‘What time was this?’
‘Quarter past three, I suppose. Something like that.’
‘I was already in bed by then. I’d locked the kitchen door.’
‘I wondered who’d done that. But’ – he produced a big bunch on a chain from his pocket – ‘I have my own keys. So I let myself in and, while I was in the bar, I heard some people coming downstairs. It was Kerry, and her stepfather, and that old guy – you know, one of the Pillocks – bald, red-faced – the one who arrived early to check the details for the dinner.’
‘Donald Chew?’
‘That’s right. Anyway, they were chatting – sounded like they’d had a few drinks themselves – and I heard them saying goodnight to Kerry, and she went out through the kitchen to her room. Then I came out of the bar, and the old bloke was just going up the stairs to bed, but Kerry’s dad saw me, and he asked if I could find him a bottle of Scotch and put it on his bill. So I did. He went upstairs to bed, and I went back out through the kitchen to my room, locking the door behind me.’
Max finished on a note of barely disguised triumph. He had told her everything he had to tell her.
Jude didn’t believe a word of it.
His duty discharged, as soon as he’d mopped up the last of his Normandie sauce with a piece of bread, Max announced he had to get back to the hotel. There was a special lobster dish that needed preparing for that night’s dinner.
Before he left, he asked permission from Ted Crisp and went through to have a quick word with the chef. When he returned, he took Jude’s hand in his, focused his blue eyes on her brown ones and said, ‘I’m sorry about all the confusion, Jude, but I really do feel better for having made a clean breast of it. Better late than never, eh?’
And Max Townley was gone.
As she quietly sipped her way through another glass of Chardonnay, Jude sorted out the implications of what Max had told her. Rick Hendry and Suzy Longthorne now seemed to be in the clear. Max had been with Rick for the first hours, and presumably Suzy could vouch for him for the rest of the night.
And, assuming there hadn’t been a conspiracy between Bob Hartson, his stepdaughter and Donald Chew, no suspicion could attach to Kerry. She’d been drinking with her father and his solicitor until Max had seen her leave the hotel for the stable block. The kitchen door had subsequently been locked and, though the chef possessed keys, Kerry didn’t. So she couldn’t have had anything to do with the murder.
There were many reasons why Jude felt sure Max had been lying to her: he had betrayed himself by the suddenness of his approach; by the command he’d shown over details of timing; and by the unnecessary production of his hotel keys as a visual aid. Everything was too convenient, too pat, to be spontaneous.
That being the case, the question then arose: who had set him up? Who had wanted him to lie, and what inducements had they used to persuade him to do so?
Jude analysed the benefits of the new set of circumstances, as detailed by Max to various individuals, and soon decided the significant figure in the scenario was Kerry. At the time of Nigel Ackford’s death, the girl was safely outside the hotel, actually locked outside it. But very little suspicion had ever been attached to Kerry. The spelling-out of her movements was not to clear her of implication in the murder. It must have been for another reason.
Suddenly Jude understood. Max had not been leant on by Bob Hartson. Indeed, his new version of events did not help Bob Hartson at all. It left Kerry’s father and Donald Chew both on the loose in the hotel at the relevant time. They had no alibis.
One detail was needed to confirm she was right. With a hurried explanation to the bewildered Ted Crisp, Jude went into the pub kitchen. There she confronted the equally bewildered and very young student chef responsible for their excellent pork chops Normandie.
Yes, he’d been well pleased that Max Townley had liked his cooking. Of course he’d heard of the chef up at Hopwicke House. And yes, Max Townley had asked him for his contact numbers.
‘Why?’ asked Jude.
‘Because there’s a good chance he’s going to be doing a telly series. Going to be a different format from all the other TV cookery programmes – include lots of new young chefs.’ The young man beamed. ‘That’s why Max Townley was interested in me. He’s going to make a pilot programme soon, and he’s looking for young chefs for that.’
Jude had been right. The incentive for Max to lie had been the backing of Korfilia Productions in the realization of his television dreams. And the offer had been made by Rick Hendry.
And the important part of the lie was that it established Kerry was still with her stepfather when Suzy returned to join her ex-husband. In other words, there was no time at which Rick Hendry and Kerry Hartson could have been alone together.
Which, for a television personality being hounded by the tabloids over his interest in young girls, could be a very significant point of self-protection.
Chapter Thirty
The revised will was on Donald Chew’s desk when Carole was ushered into his office. She reflected rather sourly that the document could have been on his desk by the end of their previous meeting. A few sentences added to a standard form and the job was done. The inventions of word-processing, faxes and email must have reduced the workload of solicitors enormously. But respect for ‘the law’s delay’ was one of the foundations of their professional principles – and certainly of their fee structure. So, in a provincial practice like Renton and Chew, everything had to take a long time, and all communications be sent by post.
After another bonhomous Dickensian welcome and an accepted offer of coffee, Donald Chew asked her to ‘run her eye’ over the will and check it was now in the form she wished. (If it wasn’t, the document would no doubt be removed for the lengthy changing of a couple of words and another appointment be made for a further meeting.)
Having scrutinized the insertions and then, as a double-check, read through the whole will, Carole agreed that the changes had been made according to her instructions. Since that was the moment her coffee arrived, Donald Chew suggested that, if she were happy about the arrangement, Carole’s signature could be witnessed straight away by himself and his receptionist.
Their business was done. Carole could think of no pretext on which she could extend the encounter, but she did not need to. Donald Chew seemed happy – even keen – to talk further. This could have been part of his usual professional manner, but she had a feeling he had an agenda to elicit information from her, or to impart some to her. So she was content to let his pleasantries unroll.
‘Delighted you got in touch with Brenda,’ he began. ‘She’s always so pleased to have extra helpers’ – he chuckled – ‘though often she has to end up doing a lot of things herself.’ Decades of marriage had taught Donald Chew the party line on his wife’s perpetual martyrdom.
‘Well, anything I can do to help. It’s in a good cause.’
‘Oh yes. And Brenda was very grateful for the promise you organized. What was it . . . callanetics?’
‘Kinesiology.’
‘Ah,’ he said with a masculine chuckle. ‘Something for the ladies, anyway.’
‘No. In fact, kinesiology is a highly respected natural health care system.’ What on earth was happening? Carole Seddon defending alternative therapies?
‘I’m sure. Anyway, very grateful to you for organizing it. And will you be at the auction of promises itself, Mrs Seddon?’
Carole hadn’t entirely decided about this, but she thought she probably should be. A hundred and fifty pounds was a huge amount to shell out for what would most likely be an uncongenial evening, but contact with Hopwicke Country House Hotel remained important. And if, as it seemed, Jude was temporarily persona non grata there . . .