Guilt at the Garage

by Simon Brett

  ‘If you upset someone, what lengths will they go to … to be revenged?’

  Silence again. Carole wasn’t certain what Bill was referring to, but her mind was teeming with possibilities. Was he talking about the fate of Shefford’s Garage, whether he should pass it on to Billy, as everyone expected? Or did he have plans to sell the site? It was a significant lump of real estate in Fethering, with space for a surprising number of new dwellings to be built on it. Yes, there might be an initial problem with organizing change of use, but the local planning authorities were very biddable when there was a prospect of more residential property becoming available.

  ‘And when you have thoughts like that,’ he continued finally, ‘you can feel very vulnerable …’

  Yet another pause. Carole hung on his words. Bill Shefford opened his mouth as if for further confidences. But then he changed his mind. Abruptly, he said, ‘Anyway, I’ve got to remove a gearbox’, and went through to the workshop.

  It seemed to be taking an unconscionably long time for Billy Shefford to change the windscreen wipers on the Renault. Carole felt she should go through to the workshop to chivvy him up, but somehow she couldn’t. Her role at Shefford’s had always been that of the supplicant, the woman who knew nothing about cars and needed help. Playing that role ruled out the assertiveness she displayed in other areas of her life.

  And she did need the new wipers. She’d noticed recently, particularly if driving after dark in the rain, that she couldn’t see very well. It was even worse when facing oncoming headlights. She hoped it wasn’t her eyesight, so she’d opted for a change of wiper blades before she made an appointment with the optician.

  Was it age catching up with her? Eyes … and, of course, the knee. As soon as she thought of it, she felt a twinge and shifted her position on the plastic chair.

  As ever, to avoid the ignominy of looking purposeless, she had The Times crossword with her, but she couldn’t settle to it that morning. Bill Shefford’s gloom seemed to have infected her own mood. She looked across at the coffee machine, wondering if it might now contain something drinkable. But, deep down, she knew that such miracles didn’t happen.

  Suddenly, from the workshop, she heard a heavy metallic thud which coincided with a scream of pain. She rushed through the door from the office.

  Billy Shefford and Frankie (whose hair was now jet black) were looking down with horror into the inspection pit, above which a substantial car crouched. Over their shoulders, illuminated by the pit’s sidelights, Carole could see the body of Bill Shefford, crushed by a large metal object.

  Billy’s next words identified it for her. ‘The gearbox,’ he said in a voice taut with shock. ‘It fell on him. He’s dead.’

  SEVEN

  What happened next was something of a blur for Carole. Billy Shefford didn’t want to stay with his father’s body. Almost catatonic with shock, he sat silently on the threadbare sofa in the reception area, incapable of any action. It was Frankie who made some calls, presumably summoning an ambulance, though it was obvious that it would be doing the service of a hearse rather than of life-saving transport. Her voice was steady, but unnoticed tears smudged her mascara and made dark runnels down the thick make-up of her face. Carole had the inappropriate thought that, with the jet-black hair, they made her look like a Goth.

  As well as the emergency services, Frankie must have made other calls, because fairly soon after, Shannon arrived at the garage. She immediately went to her husband and threw her arms around him. He did not react, still isolated by trauma. Getting no response, Shannon went through to view the crushed body of her father-in-law.

  She was absent some ten minutes, then returned. Her eyes were bright with tears. She went to sit on the sagging sofa next to Billy, cradling him like an unresponding baby.

  A short while later, Malee entered from the forecourt. Shannon showed no signs of having seen her. Bill Shefford’s wife went straight through to Frankie’s office. She closed the door, so that Carole could not hear what the two women said to each other. It was a short conversation, then Malee emerged and went into the workshop.

  Like her daughter-in-law, she spent some ten minutes with her husband’s corpse. Then she came back into the front office and sat on the remaining plastic chair. Nobody said anything.

  Still pretending to toy with her crossword, Carole looked covertly sideways at Malee. It was impossible to read what emotions lay behind the impassive, but rather beautiful, Oriental face. Certainly, there were no tears.

