Guns in the Gallery (23 page)

‘She questioned you?'

‘Mm. Though she did it in such a subtle way that it didn't feel like questioning.'

‘I know what you mean. I thought she was quite bright.'

But clearly Sheena Whittaker hadn't shared that opinion. She shuddered slightly as she said, ‘I didn't warm to her. Too clever for her own good, if you ask me. And I think she was probably lesbian.'

Jude shrugged. ‘Anyway,' Sheena went on, ‘Ned's been worrying a lot about the missing mobile . . . and what it implies.'

‘That someone took it?'

‘That's one possible explanation, yes.'

‘But if someone took it, that would change the way one views the circumstances of Fennel's death.'

‘It certainly would.'

‘So, Sheena, do you have any suspicions who might have taken it?'

‘I certainly do.'

‘Right. So who is your suspect?'

‘There's only one person it could have been.'

‘Who?'

‘You, Jude.'

TWENTY-FIVE

‘
B
ut why did she think you'd taken it?' asked Carole somewhat plaintively.

‘I suppose I was on the scene. I had the opportunity.'

‘But for what reason did she think you might have taken it?'

‘That's what I couldn't get out of her. Because if someone did take the phone, then they were probably trying to cover something up. What might they be trying to cover up? Well, one thing is obviously murder.'

‘So did you ask Sheena whether she'd considered the possibility of murder?'

‘Yes. And she wouldn't be drawn on that. She's a very stubborn woman. Maybe not stubborn . . . strong-willed perhaps is the word I'm looking for. She comes across as all meek and fluffy, but she has a core of steel. I think she's the dynamo in that marriage.'

‘So how were things left between you?'

‘Rather as they were with Ned yesterday evening. I was strongly discouraged from suggesting to anyone that Fennel might have been murdered.'

Carole nodded and took a sip of coffee. They were at the kitchen table in High Tor. It was so mild that the Aga had now been switched off for the summer, but out of habit Gulliver still lay beside it, snuffling quietly in his doggy dreams. He had a slight inflammation on one of his paws, not doubt caused by some foreign object on Fethering Beach. An appointment at the vet's had been booked for later that day, but the injury didn't seem to be worrying him.

‘So, Jude, do you think Ned and Sheena have the same agenda?'

‘In what way?'

‘Well, the fact that they both seem so keen to get you – or us – off the case might suggest that they're trying to protect someone. The question is: are they both trying to protect the same person?'

‘I see what you mean. Well, Ned had certainly relayed to Sheena the conversation I had with him in the car park last night. That's what brought her round to see me.'

‘But he didn't accuse you of taking Fennel's mobile?'

‘No. He mentioned it, just said so far as he knew the police hadn't found the thing. It's Sheena who leapt to the conclusion that I'd nicked it.'

Carole was thoughtful as she had another sip of coffee. Then she said slowly, ‘You don't think it's herself that Sheena's trying to protect?'

‘What, you mean that she killed Fennel and she thinks the mobile might contain some evidence against her? Like the text with which she set up their meeting?'

‘Perhaps. What do you reckon?'

Jude pursed her full lips. ‘I find it hard to cast Sheena in the role of murderer. I find it hard to cast any mother in the role of the murderer of her own child.'

‘It has happened. Read your classical myths.'

‘I know, but . . .'

Carole pressed home her advantage. ‘And Sheena Whittaker's making no secret of her relief that Fennel's no longer around.'

‘Yes, but . . .' Jude moved her head abruptly, as though there were a troublesome thought she wanted to shake out of it. ‘For some reason my mind keeps coming back to the first suicide attempt.'

‘In the flat in Pimlico . . .'

‘Yes. Sheena wasn't involved in that. Well, obviously she was in the sense that it was her daughter who'd made the attempt. But it was Chervil who found Fennel and it was Ned who rushed up to London to sort things out. Why didn't Sheena go?'

Carole shrugged. ‘There could be any number of reasons. And Sheena talked about the close relationship Ned always had with Fennel.'

