The Hanging in the Hotel (16 page)

Jude took the paper across to show Carole, who read it and said rather sniffily, ‘Huh. Can’t get away from your friend Suzy, can we?’

When Jude got back to Woodside Cottage, there was a message on the answering machine. A male voice asked her to ring him back and gave a mobile number.

Intrigued, she replayed the message and tried to analyse the voice. Very laid-back, slightly mid-Atlantic, slightly arrogant, but with an undertow of charm. The voice of a man who was used to
getting his own way. And distantly familiar.

She rang the number. The same voice answered straight away, with a cautious ‘Hi.’

‘My name’s Jude. You left a message.’

‘Oh, Jude, right. Thanks for getting back to me.’ There was a silence, as if he was selecting an approach for the next stage of his conversation. ‘Listen, my name’s Rick
Hendry.’

He left a pause for her to react. He was used to being recognized. Jude had known who he was as soon as he answered the phone, but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of sounding
impressed.

‘Yes, we met when you were married to Suzy.’

‘Right.’ He didn’t sound as though he remembered. He had always been media- and celebrity-obsessed, so meeting one of his wife’s friends who had no national profile
wouldn’t have registered in his long-term memory.

‘It’s about Suzy I was ringing,’ he went on. ‘And about what happened at the hotel last Tuesday.’

‘Do you mean the death of that solicitor?’

‘Right.’ Again he seemed to consider his options for a moment. ‘Listen, Suze told me you were around the place that night.’

‘I didn’t know you two were still in touch.’

‘Sure, sure,’ he said soothingly. ‘We never lost touch. Very civilized divorce.’

Not in the version Suzy gave me, thought Jude. But then again, she didn’t know of a single parted couple where both participants would give the same account of their split. So she let Rick
Hendry go on.

‘Suze is worried.’

‘About what?’

‘About you, to be honest.’

Jude was angry. ‘Then why doesn’t she tell me herself? We’re friends. If she’s got something to say to me, she can say it direct.’

‘Hey, cool it, cool it,’ he said. His voice had a caressing quality, which he clearly thought was sexy. And, although she was annoyed, Jude was not totally immune to its charms. Rick
Hendry had a way with women. ‘Yes, OK, Suze could say it to you direct, but I don’t think she will. She feels bad about getting at you because, like you said, you’re her friend.
It’s not that she’s set me up to do this. I just know she’s worried, and she wants you to back off.’

‘Back off from what?’ asked Jude, deliberately obtuse.

‘From what you’re doing. Snooping around. I know Suze would feel a lot happier if you . . . let sleeping solicitors lie. Listen, the guy committed suicide. That’s what the
police think. That’s what everyone else thinks. So can you just leave it at that?’

‘I’m not sure I can. I want to know what really happened.’

‘Why?’

The direct question was hard to answer. The only formula of words Jude could come up with sounded impossibly righteous – phrases about truth and justice and resolution, which, if she
voiced them, would only have sounded priggish. So she kept silent.

‘Listen, Jude.’ Rick Hendry let his voice deepen, as he focused the full beam of his charm on her. ‘I still care about Suze. She’s built that hotel up from nothing.
She’s done it all, it’s her baby, and the whole set-up’s pretty dodgy at the moment, from the financial point of view. Bad publicity she doesn’t need. I’m not asking
this for myself, Jude. I’m asking it for Suze. And I’m asking you, as her friend, just to let this thing rest – OK? Now, Jude, will you promise me you’ll do that?’

‘I’ll think about it.’

She thought about a lot after she had put the phone down, but not about giving up her quest to find Nigel Ackford’s murderer. If anything, the call to Rick Hendry had strengthened her
resolve.

The list of people who wanted to cover up the truth of that night at Hopwicke House was getting longer by the minute. And why was Rick Hendry suddenly so solicitous for the ex-wife from whom
he’d parted with such acrimony? He said Suzy hadn’t needed bad publicity, but he needed it even less – particularly at a time when the
Daily Mail
was running damaging
stories about him. What was Rick Hendry’s connection with Hopwicke Country House Hotel? Or with the young man who had died there?

The fact that she’d had the call from Rick so soon after reading about him neither troubled Jude nor surprised her. She had never had a problem believing in synchronicity.

