What, thought Carole, and where’s the money coming from? Although her Home Office pension and prudent savings habits meant she could easily have booked a round-the-world cruise at that very moment, a week in a cottage in Cornwall still sounded like an unwarranted extravagance.
“I’m not sure,” Jude went on, “exactly what time we’ll arrive tomorrow evening. Is there some arrangement we should make about picking up the key…?”
“It’s fine. I’m here all the time. I’ll be able to let you in.”
“Good.”
“And there will be a Welcome Pack of basics in the fridge when you arrive. You know, bread, milk, butter.”
“That sounds fine. Oh, one thing…Is it all right if we have a dog with us?” The question showed that Jude was ahead of Carole. Gulliver wasn’t going to be allowed as an excuse to get out of the trip.
“Yes, that’s fine. Lots of our guests bring dogs. There are some lovely walks along the cliffs.”
“Great. Now which of the cottages is free, Mopsa? Which one would you recommend?”
“As I say, they’re all free…just briefly. I live in Number One. Two and Four are really one big double room and one small single. Since there are two of you, Three would be best. That’s got two large single bedrooms.” There was a slight hesitation at the other end. “That is, if you don’t want the double…?”
Well, these days you had to ask. Jude suppressed a giggle and decided she wouldn’t pass on that part of the conversation to Carole. Her neighbour was clearly already having difficulty accommodating the idea of the two of them swanning off to Cornwall for a week. The suggestion that they might be mistaken for a lesbian couple was probably more than she could cope with.
“No. Number Three sounds the right one for us. Now are you going to need my address?”
“If you can just give me a credit card number, that’ll be fine. You can fill in the forms when you arrive. We take a non-refundable hundred pound deposit, and that’ll come straight off your card. I’m sorry, but we have had unfortunate experiences in the past.”
“I’m sure you have. Can’t trust anyone these days, can you? Just a sec. I’ll get the card.” Jude reached into a capacious handbag and took out a battered wallet, from which she extracted one from a choice of credit cards.
Carole saw the name: “J. Metarius.”
“Do you have another in the name of ‘Nichol’?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“And in your birth name?”
“Yes.” But Jude wasn’t about to elaborate. “Hello, Mopsa. It’s a MasterCard, and I’ll give you the number…”
When the call finished, Carole was about to go into a long diatribe about how rash and extravagant they were being, but she was prevented by Jude immediately keying in another number.
“Who?”
“The Lockes. In Chichester. Ssh.”
Carole watched in frustrated silence while her friend spoke. “Hello, who is that? Mr Locke, my name’s Jude. Yes, I came to see Bridget this afternoon about her back…That’s right. Just ringing…a sort of after-service call, to see if she’s still feeling better. Oh, good, that’s excellent news. No, don’t bother her. If it’s still fine, I don’t need to talk to her. And if she gets any more trouble…well, she’s got my number. Thank you so much. Goodbye.” She switched off the phone.
“Do you give ‘after-service’ calls to all your patients?” asked Carole sourly.
Jude didn’t bother to argue with the choice of word. Her neighbour knew she preferred to call them ‘clients’ and was only being annoying. “Not all of them, no.”
“Then what was the purpose of that?”
“The purpose of that was to find out from Bridget whether her husband was around. But he saved me the trouble by actually answering the phone himself.”
“Ah.” Carole understood. “Because if Rowley is currently in Chichester…then we know he’s not at Treboddick.”
“Exactly,” said Jude. “Now, one more glass of wine, and then I guess we should do some packing.”
Twenty-Four
There was one call Carole had to make when she got back to High Tor. Her affront about the idea of suddenly swanning off to Cornwall (as she still thought of it) had now been replaced by a sensation that came quite close to excitement. Since the break-up of her marriage, she hadn’t really done holidays. Partly this was due to the instinctive frugality of her nature, but she also had to admit to herself that she didn’t like the idea of setting off somewhere to have a good time on her own. The prospect of booking into a cruise ship and being thrown in with all kinds of people she had never seen before was her worst nightmare. And there were no friends with whom she felt relaxed enough to risk exposing her personality to them over a sustained period. Jude was probably the person to whom she was closest, but the parameters of their relationship would not, to Carole’s mind at least, encompass the suggestion of their holidaying together. So the forthcoming trip to the West Country, although in the cause of their murder investigation, had suddenly become rather an attractive proposition. As soon as she heard they wouldn’t be sharing a room, Carole had become quite keen on the idea.
To her surprise, Stephen answered the phone. She hadn’t expected him to be in his Fulham home, and had anticipated having to call his mobile number. Carole still felt a little old–fashioned about mobiles, as if they were new and experimental technology. She was never confident that a message left on a mobile didn’t immediately vanish into the ether. Jude kept saying she ought to get one, but Carole didn’t feel the need. She didn’t get many calls on the landline at High Tor. What was the point of having two phones that didn’t ring?
“I just rang to ask about Gaby.”
“She’s still in hospital.” Stephen sounded weary. “They say there’s nothing to worry about, but they still want to keep her in, probably until the baby’s born. Which is something I can’t exactly understand, if there’s ‘nothing to worry about’.”
“I’m sure it’s just precautionary. The blood pressure.”. – “That’s what they say.”
“She’ll be fine.”
“I hope so.” Carole had never heard so much strain in her son’s voice. The responsibility of approaching fatherhood, maybe even the masculine guilt about having put his wife into her current hazardous condition, was weighing him down.
“In a month you’ll have a lovely little baby and you won’t remember any of the anxieties you went through.” Stephen didn’t reply to this. Perhaps he didn’t think it was worthy of reply. “Look, I’m ringing because I’m going to be away for a few days.”
“Oh? How long?”
“Well, it could be as much as a week.” Though somehow she didn’t think it would be. That had been another reason for her shock at Jude’s extravagance. Her neighbour seemed unthinkingly to write off a week’s rent for an investigation that might only last a couple of days. And, come to think of it, what were they investigating? Because of some extremely iffy clues, they were hoping to find Nathan Locke at Treboddick. But, given the fact that the police had already searched the place, how small were their chances of success?
“Where are you going, Mother?”
Oh dear, he was back to formality. “Cornwall,” she replied.
“Good.”
“Why do you say ‘good’?”
“Because you could do with a break.” A break from what, was Carole’s instinctive reaction. Since the Home Office had decided to dispense with her services, she had never quite lost the sensation that she was totally unproductive. The work ethic remained strong within her, and she still felt people without work were, at some level, worthless.
“Are you going on your own?”