‘Yes . . . I almost get this picture of a house divided. Sheena and Chervil on one side, Ned and Fennel on the other. Which is why he's so desolated by Fennel's death, and his wife seems relatively unaffected.'

‘And I wonder where Chervil fits into this emotional scale . . .?' Carole mused.

‘Well, outwardly, as we saw at the Walden launch, it doesn't seem to have got to her. Mind you, Sheena hinted that there might be strong feelings under the surface, which were being controlled because Chervil was there in her professional capacity.'

There was a silence, broken only by the grunting of Gulliver, pursuing some dream rabbit.

‘Thinking back to the Walden launch,' said Carole eventually, ‘I was intrigued by what you said about Sam Torino.'

‘Oh?'

‘The feeling you got that Ned Whittaker might have set her up to sound you out.'

‘Well, I haven't got any proof that he did.'

‘No, it's an interesting idea. Pity you can't make contact with Sam Torino to follow up on it.'

‘Ah,' said Jude perkily. ‘But I can.'

In spite of her apparent confidence, Jude had not expected her call to be answered immediately. And it wasn't. The answering message was not in the distinctive Canadian tone of Sam Torino, just an anonymous mechanical voice. Jude left her name and number, by now doubtful that she would ever hear back.

Carole, she could tell, was disappointed. Both of them worried that their investigation was drowning in inertia. Their suspicions about the circumstances of Fennel Whittaker's death seemed increasingly tenuous. They needed some kind of breakthrough, but there was no hint that any might be imminent.

A subdued Jude returned to Woodside Cottage. She had a couple of clients due on that Thursday afternoon, but she didn't feel in the right mood for them. Her mind was too full to find the focus and clarity she needed for healing.

She was contemplating calling them to put off their sessions when her mobile rang.

‘Hi, this is Sam Torino.'

‘Thank you for calling back.'

‘No problem.' But there still seemed to be a slight tension in the voice, almost a wariness.

‘How's the back?'

‘Fine and dandy at the moment. Can't thank you enough for that, Jude.'

‘And are you taking the prescription I gave you?'

‘For solitude?' She let out a throaty laugh. ‘Hell, I'm trying, but it's hard with a schedule like mine. Why couldn't you have prescribed something easy – like running a marathon every day?'

‘Because if you ran a marathon every day, you'd run it surrounded by
paparazzi
. Besides, that prescription wouldn't make you better.'

Sam Torino chuckled again. But it wasn't a completely relaxed chuckle. She was still circling round, waiting to hear the real reason why Jude had contacted her.

Time to own up. ‘I wanted to talk to you more about Fennel Whittaker.'

‘Uh-huh.' No surprise. Sam had been expecting it. Jude wondered how recently Ned had been in touch with his glamorous friend.

‘I was thinking back to what we talked about in the treatment yurt . . .' No response, just an expectant silence. ‘You said Ned had been worried there might be local gossip about Fennel having been murdered.'

‘I remember.'

‘Then maybe you also remember that I asked you at the time whether you'd set up our therapy session specifically to talk about her death.'

‘And I said no. Hell, are you suggesting the pain in my back wasn't genuine?'

‘No, I'm not suggesting that at all. I could feel that pain. But maybe getting me to do the healing session was convenient because it
did
give you an opportunity to find out what I was thinking about Fennel's death.'

‘I don't think I'm following you here. What are you trying to get me to say?'

‘I'm not trying to get you to say anything. I promise there's nothing sinister in my getting in touch with you.'

‘Good. Because I'm afraid someone in my position does have to be a bit careful. You know, you meet people who seem to be all upfront and then you discover that they're trying to get something out of you. Of course, I don't feel that with you, Jude . . .' But the caution still lurked in Sam Torino's voice.

‘The only thing I want to get out of you is an admission that you set up our therapy at Ned Whittaker's request.'

A long silence ensued while the supermodel considered her response. Then slowly she said, ‘Well, OK, it was a bit of each. I was talking to Ned at the launch and—'

‘Ned wasn't at the launch.'

