The Shooting in the Shop (11 page)

‘Carole Seddon.’

‘How nice to meet you properly. And I’m Anna
Carter.’ She seemed almost pathetically grateful to be
talking to someone. Gulliver and the Westie had
reached a mutual conclusion that the other dog was
no threat. Not even very interesting. They had loped
off in different directions to snuffle about in separate
piles of shingle.

‘I hope you don’t mind my just coming up to you
like this, Anna, but I did want to say how sorry I was
about what happened to . . .’ Carole couldn’t bring herself
to say ‘Gallimaufry’ – ‘the shop.’

‘It was terrible. God knows where I’ll get another
job around here.’

Carole hadn’t considered that consequence of the
fire. ‘Oh, I’m sure you’ll be able to find something.’

‘I don’t know. It took me a while to find the
vacancy at Gallimaufry. No one’s been recruiting
much recently, and I’m sure it’ll be worse after Christmas.’

‘Something’ll turn up,’ said Carole, doing a passable
impression of the kind of person who always
looked on the bright side. ‘Do you live here in Fethering?’

‘Yes, I moved in in September. I haven’t met many
people yet.’

‘Oh, I’m sure you soon will. You’ll find we’re a
friendly bunch.’ Carole didn’t know why she found
herself saying things like that. In her own mind she
had formed many descriptions of the denizens of
Fethering. The one she had never come up with was
‘a friendly bunch’.

‘Have you moved here from far away?’

‘Quite a distance.’ Carole recognized the intonation
Anna used on her answer. It was one she’d often
resorted to herself and was designed to deflect further
questions. Well, that was fine. Carole didn’t particularly
want to know the woman’s life history. She did
want to know, however, any information Anna might have that would shed light on the recent tragedy at
Gallimaufry.

Without discussing where they were going, they
both seemed to agree to walk in the same direction,
while the two dogs made ever wider loops around
them. The tide was low, the sea a sullen sludge-green
with small scummy waves that lapped against the
shore. The air was cold enough to give their faces a
light scouring. ‘I’m sorry to ask you the question that
everyone in Fethering must have been asking you for
the last few days . . .’

‘I haven’t seen that many people,’ said Anna,
confirming Carole’s perception of her loneliness.

‘Oh. Well, I’m afraid it still is an obvious question.
Do you have any idea what started the fire?’

‘Not really.’

‘I was assuming some of the draping stuff must
have caught alight from being too close to all those
candles and fairy lights.’

‘I’d be surprised if it was that,’ said Anna. ‘The
candles were all put out when we closed up the shop.
And those lights are special ones, you know. Passed
safety regulations. They give out very little heat.’

‘Then do you have any idea what might have
started it?’

The woman shrugged under her layers of coat and
echoed Gerald Hume’s diagnosis. ‘Maybe an electrical
fault.’

‘You don’t think it was started deliberately?’

‘Why should it be?’

‘Insurance? From all accounts the business wasn’t
doing that well.’

‘So who might have started it, then?’

‘The owners?’

Anna stopped in her tracks and looked incredulously
at Carole. ‘Ricky?’ Instinctively she added,
‘Ricky wouldn’t ever do anything like that.’ She
seemed affronted by the suggestion.

‘Or Lola, I suppose.’

‘No way. There is just no way either of them
would have done that. Ricky’s loaded. I think Gallimaufry
was almost a game to him, a bauble he tossed
the way of his bored young wife to keep her occupied
and to stop her nosing into his business. He never
expected to make any money out of it.’

‘But is he still loaded? I know he has made a lot of
money at times but—’

‘Ricky will never have any money worries. That’s
one thing of which I’m absolutely certain.’ The
woman’s conviction was as strong as Flora Le Bonnier’s
had been on the same subject. ‘He’s just one of
those very blessed, very charismatic people for whom
everything always goes right.’ Her admiration for him
seemed as strong as Flora’s, too.

‘Well, whatever did cause the fire,’ said Carole, ‘I’m
sure the police investigations will discover it.’

‘I wouldn’t have thought it was a police matter.
There was no criminal involvement. And no one got
hurt.’

It was Carole’s turn to look incredulous, before the
realization came to her that Anna did not actually know about the death in the inferno of Gallimaufry.
The murder.