  Carole now realized there was no role for her to fulfil. In fact, there hadn’t been since the accident had happened. With unacknowledged waves to Billy and Frankie, she went out by the front doors. She told herself she didn’t go out through the workshop out of respect for the recently deceased, but the real reason was squeamishness. The single glimpse she had caught of Bill Shefford’s body in the inspection pit had been quite enough for her.

  The Renault was still out the back, exactly where she’d parked it. The new windscreen-wiper blades would have to wait for another day.

  ‘So, he was killed by a falling gearbox?’

  ‘That’s what Billy said. And Bill himself told me he had to go and remove a gearbox, so it makes sense.’

  ‘And what might cause a gearbox to fall?’

  ‘Don’t look at me, Jude. I know absolutely nothing about mechanics.’ The thought struck Carole for the first time that she had now lost her go-to man for such services. Would Billy be as tolerant of her ignorance as his father had been? The thought of not having somewhere to take all her anxieties about the Renault was a worrying one. But she did not voice her anxiety.

  ‘Desperately sad.’ Jude sighed. ‘From all accounts, Bill had been in a bad way since his first wife died and that’s what? Seven years ago. Then he’d just got his life back on track with Malee …’

  ‘The “Mail Order Bride”,’ was Carole’s kneejerk interjection.

  ‘I wish you’d stop saying that,’ said Jude sharply. ‘It’s deeply insensitive.’

  Carole was used to Jude disagreeing with her, but rarely with such overt criticism. She was subdued by the attack.

  They were in an alcove near the welcoming open fire of the Crown and Anchor. Carole had felt disoriented when she returned from Shefford’s and had immediately rung Jude. (Going round and knocking on her neighbour’s door was not Carole’s way. To her, such behaviour had something Northern about it, like the worst excesses of Coronation Street.) Jude had suggested lunch at the pub and Carole, who always had to justify everything to herself, thought she deserved it after the traumas of the morning.

  It had been only just twelve when they’d arrived at the Crown and Anchor, which felt very odd to Carole. Shock had played tricks with time and she felt sure it must be later than that. Arriving at Shefford’s that morning seemed like part of a different lifetime.

  They’d both ordered fish and chips, good comfort food for a February lunchtime. (And in Ted Crisp’s pub, they knew the fish had been locally sourced.) Each woman had a glass of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. Carole had protested she only wanted a small one, but didn’t put up much resistance when Jude ordered large. Warmth and company, she found, were diluting the aftershock of the morning’s events.

  But Jude’s rebuke did still sting. Carole couldn’t think of a way of apologizing for what she’d said about Malee Shefford, but fortunately Jude, never one to bear grudges, had moved on. ‘I wonder how Rhona will react to the news.’

  ‘Rhona?’

  ‘Rhona Hampton. Shannon’s mother. I told you I’d been seeing her.’

  ‘Oh yes. For healing.’ Still disbelief in the word.

  ‘She certainly has it in for Billy Shefford. I haven’t heard her express an opinion on his father. But she’s sure to have one. Rhona Hampton is one of those women who has an opinion on everything.’

  ‘Did you know Bill well?’ asked Carole tentatively, prepared for potential jealousy. She always had the vague fear that Jude would turn ou
t to know Fethering locals better than she did.

  ‘No. I’ve met him round the village once or twice – in Allinstore, you know … But, obviously, not having a car, I’ve never had any professional dealings with him.’

  ‘No, of course not.’ Carole looked pensive. ‘I wonder what will happen …?’

  ‘What will happen where?’

  ‘With the garage. Apparently, Bill had been talking about retirement recently. And if Billy took it over, he had plans for turning the place into a dealership for one of the big companies.’

  ‘Yes, I’d heard that from Rhona.’

  ‘But what’ll happen now?’ Carole repeated. ‘I wonder whether Bill had got round to making a new will … and whether Malee will become the sole beneficiary and inherit everything …?’

  Jude looked at her friend, wary of another gibe about ‘Mail Order Brides’. But there wasn’t. Instead, Carole stood up briskly and said, ‘I see your glass is empty. Can I get you another?’

  ‘You going to have one?’

  ‘I’ll probably just have a coffee.’

