by Simon Brett
But Gerald Hume wasn’t the only cause of her urge to go in. The betting shop remained the focus of the enquiry into Tadek’s death. Perhaps it was no longer the focus for the official investigation—the police no doubt had new avenues to explore—but for Carole and Jude everything still came back to the betting shop.
Not for the first time Carole tried to guess at the young man’s movements in the moments before he entered the place the previous week. That was the big question: where had he actually been when he was attacked? His thick coat could only have served as a temporary barrier to the flow of blood, so the scene of the stabbing could not have been very far away. Had the confrontation taken place on the beach or in one of the nearby houses or shops? Surely if it had happened in public there would have been some witnesses? And yet the powerful news-gathering agency of Fethering gossip had produced not a single clue even as to the direction from which the dying man had entered the betting shop.
Then Carole remembered the hailstorm. Under her duvet, drowned in flu, she had only been aware of the rattling of the icy downpour against her windows, but from Jude’s description it had been really ferocious, obliterating all of the town’s familiar landmarks. That was why no one had witnessed Tadek’s approach to the betting shop.
Carole looked again along the parade. Allinstore, Mamie’s Hairdressing, Polly’s Cake Shop, the estate agents, the charity shops. It seemed unlikely that the young Pole had come out of one of them and yet what other explanation was there for his sudden appearance?
At that moment a car drawing up alongside her reminded Carole of another possibility. The young Pole could have arrived at the parade by car. But if he did, where had he come from? And who with?
Sixteen
Any social encounter that involved Lily had to be arranged around her schedule. Like most babies—particularly first babies—her arrival had immediately changed the pecking order in her parents’ household. Gaby and Stephen were her slaves, and their lives now revolved around the vagaries of their daughter’s feeding and sleeping patterns.
As a result the visit to Carole on the Friday was rigidly circumscribed by time. If Gaby left Fulham on the dot of ten, Lily would sleep all of the hour and three-quarters’ drive to Fethering. Then they’d have to leave on the dot of two to ensure an equally peaceful return journey.
This suited Carole well. She liked arrangements to be fixed and defined. Nothing caused her greater anxiety than the concept of ‘an open-ended visit’.
And she was hungry for the sight of Lily. Even in the few weeks since their last meeting, the baby had developed exponentially. Her smile was no longer something that could have been mistaken for wind. It was now a definite expression of pleasure, and one that could be bestowed on those around her like a rich gift.
Her mother still got most of the smiles. She and Lily had bonded instantly, and the baby’s arrival had changed Gaby’s personality. Though she hadn’t lost her sparkle, she was calmer. And her conversation no longer revolved about show business. She seemed to have no wistful nostalgia for her work as a theatrical agent, she was totally absorbed in the new life which had come into hers. Carole thought it might be some time before her employers would see Gaby back in the office.
Serenely even-handed, that day Lily granted smiles to her grandmother as well as her mother. There had been some discussion with Stephen and Gaby as to what Carole should be called in her new role. All the possibles—Gran, Granny, Grandma, Nan—sounded dispiritingly old, but there was no avoiding making a choice. She had settled for ‘Granny’ as the least offensive, and indeed the name her own almost-forgotten grandmother had been known by.
With Lily there as a catalyst, Carole was surprised how much more relaxed she felt with her daughter-in-law. She had always liked Gaby, but felt an edge of unease when Stephen was not there and there were just the two of them. She had a bit of that feeling when she was alone with anyone. Her insecurities rose to the surface, she was always afraid that the other person was making judgements and finding her wanting.
But now with Gaby and the baby, Carole experienced something she had never relaxed into before, a kind of gender solidarity. Though she didn’t rate her own maternal skills very highly, the shared experience of motherhood had brought the two women closer. Carole was amazed how unperturbed she could be by Gaby openly feeding Lily. She felt a kind of regret for her own time with Stephen as a small baby, when social convention and her own modesty had made breast-feeding a rather furtive exercise.
But perhaps what she appreciated most was the ease that her daughter-in-law showed in her presence. Gaby did not question Carole’s right to be included in the care of her baby. She even asked for advice and reassurance over Lily’s little quirks of development.
So at two o’clock sharp Carole was sorry to see them go, but warmed by the encounter. She felt bonded with the next two generations of women, and she looked forward to watching the development of the new person in her life.
She also knew that the visit would not have been nearly so satisfactory had her ex-husband been present.
So she was already in a good mood when the phone rang at about half-past two, and the ensuing conversation cheered her even more.
“Is that Carole Seddon?” The voice was cultivated, precise and vaguely familiar.
“Yes.”
“I found your number in the local directory.”
“Well, you would. It’s in there,” said Carole rather fatuously. She still couldn’t identify the voice, but was not left in ignorance for long.
“It’s Gerald Hume speaking. Remember, we met in the betting shop yesterday.”
“Yes, I remember. I’m surprised you’re not there now.”
“Oh, I am. As you may recall my saying, I am an habitue.” His use of the word echoed their conversation of the previous day. “Well, to be strictly accurate, I am not inside the betting shop. I’m standing outside the premises. The mobile phone signal is better here, and also I don’t like having my telephone conversations listened to by all and sundry.”
