‘Would you have said he had a drink problem?’ asked Carole, who didn’t know where Jude’s enquiry was leading.
‘Oh, good heavens, no, Burton could hold his drink. He never appeared drunk. I’ve never seen him drunk. He’s always – that is, he always was – very articulate when he’s – when he was – drinking. Had the odd hangover, of course, went with the territory, but that never stopped him from being behind his keyboard, writing, at nine o’clock in the morning. He was like Hemingway, in that respect.’
And saw himself as like Hemingway in many other respects. Not just the great drinker, but the great adventurer, the great womanizer, the great innovating writer. None of which he was, thought Jude uncharitably. Though that was not what she said. ‘Back when I saw a lot of Burton …’ she began.
‘Back when he was with his first wife?’
‘Yes.’
‘That bitch Megan.’
‘She was a friend of mine,’ said Jude, scrupulously fair in such matters. ‘She was never a bitch to me, not back then, anyway. But I’m sure you’ve heard a different version of her from Burton. Ex-partners are not always each other’s best character witnesses.’
‘Huh. Well, from everything I’ve heard, Burton was well out of that marriage.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Megan totally ignored him. All she thought about was her career.’ Jude did not make any further comment. ‘And she didn’t like sex, that’s for sure. Burton had to beg and plead to get even a kiss from her. From everything he said about her, it was pretty clear that she was frigid.’
Still, Jude bit her tongue, as she listened to the litany of complaint that so many men over the ages have levelled at their former partners. But she wasn’t prepared for what Persephone said next.
‘It was Megan’s frigidity that drove Burton into your arms, Jude.’
Oh God, that was completely typical. Burton had taken over Megan’s lie about their affair and made it his own. Perhaps, with the passage of the years, he had convinced himself of its truth just as much as his ex-wife had. Or, more likely, he had used the story to provide some kind of justification for the break-up of his first marriage. Either way, he had convinced Persephone that the relationship had happened.
Jude looked across at Carole and saw from the beadiness in her eye that she’d get no support from that quarter. Carole’s wild fantasies about her neighbour’s sex life had just received further confirmation.
The record would have to be set straight at some point, but right now Jude had more important priorities. ‘Back when I saw a lot of Burton,’ she repeated, ‘it wasn’t just the wine that he drank. He also got through a great deal of whisky. In fact, he always used to carry around a hipflask full of the stuff.’
‘Oh, yes, he still did that,’ said Persephone St Clair. ‘He had this horrible old pewter thing. I bought him a new silver one as a wedding present. But whenever Burton went off to a speaking gig, he always had the hipflask in the glove compartment of his car.’
In the immaculate Renault on the way back to Fethering, Jude didn’t say how exultant she felt, but Carole could sense the euphoria bubbling up from the passenger seat. It was only now the threat had been lifted, that Jude realized just how much stress the suspicions of the last week had put on her. As soon as the car stopped outside Woodside Cottage, she rushed inside to make an essential phone call.
Detective Inspector Rollins answered at the first ring.
‘It’s Jude.’
‘Ah, yes. I was expecting you to call. I hope you had a pleasant visit to Persephone St Clair.’
A few hours earlier those words would have been deeply unsettling, but now nothing could cast Jude down. ‘I did, thank you very much,’ she replied. ‘And I suggest you can probably lift the surveillance on me now.’
A harsh laugh echoed down the line. ‘If you think we can afford police resources to keep someone like you under surveillance, then you flatter yourself.’
‘Then how did you know?’
‘Mrs St Clair rang to tell us you were going.’
‘Oh. And did she also tell you about the hipflask of whisky that her husband habitually carried with him?’
‘She did, but we’d already known about that for a long time. As have you.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Megan Sinclair said you spoke to her about the hipflask when you met last week.’
‘Well, she reminded me about it.’
‘She said you brought the subject up.’
‘That’s just not true!’
The Inspector’s silence made Jude realize just how guilty her protestations made her sound. She took a deep breath to regain control and said, ‘Presumably you haven’t found the hipflask?’
‘No.’
‘Well, if no trace of walnut was found on the pieces of the broken wine bottle …’ Jude was encouraged that the Inspector did not even question that assertion, ‘… then presumably you might be thinking that the substance might have been put into the hipflask instead?’
‘Of course we have considered that possibility, Jude,’ Rollins said testily.
‘Anyway, whichever way you look at the situation, it means I’m no longer on your list of suspects, doesn’t it?’
‘Why not?’
‘Well, for heaven’s sake!’ Jude contained her anger, and went on calmly, ‘Whereas I might, by some stretch of the imagination, have had the opportunity to infiltrate walnut oil into the open bottle of wine in the library staff room, how am I supposed to have got it into a hipflask in the glove compartment of Burton St Clair’s car? Surely it’s more likely that the hipflask was sabotaged at an earlier time, possibly even before he arrived in Fethering?’
‘Jude, you are the only person known to have got into Burton St Clair’s car that evening.’
‘Yes, but I got into it when he was already in there! Are you suggesting that I sat in the passenger seat, with Burton watching, calmly removed his hipflask from the glove compartment, decanted some huile de noix and made him drink it, while all the time he was trying to grope me?’
‘I am not suggesting that, no.’
‘Thank God for small mercies.’
‘On the other hand, I am saying that Burton St Clair’s leather jacket, in which he carried his car keys, was left unattended in the library staff room. So it would in theory have been possible for someone—’
‘Why not say me?’
‘I said “someone”, Jude … in the confusion of the evening, to have entered his car and poisoned the hipflask.’
‘It sounds pretty unlikely.’
‘In our enquiries the “unlikely” is something we can never rule out.’
‘Huh.’
‘So, if “someone” had done that, and the same “someone” had gone into his car later and encouraged him to take a swig from the hipflask, then—’
‘Look, can you cut the “someone”? Why not name me? You’ve already said I’m the only person who got into his car that evening.’
‘I said you were the only person known to have got into his car that evening.’
‘So, say I did it, where’s your evidence? Where’s the hipflask, come to that? If Detective Sergeant Knight would like to conduct another search of Woodside Cottage, he’s welcome to do it any time he likes. Send him round now, if you like!’
‘That won’t be necessary at this stage, thank you, Jude. Besides, I very much doubt that we would find anything.’
‘Oh?’
‘I don’t need to tell you that Fethering is by the seaside. I would have thought anyone walking from the library along the front to the centre of the village with an incriminating hipflask in their pocket would have taken advantage of the facilities provided.’
‘Chucked it in the sea, you mean?’