by Simon Brett
∨ Blood at the Bookies ∧
Thirty-Five
Gaby rang back at eight-thirty. Lily had slept well and, though a bit grizzly, no longer had such a high temperature. The doctor’s return visit had been put off. Stephen had gone off to work. They were all right.
She hadn’t rung her mother-in-law earlier because she hadn’t wanted to wake her. To Carole, who’d been sleeplessly entertaining the most ghastly speculations all night, this was an unhelpful thing to say. But she didn’t mention the fact, just said how relieved she was about Lily’s improvement and asked for regular updates on the tiny girl’s progress.
At least one cause of her perturbation was diminished. The other, she thought, might never be resolved.
Waiting for the call from Gaby had kept her at home when she would normally have been taking Gulliver down to Fethering Beach, so her next priority was giving the dog his walk.
As she opened the front door, dressed in her smart Burberry, thick scarf and hat, Carole found herself face to face with Jude, who had been on the verge of lifting the knocker.
“Good morning,” said Carole coldly. “I’m just taking Gulliver for his walk.”
“Well, I’ll come with you. Just give me a moment to get a coat.”
“I don’t think it’ll be necessary for you to come. I’ll be fine on my own.”
And with that, Carole Seddon, with Gulliver in tow, stalked off down Fethering High Street in the direction of the beach.
Open-mouthed, her neighbour watched her go. But it wasn’t in Jude’s nature to let wounds fester. If something had come up between her and Carole, then she had to find out immediately what it was. She got her coat and set off after the figures of woman and dog dwindling into the distance.
Though not overtly looking back, Carole was aware of the pursuit. When she reached the edge of the beach, rather than going left towards the estuary of the River Fether, she turned right and strode firmly away, Gulliver off his lead and performing eccentric circles around her. That way the beach stretched on for miles. Carole’s long stride took her ever further away from her pursuer, who not only had shorter legs but also had a lot more weight to carry.
After walking about a quarter of a mile and not making any inroad into her neighbour’s lead, Jude stopped and sat on the end of a wooden breakwater where it nuzzled into the high shingle of the beach. There was no alternative route; Carole would have to come back the way she had gone. It was just a matter of waiting.
Jude sat there for over an hour. Carole must have known that she was making a fool of herself, but when she finally did come to where her neighbour sat, she looked all set to walk by without acknowledging her.
Jude wasn’t having any of that. She stood up and blocked Carole’s way. “Look, will you please tell me what’s going on.”
“Nothing’s going on,” replied Carole icily.
Gulliver very much let the side down by going up to Jude and enthusiastically licking her hand.
“Carole, I have done something to offend you. I don’t know what it is, but I can assure you it wasn’t deliberate.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s not a problem.”
Carole once again tried to manoeuvre herself past, but found her arm grabbed. “Look, we’re friends. And it’s stupid for friends to split up over something trivial.”
“People have different definitions of trivial,” came the sniffy reply.
“Listen, Carole, I have actually got a lot of new information on the murder case. You won’t believe what has happened.”
Though clearly tempted, Carole wasn’t going to succumb to curiosity. “I’m sorry. I must be on my way.”
“No.” Jude kept her neighbour’s arm firmly in her grasp. “I am not going to let you go until you tell me what’s bugging you.”
“All right,” said Carole with exasperation. “You’ve just said we’re friends. Well, I would have thought it was a rather strange person who moves house without telling her friend about it.”
“Moves house?” Jude looked at Carole with incomprehension. Then slowly the penny dropped. “Oh, no…the valuation? You didn’t think…? That was not because I was really selling the house. I set it up just to get some information out of Hamish Urquhart. And it worked. He confirmed that Sophia had been in Leipzig last summer, which is where she must have met Tadek.”
“Oh,” said Carole, suddenly feeling rather small.
“You idiot!” said Jude affectionately. “You absolute idiot! Now will you please let me tell you what has happened in the last twenty-four hours?”
As the two women walked back up the beach, Carole heard everything, about the second stabbing and Jude’s uncomfortable evening with the police. By the time they got back to Woodside Cottage, her bad mood had dissipated and she was once again totally caught up in the murder investigation.
“You haven’t had any news as to how Andy Constant is?”
Jude shook her head. “There was a lot of blood. I don’t have the medical knowledge to assess how serious it was. The police said they’d keep me informed, but I doubt if they’ll bother.”
“I’ll put on the radio when I get in – and check the television…see if there’s anything about the attack.”
“Yes, well, if I hear anything, obviously I’ll let you know as soon as possible. And, Carole,” Jude went on as her friend moved towards High Tor, “don’t ever imagine that I would sell my house without telling you.”
“But are you thinking of selling it?”
“Not today,” said Jude enigmatically. And Carole had to be content with that.
♦
The phone in Woodside Cottage rang at about five that afternoon. “Is that Jude?” asked a well-spoken woman’s voice she did not recognize.
“Yes.”
“You don’t know me. I’m Esther Constant. Andy’s wife.”
“Ah,” said Jude, fearing the worst. “How is he?”
