Читать книгу The Killer in the Choir - Simon Brett - Страница 11

After Jonny had left, it was characteristic of Jude that she went straight round to High Tor to propose that, having turned down her neighbour’s suggestion of going to the Crown & Anchor at lunchtime, they should go early evening instead. And it was characteristic of Carole that she hummed and hawed a great deal, as if evaluating other pressing demands on her time, before she agreed to go. And when Jude proposed they go at five, Carole felt a disapproving flutter at the thought of having a drink before the end of the working day (though it was some time since she last had a conventional working day, since she had retired from the Home Office).

At five, they walked together past the parade of shops to Fethering’s only pub.

Ted Crisp, the landlord, was still dressed in his winter uniform of faded sweatshirt and grubby jeans, rather than his summer ensemble of faded T-shirt and grubby jeans. He greeted them with his customary gruffness. ‘So, would I be jumping the gun to pour out two large New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs?’

‘No,’ Jude replied. ‘You would be doing absolutely the right thing, and making us feel like regulars. Which is exactly what we like to think we are.’

‘Good.’ He looked at Carole. ‘You know, I dreamt about you last night.’

‘Did you?’

‘No, you wouldn’t let me.’

Jude giggled. Ted could never quite get away from his past as a stand-up comedian, though the quality of his jokes, as in this case, demonstrated why he never made a go of it.

Carole’s reaction was more complex than her neighbour’s. Though she understood the joke – which was not always the case with her and jokes – the innuendo couldn’t fail to remind her of the unlikely truth that she and the landlord had once had a brief affair. She coloured and looked away.

Serendipitously, further conversation was interrupted by a burst of riotous laughter from the back of the pub near the French windows which, in the summer, were opened out on to the beach. Jude looked at her big round watch. ‘A bit early for that kind of raucousness, isn’t it?’

Ted tutted and raised his eyes to the heavens. ‘That lot’ve been here all afternoon …’

‘Then I think we’ll sit up this end,’ said Carole, whose entire life had been devoted to the avoidance of ‘scenes’.

‘They came on here from some post-funeral drinks do in the church hall,’ he went on.

‘Oh, I think we’ll sit down there,’ said Jude.

In the residual afternoon sunlight, Carole recognized all of the group sitting at a wooden table in the alcove as members of the church choir. The bearded Ruskin Dewitt and the thin-faced woman were there, along with a couple of ladies (definitely, in Fethering, ‘ladies’ rather than ‘women’) in their sixties. These Carole knew to be sisters, called Shirley and Veronica Tattersall, who lived together in a flat near the Fethering Yacht Club. She also knew the name of a tall, thin woman with unlikely long red hair. Elizabeth Browning, who only lacked the ‘Barrett’ to make herself the full Romantic Heroine. She was often to be seen, gliding soulfully along the streets of Fethering, like a lady from Chekhov who’d lost her lapdog. In fine weather during the summer, she frequently leaned against the stone wall which guarded the mouth of the River Fether, gazing soulfully out to sea, and generally doing an impression of the French Lieutenant’s Woman.

Given that he’d shown no sign of recognizing her earlier in the day, Carole thought it unlikely that Ruskin Dewitt would suddenly remember who she was. She’d got the impression, from meeting him on the Preservation of Fethering’s Seafront committee, that he lived in a bubble of his own pomposity and didn’t notice other people much. Since she had never been introduced to the choir members whose names she did know, and since she didn’t know the names of the others, she started towards a table as far away from them as possible.

But she hadn’t reckoned with Jude’s greater openness and conviviality. Inevitably, there was someone there who her neighbour knew.

It turned out to be Ruskin Dewitt. Of course. Men, Carole had convinced herself, were always suckers for Jude’s rather obvious charms. He had risen immediately he saw her, disengaging himself clumsily from the fixed bench in the alcove. With a flamboyant gesture, he reached for her hand and planted a tickly kiss on to it. Not for the first time, Carole reflected on her low visibility when compared to that of her neighbour.

‘Jude! My dear! What more could an old man ask than to have his afternoon animated by such a vision of pulchritude?’

‘Nice to see you, Russ.’ Whatever destination she’d had in mind, Carole was hauled back towards the group. ‘Russ, I don’t think you know my neighbour, Carole.’

‘I don’t believe I do. Though I have to say, young lady, that you do look familiar.’

Carole winced, as she always did at compliments.

‘She was at the funeral,’ said the sharp-faced woman. ‘And briefly in the church hall afterwards.’

‘Oh, that’s where I recognize you from, of course. Carole, was it?’

‘That’s right.’ The words contained the frostiness with which she greeted all new acquaintances.

