She put the copy of Best Served Cold on her desk and sat back down. ‘This is obviously very exciting for me.’
‘What is?’
‘Well, having my thesis incontrovertibly proved. There have been other instances of real-life murders apparently being inspired by crime novels, but the connection is always a bit vague. I mean, the most commonly quoted one is Agatha Christie’s use of thallium as a murder method in The Pale Horse, and the fact that the notorious Graham Young poisoned his victims with it. There are coincidences there. In 1961, Young was fourteen, and that’s when he started experimenting with thallium. The Pale Horse was published in the same year. But the connection was never proved. Young certainly never said that’s where he got his ideas from.
‘But this case is much better.’ The Professor smiled triumphantly. ‘There is absolutely no doubt that the method of killing Burton St Clair was taken from G. H. D. Troughton’s Best Served Cold.’
Both women were amazed by her words. There was no doubt about her level of academic satisfaction. And she was certainly sufficiently unhinged to discount any moral considerations in the cause of proving her thesis. But would she really take her obsession as far as murder?
Jude decided to go off on a different tack. ‘Do you know a woman called Nemone Coote?’
‘I have encountered her. Local self-published poet. Did a bit of work for the Creative Writing course here, but her contract wasn’t renewed.’
‘That’s her. But do you remember meeting her fifteen years ago when she was Centre Director at the Wordway Trust’s house in Wiltshire?’
‘No.’ Nessa Perks looked genuinely puzzled by the question. ‘I do remember going to Blester Combe as guest speaker on a crime-writing course, but I have no recollection of meeting any of the permanent staff. I’m not saying I didn’t meet her, but she didn’t make any impression. As an academic, travelling to conferences and all that stuff, one does meet a very large number of people.’
‘Of course,’ said Jude.
Carole felt it was her turn to speak. ‘And were you aware that the participants on that course included the Steve Chasen we’ve just been talking about, and Burton St Clair?’
‘Absolutely not. When you do that guest speaker slot you don’t really get to know anyone. I arrived at Blester Combe late afternoon, was plied with a few glasses of wine, then had a rather nasty dinner cooked by the participants. More wine, did my talk, questions afterwards. But I didn’t get the names of any of the people there. Some of them were clearly going to be drinking into the night. I was asked if I wanted to join them, but opted for an early night. And my taxi to the station arrived the next morning before anyone was up.’
What she said sounded totally convincing, but then a liar who had immersed herself in Golden Age crime literature would have mastered the skill of sounding totally convincing.
‘While that particular course was on,’ Jude persisted, ‘there was a television crew at Blester Combe making a documentary about the Wordway Trust. Do you remember that?’
‘Yes, I do. They took some footage of my talk. I saw it when the programme was screened later in the year. And, though I say it myself, I did come across rather well. Not only on top of my subject – which of course I always am – but I looked very engaging too. It was strange. After the programme went out, I had expected to receive offers to front television series, but I suppose the right people didn’t see it. Because some of the so-called academic women they do get as presenters are very inferior intellects. I know I could do a very much better job than them.’
‘I’m sure you could,’ said Carole drily. She was getting rather sick of listening to the woman’s self-aggrandizement and wanted to get on to the business of accusation.
‘Going back to the film crew …’ Jude persisted.
‘Yes?’
‘You talked to them?’
‘Oh, certainly. I asked the director about potential openings in television for someone like me, and he agreed that I was a natural.’
‘And, look, I know you didn’t get the names of any of the participants, but did Rodge actually mention the fact that one of them was allergic to walnuts?’
‘Rodge? Sorry, who’s Rodge?’
‘The director who was making the film.’
‘No, his name wasn’t Rodge.’
‘Oh?’
‘No, funny, I met him again recently, as it happens. His name was Oliver Parsons.’
TWENTY-SEVEN
‘What do we do?’ asked Carole, as she steered the Renault out of the University of Clincham campus. ‘Go straight round to his place? Fix to meet him somewhere?’
‘We don’t do either yet,’ Jude replied. ‘My dealings with Detective Inspector Rollins have got me worried about how easily the truth gets distorted. I want to be absolutely sure that we’ve got our facts right before we make any accusations.’
‘Very well,’ said Carole, wishing her neighbour would speak a little less gnomically. ‘Where do we go?’
‘We go back to the library.’
So that was where she drove them. Nothing was said on the twenty-minute drive.
Carole parked the Renault in the Fethering Library car park. When they got out, both women wrapped their coats firmly around them. The wind stung their faces as it whistled acidly up from the sea. Carole started towards the library doors.
‘No,’ said Jude. ‘We’re not going there.’
Eveline Ollerenshaw’s house was rather as they had expected it to be. The year 1997 had been the significant one in her life. That was when her husband Gerald had ‘passed on’, and since then no redecoration had taken place and no new furnishings had been brought in. It was a relatively short time ago, less than twenty years, but the place felt as though it was in a time capsule.
Evvie seemed unsurprised to see them. She invited them into her front room and insisted on going to make tea. Though it was still in theory daytime, that Wednesday in Fethering would never properly come alight. Since they’d come into the house, rain had started and was slashing icy diagonals across the window panes.
The front faced out towards the sea. Dunes cut off sight of the beach, but a sullen grey line of horizon showed, only slightly lighter than the grey sky above.
More interesting, though, to Carole and Jude, were the windows facing to the left of the front room. As Evvie had suggested, they provided a perfect viewpoint over the library car park. If they were matched by bedroom windows on the floor above, from there surveillance would be even better.
The old lady tottered in with tea and all the trimmings, including a home-made cake. The loaded tray looked very precarious in her thin, veined hands, but the two women knew better than to offer any assistance.
When they had been equipped with cups of tea, when Jude had accepted a slice of coffee cake and Carole had refused one, Evvie settled into her regular armchair, which looked straight out towards the library. ‘Well,’ she said comfortably, ‘I suppose you want to talk to me about what happened the night Burton St Clair died.’
‘That would be very helpful if you wouldn’t mind,’ said Jude.
‘Have the police talked to you about it?’ asked Carole.
‘Oh yes, they did.’ The old lady sounded pleased at having been the centre of attention for a while. ‘They came to see me the next day … well, the day the body was found.’
‘Last Wednesday?’
‘That’s right. Obviously, because of this house’s geographical location, if anyone was going to have seen anything that happened that night, I’d be the one, wouldn’t I?’