Guns in the Gallery

‘Oh, come on, Chervil . . .’ There was a rare note of exasperation in Jude’s voice. ‘Your father’s told me that the note left by Fennel’s body in the yurt was definitely the one he saw in the flat in Pimlico, the one he told you to destroy. That means it wasn’t left there by Fennel herself, because even if she had wished to go down the bizarre route of leaving the note she’d written before, it wasn’t in her possession, so she couldn’t have. You had it, Chervil, and I’d need a pretty convincing argument to persuade me it wasn’t you who left it there.’

‘Well, it wasn’t.’

‘No?’

‘No.’

‘When did you last see the note, Chervil?’

‘A few weeks ago. There’s a file I keep in a drawer in my bedroom. It’s personal stuff, things I don’t want to lose.’

‘Are you talking about your bedroom in your London flat?’

‘No, down here at Butterwyke House.’

‘And why did you look at the note a few weeks ago?’

‘Er, I can’t remember.’ The girl’s hesitation showed she was lying.

‘That’s not good enough, Chervil. We’re talking about a murder here. The suicide note was in your possession, then it appeared beside your sister’s body. The most likely explanation remains that you put it there.’

‘I didn’t!’ came the passionate response. ‘It was already there when I . . .’

The words trickled away as she realized what she had said. Jude let the silence stretch long enough for Chervil Whittaker to take in the full impact of her giveaway, then observed, ‘I think you’ve come rather close to an admission there.’

‘Admission of what?’ Chervil demanded defiantly.

‘Admission that you did go to the treatment yurt at Walden the night Fennel died.’

‘And what if I did? I didn’t murder her. She was already dead when I got there.’

‘With the suicide note lying beside her?’

‘Yes.’

‘So what did you do? On the previous occasion when you found Fennel like that you immediately contacted your father. Is that what you did this time?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘I didn’t want him involved. I didn’t want anyone involved. I didn’t want anyone to know what’d happened.’

‘Or rather you didn’t want anyone to know that you’d been in the yurt.’

‘All right, that was part of it. Look, I was in shock. At first I thought Fennel must’ve killed herself. She’d threatened to enough times. I thought she’d finally succeeded.’

‘But then you saw the note.’

‘Yes.’

‘And its presence told you that she must have been murdered.’

‘Well, it told me that was a possibility. As I say, I wasn’t thinking straight.’

‘Mm. I think the presence of the note brought another thought into your mind, the thought of who might have put it there.’ The girl didn’t respond, she remained stubbornly silent, so Jude changed tack. ‘Who else knew you had the suicide note, Chervil?’

‘No one.’

‘I don’t think that’s true. And if it is true, then you are the only person who could have planted it by the body. So either you admit someone else knew you had it, or you are effectively identifying yourself as your sister’s murderer. I do still have the number of Detective Inspector Hodgkinson, the police officer who questioned me after Fennel died . . .’

It was not the kind of threat that Jude liked using, but it did have the required effect. Chervil said, ‘Yes, all right, I did show it to someone else.’

‘Who? I can’t think there are that many candidates.’

‘Well, I . . .’

Jude was distracted by another thought. ‘When you found Fennel’s body, did you also find her mobile phone?’

Chervil Whittaker looked as guilty as a schoolgirl caught smoking by the headmistress. ‘How did you know that?’

‘Logic,’ replied Jude, though in fact guesswork would have been a more truthful answer. ‘Did you take it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’ Silence. ‘I don’t think I really need to ask that question. I know why you took it. Because you knew that the last message or text on the phone would have been the one from Fennel’s murderer, the one that arranged their meeting in the treatment yurt. You took the phone because you wanted to protect the person who you thought had killed your sister.’ Still no response. ‘And where’s the phone now?’

‘Somewhere no one will ever find it.’

‘I wonder where that might be . . .? Rather blessed round here, aren’t we, being so close to the sea. Not to mention to the River Fether. And of course that’s tidal, so anything thrown in there can get swept out a long way. Be hard to find a mobile phone in the English Channel, wouldn’t it, Chervil?’

Jude was busking, improvising wildly. But she had sometimes known occasions where her instinctive conjectures had proved to be right, and she felt as if she was on just such a roll at that moment.

Anyway, the actual location of the missing mobile didn’t matter that much. There were more important issues to be discussed.

‘So who was the last message on Fennel’s mobile from?’ she asked implacably.

‘I didn’t look.’