Murder in the Museum (Fethering Mysteries) (28 page)

She gave the ill-matched pair a moment to get out of the Records Office, and then slowly, almost lackadaisically, followed.

It wasn’t a difficult tailing job. In the bright October sunshine, which pierced the threatening clouds of autumn, George Ferris and Marla Teischbaum walked along West Street towards the Cathedral. But they didn’t go far, soon crossing the road and entering the first available pub, rather imaginatively named ‘The Cathedral’. Jude wondered whether Marla had insisted on lunching close by so that she could return quickly to her studies; or, more likely, that the pub had been George’s regular in the days when he had worked for West Sussex Libraries.

There were enough people in the Cathedral at half past twelve for Jude’s entrance to be inconspicuous. From the bar she located her quarries at a table in the window. Marla had a glass of sparkling mineral water, George Ferris a pint ‘in a jug’ from which he drank with much elaborate beard-wiping. He’d used the word ‘lunch’, so Jude reckoned she was safe to order herself. An unashamed lover of fry-ups, she went for the All-Day Breakfast, and took her glass of white wine over to a table near theirs. Neither had met her before, so, with her back to them, Jude felt suitably invisible.

But to make her ear-wigging less blatant, she needed something to read. She riffled through the options in her straw basket. The recently purchased
How To Get The Best From The Facilities Of The County Records Office
would be far too much of a giveaway, as would the copy of Esmond Chadleigh’s
Vases of Dead Flowers
, which Laurence had asked her to carry for him.

The thought of Laurence made her realize that he didn’t know where she was, and so would be unable to join her. No great problem, though. He was less of a lunch-eater than ever, and, if he didn’t come into the Cathedral by chance, there were plenty of other places in Chichester where he could top up his whisky intake. Besides, his clothes and coughing made Laurence Hawker a much more conspicuous figure than Jude; his presence might inhibit the conversation at the adjacent table.

In the bottom of her bag she found a book a friend had written about herbal antidepressants, which she had promised to read for some time. Her eyes skimmed over the words, and she reminded herself to turn a page every now and then, as, filtering out the ambient sounds of bar-room banter and muzak, she focused her hearing on the next table.

The first bit she heard didn’t promise great revelations. ‘Oh, damn,’ Marla Teischbaum was saying. ‘It’s started to rain, and I don’t have an umbrella with me.’

‘I’ve got one . . .’ said George Ferris gallantly.

‘Good.’

‘ . . . but it’s in the car.’

‘Then that’s not much use to me, is it?’ Marla snapped.

‘No, but it’s not far back to the Records Office.’

‘Huh. Far enough to get my hair totally mussed.’

‘Ho-ho. You ladies and your hair . . .’

This jocular male chauvinism was not the approach most calculated to appeal to an independent woman like Professor Marla Teischbaum. ‘I’m not a lady. I’m a woman.’

George Ferris still didn’t get the message. ‘Oh dear, dear. I always think that’s so inelegant. When I was growing up, a lady was a lady and we respected her for it.’

‘Nothing to stop you respecting women, George.’

‘No, no, I agree,’ he replied archly. ‘But I find it hard to think of the beautiful ones as women. Some women will always be ladies in my mind.’

‘Fine. So long as you keep it in your mind, you won’t offend anyone.’

‘My mind’s getting a rather full place.’ There was a new wistfulness in George Ferris’s tone. Slowly, the appalled realization came to Jude that he was actually chatting up the Professor. He was trying to sound boyish and winsome, as he went on, ‘My mind is full of thoughts of one beautiful woman in particular . . .’

‘Well, lucky her.’ Clearly Marla Teischbaum hadn’t caught on to his meaning as quickly as Jude. ‘Oh Gard,’ the Professor growled. ‘That damn rain.’

‘It’s not as wet as it was on a certain other evening . . .’

If George Ferris was trying to prompt fond recollections, he failed. ‘Whaddya mean? What evening?’

‘When we last met,’ he said softly. ‘At Bracketts.’

