straight. It probably wasn’t the most sensible thing to do.’
To Carole and Jude this seemed like something of an understatement.
‘No,’ said Mimi. ‘I’ve been very foolish. My mother always used to say, “At times, Mimi, you can be very foolish.” And she had ways of stopping me being foolish, but now she’s gone …’
‘How long ago did your mother die?’ asked Jude.
‘Nine years ago. It was just round the time when I was retiring from work.’
‘What did you do when you were working?’
‘I trained in Worthing as a shorthand typist. I was very good. I got a diploma. I could have got a job anywhere, even in London. But I didn’t want to leave Fethering. Mummy needed help with Daddy. He was virtually bedridden for a long time. So I got a secretarial job at Hadleigh’s. Do you know them?’
‘No.’
‘Big nursery, just between here and Worthing. Lots of glasshouses. Well, they were made of glass when I started there. Now they’re mostly that polythene stuff. Still a very big company, though. I did very well at Hadleigh’s. They very nearly made me office manager. But I wasn’t as good on the computers as I had been on the typewriter, so they appointed someone else. I never really took to computers in the same way I took to the typewriter. So they kept me on at Hadleigh’s, but there was never any more chance of promotion. Then they opened up a Farm Shop and they suggested I might work in there. But I didn’t like it. Some members of the public can be very rude, you know.’
‘So,’ Jude recapitulated, ‘your mother died around the time you retired. That must have been a very big double blow for you.’
‘Oh, it was. Two days before I left Hadleigh’s. And it wasn’t real retirement. I mean, I hadn’t served all the time that … They gave me my full pension, but it was really …’
‘Early retirement,’ suggested Carole, whose experience of the same thing still rankled.
Mimi nodded. She looked shaken by the memory. ‘I was in a very bad state round then, I remember. I know it’s wrong, but at times I did think about ending it all. I just felt so isolated.’
‘Are you saying you attempted suicide?’
‘No, not quite. But I thought about it. I even started stockpiling paracetamol, but then things got better.’
‘In what way?’ asked Jude. ‘Was it because you’d joined SADOS?’
Mimi nodded enthusiastically. ‘Fortunately that happened fairly soon after Mummy passed. That’s what really got me out of the terrible state I was in. Elizaveta Dalrymple used to come to the Farm Shop while I was still working there. And she said how the society was always looking for new members and she persuaded me to come along to a social meeting. She can be very persuasive, Elizaveta.’
‘Yes,’ Carole agreed drily.
‘So that’s how I started with SADOS. As a very humble new member … little knowing that I would one day end up at the dizzy heights of Membership Secretary.’ Clearly the appointment was one that meant a great deal to Mimi Lassiter.
‘I’d never wanted to act,’ she went on. ‘I couldn’t act to save my life, but they found things for me to do backstage. And occasionally I’m in crowd scenes … like I am for The Devil’s Disciple. Elizaveta always makes me feel part of the company, though, and she even started inviting me to parties at her home.’
‘Her “drinkies things”?’
‘Yes.’
‘Of course. Where we saw you on Saturday.’
‘Yes.’
‘And what about Freddie? Did you have much to do with him?’
‘Oh, Freddie.’ An expression of sheer hero-worship took over her face. ‘He was wonderful. Did you ever meet him?’
‘Didn’t have that pleasure,’ said Jude.
‘Though we’ve heard so much about him,’ said Carole, ‘that we feel as though we’ve met him.’
‘He was just a wonderful man. So talented. And so kind to everyone, particularly to new members of SADOS.’
A look was exchanged between Carole and Jude. Each knew the other was thinking, ‘particularly to new, young, pretty members of the SADOS’. Who could benefit so much from Freddie’s assistance when working on their parts in his flat in Worthing. Another look between the two also made a silent agreement that they weren’t about to ask whether Mimi Lassiter had ever been the recipient of a star-shaped pendant. It just didn’t seem likely.
‘I gather,’ said Carole, ‘it was a great upheaval for the society when Freddie Dalrymple died.’
‘Oh, it was terrible. For a long time nobody knew what would happen to SADOS. It seemed impossible that the society could continue without Freddie. But that’s when Elizaveta really came into her own. She’s such a strong woman, you know.’
Neither Carole nor Jude was about to argue with that.
‘Could we come back to this morning?’ Carole’s question was not one that would have brooked the answer no.
‘All right,’ said Mimi, instantly subdued.
‘And your attempt to kill Jude.’ Mimi did not argue with the phrasing. ‘You’ve told us you were in a bad state this morning, that you weren’t thinking straight, but you haven’t told us why you wanted Jude dead.’
‘I wanted both of you dead,’ said Mimi with refreshing honesty. ‘I still do.’
An anxious look passed between the two women. Was their unwilling hostess about to produce a gun?
‘But Elizaveta told me that’s not the right way to proceed.’
‘I’d go along with that,’ Carole agreed. ‘But when did Elizaveta say this?’
‘Just now. The phone was ringing when I got back from Smalting.’