“Thanks for letting me know. I must say, their investigations are very thorough. They seem to be contacting everyone who had anything to do with Polly or anyone else in the family.”
“Is that a problem for you?”
“Not really. Well, it’s just another thing that takes time, like Mabel’s ear infection, and the Dalmatian puppies, and Piers reappearing from his parents’ place in Gloucestershire, and Flora needing full-time attention for the last couple of days…”
“How is she, by the way?”
“Better today, thank God. She’s a tough old bird. The iron discipline she exercises over her emotions has reasserted itself. It’s in the genes, you know. If you asked, Flora would tell you that her upper lip has been permanently stiffened by generations of aristocratic in-breeding.”
“How long is she staying with you?”
“Till New Year’s Day.” Lola didn’t quite manage to prevent this from sounding like a prison sentence.
“Where does she live?”
“Service flat in a big block in St John’s Wood in London. Very exclusive, very tasteful, very soigné.” A gloomy thought intruded. “Though God knows how much longer she’ll be able to manage there on her own. Her hands are virtually useless now.”
Apparently casual, Jude changed the topic of conversation. “The detectives who came to see me were very pleasant.”
“Yes, they all have been. I mean, heaven forbid you should ever be involved in an investigation into an unexplained death, but if you were, you couldn’t ask for a more sensitive and efficient bunch of cops in charge.”
“You’ve seen a lot of them?”
“And how. Well, obviously they’re going to be asking us a lot of stuff, since Polly was Ricky’s stepdaughter. But they have been as pleasant as their job allows them to be. Mabel’s taken a definite shine to one of the young detective constables. And, incidentally, she keeps asking about you too, Jude. You made quite an impression on her when we went to the swings that day.”
“I’m honoured.”
“So you should be. Mabel’s very picky about who she favours with her friendship. At the moment the list only includes you, the detective constable and Lisa Simpson.”
“I’m doubly honoured.”
“Well, be careful. Or you could find I’m dragooning you into babysitting duty. There are very few people who Mabel will allow to babysit her.”
“I will await the call. How is her ear infection, by the way?”
“Getting better. Antibiotics finally kicking in.”
“About the police…” Jude gently nudged the conversation back on track. “What kind of stuff have they been asking you? Checking alibis and things like that?”
“Oh yes. A lot of very gentle probing along the lines of ‘Where were you on the night of the twenty-first?’ But at no point have they suggested that we’re suspects in any criminal actions. Instead, they’ve done a lot of circuitous talk about how important it is to be able to ‘eliminate you from our inquiries, Madam’.” The accent she dropped into for the last few words reminded Jude of Lola’s background in Footlights revues.
“And I assume that you and Ricky could both account for yourselves throughout the night of the fire?”
Jude had made the question sound as flippant and unimportant as she could, but still detected a guardedness in Lola’s tone as the reply came back, “No problem. One of the only advantages of Mabel’s ear infection – and it wouldn’t be an advantage for anyone who wasn’t looking for an alibi – is that it makes her sleep very badly. She kept waking up through Sunday night, so Ricky and I could give firmer accounts of our whereabouts than usual.”
“And you weren’t in Fethering earlier in the day, you know, on the Sunday?”
“Ricky was. You should know, he came to your party. I was stuck at home, looking after poor little Mabel. She was feeling really sorry for herself. That was the worst day of the ear infection…well, that and the Monday. She just lay on the sofa, hardly reacting to anything. She didn’t even perk up for Polly, and she adores Polly. That is, adored.” Once again, Lola winced from the pain of bereavement.
“Yes, at my party Polly told Carole she was going back to your place to see ‘the little ones’.”
“Not that she saw much of them. When it comes to parties, Ricky’s a great ‘stayer’. He never leaves when he says he’s going to. As a result it was after six when they got back here, and Polly only had about half an hour with the kids before Ricky had to take her to the station to catch her London train.”
“The seven thirty-two?”
“I think it was that one.”
“Except, of course, she never caught it, did she?”
“No.” Again Jude could hear a slight wobble in Lola’s voice.
“So you weren’t in Fethering at all on that Sunday?”
“I’ve told you – no.” The answer was almost snappish, but maybe Lola was being extra-vehement to hide her emotional lapse.
Well, thought Jude, somebody’s lying. Kath is positive she saw Ricky with Lola in his Mercedes 4×4 near Fethering Yacht Club at around eight o’clock on the Sunday evening. Lola denies being there.
And, in spite of the woman’s loopiness, Kath’s was the version of events Jude was inclined to believe.
Television schedules are over-stuffed at Christmas. The best offerings – and here ‘best’ is very definitely a relative word – are reserved for the main days of celebration – Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve. And the less important parts of the holiday are padded with all kinds of rubbish, particularly lots of superannuated movies.
And so it was that that Saturday evening Carole found herself watching a black and white film, starring Flora Le Bonnier. Entitled Her Wicked Heart, it was a typical Gainsborough production, a melodrama set in a vaguely eighteenth-century period with lots of cloaks, knee-breeches and buckles (and quite a lot of swash to go with all the buckling). Flora played Lady Mary Constant and it was her wicked heart that featured in the title. Disappointed by her loveless marriage to the dissolute Sir Jolyon Bastable, she develops a secret life as Black William, a highwayman. In this guise, while holding up his coach, she meets and falls in love with the handsome but penniless aristocrat Lord Henry Deville. Their budding romance is impeded by two obstacles – one, Lord Henry believes her to be a man and, once that situation is clarified, two, she is still married to Sir Jolyon. Only when her husband dies in a fortuitous duel, can Lady Mary and Lord Henry be together. They ride off into a greyish English sunset, determined to ‘rid this country of the scourge of highwaymen’.
Carole thought the whole thing was tosh, but quite watchable tosh. What struck her most, though, was the beauty of Flora Le Bonnier, which glowed through the dusty monochrome print. Probably in her early twenties when the film was shot, she had the kind of natural good looks which would have made men do stupid things, like giving up families and careers just to be near her. Carole Seddon, whose looks were never going to cause comparable upheavals, could still appreciate such beauty when she saw it. And she could still wonder how it must feel for someone like that to see the depredations of age on her face and figure. In the film Flora’s hands were particularly beautiful, slender and expressive, unlike the ugly claws they had become. Though Flora Le Bonnier remained a fine-looking woman and looked good for her age, she had declined considerably since her glory days.
And although Carole knew there was no genetic link between the two women, she kept being struck by the actress’s likeness to her dead granddaughter. Polly’s face had more character than sheer beauty, but the two shared an expression of unshakeable determination. And when in the film Lady Mary faced some reverse, the set of her mouth was exactly the same as her granddaughter’s look of dogged resentment.