The Killer in the Choir

by Simon Brett

Heather coloured. ‘No. Each time I went to Worthing to see KK, I told Leonard I was going shopping – and had to make sure that I came back loaded with stuff from the Rustington Sainsbury’s.’

  Jude grinned reassuringly. ‘Thank you for telling us. We will do our best to ensure that we scotch any further Fethering rumours about the circumstances of your husband’s death.’

  ‘Thank you very much.’

  ‘Just a minute,’ said Carole.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Can I just get the timing of what happened right?’

  Heather looked less than pleased with this development. She had generously volunteered information about her brush with the police. She didn’t want any nit-picking over the details. ‘All right,’ she said reluctantly.

  ‘You said the police rang you on the Tuesday before the funeral and came to see you on the Wednesday …?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And it was on the Wednesday that you told them about your alibi?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So why didn’t their investigations stop then?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, the vicar … you know, Bob Hinkley … came to see us on the Friday morning, the day after the funeral.’ And Carole explained that it was only then, while he was in High Tor, that he had received the message to say the police investigation was over.

  Heather looked instantly relieved. ‘That’s easily explained. There were some other people they had to take statements from.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘KK, obviously. They needed to check my alibi with him. And he was in Holland, playing with a friend’s band. He’d left the same day as I’d had my singing lesson, so he didn’t know about Leonard’s death until he got back.’

  Carole and Jude didn’t mention that they were the ones who had given him the news.

  ‘So, I don’t think the police talked to him until the Friday, the morning after the funeral.’

  Carole nodded. That would fit in with the call that Bob Hinkley had received while he was at High Tor. ‘One other thing, though …’

  ‘What?’ There was now a definite testiness in Heather’s voice. She had been happy to volunteer information, but not to submit to an interrogation.

  ‘Did the police talk to Alice?’

  ‘Why should they have done?’

  ‘She was the one who made the public accusation against you, wasn’t she? In the church hall.’

  ‘Yes, but, as I said, she was just in a bad emotional state.’

  ‘But surely, after what she said – she was virtually implying that she had witnessed you killing her father …’

  ‘No, she wasn’t,’ said Heather crisply. ‘And, as it happens, there was no way she could have witnessed anything. On 17 February, Alice was in London, looking for table decorations for her wedding.’

  ‘On her own?’

  ‘No, with her fiancé Roddy. And yes, the police did talk to both of them on the Friday morning, and they confirmed that. So, are you now happy that neither I nor Alice had anything to do with Leonard’s death?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Carole humbly, chastened by Heather’s tone of voice.

  ‘Thank you very much for telling us all that,’ said Jude. ‘And if we do hear any more rumours, we will stamp them out.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Incidentally,’ Jude went on, ‘if you do get this choir thing together with KK, you know, here in the pub …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’d be quite interested in joining.’

  Carole looked at her neighbour in complete amazement. Where on earth had that idea come from?

  SEVEN

  The energy generated by Heather Mallett’s new Merry Widow status proved very effective. Jude responded to the notice in the village newsletter and, within a few days, received an email announcing that, a week the following Monday, the first meeting of the Crown & Anchor Choir would take place. She mentioned this to her neighbour and received a predictable response.

  ‘So, are you really thinking of going?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Huh.’ And only Carole could say ‘Huh’ like that.

  The atmosphere in the Function Room of the Crown & Anchor was jolly from the start. Though he’d been slow to accept the idea of a choir in the pub, Ted Crisp had softened his attitude, even to the extent of lighting the fire in the Function Room and – even more unexpected – providing free wine and nibbles for the participants. ‘Only for the first meeting,’ he cautioned. ‘Don’t think this is going to happen every time.’

  Heather had smiled at this. Smiled with confidence, because it implied that the landlord envisaged continuity in her project. She was very serene that evening, again dressed in clothes with some colour in them, and pleased that her idea had come so quickly to fruition.

  Her co-organizer, however, looked far from relaxed. KK Rosser, who had changed his denim jacket for a black leather one, seemed twitchy, constantly moving around while the participants were arriving, checking his chair, his guitar and an unruly cardboard folder, from which pages of musical scores spilled.