The call came through to High Tor in the middle of the Tuesday morning. ‘It’s all right. I’m calling from the office.’

Which meant that Barry was out of earshot of the threatening Pomme, so why did he still have to whisper?

‘It was very lovely to see you at lunchtime yesterday.’

Carole couldn’t bring herself to reciprocate the sentiment, but she did manage to thank him for the meal.

‘And I’m sorry you didn’t feel ready to
come and see the new office with me
.’ He made the words sound like a euphemism for something really disgusting.

‘It wasn’t a matter of “feeling ready” or not; it was a matter of not wanting to,’ she snapped. Jude would disapprove of her threatening the continuance of Barry
Stilwell as a contact within the Pillars of Sussex, but Carole had had enough of his sly insinuations, and she thought she’d probably exhausted his stock of relevant information anyway.

He seemed impervious to her put-downs. ‘Don’t worry, Carole, I’m prepared to wait for as long as it takes.’ How about till hell freezes over and they hold the Winter
Olympics there? ‘You’ll come round,’ Barry went on. ‘You know there’s something between us.’

Loathing, on my side, thought Carole. Whatever Jude’s views, the situation could not be tolerated much longer. The moment was fast coming when Barry Stilwell must be given a massive,
unequivocal brush-off.

But he didn’t let her get to that moment. ‘There was one thing I thought I ought to make clear, Carole darling’ –
Darling
– yeuch! ‘about yesterday. I
may have given you the wrong impression . . .’

No, I think the impression you gave me was exactly the one you intended to. The wrong impression was the one you seemed to take away of my reactions to your advances.

‘It was my own fault. None of us are entirely responsible in our cups.’

‘Oh, come on, you didn’t have that much to drink.’

‘I wasn’t talking about yesterday. I was talking about the week before, after the Pillars of Sussex dinner at Hopwicke House.’

‘Ah.’

‘As I say, it’s my own fault. I like whisky, but it doesn’t like me. And I’m afraid it was the whisky that rather blurred my recollections of the end of the evening . .
.’ He paused, but Carole didn’t give him any help. ‘The fact is, I think I told you that I was up in Bob Hartson’s room drinking whisky, and there were just the two of
us.’

‘That’s what you said, yes.’

‘Well, the point is, I’d completely forgotten . . . but his daughter was with us too . . . stepdaughter, that is. Kerry. Don’t know if you know her?’

‘I saw her briefly when I went to the hotel.’

‘Right. Well, she was there – that night – so it was the three of us drinking whisky.’

‘I see. And who finished first?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Who was the first one to stop drinking whisky and go back to their own room?’

‘Oh. Kerry. Yes. Kerry’s not much of a whisky drinker. She just had a small one and tootled off to her bed. And then, a bit later, I rolled off to mine.’ He chuckled at the
folly of his alcoholic excess. ‘Had a bit of a head in the morning, I can tell you.’

‘Hm. And on the way back to your bed in the middle of the night . . .’

‘Yes?’

‘You didn’t happen to see Nigel Ackford, did you?’

‘No, good heavens, no. Of course I didn’t.’ Having expressed his shock at the mere idea, Barry moved back into seductive mode. ‘Do you know something, Carole?’

Yes, she thought. I know Bob Hartson has been on the phone, giving you a three-line whip to toe the party line.

Jude knew she ought to talk to Suzy directly; they had been friends for long enough. In the past there had never been any subjects that were off-limits between them, but
suddenly there were. In their last two conversations, Suzy had clammed up on her. And now the ex-husband was putting in his two penn’orth as well. Neither of them wanted any further
investigation into the death of Nigel Ackford.

The Pillars of Sussex seemed equally against the idea. Nor did the police apparently have any trouble with the suicide verdict.

Jude might by this stage have started to think she was over-reacting. There was a lot of logic against the idea of Nigel Ackford having been murdered, and she might reluctantly have come round
to the majority view. But two recent events made her more convinced than ever that something strange had happened that night at Hopwicke House. The conversation she had had with Rick Hendry was one
of them. Why on earth should he suddenly be concerning himself with the affairs of the hotel?

