“Thought he’d be taller,” Barbara commented as she took in the supine figure in his robes, dagger clutched on his chest.
“That would be ’cause of the film, I expect,” Sharon told her.
“They don’t make ’em like they used to,” Barbara said.
“It’s all car crashes and shoot-outs now, isn’t it?”
“Like films are all made for twelve-year-old boys.”
“They probably are.” Sharon turned from the monument and gazed at Barbara with peaceful-looking eyes. “What d’you want to talk to me about?” she asked directly. “I phoned Alastair to ask him, ’cause the only thing I could think of was that this has to have something to do with Clare Abbott’s death.”
“And with Caroline Goldacre’s life,” Barbara told her. “We have it from her son Charlie that you and the husband are making the big nasty.”
“Oh.” Sharon coloured deeply.
“You can lie about it, ’course,” Barbara said, “but neighbours have a way of forgetting to turn a blind eye, and when they see things like blokes coming and going or coming and staying and when this goes on for a bit of time—”
“I’m not trying to hide it,” Sharon told her. “It’s only . . . It’s the way you put it. ‘The big nasty.’ You make it sound dirty. But it’s not.”
“I ’spect not. Fraught with emotion. Hearts and flowers. P’rhaps a fag shared between you in the afters as you stare up at the ceiling and wonder where it’s all going to go if one of you doesn’t make the necessary move. You know what I mean.”
Sharon frowned, seeming not so much offended as puzzled. “Are you always so rude?”
“When it comes to murder.”
Sharon moved to one of the pews. It stood before a small side chapel where the faint remains of a painting done onto the wall of the church suggested the building’s Saxon origins. She sat here. She still had her sandwich in hand, but it seemed that her appetite had left. She rustled in her capacious handbag and brought out the sandwich’s wrapping. She used it carefully, tucking the cling film round the bread as if she were seeing to the nighttime ritual of a beloved child. Barbara joined her in the pew although Sharon didn’t look particularly welcoming when it came to sharing the space with her.
She said, “If all this’s about Clare Abbott’s death, we didn’t have a thing to do with that, me or Alastair. He told me the police came round to talk to him and Caroline, and it’s true like you said that he told me ‘in the afters.’ But I didn’t know Clare Abbott and ’f Alastair knew her, it was ’cause Caroline worked for her. ’Course she arranged that memorial for Will and I met her then ’cause I was invited to the dedication ceremony just like everyone else from the shops. But that was the whole of it.”
“The whole of Clare but not of Caroline,” Barbara pointed out.
“I already told you the truth about that. Me and Alastair . . . It’s not dirty no matter how you try to make it look.”
“Right. Making a note in my brain. It’s not dirty. Man, woman, true love, meant-to-be, bigger-than-both-of-us, and all the rest. Got it. But why I’m here? It’s not about all that. Or I guess I should say it’s only part about that. The other part is murder, with Caroline and not Clare Abbott being the target.”
Sharon’s lips—colourless like the rest of her—parted then closed. After a moment she said carefully, “What’re you on about, then?”
“Poison. It started out in Caroline’s kit, not in Clare’s. Caroline handed it over to Clare and—”
“Then Caroline’s the one who—”
“—Clare used it. Presto, she’s dead. But, see, no one has a reason to knock her, far as we c’n tell. Whereas looking at Caroline as potential victim . . . ? I got to admit I didn’t care much for her in the limited time we shared the same airspace, and I also got to admit I’m learning why someone might want to wave her the permanent bye-byes. And I reckon you can see how you and the husband would top the list. Doing the big nasty . . . ? Whoops, pardon. There’s that term again. Sorry.” Barbara paused for a moment to reach for another more suitable euphemism. She went on with, ‘Playing sink the pole in such a way that only taking an advert out in the local newspaper would make it more apparent . . . ? That doesn’t look good for you or the husband either. Makes him or you or both of you look nice to set up a killing, Mrs. Halsey. That whole ‘we must be together, beloved’? In my experience, that scores high, alongside ‘I’ve never felt like this before,’ when it comes to motives for murder.”
