The Shooting in the Shop (5 page)

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.

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.’