Guilt at the Garage

by Simon Brett

  One of the big differences was the average age of the clientele. Though in the tourist season the Crown and Anchor would see a good few holidaymaking families, in the winter it was mostly locals, which meant retired people. Brighton had a much younger demographic. In the pub were thin young men challenging the weather in skimpy T-shirts, young women in clashing clothes and hair colours that extended the range of nature’s palette. And nobody seemed to be untattooed.

  The pub was full for early afternoon, but the clientele didn’t seem to be just relaxing. There was an air of busyness. Laptops and tablets were much in evidence. Their loud chatter and wild gesticulations had an earnestness about them. They seemed to be discussing work projects, almost definitely arts-related.

  The place wasn’t ‘private’ in the sense of ‘empty’ or ‘quiet’, but the very noisiness provided its own security. Everyone there was far too interested in their own conversations to bother eavesdropping on anyone else’s. Events in Fethering felt a very long way away.

  The venue made Carole acutely uncomfortable. She was sure everyone was looking at her, though in fact nobody bothered. Jude, never much concerned what other people thought of her, was completely at her ease as she pressed her way through the crowd to greet Tom.

  He had taken off his hoodie, revealing long arms which had their own share of tattoos. He was in conversation with a couple of other T-shirted young men, one with blond dreadlocks, but they scuttled away at his visitors’ arrival.

  Tom had the remaining third of a pint of Guinness on the table in front of him. He agreed to Jude’s suggestion of ‘another of the same?’ Carole opted for a sparkling mineral water ‘because of the driving’.

  She thought the conversation wouldn’t start until Jude returned with the drinks, but Tom Kendrick ploughed straight in. ‘You were in Shefford’s when Bill Shefford was killed?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you actually see what happened?’

  ‘No. I was in the reception area. He was in the workshop.’

  ‘Hm. You know it was my car he was working on?’

  ‘I didn’t realize at the time, but I know now.’

  ‘Which some people in Fethering seem to think makes it likely that I set up the booby-trap deliberately to kill him.’

  ‘I’m not one of those people.’

  ‘Glad to hear it.’

  Carole was glad too that, at that moment, Jude rejoined them. Tom thanked her politely for the drink. His upbringing by Natalie Kendrick had taught him the basics of civilized behaviour.

  He then looked shrewdly at each of them in turn. ‘OK, the reason we’re meeting is because it’s possible you two might be able to stop the gossip going around Fethering about me.’

  ‘The best way we can do that,’ said Jude, ‘is by finding out what actually did cause Bill Shefford’s death; whether it was just an accident or whether foul play was involved.’ She met Tom’s gaze. He looked away. ‘Can I ask why you’re so concerned about Fethering gossip?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’

  ‘It’s just, on very brief acquaintance, you don’t come across to me as the kind of person who cares much what other people think of him.’

  He grinned with self-recognition. ‘You may be right. But, if the police were to get involved in investigating what happened … well, I wouldn’t be so keen on that.’

  Jude didn’t ask why. She got the feeling drugs might be in the background, some possible previous charges against him, but that was his business.

  His words had attracted Carole’s interest, though. ‘Have the police been involved?’ she asked. ‘Have any of them been in touch with you?’

  Tom shook his head. ‘Though if Fethering gossip continues at its current rate, that situation might change. And since it was my car what dunit … well, I think I have reason to be a tad anxious.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Jude.

  ‘Look,’ said Carole baldly, ‘there is something that’s come up which I think we can’t avoid mentioning.’

  ‘Oh? And what’s that?’

  ‘We know that you worked at Shefford’s for a while.’

  ‘I’m not denying it. Another of Mrs Kendrick’s attempts to make me a “useful member of society”. Another failure, needless to say.’

  ‘And we did hear that you had a serious falling-out with Bill Shefford.’

  That caught him on the raw. ‘Who did you hear that from?’

  Jude answered. Once again, she saw no reason not to tell the truth. ‘I heard it from the other healer who your mother tried to set up for you.’