The other anomaly had arisen from Carole’s phone conversation with Barry Stilwell, which she had, needless to say, reported verbatim to Jude. The clumsiness with which the solicitor had
supported Bob Hartson’s alibi left no doubt that somebody was lying.

So, on one side, Suzy and Rick; on the other, the Pillars of Sussex . . . and possibly Kerry. Both groups had something to cover up. Or – unlikely though it might seem – were they
working together to cover up the same thing?

Jude decided, before another direct confrontation with Suzy, she should try a more oblique approach. Someone else had been around Hopwicke Country House Hotel on the night of Nigel
Ackford’s death; and so far as Jude knew, he hadn’t yet been a part of any cover-up. She had his mobile number; he’d given it to her once when there had been a crisis about a
potential double booking in the restaurant. Jude rang Max Townley.

She decided there’d be no harm in a direct approach. It was as likely to work as any other. ‘Wondered if we could just meet for a chat? Wanted to talk about that night at the hotel,
when Nigel Ackford died.’

‘Oh yeah. And I got a bit too deep into the vodka, because of what had happened with that bloody production company. I thought my television prospects were totally buggered.’

‘That’s right. Well, I’ve been, sort of, putting two and two together about things, and there are just a couple of ideas I’d like to run by you.’

Max sounded surprisingly enthusiastic. ‘Sure, I’d be game for that.’

He was currently at the hotel, doing the morning preparations. He’d finish those round one, then be off duty until he came back about five-thirty to ready himself for the evening’s
dinners. His home was in Worthing – chef’s hours necessitated living either on the premises or very near by – and he’d be happy to meet up with Jude for a cup of coffee.

As she ended the call, Jude asked herself about one of the great mysteries of the catering business. What do chefs do in the afternoon? Her own experience couldn’t really provide an
answer. When she had run a cafe, it had been a very ad hoc affair, with her doing most of the work and her various helpers mucking in as and when. Her life had not followed the rhythms of a proper
restaurant chef. Given the fact that many of them worked late hours and were in early in the mornings to check the day’s orders and start their preparations, she assumed a lot of chefs
dedicated their afternoons to sleeping. Maybe some used the time to conduct elaborate love lives, to pursue academic study, or to go fishing. Perhaps, considering how little all but the top
celebrity chefs were paid, some of them spent their afternoons as minicab drivers. It was a question to which Jude had never before directed her attention.

She had arranged to meet Max in the same coffee shop where she had talked to Wendy Fullerton. As she waited, she wondered what was going on in the mind of the girl who was presumably at work in
the building society opposite. Was Wendy managing to maintain her detachment from Nigel Ackford’s death, or were tears constantly threatening to break through the veneer of her make-up?

Jude had a feeling she probably needed to talk to Wendy Fullerton again. There were other questions to which Wendy might provide useful answers, answers which might provide direction for
Jude’s investigation. At the moment it felt rudderless, drifting in a sea which contained too many suspects and too little information.

When Max Townley arrived, Jude realized how little she actually knew him. She had met him a few times in the hotel kitchen; she had seen him posturing and bitching, presenting his persona of the
temperamental culinary genius; but she had no idea what he was like beneath the surface. If he hadn’t said that throw-away line about liking women, she would even have had doubts about his
sexual orientation. A certain high campness was an essential ingredient of the image he presented to the world.

What became obvious as soon as he spoke that afternoon was how incredibly self-centred he was. Jude had wondered why he had so readily agreed to meet her, but it instantly became clear he
thought her interest was in him rather than in Nigel Ackford, or indeed anything else in the world.

‘I assume you know why I was upset, why I hit the vodka that night.’

‘No, I’m afraid I don’t.’

‘I thought that was what you wanted to talk about.’ Jude looked at him curiously, as he explained. ‘The bad news I’d had that afternoon.’

‘I remember you mentioning bad news, but you didn’t tell me exactly what it was.’

‘Oh.’ Max looked flummoxed and slightly petulant. He was wearing grey jeans and a black Ted Baker T-shirt. He looked the smart off-duty professional who wouldn’t need to change
if filming was suddenly required. ‘I’d heard that afternoon about the television pilot,’ he went on, as though Jude should be familiar with all the details.

‘The pilot you did as a TV chef?’ she pieced together.