by Simon Brett
Carole was tempted to ask, ‘Who are Led Zeppelin?’, but she stopped herself. She knew full well who Led Zeppelin were and, had she asked the question, would have sounded like an elderly judge from a Punch cartoon. She knew she played up too much to her fogeyish image at times.
‘You know,’ Jude went on, ‘Ricky’s one of those people who’s clearly had a varied and busy life, but rarely tells you all the details of it.’ Takes one to know one, thought Carole tartly. ‘Anyway, needless to say, Lola isn’t his first wife. Always rather prided himself as a ladies’ man. He’s had at least two other wives that I know of. I vaguely remember hearing about one of them dying tragically . . . a drug overdose or something. And I think he had at least one kid, a daughter who’d be grown-up by now, though I don’t know which wife was her mother. Or maybe she’s a stepdaughter, I’m not sure. I mean, Ricky’s about my age, so there’s probably a good twenty years between him and Lola. I seem to remember he hitched up with her about six years ago. Like so many men of his age and with his kind of past, he’s rebranded himself with a new family. Then he and Lola moved down here, and live in a great big manor house just outside Fedborough. Fedingham Court House, it’s called. Apparently Ricky’s a local lad, was brought up somewhere around here, so he’s kind of come back to his roots.
‘Anyway, they settled into the country life by buying a pair of Dalmatians, then Lola presented Ricky with a couple of babies in quick succession and, so far as I can gather, the marriage works very well. He’s an amusing guy, good company, Lola appears to be devoted to him. And she’s a bright girl, I can’t see her putting up with any nonsense.’
‘When you say “bright” . . . ?’
‘Got a degree from Cambridge. Did a lot of theatre and revue while she was there, I gather – Footlights and what-have-you – even started working as a professional actress. Then moved into PR, a lot of music business stuff . . . which is presumably how she came to meet Ricky.’
‘But is she—?’
Carole’s question didn’t get asked, however, because at that moment Ted Crisp delivered their lunch order. Carole tucked into her steak, while Jude began to make inroads into a huge pile of turkey, stuffing, chipolatas, crispy bacon, roast potatoes, brussels sprouts, bread sauce and cranberry sauce. For the first time that year Christmas seemed very close.
They were so involved in eating that they didn’t notice the thin, long-haired woman in the smock finish her Guinness and make her way out of the pub. Nor did they notice the curious look she gave them as she left.
Chapter Six
In the event, in spite of all her misgivings, Carole rather enjoyed Jude’s open house. Not that she hadn’t been desperately nervous before it. In fact, for the first time in her life, she had even contemplated having a bracing drink at High Tor before she braved the rarefied atmosphere of Woodside Cottage. She had an unusual amount of alcohol in the house in anticipation of Christmas lunch with Stephen and family, and her supplies included a half-bottle of brandy to light the Christmas pudding. The temptation to have a quick nip from it before she went next door was surprisingly strong. But Carole curbed the urge. Drinking when on one’s own – secret drinking, as her parents would have called it – was, Carole knew, ‘a slippery slope’. And she’d spent much of her life rigidly steering clear of slippery slopes.
After considerable internal debate, she had decided that one-fifteen was probably the proper time to arrive for a party that was scheduled ‘from twelve noon until the booze runs out’. And although she’d never have admitted to having done it, her location in High Tor enabled her to check from her bedroom window that enough guests had arrived for her to make her own entrance comparatively unnoticed.
With regard to a bottle, she decided finally to go down the Chilean Chardonnay route. She had bought six for the Christmas lunch (as well as a bottle of champagne), but recognized that that was over-catering for a party of four, one of whom was a baby and one of whom would be having to drive back to Fulham afterwards. So she could spare one to ensure that it took a little longer for the booze at Woodside Cottage to run out.
Carole didn’t put on a coat. It would have been daft to do so when she was only going next door, but that wasn’t the reason why she left it at High Tor. If she found the open house too much of a strain, then she wouldn’t have to delay her unobtrusive exit by searching for her coat.
