“…overnight flight to Miami,” the one she didn’t know was saying, “which will be as uncomfortable as ever.”
“Surely you go First Class or Club?” said Alan Burnethorpe.
“No. It doesn’t take that long.”
“Oh, come on. You can afford it.”
“That’s not the point.”
“You always were a bloody cheapskate, Francis.”
This ready identification was extremely convenient from Jude’s point of view. She felt confident that the large man was Debbie Carlton’s ex-husband, and she settled down with interest to hear what he had to say. Making her presence known to Alan Burnethorpe was an option she would decide whether or not to exercise later.
“I’m not a cheapskate. I’m just not going to give Debbie the satisfaction.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about. What satisfaction?”
“The satisfaction of making me shell out for a First Class ticket.”
“Sorry, you’ve lost me, Francis. What is this?”
“Look, I don’t want to be over here. I want to be in Florida with Jonelle. I only came back because the police were getting suspicious of me.”
“About Virginia’s body?”
“Yes.” There was a silence between the two men. Then Francis Carlton asked, “Haven’t been in touch with you, have they?”
“The police? No. I don’t think anyone knows there’s any connection between her and either of us.”
“I don’t know whether the police knew anything about me and Virginia. If they did, they kept quiet about it when they questioned me. Mind you, of course, at that stage the body hadn’t been positively identified as hers.”
“No,” Alan Burnethorpe agreed. There was another awkward silence. “I should think we’re all right now, anyway.”
“Roddy Hargreaves’s suicide puts a lid on the investigation?”
“I’d have thought so. That must be what the police are thinking. Certainly what all the snoopers and harpies of Fedborough are thinking.”
“So Roddy’s really done us a favour,” said Francis Carlton slowly.
“Ensured that there’ll be no more investigation of Virginia’s past…Yes, I hope so. We’re both off the hook.”
“And I really don’t think anyone in Fedborough has a clue that either of us had affairs with Virginia. So far as they’re concerned, she was a nice aristocratic lady who only went up to London to sit on charity committees.”
“As opposed to sitting on…” The architect, maybe aware of its tastelessness, thought better of continuing the line. “Anyway, it was all a long time ago. I broke up with Virginia when I met Joke.”
“And with her and me it was just sex, really. Very good sex, it has to be said. I don’t need to tell you about that four-poster bed she had in London, with the design of vines climbing up the pillars and – ”
“No, you don’t,” said Alan Burnethorpe curtly.
“OK. I don’t actually think many people in Fedborough even knew Virginia had a flat in London. And nobody knew what she used it for.” Francis chuckled harshly. “There was a marked lack of curiosity about anything she did away from Fedborough. Which is good news for both of us. We can congratulate ourselves on having got away with it, having evaded the beady eyes of the town.” Francis Carlton let out an audible shudder. “God, I’d forgotten how claustrophobic that environment can be.”
“It’s not so bad.” Instinctively, Alan came to the defence of his home town.
“You may not find it so, but I do. Maybe it’s all right for you ‘Chubs’. You’re just like Debbie, she seems to enjoy all that shopkeepers’ gossip. Well, it’s not for me. I tell you, Alan, I wouldn’t dare be having this conversation with you anywhere in Fedborough.”
“Maybe not, but we’re fine here. This place is very quiet. I use it quite a bit.”
“Like you used to use your office on the houseboat.”
“Bring a few little friends here, do you?” Francis nudged.
“Francis, I’ve got Joke. I’m a happily married man.”
But the way he said it prompted a laugh of male complicity.
“Yes, of course. How is married life?”
“It’s fine.”
Francis Carlton picked up on the automatic nature of the reply. “Really?”
“Well…It’s all a bit familiar. I’ve got two small children. I had two small children before, when I was married to Karen. I don’t find the new set much more interesting than I found the first lot.”
“And how’s married sex?”
“Fine. Fine…so long as I get the occasional outside diversion.”
Another masculine chuckle from Francis. “You don’t change, do you, Alan?”
“What about you? You working your way through the busty cheerleaders of Florida?”
“As a matter of fact, I’m not. I don’t expect you to believe this – because the idea’s so alien to your nature – but, since I married Jonelle, I’ve been entirely faithful to her.”
“Oh. Well, congratulations.” It was Alan’s turn for a male bonding chuckle. “Still, if she’s pregnant, that’s going to have an effect on your sex-life. You’ll have to develop some outside interests to get you through that.”
“No.” Francis Carlton spoke with a new seriousness. “The pregnancy is what makes me certain that I’ll stay faithful to Jonelle. That really means a lot to me. Maybe if Debbie had been able to have children I might have stayed with her…” He quickly dismissed the idea. “Anyway, Jonelle and me is for keeps.”
“Are you saying you don’t think you’ll ever make love to another woman?”
“I hope not.”
“God, Francis, you’re no fun any more.”
“Two Steak and Kidneys.” The girl from behind the bar brought over the men’s food. Jude made a silent prayer that the service to her might be slow. She was getting more information than she had dared imagine, and didn’t want the arrival of her Tuna Bake to draw attention to her presence.
There were sounds of the men salting and peppering and starting in on their food, and Jude wondered for a moment if she had heard all she was going to get, but fortunately Alan Burnethorpe picked up the conversation again. “Do you know, Joke never had a clue that Virginia got up to naughties in London. And she was living and working in Pelling House all that time.”
“Yes, but that was in Fedborough, Alan. Like I said, all the fine people of Fedborough cared about was Virginia’s title. And they spent so much time feeling sorry for her because of Roddy’s drunken behaviour, it never occurred to them she might have failings of her own.”
“Mm.”
“I mean, apart from being good in bed – and I won’t take that away from her, she was extremely good in bed – Virginia wasn’t really a very nice person. She wasn’t on speaking terms with any of the rest of her family, I know that for a fact.”
“Might not have been her fault. Perhaps they were even more unpleasant than she was.”
“All right, that’s possible. But presumably, if any of her family had taken any interest in her, she couldn’t have vanished off the face of the earth so effectively for the last three and a half years.”
“No.” Alan Burnethorpe was thoughtful.
Francis Carlton chuckled. “Good thing for you Joke didn’t know about Virginia’s little London habits. Otherwise she might have found out that you shared them for a while. That wouldn’t have been conducive to domestic harmony, would it?”
“You’re right. She’d have taken a pretty dim view of me having screwed her employer. Or anyone, come to that. Joke has a distinctly old-fashioned attitude to adultery,” Alan concluded gloomily, as though his wife’s scrupulousness was a cross with which he had been unfairly burdened.
“So when did you last see Virginia?” asked Francis.
“About a week before she disappeared – or perhaps now we should be saying ‘before Roddy topped her’. We had an assignation in London for that Friday, and I remember I was getting a bit uptight about it, because things had started up with Joke, and I knew soon I was going to have to tell Virginia it was all off. Anyway, she saved me the trouble.”