They had now arrived at the top of the beach,
where the straggling grass of the dunes gave way to
the stretch of pavement which was rather grandly
known as ‘the Promenade’. Anna was busying herself
with reattaching the lead to her Black-Watched
Westie. They had nearly reached the parting of the
ways.

Carole wished desperately she could suggest they
go somewhere for a cup of coffee, but she couldn’t
have chosen a worse time to put that idea into practice.
At eight o’clock on Boxing Day morning there
would be very little open in the entire British Isles,
certainly nothing in Fethering.

But the Promenade did feature some glass-walled
shelters with rusty metal frames. So terrified was she
of her recurrent image of an elderly person sitting in
one that in normal circumstances Carole kept well
clear of them. But these weren’t normal circumstances.
With uncharacteristic boldness, she took
Anna’s arm and led her to sit down. ‘There’s something
I must tell you. I’m afraid it’s not very good
news.’

Gulliver had wandered off down to the shoreline.
Perhaps he’d seen the other dog being put back on
its lead and was trying to postpone his own similar
fate. Anna looked a little surprised at being led into
the shelter, but she didn’t say anything. Carole asked
if she had heard any news on the radio or television
the previous couple of days.

‘No, I try to avoid the media. It’s all bloody Christmas
stuff, everyone full of bonhomie, comedians
dressed up as Santa Claus. I can’t stand it.’

Here was further confirmation of the isolation in
which Anna had spent the holiday, but Carole didn’t
comment. She simply passed on the information
about the discovery of Polly’s body in the wreckage of
Gallimaufry, and the subsequent revelation that the
girl had been shot.

There was no doubting that this was all news to
Anna. She went very white, accentuating the bright
redness of her lipstick, and it was a moment or two
before she could reply. Finally she managed to say,
‘How ghastly.’

‘Yes. Did you know Polly?’

‘I knew of her. I’ve never met her. Ricky talked
about her sometimes. Did you really say she’d been
shot?’ Carole nodded grimly. ‘Ricky must be in a
terrible state.’ Anna said that almost as though the
thought gave her comfort.

‘I don’t know how he’s taking it. My friend Jude –
she’s the one I was in the shop with last week – she’s
spoken to Lola, but that was just when we’d heard
that Polly’s body had been found in the shop. Before
we knew she’d been shot.’

‘It’s ghastly,’ Anna repeated, shaking her head as
if she could dislodge the unsettling image of the
murder.

‘What’s odd is why Polly came back to Fethering.
Ricky had apparently taken her to Fedborough Station to catch a train back to London. You don’t have any
idea why she might have changed her plans?’

‘I told you, Carole, I never met her. All I know is
that Ricky had a child from one of his previous
marriages.’

‘Do you know how many marriages he’s had?’
Carole knew the answer – Jude had told her – but she
thought it might be worth finding out how much
Anna knew about Ricky’s past.

‘Certainly three. There may have been more. He
seems to have gone through relationships like an
emotional wrecking ball.’

‘Three including Lola?’

‘Yes. He was married very young to the girl next
door, or at least only a few doors away. Can’t remember
what her name was, but they split up when he
moved up to London and started in the music business.
Then there was a second wife whose name I
don’t know either, but I think she was the mother of
Polly. Whether Ricky was Polly’s father or not, I don’t
know. Finally, after, I’m sure, various and diverse
entanglements, he met Lola.’

Carole couldn’t see any reason to tell Anna about
Ricky’s other wife. Instead she asked, ‘And, from what
you can gather, that’s a happy marriage?’

The woman’s face froze, as it had done when the
subject arose of where she had lived before Fethering.
‘I have no idea. From what the public sees, everything
seems to be fine.’

‘But you don’t—?’

‘I don’t know anything more about them than you
do!’

Carole took the hint and changed the subject.
‘How many people have keys to Gallimaufry?’

‘Well, Lola does, obviously. And—’ She stopped at
the sound of her mobile ringing. The haste with
which she snatched it out of her pocket suggested that
she was expecting someone to contact her. When she
recognized the number, disappointment flickered
across her face and she rejected the call. She replaced
the phone in her pocket and stretched out her arms.
‘I must be getting back.’

‘Sorry, you were just telling me who had keys to
the shop . . .’

