Murder in the Museum (Fethering Mysteries) (22 page)

‘Are you?’ The look on his face did no favours to her self-esteem. ‘Why you, of all people?’

‘Because of my successful career in the Home Office,’ she replied frostily (though, even as she used it, she had a little niggle of doubt about the word ‘successful’).

‘Oh. Right.’ Ted Crisp nodded the nod of a man who didn’t know about that kind of thing. ‘So, if you’re a Trustee, you can give me all the dirt.’

‘Sadly, I can’t. For two reasons. One – we’ve all been sworn to absolute secrecy . . .’

‘Ah.’

‘And, two,’ she confessed sheepishly – though not entirely accurately, ‘I don’t really know any dirt.’ He nodded in sympathy with the unfairness of her situation. ‘So what your lunchtime regulars were saying, Ted, is probably at least as useful as anything I know. What were their speculations?’

‘Oh, the usual suspects. A serial killer. They like serial killers, the old geezers who come in here. The Sanatogen and Stairlift Brigade. I keep trying to tell them that you can’t have a serial killer responsible for a single murder. By definition, there has to be at least one more stiff before you can start using the expression. But will they listen?’

Carole grinned. Her previous life hadn’t encompassed anyone like Ted Crisp.

‘Then some of the old farts reckon the murder’s down to local politics inside Bracketts. If they knew you was a Trustee up there, then they’d definitely finger you for the job, Carole. Or again, there’s the Escaped Convict Theory.’

‘Hm?’

‘Always very popular for any crime done round this locality. ’Cause we’re so near to Austen, you see. Crime in a nice middle-class area like West Sussex – must’ve been done by a criminal, that’s how the logic goes. And where are there any criminals round here? HMP Austen’s bloody full of them. So there’s your culprit. And, as it happens, a lifer did go over the wall few days back, so . . . there you are – bingo, hit the jackpot – he must’ve done it.’

Carole nodded slowly, as the image came to her mind of Sheila Cartwright turning on Mervyn Hunter just after he’d discovered the skull in the kitchen garden.

There was a clatter from the door, and the sounds of a tired family entering after a chilly day on the beach. The wife had wanted to go straight home. The husband was insisting on having a quick pint before they faced the drive back. The children had had enough.

Ted rose to his feet. ‘Better go and do my job, I suppose.’ He grinned down at Carole. ‘My regulars’ll be dead impressed when I tell them you’re a Trustee up at Bracketts.’

‘What, because they haven’t heard before about my distinguished career in the Home Office?’

‘Nah.’ Ted Crisp shook his head in bewilderment. ‘Because there’s been a murder up there.’

The bickering family’s arrival was quickly followed by that of Gina Locke. She also asked for a white wine, and the two women were soon ensconced in a corner booth, well away from the Crown and Anchor’s other customers.

The impression Carole had received the previous evening – and indeed on the telephone – that the Director had been empowered by Sheila Cartwright’s death, was accentuated by seeing her again in the flesh. The charisma which had struck Carole on first meeting seemed to have paled during their subsequent acquaintance, but was now back in full force. She had never particularly noticed Gina’s clothes before, but that evening was aware of the finesse with which the generously cut grey trousers and skimpy chocolate-coloured woollen top had been chosen. The brown eyes had an added lustre, and the short dark hair looked newly sculpted. The murder of Sheila Cartwright had effected a make-over in Gina Locke.

‘Reason for this meeting is a bit of a hymn-sheet one,’ she began.

‘Sorry?’

‘Hymn-sheet. See that we’re all singing from the same one.’

‘Ah. Yes.’ Carole felt exposed and unfashionable. She had heard Sheila using the expression before; she should have caught on quicker.

‘I think there could be an announcement from the police sooner rather than later, so I want all the Trustees to be prepared.’

‘An announcement? Are you talking about an announcement of an arrest?’

‘Yes. It’s a pretty open-and-shut case. Even the notoriously thick British Police Force can’t take long over this one.’

