Guns in the Gallery (22 page)

After Spider had finished his act, a good convivial atmosphere had built up in the Crown and Anchor. Beneath the beard on Ted Crisp's face was something that came very close to a beam. Elvis Presley had brought the punters in and the bar takings by the end of the evening would be very healthy. The landlord was clearly thinking that Spider's routine might become a regular booking.

While Carole queued in the crush at the bar for more Chilean Chardonnay, Jude drifted across to join the congratulatory throng around the star of the evening. Bonita Green, she noticed, sat very close to Spider, almost as if she were acting as his minder.

Among the crowd she was surprised to see Ned Whittaker. She hadn't noticed him earlier in the evening, but presumably he had been there for the duration. It struck her that she hadn't actually seen him since the Monday of the previous week when he'd come to Woodside Cottage seeking explanations for his daughter's death. The millionaire's face was still very drawn and his eyes were surrounded by dark shadows. He didn't look as though he had slept much since the loss of Fennel.

Jude wondered why Ned was there. It was of course entirely possible that he was just a big Elvis Presley fan, but it seemed a strange choice of an evening out for someone so clearly still suffering from recent bereavement.

But he seemed pleased to see her; in fact he positively sought her out. ‘Could I have a word, Jude?'

‘Sure.'

He looked uneasily around the crowded pub. ‘I meant somewhere a bit more private. I've got the car parked outside. It'll only take a minute if you . . .?'

‘Of course.' Jude semaphored across to the bar that she'd be back shortly. Carole started to semaphore back a supplementary question, but Jude and Ned Whittaker had already gone.

They sat in another of the Butterwyke House fleet of Prius hybrids. With the moon nearly full, it was a surprisingly clear night.

‘Fennel's funeral is set for Wednesday week,' Ned announced.

‘Yes, I heard that from Kier. I'll try and make it.'

‘Don't. It's just going to be family. We'll probably do a party for her later at Butterwyke, a kind of celebration of her life.'

‘That'd be good. Let me know when.'

‘Of course.' There was a silence. Jude felt pretty sure that the funeral wasn't what he really wanted to talk to her about. ‘Listen, Jude, you keep your ear pretty close to the ground round Fethering, don't you?'

‘I hear things, yes. It's a small community.'

‘Mm.' Ned still wasn't finding it easy to broach his subject. Then he leapt in. ‘Look, have you heard any people saying that Fennel was murdered?'

Inexplicably – and uncharacteristically – Jude felt guilty. She tried to think to whom, apart from Carole, she had confided her suspicion. Sam Torino, maybe . . . Except really it had been Sam who had raised the topic, rather than her.

She fell back on a platitude about people gossiping more than was good for them.

‘And what about you, Jude? Has the thought crossed your mind?'

Again this was awkward. ‘Ned, we've had this conversation before. When you came to see me at Woodside Cottage the Monday after Fennel's death. We went through the whole thing.'

‘Yes, but I just wondered whether your thoughts on the subject had changed since then . . .?'

‘Not a lot, Ned. All I keep coming back to is the fact that when I last saw her, Fennel wasn't behaving in the manner of someone about to kill herself. She positively said to do so would be a waste. And then again there was the matter of her missing mobile. Did you hear any more from the police about that?'

Ned Whittaker shook his head. ‘The police seem to have given up on the case. Apparently a suicide verdict suits them very well. Less paperwork, I guess. And they've released Fennel's body for the funeral. So I would assume that means any investigations they're undertaking are at an end. Probably just as well. The last thing I need at the moment is the cops trampling over my family with their insensitive hobnail boots.'

Jude thought back to her encounter with Detective Inspector Hodgkinson. ‘Insensitive hobnail boots' was the last attribute she would have applied to that particular member of the police force. And in fact, if she were ever to find proof that Fennel Whittaker had been murdered, she would have had no hesitation in re-contacting Carmen Hodgkinson. Which had to be a first in Jude's dealings with the police.