  ‘Oh. Jeremiah.’ He drenched the word in contempt. ‘Yes, he was as useless as the rest of the profession … if “profession” isn’t too generous a term for that bunch of charlatans.’

  Jude knew he was being deliberately offensive but did not rise to the insult. Nor did she look at Carole, who was quite capable of nodding agreement to the sentiment.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Tom went on. ‘I suppose all you lot get together, don’t you, to spread nasty stories about your patients?’

  Though this insinuation offended her even more, still Jude kept her own counsel. So, it was Carole who asked, ‘But what Jeremiah said was true? You did have a falling-out with Bill Shefford?’

  ‘“Falling-out”?’ He grimaced as he echoed the word. ‘I think that’s putting it a bit strong. He wanted me to work hard for him in a business in which I pretty soon realized I had no interest. So, we didn’t see eye to eye. I wouldn’t put it any worse than that. Our disagreement certainly didn’t bother me enough for me to set up a booby-trap to kill the guy.’

  ‘But you would have had the mechanical skills to do it if you’d wanted to?’ asked Carole sharply.

  ‘Maybe. But as I say, I’m far too lazy to bother with an elaborate scheme like that. Sorry to disappoint you but, beneath my lackadaisical exterior, there isn’t a rampant psychopath desperate to commit further atrocities.’

  Not for the first time, Jude was struck how articulate Tom Kendrick was. He might have disappointed his father by the route he’d taken thereafter, but his public-school education had not been wasted. ‘Presumably,’ she said, ‘while you were working at Shefford’s, you did get a chance to see what was going on there?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘You would have been able to get a feeling of the kind of tensions within the business … or within the family who ran the business?’

  ‘Oh, I see what you’re doing.’ He let out a grunt of laughter. ‘If it’s not me in the frame, who do I think the murderer might have been?’

  ‘Yes, all right. If that’s the way you want to see it.’

  ‘And I would like to say,’ Carole pointed out, ‘that in crime books and television programmes, a time-honoured method of diverting suspicion from oneself is finding the proof of who actually did commit the murder.’

  ‘I get it.’ Tom took a long swallow of Guinness. ‘All right, the way I saw things, from my position as a humble and deeply unwilling apprentice, was that there was obviously tension between Bill and Billy about the way they wanted the business to develop. Billy had big plans and his old man kept dragging his feet about getting them implemented. I reckon Billy had reconciled himself to waiting till his dad retired before he could turn Shefford’s into what he wanted it to be.’

  ‘And did you ever hear Bill talking about retirement?’ asked Carole. ‘Did he say when it was likely to happen?’

  ‘He didn’t specify a date.’

  ‘And when was it you were working there?’

  ‘Last autumn. October, November, I suppose.’

  ‘Really? Because apparently he used never to talk about retirement.’

  ‘Well, he definitely did when I was there. Kept on about it, in fact.’

  ‘And when he did retire,’ asked Jude, ‘was he planning to stay round the Fethering area?’

  ‘Now that’s interesting.’ Tom took a swig of Guinness. ‘I got the impression staying local had been his intention. You
know, being around Billy’s family, the grandchildren. But I think his plans may have been changing.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘He did more than once talk about the idea of retiring to Thailand.’

  ‘With Malee?’

  ‘Obviously.’

  Carole followed the logic. ‘Which might have meant that he would sell up the premises in Fethering and take the proceeds out to Thailand …’

  ‘Maybe. He didn’t say that, but I guess it’s possible.’

  ‘Did you see much of Malee?’ asked Jude. ‘You know, while you were working there?’

  ‘She came in quite a bit, actually. Very interested in everything that was going on. She appeared to be intrigued by the mechanics of cars, just in the way that I wasn’t.’

  ‘So, she would have had the skills …?’ Carole hazarded.

  ‘Oh yes, she could have loosened the fixings of a gearbox, no problem.’

  ‘When she came into the garage, after Bill Shefford’s death, Shannon, Billy’s wife, was there. She didn’t even acknowledge Malee.’

