‘Giles Green?’
‘I didn’t notice any other Gileses around at the Private View.’
‘So the two of you were drinking all night in the bar of the Dauncey Hotel?’
‘Not the bar, no. The hotel manager had rather old-fashioned ideas about licensing hours; he seemed to believe that no one in Fethering ever wanted a drink after nine in the evening. So Giles and I bought a couple of bottles of Scotch and retired with them to my room to drink the night away.’
‘And in the course of that night,’ asked Jude, ‘did you talk about Fennel Whittaker?’
‘We may have done. My recollections of the occasion are necessarily somewhat hazy.’
‘But you probably did?’
‘Probably. Giles and I have always tended to talk about women. We’ve known each other for a long time.’
‘From your time at Lancing,’ said Carole.
‘Ooh, you have been doing your research.’
‘And has there been rivalry between you when it comes to women?’
‘A bit. Benign rivalry, I’d say.’
‘Never come to conflict?’
‘Good God, no. The woman hasn’t been born who’s worth spoiling a male friendship for.’ This was said with a challenging smile. Denzil Willoughby was fully aware of the effect his words were having. It was almost as if he were trying to goad his two visitors into some reaction, but they were determined not to give him the satisfaction.
‘So that night after the Private View,’ asked Carole, ‘did you talk about Giles’s relationship with Chervil Whittaker?’
‘It probably came up.’ He grinned complacently. ‘Though there wasn’t really much he could tell me there.’
Jude was quicker to pick up the implication than Carole. ‘You mean you’d already had a relationship with Chervil yourself?’
‘Spot on.’
‘Recently?’
‘Fairly. It was when I got bored with the younger sister that I moved on to the older one.’
‘And Giles picked up with Chervil?’
‘Exactly. We’ve always kind of shared girlfriends.’
‘At the same time?’
‘Not very often.’ He sniggered. ‘Wouldn’t have worried us, but girls can be funny about that kind of thing.’
‘And what about Fennel?’ asked Jude.
‘What about Fennel?’
‘Was she another girlfriend you shared? Did Giles have a relationship with her as well as you?’
Denzil Willoughby was silent, assessing his reply. Though there was an insolent pleasure in his manner, enjoying telling his visitors what a bad boy he was, an undercurrent of anxiety remained. The iPhone still moved restlessly around between his hands. Both women got the impression he was deliberately extending the conversation, that he still hadn’t got from them what he wanted to know.
He made his decision. ‘Yes, Giles had a bit of a fling with Fennel.’
‘Before you did?’
‘Yes.’
‘While he was still with his wife?’
‘Sure. Giles always thought that he and Nikki had an open marriage.’
‘There are a lot of husbands who think that,’ said Carole with some bitterness, ‘but quite a few of them forget to explain the situation to their wives.’
Denzil Willoughby did another of his infuriating shrugs. ‘Having never been married, I wouldn’t know,’ he said in a voice of assumed piety.
‘But this is rather important,’ announced Jude. ‘Now we know that Giles also had a relationship with Fennel, the whole situation becomes—’
‘It doesn’t change anything if you’re looking for a murderer,’ Denzil pointed out. ‘Because if Giles is my alibi for the relevant time, then I’m also his.’
‘But surely—’
Carole didn’t get beyond the two words, as Denzil suddenly reacted to a beep from his iPhone. Maybe it announced the text he’s been expecting all morning, but the news it brought certainly gave him a shock.
With a cry of, ‘Oh my God, no!’ he leapt to his feet and rushed back into the workshop.
TWENTY-TWO
On the assumption that when he had done whatever the text demanded of him, Denzil Willoughby would return either to pick up the conversation or end their meeting, Carole and Jude stayed out on the terrace. The cafetière retained enough warmth for them to refill their cups.
They talked casually, about anything except the death of Fennel Whittaker. Though both women were full of new ideas relating to their investigation, on Denzil Willoughby’s home territory they felt somehow under surveillance.
Some twenty minutes passed before the conviction hardened in both of them that he wasn’t coming back, so they ventured into the workshop. There nothing seemed to have changed. The young man had found a new area of Christ’s carved wooden flesh into which to bang galvanized nails, and the girl was still laying her meticulous lines of Christmas tape over President Obama. There was no sign of Denzil Willoughby.
Neither of the assistants so much as looked up from their work, so Carole and Jude reckoned they were capable of seeing themselves out. They had almost reached the small door to the street when they heard the sound of feet descending the spiral staircase.
This pair of legs was also wearing jeans, but they fitted the more shapely contours of a woman. A few seconds more descent and Carole and Jude found themselves facing Nikki, Giles Green’s wife.
She seemed unfazed to see them. ‘Ah. Denzil said you’d been here. I thought you might have gone.’
‘Good morning. I’m Carole and—’
‘We met at the Cornelian Gallery.’ There was something strikingly direct about Nikki Green.
‘Yes, of course we did. I wasn’t sure you’d remember.’
The two assistants on the floor showed no more interest in this exchange than they had in anything else that had happened that morning. Maybe they were under orders to make no response, or just too preoccupied in realizing the ‘concepts’ vouchsafed to them by the genius who was their employer.
‘I’d better explain what’s happened,’ said Nikki Green as she reached ground level. She looked around the workshop and seemed to dismiss it as a venue. ‘Let’s go out and get a coffee. There’s a Starbucks just down the road.’
Jude saw Carole about to say that they’d actually just had downed the contents of a cafetière, but managed to stop her with a look.
The three of them didn’t speak until they were sitting in the café with yet more coffee in front of them. Then Nikki Green said, ‘Apologies for Denzil not saying goodbye to you. He’d just received some bad news.’
‘Oh? We saw he’d just had a text that—’
‘Yes. That was it. His mother’s just died.’
Jude said she was sorry and Carole came up with the customary elaborate expressions of regret that people in Fethering always produced at the news of the death of someone they’d never met.
‘Denzil and Philomena were very close, texting each other every day. More like lovers than mother and son. He’ll be pretty cut up about it.’
‘Maybe,’ suggested Jude, ‘that’s the explanation for his behaviour to other women. None of them could ever match up to his mother.’
‘That’s one explanation for it,’ said Nikki Green, ‘though I favour the view that he behaves like that because he’s basically just a little shit.’
‘And how well do you know him?’ asked Carole in a manner that she couldn’t prevent from sounding old-fashioned.
‘Ah, yes. Well, a legitimate question, I suppose. Given the fact that I was introduced to you in Fethering as Giles Green’s wife and here you find me in flagrante with Denzil.’