‘Anyway, Jude,' Ned continued awkwardly, I guess why I wanted to talk to you was to ask . . . if you do have any further thoughts about Fennel having been murdered . . . could you keep them to yourself?'

Finally he'd come out with it. That had been the reason why he'd wanted to talk to her on her own, perhaps the only reason why he'd come over to the Crown and Anchor to witness Spider's Elvis Presley act.

‘But I haven't been spreading any rumours like that,' Jude protested. ‘Who did you hear that from? Was it Sam Torino?'

Ned denied the allegation hotly, but Jude didn't believe him. She couldn't think of any other person he might know with whom she'd shared her suspicions. And she began to wonder even whether Ned had set up Sam Torino deliberately to sound out her views of Fennel's death. She remembered the card the supermodel had given her. A call to that private mobile number at some point might be in order.

‘I'm not just saying this on my own behalf,' Ned Whittaker volunteered. ‘I'm speaking for the whole family. We don't want any gossip. Sheena's particularly insistent on that.'

‘So is it Sheena who's put you up to this – you know, warning me off?'

That suggestion was denied with equal vehemence, but again Jude got the feeling that she might have stumbled on the truth. Sheena Whittaker remained enigmatic, her only identifiable emotion seeming to be relief at her daughter's death. Jude reckoned she and Carole should try to find out more about the dead girl's mother.

She tried to get more out of Ned Whittaker, but without success. From his point of view, discouraging her from suggesting his daughter might have been murdered was the sole aim of their meeting. Why he was so worried about that happening he did not reveal. But, given the fact that the police had concluded their investigation, he seemed disproportionately anxious about the matter.

Which suggested to Jude that Ned had suspicions that someone he knew might be implicated in his daughter's death. But who that person was, she had no idea.

TWENTY-FOUR

I
t was typical of Carole Seddon that she hadn't waited in the Crown and Anchor for her neighbour to return from the assignation in the car park. Wearily, Jude reminded herself that anyone who wanted to be friends with the owner of High Tor had to reconcile themselves to a regular amount of bridge-building and fence-mending. There were no two ways about it – Carole Seddon was touchy. She had felt slighted by her friend going off without telling her, and she wanted that slight to be registered, so she'd gone home alone . . . no doubt leaving two untouched glasses of wine in the Crown and Anchor function room. It was just to be hoped that somebody had drunk them, rather than wasting good Chilean Chardonnay.

As a result of this, before she went to bed in Woodside Cottage, Jude found herself going next door on a ruffled-feather-smoothing mission. It was characteristic of Carole that, once they were sitting either side of her kitchen table with glasses of wine, she didn't mention the instance which had caused her touchiness, but listened with interest as her neighbour relayed the conversation she'd had in Ned Whittaker's Prius.

‘But, Jude, how does he know we've been discussing the possibility of Fennel's death being murder?'

‘That's what I've been trying to work out. As I say, he could have got it from Sam Torino, but then again, if he actually set up Sam Torino to question me, he must have had his suspicions before that.'

‘And you think he's protecting someone?'

‘I can't find any other explanation for his behaviour. And I've been thinking since I left him that the only two people Ned might really have an interest in protecting are Sheena or Chervil.'

‘You mean he thinks one of them killed Fennel?'

‘Well, was implicated in her death in some way, yes.'

There was a beady look in Carole Seddon's eyes as she reflected her friend's thoughts. ‘Sheena's the one who intrigues me,' she said.

As it turned out, they didn't have to go looking for Sheena Whittaker. Jude had a call from her the following morning, the Thursday. The social unease the woman manifested on public occasions was nowhere evident in her manner. Just talking on the phone she sounded in control. And she was very direct.

‘Ned told me about the conversation you had last night.'

‘Oh yes?'

‘I want to talk to you about it.'

‘Fine. Talk away.'

‘I'd rather do it face to face.'

It was arranged that Sheena Whittaker would come straight round to Woodside Cottage.

Sheena was wearing a pink top and jeans, both of which had too much glitter on them. She looked what she was, a chubby East London hairdresser who had got lucky. But though she spent much of her life being paraded as her husband's accessory, there was no doubt that she had a strong will of her own.

