As Ricky clicked his key fob to open the car, a figure who must have been waiting for him by the gate stepped into view. She looked very small beside Ricky’s bulk. Seeing her, his body language changed. He snapped some apparently dismissive remark, got into his car and drove off.
Carole and Jude both recognized the woman as the superannuated hippy they had seen in the Crown and Anchor, and again in the crowd outside the ruins of Gallimaufry. They wanted to talk to her, but by the time they reached the end of the garden path, she had got into an ancient, matt-orange-painted Volkswagen Camper, and was driving away.
Sixteen
“Yes, I know who you mean,” said Ted Crisp when Jude rang him. “She’s quite often in the pub. Always has a pint of Guinness.”
“Do you know her name?”
“Not her proper name, no. The Crown and Anchor regulars always refer to her as ‘the Dippy Hippy’.”
“That figures.”
“Of course, that’s when they’re not calling you the same thing, Jude.”
“Oh, very funny.”
“You think I’m joking?”
“I will retain my dignity and not answer that.”
“Please yourself.”
“Anyway, next time the Dippy Hippy’s in, Ted, could you give me a call?”
“All right. It’s likely to be a lunchtime.” He sounded a bit bewildered at the request, but then went on, “Oh, I get it. You and Carole are off on another of your little investigations, aren’t you?”
“Well…”
“Might have known it. Mysterious death in a shop on the Parade, and Fethering’s two favourite sleuths are instantly on the case. Well, I wish you luck if you think the Dippy Hippy’s going to be any help to you.”
“Why shouldn’t she be?”
“There’s the small matter of understanding what she says. They don’t give her that nickname for nothing, you know. The lady, I’m afraid, is definitely one chocolate truffle short of the full selection box.”
“Are you saying she won’t talk to us?”
“No, she’ll do that all right. It’s trying to stop her talking that may be a bit of a problem.”
Jude reckoned they had got as far as they could at that moment in investigating the death of Polly Le Bonnier. And since it was Boxing Day, she went to bed for the afternoon and caught up on the sleep she’d missed the night before.
The call from Ted came through the next day, lunchtime on the Saturday (though Jude, like many people during the lull immediately following Christmas, had difficulty working out which day it was). The Dippy Hippy, she was informed, was at that moment nursing a pint of Guinness in the Crown and Anchor.
Jude rang through to High Tor, but there was no reply (Carole had taken Gulliver out for a long walk), so she went down to the pub on her own. It was surprisingly full – a lot of Fethering residents, after forty-eight hours cooped up with their relatives, clearly felt a communal urge to get out of the house.
But the pub’s busyness was good for Jude’s purposes. The lack of seats made it quite legitimate for her to take her glass of Chilean Chardonnay and sit opposite the Dippy Hippy, first gesturing and asking, “Do you mind?”
“Be my guest.” There was something childlike about the woman’s voice. The shape of her hair was Jean Shrimpton circa 1965, shoulder-length with a deep parted fringe, but its frizzled greyness gave a blurred effect. The flowered dress she wore was very short, revealing a lot of gnarled, white-tighted leg. Her clunky shoes were decorated with little leather flowers. The greenish velvet coat lay scrumpled on the settle beside her. There was something discomfiting about her mutton-dressed-as-lamb appearance.
As ever, Jude had no problem initiating conversation. “Quite a relief in some ways to get Christmas over, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Good to hang loose.”
“My name’s Jude, by the way.”
“Ah.”
The woman didn’t volunteer her own name, and Jude didn’t want to frighten her off by asking for it. She just said, “I’ve seen you in here before.”
“I’ve seen you too. A few days ago. With your spiky friend.”
Jude wasn’t sure that Carole would have liked the description, but she recognized its accuracy. “Do you live in Fethering?”
The woman gestured with her head towards the river. “Up in one of the old fisherman’s cottages. My parents lived there. And my grandparents. It’s been divided into flats now, though. I’ve got the top floor.”
“Ah. I’m over in the High Street.”
There was a silence. Jude worried whether Ted Crisp had been wrong about the Dippy Hippy’s garrulousness. But the silence didn’t last long. The woman appeared just to be gathering her thoughts before she launched into a monologue. “When I last saw you in here, I was sitting in an alcove next to you, so I could hear everything you said. I wasn’t eavesdropping or anything, I just couldn’t help hearing. And I heard you talking about Ricky. Which some people might think is strange, but I don’t think it’s strange. I’m a great believer in synchronicity.”
“So am I,” said Jude, glad after all that Carole wasn’t with her for the interview. She would manage the conversation better without someone beside her snorting ill-disguised contempt for ‘New Age mumbo-jumbo’.
A rather ethereal look came into the woman’s eyes as she said, “Most things are meant.”
“I agree. It’s interesting that almost all faiths are based on the premise that nothing is accidental.”
“Right. The tapestry of our lives is woven in the stars.” Jude felt even more glad she hadn’t got Carole with her. “I was meant to be sitting at the table next to you the other day. And you were meant to come and sit opposite me today. I knew when I woke up this morning that I would have a significant encounter with someone who would be important to me. We all have to free up our souls so that we can be open to the promptings of our instincts.”
“So true,” said Jude.
“We want to be open like sea anemones, ready to take in any experience that floats past on the tides of life. Human beings are receptors. We are designed that way. Too many people shut themselves off from experience. And if you do that, you shut off your sensitivity to the crosscurrents of life. You live fixed in the present, you’re a slave to time. Whereas, if you open yourself out, time becomes irrelevant. You are released from its shackles. You can see the future just as clearly as you can see the present or the past. You are suspended free in time.”
Even Jude, who was broad-minded in her approach to alternative life theories, found herself remembering a line she had once been told: “If you keep an open mind, people are going to throw a lot of rubbish into it.” But she suspended her scepticism and said, “You mentioned that my friend and I talking about Ricky Le Bonnier was a moment of synchronicity…”
“Yes.”
“So that means you know him?”
“Know him? Ricky is my soulmate. We have always been destined to be together.”
“Ah.” Jude wondered whether the Dippy Hippy actually knew about Ricky’s previous relationships and marriages – including the current one.
“I love him, you see, and love is all that matters. When two people are soulmates, nothing that comes between them really signifies.”
“So have you and Ricky ever actually been an item?” Jude only just stopped herself from adding ‘in the real world’.
“Yes,” the woman replied devoutly. “He is my husband.”
“Your husband in heaven or somewhere like that? Or your real husband?”
“My real husband. Ricky and I were married right here. In Fethering Church.”
“Oh.” This was the last answer Jude had been expecting. “So you’re his first wife?”