  ‘That’s no surprise. Shannon took against her even more than Billy did. She was very, like, protective of him.’

  ‘Yes, I got that impression,’ said Jude, her mind freewheeling to questions about how far the protective instinct would extend, when her husband – and his inheritance – were under threat. Like her mother, Shannon Shefford was a very strong personality, who might be capable of anything when the security of her family was at stake.

  ‘Incidentally,’ asked Carole, suddenly changing the subject, ‘what happened to your car? The Triumph Tr6. I mean, presumably it’s been examined … you know, for forensic evidence?’

  ‘Why would it be examined if the police haven’t been involved?’

  ‘What?’ Carole looked curious. ‘So where is it now? Still at Shefford’s?’

  ‘No, it’s parked up the road here.’

  ‘You drove to Brighton in it?’

  ‘Of course I did. I haven’t got another car.’

  ‘So, when did you get it back?’ asked Jude.

  ‘Day after the accident. That’s when they said I’d get it back. Serviced, valeted, looked like new.’

  ‘“Valeted”?’

  ‘Yes, inside and out. Looks brilliant.’ Carole wondered who’d done that. From the look of the second-hand cars on its forecourt, Shefford’s did not run to a ‘spivver’.

  ‘And any evidence that might have shown it had been booby-trapped was effectively removed?’ she asked.

  ‘Guess so.’

  Although she knew the answer, Carole still asked, ‘Who did the service?’

  ‘Obviously … Billy Shefford.’

  FOURTEEN

  ‘Well, Shannon wasn’t going to get any cooperation out of her, was she?’

  Jude was once again exercising her palliative-care skills at Waggoners. And Rhona Hampton was once again denigrating Bill Shefford’s widow.

  ‘So, what, you say Shannon asked if she could look through the house for a will?’

  ‘Yes, well, that’s reasonable, isn’t it, Jude? She’d been on to Bill’s solicitor and they had no record of him having made a will. He never was that good with paperwork. Never much bothered about paperwork, come to that. He relied on Frankie to keep the business on the right side of the law. You know, she looked after the invoices … and the tax … and the Health and Safety Executive stuff …

  ‘So, anyway, Shannon rang Malee and asked if she’d found some informal hand-written will round the house … because they can be legal, you know. There was a case recently where some old bloke had scribbled his will on a McDonald’s paper napkin and that was legal, so it can happen. And Malee had said she’d looked round the house and found nothing. So, then Shannon asked if she could have a look. And Malee said, “No.” Just like that. I mean, what kind of a way is that to treat your … what? Stepdaughter-in-law?’

  ‘She’s within her rights. It is her house.’

  ‘But is it, Jude? Is it? Surely that depends on the will. And if there isn’t a will, then who knows whose house it is?’

  ‘I think you’ll find, Rhona, that under British law, if a woman is legally married at the time of her husband’s death, and he’s intestate – in other words, he hasn’t made a will – then she inherits all of his estate.’

  ‘That’s not fair, is it?’

  ‘It may not be fair, but it’s the law. And I take it Malee was legally married to Bill?’

  Rhona grimaced. ‘Yes. Only a registry office thing. Back last February. I was invited, but there was no way I was going. Shannon and Billy went. They said it felt more like a funeral to this side of the family.’

  ‘And what about her side of the family? Were any of Malee’s relatives there?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Must’ve been fun for her,’ said Jude wryly, trying not to visualize the grisly details of the occasion. Malee’s progress in becoming part of the Shefford family cannot have been easy, and having no backup from her own side could only have made things worse.

  ‘No,’ Rhona went on, ‘her people were no doubt back in Thailand, busy on their calculators, working out how much money they’d get when Bill kicked the bucket.’

  Jude knew there was no point in saying anything. Rhona Hampton was not about to change such entrenched attitudes at this advanced stage of her life.

  ‘Shannon’ll try again,’ Rhona went on. ‘Not easily put off, my daughter. She’ll be back at that house and she’ll get in, even if she has to break in. She’ll find the will that Bill drew up before he met his “Mail Order Bride”.’