It wasn’t Carole’s style to say ‘Whoa, whoa, hold your horses!’, but she raised a hand which had the same effect. ‘You’re saying you have no doubt who killed Sheila?’

‘Of course not. It was Graham.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, he’s the obvious suspect. You were there, you saw her humiliate him in front of the other Trustees. You saw her take away from him his life’s work – the biography of Esmond Chadleigh. If that’s not sufficient motive for murder, I’d like to know what is.’

‘But—’

Gina was not about to stop. ‘What’s more, he’d got the gun. Supposedly taken it for cleaning, but if you believe that, you’d believe anything.’

Gina clearly shared Jude’s conviction that the murder weapon was the gun from the display-case, but Carole wanted more proof. ‘Have the police actually told you that Graham Chadleigh’s service revolver was the one that was used?’

Gina smiled. ‘You say Graham Chadleigh’s, but in fact there’s some doubt about that.’

‘But it’s in the display-case with a card saying it belonged to Graham Chadleigh.’

There was a little cynical shrug. ‘Truth is one of the first casualties of the heritage industry, Carole. If you counted up all the beds in which Queen Elizabeth the First slept, she’d’ve had to be using about three a night.’

‘Ah. Have you ever handled the revolver, Gina?’

‘No,’ came the sharp reply.

‘Graham told me it was in full working order.’

‘Must’ve been. And if he admits to knowing that . . . behold another argument for the fact that he shot Sheila.’

‘He said the Estate Manager sometimes used it for shooting rabbits . . .’

‘Not the current Estate Manager. He’s anti-blood sports, anti-meat-eating, anti-virtually everything. You’d never catch him shooting anything other than his mouth off.’

‘Ah, right. So nothing else of interest you’ve gleaned from the police, Gina?’

‘No, they’ve told me very little, actually. Not surprised, they’ve been so busy questioning Graham.’

‘Have they?’

‘Yes. Apparently, he claims to have an alibi for the time of the murder, but it’s only old Belinda. And since she only seems to be half-conscious at the best of times, the police shouldn’t take long to crack that. I think they’ll arrest him in the next twenty-four hours.’

‘What makes you so sure, Gina?’

‘Logic. The logic I’ve just outlined to you and . . . Graham’s character. He’s not the most stable of people, is he?’

‘No. True. But there’s a big jump from being unstable to being a murderer.’

‘Depends on the provocation.’

‘Maybe. So you’re of the view that we’re all capable of murder, given the right provocation?’

‘Yes, I think I’d go along with that.’

Carole fixed Gina with her pale blue eyes. ‘You took quite a bit of provocation at the Emergency Trustees’ Meeting.’

‘Yes.’ The Director giggled, suddenly girlish. ‘Sheila had got me pretty furious, I don’t deny it. Maybe I would have topped her myself . . . if Graham hadn’t so conveniently saved me the trouble. Her death is certainly the best thing that’s happened since I took over this job.’

Carole must have shown some instinctive middle-class reaction of disapproval, because Gina went on, ‘Sorry, not the right thing to say, is it, of a woman less than twenty-four hours dead? Don’t speak ill, et cetera . . . But I can’t pretend in Sheila’s case. That woman’s sole aim was to make my life a misery. I am ecstatic to know that she is no longer around, and that I am now free to get on with my job as Director of Bracketts.’

A motive for killing Sheila Cartwright could not have been more straightforwardly expressed, and yet the very insouciant baldness with which Gina Locke had spoken seemed instantly to rule her out as a suspect. Surely, thought Carole, no double bluff could be that elaborate.

But Gina hadn’t finished. ‘I think what really annoyed me was that I’d been set up from the start.’

‘Sorry?’

‘With the job. Sheila had decided a year or so back that she was taking on too much at Bracketts, and she needed to back off a bit, bring in someone else to do the administration. The Trustees, some of whom had been getting a bit sick of her high-handed ways, agreed, and advertised for the job of Director. Sheila wanted a yes-man – or yes-woman – someone to do the boring stuff and rubber-stamp her decisions. The Trustees wanted someone with a bit more self-motivation and energy. I got the job. Sheila stood down, and became a Trustee.

