The Shooting in the Shop (13 page)

Carole and Jude both recognized the woman as the superannuated hippy they had seen in the Crown
and Anchor, and again in the crowd outside the ruins
of Gallimaufry. They wanted to talk to her, but by the
time they reached the end of the garden path, she had
got into an ancient, matt-orange-painted Volkswagen
Camper, and was driving away.

‘Yes, I know who you mean,’ said Ted Crisp when
Jude rang him. ‘She’s quite often in the pub. Always
has a pint of Guinness.’

‘Do you know her name?’

‘Not her proper name, no. The Crown and Anchor
regulars always refer to her as “the Dippy Hippy”.’

‘That figures.’

‘Of course, that’s when they’re not calling you the
same thing, Jude.’

‘Oh, very funny.’

‘You think I’m joking?’

‘I will retain my dignity and not answer that.’

‘Please yourself.’

‘Anyway, next time the Dippy Hippy’s in, Ted,
could you give me a call?’

‘All right. It’s likely to be a lunchtime.’ He sounded
a bit bewildered at the request, but then went on, ‘Oh,
I get it. You and Carole are off on another of your little
investigations, aren’t you?’

‘Well . . .’

‘Might have known it. Mysterious death in a shop
on the Parade, and Fethering’s two favourite sleuths are instantly on the case. Well, I wish you luck if you
think the Dippy Hippy’s going to be any help to you.’

‘Why shouldn’t she be?’

‘There’s the small matter of understanding what
she says. They don’t give her that nickname for nothing,
you know. The lady, I’m afraid, is definitely one
chocolate truffle short of the full selection box.’

‘Are you saying she won’t talk to us?’

‘No, she’ll do that all right. It’s trying to stop her
talking that may be a bit of a problem.’

Jude reckoned they had got as far as they could at
that moment in investigating the death of Polly Le
Bonnier. And since it was Boxing Day, she went to bed
for the afternoon and caught up on the sleep she’d
missed the night before.

The call from Ted came through the next day,
lunchtime on the Saturday (though Jude, like many
people during the lull immediately following Christmas,
had difficulty working out which day it was).
The Dippy Hippy, she was informed, was at that
moment nursing a pint of Guinness in the Crown and
Anchor.

Jude rang through to High Tor, but there was no
reply (Carole had taken Gulliver out for a long walk),
so she went down to the pub on her own. It was
surprisingly full – a lot of Fethering residents, after
forty-eight hours cooped up with their relatives,
clearly felt a communal urge to get out of the house.

But the pub’s busyness was good for Jude’s purposes. The lack of seats made it quite legitimate for
her to take her glass of Chilean Chardonnay and sit
opposite the Dippy Hippy, first gesturing and asking,
‘Do you mind?’

‘Be my guest.’ There was something childlike
about the woman’s voice. The shape of her hair
was Jean Shrimpton circa 1965, shoulder-length with
a deep parted fringe, but its frizzled greyness gave a
blurred effect. The flowered dress she wore was very
short, revealing a lot of gnarled, white-tighted leg.
Her clunky shoes were decorated with little leather
flowers. The greenish velvet coat lay scrumpled on
the settle beside her. There was something discomfiting
about her mutton-dressed-as-lamb appearance.

As ever, Jude had no problem initiating conversation.
‘Quite a relief in some ways to get Christmas
over, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. Good to hang loose.’

‘My name’s Jude, by the way.’

‘Ah.’

The woman didn’t volunteer her own name, and
Jude didn’t want to frighten her off by asking for it.
She just said, ‘I’ve seen you in here before.’

‘I’ve seen you too. A few days ago. With your
spiky friend.’

Jude wasn’t sure that Carole would have liked the
description, but she recognized its accuracy. ‘Do you
live in Fethering?’

The woman gestured with her head towards the
river. ‘Up in one of the old fisherman’s cottages. My parents lived there. And my grandparents. It’s been
divided into flats now, though. I’ve got the top floor.’

‘Ah. I’m over in the High Street.’

There was a silence. Jude worried whether Ted
Crisp had been wrong about the Dippy Hippy’s
garrulousness. But the silence didn’t last long. The
woman appeared just to be gathering her thoughts
before she launched into a monologue. ‘When I last
saw you in here, I was sitting in an alcove next to you,
so I could hear everything you said. I wasn’t eavesdropping
or anything, I just couldn’t help hearing.
And I heard you talking about Ricky. Which some
people might think is strange, but I don’t think it’s
strange. I’m a great believer in synchronicity.’

