“Yes. I’d just got back from Newhaven and parked the car when I remembered I was out of eggs, so I hurried down to the grocer’s, because it was just before closing time, and in the shop I met Virginia.”
“Virginia Hargreaves?”
“Yes.”
“And I thought – wouldn’t it be awkward if Virginia asked me if I’d seen Roddy, because then I’d either have to tell a direct lie or go against what he had asked me to do…so it was potentially very awkward. But…” He wiped his brow at the recollection. “She didn’t ask me anything about Roddy…so it was fine.”
“But did you tell anyone else about giving Roddy the lift?”
“No. Thank goodness nobody else asked, so I managed to avoid that particular moral dilemma.” He spoke as if avoiding moral dilemmas was a rarity for him.
Carole’s mind was racing. She had to talk to Jude. She had to tell Jude about the connections that were forming in her mind.
She contrived to leave the vicarage quickly, but without overt rudeness.
Philip Trigwell stood wringing his hands in the doorway as he saw her out. “I’m sorry. I probably haven’t been much use to you. I often wonder if I’m much use to anyone…you know, my parishioners or…” He sighed. “Life’s not easy, is it?”
“No, it’s not,” said Carole Seddon, as she started towards the parked Renault. “But having a strong faith must help, mustn’t it?”
“Yes,” the Rev Trigwell agreed wistfully. “It would, wouldn’t it?”
Twenty-Four
“…which must mean that Roddy Hargreaves couldn’t have killed his wife,” Carole concluded triumphantly. “He was in France at the time. The Rev Trigwell saw him on to the ferry and then met Virginia afterwards.”
Jude was uncharacteristically cautious. “Ye-es. We’d have to check the actual timing of her disappearance.”
“Oh, come on. We know we’re talking about late February three years ago. Friday the twentieth, to be precise, as James told us. Roddy talked about three or four days of his ‘lost weekend’ in France and said that when he got back, presumably round Tuesday the twenty-fourth, Virginia had gone.”
“But if he’d killed her, he would have said that, wouldn’t he?”
“What, so you’re suggesting the trip to France was just to provide an alibi?” Carole demanded scornfully. “That’s why he involved the Rev Trigwell? Roddy caught the next ferry back to England, murdered his wife and pretended he’d been in France all the time? And I suppose he was only pretending to be drunk out of his skull, was he?”
“That’s what a premeditating murderer would do, isn’t it?”
“Yes. But I can’t see Roddy Hargreaves in the role of premeditating murderer. He wasn’t sufficiently organized to do anything like that. He was a complete mess.”
“That’s how he presented himself, yes. But that could have been an elaborate double bluff.”
“For heaven’s sake! Why’re you being so pussyfooted?”
This outburst brought a slow smile across Jude’s rather beautiful face. “Just playing devil’s advocate.”
“Why?”
“Somebody’s got to. Normally I can rely on you to take the job.”
“Oh, Jude…!”
Jude continued to smile in the silence. After some moments of resistance, Carole couldn’t help smiling too. Jude had that effect on people. As they sat there that Monday morning over coffee in the cluttered sitting room of Woodside Cottage, Carole felt great gratitude for the fact that they’d met. Not that she’d ever put the feeling into words. Carole Seddon had a deep distaste for hearts worn on sleeves.
“Don’t worry. If it’s any comfort to you, I think you’re right.”
“Thank God for that.”
“But we do need to find out more about the weekend when Roddy claimed to be away.”
“Was away.”
“Probably. We still need to know more about it.”
Carole conceded grumpily that this was true. She’d wanted a bigger reaction to what she’d found out from the Rev Trigwell. And though she knew that Jude was only teasing her, Carole Seddon had never enjoyed being teased.
“All right then. Who do we talk to? Who might know about what Roddy was up to?”
“James Lister. We keep coming back to him. Regular drinking companion of Roddy’s.”
“Yes…” A new thought struck Carole. “I wonder when James retired…”
“Mm?”
“Well, we know he was a butcher – much as Fiona would like to keep that fact a secret. And he’s now…what? When we did the Town Walk, he said he was over seventy. So I wonder when he retired.”
“Why’s it relevant, Carole?”
“Simply because Philip Trigwell said he’d met Virginia Hargreaves in the grocer’s. Presumably he meant the one that Debbie Carlton’s parents used to run…which is now an antique shop.”
Jude caught on. “And which was next door to the butcher’s, formerly John Lister & Sons, now an estate agent’s.”
“Exactly. And I was wondering whether James Lister was still plying his trade on the weekend Virginia Hargreaves disappeared.”
“Carole, you aren’t making a connection between butchery and dismemberment, are you?”
A shrug. “Well, it’s a thought. I’d imagine removing arms and legs is an easier job for a professional than an amateur.”
Jude’s brow wrinkled as she assessed the idea. She pushed a flop of blonde hair off her forehead. “I have the same problem with James in the role of murderer as I do with Roddy. Or at least with Virginia in the role of victim. Now, if Fiona had been dismembered…well, yes, that would make sense.”
Carole grinned grimly. “Anyway, it’s all worthy of investigation. I’m sure we’ll find out that Roddy Hargreaves couldn’t possibly have killed his wife.”
“Yes…” Jude tapped her chin as she remembered something. “And there’s another person we should talk to as well.”
“Who’s that?”
“The old bloke Roddy bought the boatyard from.”
“Do we know who that is?”
“Ted Crisp knows.”
Carole froze at the name. Her carapace of reserve was immediately rebuilt around her. The thawing of the last couple of weeks was undone in an instant.
“I thought I might go down and have lunch at the Crown and Anchor. I don’t suppose – ”
“No, Jude!”
Her primary purpose could not be fulfilled, because Ted Crisp wasn’t on duty at the Crown and Anchor. It hadn’t occurred to Jude before, because he seemed to be a fixture in the pub, but of course the landlord must have days off. There was a pattern even to lives as apparently disorganized as Ted Crisp’s.
But her trip wasn’t wasted. As she approached, Jude had seen a familiar figure getting out of a BMW he had just parked and going into the pub. Alan Burnethorpe, dressed in his uniform collarless black shirt and black jeans. She remembered Ted telling her that the architect who’d worked with Roddy Hargreaves was an occasional visitor to the Crown and Anchor.
Jude had checked her pace and wandered down to the sea front for a moment to give Alan Burnethorpe time tobuy a drink. She felt it would be easier to approach him once he was comfortably ensconced in the bar. He could certainly be a useful source of background information about his former client.
When she finally entered the Crown and Anchor, Jude couldn’t see any sign of the architect. Only when she had ordered a white wine and a Tina Bake from the unfamiliar girl who seemed to be in sole charge did she spot him, tucked away in a booth, deep in conversation with a heavily built man in a smart sports jacket and oblong glasses. She picked up her drink and sidled casually into the booth next to them.