To her credit, Barbara thought, Sharon Halsey maintained a look of complete dignity. She smoothed her hand down the front of her plaid skirt—Barbara wondered where she’d unearthed the thing as she hadn’t seen plaid on anyone save a schoolgirl or a Scot since before her tenth birthday—and she tucked it round her legs. She said, “You c’n call it what you like, I s’pose, what me and Alastair have together. I can’t stop you, can I? I c’n even see how it looks to you, like we’re sneaking round the countryside looking for a place to meet with no one the wiser.”
“No, I expect you’ve done it openly, Mrs. Halsey, else why would Caroline know? ’Less she caught you at it. Did she catch you? Did she threaten you? Or him p’rhaps? Did she take the first step to sort you out proper?”
“Like how?”
“Not sure, but I expect running our Alastair through the juicer to squeeze what she could get out of him in a divorce settlement before she drops him into the dustbin . . . ? That would work a real treat.”
“So what you’re thinking is this’s all ’bout what Alastair has and the business he’s built and how I’m set on his keeping it safe from her no matter what. But what you can’t work out is that I don’t need Alastair to leave her. We know what we are to each other, me and Alastair, and whether he’s with Caroline or with me, the truth of what we are isn’t about to change.” She stood at that as if with the intention of departing.
Barbara did likewise, in order to block her. She said, “Now, that makes you one bloody extraordinary bird, Mrs. Halsey.”
“What’s that mean, then?”
“You’re saying that whether he leaves his wife to come to you or stays with her and uses you couple times a week as the mash for his banger . . . it makes no difference to you? You don’t give a toss? Is that what you actually want me to believe?”
“Believe what you want with your talk of bangers and poles and the big nasty and such. You never loved anyone, I ’spect. If you did, you’d talk different about it all.”
That said, she started to push past Barbara. For Barbara it was a case of let her go or do some sort of chest dance with her to keep her inside the pew. But she reckoned enough had been said between them. She now had one of two choices: either to believe the woman’s assertions about the great and tender love between her and Caroline Goldacre’s husband along with her completely unlikely lack of interest in having him become a permanent fixture in her life or to uncover a different truth entirely. That one would point to her or to her lover putting eager mitts upon some sodium azide and planting it in Caroline’s belongings. No matter the case, Barbara wasn’t going to achieve anything by arguing the finer points of love with Sharon Halsey. So she let her go. It was time, she decided, to pay a call on Alastair in order to have a prowl round the bakery where tucking away a deadly poison would probably be child’s play, considering everything she’d seen inside the place from a simple glance through the windows when she’d been there earlier with Nkata.
So Alastair MacKerron it was, she decided.
She returned to Clare’s car, dodging raindrops. She’d left it along North Street, in front of a café whose menu suggested a chip butty was in order, especially as Nkata wasn’t with her to offer his frown of dismay when he heard her order it.
She was about to duck inside the place when her gaze fell upon the Jetta’s left front tyre. It was, maddeningly, flat as fried bread. She stare
d at it. She cursed. She considered waiting for an alteration in the weather while building up her strength to change the tyre by downing two chip butties instead of one because the sodding inconvenience of a sodding flat tyre meant she was owed, didn’t it? But in the end, she gave in to duty and she dug Clare’s keys out of her bag and headed for the car’s boot and the spare tyre within it.
There wasn’t one. There was a space for it, of course, in a well just beneath a sturdy cover that made the floor of the boot usable for storage. But inside this tyre-sized hollow was not what she needed. Instead what rested within the well for the spare tyre was what appeared to be a strongbox of the sort one stored valuable papers in to protect them in case of a fire. Barbara felt her pulse increase as she took in the sight of the box and she clocked the lock upon it. She cast all thought of chip butties and flat tyres aside as she lifted the thing out of its hiding place. She couldn’t open it, of course, because of the lock. But inside her shoulder bag and inside a small manila envelope that she’d been carrying round, she had a key.