‘So am I,’ said Jude, glad after all that Carole
wasn’t with her for the interview. She would manage
the conversation better without someone beside her
snorting ill-disguised contempt for ‘New Age mumbo-jumbo’.

A rather ethereal look came into the woman’s
eyes as she said, ‘Most things are meant.’

‘I agree. It’s interesting that almost all faiths are
based on the premise that nothing is accidental.’

‘Right. The tapestry of our lives is woven in the
stars.’ Jude felt even more glad she hadn’t got Carole
with her. ‘I was meant to be sitting at the table next to
you the other day. And you were meant to come and
sit opposite me today. I knew when I woke up this
morning that I would have a significant encounter
with someone who would be important to me. We all have to free up our souls so that we can be open to the
promptings of our instincts.’

‘So true,’ said Jude.

‘We want to be open like sea anemones, ready to
take in any experience that floats past on the tides of
life. Human beings are receptors. We are designed
that way. Too many people shut themselves off from
experience. And if you do that, you shut off your sensitivity
to the crosscurrents of life. You live fixed in
the present, you’re a slave to time. Whereas, if you
open yourself out, time becomes irrelevant. You are
released from its shackles. You can see the future just
as clearly as you can see the present or the past. You
are suspended free in time.’

Even Jude, who was broad-minded in her
approach to alternative life theories, found herself
remembering a line she had once been told: ‘If
you keep an open mind, people are going to throw a
lot of rubbish into it.’ But she suspended her scepticism
and said, ‘You mentioned that my friend and I
talking about Ricky Le Bonnier was a moment of
synchronicity . . .’

‘Yes.’

‘So that means you know him?’

‘Know him? Ricky is my soulmate. We have
always been destined to be together.’

‘Ah.’ Jude wondered whether the Dippy Hippy
actually knew about Ricky’s previous relationships
and marriages – including the current one.

‘I love him, you see, and love is all that matters. When two people are soulmates, nothing that comes
between them really signifies.’

‘So have you and Ricky ever actually been an
item?’ Jude only just stopped herself from adding
‘in the real world’.

‘Yes,’ the woman replied devoutly. ‘He is my husband.’

‘Your husband in heaven or somewhere like that?
Or your real husband?’

‘My real husband. Ricky and I were married right
here. In Fethering Church.’

‘Oh.’ This was the last answer Jude had been
expecting. ‘So you’re his first wife?’

‘I’m his only wife. We were married in Fethering
Church,’ she repeated.

‘But, I mean, you did get divorced. Ricky has been
married three times since that.’

The Dippy Hippy smiled patiently at Jude.
‘Marriage is real. A divorce is only a piece of paper.
A piece of paper can’t stop two people loving each
other.’

‘It can stop one side of a partnership loving the
other,’ Jude pointed out. ‘In fact, such a piece of paper
is frequently issued
because
one side of a partnership
has stopped loving the other.’

‘It’s not like that with Ricky and me,’ said the
woman firmly. ‘Our relationship is for ever.’

‘Are you Catholic?’ asked Jude.

‘I don’t have a religion, not like that. I have faith,
which is much better. Faith that things are being organized in such a way that everything will turn out
all right.’

The woman spoke with such certainty that Jude
had to remind herself that the logic of her thesis was
highly dubious.

‘So are you saying that you and Ricky Le Bonnier
will end up together?’

‘Oh yes.’ There wasn’t the smallest nuance of
doubt in her voice. ‘We met here in Fethering, and
we’ll end up here in Fethering. We were at the village
school together here. Ricky was looked after by his
aunt, because his mother was always off acting all
over the world. He was lonely at school. I was his
friend. So we got married. And we still are married.’

‘In whose eyes?’

‘In the eyes of the Power which arranges such
things.’

‘Ah,’ said Jude, slowly nodding her head. ‘I understand.
By the way, I don’t know your name . . . ?’

‘Kath.’

‘Right, Kath. So how long were you and Ricky
married?’

‘We still are married.’

