So that Friday evening she approached the front door with some trepidation. The sensor light over the porch had come on, but she had no idea who her visitor was. She unlocked the door, but kept the chain in place, and squinted through the narrow aperture. ‘Who is it?’ she asked, in a voice which sounded much bolder than she felt.
‘It’s me, Jude, for heaven’s sake!’
Even though they were neighbours, such unannounced visitations between them were rare. As she unhooked the chain, Carole asked, ‘Can I get you a cup of coffee?’
‘No,’ said Jude. ‘Open a bottle of wine.’
They drank in the kitchen, as usual. Carole’s front room was rarely used. Though it contained its share of padded upholstery, there was an antiseptic chill about the place. The kitchen, though kept as scrupulously clean as an operating theatre, did at least have the Aga to generate some level of cosiness. In front of it, Gulliver sighed and grunted, deep into some dream of chasing seagulls on Fethering Beach.
‘So,’ said Carole, when they were settled with their glasses of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, ‘you seriously think you are the police’s prime suspect?’
‘Increasingly, that’s the way it looks.’
‘Walnut oil seems a strange thing to have in one’s kitchen.’
‘Carole, for heaven’s sake! You remember when I went on that course last summer …’
‘Oh yes, the mindlessness thing …’ This was as near as Carole Seddon ever got to making a joke. She was always having a go at her neighbour’s beliefs in alternative medicine, and it was not the first time she had made this particular gibe.
‘Mindfulness, as you know full well,’ said Jude wearily. ‘Anyway, that was in Périgord, which is the walnut centre of the universe. Every shop sells the stuff, and it does have medicinal properties, so I thought I’d try it.’
‘Hm. Still seems a strange thing to have in one’s kitchen.’
‘Well, it was there, and I’d used some a few months back for a client with serious eczema.’
‘And did it work?’
‘No, it didn’t seem to improve her condition.’
Carole sniffed, as only she could sniff. ‘There are, of course, treatments for eczema available in conventional medicine.’
‘I know that,’ said Jude, unwilling to re-engage with Carole’s scepticism about her profession. ‘But listen, the most important thing is that Detective Inspector Rollins has warned me off doing any further investigation of the case.’
‘Well, you can see her point,’ said Carole, going all stuffy and Home Office.
‘But the situation’s changed. The case needs investigating more than ever – simply to prove that I didn’t murder Al.’
‘Why are you telling me all this?’ asked Carole, deliberately obtuse.
‘Because if I’m not being allowed to find evidence which proves that I didn’t commit the murder, someone else is going to have to find it!’
There was a silence. Then, as if she’d just been jolted awake, Carole said, ‘Oh, you mean me?’
‘Yes, of course I mean you!’
Carole was secretly delighted. One of her favourite dreams was coming true. The idea that Jude, habitually so serene and in control, should be asking for her help was a very attractive proposition. But it wasn’t in Carole’s nature to express her delight outwardly.
‘Oh,’ she said, as if dubious. ‘Well, you’ll have to give me all the background …’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘… but then I might be prepared to bring my mind to bear upon the problem.’
‘If you would,’ Jude pleaded.
Carole glowed inwardly. Always worried about being marginalized in the investigations she and Jude had undertaken, here she was being offered the starring role. But she didn’t want to show how much the situation appealed to her, so all she said was a gruff, ‘All right, I’ll give it a go.’
‘Thank you so much. And, Carole, as I mentioned, I’ve been talking to Oliver Parsons about the case. He was there on Tuesday night, and he has lots of good ideas. I’ll give you his mobile number.’
‘Do, by all means.’ Not that Carole had any intention of ever ringing it. The only person she conducted investigations with was Jude. And since Jude was going to be unavailable for this one, Carole Seddon was determined to solve it on her own.
FOURTEEN
A few years before, Carole would have known nothing of what went on in Fethering Library. But, thanks to the enrolment of her granddaughter, it had become a familiar venue for her. And Carole herself had become a sufficiently familiar face for her to be greeted by name when she arrived there the following day.
The greeter that Saturday morning was Eveline Ollerenshaw, who was standing by the issue desk, performing some vague function Di Thompson had invented to give her the illusion of usefulness. (Evvie didn’t actually check the books out; that was now done automatically.)
‘Carole, how nice to see you. Not got Lily with you then?’
‘Not today.’
‘Because you often bring her on Saturdays. For all the children’s activities.’ The noise level in the library indicated that those activities had already started.
‘Yes, I sometimes do. But she’s with her parents in London today.’
‘Nice for you to have her sometimes, though, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘And of course she’s got a little sister now, hasn’t she? Remind me what her name is?’
‘Chloe.’
‘Lovely names, both of them. Of course, I didn’t have kiddies myself. Gerald and I had hoped that one day … but it just didn’t happen. I suppose—’
Carole was not in the mood for one of Evvie’s monologues. ‘Is Di about?’ she asked crisply.
‘Oh, she was over by the …’ The old woman looked across the library and, just at that moment, Di Thompson emerged from the staff room, pushing a trolley. Carole made a fairly polite escape from Eveline Ollerenshaw, and greeted the librarian.
‘Haven’t seen you for a while, Carole,’ said Di Thompson. Her dark hair looked even shorter in the daylight. On the sloping shelves of her trolley, rows of books stood up like bricks on a builder’s hod. She started to check through them as she too observed, ‘No Lily?’
‘Not with me today.’
‘Ah. Well, as you see, she’s missing the usual Saturday morning chaos.’ Di gestured across to the children’s section, from where enough noise emanated to destroy forever that cartoon image of librarians always having fingers to their lips and saying, ‘Ssh.’ Children of all sizes, monitored by parents lying uncomfortably on the floor or perched on tiny chairs, scampered about. One or two sat unmoving, immersed in their storybooks. Others were being encouraged by a couple of twenty year olds to make face masks out of paper plates. The white surfaces were decorated with scribbles in coloured crayon, stickers and bits of post-Christmas tinsel attached by glue-stick.
‘They seem to be having fun,’ Carole observed.
‘Oh yes. Do you mean the kids or the grown-ups?’
‘Both.’
They looked across. The twenty year olds had both donned masks and were improvising some kind of slapstick routine which their junior audience was finding hysterical.
Carole grinned. ‘Were such activities part of the job description when those two applied to become librarians?’
‘They’re not librarians. Sadly, I haven’t got enough staff to do that kind of thing. We can just about manage running the children’s story-time sessions on Wednesdays, but otherwise we have to rely on volunteers – God bless them.’
‘Ah.’
‘People like Evvie.’
Di Thompson didn’t put any critical intonation into her words, but Carole knew exactly what was meant. ‘Ah,’ she said.