‘Except, of course, she was no more capable of standing down and giving her successor a free run than Margaret Thatcher was. From the day I started here, it was clear that I was Director in name only. I was still going to have Sheila leaning over my shoulder all the time, cherry-picking the best bits of the job. A potential major sponsor in the offing . . . did
I
get to go and do the pitch to them? Did I hell! No, they were used to dealing with Sheila Cartwright. They wouldn’t be safe in the hands of someone my age – in spite of the qualifications I have in the arts, leisure and heritage industries.’

Gina Locke took a long, satisfied sigh, and sipped from her glass. But Carole didn’t say anything; she sensed there was more to come.

‘Well, I don’t need to tell you. You’ve seen her in action, Carole. She resigned as a Trustee . . . which is in fact why there was a vacancy on the Board for you to fill . . . and you’re not going to believe the reason Sheila gave for resigning. “I don’t really think a Trusteeship is the ideal role for me – it seems to involve responsibility without power.” ’ The tone with which she invested the words was uncannily evocative of the dead woman.

‘Put it another way, being on the Board of Trustees meant she occasionally had to listen to the opinions of others about what should be done at Bracketts. So she ceased to be a Trustee, and just continued to go her own sweet way, as if there never had been any change in the management structure.’

Gina grinned gleefully. ‘But not any more. I am now going to show what I can do in this job. I’m going to turn Bracketts round, and I am going to get that Museum built.’

‘Have you got a sponsor then?’

‘I’ve got some very good potential names. Big companies. Sheila had set up meetings with them. I will go to those meetings, catch them when their guard’s down and they feel they should be saying appropriate things about her death. There’s nothing like death to put people in a charitable mood.’

This sounded a painfully cynical approach to fund-raising, but Carole didn’t question its efficacy. For some obscure reason, though, she felt moved to defend Sheila Cartwright, exonerate the dead woman from the full force of Gina’s vilification. ‘Did Sheila ever tell you why she took up the cause of Bracketts so single-mindedly?’

Gina Locke shrugged. The answer didn’t interest her. But Carole still recounted the conversation she’d had with Sheila while they were waiting for the rain to ease off . . . in fact just before the woman had been shot.

Still Gina wasn’t impressed. ‘That may have been what started her off. What kept her going was her pure megalomania. From which, thank goodness, none of us will ever have to suffer again.’

There was a silence. The unchallenged Director of Bracketts glowed. Having unburdened herself of that lot, the make-over was complete.

Then Carole said, ‘Which I assume means you won’t go to Sheila’s funeral . . . whenever that may be?’

‘Don’t you believe it. I’ll be there.’

‘But if you hated the woman as much as you say . . .’

‘All the Great and the Good of West Sussex will be there.’ She made a little finger-rubbing money gesture. ‘Dosh. Potential sponsors.’

‘Right,’ said Carole, who was beginning to get a clearer idea about the ethics of fund-raising.

And that was about it, really. They finished their drinks, and Gina said she’d have to go. Which she did, leaving Carole Seddon wondering why this important face-to-face meeting had been set up in the first place.

All Carole was left with was the very strong impression that the Director hadn’t killed Sheila Cartwright, but that Graham Chadleigh-Bewes had.

Which perhaps, she reflected, was exactly the impression with which Gina Locke had intended to leave her. And to give that impression had, indeed, been the sole purpose of their meeting.

Jude enjoyed a slow getting-up on the Sunday morning. She had had all the windows open most of the previous day, and only a residual tang of cigarette now hung about Woodside Cottage. It was a long time since she had cohabited with anyone for more than a night, and she couldn’t deny her relief at having the house to herself.

The fact that she knew Laurence Hawker to be in the company – almost certainly the bed – of another woman could not have worried her less. For the first six months in Prague, even the suspicion of such a possibility would have reduced her to an anguish of doubt and pain. Now . . . the image of the other woman did not even enter her mind. Partly, she knew, this was because she had matured. And partly . . . it was because of Laurence’s circumstances.