She was still very fragile, but she did at least manage to get a job, working as a waitress in Polly’s Cake Shop. This was, of course, way below her skills level, but it was a step in the right direction. Josie Achter had been impressed by her new employee’s efficiency and understanding of the business and had increased her responsibilities until she was acting virtually as an assistant manager. Sara was entrusted with the contacts list for all the staff and often ended up working out their shift rotas.
Jude reckoned that Sara Courtney’s relapse into emotional wreckage must be something to do with Polly’s Cake Shop and the prospect of her losing her job.
She was only half right. When she rang back she heard that Sara’s upset had been related to Polly’s Cake Shop. But she was not traumatized by the threat to her employment.
She was traumatized because she had seen a dead body there.
THREE
Jude rang back straight away. Sara sounded so distraught that she suggested she come round to Woodside Cottage. When the woman arrived she was hollow-eyed and trembling, in almost as bad a state as she’d been when they first met. At her best Sara Courtney was a very attractive woman, slender with straight black hair and olive-black eyes that suggested some possible Mediterranean heritage. But she was looking far from her best that afternoon.
Jude comforted her with cuddles and green tea, but it still took some time for Sara to calm down sufficiently to be coherent. Patiently Jude kept saying, ‘Just wait. Wait till you’re ready. Then tell me exactly what you saw.’
Finally Sara managed to give an answer that was not interrupted by hysteria. ‘It was last night,’ she said. ‘When I was tidying up at the end of the day.’
‘What time would that be?’
‘Last orders half past five on a Saturday and the café closes at six. The waitresses clear the tables and stack the dishwashers. The kitchen staff tidy up in there. It doesn’t take long. I should think they were all gone by six thirty. I was just going round checking everything before I set the alarms and locked up.’
‘So you were alone in the café?’
‘Yes.’
‘And was Josie up in the flat? Or Rosalie?’
‘No. Josie was in Brighton and it was Rosalie’s day off. Anyway, she doesn’t live in the flat any more, she’s got her own place in Brighton. And she tries to avoid working weekends when she can. So it was just me who saw it.’ There was a new level of uncertainty in her voice. Jude remembered it from when Sara had been at her worst, when she had distrusted every thought or image that went through her head; when she literally thought she was going mad.
‘And where did you see it?’
‘In the store room. Right at the back of the café.’
‘The back faces on to the beach?’
‘Yes. There’s a little yard behind, then a service road, then the beginning of the dunes.’
‘I know it. So the store room contains all the stuff that doesn’t need refrigeration?’
‘Yes. Though there are two big freezers in there as well. And there are shelves full of spare crockery and cutlery, kitchen roll, loo paper, spare light bulbs, everything …’
‘And yesterday evening a dead body?’
‘Yes.’ The reminder threatened once again to destabilize Sara Courtney, but she swallowed deeply and went on, ‘It was a man. I think he’d been shot.’
‘Where was the wound?’
‘Oh his right temple. A neat hole.’
‘Much blood?’
‘Only a trickle. I wiped it clean with my handkerchief.’
‘What?’
‘I just … it seemed awful … him lying there, with the blood … Somehow I felt I had to wipe it away.’
Jude made no comment. She was glad Carole wasn’t there. Her neighbour would have gone all prissy and Home Office at that point, berating Sara for interfering with a crime scene … if, of course, it was a crime scene, and not just a product of the woman’s heated imagination.
‘You didn’t recognize the man, Sara?’
‘I’d never seen him before.’
‘What age was he?’
‘Late fifties, early sixties perhaps.’
‘Wearing?’
‘Jeans and a kind of plaid work shirt.’
‘And what, was he just lying on the floor?’
‘Yes.’
‘You didn’t see any signs that he’d been moved there? Any trail of blood or …?’
‘As I said, there was very little blood. Just the bit on his temple that I wiped off.’
‘Hm. What about a gun?’
‘Gun?’
‘Well, if there was a bullet hole in his temple, presumably the bullet come out of a gun. Did you see any sign of a gun?’
There was an almost imperceptible pause before Sara replied, ‘No, no sign of it.’
Jude decided not to question this. Not at that moment, anyway. ‘So what did you do?’
‘Last night?’
‘Yes.’
‘I didn’t do anything. I went home – and I had a terrible night. Every time I closed my eyes I saw the same image – of the man dead.’
‘So you haven’t told anyone about what you saw?’
‘No, you’re the first person.’
‘You didn’t think of calling the police?’
‘My life’s complicated enough as it is.’
Which was a strange reply to the question, but Jude didn’t pick up on it. Instead she said, ‘But surely by now someone else will have seen the body, won’t they? I mean, Polly’s is open today, isn’t it?’
‘Oh yes. Sunday’s one of our busiest days this time of year. Business makes most of its profit over the weekends.’
‘So have you been back there today?’
‘Yes. I was scheduled to work all day, but I cried off pretty early, claimed I’d got food poisoning.’
‘But did you go back to the store room?’
‘Yes. I steeled myself to it. I knew I had to.’
There was a silence. ‘And?’ Jude prompted.
‘And the body wasn’t there.’
‘Oh?’
‘No sign that it ever had been there. And that got me more panicked than if I’d found it again. It made me think back to—’
‘To when you first came to see me?’
‘Yes. I was worried that my mind was going again, that I was seeing things like I did when … You know how quickly one thought leads to another?’ Jude nodded. ‘And I thought if I’m hallucinating, seeing stuff that isn’t there, then I’m not on the way to recovery like I thought I was. Last night I very nearly took a razor to my arm again – only just managed to stop myself. I’m right back where I started and there’s no hope for me. I’m finished.’
‘Of course you’re not, Sara. This isn’t the first time you’ve slipped back, you know that. But you’ve bounced back before, and you’ll bounce back from this too.’
Sara shook her head miserably. ‘No, this time I think it’s for good.’
‘That’s what depressives always think. That’s what’s so dispiriting about the disease. When you go down you can never envisage coming up again. But you will, Sara, you will.’
All that prompted was a wry, disbelieving, humourless grin.
‘Tell me, though … now, now you’ve had time to consider it, do you really think you did see the body in the store room last night?’
‘Well, I think I did.’ She looked very confused. ‘I hope I did.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘If I didn’t, then I really am going mad again.’ Jude didn’t comment. ‘I can’t stand it. I haven’t got the energy to go through all that again. I think this time I really will have to—’
‘Don’t even think about it,’ said Jude with gentle firmness. ‘This is only a minor setback. You’re bound to have a few of those. But you will come out of it.’
Sara didn’t even nod at this reassurance. Tears, ready to flow again, glinted in her eyes.