  ‘Will you?’ Jude looked at Carole again, a small smile lurking round the corner of her mouth. It had the desired effect. Carole said, ‘No, I’ll have another Sauvignon Blanc.’ And they both went up to the bar.

  This was partly because Ted Crisp had just appeared from the kitchen. Jude had given their first drinks order to Zosia, his Polish bar manager, but now the landlord was there, in his winter garb of faded sweatshirt and jeans. Maybe in acknowledgement of the cold weather, his beard hadn’t been trimmed for a long time. Carole wanted to give him her news. ‘Have you heard what’s happened up at Shefford’s, Ted?’

  ‘That Bill Shefford’s had an accident in his inspection pit and died? Yes, I heard about it.’

  That was the infuriating thing about Fethering, Carole fumed inwardly. Even if you were the sole witness of an event in the village, it was almost impossible to be the first to tell people. There was a strange telepathy, a kind of bush telegraph, that spread news – particularly bad news – at a speed which most broadband providers could only aspire to. And which regularly frustrated Carole’s attempts get there first.

  ‘And,’ Ted went on, ‘I haven’t yet had the lunchtime rush of conspiracy theorists.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Oh, come on, Carole. Man dies in suspicious circumstances in Fethering – only a matter of time before half the village have come in here with their ideas of who murdered him.’

  ‘But he wasn’t murdered. It was an accident.’

  ‘I’m sure it was. But how many people in Fethering are going to believe that? Anyway, how do you come to be so well informed?’

  ‘Because I was actually at Shefford’s when the accident happened.’

  ‘Were you? Respect.’ He nodded his head appropriately. ‘So, we’ve got someone in the Crown and Anchor who has an informed opinion about what actually happened in a case of unnatural death. That has to be a first.’

  ‘I don’t know why you call it “unnatural death”.’

  ‘Having a gearbox fall on your head could hardly be described as “natural”, Carole, could it?’

  ‘Well, maybe not.’

  ‘And from what I’ve heard, there are a few people who could benefit from poor old Bill Shefford being out of the way.’

  ‘What do you mean – from what you’ve heard?’ asked Jude.

  ‘I hear a lot in here. Apart from anything else, Billy Shefford’s quite a regular of an evening. And he doesn’t keep his opinions to himself. To put it mildly, he’s not a fan of his stepmother.’

  ‘Or his mother-in-law?’ Jude suggested.

  ‘You’re right there. It’s difficult to know with Billy, though. I think it’s mostly talk, but he’s got a short fuse. Quick-tempered. Typical redhead, I suppose. And he doesn’t hold his drink well.’

  ‘You mean he gets violent?’ asked Carole.

  ‘No, no, he’s a harmless drunk. Gets maudlin rather than violent. Sorry for himself. More likely to weep on someone’s shoulder than hit them. Sounds off while he drinks his first pint, gets more and more miserable with the second one.’

  Carole hadn’t thought of it before, but of course Ted Crisp must be in a unique position to classify the kind of drinkers who came through the Crown and Anchor. Over the years he might have built up dossiers on all of them. She hoped he hadn’t fitted her drinking behaviour into any category.

  The landlord turned a beady eye on her. ‘Anyway, Carole, you reckon Bill Shefford is another of your murders?’

  ‘What do you mean – my murders. I don’t have murders.’

  ‘No? Well, all right, not your own. You share them with Jude.’

  He chuckled and Jude joined in. ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘But I don’t think this is one of them. Sounds like a straightforward accident to me.’

  ‘Yeah?’ asked Ted. ‘Gearboxes are substantial bits of kit. Don’t just fall off. If they did, our highways’d be cluttered up with them.’

  ‘Bill did say he was going to remove one,’ Carole pointed out. ‘So, I suppose he loosened the … screws or whatever holds the thing in position and then it slipped or … I don’t know. Do you know how a gearbox is fixed into a car, Ted?’

  ‘Search me. I’m afraid I never was one of those kids who always wanted to know what went on under a car’s bonnet. More interested in what went on under a lady’s bonnet!’ He guffawed, demonstrating once again perhaps why his career as a stand-up comic had been short-lived.