“Nor do I. That’s one of the reasons I don’t want a mobile phone.”
“I understand.” There was a brief silence. “I thought you might have come in today.”
“Good heavens, no. As I believe I told you, yesterday was the first time I’ve crossed the threshold of a betting shop.”
“I thought you might have got the taste for it.”
“Certainly not,” came the instinctive, Calvinist response.
“Well, Carole,” said Gerald Hume with a sudden change of tone, “I wondered if we could meet for a drink.”
“Meet for a drink?” she echoed stupidly. “You and me?”
“Yes. I enjoyed meeting you yesterday. I thought it would be nice to talk at further length.”
“Well…”
“I’m sorry. I hope you don’t think me forward.” Which was a comfortingly old·fashioned word for him to use. “If you don’t relish the idea, you have only to say no.”
Carole found herself saying “Well…” again. The proposition was so unexpected that she couldn’t immediately adjust to the idea.
“If you’d rather not, you needn’t be embarrassed by refusing.”
“No, I’m not embarrassed.” To her surprise, Carole realized this was true. And suddenly she could see no reason to refuse his suggestion. “Yes,” she said. “Yes. Let’s meet for a drink. When were you thinking of?”
“Would this evening be convenient?”
“This evening would be most convenient.”
Jude also had an invitation that afternoon. She had been half-expecting the call, with foreboding but an undercurrent of excitement. From the moment she’d met Andy Constant, she knew that something had connected between them.
On the phone he sounded even more languid and laid-back. The offer was made very casually, as if the manner of asking somehow took the curse off it. If she refused, his manner implied, it had never been any big deal anyway.
“Tho
ught it’d be nice to meet again,” he said.
He was taking a risk. He knew nothing about her. She might be in a long-term relationship. But still he asked. Jude had already got the impression that Andy Constant was used to getting his own way with women.
“Well, yes, it might be,” she responded. She was taking a risk too. But she reassured herself that it wasn’t only because she was attracted to him. He still might have some information that was of relevance to the murder of Tadek. To keep in touch with him would be in the cause of pursuing their investigation, she told herself with knowing casuistry.
“Thing is, I’m doing a show at the college with some of the Drama students. Wondered if you’d like to come and see it. Then we could have a drink afterwards.”
Again, he made it sound very casual. Quite clever too, Jude thought. Not a direct request for a date. He made it sound as if the main purpose of the invitation was for her to see the show. And hopefully be impressed by it, perhaps warm to him because of his skills as a director. Then have a few drinks and maybe fix to meet again. There was something disquietingly practised about his approach.
“What is the show?” she asked.
“It’s called Rumours of Wars. Something the students have built up through improvisation and I’ve kind of tailored into a script. I promise you it’s less dreary than it sounds. They’re a bright lot of kids, some real talent in there.”
“When are you talking about?”
“Short notice, I’m afraid. Show only runs for three performances. Saturday I have to entertain a lot of college bigwigs. So I’m talking about this evening.” Jude hadn’t complained about the short notice, but he still seemed to feel the need to apologize. “Ideally, I’d have asked you further in advance, but I hadn’t met you then, had I? And I do think the show’s something you might enjoy.”
Which Jude considered was a rather bold claim, since he’d had no time to assess her theatrical interests.
“It’s in the college’s new theatre. Building’s worth seeing, apart from anything else. So tell me, do you fancy it?”
Again, he fostered the illusion of distancing himself. It was the show she’d be coming to see, not him. Jude had to acknowledge that his technique, though obviously well practised, was rather good.
“All right,” she said. “I’d like to come.”
Seventeen
On a day when she had been feeling less good about herself Carole Seddon might have balked at Gerald Hume’s suggestion that their meeting that evening should take place in the Crown and Anchor. The proposed encounter did have elements of a ‘date’ about it, and the pub’s landlord was one of the very few men in Fethering who had ever shown an emotional interest in her. In less certain moods she might have agonized about some awkward scene arising between the two men. But that Friday evening Carole had no qualms about the venue. For a start, her affair with Ted Crisp was long over and their relationship had settled down into an easy friendship. Besides, the Crown and Anchor did have certain advantages. Apart from anything else, she would be on home territory and not far from High Tor, should the meeting prove to be uncomfortable. After all, she knew nothing about Gerald Hume.
He was sitting in one of the alcoves nursing a half-pint of lager when she arrived. Dressed, as ever, in pinstriped suit and tie, his briefcase on the banquette beside him. Carole greeted Ted Crisp immediately, to establish her familiarity with the pub. Now the moment had arisen, it gave her a slight frisson actually to be in a pub talking to an ex-lover when she was about to meet another man.
She sat down while Gerald Hume went to the bar to buy her requested Chilean Chardonnay, and wondered what kind of man he would prove to be. She wasn’t worried about finding out, though, just intrigued.
“Perhaps,” he announced when he had supplied her drink, “I should explain why I wanted to meet up with you.”
Ib her surprise, Carole found herself saying, “I don’t think you need to especially. As you said on the phone, it’s nice for us to have a chance to talk.”
