'Have you ticked that one off, Dora?' Reginald Flowers spoke to 'his' secretary as one might to a small child with learning difficulties.
'I have,' she replied humbly.
'Very well, next question . . .' The quizmaster cleared his throat into the microphone and coughed. 'I'm sorry. I think my bronchitis is coming on.' And his voice certainly did have a dry, husky quality. 'Right, this is the last question before we have a twenty-minute break when you can go and refill your glasses.'
Good, thought Carole, mindful of Ted Crisp's demand that the participants in the quiz night should 'drink lots of booze'.
Reginald Flowers again cleared his clogged throat and asked, 'Of which creatures is the collective noun a "parliament"?'
'MPs!' shouted Kelvin Southwest raucously. 'That wasn't too tricky, Reg.'
'No, no, I said "creatures", not human beings.'
'MPs are not human beings!' riposted Kelvin, proud of his rapier wit.
'The question is, "Of which creatures is the collective noun a 'parliament'?" And it's a creature, not a human being,' Reginald Flowers repeated, clearly put out at what he saw as a challenge to his authority. He made himself feel better by having another go at Dora. 'Make a note of that, please. That question may need rephrasing to deal with the nit-picking fraternity.' The note was duly made, and the quizmaster was siezed by a bout of coughing.
Jude looked blankly at her teammates. 'Haven't a clue.'
'I know it,' whispered Carole. And she mouthed 'Owls' at them.
'How on earth do you know that?' asked Jude.
'It came up in a Times crossword clue,' said Carole smugly.
'So how are you two lovely ladies?' asked a leering Kelvin Southwest, more outgoing to them now as he queued at the bar with Curt Holderness. The Crown and Anchor would have been busy that night, even without the sudden influx of the quiz night crowd from the function room. Ted Crisp, Zosia and her girls were kept hard at it.
'We're very well, thank you,' Carole replied primly. 'Curt, this is my neighbour Jude.'
'Very nice to meet you,' said the security officer, with a lazy look of appreciation at Jude's ample curves.
'Things have developed a bit since we last met,' Carole observed.
'Things?'
'I was referring to the discovery on Smalting Beach.'
'Yes.' A guarded look came into Curt Holderness's eyes. 'Nasty business.'
'Presumably the police have talked to you about it?' asked Carole, possibly pushing her luck.
'Why should they?' came the tart reply.
'Well, I was thinking, since you're the security officer, they would automatically want to know if you'd seen any disturbance or anything unusual happening.'
'Yes,' he conceded, apparently relieved. Carole wondered what he had thought she was going to ask him about. 'I did talk to them, yes. Not that I could be much help. I didn't see anything odd happening.'
'You didn't volunteer any information to them, did you, Curt? Because I seem to remember when we last met you were very against the idea of telling the police anything that—'
'Excuse me,' he said, having just attracted Zosia's attention. But he wasn't about to give the order. He turned to his friend. 'Here, Kel, get the drinks in. Mine's a pint of Stella.' True to the Curt Holderness principle of never buying a drink for himself. Kelvin Southwest looked slightly sour at being landed with the round, but he didn't demur. Clearly the Crown and
Anchor was not one of the local places that owed the Fether District Council official a favour and wouldn't charge him.
Carole was intrigued by the relationship between the two men. They clearly knew each other well, yet there didn't seem to be much affection between them. And Curt Holderness appeared to hold the balance of power. She wondered what favours they had done each other in the past.
Saddled with buying the drinks, Kelvin Southwest all of a sudden became elaborately chivalrous and asked if he could treat 'the lovely ladies' as well. To Carole's surprise, Jude responded quite sharply that they were fine, 'thank you very much'.
When they eventually got their Chilean Chardonnays and were walking back to the function room, Carole asked her neighbour why she had bitten off Kelvin Southwest's head. 'It's unlike you, Jude.'
'Yes. There's just something I find rather creepy about him'.
'I agree. All that smarm about "lovely ladies".'
'And from someone who really loathes women.'
'What?'
'Kelvin Southwest is not attracted to women.'
'But all his going on about "lovely ladies" . . .'
'It's a front. Women don't turn him on sexually.'
'How do you know, Jude?'
'I just know.'
Carole didn't argue. She knew there were certain areas of life in which Jude's instincts were much more accurate than her own. So maybe the fact that Kelvin
Southwest appeared to fancy her more than he fancied Jude wasn't such great news after all. 'Then what do you think does turn him on sexually?'
'I don't know,' replied Jude. And she shuddered.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
'Now you've all heard of scuba diving but the next question is: what do the letters "S — C — U — B — A" stand for?'
At the tables around Reginald Flowers and his microphone, discussions erupted and a few confident contenders started writing down answers. Jude puffed out her cheeks in an expression of ignorance and looked around at her teammates. 'Sea Coast . . . Underwater . . . Breath Aid . . . ?' she hazarded.
'Not bad,' said the Captain of Smalting Golf Club. 'But not right, I'm afraid. In fact, the correct answer is: "Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus".'
'How do you know that?' asked Jude. 'Have you ever done it?'
'Oh yes,' he assured her. 'I used to do a lot of other sports before golf took over my life. I don't know if I happened to mention it, but I am currently Captain of Smalting Golf Club.'
'Yes, you did mention it,' said Carole testily. 'Quite a few times.'
The golf captain and his wife looked at her open-mouthed, as Carole, who had been appointed team scribe, wrote the answer down. There were still a distressing number of blanks on the form. She had hoped, with her crossword expertise, to be doing rather better on the quiz. But then she hadn't really been anticipating questions on the names of the Arsenal team who won the 1994 European Cup Winners' Cup. And German aircraft of the Second World War could hardly be described as her specialist subject. Nor indeed could the hits of Beyonce.
Though slightly soured by the fact that she knew so few answers, Carole was grudgingly impressed by the range of questions. It was fair enough, she supposed, that the subject matter covered should be broad. That ensured that no one — including, unfortunately, her — had any special advantage.
She wondered whether Reginald Flowers had taken his list from a book or the internet, or whether he'd done his own research. From her assessment of the man's character, she thought the latter was probably the answer.
Reginald coughed again into his microphone. 'Right, you've all had enough time on that one. Let's move on. The next question is a literary one.' There was groaning from some of the tables, which encouraged Carole. She reckoned here was a subject on which she was in with a chance. 'What is the name of the terrible school run by Wackford Squeers in Charles Dickens's novel Nicholas Nickleby?'
As she smugly wrote down the answer, Carole was cheered by the sound of more groans. Through which sounded a raucous shout from Curt Holderness. 'Was it maybe Edgington Manor School? I heard some well dodgy things went on there.'