Unceremoniously and in the rain, she dumped her shoulder bag’s contents onto the wet pavement. A quick paw through everything from fags to Wrigley’s Spearmint to two small calculators gifted her by her bank and she’d disinterred the small manila envelope from the dog-eared pages of her chequebook, where it had become lodged. She shook the key into her palm and inserted it into the lock on the strongbox. Bingo, she thought as it turned like a dream.
She opened the thing a fraction only because of the rain. Inside she glimpsed a veritable bonanza of filing folders. No one needed to carry round her personal papers in the boot of a car in a strongbox, Barbara reckoned. A box such as this would protect them well enough if left inside one’s house. The way she looked at it, what Clare Abbott had been carrying round in the car was something she didn’t want the prying eyes of her assistant ever to see. In other words, she—Barbara Havers—had hit the jackpot.
WAREHAM
DORSET
The café wasn’t making a killing on this particular day, and from the look of the place Barbara reckoned it wasn’t making a killing on any other day either. Everything was worn: from the lino on the floor to a crusty-looking fan on the ceiling. The tables were of a vintage and an unmatched variety suggesting rescue from skips, and the chairs looked like a furniture version of the United Nations. In short, it was perfect for her needs. She could sift through the contents of the strongbox unbothered and unless they tossed her out onto the pavement, she could take as long as she needed to read whatever she came across.
She ordered enough food to keep everyone happy: the previously decided upon chip butty to which she added a cheddar toastie, a ham salad, and a slice of pineapple upside-down cake. The waitress looked like someone’s ageing mother and she seemed ready to comment about Barbara’s selection and the likelihood of its contributing to her overall health. But it appeared that tired feet got the better of her, for after saying, “And the cake ’s well?” she merely staggered off to put in the order.
Barbara had selected the largest table since there was no one else in the place. She placed the fire box at one end and began to empty it of its neatly and blessedly labeled filing folders. In short order she found herself looking at the transcript of an interview with Francis Goldacre, the transcript of an interview with Mercedes Garza, nicely typed notes from conversations with Hermione Barnett, Linne Stephens, and Wallis Howard, and a very thick manila folder that contained printed and highlighted copies of received emails. These were all from Caroline Goldacre to Clare Abbott. Barbara felt her arms come out in goose bumps when she saw them.
She wanted to begin with the emails, but they comprised such a massive collection that she decided having a look at the interviews might be more efficient. So as she waited for her food to arrive, she began with the transcript inside the folder marked with Francis Goldacre’s name. She skimmed it first, dipping in and out of the information.
It appeared to comprise a history of the relationship between Francis and Caroline, told in Francis’s own words and beginning with how he had met his wife, a circumstance that he claimed he remembered vividly from his first look at her in a wine bar:
She was gorgeous and my God so voluptuous that I couldn’t take my eyes off her breasts. She was making the most of them in some sort of peasant blouse displaying deep cleavage. Perfect, actually, for working at a wine bar since having a look at her was enough to encourage repeat custom. I thought she was foreign at first. She looked foreign. She drew me out about my studies and as I was just completing them, I was more than ready to be drawn. I went back three or four times before we got together . . . sorry, euphemism . . . before we were sexual, and I felt bloody lucky that she’d chosen me. I mean, everyone wanted her, but she kept her distance. She was always friendly to the drinkers, but you knew where the line was with her. So I felt quite flattered when she wanted me. Ego and all that. She was very young. She said she was twenty-one, but it turned out she was only just eighteen and that nearly put me off because of the difference in our ages—more than ten years. But to tell the truth she made so much of me and I wanted to be made much of. What man doesn’t?
What then followed was a detailed description of the budding relationship as it was remembered by the man being interviewed. Barbara skimmed this till the words attempted suicide leapt out at her. She homed in on them and on:
. . . directly she told me she was pregnant. I didn’t feel caught, as you might conclude. Rather, I felt needed. After she recovered from the attempt, she offered to abort but I could see she didn’t really want that and neither did I. What I thought at the time was that I’d always intended to marry and I’d been thinking more and more of asking her and we did get on so well in bed . . . not that one ought to base a marriage on that, but when the blood is boiling, it does take a while to cool off and common sense goes out the window. So marriage seemed right and I asked her. She was hesitant at first. I had to talk her into it. We did the registry office thing and set up house. That was it. But then as the pregnancy continued, it seemed to bring out the worst in her. I thought it was hormones and I told myself this change in her it would fade in time and she’d go back to being herself after the baby was born, but that wasn’t the case.
