Guns in the Gallery

But she couldn’t get through to Jude, so the day’s frustration continued to pile up. And of course the demands of a dog didn’t stop, however dramatic the human situation around him. Gulliver needed to do his business. And though he could just be taken out on to the rough ground behind High Tor, that seemed rather mean. He’d much prefer a proper walk. And if Carole took her mobile with her, she could keep trying to raise her unavailable neighbour.

Just as she was about to leave with Gulliver, the landline rang. It was, thank God, Jude. And a Jude full of more news than Carole could have hoped for. Her words came out stumbling over each other in a rush as she recounted the discoveries of the day. Finally there was enough silence for Carole to contribute what she had witnessed – via the webcam – in Denzil Willoughby’s workshop.

Everything pointed in the same direction, towards Bonita Green’s guilt. Jude was going to catch a train that would get her into Fethering Station soon after seven. Carole would be there in the Renault to meet her and they would drive to the Cornelian Gallery for the final confrontation.

But there was plenty of time before that for Gulliver to get a decent walk. So dog and owner set off towards Fethering Beach. The good weather was continuing and the afternoon felt more like June than early May.

It was inevitable that their route would take them past the parade of shops and, of course, the Cornelian Gallery. As her mind imagined scenarios for the forthcoming encounter with Bonita Green, Carole was not a little shocked to see the object of her speculation outside the gallery, loading suitcases into a car.

The first word that came into Carole’s mind was ‘getaway’. She and Jude had solved the case, they’d fingered the murderer and now that murderer was trying to get away. The confrontation schedule would have to be moved up a few hours.

Without hesitation, Carole stepped forward to Bonita Green and said, ‘I’d like to have a word with you if I may.’

The gallery-owner looked a little puzzled, but closed the hatchback of her car and said, ‘Fine. Would you like to come in?’

‘Thank you,’ Carole replied formally. ‘Do you mind if I bring the dog?’

Permission granted, Gulliver was led into the Cornelian Gallery. Carole would really have preferred Jude with her than the dog. Gulliver was quite capable of defusing the drama of this kind of situation by licking the murderer’s hand.

The gallery interior looked exactly as Carole remembered it when she first came in with her photograph of Lily. She was too preoccupied to notice the absence of the Piccadilly snowscape.

‘So,’ asked Bonita Green, ‘what can I do for you, Carole?’

‘I want to talk to you about the death of Fennel Whittaker.’

‘Ah. I thought that was all over. Didn’t I hear that the funeral’s been arranged? Poor girl. Terrible someone of that age taking their own life.’

‘If that is what she did,’ said Carole portentously.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Jude and I are convinced that Fennel didn’t take her own life. She was murdered.’

‘Really? And what makes you think that?’

Carole spelled out the details of the suicide note and the missing mobile. At the end of her narration, Bonita nodded and said, ‘I suppose it’s possible.’

Gulliver, who had been let off his lead, went across to lick the woman’s hand. Bonita tickled the top of his head. ‘And who,’ she asked, ‘is supposed to have perpetrated this rather ingenious crime?’

Carole wouldn’t have minded more of a dramatic build-up to her denouement but, presented with the direct question, could only say, ‘You.’

Bonita Green took the accusation pretty coolly and asked, ‘As a matter of interest, how did I do it?’

‘You heard about the original suicide note from Giles. Go on, can you deny that’s true?’

‘No, I can’t. He showed it to me. For reasons of his own he’d purloined it from that ghastly girl, Chervil. Or maybe she’d given it to him, I don’t know. But he’d showed it to me and it was in the flat upstairs, yes.’

‘Well then . . .’

‘What do you mean, “well then”?’

‘Well then, you knew about it, so you saw a way of using it to set up a death for Fennel that looked like suicide.’

‘Did I?’

‘Yes. You also knew that Ned Whittaker had some of the same wine as that supplied here by the Crown and Anchor for the Private View. You laced two bottles with liquid paracetamol, so that Fennel would pass out and not resist as you slashed her wrists with the Sabatier knife which you had taken from the kitchen at Butterwyke House.’

‘I’ve never been inside Butterwyke House.’

‘Of course you have.’ Carole couldn’t help feeling that, as confrontations went, this one wasn’t one of the all-time greats.

‘Oh, one thing you haven’t told me,’ said Bonita. ‘Just as a matter of interest . . . why did I kill Fennel Whittaker?’

‘Because of what she said at the Private View. Everyone assumed that she was attacking Denzil Willoughby when she talked about “causing someone’s death”, but the person she was really targeting was you.’