“Surprisingly good, actually. He’s out of intensive care.”
“Wow, that was quick.”
“Yes, although there was a lot of bleeding, the wound itself wasn’t very deep. He’s still quite weak because he lost so much blood, but no, he’s basically on the mend.”
“I’m delighted to hear it.”
“Yes.” Esther Constant was silent for a moment, as though uncertain how to phrase the next bit. “Andy…he…he said he’d like to see you…”
“Oh. Really?” Jude was thrown. Was Andy’s wife aware of his interest in her? “Why is that?” she asked.
“He said so that he could say thank you.”
“Thank me for what?”
“Andy reckons it was your arrival which frightened his attacker off. He thinks you may have saved his life.”
♦
The wounded lecturer was in a private hospital not far from the University of Clincham campus. Whether he had been put in there for reasons of security or because he had a good private health insurance, Jude didn’t know. She’d gone by train along the coastal line to Clincham and got to the hospital’s reception round seven-thirty. They were expecting her and when she asked for Andy Constant, a smartly suited woman directed her to a suite of rooms on the fourth floor. The decor of the hospital was all soothing pastel blues and greens. There were tasteful photographic prints on the walls and gratuitous reproduction coffee tables on the landings.
A nurse sitting behind a reception desk on the fourth-floor landing led her to a door which had a card marked ‘Mr A. Constant’ fitted into a plastic slot. She tapped on the door and Esther Constant’s voice said, “Come in.”
The scene that greeted Jude was one of longstanding connubial bliss. Andy was propped up on a lot of pillows, with an edge of bandages visible at the neck of his pyjamas. Esther, a pretty woman with short dark hair, was seated at his bedside, holding his hand. She rose and said, “You must be Jude.”
“Yes.”
“I’m so grateful to you for coming. Andy really wanted to see you.”
/> The patient smiled weakly and gave a feeble wave. Jude felt the knee-jerk suspicion that she had in all dealings with Andy Constant. He wasn’t as badly hurt as he was pretending. Once again he was milking a situation for all it was worth.
“As I said on the phone,” Esther Constant went on, “he really thinks you may have saved his life. His attacker would have gone on stabbing him if you hadn’t arrived. Andy reckons the attacker must have heard you coming in through the main door of the Drama block, and that’s what made him do a runner.”
“Maybe. I didn’t see anything, but I think I must have passed him – or her – in the lobby.”
“Anyway, Andy says thank God you arrived.”
Jude’s conjecture that the whole conversation might be conducted with Esther verbalizing her husband’s thoughts ended, as Andy himself said, “Yes, I can’t thank you enough.”
Jude shrugged. “I’m glad if that is what happened, but it was pure luck. A serendipitous accident of timing.” But in spite of his injured state, she couldn’t help moving instantly into investigative mode. “Did you see who it was who attacked you?”
“No. He – or she – was waiting for me in the lighting box. Must have known I switch on the studio lights from there. Leapt on me as soon as I got through the door.” His voice sounded pretty robust, considering he had just emerged from intensive care.
“Have you been questioned by the police yet?”
“Just basic stuff.”
“They’re coming again tomorrow morning,” Esther Constant interposed. “Assuming he’s stronger by then.”
Andy Constant showed a brave smile. “Which I’ll hope to be.” Then he reached out and took his wife’s hand. “Esther love…I just want to ask Jude a few details about what she saw…and I don’t want to make you go through the whole thing again. Maybe you’d like to ask the nurse to get you a cup of coffee?”
His wife, obedient to his every whim, took the hint and made for the door. “I’ll give you five minutes.” Then, explaining to Jude, she said, “Important that he doesn’t get too tired. He’s very weak.”
Weak he may have been, but the minute Esther was out of the door, he sat up in bed and said urgently, “Have the police talked to you yet, Jude?”
“Yes. At some length.”
“And did you tell them anything?”
“About what?”
“About you and me.”
“There isn’t much to say about you and me, is there?”
“Come on. We’ve met a few times. But for…external events, we’d be lovers by now.”
Jude wondered how accurate that was. Any attraction she might have felt for Andy Constant had melted away in the last couple of days. But, looking back and being honest with herself, she had a nasty feeling his words might be true.
“Well, I certainly didn’t tell the police that.”
“What did you tell them?”
“Just that we’d met for drinks a couple of times, that you’d asked me to go and see Rumours of Wars…”
“And what about last night?”
“I said that you’d asked me to join you for a drink in the Drama Studio.”
“Just that?”
“Pretty much, yes.”
“Hm.” He looked troubled. “The thing is, it’s very important that Esther doesn’t find out anything about us.”
Jude saw him then for what he was. Just another cheap philandering husband. All his talk of the moribund nature of his marriage was so much guff. At home he was the dutiful husband, but he used those elastic moments between work and home to conduct his affairs. His favourite time for an assignation was not a dinner, not a whole evening. No, six o’clock in his own convenient little knocking-shop, the Drama Studio. Time for a furtive glass of Scotch and a quick sexual encounter. Then, no doubt, back home to Esther with an airy, “Oh, met up with some people for a drink after work.”
