by Simon Brett
“Yes, poor kid,” she echoed.
“Ricky,” said Carole briskly, “you keep talking about Polly’s suicide. Has the possibility occurred to you that she might have been murdered?” Good old Carole, thought Jude, getting straight to the point.
He looked genuinely shocked at the suggestion. “But why would anyone want to murder her?”
Carole shrugged. “Why does anyone want to murder anyone? There is a fairly well-known list of traditional motives.”
“Well, I can’t think any of them would have been applicable to my stepdaughter!” There was a new harshness in his tone as he said this. “And, whatever you do, if the police want to talk to you, don’t start planting ideas of murder in their minds.”
“Of course we wouldn’t,” said Jude at her most palliative.
“Incidentally,” Ricky went on, “there is quite a strong likelihood that the police will be in touch with you. Lola and I have been interviewed, and, as I told you, Jude, I’ll be talking to them again shortly. From what I can work out, they’re trying to reconstruct the hours before Polly’s…death.” He didn’t like using the word, but his momentary lapse into grief was quickly replaced by a more businesslike tone. “Anyway, if they do get in touch, I’d be grateful if you could let me know. We’ve got each other’s mobile and landline numbers, so you can get through to me wherever I am. And please remember – if you do have to say anything to the investigating officers, what we’re talking about here is a suicide.”
Ricky Le Bonnier didn’t stay much longer. With a look at his watch, he announced that he must get to his own meeting with the police.
From the front door the women watched him stride to his large black Mercedes 4×4. “Would you have described Polly as a lifelong depressive, Jude?”
“No. And Piers told us how she went on about what a happy childhood she had had.”
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.
∨ The Shooting in the Shop ∧
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 lif
e. 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?”
“I’m his only wife. We were married in Fethering Church,” she repeated.
“But, I mean, you did get divorced. Ricky has been married three times since that.”
The Dippy Hippy smiled patiently at Jude. “Marriage is real. A divorce is only a piece of paper. A piece of paper can’t stop two people loving each other.”
“It can stop one side of a partnership loving the other,” Jude pointed out. “In fact, such a piece of paper is frequently issued because one side of a partnership has stopped loving the other.”
“It’s not like that with Ricky and me,” said the woman firmly. “Our relationship is for ever.”
“Are you Catholic?” asked Jude.
“I don’t have a religion, not like that. I have faith, which is much better. Faith that things are being organized in such a way that everything will turn out all right.”
The woman spoke with such certainty that Jude had to remind herself that the logic of her thesis was highly dubious.
“So are you saying that you and Ricky Le Bonnier will end up together?”
“Oh yes.” There wasn’t the smallest nuance of doubt in her voice. “We met here in Fethering, and we’ll end up here in Fethering. We were at the village school together here. Ricky was looked after by his aunt, because his mother was always off acting all over the world. He was lonely at school. I was his friend. So we got married. And we still are married.”
“In whose eyes?”
“In the eyes of the Power which arranges such things.”
“Ah,” said Jude, slowly nodding her head. “I understand. By the way, I don’t know your name…?”
“Kath.”
“Right, Kath. So how long were you and Ricky married?”
“We still are married.”
“‘In the eyes of the Power which…’ Yes, I understand that. But how long after you got married did he move out, did you stop living together?”
“Only three years. But we are still together, you know, spiritually…on an astral plane. We’ll always be together in a cosmic sense.”
Jude found this talk was getting her closer than she had ever anticipated to Carole’s views on ‘New Age mumbo-jumbo’. Time perhaps to move from the astral plane to a bit of detective work. “I actually saw you with Ricky this morning. Outside my house. He had just come to see me.”
“Oh, I didn’t know who he had been visiting. I just knew the car would be there.”
“Sorry? You knew it would be there?”
“I had a sense when I woke up yesterday morning that Ricky was going to come to Fethering. He has a very strong aura. I can always sense when his aura is close to mine. So I drove out in the camper, knowing I would see his car. And of course I did.” She smiled beatifically. “It was outside your house.”
“He didn’t seem to have a lot to say when he saw you.”
“No, often he doesn’t. He isn’t ready to be back with me yet. He’s still under the influence.”
“The influence of what?”
“Of the Devil Women.”
Jude nearly spilled her Chilean Chardonnay. “I beg your pardon?”
“Devil Women took Ricky away from me. But Devil Women cannot win in the long run. The Power is always stronger than the Devil Women.” Jude was beginning to think she’d drifted into some science fiction B-movie, as Kath went on, “I only have to wait, then Ricky will come back to me.”