“Yes.”
He hesitated, still seeming to feel he should provide some explanation, so she moved on, “Did you have a good day on the horses?”
“A profit of three pounds fifty pence.” He spoke in a considered manner, as if carefully selecting each word with a pair of tweezers.
“And is that a good day?”
“Would you regard three pounds fifty pence as adequate recompense for five hours’ work?”
“No, I suppose not. So you do think of what you do in the betting shop as work, do you?”
“Well, it’s the only work I have now.”
“I heard a rumour that you used to be an accountant.”
“That’s a very unusual rumour to hear.”
“In what way unusual?”
“Because it’s accurate. Very few rumours in Fethering share that quality.” Carole smiled. He clearly knew the area well. “Yes,” he went on, “I was an accountant with the same company for thirty-six years. They then deemed that I was no longer fit to be an accountant.”
Carole didn’t quite like to ask for amplification, but seeing her reaction he provided it. “No, no skulduggery on my part, no embezzlement of funds. Merely a company policy of retirement at sixty. Drinks with colleagues, a hastily mugged-up speech from my new much younger boss, the presentation of an unwanted carriage clock and ‘Goodbye, Mr Hume.’ So, given the fact that I used to spend eight hours of every weekday in the office, that did leave rather a large gap in my life.”
“Surely there were other things you could have done?”
“I suppose so. I could have set up in private practice. I could have offered my Services as treasurer for various local societies. But such options did not appeal to me. My pension was adequate and I had made some prudent though not very adventurous investments over the years. So I didn’t need to do anything else to make money.”
“Isn’t retirement when people are supposed to devote themselves to their hobbies in a way that they previously never had time for?” asked Carole, reflecting that in her own case this hadn’t worked out. The only hobby she had was being an amateur detective and that was one she had developed after she retired.
“Perhaps. And I am quite a keen photographer. But I can’t do that every day. I get bored, so it remains just a hobby. Spending time in the betting shop, however, does impose some kind of structure on my life. It also enables me to study the vagaries of horse racing over a sustained period.”
“You mean you…‘study the form’? Is that the right expression? And, incidentally, Gerald, I should tell you here and now that, whatever impression I may have given to the contrary yesterday, I know absolutely nothing about horses.”
“That, Carole, was abundantly clear.”
“Oh.” She couldn’t help being disappointed. She thought the way she’d behaved the previous day had been pretty damned convincing.
“Anyway, you asked if I study the form, and yes, I do do a certain amount of that, but I am more interested in the mathematical probabilities involved in the business.”
“Do you mean you are trying to work out a foolproof system to win on the horses?”
Gerald Hume chuckled. “If I were doing that, today’s profit of three pounds fifty pence might suggest that my system is as yet far from foolproof. But you’re right in a way. I am trying to draw some conclusions from the many races that I watch every day. I analyse the results and, yes, there is the hope that such analysis might lead to a more informed pattern of investment.”
“And do you ever have big wins?”
“A few hundred pounds now and then. But such days are rare.”
“I still can’t quite understand why you do it.”
“No, it may seem inexplicable. There is a commonly held view that racing is a mug’s game, that there are too many variables for any kind of logical pattern to be discernible. But the attempt to impose order on such chaos does sometimes bring me the same kind of satisfaction that I used to derive
during my working life from balancing columns of figures. Perhaps because my life has followed a relatively predictable course, I am fascinated by the random. Maybe, in my own perhaps pernickety way, I am trying to impose logic on the random.”
“I see.” And now she almost did.
“And it keeps me off the streets.” He smiled rather wanly. “I’m not sure how I would fill my time without my regular attendance at the betting shop.”
There was a moment of silence before Gerald Hume, realizing the danger of sounding pitiable, abruptly changed the direction of the conversation. “Still, enough about me. I don’t have nearly that amount of information about you yet, Carole.”
“No.”
Her retirement from the Home Office and divorce were established with the minimum of comment.
“I see,” said Gerald. “I never married.”
“Is that a cause for regret?”
“Rarely. I think I am probably not designed for connubial bliss. I tend to be rather analytical in all my dealings, which may lead to a level of detachment in my behaviour. And I have been given to understand that marriage requires engagement with the partner rather than detachment from them.”
“I think that is usually thought desirable, yes.”
Carole was touched by his quaintness, and found her own speech beginning to echo the formality of his. She had also by now realized that Gerald Hume wasn’t and never would be a ‘date’. The attraction between them was not physical, it was purely intellectual. This revelation did not bring her even the mildest flicker of disappointment. In fact it reassured her, clarified her feelings.
“May I go off on a complete tangent, Gerald…?”
“By all means.”
“…and ask whether you do crosswords?”
As Carole knew he would, he confirmed that he did. “I do the Times and the Telegraph every morning before I go to the betting shop. One might imagine, given my interest in numbers, it would be the Su Doku that monopolized my attention, but no, it’s words. Maybe because words are more resonant than numbers, because they carry with them a greater burden of semi-otic information. And do I gather you are also an aficionado of the crossword…?”