Then on the top of the third page Barbara saw:
. . . actually drove the car into a tree and even today I couldn’t tell you why. But by then I knew I was dealing with something troubling. She said Yes of course she’d driven the car into a tree because she’d been angry with me for ringing to tell her I’d be missing dinner. Not for forgetting to ring her, mind you, but for ringing in the first place. She’d already started to prepare it, it was something special, and she was beside herself when I wouldn’t be there to eat it. So she went outside, got into the car, drove it at speed straight into a tree on the lawn, and left it there for me to find. After that, to tell the truth, I didn’t cope well in dealing with her. Withdrawing seemed best. Being silent and watchful, as I wasn’t at all sure what she might be capable of.
Barbara closed the folder and tapped her fingers thoughtfully on it. She had to admit that, despite the fact that the tale was being told by Francis Goldacre about his former wife, which alone might have been intriguing to Clare, the story itself was also the antithesis of romantic love. So she was forced to consider something less sinister than Clare Abbott wearing her brothel creepers as she slithered round Caroline Goldacre’s past for something juicy. She could have been merely engaged in gathering information for a future sequel to Looking for Mr. Darcy, providing herself with more facts for her thesis.
Barbara opened the Mercedes Garza folder and gave its contents a glance. Its documents began with:
Caroline’s mum is sixty-eight years old. My request for an interview with her was met with surprise but no reluctance once we got through the reason for my subterfuge in arranging the meeting, which she said didn’t surprise her at all. She ca
me to me in Spitalfields.
There followed a history of the mother-child relationship between Mercedes and Caroline, and the fact of it being a mother-and-child exploration made Barbara consider that the previous folder had no real connection to Looking for Mr. Darcy at all. For as far as she knew, the Darcy book didn’t deal with mothers and their children. So was this a stab at yet another topic for a book? she wondered. Or was it something else?
The first of Barbara’s food arrived: the chip butty and the cheese toastie nesting together on a plastic plate decorated along its edges with munching bunnies enjoying their veggies and perhaps attempting to encourage diners to do the same. Barbara ignored them and made a request for brown sauce, ketchup, and malt vinegar on the theory that one never knew which was going to take the chip butty directly over the top into gourmet dining. She tucked in and went next to the thick folder containing the emails.
It would, she knew, take hours to read through them all, so she decided to begin with a selection. She doused her chip butty with brown sauce, took a hefty bite, evaluated the level of gastronomical delectation it provided her, added some ketchup, and dipped into the emails, making an arbitrary selection of several from the beginning, several from the middle, and several from the end. Thus she was able to see the alteration in both tone and contents although further delving also demonstrated that the alteration in tone illustrated not a consistent change but rather one that, like a roller coaster, rose and fell in what appeared to be an indiscriminate fashion.
The emails began in the polite manner of one woman writing to another to whom she has only been recently introduced. These dealt largely with Caroline Goldacre’s admiration for Clare Abbott as a writer, lecturer, and feminist. Clare had apparently handed over her email address following a talk she’d given in Shaftesbury—mention was made of the Women’s League and the date on the email was just over two years earlier—and Caroline declared herself surprised that Clare would respond to her. This was along the lines of “when I think about all you’ve achieved and compare it to what I’ve done with my own life, which isn’t much,” accompanied by a fair amount of social groveling that made Barbara squirm. However, it soon appeared from the ensuing emails that—chatty and friendly though she was in them—Caroline was angling for employment and while what Barbara herself had learned about Clare, as well as what she’d witnessed when she’d met her, didn’t indicate that the feminist would actually fall for Caroline’s obvious manouevring, she reckoned that it had seemed to Clare Abbott at first that an affable and much-needed housecleaner had fallen into her lap.