That silenced her. Jude wished she could turn round to see what expression was crossing Marla’s face, but she didn’t dare draw attention to herself.

‘Yes.’ When the Professor finally spoke, her tone was more subdued, even anxious. ‘Have you had anything more from the police . . . since we last spoke?’

‘No. So I think they believed me.’

‘That you drove straight back home after the meeting?’

‘Yes. There’s no real reason to think I’d done anything else. I certainly drove straight out of the car park after the meeting.’

‘Right.’ Marla Teischbaum was still thoughtful, not entirely reassured. ‘They didn’t ask you anything about me?’

‘Your name wasn’t mentioned. Relax, Marla. The police have got a suspect.’

‘Oh?’

‘Apparently there was some escaped prisoner with a grudge against Sheila Cartwright.’

‘He’s in custody?’

‘So I believe. Which means the police aren’t going to bother double-checking on anyone else. They’ve bought your story about getting a cab back to the Pelling Arms before the Emergency Trustees’ Meeting started.’

‘I hope they have.’

‘Of course they have.’ George Ferris was enjoying his role of masculine reassurance. He winked roguishly. ‘And no one will ever know that you had a Knight Errant waiting in his car at the front of the house to whisk you away.’

‘True, they won’t. I was grateful for that, George.’

They were interrupted by the arrival of their lunch. ‘One Tuna Salad on Granary, one All-Day Breakfast.’

Marla Teischbaum got into a discussion with the girl who’d brought the food about available dressings for her garnish of salad, but the Cathedral’s range proved inadequate to her demands. ‘Gard,’ she said, as the girl went back to the bar, ‘when’re you going to get some concept of service in this country?’

‘Well, we are a bit old-fashioned in some ways,’ George Ferris conceded.

‘Old-fashioned? Antediluvian more like.’

‘I’m quite old-fashioned, you know . . .’ he said earnestly. Once again, Jude reckoned, he was moving into chat-up mode. ‘Yes, I’m a bit of an old fogey, but that doesn’t mean I’m an automaton . . .’

‘What?’ asked Marla Teischbaum distractedly, through a mouthful of Tuna Salad on Granary.

‘I’m not a person without feelings,’ he explained. ‘I like helping people with their academic research, obviously . . . that’s part of my job . . . under my, as it were, consultancy hat . . . sharing the expertise I’ve gained over years in the Library Service with people who can benefit therefrom.’

‘Sure.’ Marla sounded uninterested. She certainly wasn’t aware that he was coming on to her. Probably the idea that a man like George Ferris might come on to her was so incongruous that the thought didn’t even enter her head.

‘But . . .’ he went on, his earnestness becoming more sincere by the minute, ‘I like it even better when I can share my expertise with someone I’m interested in . . .’

‘Yeah, it’s good when people have research interest in common.’ Marla Teischbaum was still paying more attention to her Tuna Salad on Granary than she was to her companion. ‘So the fact that I’m doing Esmond Chadleigh, and you’re a Trustee of Bracketts, well, that’s kinda neat.’

‘But there’s more to it than that,’ said George Ferris in an intense whisper. ‘You know there’s more to it than that.’

‘Sorry?’ Now she was listening to him.

‘These last two weeks have been the most important of my life, Marla.’

‘What?’

‘Helping you has given a meaning to my life.’

‘What are you talking about, George?’

‘You know how we get on, how we see eye to eye about things . . .’

‘We haven’t had any arguments, but then you’ve only been helping me through the issue system in your libraries, for Gard’s sake.’

‘There’s been more to it than that,’ he murmured in a voice that he must have imagined to be sexy.

‘George, you’ve given me some useful leads, and I’ve been grateful. But the fact remains that most of my research I’ve done for myself. That’s how I work. And do you know,’ she went on mischievously, ‘I’ve even managed to crack through the conspiracy of silence at Bracketts. Everything seems a lot more relaxed there now Sheila Cartwright’s off the scene. I’m going to pay a visit there tomorrow.’

‘Surely Graham hasn’t agreed to see you?’

