Guns in the Gallery

‘And whose death am I supposed to have caused . . . apart, of course, from Fennel Whittaker’s?’

‘The death of your husband Hugo.’

That did strike a deep blow. Up until then, Bonita Green had been playfully dismissive of Carole’s accusations. But she almost physically reeled at this one.

‘Have you been talking to Ingrid?’ she asked through tightened lips.

‘Jude has.’

‘Ah, your fellow conspirator. Of course.’

‘Ingrid remembers you in Corfu, deliberately capsizing the boat and watching your husband drown.’

Bonita Green tottered, found the edge of the counter with her hand and propped herself up against it.

‘I know that’s what Ingrid thinks. She’s told me enough times. That’s why she left. She said she couldn’t bear to continue living in the same house as her father’s murderer.’

‘Well, you could see her point.’ Carole was beginning to think that the balance of power in the conversation was finally shifting in her favour.

‘But I didn’t kill Hugo.’

‘Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you?’

‘I didn’t. But I couldn’t tell Ingrid what really happened.’

‘She saw what really happened. She saw you capsize the boat.’

‘No, she didn’t. That’s what she thought she saw.’

‘She saw you suddenly stand up in the boat to tip it over.’

‘No! I stood up in the boat to try and catch Giles. To stop Giles doing what he was doing.’

‘What was he doing?’

‘He was pushing Hugo off the boat.’

‘What!’

‘Giles, five-year-old Giles, had heard his father going on about how useless he was, and how he’d be better off dead, and so Giles thought he was doing what Hugo wanted. But I could never tell Ingrid that, could I? She had her own interpretation of what had happened. Better she thought what she thought than knew her brother had killed her father.’

Bonita Green was engulfed by deep emotion. A tsunami of sobs ran through her body. ‘I couldn’t kill anyone,’ she wailed.

‘No, but I could.’

Carole turned at the sound of the voice, and saw Spider emerging from his workshop.

THIRTY-FOUR

‘I’ll kill anyone,’ Spider went on, ‘who tries to hurt Bonita. I knew about the drowning. Ingrid talked to me about it. She thought she could get me on her side against her mother. She thought I’d believe Bonita’d kill someone. I knew she wouldn’t. And when I heard that girl at the Private View accusing Bonita . . . well, I couldn’t let that go unpunished, could I?’

‘Are you saying, Spider,’ asked his employer, ‘that you killed Fennel Whittaker?’

‘Of course I did. I did it for you, Bonita. I won’t let anyone hurt you.’

‘But how on earth did you set it up?’ asked Carole.

‘I hear a lot when I’m in my workshop. People in the gallery forget I’m there. And I work my own hours . . . evenings, sometimes weekends. That’s how I heard Ingrid accusing Bonita of murdering her Dad. Way back, that was. I knew that wasn’t true, and all. Then more recently I heard Giles in here, talking to that new bit of stuff of his, the one with the silly name.’

‘Chervil,’ said Bonita.

‘Right. A Friday it must’ve been, because I know you wasn’t here. And from what they were saying, I think Giles at that stage was still going out with the other sister, Fennel. Anyway, that Chervil was saying her sister was, like, a loony and Giles’d be much better off going out with her. And, like, to prove what a loony Fennel was, she produced this suicide note and told him about how she’d found it.

‘Then she was, like, joking about how, if her sister ever got too much for her, she could use the note to set up, like, Fennel’d committed suicide. And she spelled out how easy it would be, to lace some booze with paracetamol and use a kitchen knife to slash her sister’s wrists. She talked like she’d really thought it through. And Giles said, like, what a devious mind she’d got, and Chervil said she was dangerous, and Giles said that was part of her attraction, and then . . .’ He stopped, embarrassed. ‘Then they, like . . . you know . . . they had sexual intercourse.’

‘In the gallery?’ asked Bonita.

‘Yeah, right here. I didn’t see anything, of course, but I could hear.’

A silence ensued, then Carole asked, ‘How did you know where to find Fennel . . . on that Friday night?’

‘After the party finished . . .’

‘The Private View?’

‘Yes. That Chervil and Giles had an argument. She wanted him to go back with her to Butterwyke House, but he wanted to go and, like, drink with his mate Denzil Willoughby. So she stormed out, but she’d left her mobile here. And I picked it up and put it in my pocket. And later I heard it bleep and, like, a text had come through. And it was Fennel, saying where she was. And I know it was a message.’

‘A text message?’ asked Carole, confused.

‘No, a message to me, telling me what to do.’

‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand. The message was to Chervil.’

‘The text was from Fennel to Chervil. But the message was to me. Quite often I get messages like that, messages that tell me what to do.’

‘Who from?’ said Carole in a very small voice.’

Spider beamed. ‘Well, Elvis Presley, of course. The King is my guide in everything I do.’