Murder in the Museum. Simon BrettЧитать онлайн книгу.
can we just deal with this calmly, please?’
Carole turned to see the tall figure of Sheila Cartwright approaching through the kitchen garden gates.
‘Of course, we’ll deal with it calmly,’ said Gina Locke, determined not to allow another usurpation of her authority. ‘Has anyone notified the police yet?’
The Volunteers shook their heads, and instinctively looked to Sheila Cartwright for their next instruction. At Bracketts old habits died hard.
‘And does the Estate Manager know?’
More shaking of heads. ‘Jonny only just found it,’ said one of the girl Volunteers.
‘Well, could you go and tell him?’ The girl set off obediently towards the stable block.
While Sheila Cartwright issued further instructions, Carole looked down at the skull and tried to analyse her reactions. The way it lay suggested that further digging would show the skull to be attached to an entire skeleton. And the neat circular hole in the back of the cranial dome raised the possibility that its owner had met an untimely end. But to her surprise, Carole realized she felt only the mildest shock at the sight. The predominant emotion she felt was curiosity, a need for explanations.
Another incipient conflict between Sheila Cartwright and Gina Locke brought her back to the present. The fuse was lit by Sheila’s assertion that she would notify the police of what had happened.
Gina instantly dug her toes in. ‘I don’t think that’s your job.’
‘Why?’ The older woman withered the younger one with her stare. ‘I rather doubt whether you know the Chief Constable as well as I do.’
‘This is hardly a matter to go up to Chief Constable level.’
‘If I may say so, Gina, that shows how little you know. The finding of a dead body somewhere like Bracketts is the kind of thing that must be kept from the press for as long as possible. If it can be kept quiet till the house closes for the end of the season, that will save a lot of disruption. Paul – the Chief Constable – will know exactly how to control the publicity. I’ll go and make the call.’
Then she turned her dominant eye on the little group that stood around the skull. ‘I need hardly say that this is something you keep entirely to yourselves. No information must be allowed to leak out before I release an authorized press statement.’
‘It isn’t you who will be issuing a press statement.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Gina! This is important. And dangerous. This is no time for petty demarcation disputes.’
The Director’s mouth was open for her response to that, but she didn’t manage to get it out, before Sheila Cartwright turned the beam of her disapproval on to one of the Volunteers. ‘Mervyn. How is it you always seem to be on the scene when there’s trouble?’
He was a thin man in his thirties with a shaven head, and the effect of her words was unexpected. Suddenly he started to sob; his whole body shook with the strength of his emotions. Jonny Tyson moved to the man, and enfolded him in an instinctive hug, the comfort given by one child to another who had just fallen over in the school playground.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ snapped Sheila Cartwright. ‘This is a serious situation. We’ve got enough on our plates without you having hysterics!’
‘I’m sorry, it’s just . . .’ The man called Mervyn’s thin, Northern voice trembled. ‘ . . . Seeing a dead body . . . I’ve never been able to stand that . . .’
‘Must make life difficult for you,’ said Sheila Cartwright unsympathetically, ‘ . . . given your past history.’
Chapter Five
‘I’ve been sworn to secrecy . . .’
‘Carole, I just love openings like that.’ Jude rubbed her hands together with glee. ‘The ones which mean the exact opposite of what’s being said. “I’d be the last one to criticize . . .”, but that’s exactly what I’m about to do. “To be perfectly honest . . .” – always sets the alarm bells ringing for me. And, of course, “I’ve been sworn to secrecy . . ”, but that’s not going to stop me telling you every gory detail.’
‘Well, perhaps I shouldn’t.’
‘Oh, come on. You know you’re going to tell me eventually. Just get on and do it.’
It was two days after the discovery of the skull. They were sitting in the bar of the Crown and Anchor, which was full of Saturday seaside visitors, bulbous parents bursting out of sweatshirts, children with sand in their plastic sandals. The tables outside were even busier. The day was hot for late October, the kind of weather that made local residents talk darkly of ‘global warming’.
Fethering’s only pub had about it the feeling of a well-used armchair, and the same could be said for its landlord. Ted Crisp’s shaggy hair and beard were the same all the year round, but now he was in his summer uniform of grubby T-shirt rather than his grubby winter sweatshirt. Carole had an uncomfortable feeling that he might be wearing shorts too, but since Jude had been the one to buy their glasses of Chilean Chardonnay and Ted hadn’t emerged from behind the bar yet, she had no proof of this.
There was an air of ease about Jude too, a lightness that was unusual in a woman of her ample dimensions and fifty-five years. The sun had generously toasted her broad face and bare arms; the blonde hair, secured by an insufficiency of pins, made a gravity-defying structure on top of her head. As ever, she breathed serenity, a quality which Carole recognized her own more uptight personality could never hope to attain.
The two women could not have been more different, and yet, ever since Jude had moved into Wood-side Cottage next door to Carole, their friendship had flourished.
‘So tell me,’ said Jude.
‘There’s not much to tell. Just the finding of a skeleton.’
‘That doesn’t happen every day.’
‘Not to most people. I think you and I are bringing up the national average, though.’
Jude chuckled. ‘But we are talking about a murder, aren’t we? Please say yes.’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘You haven’t heard anything from the police?’
‘No. They were around Bracketts, of course. Still are around, I imagine. They interviewed all of us, told us not to tell anyone anything . . .’
This prompted a grin. ‘An instruction which, I’m glad to say, you, Carole, have ignored completely.’
‘Look, this goes no further. OK?’
‘Of course not.’ Jude grinned innocently. ‘What do you take me for?’
Carole didn’t bother to answer that.
‘I’m sure it’s a murder,’ Jude persisted. ‘You said that there was a hole in the skull.’
‘You can get a hole in your skull from something falling on it. Doesn’t have to be foul play.’
‘But if someone dies accidentally, you don’t hide their body in a kitchen garden, do you?’ Jude’s face took on an expression of childlike insistence. ‘Go on, say it was a murder.’
‘I can’t say that,’ Carole responded primly. ‘The person who owned the skull is dead; beyond that I haven’t got anything definite to go on. Everyone at Bracketts has clammed up. Certainly no information coming out of there.’
‘Not even to a Trustee?’
‘Particularly not to a Trustee. Or particularly not to this Trustee. The Director was acutely embarrassed that I even saw as much as I did.’