‘No, not Graham. I’ve circumvented him and made a direct approach to his aunt. Belinda Chadleigh has very gracefully agreed to see me tomorrow.’

‘She’s totally gaga.’

‘I’m not so sure about that. I think she has an interesting story to tell. She’s Esmond Chadleigh’s daughter, for Gard’s sake. And I think she could be a lot more generous with information than her nephew is.’

‘Well, good luck with her.’ George Ferris was not to be deflected from his declaration. ‘Listen, I’m not claiming to have done your research for you. I’ve just given you some useful pointers, that’s all. But what I’m really talking about . . .’ His voice lowered ‘ . . . is what’s happened between
us
.’

‘Nothing happened between us.’

‘Don’t pretend, Marla.’

‘Pretend what?’

‘That you don’t feel it too.’

‘Feel
what
, for Gard’s sake!’

‘Love.’

‘Love?’

‘We’re meant for each other, Marla. And I know I’m still technically married to Geraldine, but—’

‘George, you are talking total garbage!’

‘No, I’m not. Listen, don’t fight it, Marla.’

His voice was now more earnest and intimate than ever, and her next line explained why.

‘WILL YOU TAKE YOUR HAND OFF MY KNEE!’

She intended to silence the pub, and she succeeded. Only the muzak continued to trickle through the awkwardness that followed.

Since everyone else was looking at them, Jude felt justified in turning round herself.

George Ferris didn’t notice. He was in a world of his own. His hand stayed on Marla’s knee, as he went on, ‘I’ve never been so sure of anything. And, although you deny it, I know you really feel the same. After all we’ve shared. Marla—’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, you stupid little man!’ she said, lifting his hand from her knee and firmly slamming it back into his lap. ‘I’m not interested in you.’

‘Oh,’ said George Ferris, at the moment that his fantasy of sharing his retirement with a glamorous mistress was not so much faded out, but instantly switched off.

‘I am very happily single, thank you very much. And if I did ever go for a man, it wouldn’t be some sawn-off, knee-high dork like you, George Ferris.’

With that, Professor Marla Teischbaum left the Cathedral. She swung her leather bag over her shoulder, picked up the remains of her Tuna Salad on Granary in her left hand, and one of the laminated menus in the other, and stalked out. On the street she held the menu over her precious hair, and strode back towards the County Records Office.

It was quite an exit, and it made an impression on everyone in the pub.

But the impression it made on Jude was probably the greatest. Because in the course of her conversation with George Ferris, Marla Teischbaum had virtually admitted to being at Bracketts at the time Sheila Cartwright was shot.

Another murder suspect stepped into prominence.

Since she’d moved her chair round to witness the parting scene, Jude didn’t turn it all the way back and, over her book, monitored George Ferris’s reaction to the collapse of his romantic dreams.

He looked considerably less than devastated. After the initial embarrassment of the row – the English are so upset by raised voices in public – the pub’s other customers returned to their drinks, food and, slowly, conversations. At first George Ferris did very little. He just sat there, looking straight ahead, perhaps in shock. But after a few moments he visibly relaxed. Amongst the many emotions his body language could have been presenting, the dominant one was relief. Maybe the fantasy to which he had been gearing himself up, the transformation of his life through a passionate affair with Professor Marla Teischbaum, had rather frightened him. Sinking back beneath the unrippled surface of his retirement (with Geraldine) was perhaps a more attractive prospect.

There was also anger in his demeanour. He was on his own patch, after all, and that woman – whom he’d gone out of his way to help – had made him look a fool there. Jude could see him mentally justifying his feelings of ill-treatment.

She watched him down the remains of his pint, and turkey-strut across to the bar for a refill. ‘Bloody women, eh?’ he said to the barman, whom he clearly knew.

The barman produced one of those jocular, commiserating responses which go with the job, and George Ferris returned to his table. After an initial dubious look at the remains of his All-Day Breakfast, he clearly made the decision that no bloody woman was going to put him off his food, and tucked back into it.