At one-fifteen sharp Carole Seddon made the stressful journey of a few yards to Woodside Cottage, gloomily anticipating that the house’s owner was the only person she would recognize. Also, she felt sure that Jude would be surrounded by other guests and not notice her arrival. Then Carole would stand around like a lemon, and the full scale of her own social ineptitude would be revealed for all to see.
She needn’t have worried. Jude answered the door to her tentative knock and immediately enveloped her in a huge hug. She swept up the proffered bottle of Chilean Chardonnay. ‘Lovely; our favourite, isn’t it? Look, there are some poured glasses on the tray over there. Help yourself. And I’m sure there are lots of people you recognize.’
Carole was about to say she doubted that, but as she looked into the room she was surprised by how many faces she did know. It was almost like a parade of the Fethering people who had been involved in Carole and Jude’s previous investigations. There was Sonya Dalrymple, who had got them involved in solving the murder at the Long Bamber Stables. Now divorced from her odious husband Nicky, she looked more blondly beautiful than ever. There was Connie from the hairdresser’s on the parade, which used to be called Connie’s Cuts, but had been renamed Marnie. She stood glowing with happiness beside Martin, the husband she had remarried after his second wife had been found guilty of murder. Sonny Frank from the betting shop was there, along with another of its regulars, Gerald Hume, who was an intellectual soul-mate of Carole’s.
‘Hello,’ he said in his precise, mandarin way. ‘What an inestimable pleasure it is to see you. I had been hoping that you might be attending this gathering, given your geographical proximity to our hostess. Now what can I pass you to drink? “A beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene”?’
‘Yes, I’d rather it was less blushful than Keats recommended, though. A glass of white, please.’
Gerald handed the drink across. When Carole thanked him, he riposted with a quotation she could not immediately identify: ‘“The labour we delight in physics pain.”’ Replying to her quizzical look, he said, ‘Macbeth.’
She raised her glass to his. ‘Are you still a regular at the betting shop?’
‘Oh yes,’ he replied. ‘And about to experience two days of deprivation.’ Seeing her puzzled expression, he elucidated. ‘No racing on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.’
In its perverse way, the first sip of her cold Chardonnay spread a pleasing warmth through her body. She looked around the sitting room of Woodside Cottage, transformed for Christmas. It was more cluttered than ever with boughs of holly, fir and other evergreens stuck to the walls and standing in jugs and vases. All natural decorations, she noted. No paper chains, no tinsel, no lametta, certainly no fairy lights. Simply variations of green interrupted only by the red of holly berries. Whatever she did, Jude had style.
And she also, however casual her approach to it might have seemed, knew how to run a party. Hardly surprising, when Carole came to think about it, because one of Jude’s previous incarnations had been as a restaurateur. Somehow spaces had been found on the crowded surfaces for trays of drinks and bowls of intriguing-looking nibbles. There was no room for a table where the guests could sit down, but enticing smells from the kitchen suggested more substantial hot food would soon be on its way.
And yet Jude didn’t seem to be distracted by her culinary responsibilities. She was flitting amongst the throng, as ever surprisingly light on her feet for a woman of her bulk. She was dressed in layers of wafting garments, predominantly purple, mauve and pale, pale violet. On top of her intricately plaited bundle of hair was the
room’s only concession to tinsel, the crown she’d picked up in Gallimaufry. As she had done so many times before, Carole wondered how it was that Jude could get away with the way she dressed. If she herself had gone around with a tinsel crown on, she would look ridiculous, like an ageing woman in an anonymous Marks and Spencer’s black dress who’d had a drop too much at the staff Christmas lunch and forgotten to remove the hat she’d got in her cracker.
But then Carole was Carole and Jude was Jude.
At that moment Jude’s lack of concern about the kitchen was explained as issuing forth from it came Zosia, the bar manager from the Crown and Anchor. Her blond hair was in its usual stubby pigtails and her customary broad grin was in place, as she balanced trays of chicken satay sticks, prawn tempura, stuffed mushrooms and other delights.
Carole couldn’t help reflecting that Zosia was another person who had come into their lives through murder. It was the death of her brother Tadeusz that had brought the girl to England and, though she never let the surface of her cheerful public persona crack, there must have been times when she still felt the loss.