‘Ned's very upset,' was the first thing she said, after refusing offers of tea or coffee.

‘I know. He made clear to me how much Fennel meant to him.'

‘Yes. There was something between them that I . . . well, sometimes I have to confess it made me feel rather uncomfortable.'

‘Oh?'

‘I don't mean any of that child abuse nonsense they keep doing television programmes about. I just mean they had this kind of . . . I don't know what you'd call it . . . a kind of psychic connection.'

‘Telepathy?'

‘Yes, maybe that's the word. Anyway, I know you probably think that my reaction to Fennel's death has been rather heartless . . .'

‘I've never said—'

‘But you've thought it. The fact is, I've spent many years dealing with my daughter's depression . . . her fragility, her breakdowns. We've tried every kind of medication, every kind of treatment – including what you were doing for her – and none of it worked. I've felt for a long time that whatever we did, it was just delaying the evil hour, that one day she would . . . do what she did.'

Sheena Whittaker's voice caught on the last few words, the first indication that her narrative was taking any emotional toll on her. She drew the back of her hand firmly across her nose before continuing, ‘So I have spent a long time preparing for this moment.'

‘I'm sure you have,' said Jude. ‘I hope you don't mind my asking you something . . .'

‘What?'

‘When Ned came to see me the Monday after . . . you know . . .' Somehow to say the words would have felt like an intrusion on Sheena's emotions. ‘We talked about Fennel's depression and discussed whether it might be hereditary. And Ned said he'd never actually been depressed, but—'

‘He didn't say that I was a depressive, did he?'

‘No, but—'

‘Thank goodness for that. Because I never have been.'

‘You haven't ever—?'

‘No!' The expression ‘protesting too much' came instinctively into Jude's mind, as Sheena Whittaker went on, ‘I am extremely lucky. I have a great lifestyle. I'd be mad to be depressed.'

‘Exactly.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Depression is a form of madness, so if you say you'd be “mad to be depressed”, what you mean is—'

‘That's not what I'm talking about.'

‘After what happened with Fennel, it'd be no surprise if you—'

‘I am not depressed!' Sheena seemed taken aback by her own vehemence. ‘Yes, I'm shocked. I've lost my daughter. And though, yes, obviously I feel a terrible sadness, I also can't deny a sense of relief.'

‘But Ned doesn't share that feeling?'

‘No, he's still just too caught up in his grief. He's too raw. I think maybe in time he may come round.'

Jude pushed the flopping blonde hair up off her forehead. ‘And Chervil . . . she doesn't seem to be suffering too badly either.'

‘Chervil's a businesswoman. You've only seen her in her professional mode. She wouldn't show her real feelings in such circumstances.'

‘No, of course not.' Jude would have given a lot to know what conversations had been shared between Sheena Whittaker and her surviving daughter since Fennel's death. But that was not information she thought she was about to be vouchsafed. And she still hadn't worked out precisely why Sheena had been so insistent on coming to see her.

‘I'll tell you why I'm here, Jude.' Ah, so she was maybe about to be given the answer to that question. ‘I want to ask you a few details about that night you spent with Fennel in the yurt . . . you know, the night she died.' Again the actual mention of death brought a slight tremor to her voice.

‘I'll tell you as much as I can remember. As you know, Fennel and I had both had quite a lot to drink.'

‘Yes. When the police talked to me, they said you'd mentioned Fennel having a call on her mobile.'

‘A call or a text. I think it was a text, but I was half asleep when it happened.'

‘Obviously, in the light of what subsequently happened, the identity of the sender of that text becomes rather important.'

‘I couldn't agree with you more.'

‘But in their searches of the yurt – in fact of the whole Walden area – the police didn't find any trace of Fennel's mobile.'

‘Ah. I didn't know that. The officer who interviewed me – Detective Inspector Hodgkinson – said she'd check it out. But I never heard any more from her.'

‘You met Detective Inspector Hodgkinson too, did you?