“So are you saying that all of the other women with whom Ricky’s spent time with are Devil Women?”
“Oh yes.” No flicker of hesitation.
“And when they are finally defeated, he’ll come back to you?”
“Oh yes.” With exactly the same certainty.
“Kath,” asked Jude gently, “did you know Polly?”
“Polly?”
“Ricky’s daughter. The one who died in the fire at the shop.”
“She’s not my daughter.”
“I know that. Sorry, I should have said ‘Ricky’s stepdaughter’. But did you know her?”
Ignoring the question, Kath went on, “Ricky and I didn’t have children. I was on the Pill.” She spoke this with some pride, as if it were an unusual concept, which, Jude reflected, to women of Kath’s generation, it probably was. “Ricky and I were going to have children later. But then the Devil Women got in the way.”
“Have you ever met any of the Devil Women?” It was not a question that Jude had ever in her life anticipated she might have to ask.
“I’ve seen one or two.”
“Including Lola?”
“I’m not interested in their names.”
“Lola is Ricky’s current wife.” Jude hadn’t wanted to use such a dismissive adjective, but she couldn’t think of another, more appropriate one.
“The one he calls his wife. I am his real wife.”
“And, so far as you’re concerned, she’s just his latest Devil Woman?”
“If you like, yes. But she’s not real.”
“Right.” Jude decided not to take the conversation back into the realms of ‘the Power which arranges such things’, instead asking, “So you have met Lola?”
“I’ve seen her in the shop.”
“But do you feel any resentment towards her?”
Kath gave her a curious look. “Why should I feel resentment?”
“Well, Ricky is married to her.”
“Says he’s married to her. I told you – he’s really married to me.”
“Either way, you could regard Lola as someone who’s taken your man from you. And women in that situation have frequently been known to feel considerable resentment.”
“Well, I don’t feel it.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not the Devil Women’s fault that they’re Devil Women. There’s an Evil Power that gets into them. They can’t help it. To blame someone for being a Devil Woman is like blaming someone for being born with red hair.”
“Right,” said Jude. “I understand.” Which was not strictly true, but probably a more prudent course than asking for further explanations. “One thing you said interested me, Kath – well, a lot of things you said interested me, but there’s one I’d like to ask about.”
A smile spread across the wrinkled face. “Ask away. It’s a free country.”
“You said yo
u have an instinct for when Ricky is close, when he comes to Fethering…”
“Yes. That’s what I had yesterday morning.”
“And when did you last have it?”
“Last Sunday I knew he was in Fethering.”
“Yes, he was. He actually came to a party at my house.”
Kath smiled again and opened her hands wide, as if to say that her point was proved.
“And did you see him that day?” Kath shook her head. “And there wasn’t another time, between last Sunday and yesterday, when you sensed that Ricky was near you?”
“His car was there on the Sunday,” Kath said slyly.
“Yes, we’ve just established that.”
“But it was also here later on the Sunday.”
“Could you sense that?” The Dippy Hippy looked her curiously. “I mean, did you have an instinct that the car was here?”
“No,” came the prosaic reply. “I saw it. Parked down by the Yacht Club.”
“What time of day was this?”
“Evening. Eightish, probably.”
“Yes. And did you see Ricky in the car?” Kath nodded vigorously. “Did you talk to him?”
“No. I wouldn’t talk to him under those circumstances.”
“Under what circumstances?”
“He wasn’t alone. He had his latest Devil Woman with him.”
“Lola?”
“I told you, I’m not interested in their names. She’s the latest Devil Woman to seduce Ricky away from me.”
So it had been Lola. In spite of their denials of the fact, Jude now knew that Ricky Le Bonnier and his young wife had been in Fethering in his Mercedes 4×4 on the evening that Gallimaufry had been set on fire.
∨ The Shooting in the Shop ∧
Seventeen
“From what you say,” Carole observed, as she sipped a cup of coffee in Jude’s overfilled sitting room, “she sounds like Fethering’s answer to Miss Havisham – a woman whose entire life stopped when a man let her down.”
“There is an element of that about her,” Jude agreed. “Except that she’s not embittered. She seems to have a very cheerful and benign outlook on life. And she’s absolutely convinced that all Ricky’s affairs with other women are just aberrations. He’s still really hers. To her mind he’s never stopped being hers.”