‘No. He’ll just come to the final rehearsal, the day before the ceremony.’
‘Huh,’ said Carole. ‘So, till then, do you rehearse just the background stuff?’
‘“Just the background stuff”? What do you mean?’ asked Jude.
‘Well, the oohing and aahing in the background that goes on while the soloist sings.’
Jude sighed. Carole was not as totally ignorant about music as she was pretending to be. But it was entirely in character for her to behave like that when venturing into any territory where she felt insecure. Jude was of the opinion that her neighbour could actually sing, if she hadn’t devoted so much emotional effort to convincing herself that she couldn’t. But she was far too sensible ever to raise the issue.
‘And do you think Alice Mallett really knows Blake Woodruff?’ asked Carole. Jude was quite surprised she didn’t claim ignorance of the famous tenor as well as everything else that appertained to music.
‘I don’t see why not. Alice is an actress.’
‘Not a very good actress.’
‘We don’t know that.’
‘Well, from all accounts she doesn’t get much work.’
‘No.’ Jude did find her neighbour very tiring when she was in this contrarian mood. ‘And Heather said they met at a charity function. Sounds quite plausible to me.’
‘Yes. Maybe.’ A silence. They sipped their coffee.
‘You said you thought Heather might have known Blake Woodruff too …?’
‘Sort of impression I got. But you’d have thought, if she actually did, she’d have made more of it.’
‘Hm …’
‘Incidentally,’ said Jude mischievously, knowing exactly the response her next suggestion would elicit, ‘I know you have no wish to join the choir …’
‘I’m glad at least you’ve got that message.’
‘… but they’re quite a jolly bunch.’
‘I’ll take your word for that.’
‘And most of us tend to stay for a drink after rehearsal … you know, round eight thirtyish.’
‘So?’
‘So … I just thought, if you were at a loose end one Monday, you might like to come down to the pub and join us.’
Carole’s pale blue eyes looked bleakly at her neighbour. ‘Jude, the day I join your choir friends for a drink in the Crown & Anchor at eight thirty on a Monday evening, you will know that I have exhausted all other possible demands on my time.’
‘Right,’ said Jude, suppressing a smile. Her expectation of Carole’s response had been exactly fulfilled.
There was a silence. Then Carole, characteristically worrying away at a subject which most people would have thought defunct, asked, ‘So, Heather actually stated that she could afford Blake Woodruff’s fee?’
‘I don’t know if she had any idea how much it might be, but yes, she did say that.’
‘Hm. And she said that Leonard’s death had left her pretty “well-heeled”?’
‘That’s exactly what she said, yes.’ Jude looked straight at the pale blue eyes, shielded by their rimless glasses. ‘What are you implying?’
‘Just that speeding up the receipt of an inheritance is one of the commonest motives for murder.’
Jude sighed again. She thought all that conjecture had gone away. Clearly, for Carole, it hadn’t. And nor, she had to confess, if she was completely honest, had it for her.
The Monday before the wedding, the Crown & Anchor Choir met as usual. Bet Harrison was now a regular, though without her son Rory, but Ruskin Dewitt hadn’t attended since his summary exclusion from the wedding choir. Since he lived in Fedborough, there was little danger of other members bumping into him in the streets of Fethering, but Jude did worry about the effect his banishment might have had. She knew nothing about his personal circumstances, but somehow didn’t see him as married. And the enthusiasm with which he had embraced the Crown & Anchor Choir at the start suggested that he might have time on his hands in retirement. Presumably he no longer came to the pub on Mondays because he feared a level of awkwardness when he met Heather.
Jude felt saddened by what had happened to him but couldn’t think of any way of checking on his well-being. Nor could she forget the level of irritation he always inspired in her, with his bear hugs and self-absorption.
She also thought back to the slight tension she had detected between Russ and Jonny and wondered how far that animosity went back. She knew they had both taught at the same school, Ravenhall, for a while, and Jonny’s attack on his former colleague’s singing might have been the venting of some long-accumulated bile.
But, though the relationship between the two men intrigued her, Jude had to confess to herself that it wasn’t really her business.
And the surfaces of both choirs seemed effectively to have closed over the absence of Ruskin Dewitt.
The imminence of the wedding gave an added excitement to the Crown & Anchor Choir’s meeting that Monday. Though not all of those present were in both choirs, there were enough who would be at Saturday’s ceremony for a giggly sense of anticipation to run through KK’s rehearsal. To make the closeness of the event more real, Alice Mallett, who was staying with her stepmother till the big day, had joined their ranks. And, whatever her skills as an actress, she certainly had a fine natural soprano voice. When congratulated on it, she said, self-effacingly, ‘It’s not as good as it should be. I keep meaning to get singing lessons, but never get round to it. Maybe I should set up something with KK … or Jonny, if he’s got time.’
The song they were working on that evening was ‘Time of the Season’, which, Jude recalled, had been a hit for the Zombies. Though she hadn’t been around when it was first released in 1967, it was a tune of which she was particularly fond. She couldn’t think about it without remembering an actor lover, considerably older, who had tried to entrap her in his psychedelic past. The liaison had not lasted, but it was one she looked back on with increasing wistfulness. He, of course, was long dead, but hearing the Zombies’ song never failed to revive her memory of him.
The Crown & Anchor Choir had rehearsed the number before, it was a favourite of theirs, and that evening KK was pleased with their first attempt.
‘That’s getting quite cool,’ he congratulated them. ‘Almost funky. But what it should be – and what you dudes aren’t making it yet – is sexy. It’s a very sexy number; think “The Summer of Love”. Those breathy noises over the opening should sound like you’re enjoying some really good foreplay.’
Neither Shirley nor Veronica Tattersall knew where to look, so they looked at each other. And that made them blush.
‘And,’ KK went on, ‘make those responses sexy too.’ He strummed a chord on his guitar. ‘So, like, I sing: “What’s your name?” And you echo it, but I want that echo to sound like you’re on the way to a really major orgasm.’
Again, Shirley and Veronica Tattersall didn’t know where to look. They didn’t make the mistake of catching each other’s eye this time. But they still blushed. Elizabeth Browning, on the other hand, nodded knowingly, as if in recollection of orgasms shared with lovers long dead (no doubt at Glyndebourne).
Jude again noticed, on the first run of the song, the beauty of Alice Mallett’s voice. Obviously, because they weren’t related by blood, this couldn’t be a genetic inheritance from Heather, but there was something about the way the two women sang side by side which implied harmony – and not just in the musical sense. The more Jude saw of them together, the more out of character seemed Alice’s outburst after her father’s funeral. Heather appeared as bonded to Alice as any mother could be to a daughter she had given birth to.
‘OK, dudes,’ said KK, ‘let’s just rehearse these responses. I’ll sing the lines, you do the echoes. And remember, like you’re having really good sex …’