Jude shuddered inwardly to think how nearly she had become involved with a man like that.
“Andy, I’ve said what I told the police. What they make of the information, how much further they want to go with it, that’s not up to me.”
“I just don’t want Esther to get hurt. She’s quite fragile emotionally. I don’t want her getting hold of the wrong end of the stick.”
Getting hold of the right end of the stick, thought Jude. Being made to realize what a bastard her husband really was. Yes, it was quite possible that Esther was completely unaware of Andy’s finely practised seduction technique. As the saying went, the wife was always the last to know.
“I won’t do anything to make the situation worse,” said Jude. Then, suddenly she asked, “And what about you and Sophia?”
She wouldn’t have thought it possible for his face to have gone paler, but it did. “Me and Sophia? The police didn’t ask about that, did they?”
It was the nearest she was likely to get to an admission that he had been having an affair with the girl, so Jude pressed home her advantage. “No, they haven’t asked me about that, but what do you want me to say if they do?”
“Do you think that’s likely?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know which way the police investigation is going, do I?”
“Oh, God.” He looked really bad.
“So you’re not denying that you were having an affair with her?”
“Look, these things happen.” He was trying to sound disingenuous, but it wasn’t cutting any ice with Jude. “Two attractive people who’re attracted to each other, sometimes the emotion can just get too strong to cope with. Even with the difference in ages. I think in fact the difference in ages made it even more powerful. We could learn so much from each other. Come on, haven’t you ever been in a situation like that, Jude?”
She had, but she wasn’t about to tell him so. “How long had it been going on?”
“I suppose the attraction was there since the beginning of the academic year, when we first met…”
That made sense. Sophia had met Tadek in Leipzig in the summer, he had followed her to England in late September. Maybe they had begun or continued an affair. But round the same time Sophia had started her university career, and found the archetypal lecherous lecturer coming on to her. As Jude had deduced before, it was a classic love triangle.
“And when did you become lovers?” she asked implacably.
“I suppose it must have been in the run-up to Christmas. You know, there were lots of parties and things on the campus. And I was working closely with Sophia on some one-to-one role-playing exercises.” Yes, I bet you were, thought Jude. He shrugged helplessly, as he went on, “And, you know, one thing led to another. We both admitted how much we fancied each other and…”
Jude suppressed her fury. Andy Constant had shamelessly abused his position of responsibility and was now trying to get sympathy for himself as a plaything of the gods, a man incapable of resisting the surging power of a grand amour. All she said, though, was, “And are you and Joan still love’s young dream?”
“Joan? How do you know about – ?”
“I know it was Sophia’s nickname. One given to her by her other boyfriend.”
“Other boyfriend?”
“Didn’t she mention that she had another boyfriend?”
“Oh, yes,” he recalled. “There had been someone, apparently. But she implied that that had been over for a long time.”
Taking a leaf out of your book then, thought Jude. “No more details?”
“No, she said she’d got rid of him.”
“Hm.” Jude took in the implications of this for a moment, then said, “I actually asked whether your affair with Sophia was still going on.”
“Well, no.” He screwed up his face wryly. “We had had a bit of a falling-out, during the last week, really. I mean, often the really powerful loves have only a limited duration. ‘So quick bright things come to confusion’, and all that. I had to tell her that it wasn’t working. And, you know, I was beginning to feel guilty about Esther.”
“How did Sophia take the news?”
He grimaced. “Not very well, I’m afraid. She was terribly upset, talk of suicide, all kinds of things.” He smiled a put-upon smile. “Clearly, the whole thing meant much more to her than it did to me.”
Once again Jude was struck by Andy’s arrogance. He saw himself doomed to go through life as a babe-magnet, powerless against the devastating strength of his own attractiveness.
“So thoughts of Esther were the only reason you said your affair with Sophia must end?”
“Well…” He smiled winningly. “There was another reason.”
“What was that?”
“I thought maybe things were going to work out with you.”
This time Jude had great difficulty containing her anger. Even from his hospital bed the sleaze-bag was coming on to her. One moment he was talking of breaking off one relationship out of consideration for his wife, the next he was proposing to start a new one. She calmed herself, and said, “Going back to what happened to you last night, you didn’t get any sight of your attacker, did you?”
He shook his head. “It was pitch dark. And it happened so quickly. The whole thing was over in a matter of seconds.”
“So nothing? No glimpse of a face? No touch of a body?”
“Well, as a matter of fact, as I tried to defend myself, I got hold of his or her coat. And it felt like waxed fabric.”
“A Barbour?”
“That kind of thing, yes.”
Jude nodded thoughtfully. “Oh, well, no doubt the police will catch the culprit.”
“I doubt it.”
“Why not?”
“Well, it was probably a drifter, who just broke into the Drama Studio in hope of finding some equipment he could sell to buy drugs.”
“That’s nonsense, Andy. Too much of a coincidence. My view would be that your attacker was very definitely targeting you. You said as much yourself. It was someone who knew your habits very well, knew that you frequently went into the Drama Studio without switching on the working lights.”
