Читать книгу Murder in the Museum - Simon Brett - Страница 10

The inaccuracy of Gina Locke’s words was made clear as soon as Carole saw Jude that Monday evening. But whether the Director had been deliberately lying or merely ignorant was impossible to know.

‘The police have actually had a confession to murder?’ They were in the sitting room of High Tor and Carole was pouring white wine.

‘Yes.’

‘I’d call that a development on the case. Wouldn’t you?’

‘Oh yes.’ But Jude sounded distracted. She toyed with a tendril of blonde hair that had escaped the pile on top of her head, and looked around the room. Carole had had the place redecorated the previous autumn by an interior designer called Debbie Carlton, but already the owner’s intrinsic neatness had taken the softness out of the décor. The relaxed pale apricot and dreamy blue of the paintwork was at odds with the disciplined ranking on the books of the shelves, even the exact alignment of The Times on the coffee table. No make-over could ever fully blunt the spikiness of Carole Seddon’s personality.

‘You don’t sound certain, Jude . . .’

‘Oh no, I know it’s happened, but . . . The confession was from Mervyn Hunter.’

‘The one who I saw break down when the body was discovered?’

Jude nodded.

‘But you said you didn’t know anyone locally called Mervyn.’

‘I lied.’

It was said with disarming honesty, but Carole wasn’t disarmed. ‘For heaven’s sake. What is this, Jude? I thought the whole point of our discussions about cases like this was that we shared information. I don’t hold stuff back from you, and I’m pretty angry to hear that you’ve been holding stuff back from me!’

Carole Seddon’s skin was very thin. Only the smallest friction was required to lay bare her subcutaneous insecurity. She was quick to imagine slights, but in this case did not need recourse to her imagination. Her supposed friend had deliberately withheld material information from her.

Jude tried to ease the situation. ‘Look, I’m sorry. I felt there was an issue of confidentiality between me and Mervyn . . . because I’ve met him through the prison.’

‘Through the prison? What are you talking about?’

‘I’ve met Mervyn Hunter at Austen Prison. He’s a lifer finishing off his sentence there.’

‘Jude, how on earth do you come to make the acquaintance of lifers at Austen Prison?’

Jude sighed. Her reticence on the subject had a perfect logic for her, but she knew Carole wouldn’t see it so simply. The last thing Jude wanted to do was antagonize her friend, and yet, given the personality involved, it was all too easily done.

She started out on the laborious process of fence-mending. ‘The last few months I’ve been doing some sessions at Austen Prison.’

‘Sessions? On what?’

‘Alternative stuff. Alternative therapies, alternative ways of looking at life.’

‘Oh.’ The frost in the voice said everything about Carole’s views on such matters. She reckoned trying to lead a straightforward normal life was quite difficult enough, without complicating the issue by offering alternatives.

‘Anyway,’ Jude hurried on, ‘in the course of these sessions I have met Mervyn Hunter.’

‘And does he seem like a murderer to you?’ asked Carole, thinking of the skeleton at Bracketts.

‘Well, I know he is a murderer, so what he seems like is a bit irrelevant. But no, in the accepted sense, he doesn’t seem like a murderer. And, indeed, I’d be very surprised if he were ever to commit a second murder.’

‘The first one being the one he’s in Austen for?’

‘Yes.’

‘So who was that? Who did he kill before?’

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘But surely that was the first question you asked?’

‘I can assure you, Carole, as an outsider inside a prison, that’s the last question you ask. If a prisoner wants to volunteer information to you about his crime, fair enough. If he doesn’t, don’t go there.’

‘Oh.’ The response remained frosty. The fence was still by no means mended.

‘Anyway, I’ve talked to Mervyn a bit, mainly in group sessions, but occasionally had the odd word with him on his own.’

‘You knew he’d been working up at Bracketts?’

‘Yes. He mentioned it.’

‘Apparently there’s been quite a history of that, with men from Austen. Set up by Sheila Cartwright. For the right sort of prisoner, who’s interested in gardening, or even in the heritage side of the place, it’s worked very well.’

‘And from what Mervyn told me, it was working well for him too. He’s a very wound-up kind of character, really needs the right sort of opening when he gets out of Austen. Somewhere like Bracketts is ideal for him.’

‘I’m sure it would be,’ said Carole huffily, ‘if he didn’t go on murdering people.’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ protested Jude, uncharacteristically testy. ‘You don’t think he did it, do you?’

‘Well, he’s told the police he did. If Mervyn himself doesn’t know what he’s done, then who does?’

‘I’m absolutely certain he didn’t do it. I think he only confessed because he thought he ought to.’

‘What!’ But further expansion of Carole’s disbelief was stopped by her phone ringing.

‘Hello, is that Carole Seddon?’ The voice was vaguely familiar, slightly effete and, at that moment, deeply anxious.

‘Yes, it is.’

‘This is Graham.’

‘Oh?’

‘Graham Chadleigh-Bewes,’ he said peevishly. ‘I gather from that Gina at Bracketts that you’re going to be meeting the Great American Predator.’

‘Well, there was some talk of—’

‘It’s very important that you come and see me before any such meeting.’

‘I’m not sure that it’ll be possible for me—’

‘You have to. I have some papers that you must give to Professor Teischbaum. You must come.’

Carole was getting a bit sick of the way everyone connected with Bracketts ordered her around.

‘What papers are these?’

‘Some material about Esmond.’

‘Do you mean you are going to co-operate with her, after all?’

‘No.’ He chortled. ‘I’m going to fob her off with some unimportant stuff.’

‘Oh. Well, I’m not sure that I want to be a party to any kind of—’

‘The importance of your doing what I say cannot be overestimated,’ Graham went on in his prissy academic’s voice. ‘Particularly in the circumstances.’

‘What circumstances?’

‘The circumstances of a skeleton having been found in the kitchen garden at Bracketts.’

So much for Lord Beniston’s need-to-know policy amongst the Trustees, thought Carole.