  ‘Tell you, though,’ he went on, ‘there’s a bloke been coming in recently who’d know all about gearbox fixings.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Just moved down here. Ex-car salesman. Got a crippled wife. Adrian something-or-other.’

  Carole felt a small pang. She had known that her exclusive friendship with Adrian Greenford wouldn’t last long. He’d found his way to the Crown and Anchor without her help.

  ‘He’s in most nights,’ said Ted. ‘I’ll ask whether a gearbox is any good as a murder weapon. Oooh, and while I think of new people coming in, there was a bloke the other day asking after you, Jude.’

  ‘Oh?’

  Carole another little pang. No doubt this would be another of her neighbour’s ex-lovers.

  ‘Some kind of therapist, I think … I gave him your number. Hope you don’t mind.’

  ‘No, that’s fine, Ted. Presumably he gave you a name?’

  Ted grinned. ‘Jeremiah … which is a name and a half, if you ask me.’

  ‘Oh, I have actually had a call from him. We’re meeting up next week. Did he say why he wanted to contact me?’

  ‘I didn’t really get the details. There were a lot of customers in. But I gathered he wants to set up some clinic here in Fethering, bringing together lots of alternative therapists.’

  ‘I thought it might be something like that. I’m not sure whether that kind of thing would work here.’

  There was no surprise that Carole should say, very frostily, ‘Nor am I.’

  ‘Well …’ Ted shrugged. ‘When you meet the amazing Jeremiah, Jude, that’s what it’ll be about. And, incidentally, I wanted to ask—’

  But they didn’t find out what he wanted to ask, because at that moment the main door of the pub clattered open to admit a man wearing a yellow oilskin over a fuzzy jumper. Barney Poulton, a self-appointed Sage of Fethering, enjoyed propping up the bar of the Crown and Anchor, pontificating on everything and, generally, being one of the banes of Ted Crisp’s life.

  ‘Well,’ he announced as he entered, ‘I hear there’s been a murder up at Shefford’s Garage.’

  And, once again, the Fethering rumour-mill was set in motion.

  EIGHT

  ‘I’m no mechanic,’ Rhona Hampton declared, ‘but I know gearboxes don’t detach themselves from the bottom of cars for no reason.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Jude, preparing herself for more criticism of the old woman’s son-in-law.

  ‘What I
mean is that the gearbox must have been fitted with some system of screws or whatever, and the only way of removing it would be by loosening those screws.’

  ‘I agree. And Bill must’ve been doing just that – loosening the screws – when the gearbox fell on him.’

  ‘You say Bill must’ve been loosening the screws.’

  ‘Yes, well, he was the one who was working on the car, wasn’t he? He told my neighbour Carole, who was actually at Shefford’s when the accident happened – he told her he was going to “remove a gearbox”. Which is what he was doing when the thing fell on him.’

  ‘Hm.’ Rhona Hampton wheezed. Shortness of breath was becoming an increasing problem for her. ‘Bill’s been working on cars for over forty years.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So … he wouldn’t have to think twice about how to remove a gearbox …’

  Jude knew full well the direction in which this conversation was going, but she didn’t want to say anything that would encourage the old woman’s speculations.

  ‘He’s not going to make a mistake like that,’ Rhona went on. ‘You say he was loosening the screws. Suppose someone else did the job for him …?’

  Still, Jude didn’t say anything. Though her client was housebound, she still had a lively network of fellow geriatrics in Fethering. And if she started accusing someone of Bill Shefford’s murder, it would be round the village in no time. But surely, however much she disliked Billy, she wasn’t about to say he killed his father?

  No, she wasn’t. Rhona went on, ‘And you don’t have to look far to work out who sabotaged the gearbox, undid the screws so that, the minute Bill touched the thing, it came crashing down on his head.’

  ‘Who?’ asked Jude weakly.

  ‘Well, the new wife, of course. The “Mail Order Bride”.’ Jude hadn’t got the energy to object to the usage. Besides, she had found that attempts to get some understanding of political correctness into her older clients never worked.

  Rhona eagerly continued her narrative. ‘She traps Bill into marriage. She gets him to change his will in her favour. She—’