THE KILLING IN THE CAFÉ
A Fethering Mystery
Simon Brett
To Michael,
with many thanks for being such
a great agent and friend
for over forty years
ONE
‘That’s a word that’s the real kiss of death.’ Carole Seddon pronounced it with distaste. ‘“Community”.’
‘Don’t be so cynical,’ said Jude.
‘I’m not being cynical. I’m being realistic. I’ve never encountered anything beginning with the word “community” that wasn’t a complete disaster. “Community Action” … “Community Arts” … “Community Politics” … “Community Health” … They’re all shorthand for something that doesn’t work.’
‘Oh, come on.’ Jude was used to her neighbour sounding off, but she really felt she had to challenge this sweeping generalization. ‘I’ve got a lot of friends in the NHS who put in ridiculous hours on Community Health projects and are extremely—’
‘All right, all right.’ It wasn’t in Carole’s nature to concede that she was wrong, but she did redefine her criticisms. ‘I was talking about “community” at the local level. Where projects are taken on by amateurs rather than professionals, and the amateurs almost invariably mess things up.’
‘Well, I’m not sure that—’
‘You don’t have to look any further than right here in Fethering. Can you name any village project that had the word “community” in front of it and wasn’t a total failure?’
‘Um, I’m sure there have been—’
‘There, you see, you can’t,’ said Carole with a grin of triumph. ‘It’s like the word “Big”. That used to be a perfectly simple adjective meaning that something was large in size. Now the word’s shoved in front of every half-baked project that anyone dreams up and it’s supposed to … I don’t know what … to make something intrinsically boring sound trendy and “of the moment”. Huh. Do you remember that daft idea that was called “The Big Society”, a hopeless scheme to replace the professional services the government had cut by the efforts of unpaid volunteers who hadn’t a clue about …’
And Carole was off again on another of her rants. Jude smiled inwardly and thought, not for the first time, how unlikely their friendship was. Though about the same age, at that stage of life when women are (inaccurately) said to become invisible, they couldn’t have looked more different. Carole Seddon was tall and whippet-thin, with a forbidding helmet of grey hair and pale blue eyes that looked out quizzically – and frequently disapprovingly – from behind rimless glasses. She dressed in clothes which she hoped did not draw attention to her.
Jude, by contrast, was just on the right side between voluptuous and blousy. Her hair was blonde or blonded (no one had ever thought to ask), always piled up on her head and insecurely secured by bands, clips, slides or whatever else she happened to find on her dressing table when she got up. Her eyes were brown and she went through life with an easy sensuality which, in spite of her bulk, men still found irresistible. She dressed in floaty layers of garments and a profusion of scarves.
After a very varied life, which had included two marriages (both childless and both now defunct), stints as a model, an actress and a restaurateur, Jude now operated as a healer. Though she found the work draining and at times frustrating, she was convinced she had found her vocation.
Carole had retired, rather earlier than she would have wished, from the Civil Service, and moved to live full-time in Fethering. She had had quite a high-powered job at the Home Office. Divorced from a very annoying nitpicker of a man called David, she had an adult only son called Stephen, a daughter-in-law Gaby and a much-adored granddaughter called Lily. Gaby was again pregnant, due to give birth in a few weeks at the end of October. So the prospect of becoming a grandmother for the second time was tending to preoccupy Carole. In fact, in some ways it was a relief for Jude to hear her neighbour going on about something other than the forthcoming baby. Like the shortcomings of initiatives prefaced by the word ‘community’.
That Sunday evening the two women were sitting in an alcove in Fethering’s only pub, the Crown and Anchor. Each had a large glass of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. (They had used always to drink Chilean Chardonnay, but had quite suddenly gone off that buttery taste in favour of a crisper white. For a few weeks this innovation had confused the Crown and Anchor’s scruffy and bearded landlord, Ted Crisp. It was rare in Fethering for things as momentous as Carole and Jude’s drinking habits to change.)
Jude was getting down her glass quicker than Carole, at least partly because she wasn’t talking so much. Through the pub windows from the alcove where they sat, Jude could see the sea, the English Channel, shelving very slowly in this part of West Sussex. The tide was out, exposing acres of cement-coloured sand. In the late afternoon there were a few hardy families still playing on the beach, pretending in a very English way that the weather had not turned autumnal. It wasn’t actually raining, but the leaden clouds suggested that situation might only be a stay of execution. The children with the families were all very small. The older ones had gone back to school. And soon the little ones would be taken back to their holiday accommodation for suppers, baths and beds.
It was the fourth of October, Jude’s birthday, but in their long acquaintance she had never told her neighbour of the date’s significance. This was not because Jude had a secretive nature – rather the reverse – but Carole had never mentioned her own birthday. And Jude knew that knowing the date of her friend’s would throw Carole into a state of social consternation. How involved should she be in the celebration of the event? What level of expense would be the appropriate outlay for a present? Such questions, Jude knew, could upset Carole’s hard-won equilibrium.
Besides, Jude had never made a big deal of birthdays. During her marriages and her longer affairs, they had been celebrated by tête-à-tête dinners with the man of the moment, but she didn’t feel the need for such indulgence when she was on her own. Because her sitting room doubled as a consulting room, any cards that arrived were displayed upstairs in her bedroom. And otherwise the day was marked only by phone calls and emails from close friends and former lovers.
Of course being born on the fourth of October meant that, for people to whom such things are important, she was a Libran. Jude herself, to whom such things were not without importance, was content to be a Libran and thought she was a fairly typical representative of the sign. Tactful, romantic, able to see both sides of the story … yes, she did seem to have some of the positive Libran qualities. As to the negative ones – lazy, indecisive, self-indulgent – yes, at times she could own up to them as well.
The issue which had got Carole so aerated that Sunday evening concerned one of Fethering’s two cafés. The Seaview, a glassed-in structure on the edge of the beach, did a busy trade during the summer supplying tourists with battered fish, dry burgers, chips, chips, more chips and endless pots of tea. Though open all the year round, it was generally shunned by the upmarket locals (though the older generation of ‘common people’ from the Downside council estate continued to patronize it for fish suppers and endlessly eked-out pots of tea).
A venue more in tune with Fethering’s middle-class sensibilities was Polly’s Cake Shop. Also open all the year round, a casual visitor might at first believe that the place had been unchanged since the 1950s or even earlier. The few American tourists who came to Fethering thought with ecstasy that they had stumbled on a genuine piece of ‘Olde England’. They loved the rough white plaster of the interior, they loved the oak beams, they loved the horse brasses and warming pans that hung from them. They were overwhelmed by the red and white gingham tablecloths and the tiered silver cake stands. And when they were approached by waitresses in black with a frilly white aprons and frilly white caps offering them a menu of toasted teacakes, cucumber sandwiches, homemade coconut kisses and sponge fancies, they thought they’d died and gone to heaven. They knew for certain that they were part of the authentic English tea-shop experience they had witnessed in so many television adaptations of Agatha Christie. Only the appearance of Hercule Poirot himself could have made the experience more complete.