The Shooting in the Shop (30 page)

The drinks arrived, and Jude felt quite relieved
that her neighbour hadn’t witnessed the recent
exchange. Carole and New Age mysticism were a
potentially combustible mix.

‘Did you actually see Ricky yesterday afternoon?’
asked Jude.

‘Oh yes, I saw him.’

Carole came in with the next question. ‘Did you
talk to him?’

‘I talked to him, yes.’

‘And what did he say to you?’

Kath looked at Carole curiously. ‘He didn’t say
anything. He was no longer in the dimension where
he could speak.’

Seeing the exasperation building in her friend,
Jude said quickly, ‘You mean Ricky was already dead
when you saw him yesterday?’

‘Dead? What do you mean when you say “dead”?’

‘She means,’ said Carole severely, ‘that he had
stopped breathing and was showing no other vital
signs.’

‘Ah. In this dimension, yes.’

‘What?’ asked Carole.

‘Kath,’ Jude intervened hastily, ‘did Ricky ring you
to say he was coming to Fethering yesterday?’

‘No. I just knew he was coming. I felt his aura.’

Avoiding Carole’s eye, Jude asked whether there
had been anyone else with Ricky.

‘No. He was on his own in the car, leaving his
body there while the real him moved into another
dimension.’

Covering Carole’s snort, Jude went on, ‘You don’t
know whether Ricky contacted Rupert Sonning yesterday?’

‘Rupert Sonning? I don’t know anyone called
Rupert Sonning.’

‘Sorry. Old Garge. Who’s staying at your place
at the moment. You don’t know whether Ricky contacted
him?’

‘I don’t think so. Anyway, Old Garge isn’t staying
with me any more.’

‘Do you know where he’s gone to?’

The response was a shrug which announced that
she didn’t know and she didn’t much care.

‘But Ricky did ask you to put him up, didn’t he?’

‘Oh yes. I don’t like Old Garge. I don’t like having
anyone in my flat except for me and Ricky. But Ricky
asked me to, so I let Old Garge stay.’

‘Kath,’ asked Jude, ‘you haven’t seen Ricky’s latest
Devil Woman recently, have you? The blonde one
from the shop?’

‘Not since I saw her in the car with him before
Christmas, no.’

‘But do you think Ricky came to Fethering yesterday
to see her?’

Kath took a sip of Guinness before replying. ‘I
don’t know. It doesn’t matter now. None of the
Devil Women can reach Ricky now. Only I can reach
him. Everything is perfect now. Things have been
arranged as they should be.’

Carole and Jude exchanged looks which contained
not only exasperation, but also an element of
suspicion. If Ricky’s death brought Kath such a sense
of peace and resolution, was it not possible that she
might have helped him on his way?

‘While Old Garge was staying with you,’ asked
Carole, ‘did he say anything about—’

‘I didn’t listen to him when he talked.’

Carole continued evenly, ‘Did he say anything
about Polly’s death?’

The eyes Kath turned on her questioner had a
new shrewdness in them. She may have been loopy,
but some bits of her brain worked extremely well.
‘What sort of thing should he have said?’

‘Old Garge has been described as “the eyes and
ears of Fethering Beach”. He told me he’d seen Ricky
setting fire to Gallimaufry. I was wondering whether
he’d said any more to you about what happened that
night. I mean, he told me he had no idea who killed
Polly. I thought he might have opened out a bit more
to you.’

‘Why should he? He was staying in my place
under sufferance. I didn’t encourage conversation
while he was there.’

‘Are you sure he didn’t say anything about it?’
asked Jude in a gentler tone than Carole’s.

‘All he said was that Polly’s death was payback
time for Ricky. He said there are some people you
offend at your peril.’

‘But he didn’t mention any names?’

A resolute shake of the grey, sixties hair. ‘No
names.’

Carole let out a frustrated sigh. ‘Oh, it’s so infuriating.
If only we could talk to Old Garge . . .’

‘I don’t see why you can’t,’ said Kath. Both women
looked at her. ‘I’ll lay any odds that what he did the minute he left my place was to go back to his beach
hut.’

‘When did he actually leave?’

‘Yesterday. The minute I’d told him that Ricky had
gone to another dimension.’

‘How did he react to the news?’

‘He said, “Good, if Ricky’s dead, then that lets me
off the hook”.’

