And Carole thought she’d put it completely behind her, with a mixture of embarrassment and a slight frisson at the recollection that she could still interest a man in that way.
But she felt disturbed and undermined by the fact that the landlord was now showing interest in another woman.
Or maybe what upset her was that the woman in question was Brandie Neville, an aspirant healer.
Jude had a strong belief in synchronicity. Not a subject she raised in Carole’s presence, to avoid the inevitable derision it would prompt.
So, given the fact that they’d been discussing Glen Porter in the Crown and Anchor, she was totally unsurprised to come back to Woodside Cottage and find a message from him on the answering machine.
She rang back immediately.
‘Hello?’ The greeting was cautious.
‘This is Jude. You left me a message.’
‘Ah yes. I wonder if we could meet …?’
This was going better than she dared hope. ‘That would be fine.’
‘You live in Fethering – is that right?’
‘Yes.’
‘I wonder … would you be able to join me for a cup of coffee tomorrow morning at about eleven?’
‘I could do that. What – Starbucks?’
‘Do you actually like Starbucks?’
‘No.’
‘I don’t think anyone does. Its success is one of the unsolved mysteries of the last fifty years.’
‘You could be right.’
‘Well, Jude, since neither of us likes Starbucks … and Fethering doesn’t boast one of those friendly one-off coffee shops beloved of American sitcoms, I’m suggesting that you join me for coffee at my beach hut. That’s on Fethering Beach.’
‘I know the one. I’ve walked past it many times.’
‘Eleven o’clock tomorrow morning then?’
‘That’ll be fine.’
There are women who might have been cautious about fixing a meeting alone with a man who featured high on their list of murder suspects. But Jude wasn’t one of them.
Coming down the next morning to find the decorator already painting away, as she put the kettle on for her tea and his coffee, she didn’t mention her upcoming tryst. But she did raise the name of Glen Porter. ‘Were you at the same school as him, Pete?’
‘Yes. Went to the same primary. Only one in Fethering. Mind you, I’m a few years older. Didn’t know him at school.’
‘And how well do you know him now?’
Pete shrugged. ‘To say hello. If I see him down the yacht club. Like we did on Saturday. But I don’t see him that often. He travels a lot.’
‘So I’ve heard. Just for pleasure?’
‘Guess so. Certainly no one’s ever heard of him doing any work. Still, maybe if I could afford it, I’d do the same.’
‘And he has a reputation as a bit of a lady’s man, I’ve heard.’
‘Did have, apparently. Though we’re talking a long time ago. When he was at school and in his early twenties. Haven’t heard so much about the lady’s man stuff since he came into Reefer Townsend’s money. Still, maybe that’s what Glen gets up to on his travels. A woman in every international resort …? I really don’t know.’
‘He’s never been married?’
‘Don’t think so.’
‘And no current relationships round Fethering?’
‘Not as far as I know.’
‘Hm.’ Jude shivered. ‘Feels a bit cold down here to me. I’m going to take my cup of tea up to bed.’
From an upstairs window at High Tor, Carole saw her neighbour setting out from Woodside Cottage at about half ten. She couldn’t suppress a tickle of curiosity about where Jude might be going. No planned excursion had been mentioned in the Crown and Anchor the evening before.
Maybe it was a client …? Having the sitting room decorated ruled out seeing the deluded and hypochondriac of Fethering in her usual workspace … and Jude had talked about visiting some clients in their own homes … Yes, that was a possible scenario.
But Carole concluded it was more likely her neighbour was going to visit another of the lovers she’d kept quiet about.
Of course, there was no way she was going to feel jealous about the situation. Having had as many lovers as Jude had was, to Carole’s mind, definite proof of neediness and mental instability.
And she herself had far too many other priorities in her life to worry about men. Carole had always felt rather sorry for women whose whole identity was predicated on having a man around. Granted, her own track record in that area had not been particularly distinguished. Her marriage to David had ended in divorce. And her other major romantic excursion, with Ted Crisp, had been … well …
And now that same Ted Crisp had the nerve to be planning vegan menus with Brandie Neville!
Carole’s seething fury knew no bounds.
The impression Jude had got from the exterior of Glen Porter’s beach hut – that it looked Chekhovian – was reinforced by being inside. The seasoned wooden rafters had faded to grey and the low slopes of the ceilings gave the feeling of a pre-revolutionary dacha. The view the leaded windows afforded on to the English Channel felt somehow wrong. The building’s rightful place was in a forest clearing, preferably blanketed with snow.
Though the place had not been modernized, it had been punctiliously maintained. Many beach huts are kept in a state of casual scruffiness, seaside equipment left out for easy access and the basic principle of cleanliness being, ‘Well, since everything’s going to get covered with sand, anyway …’ Not in this beach hut, though. Any surface that should have been polished gleamed with recent ministrations, and not a single cobweb had been allowed to secrete itself behind a rafter. Since Glen Porter himself did not have the air of a do-it-yourself cleaner, he must have had a highly efficient team on the job. But presumably, Jude surmised, if money’s no object …
She wasn’t quite sure what she had been expecting from meeting Glen, but he didn’t conform to any of the obvious stereotypes. He certainly didn’t demonstrate the flamboyance implied in Barney Poulton’s assertion that he could just ‘splash the cash’. Glen was dressed in well-cut leisurewear but nothing extravagant. And, though the beach hut was well looked after, there was no evidence of excessive expenditure on the décor and set dressing.
As for the vaunted Jack-the-Laddishness, that seemed to have been toned down too, possibly just with maturity. Jude was accorded a look of quiet appreciation, acknowledgement that she was an attractive woman, but nothing more overt than that.
For herself, she could recognize his attractiveness, but it wasn’t the kind that threatened her equilibrium. Behind the long grey hair and the laid-back leisurewear, she could detect in his manner a detached canniness, a level of calculation. It was a personality trait that, she knew, could quickly flip into intransigence.
He prepared their coffee – needless to say he had the latest machine, which did the full grind-to-pour routine – in the kitchen, calling through casual pleasantries about the ghastly weather. Jude sat on the comfortable tweed sofa on to which she had been directed. Her anticipation was tinged with excitement. She felt sure Glen Porter had something to tell her about the death of Harry Lasalle … which might well lead to information about the disappearance of Anita Garner.
‘This is a fabulous building,’ she said, as he came back into the sitting room. ‘Fabulous position.’
‘Yes. You’re not the only person to think that.’
‘Oh?’
‘A lot of people want to buy it off me.’ Having placed her coffee – in a nice bone-china cup and saucer – on the table next to the sofa, he took a seat in the armchair opposite. ‘Latest,’ he went on, ‘is Roland Lasalle, the property developer.’ He put a lot of unexplained irony into the last two words. ‘He’d like to turn it into a swish restaurant, to cater to all the people who he hopes will be filling out the holiday flatlets he’s making at Footscrow House.’