Charlie planned his return to Fulmer with care. He booked a room at The Stag, and the Mercedes would provide wheels. He scoured the Net for a sturdy laptop, arranged to pick one up in Slough, and had a long chat with Maurice Delacroix. He might very well find himself at loggerheads with Berks and Bucks Police and heavens knew what other powers if he bid to help Freddie, and might need a safe electronic bolthole.
Maurice called in Claude Duvivier, his accountant and computer expert. Claude was a tubby man in his forties, fond of good food and wine, and an expert horseman. The three men sat in Maurice’s office, sipping a nice chilled rose, hammering out a contingency plan. Charlie would assemble all his Hoskins material in Britain, and store it in France. British bureaucracy could do its damnedest.
He set out with Bella after breakfast on Sunday. Sophie Bonnefoie packed a large hamper for their journey, because she did not trust motorway catering, and she and her husband stood at the front door of Bella’s house to wave them goodbye. Charles Bonnefois pressed a bottle of ratafia – a kind of fortified wine, and a Sophie Bonnefoie speciality - into Charlie’s hand, to make sure that he and Bella arrived in good spirits, and they all shook hands, though both Bella and Sophie Bonnefoie also brushed away fugitive tears.
Charlie mulled over strategy as he and Bella drove north. He must debrief Freddie first, and talk to Leticia and Jennifer as well, meeting on neutral ground - too much was at stake for Jennifer to start cutting up rough. Then he would start ferretting about. Freddie’s solicitor might provide some guidance, and Berks and Bucks police might drop a hint or two. Fulmer was a gossippy village, and all Freddie’s acquaintance would doubtless have views to air and things to say, one way or another. He would plod round, and listen, and make notes, and then – if need be – he would plod round all over again, and bit by bit he would build himself a picture.
However he had already decided, even before he left Mondain, that someone had slotted Freddie into a frame. Freddie might be bent, but he had never bothered young boys, and he was rather too old to start – particularly as he seemed, at last call, to be happily conducting a very conventional affair. Charlie smiled wryly at the thought.
They drove effortlessly back up the Aquitaine motorway, past Paris, and north towards Calais. The motorways were busy with holidaymaders making their way back home, and they stopped for a picnic at the Limours motorway service area. Sophie had packed a liver terrine, and home made bread, cold pork and a celery remoulade, with plenty of little cherry tomatoes and a frise salad, plus cheese for dessert and some pears from Bella’s garden, and a nice bottle of Maurice Delacroix’s white in a coolbox packed with ice. They ate, and stretched out the grass to nap before starting off again, swapping the steering wheel every half an hour, because it was now a little harder to concentrate on full stomachs. They reached the Calais ferry terminal in the evening, sharing a sip of ratafia before boarding, and dined on the ferry. P&O cooking was not brilliant, but the boat was crowded, and the meal guaranteed a measure of peace and quiet.
The M20 proved problem-free, and a helpful receptionist had a room key waiting for them. They would both have liked to make love, but they were too tired, and made up for it by sleeping entwined.
Monday got off to a hard start. They both slept too long, and it was past nine before they were up and about. Charlie was irritable because he had woken tumescent, and he felt a fire burn in his body as he showered and then shaved.
Bella giggled. ‘Oh, dear, you seem to be in a bad way.’ She touched him lightly. ‘You don’t seem quite ready to go down to breakfast.’
Charlie growled. He wanted to go back to bed, and much else besides. But he had to collect a laptop, and meet Freddie, and Jennifer was lurking in the wings.
Bella began to unfasten his shirt. ‘Are you in such a terrible hurry?’
Charlie struggled between lust and duty.
‘Just very quickly?’
It was too much. He scrabbled at Bella’s shift, but she was already naked, dancing away in front him, just out of his reach. She raised a warning finger. ‘We must be very quick. We don’t want to miss breakfast.’
Charlie was already pushing her down onto the bed.
He called Leticia at the antique shop after they had eaten. He was brisk, because he was nervous, and Leticia sounded subdued. She agreed to close up the shop for the morning and bring Freddie and Jennifer with her.
Bella’s green eyes clouded. ‘Do you think she will make a scene?’
Charlie took a deep breath, because he shared the same fear. ‘I hope she doesn’t. It won’t help.’
‘I guess we’ll all be very British.’