If Zosia was helping Jude, then Ted Crisp must be holding the fort at the Crown and Anchor. But even as Carole had the thought, she saw the landlord across the room, standing on his own, large and forlorn. With a murmured apology to Gerald Hume, she crossed towards him.
Seeing Ted in public always gave Carole a bit of a charge. The sheer unlikeliness of her having had a brief affair with the man gave her more sense of herself as a woman than she usually felt. And her confidence was increased by how uncomfortable he was looking. She’d been worried about her own social ineptitude, her not recognizing anyone at the open house, and yet here she was grinning away at familiar faces as she crossed the room, whereas it was Ted who appeared to know no one. Not surprising, really. He hardly ever stirred from the premises of the Crown and Anchor. So Fethering residents who weren’t regulars at the pub . . . well, he probably hadn’t met them.
He did look rewardingly pleased to see her, and uncharacteristically kissed her on both cheeks. She had forgotten how surprisingly soft his beard was against her skin.
‘So if you and Zosia are both here, who’s looking after the Crown and Anchor?’
‘She’s trained up the young staff very well. They can manage for one lunchtime . . . not that there’ll probably be much business.’ But he didn’t sound as down about the situation as he had when they last met. In response to Carole’s enquiring eyebrow, he went on, ‘Suddenly got a bit of a break yesterday. Lunch booking for thirty-five tomorrow. Firm’s Christmas do.’
‘That was very short notice.’
He grinned with satisfaction. ‘That was because they were let down by the place they had booked. Someone there screwed up the reservation.’
‘Where was that?’
His satisfaction grew. ‘Home Hostelries’ latest flagship venue. The Cat and Fiddle up near Fedborough.’ Ted Crisp had many reasons for welcoming incompetence from that particular chain of pubs.
They were joined by a bustling, bubbling Jude. ‘Now I do want you two to meet my friend Saira.’ The name was pronounced like the grape variety ‘Syrah’.
The woman indicated was in her early thirties. The shape of her face and the line of her hair suggested Indian or Pakistani ancestry, but her skin was surprisingly pale. Her brown eyes were flecked with hazel and she had a broad, toothy smile.
‘Actually, we know each other,’ said Carole, glad to see another familiar face.
‘Oh, I should have thought of that. Through Gulliver?’ asked Jude.
‘Yes. I’m sorry, I’ve always known you as Miss Sherjan. I didn’t know your first name.’ Rather formally Carole shook the woman’s thin hand and explained to Ted, ‘Saira Sherjan’s one of the local vets. Part of the practice at Fedborough. She’s patched up various injuries for Gulliver.’
‘Pleased to meet you,’ said the publican.
‘And how is Gulliver?’
‘Fine at the moment, Miss Sh – Saira. Still constantly reproaching me for not taking him on enough walks. But, touch wood, he hasn’t managed to cut himself on anything on Fethering Beach recently.’
‘Good. He’s a lovely dog.’ The woman’s affection for animals glowed within her. For her, being a vet was a vocation rather than just a job.
‘Not very bright, I’m afraid.’
‘What Labrador is?’
‘Can I get you a drink, Saira?’ asked Jude, waving the bottles of red and white she had in each hand.
‘No, I’m just on the water.’ She grinned at Carole. ‘That is partly because I’m on duty as Emergency Cover this evening. And also because I’m in training for the London Marathon.’
‘So are you going to lay off alcohol right through Christmas?’
‘You bet.’ Saira Sherjan was evidently strong-willed. ‘Excuse me, I’ll just go and get some water.’
As she watched the finely toned figure move away, Carole asked Jude how she’d met the vet. ‘You don’t have any animals.’
‘Oh, through friends,’ said Jude, with her characteristic airiness, and darted off to fill more glasses. At this point Gerald Hume rejoined Carole to say he must be going. ‘I have an investment programme arranged for the afternoon.’
‘The betting shop?’
‘How well you know me.’
‘I didn’t know you did Sundays there as well as weekdays.’