‘“In the eyes of the Power which . . .” Yes, I understand
that. But how long after you got married did he
move out, did you stop living together?’

‘Only three years. But we are still together, you
know, spiritually . . . on an astral plane. We’ll always
be together in a cosmic sense.’

Jude found this talk was getting her closer than
she had ever anticipated to Carole’s views on ‘New Age mumbo-jumbo’. Time perhaps to move from the
astral plane to a bit of detective work. ‘I actually saw
you with Ricky this morning. Outside my house. He
had just come to see me.’

‘Oh, I didn’t know who he had been visiting. I just
knew the car would be there.’

‘Sorry? You knew it would be there?’

‘I had a sense when I woke up yesterday morning
that Ricky was going to come to Fethering. He has a
very strong aura. I can always sense when his aura is
close to mine. So I drove out in the camper, knowing
I would see his car. And of course I did.’ She smiled
beatifically. ‘It was outside your house.’

‘He didn’t seem to have a lot to say when he saw
you.’

‘No, often he doesn’t. He isn’t ready to be back
with me yet. He’s still under the influence.’

‘The influence of what?’

‘Of the Devil Women.’

Jude nearly spilled her Chilean Chardonnay. ‘I
beg your pardon?’

‘Devil Women took Ricky away from me. But
Devil Women cannot win in the long run. The Power
is always stronger than the Devil Women.’ Jude was
beginning to think she’d drifted into some science
fiction B-movie, as Kath went on, ‘I only have to wait,
then Ricky will come back to me.’

‘So are you saying that all of the other women
with whom Ricky’s spent time with are Devil
Women?’

‘Oh yes.’ No flicker of hesitation.

‘And when they are finally defeated, he’ll come
back to you?’

‘Oh yes.’ With exactly the same certainty.

‘Kath,’ asked Jude gently, ‘did you know Polly?’

‘Polly?’

‘Ricky’s daughter. The one who died in the fire at
the shop.’

‘She’s not my daughter.’

‘I know that. Sorry, I should have said “Ricky’s
stepdaughter”. But did you know her?’

Ignoring the question, Kath went on, ‘Ricky and I
didn’t have children. I was on the Pill.’ She spoke this
with some pride, as if it were an unusual concept,
which, Jude reflected, to women of Kath’s generation,
it probably was. ‘Ricky and I were going to have children
later. But then the Devil Women got in the way.’

‘Have you ever met any of the Devil Women?’
It was not a question that Jude had ever in her life
anticipated she might have to ask.

‘I’ve seen one or two.’

‘Including Lola?’

‘I’m not interested in their names.’

‘Lola is Ricky’s current wife.’ Jude hadn’t wanted
to use such a dismissive adjective, but she couldn’t
think of another, more appropriate one.

‘The one he calls his wife. I am his real wife.’

‘And, so far as you’re concerned, she’s just his
latest Devil Woman?’

‘If you like, yes. But she’s not real.’

‘Right.’ Jude decided not to take the conversation back into the realms of ‘the Power which arranges
such things’, instead asking, ‘So you have met Lola?’

‘I’ve seen her in the shop.’

‘But do you feel any resentment towards her?’

Kath gave her a curious look. ‘Why should I feel
resentment?’

‘Well, Ricky is married to her.’

‘
Says
he’s married to her. I told you – he’s really
married to me.’

‘Either way, you could regard Lola as someone
who’s taken your man from you. And women in that
situation have frequently been known to feel considerable
resentment.’

‘Well, I don’t feel it.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it’s not the Devil Women’s fault that
they’re Devil Women. There’s an Evil Power that
gets into them. They can’t help it. To blame someone
for being a Devil Woman is like blaming someone for
being born with red hair.’

‘Right,’ said Jude. ‘I understand.’ Which was not
strictly true, but probably a more prudent course
than asking for further explanations. ‘One thing you
said interested me, Kath – well, a lot of things
you said interested me, but there’s one I’d like to ask
about.’

A smile spread across the wrinkled face. ‘Ask
away. It’s a free country.’

‘You said you have an instinct for when Ricky is
close, when he comes to Fethering . . .’

‘Yes. That’s what I had yesterday morning.’

‘And when did you last have it?’

‘Last Sunday I knew he was in Fethering.’

‘Yes, he was. He actually came to a party at my
house.’