Charlie nodded. It was his dearest hope. ‘I hope we will.’
‘Then Slough?’
‘I’ll pick up the laptop.’
‘Let me pay for it.’
Charlie demurred. ‘I’ve got enough.’
‘So have I.’ She smiled. ‘But none of your police people will be able to touch it, if it’s mine, and they only have a warrant on you.’
Leticia arrived with Freddie and Jennifer in tow on the dot of eleven, and they sat around a table in the hotel lounge. Leticia was severe in an open-necked white blouse and dark pin-striped business suit that made her look very mannish, with her hair scraped back tightly. Freddie had aged visibly. His eyes seem to have sunk back into his face, his hair had lost all its normal bouffant insouciance, and his bow tie hung like a flag at half mast. Even his trademark tweed jacket with its elbows protected by leather patches now seemed somehow spiritless and down-at-heel.
Charlie stared at Freddie. ‘I’ve got to ask you this, Freddie. Is any of this true?’
Freddie shook his head wordless, then spoke in a dull voice. ‘No. Not a word.’
Charlie was silent for a moment, marshalling his plans. Then he spoke again, and his voice held a steely edge. ‘You’re saying that someone has set you up.’
Freddie nodded, bowing his head. ‘I think so.’
‘Do you know who? Do you know why?’
Leticia opened her mouth, but Charlie signed to her to stay silent. He had come back to save Freddie, but Freddie must also save himself.
Freddie replied without looking up. ‘It might be Gay Manion.’
Charlie thinks for a moment. It seemed an age since he had left Fulmer, but he remembered Mrs. Hartland’s coffee morning. The village had talked of nothing else for at least a week. ‘Because of Mrs. Hartland’s party?’
‘Yes.’
‘But how could she get a teenager to say such dreadful things about you to the police?’
Freddie shook his head listlessly. ‘I don’t know.’
Leticia leaned forward. She had been asking a few quiet questions of her own, and now she must speak. ‘People have been whispering that Geoffrey Derricks, the housefather at The Firs, was very close to the boy.’
‘Close?’
‘That it was him, and not Freddie.’
‘But why should the boy name Freddie?’
‘The cleaning woman at The Firs worked for Gay as well.’
Charlie closed his eyes for a moment. A story had begun to fall into place. ‘You mean Gay knew about Derricks and the boy?’
Leticia shrugged. ‘She might have done.’
‘Have you told the police?’
‘They don’t want to know.’ Leticia leaned forward again, and now her eyes were blazing. ‘Freddie can’t say it, because he doesn’t have any proof. His solicitor is useless – he knows that Freddie used to be gay, so he just told him to plead guilty and get it over with. I tried talking to him about Gay Manion, and he warned me to careful about spreading gossip.’
‘Can’t you go to anyone else?’
‘I sent you an email.’
Leticia was silent, and then her face slowly crumpled in on itself like the face of a child. Charlie realises that she had begun to cry silently.
‘You’re the only person.’ Her voice broke, and she spoke between her sobs. ‘Freddie can’t cope any more. Jennifer has tried her best to help him, but she’s not a detective. The police won’t listen to me – they say Freddie will have his chance in court. They think they know everything, and meanwhile they’re crucifying him.’
‘Coppers who think they know everything can sometimes come terrible croppers.’ Charlie smiled wolfishly. It was a long time since he had campaigned, and for a while he had wondered whether he had lost his touch. But now he could scent injustice, and a fire began to burn in him, for he knew – if Leticia was painting a true picture – that he had a damned good chance of winning. ‘We’ll take them all apart.’
Bella stared at him. Charlie was diving to the rescue again. ‘Do you think you can?’
Charlie took a deep breath, and spoke slowly, because he held certain beliefs very closely, and honour and truthfulness ranked high amongst them. ‘No problem. Some people are bad, and tell lies. But most people are fundamentally pretty straight, when it comes down to the nitty-gritty. We just need to find someone with a conscience.’
Now Freddie was staring at him as well, with a strange wistful kind of look on his face, as though dreaming good news, but fearing to wake up in a nightmare. ‘Do you think I’ve got a chance?’
‘I think you’ve got every chance in the world.’
‘You won’t be angry about Jennifer?’
Charlie shook his head slowly. ‘I’ve moved to France.’
Then they were silent, and the silence was an embarrassment. Charlie took a deep breath again, because Jennifer was not with them, but her absence hung over them like a dark cloud. ‘Where is she?’