‘The habit of losing money is a deeply entrenched one,’ said Gerald Hume. ‘If we do not chance to meet again before the outbreak of festivities, I trust that you will have an enjoyable Christmas.’
The response, ‘Oh, I’m sure I will’, was instinctive. It was how she had covered up the loneliness of her recent Christmases. But, with a sudden surge of good cheer, for a moment Carole entertained the hope that her answer could be accurate for once. With Stephen, Gaby and Lily, she actually might have an enjoyable Christmas.
Chapter Seven
Carole was suddenly aware of a loud, cultured voice saying, ‘Ah, well, that’s something Elton John would have thrown a real tantrum about. Though fortunately, when I was working with him, he was in one of his calmer phases.’
She didn’t need telling that the speaker was Ricky Le Bonnier, but serendipitously Jude was passing and effected the introduction. Smiling, he took her hand in both of his and said, ‘Carole, such a pleasure to meet you.’
He certainly had charm – or even what someone less hidebound than Carole might have called ‘charisma’. Ricky Le Bonnier was tall, quite bulky above the waist, with grey, thinning hair hanging long to about jaw level. His glasses had narrow rectangular lenses set in frames whose designer appeared to have been influenced by the technology of the Eiffel Tower. He wore cherry-coloured corduroy trousers and a fuzzy cardigan with an abstract pattern of blues and greys.
Although he was in the centre of a small audience, Ricky Le Bonnier appeared to have brought two women with him, but neither was his wife Lola. The first was elderly, ensconced so deeply in one of Jude’s heavily draped armchairs that Carole had to bend double to talk to her. She was introduced as Flora, Ricky’s mother, and the expression of adoration that she fixed on her son might well have explained his robust self-esteem.
Although she had claimed to have no knowledge of the name, Carole recognized the woman instantly. Every period television drama of the previous decade seemed to have featured Flora Le Bonnier, usually as the proud head of some patrician family. And before that she had had a long career in British films. But it looked as though her acting days might now be over. She was thin, probably quite tall if she stood up, with a beaky nose and white hair expertly fluffed out by an expensive stylist. Her hands were curved rigidly inwards, the finger joints knobbly with arthritis. Propped against the armchair were the two sticks that, presumably, she needed for walking.
The other woman, perhaps in her late twenties, was introduced to Carole as Polly, Ricky’s daughter – though clearly not from his current marriage. Nor
did she actually look very like him. Polly was thin, dark and wiry, attractive in a daunting, don’t-mess-with-me manner. She wore tight black jeans and a sweater which emphasized her trim figure. Her hands were fiddling restlessly with a mobile in a fluorescent pink phone sock. Polly’s dark eyes darted around the room, looking for someone else she knew, someone who might give her the excuse to move away from her current conversational group.
Carole told Ricky that she’d met Lola in the shop.
‘Ah yes,’ he said. ‘Gallimaufry, the great Le Bonnier indulgence.’
‘Lost cause more likely,’ snapped Flora. If Carole hadn’t recognized the face, she could not have failed to recognize the voice. Husky, finely modulated, marinated in centuries of aristocratic history.
‘That remains to be seen,’ said her son easily. ‘As we know from all the doom merchants in the media, England’s high streets are suffering in the current economic climate, and there will inevitably be some casualties.’
‘I wouldn’t know. I never read newspapers,’ was his mother’s rather grand response. ‘They are full of inaccuracies and libel. Which is why I have made it a rule throughout my professional life never to speak to the press.’
‘All right, Mother, we all know you don’t read the papers. But you watch television and listen to the radio. You can’t pretend that you don’t know things are tough on the high street.’
‘Very well. And I also know that first to the wall will be mimsy-pimsy shops which sell over-priced rubbish for people with more money than sense.’
Carole was glad to meet someone whose opinions of Gallimaufry coincided so exactly with her own (even though she had ended up buying a glittery boa and a Glow-in-the-dark Computer Angel there), but she was more interested in the subtext of the old woman’s words. The impression came across that not only did Flora Le Bonnier disapprove of the shop, but she hadn’t much time for its owner either. Ricky’s mother was not a fan of his most recent marriage.