The winter air prickled against their faces. The
damp, cold smell of the sea assailed their nostrils.
They could see the tiny square of light from Pequod
when they reached the Promenade, and as they drew
closer they could hear the strains of Radio 3. Rupert
Sonning’s anxieties about being found overnighting
in his beach hut had clearly been allayed.

Inside Carole and Jude’s heads the same
questions were churning. What had he meant by
saying that Ricky’s death had ‘let him off the hook’?
What precisely had been his movements, in his Old
Garge persona, on the night of Polly’s death? And still
at the back of both their minds was the thought that
he might have some closer tie than he claimed to the
Le Bonnier family.

Carole, as the one who had visited Pequod before,
knocked on the wooden door. It was a cautious
moment or two before a slice of Rupert Sonning’s face
appeared at the crack. ‘Ah, it’s you.’ There was the
sound of him disconnecting a chain on the inside.
‘Can’t be too careful after dark. Sometimes get some louts in from Brighton whose idea of a good night out
is beating up an old man in a beach hut.’

He ushered them into the warm. Back in his own
environment, the Jack Russell Petrarch was totally
relaxed, and showed no more than polite interest in
the visitors. ‘Thought I might be hearing from you
again,’ said Rupert.

‘This is my friend Jude.’

‘Oh, Jude and I know each other, don’t we?’ To
Carole’s annoyance, he winked. ‘Talked on the beach
many a time, haven’t we? Always guaranteed to get
more than a Fethering nod from the lovely Jude.
Usually a nice cuddle, I’m glad to say. Would you find
something to sit on? Coffee?’

They both declined the offer and he seemed to
note the seriousness of their demeanour. As he
resettled into his armchair, he asked, ‘So what are
you accusing me of now?’

‘Nothing. We just want a bit of clarification,’
replied Carole.

He grimaced. ‘Sounds ominous. Are you still
asking me to admit that I’m the late Ricky’s father?’

Carole blushed. ‘No.’

‘What we do want you to tell us,’ said Jude, ‘is why
you said that Ricky’s death “let you off the hook”?’

‘Oh, is that all?’ He relaxed visibly. ‘Very simple.
Ricky’s death will have wound up the investigation
into the death of Polly Le Bonnier. There won’t be any
homicide police snuffling around Fethering Beach
any more.
Ergo
, I’m let off the hook and can return safely to my possibly illegal domicile – which is
where you find me.’

Carole wasn’t buying that, it sounded far too well
prepared. ‘Why do you think that Ricky’s death will
stop further investigation into Polly’s?’

‘It’s obvious.’ He explained as if he were talking to
a child. ‘The case is neatly rounded off. Ricky can’t
live with the guilt of having killed his stepdaughter, so
he comes back to near the scene of her death and tops
himself.’

‘When we last spoke, you said you had no idea
who had killed Polly.’

‘Well, I didn’t, did I? Ricky hadn’t topped himself
then, had he? But now he has – and I can’t imagine a
clearer admission of guilt than that.’

Strangely, in their responses to Ricky’s death,
neither Carole nor Jude had considered the possibility
of suicide. Such a robust, positive figure would
be the last person they could imagine taking his
own life. But when Rupert hazarded that there might
be a history of depression in Ricky’s family, they were
forced to admit that was true.

‘And he’d taken a hell of a battering over the last
couple of weeks, hadn’t he?’ the old actor went on.
‘God knows how it feels to have killed someone, least
of all your own stepdaughter. I’ve never had children
– either my own or inherited – but if I had, I’d like to
think I wouldn’t raise a hand against them. The sense
of guilt must be appalling. And then Ricky had the
stress of the police sniffing around everything, and
the strong likelihood that they might find evidence to charge him with the murder. All that, plus a relationship
breaking up as well, I’m not surprised it was
more than he could handle.’

‘Relationship?’ asked Jude. ‘What relationship? He
and Lola seemed fine.’

‘Not his relationship with his wife,’ said Rupert
Sonning patiently. ‘His bit on the side.’

‘Anna?’

‘Yes, the Marilyn-Monroe-lookalike-I-don’t-think-so.’

‘But had they split up?’ asked Carole. ‘When I last
saw Anna, she spoke as if the relationship was still
ongoing.’

‘It didn’t sound very ongoing when I heard them
talking about it.’