Leticia gestured towards the lounge windows. ‘She stayed out in the car. She said she couldn’t face you. She thinks you’ll think she was vindictive about your computer.’
Charlie was baffled. ‘My computer?’
Now Freddie spoke, and he had regained a little of his bounce. ‘The police came to the shop, and took me to Slough police station. It was really dreadful, really horrible.’ He paused for a moment in recollection, his bounce fading at the memory. Then he regains control of himself. ‘They took my belt and my shoelaces, and everything I had, and put me in a cell. They said I could speak to my solicitor, and that was it. Then they went to my mother’s house, but she told them that I had moved, so they went to see Jennifer. They said they had a search warrant. She told them they had no right to search her house, that I was just a guest, so they went off, telling her they would be back. She knew I had been using your computer, and she was frightened. So she hid the discs I used for saving the shop’s accounted, went and got a hammer, and smashed the computer to pieces. Then she put the bits in a box. The police came back, and she told them they could have it. They left it where it was.’
He looked at Charlie with a touch of alarm. ‘I hope there wasn’t anything important on it.’
Charlie began to laugh, tears running down his face. ‘I wish I had been there.’ He wiped his eyes with one of the hotel’s paper napkins. ‘I really wish I had been there.’
‘You’re really not worried?’
‘I stripped it before I left, and took all my own discs to France. I’m picking up a laptop some time today.’
Leticia looks relieved. ‘We’ll tell her.’
Charlie eyed Bella. She got to her feet. ‘We’ll come too.’
Both Leticia and Freddie stare at her in alarm.
‘We can do it like in the cowboy films. We’ll meet half way across the carpark.’
Leticia smiled for the first time since coming into the bar. ‘Gunfight at the OK Corral?’
‘But no guns.’
She shook her head. ‘No guns.’
They came together with a peculiarly English formality. Leticia and Freddie went on ahead, to talk Jennifer out of Freddie’s Volvo estate, with Bella and Charlie waiting by the hotel building. The sky above shone clear blue, and it was a hot sunny morning, but there was a certain iciness in the air. Bella and Charlie could see Leticia talking with animation, and then Freddie speaking, but they appeared to be encountering reluctance. Finally Jennifer emerged from the car and walked towards them across the tarmac, and she was holding herself very straight, and Charlie could see that her face was set hard. She nodded at him, and shook hands coldly with Bella, without saying a word. Then she appeared to think better of her silence.
‘I’m sorry about the computer.’
Charlie shrugged. ‘You did the right thing.’
‘Do you really think you can help Freddie?’
He nodded.
‘And then you’ll go back to France?’
He nodded again.
‘Good.’ Jennifer turned on her heel, and walked back to the car with the same rigid, almost automaton-like precision. Charlie knew that she was fighting to control herself. He had only seen her lose her temper a few times in their years of married life, but the fireworks had always been spectacular. For a moment he felt a fleeting admiration for her self-control. But Jennifer belonged to his past, and he had Freddie to rescue.
He shook hands with Leticia and Freddie – somehow Jennifer had set a tone for their alliance – and Bella followed suit. Then he followed Bella to her Mercedes.
She remained silent until they were out of the hotel carpark and heading south towards Slough. Then she glanced at him. ‘I thought she might hit you.’
Charlie swallowed. ‘I was waiting for it. Thank heavens she’s English, and not half French.’
They ate at the Oakley Court, and then drove back to The Stag. Bella rummaged in the Explorer, and came out with a bottle of fine champagne cognac.
‘Maurice told me my father laid this down for celebrations.’ She led the way up to their room, watching as Charlie opened the bottle. ‘Do you really think you can crack it?’
‘I think so.’ Suddenly Charlie was cold, and hard, and serious. ‘I think I’m going to find a weak link in there somewhere, and I think that’ll break it.’
Bella raised her glass in a toast. ‘We’d better drink to victory.’
Charlie made a face. ‘Not quite yet. I’m not counting any chickens. Let’s just drink to hope, and Freddie.’
‘And Leticia?’
‘And Leticia.’
Bella looked at him over the rim of her glass. ‘She fancies you.’
Charlie grinned at her. ‘She doesn’t serve cognac.’ He places his glass carefully on the table. But Bella was already shedding her shift.