  Perhaps, Jude hazarded, he was nervous because the role of choirmaster was a less familiar one for someone who had spent most of his professional life playing in front of audiences. On the other hand, he had claimed to Ted that he’d organized a similar set-up at a pub in Brighton. So, he should be used to the routine. Maybe there was another cause of his current disquiet.

  Not for the first time, Jude found herself wondering about the precise nature of the relationship between Heather and KK. What Heather had said about wanting singing lessons and finding his ad in the Fethering Observer was plausible enough – or would have been plausible enough for someone who hadn’t been married to an apparent tyrant like Leonard Mallett. And Heather had admitted to lying to her husband about where she was going when she had her lessons with KK in Worthing, having to ensure that she returned to Shorelands Estate, ‘loaded with stuff from the Rustington Sainsbury’s.’ That was the kind of behaviour that might be expected from a woman who was having an affair.

  Of course, if Heather Mallett had been having an affair, and if her husband had found out about it … given the fact that it was KK who had provided her alibi for the time of the death …

  Jude knew that her mind was moving too quickly, making random connections where quite possibly none existed. Heather and KK’s relationship did bear thinking about, though. But not at that moment, not until the first meeting of the Crown & Anchor Choir had ended.

  Given the casual nature of the announcement in the village newsletter, and the short notice, there was a very healthy turnout. About twelve Fethering residents were sufficiently curious to venture out of their houses into the cold March evening. Apart from Heather, all five of the church choir members who’d been in the pub after Leonard Mallett’s wake were there: Ruskin Dewitt, Bet Harrison, Shirley and Veronica Tattersall and Elizabeth Browning. Having witnessed Bob Hinkley’s anxiety about numbers, Jude hoped this didn’t represent a permanent shift of allegiance.

  Because they came from Fethering, most of the participants knew each other at least by sight, and Ted’s free wine thawed any social reticence. There was a positive buzz of anticipation around the Function Room, and it took a few moments for Heather to command their attention.

  ‘Thank you all so much for coming.’ Then she gave her name, ‘… in case any of you don’t know me. What we’re here for today is obviously a new initiative, and the aim of the Crown & Anchor Choir is simply to have fun. I was always in choirs through school and university, and then right up until I got married …’ She coloured, aware that everyone in the room had speculated about her marriage and the manner of its ending.

  But she recovered herself and continued, ‘And I always got enormous pleasure from singing with other people. For those of you who haven’t done it before, well, you have only to lift up a paper these days to find another article about the health-giving effects of choral singing. If you believ
e what they say, it’s the antidote to loneliness and depression and most of the other evils known to man. So, hopefully, the journey we’re embarking on tonight will not only prove enjoyable, but also therapeutic.

  ‘Before we start, a couple of people I want to thank. Ted Crisp, who I’m sure you all know, has not only allowed us to use this Function Room free of charge, but has also generously provided this evening’s wine and snacks.’ The landlord was no longer in the room. As soon as he’d opened the wine bottles, he’d scurried back to safety behind his bar. Beneath his gruff exterior, Ted was one of those innately generous people who got horribly embarrassed by being thanked for anything.

  Jude was struck by how confidently Heather Mallett was addressing the group. The retiring ‘invisible woman’ of Fethering had been transformed into this highly competent initiative-taker. Jude found herself even more intrigued about what had actually gone on inside the Malletts’ marriage.

  ‘The other person,’ Heather went on, ‘to whom I owe an enormous debt of thanks is KK Rosser.’ The musician gave a wave, as if he’d just completed a guitar solo. ‘It was KK’s idea to get the Crown & Anchor Choir going, and he is going to bring his considerable musical expertise to us in the role of choirmaster. Incidentally, for those of you who haven’t heard him, KK is always very busy locally playing with his band Rubber Truncheon.’

  Not that busy, thought Jude, remembering Ted Crisp’s views of the subject of KK’s gigs.