‘My name is Ruskin Dewitt,’ he said. (She was right. He’d completely forgotten that the two of them had ever sat on a committee together.) ‘Citizen not of this parish, but of Fedborough, a little further up the River Fether. Formerly a purveyor of education in English Literature to young persons who were unaware of the privilege they were receiving by being taught by me. But, Carole, you will join us?’

‘Erm … Well …’

‘Of course we will,’ said Jude. She looked at the table. There were some glasses with dregs of wine in them, and a bottle of white so deep into an ice bucket that it was impossible to see whether it was full or empty. ‘Are you all right for drinks?’

‘I think we’re fine, Jude my angel,’ said Ruskin Dewitt, unsteadily reinserting himself into his seat. ‘We were actually talking about leaving.’

‘We’ve been talking about leaving all afternoon,’ said the thin-faced woman. She looked at her watch. ‘I should be getting back for Rory.’

But none of them made any move. Further introductions were made. The names of the older women, Shirley and Veronica Tattersall, were vaguely familiar to Carole and Jude. They were also introduced to the self-appointed Tragedy Queen of Fethering, Elizabeth Browning. ‘Of course, I have seen you both around,’ she trilled, before embarking on an unrequested autobiography. ‘I feel it’s my duty to sing with the church choir. I was professional, you know, Glyndebourne way back, but …’ She brought a hand up to her papery neck ‘… the nodules.’

‘Ah,’ said Jude.

‘Cut my career short at a terribly early age.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

Elizabeth Browning left a tragic pause, too long to prevent the younger woman from muscling in and introducing herself as Bet Harrison. ‘Only moved down here a couple of weeks ago,’ she said, providing the instant explanation of why they hadn’t recognized her.

‘You didn’t take long to get into the choir,’ said Jude.

‘The church community is welcoming wherever you go.’ Somehow Bet managed to avoid making her words sound sanctimonious.

‘And we’re always glad of new voices adding their strength to ours,’ said Ruskin. ‘Bob’s particularly pleased. He gets very worried about dwindling numbers.’

This echo of Jonny Virgo’s words made Jude suspect that the size of the All Saints choir was a real issue for the vicar. Perhaps he saw in it a reflection of declining attendance in the main body of the church. And maybe a reflection on his own competence.

‘And it is good,’ Bet went on, ‘to know when you go to a new place, there’ll be a church, where you can quickly find a group of like-minded people.’

Carole shuddered inwardly at the idea. She thought, for herself, the prospect of finding ‘like-minded people’ anywhere was pretty distant. She treasured her anonymity and exclusivity. When she’d moved permanently to Fethering, raw after her divorce and premature retirement from the Home Office, she hadn’t wanted to make contact with anyone. She’d only bought Gulliver because she didn’t wish to appear lonely when she walked on the beach. And if she’d had a neighbour with a less outgoing and persistent personality than Jude, that relationship wouldn’t have flourished either.

‘Of course, normally you’d hope to make friends at the school gate, too,’ Bet went on. Jude was beginning to wonder whether she was usually this forthcoming, or if the drink had relaxed her. ‘But my son Rory goes to the comprehensive in Clincham, so he gets a bus there and back. It’s been difficult for him starting there in the middle of term, but that’s just down to the logistics of when we could move. The English system of house purchase doesn’t take notice of details like school terms.’

‘Have you moved down from London?’ asked Jude. Most of the people who ended up in Fethering had.

‘No. Evesham. That’s where Rory was born and brought up, but then my marriage broke down and … well, I wanted to get as far away from the place as possible. But, you know, house purchase … you think you’ve got somewhere sorted, then the chain breaks down, and … quite frankly, it’s been a nightmare.’

Carole was beginning to think that they were being granted too much information. Was the woman going to provide her entire life story within minutes of meeting complete strangers? Was she equally revealing with everyone she met? Such behaviour went against Carole’s every instinct.

Fortunately, at this moment Ruskin Dewitt re-entered the conversation. ‘Did you know Leonard Mallett well, Carole?’ he asked.

‘Hardly at all.’ And she mentioned the Preservation of Fethering’s Seafront committee.

‘Yes, well, I’m on that.’ He screwed up his eyes and inspected her. ‘Oh, I do recognize you now.’

‘Good,’ said Carole, with some acidity.

‘And were you at the church hall earlier in the afternoon when things got rather ugly?’

‘I heard Alice Mallett having a bit of a go at her stepmother.’

‘“Having a bit of a go”? You have an enviable talent for understatement, Carole.’

‘Yes, being new to the area,’ said Bet, ‘I was quite shocked. Are accusations of murder common events in Fethering?’

The group laughed at the idea. Carole and Jude exchanged covert looks. Each knew that accusations of murder had featured rather more in their lives than they had in that of the average village resident.

Elizabeth Browning, who hadn’t joined in the communal laughter, said gnomically, ‘Tragedies are not unknown in the village.’ But the other choir members had heard her narratives too often to invite further explanation.