‘When was that?’

‘That Sunday. The evening before the fire.’

‘Tell us exactly what happened,’ said Carole.

‘Well, I quite often walk along the beach after
dark. Petrarch loves it then, somehow the smells
seem sharper for him. That night we were on the
dunes and I had a clear view of the back of Gallimaufry.
I saw Ricky and his bit of stuff coming out –
not the first time I’d seen them either.’

‘Anna thought no one had ever seen them
together.’

‘Well, that just goes to show what a short time
she’s been living here, doesn’t it? Nothing in Fethering
happens unseen. There’s always someone
watching.’ Ever the actor, Rupert Sonning deepened
his voice to increase the drama of his narrative. ‘Anyway, as I say, Petrarch and I were on the dunes
and I could see Ricky and Anna through the tufts of
grass, but they couldn’t see me. And I could hear
what they were saying too. Quite clear it was. He said,
“We’ve got to stop this. It’s not working any more.”’

He took on different voices for the two characters
as he continued, ‘And she says, “It is. It is working,
Ricky. I need you. I can’t live without you.” He says,
“You managed to live without me for a good few years
before we met.” She says, “But now I have met you,
I can’t go back to how I was before. If you end it, I
won’t be responsible for my actions.” He says, “Oh,
please don’t try that line. I’ve met more than my
share of women who say they’re going to kill themselves.
And they never do.” And she says, “Be careful,
Ricky. It might not be myself that I kill.”’

There was a silence, then a rather cross Carole
said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’

‘Because you didn’t ask,’ said Rupert Sonning.

Jude looked across at Carole. ‘I think we’d better
find Anna as soon as possible.’

‘We’ll have to wait till tomorrow morning, on the
off-chance that she’s taking Blackie out for a walk.’

‘Oh, surely there must be some way we can find
out where she lives.’

‘There is,’ announced Rupert Sonning. ‘It’s not
for nothing that I am called “the eyes and ears of
Fethering Beach”. Would you like me to give you Anna
Carter’s address?’

It might have been better if they’d had a phone
number to warn Anna of their visit, but they hadn’t.
Anyway, such a call might have alerted her to danger
and allowed her time to make good her escape.

Carole and Jude went back from the beach to
High Tor and got in the Renault. The address they had
been given was on the extreme edge of Fethering’s
gentility, bordering the less salubrious area of Downside.
There would have been no problem walking
there in the daylight, but after dark they felt more
secure in the car.

The woman who answered the door was presumably
the landlady, whom Anna had described as ‘a
nosy cow’. When they asked about her tenant, she certainly
seemed to know a lot of detail. ‘She’s been in
her room all day today. Hasn’t come out even to get
anything to eat. She’s been crying a lot, and all. You
can hear it from outside her door. And all over the
house,’ she added hastily, to cover up her surveillance
activities, before continuing, ‘I think it’s because she
heard about that man dying down by the Fethering
Yacht Club. She worked for his wife at the shop that burnt down, the one with the silly name. I think there
was something going on there.’

‘Something going on?’ asked Carole.

The landlady very nearly winked as she said,
‘Something going on between my Miss Carter upstairs
and that Mr Le Bonnier. That’s why she’s taking his
death so hard.’ Again, so much for Anna’s blind faith
that no one in Fethering knew of their liaison.

‘I wonder if we could see Miss Carter,’ said Jude.

‘Well, I don’t know that she’d want to see anyone,
but I could ask. And then she could come down and
talk in my sitting room through there. I’ll leave you
on your own, just be through in the kitchen.’ A
kitchen which no doubt commanded an excellent
position for eavesdropping.

‘It’s all right. We’ll talk to her in her room,’ said
Carole.

The landlady looked disgruntled at that. Crying
might be audible all over the house, but the intricacies
of conversation could not be heard by anyone
who wasn’t actually lurking on the landing. And even
the most inveterate snoopers have their pride.

She led them upstairs and knocked on the door.
They heard a sharp yap from the West Highland
terrier. ‘What is it?’ asked a pained voice from inside.

‘Two ladies come to see you, Miss Carter.’

The door was opened to reveal a very depleted
Anna Carter. The peroxide blond hair was straggly
and her face, deprived of make-up, looked sad and
old. Her eyes were rimmed with red. She looked at
Carole and Jude blankly.