  ‘Could you just move on to your other side?’ asked Jude. She helped ease the frail body on the bed. There now seemed to be only a thin layer of skin over the old woman’s bones. Jude’s healing efforts were helping with the pain, but Rhona was also on a lot of prescription medication. She was not much longer for this life, but she was still capable of great malignancy where Malee Shefford was concerned.

  In shifting her client’s position, Jude dislodged a pile of A4 sheets from the bedside table. With Rhona settled, she bent to pick them up.

  ‘Oh, those are copies of Bill’s death certificate,’ said the old woman. ‘I told Shannon they were going to need lots of them. You can never have too many. I remember when my Roy passed, I couldn’t believe how much paperwork there was, and how many people needed to see a copy of the death certificate. So Shannon got lots of spares from the registrar.’

  Jude was only half-listening. She had seen something on the death certificate that intrigued her.

  ‘Shannon’s a tough woman,’ said Jude. ‘No question. She’s incredibly protective of Billy. I get the impression he’s quite a weak character, maybe grew up too much in the shadow of his father. But Shannon’s more than ready to fight his battles for him.’

  ‘How far do you reckon she’d go?’ asked Carole. They were sitting over coffee in the High Tor kitchen. Gulliver snuffled in his dog dreams by the Aga.

  ‘As far as killing the father? Is that what you’re asking?’

  ‘Well, it’s a thought.’

  ‘I don’t know. I can see her squaring up to Malee, no problem, but I somehow get the impression she was fond of her father-in-law.’

  ‘Maybe. Fondness hasn’t been allowed to stop a great many murderers.’ Carole took a sip of coffee. ‘Do you believe in the existence of this earlier will that Rhona mentioned?’

  Jude shrugged. ‘No idea.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Carole, ‘in all of our speculation about the case’ – she now had no problem with using the word – ‘there’s one person we haven’t talked to …’

  ‘I was thinking just the same.’ Jude took out her mobile. ‘Thinking it to such an extent that I put her number into my phone.’ She pressed a couple of buttons.

  ‘We are talking about Malee, aren’t we?’

  Jude nodded and listened to her phone for a few seconds. ‘Still the answering machine. Still with Bill Shefford’s voice
on it.’

  ‘Still?’ asked Carole. ‘What, you mean you’ve tried Malee’s number before?’

  ‘A few times.’

  Carole couldn’t stop herself from saying, ‘Without telling me?’

  She took a note of the number and, after Jude had left, tried calling it herself. She didn’t know why she thought the outcome would be any different. And it wasn’t. She too got the answering machine message from the late Bill Shefford.

  But, unlike Jude, she left a message, identifying herself, reminding Malee that she had been at Shefford’s when her husband had died, and asking the widow to call her.

  ‘Hello, Jude. It’s Jeremiah.’

  ‘Oh, hi.’ His voice down the phone was pleasantly warming. ‘How’re you doing?’

  ‘Fine, thank you.’

  ‘I’m glad you called.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He didn’t pick up the implication in her words. Never mind, she would bide her time before she asked the questions she wanted to. ‘Let me tell you, Jude, I’m still thinking that setting up my centre for alternative therapies in Fethering is a good idea.’

  ‘Best of luck with it.’

  ‘I gather from your tone that you’re no more keen than you were when we last discussed it.’

  ‘You gather correctly.’

  ‘Ah, well. When it’s a huge success, written up in medical journals around the world, the go-to destination for A-list addicts, and you come begging on your hands and knees to be allowed space within it, I will be prepared to be generous.’

  Jude giggled. ‘In the completely impossible event of that scenario arising, I will still probably not accept your generosity.’

  ‘It’s a good offer.’

  ‘Appreciated as such. Anyway, to what do I owe the honour of this call?’

  ‘Oh, I just gather that you’ve seen Tom Kendrick again.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I had a call from his mother. Trying to persuade me to have another go at treating him. And she said you’d seen him.’

  ‘I hope she didn’t imply that I’d changed my mind about whether I could help him.’