The answer to the second question had proved equally elusive. Ridiculous, given the length of time they’d known each other, but Carole still didn’t know Jude’s surname. It hadn’t been volunteered on their first meeting, and the longer time went on, the more difficult for Carole became phrasing the direct question on the subject.
But Jude had just produced a cheque book; and surely printed on her cheques must be her full name. Carole tried, without being too conspicuous, to lean across and read what was on the cheque. But the transaction was tooquick. Debbie immediately placed the cheque in a cashbox she hoped would fill up over the next ten days, and by the time Carole looked back, Jude had replaced the cheque-book in her bag. Carole’s frustration was unrelieved.
Hard on the heels of that annoyance came another troubling thought. If Jude had just bought a painting, shouldn’t Carole do the same? She was the one, after all, who had had more contact with Debbie Carlton. She, if anyone, was Debbie’s friend. Didn’t etiquette demand that she should go against her nature and make a comparable impulse buy? She liked Debbie’s paintings, there was no problem with that, but she couldn’t make a snap decision like Jude just had. And should she go for one at the same price as Jude’s? Though how could she know it was the same price as Jude’s? The prices weren’t marked on the paintings; they were on the set of printed sheets piled up beside Debbie’s cash-box. And if she looked at one of those sheets before deciding on which painting to buy, might her behaviour not – by comparison with Jude’s spontaneity – appear calculating or mean?
This characteristic spiral of thought in Carole’s mind was fortunately interrupted by an equally characteristic direct question from Jude. “You used to live in the house where the torso was found, didn’t you, Debbie?”
“That’s right.”
“I don’t know if you heard, but I was present at dinner with the Roxbys the night it was discovered.”
“How horrible. Did you actually see the thing?”
Jude nodded, and Debbie Carlton smiled sympathy. Carole was once again amazed at her friend’s ease in reaching a state of intimacy with complete strangers.
“Did you know her?” asked Jude.
“Virginia Hargreaves? I knew her to say hello to. Because my parents have always lived in Fedborough, even when I wasn’t living here I’d often come back. So I’d see Virginia in the High Street or in my parents’ shop. They used to run the grocery in the town.”
Jude reacted as if this was new information to her. Then, casually, she asked, “Everyone seems to be assuming the husband killed her. Do you go along with that?”
Debbie Carlton splayed out her hands in a gesture of ignorance. “What else is there to think? I must say I’m surprised, because, from what I’d seen of Roddy, he appeared to be just a fairly harmless piss-artist. Hard to imagine him as a murderer, but…who knows what goes on inside a marriage? People tell me my marriage to Francis looked fine from the outside, so…”
“But was Virginia Hargreaves universally liked?” asked Carole. “We’ve found it difficult to get anyone in Fedborough to say a word against her.”
Debbie Carlton let out a derisive snort of laughter. “Oh, they were just impressed by her title. And now it’s even worse, because ‘not speaking ill of the dead’ comes into the equation. But no, there were a few people who’d had their set-tos with the lovely Virginia.”
“What kind of people?”
“People who weren’t impressed by her title and made no secret of the fact. Or people who tried to be competitive with her socially.”
“Like…?”
“Well, I guess the main one would be a woman called Fiona Lister…don’t know if you’ve come across her…?”
They explained that she had been their hostess for dinner the previous Friday.
“My, you are honoured. I was never granted the dubious pleasure of an invitation to one of La Lister’s soirées – and for a very obvious reason.”
“What?”
“Trade, Carole, trade. My parents’ grocery was right next door to James Lister’s butcher’s. All Fiona’s money may have come from trade, but she didn’t want her social life to do so as well. She aimed for something much more genteel.” There was an uncanny evocation of Fiona Lister in the way Debbie shaped the word.
“And is that why she fell out with Virginia Hargreaves?”
“Spot on. Fiona has always seen herself as the Queen Bee of Fedborough society, and Virginia was a rival for that title.”
“She wasn’t a great entertainer too, was she?”
“No. Rather the reverse. I can’t ever remember Virginia doing any entertaining at Pelling House. But, you see, she didn’t have to. She got invited everywhere simply by virtue of who she was. People in Fedborough fell over themselves to include her in everything. So, without making any effort at all, Virginia Hargreaves was always going to win over Fiona Lister. Virginia was born into the aristocracy and, however much social-climbing effort Fiona Lister made, she would remain, at bottom, the wife of the local butcher.”
“Was there a moment when things came to a head?” Jude asked eagerly. “When the two of them actually came to blows?”
“No, no. Coming to blows was very much not Virginia Hargreaves’s style.” Debbie smiled mischievously. “I did hear a rumour from Mum about something that’d happened, though, but I’m not sure if it’s true.” She read the avid anticipation in the two women’s faces and went on, “Still, one of those things that should be true, even if it isn’t. Apparently, according to Mum, Virginia and Roddy were once invited to one of La Lister’s soirées. And Virginia sent a note back, saying that it was an extraordinarily kind thought, but she was afraid they wouldn’t be able to attend, because it wasn’t really their kind of thing.”
Carole winced. “The Snub Direct.”
“Exactly. And entirely unanswerable, from Fiona’s point of view. Virginia had very firmly put her in her place. People of Virginia’s background didn’t mix with butcher’s wives, and that was all there was to it.”
“Sounds like something out of Jane Austen,” said Jude.
“Believe me, it could easily have happened here in Fedborough. And, what’s more, it still could today.”
Carole nodded. She had lived long enough in Fathering to find the anecdote utterly believable. “Interesting that last Friday Fiona Lister was almost fulsome in her appreciation of Lady Virginia.”
“Easy to do that now she’s not around,” said Debbie. “Easy – and rather useful – for Fiona to imply, without fear of contradiction, that they were part of the same social circle.”
“Did your husband know Virginia Hargreaves…?” asked Jude casually.
Debbie shrugged. “I’m sure he’d met her. He was friends with Alan Burnethorpe who married Virginia’s housekeeper, so they probably knew each other.”
Jude and Carole exchanged a covert look. Debbie Carlton’s innocence sounded genuine. She appearedcompletely unaware of her ex-husband’s closeness to Virginia Hargreaves. Or of Alan Burnethorpe’s, come to that.
“Has Francis gone back to the States?” asked Carole, also affecting ignorance.
“Yes. Back to his born-again marriage and prospective family.” She could not keep the bitterness out of her voice.
“Hrn. In retrospect…” Carole mused, “it seems strange that the police dragged him all the way over here to talk to them.”
“Why?”
“Well, given the fact that the murder victim – or perhaps we should just say the body – turned out to be Virginia Hargreaves, who lived in Pelling House long before you took possession of the place, why on earth would the police have any suspicions of Francis?”