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about Carole’s views on such matters. She reckoned trying to lead a straightforward normal life was quite difficult enough, without complicating the issue by offering alternatives.

      ‘Anyway,’ Jude hurried on, ‘in the course of these sessions I have met Mervyn Hunter.’

      ‘And does he seem like a murderer to you?’ asked Carole, thinking of the skeleton at Bracketts.

      ‘Well, I know he is a murderer, so what he seems like is a bit irrelevant. But no, in the accepted sense, he doesn’t seem like a murderer. And, indeed, I’d be very surprised if he were ever to commit a second murder.’

      ‘The first one being the one he’s in Austen for?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘So who was that? Who did he kill before?’

      ‘I’ve no idea.’

      ‘But surely that was the first question you asked?’

      ‘I can assure you, Carole, as an outsider inside a prison, that’s the last question you ask. If a prisoner wants to volunteer information to you about his crime, fair enough. If he doesn’t, don’t go there.’

      ‘Oh.’ The response remained frosty. The fence was still by no means mended.

      ‘Anyway, I’ve talked to Mervyn a bit, mainly in group sessions, but occasionally had the odd word with him on his own.’

      ‘You knew he’d been working up at Bracketts?’

      ‘Yes. He mentioned it.’

      ‘Apparently there’s been quite a history of that, with men from Austen. Set up by Sheila Cartwright. For the right sort of prisoner, who’s interested in gardening, or even in the heritage side of the place, it’s worked very well.’

      ‘And from what Mervyn told me, it was working well for him too. He’s a very wound-up kind of character, really needs the right sort of opening when he gets out of Austen. Somewhere like Bracketts is ideal for him.’

      ‘I’m sure it would be,’ said Carole huffily, ‘if he didn’t go on murdering people.’

      ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ protested Jude, uncharacteristically testy. ‘You don’t think he did it, do you?’

      ‘Well, he’s told the police he did. If Mervyn himself doesn’t know what he’s done, then who does?’

      ‘I’m absolutely certain he didn’t do it. I think he only confessed because he thought he ought to.’

      ‘What!’ But further expansion of Carole’s disbelief was stopped by her phone ringing.

      ‘Hello, is that Carole Seddon?’ The voice was vaguely familiar, slightly effete and, at that moment, deeply anxious.

      ‘Yes, it is.’

      ‘This is Graham.’

      ‘Oh?’

      ‘Graham Chadleigh-Bewes,’ he said peevishly. ‘I gather from that Gina at Bracketts that you’re going to be meeting the Great American Predator.’

      ‘Well, there was some talk of—’

      ‘It’s very important that you come and see me before any such meeting.’

      ‘I’m not sure that it’ll be possible for me—’

      ‘You have to. I have some papers that you must give to Professor Teischbaum. You must come.’

      Carole was getting a bit sick of the way everyone connected with Bracketts ordered her around.

      ‘What papers are these?’

      ‘Some material about Esmond.’

      ‘Do you mean you are going to co-operate with her, after all?’

      ‘No.’ He chortled. ‘I’m going to fob her off with some unimportant stuff.’

      ‘Oh. Well, I’m not sure that I want to be a party to any kind of—’

      ‘The importance of your doing what I say cannot be overestimated,’ Graham went on in his prissy academic’s voice. ‘Particularly in the circumstances.’

      ‘What circumstances?’

      ‘The circumstances of a skeleton having been found in the kitchen garden at Bracketts.’

      So much for Lord Beniston’s need-to-know policy amongst the Trustees, thought Carole.

Chapter Nine

      By the time Jude returned from High Tor to Woodside Cottage that evening, a second bottle of white wine had been consumed and the fence had been, if not fully mended, at least temporarily repaired. She felt sorry for Carole, whose reticent personality was always going to require much bridge-building and fence-mending. There was no element of superiority in her pity. Jude just felt blessed to have been born with a more direct approach to life; the differences between them had never, from her point of view, offered any threat to their friendship.

      Amidst the draped and cluttered chaos of her sitting room the red light of the answering machine blinked. There were two messages.

      ‘Hello. Voice from the past. It’s Laurence. Love to talk to you. Love to meet, come to that. I’ve actually come sufficiently into the twenty-first century to get myself a mobile. Let me give you the number.’

      She felt a remembered warmth as she wrote it down. A few of Jude’s affairs had ended in ‘I never want to see you again!’ acrimony, but she was still in occasional touch with most of her lovers, and her recollections of Laurence Hawker were almost entirely benign. She wondered if he was still an academic, still researching in the English Department at the university in Prague, still as irresistibly attracted to all those stunningly beautiful Czech girl students. But for that predilection of his, and the way it encroached on their time together, Jude’s relationship with Laurence would have been near perfect. Be good to see him again.

      The second message was from Sandy Fairbarns. ‘Need to talk to you urgently, Jude. If you can get back to me tonight before twelve, be great. If not, at Austen in the morning, as soon after nine as possible.’

      It was two minutes before midnight. Jude keyed in the mobile number. Sandy sounded as bright and enthusiastic as ever. Loud music sounded in the background, but it wasn’t referred to. Sandy’s private life remained private.

      ‘Jude, thank you so much for getting back to me. It’s about Mervyn.’

      ‘Anything wrong with him?’

      ‘I don’t know. He never did talk to me.’

      ‘He’s back at Austen?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Any charges?’

      ‘I don’t know. Basically, Jude, I want you to see him.’

      ‘But I’m not scheduled to do another session till—’

      ‘I know. I’m suggesting you come and visit him. If I get it to the Governor first thing in the morning, I can get a VO for you for tomorrow afternoon.’

      ‘Sorry? VO?’

      ‘Visiting Order. Can you do tomorrow?’

      ‘Sure.’

      ‘Good. Because Mervyn seemed to respond in your sessions. I think he might open up to you.’

      ‘I’ll do my best. But what’s his problem?’

      ‘I don’t know, Jude. But I’m worried about him.’

Chapter Ten

      Graham

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