  ‘Anyway,’ Heather concluded, ‘I’m now going to hand over to him and …’ She stopped in response to the guitarist’s gesture of mercenary finger-rubbing. ‘Oh yes, I should have said: although KK was keen to give his services for free, I insisted that he must be paid something. So, he’s generously agreed that each of us should pay a fiver for every session of the choir that we attend. Which I think is very good value.’

  Nobody disagreed. Though there was poverty in Fethering, over on the Downside Estate, the people who lived there weren’t the sort who’d be likely to join a choir. The residents of the rest of the village were typical middle-class, constantly worrying about money, but with no real reason to.

  ‘Good, glad you’re all happy with that. Well, over to you, KK.’

  The guitarist seemed more relaxed now. Maybe he had just been nervous about meeting a new group of people. As he spoke to them, his voice took on a kind of laid-back mid-Atlantic twang. ‘Yeah. Thanks, Heather. Sorry about having to charge you, but we all need a bit of bread, don’t we? And, incidentally, first thing I want to do is to lose that handle “choirmaster”. Sounds really formal and uptight, and if there’s one thing these sessions ain’t gonna be, it’s formal and uptight.

  ‘We’re just here for the pleasure of putting a few tunes together. And, if any of you are a bit nervous about performing in public, don’t worry about it.’

  ‘Well, of course, I performed a lot in public, back in my Glyndebourne days. That was before the trouble with the nodules on my—’

  Possibly pre-warned by Heather, KK didn’t allow Elizabeth Browning to get into her narrative stride. He continued, ‘The Crown & Anchor Choir doesn’t exist to do gigs, just to get together and sing. Sure, if in a while we get a good sound going and people hear it and offer us gigs … cool, we might do them. But that’s not the aim of the exercise. We’re just here to loosen those old vocal cords and make sweet music.

  ‘And it isn’t like an exam. It’s not competitive. If you’re a good singer, that’s cool. If you’re the kind who can just about hold a tune on a good day, that’s cool too. And don’t worry if you can’t read music. I’ve had a full-time career as a muso for longer than I care to remember, and I can’t read a note of music. Don’t forget, Paul McCartney can’t read a note of music either.’

  No, thought Jude wryly. But then Paul McCartney woke up one morning with the complete tune of ‘Yesterday’ in his head, didn’t he? I don’t see much evidence of your having done anything like that, KK. She reflected how enduring the myth of the rock star lifestyle was, how many young men had bought into the fantasy of instinctive genius, of having no training, no responsibilities, along with an endless supply of gigs and groupies. She remembered a joke which a former musician lover had told her. ‘What do you call a drummer without a girlfriend?’ To which the answer was, of course, ‘Homeless.’ She had a feeling that KK Rosser fitted rather closely into that timeworn profile.

  ‘Anyway, enough chat. Let’s get down to some singing. You’ve done some photocopies, haven’t you, Heather?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Well, pass those round.’

  Heather, Jude observed, had put a lot of work into preparing for the evening. The music had been assembled in black plastic folders, one for each person there, and a good few spares.

  ‘Now, I don’t know,’ said KK, ‘whether this is your kinda music, but it’s my kinda music, and this is the kinda music we’re going to be playing. Yes, sirree. It’s basically stuff I like and, by the end of the evening, you’re going to like it too. And if any of you think choirs belong in church and that kind of crap, well, your ideas are going to change.’ Jude felt relieved Bob Hinkley wasn’t present to hear this.

  KK picked up his acoustic guitar and strummed a chord. ‘Now you’ll see the music in your folders has got the dots all printed out for you. If you can read them, great. If not, join my club. Of course, I don’t know what kind of voices you’ve got, and I’m not too bothered about all that soprano, tenor, bass stuff. We’ll just find some harmonies we like. And the best way we’ll find those is by cutting the crap and starting to sing. So, I want you all to turn to page seven on your hymn sheets – uh-uh, my little joke. Anyone know this one?’

