Death and the Decorator by Simon Brett

Author:Simon Brett [Brett, Simon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House
Published: 2022-03-27T22:00:00+00:00

TEN

Guilt? Did Jude feel any guilt now? She had, after all, virtually been accused of murder.

But, for some reason, she didn’t feel guilty. She tried to analyse why.

And decided that it was because she’d got such a clear impression of Veronica Lasalle having an agenda. Jude knew that bereavement affected people in different ways but she still found the woman’s behaviour odd. Three days after hearing of the death of her husband of … what … forty years …? Given Roland’s age, it might well be nearer fifty … Three days after hearing the devastating news of his death, Jude could believe the new widow might be full of anger and looking for someone to blame for the tragedy. Marching round to confront and bawl out the person she thought responsible did make a kind of sense.

But there were inconsistencies in how she’d behaved. For a start, though Veronica had demonstrated anger, she had not shown any signs of grief. Her main agenda seemed to have been to persuade Jude that Harry’s death had been suicide. And that the reason why he had taken his own life was because of the return of long-buried allegations about his having had a sexual relationship with Anita Garner.

It could have been true. Veronica Lasalle was certainly determined that that explanation should be the accepted one.

Or had she been acting in that way simply to stop any other explanation being considered?

Jude didn’t have long to mull over these thoughts because Pete soon returned. In fact, he returned so soon after Veronica’s departure that he could have been waiting outside to watch her leave. What’s more, his excuse about having to go to the trade counter didn’t stack up. He had returned without any new paint.

Jude did not pass any comment on this. She just made him another cup of coffee (white with one sugar). But, as she handed it across, Pete raised the subject himself.

‘Sorry I had to leave. Veronica and me, we don’t get on. Never have done.’

‘Oh. Any reason?’

‘Goes back a long way. She’s a suspicious cow. Worked with Harry from way back, did all the paperwork when it was just plain “Lasalle Builders”, long before it became “Lasalle Build and Design”. And she always thought everyone was trying to rip them off.’

‘Everyone including you?’

The decorator nodded. ‘I was working for Brenton Wilkinson back then. Harry subcontracted him to do some decorating work on Footscrow House. And all the time we was there, Veronica kept her beady eyes on us, seeing we wasn’t skiving.’

‘Which, I can safely assume, you weren’t?’

‘No way. Well, I got rather sick of having her constantly on my case, so I played a trick on her. Something old Veronica has never forgiven me for.’

‘“Trick”? What did you do?’

‘Like I said, she constantly thought people were trying to get one over on her and, with the decorating, she thought we might be skimping the number of coats of paint we done. There are, I’m afraid, some chancers in the trade who do do that.

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