‘Does anyone actually know anything about the circumstances of Leonard Mallett’s death?’ asked Carole. ‘We’ve heard that he “had a fall”, but that’s it.’

Shirley and Veronica Tattersall regretted that they couldn’t provide any more detail, but inevitably Ruskin Dewitt did have a contribution to make. ‘I don’t want to be telling tales out of school, and let me tell you, having spent most of my professional life in schools, I’m fully aware of the meaning of that expression … but I did hear something which might have some bearing on the subject of Leonard Mallett’s death.’

‘What was it?’ demanded Carole, irritated at the orotundity of his narrative manner, and wanting to hurry him along a bit.

He looked a little piqued, as he said, ‘Very well. A couple of months ago, on a Friday … you know, usual choir rehearsal night … Heather had a problem with her car. Should have been back from the garage late afternoon, but there was a part they couldn’t get till the Saturday morning, something like that. So, since I come from Fedborough and virtually drive past the Shorelands Estate, I had a call from her asking if I could pick her up for rehearsal. No problem for me, and I have to confess I was rather intrigued. You know, Heather kept herself so much to herself, and I thought I might get the opportunity, on the car journey, which was only ten minutes, but I thought I might find out a little more about her, get to know her a bit. In a way, though, perhaps I got more than I bargained for.’

He took another suspenseful pause. Carole had great difficulty in stopping herself from telling him to get on with it.

‘I knocked at the door, expecting Heather to come scuttling out, but it was opened by Leonard. I mean, I knew who he was, I’d seen him around the village, but I wouldn’t say I knew him.

‘Anyway, he wasn’t particularly gracious to me … In fact, that’s putting it mildly. He was damned rude – pardon my French. He said, “Oh, you’ve come to take her off for her bloody choir, have you?” And then he called off into the house, “For Christ’s sake, Heather, your lift’s arrived. What are you faffing around at? No amount of titivation is going to make you look any better at your age.” Which I have to say is not the way that I was brought up to speak to a lady.’

‘Did Heather say anything back to him,’ asked Jude, ‘you know, when she came to the door?’

‘No, she seemed to be completely cowed. Shrank away when she passed him on her way out.’

Carole was immediately aware of the contrast with the cheerful woman she had seen drinking in the church hall. The woman with new glasses, the woman who’d let her hair grow.

‘And did Leonard have any parting shot for her?’ asked Jude.

‘Yes. He said, “Off you go to church then. Maybe God can help sort you out. He’s supposed to have a decent record with lost causes, isn’t he?” I remember the words exactly, because … well, because I don’t think I’ve ever heard a husband be so rude to his wife.’

‘Makes you understand the level of relief she must have felt …’ said Carole, ‘you know, when he was no longer on the scene. It must’ve been absolutely ghastly for her, the whole marriage.’

‘You never know,’ said Jude, who had had a lot of marital secrets shared from her treatment couch. ‘It may have been what worked for them, what turned them on. You can never look inside another marriage.’

‘I agree.’ Carole had certainly never wanted anyone looking inside her marriage to David. Or their divorce, come to that. ‘But the way Heather was behaving in the church hall suggested someone who had just had a great burden lifted off her shoulders.’

‘And the way she was behaving here,’ Bet Harrison contributed.

‘She was here?’ asked Carole, surprised.

Ruskin Dewitt nodded vigorously, setting a ripple through the foliage of his beard. ‘Yes. As I was leaving the church hall, I said, sort of casually, that some of the choir were going to the Crown & Anchor for a drink, and Heather said, to my amazement, “See you there!” She only left half an hour ago.’

‘Goodness.’ Carole and Jude exchanged a look, both regretting that they hadn’t joined the party earlier. Carole looked at her watch. Nearly six. Say formalities in the church hall had finished round two thirty, the session in the pub had been going on for a good three hours. And, until recently, the bereaved widow had been part of it.

‘Incidentally,’ said Carole, drawing Ruskin Dewitt back to his earlier conversation, ‘did Heather say anything to you in the car on the way to rehearsal, you know, that day, after her husband had been so rude to her?’

‘I didn’t think she was going to. And I didn’t really think it was my place to make any comment, but after a long silence, when we were nearly at the church, Heather did apologize for her husband’s behaviour. She said, “He gets like that. I’m afraid Leonard hasn’t taken very well to retirement.” Something of an understatement, I thought, but I just mumbled a few words about it being very difficult for her. And she said – and goodness, I don’t think I’ll ever forget her words …’

On this occasion, Carole did not allow him to indulge in his full dramatic pause. ‘What did she say?’ she asked testily.

‘Heather said,’ Ruskin replied, ‘“Oh, he’ll get his comeuppance. There’s nothing so deadly as a worm that’s turned.”’