He ushered them into the warm. Back in his own environment, the Jack Russell Petrarch was totally relaxed, and showed no more than polite interest in the visitors. “Thought I might be hearing from you again,” said Rupert.
“This is my friend Jude.”
“Oh, Jude and I know each other, don’t we?” To Carole’s annoyance, he winked. “Talked on the beach many a time, haven’t we? Always guaranteed to get more than a Fethering nod from the lovely Jude. Usually a nice cuddle, I’m glad to say. Would you find something to sit on? Coffee?”
They both declined the offer and he seemed to note the seriousness of their demeanour. As he resettled into his armchair, he asked, “So what are you accusing me of now?”
“Nothing. We just want a bit of clarification,” replied Carole.
He grimaced. “Sounds ominous. Are you still asking me to admit that I’m the late Ricky’s father?”
Carole blushed. “No.”
“What we do want you to tell us,” said Jude, “is why you said that Ricky’s death ‘let you off the hook’?”
“Oh, is that all?” He relaxed visibly. “Very simple. Ricky’s death will have wound up the investigation into the death of Polly Le Bonnier. There won’t be any homicide police snuffling around Fethering Beach anymore. Ergo, I’m let off the hook and can return safely to my possibly illegal domicile – which is where you find me.”
Carole wasn’t buying that, it sounded far too well prepared. “Why do you think that Ricky’s death will stop further investigation into Polly’s?”
“It’s obvious.” He explained as if he were talking to a child. “The case is neatly rounded off. Ricky can’t live with the guilt of having killed his stepdaughter, so he comes back to near the scene of her death and tops himself.”
“When we last spoke, you said you had no idea who had killed Polly.”
“Well, I didn’t, did I? Ricky hadn’t topped himself then, had he? But now he has – and I can’t imagine a clearer admission of guilt than that.”
Strangely, in their responses to Ricky’s death, neither Carole nor Jude had considered the possibility of suicide. Such a robust, positive figure would be the last person they could imagine taking his own life. But when Rupert hazarded that there might be a history of depression in Ricky’s family, they were forced to admit that was true.
“And he’d taken a hell of a battering over the last couple of weeks, hadn’t he?” the old actor went on. “God knows how it feels to have killed someone, least of all your own stepdaughter. I’ve never had children – either my own or inherited – but if I had, I’d like to think I wouldn’t raise a hand against them. The sense of guilt must be appalling. And then Ricky had the stress of the police sniffing around everything, and the strong likelihood that they might find evidence to charge him with the murder. All that, plus a relationship breaking up as well, I’m not surprised it was more than he could handle.”
“Relationship?” asked Jude. “What relationship? He and Lola seemed fine.”
“Not his relationship with his wife,” said Rupert Sonning patiently. “His bit on the side.”
“Anna?”
“Yes, the Marilyn-Monroe-lookalike-I-don’t-think-so.”
“But had they split up?” asked Carole. “When I last saw Anna, she spoke as if the relationship was still ongoing.”
“It didn’t sound very ongoing when I heard them talking about it.”
“When was that?”
“That Sunday. The evening before the fire.”
“Tell us exactly what happened,” said Carole.
“Well, I quite often walk along the beach after dark. Petrarch loves it then, somehow the smells seem sharper for him. That night we were on the dunes and I had a clear view of the back of Gallimaufry. I saw Ricky and his bit of stuff coming out – not the first time I’d seen them either.”
“Anna thought no one had ever seen them together.”
“Well, that just goes to show what a short time she’s been living here, doesn’t it? Nothing in Fethering happens unseen. There’s always someone watching.” Ever the actor, Rupert Sonning deepened his voice to increase the drama of his narrative. “Anyway, as I say, Petrarch and I were on the dunes and I could see Ricky and Anna through the tufts of grass, but they couldn’t see me. And I could hear what they were saying too. Quite clear it was. He said, ‘We’ve got to stop this. It’s not working anymore.’”
He took on different voices for the two characters as he continued, “And she says, ‘It is. It is working, Ricky. I need you. I can’t live without you.’ He says, ‘You managed to live without me for a good few years before we met.’ She says, ‘But now I have met you, I can’t go back to how I was before. If you end it, I won’t be responsible for my actions.’ He says, ‘Oh, please don’t try that line. I’ve met more than my share of women who say they’re going to kill themselves. And they never do.’ And she says, ‘Be careful, Ricky. It might not be myself that I kill.’”
There was a silence, then a rather cross Carole said, “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“Because you didn’t ask,” said Rupert Sonning.
Jude looked across at Carole. “I think we’d better find Anna as soon as possible.”
“We’ll have to wait till tomorrow morning, on the off-chance that she’s taking Blackie out for a walk.”
“Oh, surely there must be some way we can find out where she lives.”
“There is,” announced Rupert Sonning. “It’s not for nothing that I am called ‘the eyes and ears of Fethering Beach’. Would you like me to give you Anna Carter’s address?”
Thirty-Seven
It might have been better if they’d had a phone number to warn Anna of their visit, but they hadn’t. Anyway, such a call might have alerted her to danger and allowed her time to make good her escape.
Carole and Jude went back from the beach to High Tor and got in the Renault. The address they had been given was on the extreme edge of Fethering’s gentility, bordering the less salubrious area of Downside. There would have been no problem walking there in the daylight, but after dark they felt more secure in the car.
The woman who answered the door was presumably the landlady, whom Anna had described as ‘a nosy cow’. When they asked about her tenant, she certainly seemed to know a lot of detail. “She’s been in her room all day today. Hasn’t come out even to get anything to eat. She’s been crying a lot, and all. You can hear it from outside her door. And all over the house,” she added hastily, to cover up her surveillance activities, before continuing, “I think it’s because she heard about that man dying down by the Fethering Yacht Club. She worked for his wife at the shop that burnt down, the one with the silly name. I think there was something going on there.”
“Something going on?” asked Carole.
The landlady very nearly winked as she said, “Something going on between my Miss Carter upstairs and that Mr Le Bonnier. That’s why she’s taking his death so hard.” Again, so much for Anna’s blind faith that no one in Fethering knew of their liaison.
“I wonder if we could see Miss Carter,” said Jude.
“Well, I don’t know that she’d want to see anyone, but I could ask. And then she could come down and talk in my sitting room through there. I’ll leave you on your own, just be through in the kitchen.” A kitchen which no doubt commanded an excellent position for eavesdropping.
“It’s all right. We’ll talk to her in her room,” said Carole.
The landlady looked disgruntled at that. Crying might be audible all over the house, but the intricacies of conversation could not be heard by anyone who wasn’t actually lurking on the landing. And even the most inveterate snoopers have their pride.