‘No. OK, he wasn't on the Walden site, I agree. I talked to him before the launch up at the house.'

‘And he then asked you to set up the healing session with me?'

‘It wasn't as overt and calculating as that. Ned was kind of marking my card for the afternoon, telling me who I might expect to meet there . . .'

‘I thought Walden was Chervil's project.'

‘I guess, but Ned seemed to know all about it. Anyway, he mentioned you and he said you were a healer and I said, “Maybe I should get her to take a look at this bastard back of mine.” And he said, “Not a bad idea. Well, if you do talk to Jude, ask her if she thinks there's anything odd about Fennel's death.” And I ask him how he means “odd” and he says there's rumours going round she might have been murdered. And so I do as he asks. But it was really just that I wanted to get my back looked at. And I'm sure as hell glad I got you to sort that out.'

There was almost a note of pleading in Sam's voice by the end, so Jude granted her forgiveness. ‘Thank you. That's all I wanted to know.'

‘Well, you can't just leave it there,' said Sam Torino.

‘How do you mean?'

‘I've answered your question, but you haven't told me why you needed to ask it. Do you have some reason to believe that Fennel was murdered?'

‘More of an instinct than a reason. But what you've told me about Ned does open up other possibilities.'

‘How so?'

‘If he does think someone killed his daughter, then why hasn't he shared his suspicions with the police? There's only one reason I can think of for him doing that.'

‘Which is . . .?'

‘That he knows who the killer is, and he wants to protect that person from prosecution.'

‘I see what you mean. So we're talking someone very close to him here, are we?'

‘We could be. Actually, I've just remembered, Sam . . . there was another thing I wanted to ask you.'

‘Ask away.'

‘We've established that Ned set you up to question me. Did he also instruct you that, if I did seem to be thinking along the lines of a murder, then you should encourage me to cast Denzil Willoughby in the role of murderer?'

The guilty silence had already answered Jude's question before Sam Torino admitted, ‘Yes, he did. Look, I didn't know what the stakes were – I still don't, come to that. Ned was just a friend going through a bad patch – a really bad patch – he'd kind of lost the love of his life when Fennel died. And he asked me to do something for him and I thought, hell, if it's going to make the poor bastard feel better, there can't be much harm in it.'

‘Maybe not,' said Jude ruminatively. ‘You and Ned . . . you were never more than friends?'

‘Hell, no.' She seemed affronted by the idea. ‘I never mix friendships and love affairs. Friends are kind of private people you get along with privately. Love affairs are big public commitments.'

‘To be splashed all over the tabloids?'

‘If I'm one of the people involved, then I'm afraid the answer's yes. It's not something I've particularly sought out, but that's the way it is. My love affairs have become part of my career. So I wouldn't spoil my friendship with someone like Ned by going to bed with him. Apart from which, I've never begun to fancy him. And then again he's absolutely locked into that marriage with Sheena.'

‘You think the marriage is secure?'

‘God, yes.'

‘But there seem to be things about which they disagree.'

‘Look, it's a marriage – what the hell do you expect?'

‘But like the way they've reacted differently to Fennel's death . . .'

‘The reason for that is that Ned always tries to keep the bad stuff away from Sheena. You talk about him trying to protect someone . . . well, the person he's protected right through their marriage is his wife.'

This was a new perspective on the lives of the Whittakers. It stimulated a niggling suspicion about Sheena that Jude had been nursing for some time.

‘I mean,' Sam Torino went on, ‘look what happened over Fennel's first suicide attempt.'

‘Sorry? I don't really know much about what happened then.'

‘Chervil found her sister in the Pimlico flat. She immediately rang Ned who went straight up to London,
without even telling his wife what had happened
.'

‘I didn't know that.'

‘He got Fennel safely back home and had her checked out by a doctor, and it was only then that he told Sheena. He didn't want to worry her until the situation was as stable as it could be.'

‘Right.' Jude nodded thoughtfully.

‘Ned did his best to keep all the unpleasant details away from Sheena. He didn't even show her the suicide note that Fennel had written.'