‘Yes.’ For the first time the look she directed to her
interrogator was edged with suspicion. ‘Why do you
want to know?’

Carole shrugged sheepishly. ‘Just natural curiosity.’
Before Anna could say anything, she went on, ‘I’m
sorry, but Fethering’s a very nosy place.’

‘You don’t have to tell me that.’

‘No, and with something like this happening . . . a
murder . . . well, I’m afraid you’re going to get a lot of
questions like the one I’ve just asked you, Anna. So I
suppose you have to decide whether you’re going to
just ignore them all or come up with some answers.’

Carole knew this apparent ingenuousness was a
risk, and she waited tensely to see how the woman
would react. Fortunately, she’d chosen the right
approach. ‘You’re right,’ said Anna. ‘I’d better practise
my act, hadn’t I? All right, let’s start with the keys at Gallimaufry . . . Lola has a set, Ricky has a set, I have
a set. There’s also a spare set hidden at the back of the
building, in case of emergencies. But I’m not going to
tell anyone where they are.’

‘I wouldn’t expect you to.’

‘No.’ Anna was silent for a moment, then said, ‘I’m
still having difficulty taking this in. You say Polly was
shot?’

‘It was on the television news.’

‘Ricky must be in a dreadful state. I can’t begin to
think what the situation must be like up at his place.’

‘Not the most relaxed it’s ever been, I would
imagine.’

‘He must be totally preoccupied by the tragedy.
Not able to think about anything else.’ And again
there seemed a perverse note of satisfaction in Anna’s
voice. She shook her head in bewilderment. ‘But
Polly . . . shot dead . . .’

‘Yes.’

‘God, that’s amazing. I mean, why on earth would
anyone do that?’

‘The very question all the inhabitants of Fethering
– not to mention the investigating police officers – are
asking.’

There was a silence. Unaccountably, Carole found
herself tempted to ask how Anna had actually spent
her Christmas. She felt sure it had been in bleak
solitude, as her own had been for the past few years.
But the urge towards empathy was stopped by the
remembrance that her own Christmas the day before
had been enlivened by the presence of Stephen, Gaby and Lily. To probe into Anna’s life might be intruding
on private grief.

So, instead, she pressed on with another investigative
question. ‘Did you know either Ricky or Lola
before you moved to Fethering?’

For some reason, this was a step too far. With a
curt, ‘No. Now if you’ll excuse me I must be on my
way’, Anna had gathered herself up, brought her
snoozing dog up to its feet, and set off into the village.

Leaving Carole sitting in a rusty shelter on Fethering
Promenade, the image of unhappy retirement
which she had striven so hard to avoid. She was
quickly up and off to collect Gulliver. Then she went
straight back to High Tor.

Had she spent the previous day on her own like
Anna, Carole would have been inhibited from contacting
anyone on Boxing Day. Her loneliness would
have been too raw, she would once again have been
horrified at the idea of provoking pity. But because
she had had what she was thinking of increasingly as
‘a normal Christmas’, she did not hesitate in dialling
Jude’s number the minute she got home. Another
person might have knocked on the door of Woodside
Cottage but not Carole Seddon.

Her neighbour sounded bleary and Carole realized
it was only half-past eight in the morning, perhaps a
little early to contact someone on a public holiday.
‘I’m sorry, I hope I didn’t wake you.’

‘You did, actually, but don’t worry about it.’

‘Were you late last night?’

‘Yes, I was at Georgie’s; she and her family always
have their Christmas dinner in the evening, and then
we were playing party games into the small hours. I
didn’t get back till about three.’

‘Oh,’ said Carole, a little worried that a Christmas
Day whose celebrations finished at four in the afternoon when Stephen and family had left perhaps
didn’t match up.

‘And how was your Christmas?’

‘Oh, you know, quiet.’ Realizing that this was precisely
the answer she had given to such inquiries in
the past, bleak years, Carole hastened to add, ‘It was
lovely to see the family. Lily really seems to have
caught on to the idea of presents.’

‘Oh, good. And were they all appreciated?’

‘Yes, very much so. You’ll be glad to know that
Gaby adored her boa.’ No need to dwell on Stephen’s
bewilderment when he unwrapped his Glow-in-the-dark
Computer Angel. Instead, she summarized the
conversation she had just had with Anna on Fethering
Beach.