“No, but he’s the kind of man who probably has.”
Jude grinned at her friend. “You clearly didn’t take a shine to him, did you?”
“I thought he was a show-off.” In Carole Seddon’s lexicon of bad behaviour there were few more damning descriptions. She had been brought up by her meek and frightened parents to believe that, if you raised your head above the parapet, then getting shot down was completely your own fault.
“We don’t know anything about Ricky’s finances.”
“Well, I didn’t trust him. People who draw attention to themselves like that…He’s all talk, so far as I’m concerned.”
“Carole, he’s been very successful. He must’ve made a lot of money over the years.”
“And no doubt spent it, paying for all those wives.”
“Well, keep your opinions to yourself, won’t you? We don’t want rumours going round Fethering that Ricky Le Bonnier torched his wife’s shop for the insurance money.”
Carole’s thin face grew thinner. “Jude, you know I’m always the soul of discretion.”
“Yes.”
“Mind you, I do think it’s suspicious. And remember the way all the prices in Gallimaufry were discounted…it didn’t look to me like a thriving business.”
“Very few shops do at the moment. People are battening down their hatches, so far as spending’s concerned. Everyone in the retail trade is suffering.”
“Though not everyone is solving the problem by burning down their premises.”
Jude shook her head in wry weariness. Once her neighbour got an idea into her head, it took a great deal of effort to shift it. “Well, Carole, I’m sure in time we’ll find out more details of what happened.”
They did. On the local news that evening there was an item about the fire. It had taken a while for the building to be made safe, before police and firemen could enter.
And when they got inside, they had found the charred body of a woman.
Ten
Jude’s first instinct was to ring the Le Bonniers’ house. If there was bad news, she wanted to hear about it straight away. She never saw any point in prevarication.
Her primary anxiety was allayed as soon as the phone was answered. By Lola. Her voice sounded tight with stress, but at least she was alive.
“I was desperately sorry to hear about what happened at Gallimaufry.”
“Oh well, it was only stuff,” said Lola.
“But you yourself are OK?”
“I’m fine. We were all here when it happened – me, Flora, the kids.”
“And Ricky?”
“Yes, of course, Ricky.” The answer was rather brusque, almost as if she were dismissing the relevance of her husband. “The first thing we knew about the fire was when the police rang this morning.”
“It must be terrible for you, Lola, after all the work you put into that place.”
“Oh, well…Easy come, easy go.” She was trying to sound nonchalant, but couldn’t quite carry it off. There was a silence, then Lola went on, “Presumably you’ve heard the latest about the fire, have you?”
“You mean that there was a body found there?”
“Yes. A woman’s body.”
“Have the police told you who…?”
“No. They’re still involved in forensic examination and what have you. They’ve said they’ll let us know as soon as they’ve got a definite identification.”
“Who lives in the flat over the shop?” Jude just managed to avoid saying ‘lived’.
“No one. When we took the place on, because the flat was furnished, I thought we should let it out, so that at least we’d get some income if things got hard – at that time having no idea of quite how hard times would get – but Ricky said no. He never likes thinking about the details of finances, calls all that ‘penny-pinching’. He likes to think in terms of ‘the bigger economic picture’.” There was irony in the way Lola quoted her husband, possibly even veiled criticism.
“So the flat was empty?”
“Empty of people, yes. I used it for storage. There was a lot of stuff up there, piled on top of the furniture and beds.” Her tone was kept determinedly light, but Jude could feel Lola trying to come to terms with the scale of her losses.
“So you haven’t any idea who the dead woman is?”
“No. I’ve checked the obvious people, and there doesn’t seem to be anyone missing. My mother-in-law Flora’s here with us. Ricky took Polly to Fedborough Station yesterday afternoon to get a train up to London. He’s checked she’s at home with Piers. I’ve called Anna and Bex…you know, they’re two of the assistants.”
“Did they know about the discovery of the body?”
“I don’t know. Neither of them mentioned it. And I didn’t raise the matter. I don’t want to add to the dripfeed of local gossip. Anyway, Anna and Bex’re both fine. And I’ve rung around all the other casual staff. Also fine.”
“So it sounds like whoever died in Gallimaufry, it wasn’t anyone you knew.”
“That’s the way it seems,” said Lola Le Bonnier.
Sadly, she was wrong. On the national news the following morning, it was announced that the body found in the burnt-out shop was that of the owner’s stepdaughter, Polly Le Bonnier.
Eleven
Carole had been ambivalent about getting a Christmas tree. She hadn’t done so any other year since she’d been alone in Fethering. But then again she hadn’t had Stephen and family coming down any other year since she’d been alone in Fethering. And Lily was getting to the age when she might start to take an interest in pretty lights and shiny baubles. It’d really only be for the hours when they were with her, which was a bit of an unnecessary indulgence…but then again…She ended up buying a Christmas tree about three feet high, and a set of fairy lights. And a box of assorted glass baubles. And some lametta. And a little silver fairy to perch on the topmost branch.
Carole thought she’d been rather foolish to buy all the stuff, but she did enjoy setting it up. And while she dressed her Christmas tree, she thought about Polly Le Bonnier. She did an action replay in her mind of the conversation they had shared at Jude’s open house, and tried to identify anything the girl had said that might be odd. But nothing came. Except that line “I know where things went wrong for me.” That was intriguing, but now there was no chance of finding out from Polly what she had meant.
A more obvious question was: why, though, when her father had taken the girl to Fedborough Station to catch a train up to London, had she ended up back in Fethering? Carole concluded with some frustration that she didn’t have enough information to provide an answer. But the mystery still niggled away at her.
Jude phoned her round five that afternoon. “I’ve just had a call from Lola.”
“Oh, anymore news about how it happened?”
“No. Well, if she had any, she didn’t volunteer it to me. But listen, Lola’s got Piers Duncton with her…”
“Polly’s boyfriend?”
“Exactly. Apparently he’s in a terrible state – which is hardly surprising. He feels confused and guilty. I get the impression Lola’s finding it difficult to deal with him…you know, she’s got the children and Ricky and his mother and…I think she’d be quite glad to get Piers out of the house for a while.”
“So?”
“So she was suggesting he might come and talk to me.”
“What, you as a healer?”
“No, no. Me as someone who gave a party which Polly attended. Piers is desperate to work out what happened to his girlfriend in the hours before she died. He wonders whether she might have said anything to someone she’d seen at the party, something that might give a clue to what she was feeling, or what she was planning to do.”