Twenty-Eight
Had she thought about it, Carole could have predicted exactly the sort of restaurant David would have chosen for their dinner à quatre. (Her anticipation that her son’s fiancée wouldn’t feel up to the evening had proved unfounded. Gaby had gone back to work, had returned to her Pimlico flat, and Marie was safe in Harlow, with her beloved brother Robert round for the evening. By the time David’s ‘fine-tuning’ call came through, Carole had left it too late to come up with a decent excuse not to be there. In desperation she contemplated inventing some veterinary emergency for Gulliver, but hadn’t had the courage to go through with it.)
David’s choice of restaurant was a rather dimly lit Italian, whose dark wood alcoves, red gingham tablecloths and much-dribbled candlesticks seemed to hark back to the bistro boom of the late sixties – and indeed probably hadn’t been redecorated since. A lot of objects dangled from the ceilings: smoke-stained pennants from Italian football clubs, raffia bound long-necked wine bottles, boxes which had once contained – and might indeed still contain – rich fruit cakes, spindly tin knight-in-armour puppets. The atmosphere should have been cosy, but only felt cramped.
The choice of restaurant was also archetypically David because, a glance at the laminated menus had told Carole, it was cheap. Not embarrassingly cheap, but marginally underpriced. David was not exactly mean, but he derived great satisfaction from shaving a small percentage point off the price of anything. He was not capable of making the grand gesture. This particularly annoyed Carole because she knew she shared elements of the same trait. She was capable of generosity, but never of unthinking generosity.
The padrone of the restaurant was a short, stout man with an unfeasible wig, whose automatic bonhomie David took to be the recognition of a much-loved regular. The restaurant was in Swiss Cottage, ‘just round the corner’ from the flat whose address and phone number Carole willed herself not to memorize. David seemed determinedly hearty, ready to be a good host and demonstrate what an habitué he was of such eateries. Having seen his performance in Harlow, Carole wondered whether his heartiness was alcohol-aided, whether he’d had a few bracing Scotches straight from the bottle before he arrived.
In the long catalogue of David’s irritating modes, she probably found the bonhomous one the most irritating. (On the other hand, if he had been in his self-pitying mode, or the one where he nitpicked about her character, or the one which made him sullenly resentful of the success of others, that would have been equally annoying. Basically, so far as his ex-wife was concerned, David Seddon couldn’t do anything right.)
But Carole knew the evening wasn’t set up to rehearse old antagonisms. She and David, she had to keep reminding herself, were not the principal characters of the occasion. The dinner was for Stephen and, particularly, for Gaby, who had just been through a series of terrible traumas. The job of Carole and David was to give her as uncomplicated and enjoyable an evening as possible, to reassure her that normal life could continue, and to remind her that she was a young woman on the exciting verge of marriage. Nothing else – least of all the aggravation that had precipitated the end of another marriage – was important.
But, given the circumstances of their last encounter, Carole could not suppress a curiosity about her future daughter-in-law’s encounter with Inspector Pollard back in Harlow, and was therefore relieved when Gaby herself raised the subject.
“Look, I do just want to bring you all up to date. About the investigation into Dad’s death. Just so’s we can get it out of the way now, and not have it hanging over us all through the evening.” She smiled across at her fiancé. “Steve knows all this, so you’ll just bear with me, won’t you, love?”
He nodded willing acquiescence, as Gaby continued. “Inspector Pollard is not a great one for volunteering information.”
“You can say that again,” thought Carole “…but in questioning me, he couldn’t avoid letting out certain facts. There seems no question that Bazza – Barry Painter – did steal the carthat picked Dad up from the hotel in Harlow the night he died. Who arranged for him to do that Inspector Pollard either didn’t know or didn’t reveal to me, but I wouldn’t say that my dear brother Phil has been completely cleared of suspicion. I personally don’t think he had anything to do with it – or if he did, he didn’t realize the consequences, didn’t know where Bazza would take Dad…” she could not repress a shudder “…you know, into Epping Forest. Phil’s done some dodgy things in the past, but he’s not really evil. And he got on well with Dad. He wouldn’t knowingly have put the old boy in danger.”
For a moment she wobbled, emotion threatening. Having to be strong for her mother had forced Gaby to suppress her own feelings of loss for her father, but they were nonetheless powerful. Sensing her distress, Stephen put a large hand on top of his fiancée’s. With a grateful smile, Gaby took a deep breath and continued, “The police do seem to have a suspect, though. Inspector Pollard didn’t spell it out – indeed, he probably tried to keep the information from me – but from what he said, and from things that Uncle Robert told me, I think they’re after this man called Michael Brewer.” She looked across at Carole. “The one from whom I had that call on my mobile. I don’t know much about him.”
Jude and I probably know a lot more, thought Carole. But, with David present, she wasn’t about to share what she knew. She realized a new level of her resentment towards her former husband. She didn’t like the fact that Gaby was including him so automatically in her talk about what Carole thought of as ‘the case’. Her work with Jude on murder investigations was part of her painfully created change of identity: the new Carole Seddon who lived at High Tor with her dog Gulliver. She resented someone like Gita Millington being involved in that aspect of her life, but the thought of David as part of it was even more distasteful.
“But the good thing is,” Gaby went on, “now the police know who they’re looking for, they’re pretty confident they’ll soon have caught him. So we’ll all be able to relax.”
“Are you saying that Michael Brewer is definitely the police’s suspect for both murders?”
“That’s the way it looks.”
“Did Inspector Pollard tell you why they’re convinced it was him?”
Gaby shook her head. “No. The inspector wasn’t going to tell me more than he had to. But Uncle Robert was able to fill things out a bit. It’s useful having someone in the family with contacts in the Force. Apparently there’s strong forensic evidence linking Michael Brewer with both crime scenes.”
“Do you know what that evidence was?”
“No, Carole, I don’t. But apparently it’s pretty unarguable.”
“And have the police any idea where Michael Brewer might be now?”
“They’re concentrating their searches on the South Coast.”
“Oh yes, he was brought up in Worthing.”
Gaby did look slightly surprised at the depth of Carole’s knowledge, but she didn’t comment. “And that call to my mobile…”
“Yes?”
“It was made from a public phone in Brighton.”
“Ah.” It made Carole feel a little uneasy, the confirmation that a double murderer was at large, not far from Fethering. “Did Robert say any more about Michael Brewer? Because they used to be friends.”
This detailed knowledge again prompted a rather curious look, but Gaby gave a straight answer. “No. He said they used to know each other, but that was it.”
“But surely – ”