  It was Carole King’s ‘You’ve Got a Friend’. Jude joined those who put up hands of recognition. The only people who didn’t were Ruskin Dewitt, and the two sisters Shirley and Veronica Tattersall. Presumably, their lives in church choirs had never encompassed popular music.

  ‘OK, let’s just start singing. I’ll give you a chord, and we’ll go straight into the song on the count of three.’ KK strummed his guitar. ‘Ah, one, two, three …’

  They were ragged, yes, but because most of them were familiar with the song, the overall sound was not too bad. Covertly, Jude looked around at her fellow singers. Though the Tattersall sisters were very nervous and gave little voice to the unfamiliar tune, all of the other participants looked happy. Ruskin Dewitt was, as ever, serenely flat, and serenely unaware of being flat. At the end of the song, the singers gave themselves a spontaneous round of applause.

  ‘Not so dusty,’ said KK. ‘We’ve got a good range of voices here, so let’s work out how we’re going to use them to get the best harmonies …’

  As he moved around, singing the lines he wanted the individual voices to take, Heather Mallett, whose note-perfect voice had soared above the others during the song, positively glowed. Her idea for the Crown & Anchor Choir was going to be a success.

  They continued work on ‘You’ve Got a Friend’ and three other songs until about eight fifteen. Then, rather abruptly, KK looked at his watch and said, ‘Well done all of you. Afraid that’s all for tonight. I gotta split. Due at a rehearsal.’

  Jude remembered Ted Crisp’s assertion that KK never rehearsed and wondered whether that had been true or was just joshing between the two men. Heather raised a hand to stop KK’s departure. ‘We haven’t paid you yet.’

  This could have been a plea to make him stay, but the woman’s tone hadn’t sounded needy.

  ‘Look, I gotta dash. Could you collect the bread, Heather, and give it to me whenever?’ Whether or not that implied the two were going to meet before the next Monday, Jude couldn’t be sure.

  But, as KK shoved his guitar into its black zip-up case and hurried off, Heather didn’t look upset by his departure.

  And in the Crown & Anchor bar, she looked distinctly happy. At the end of the proceedings some of the singers had gone straight out into the chilly night, but a good few had sta
yed for another drink. Jude was pleased about that. Though Ted had been generous with the free wine, she thought it was important to back up KK’s assertion that the choir evenings would boost his takings across the bar.

  ‘Well, that was rather fun,’ boomed Ruskin Dewitt. ‘I clearly have a lot to catch up on after my misspent youth concentrating on church music.’

  ‘Never underestimate popular song,’ said Bet Harrison.

  ‘I never will again. And if you can sing one kind of music, I’m sure you can easily adapt to another kind. The basics remain the same.’ Yes, thought Jude a little uncharitably, whatever the music, you still can’t sing it. You are destined to be flat for ever. There was something about Ruskin Dewitt’s certitude and complacency that had always annoyed her.

  ‘Of course, a lot of the great divas,’ said Elizabeth Browning, ‘broadened their repertoire very considerably into different genres of music. And I remember, at Glyndebourne, we were once asked to provide backing for an album of—’

  Heather had clearly been around Elizabeth long enough to know that interruption was the only way of stemming her flow. ‘Will you be up for coming again, Ruskin?’ she asked.

  ‘You betcha. My expedition into the mysterious world of popular song must continue. And please, my dear Heather, do call me “Russ”.’

  ‘All right … Russ.’

  Jude reckoned it was worth asking the direct question. ‘And will you all go on doing both choirs … you know, this and the church one?’

  ‘Oh yes, I’m sure we will,’ said Heather quickly.

  ‘Of course,’ said Bet Harrison.

  ‘Can’t let Bob down, can we?’ said Ruskin Dewitt.

  With an edge of cynicism, Jude wondered how long those good intentions would remain.

  ‘Apart from anything else,’ said Heather, ‘I want to have the full complement for Alice’s wedding. No absentees then. Have you all got the date inked into your diaries?’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Bet.

  ‘Wouldn’t miss it for worlds,’ said Russ.

  Heather turned to Jude. ‘And what about you?’