“Carole, I am quite capable of saying ‘No’ to men. It’s something in which I have had a lot of experience.”
“Have you?” said Carole rather wistfully. She had always felt that with most men her looks had said ‘No’ long before any verbal response had become necessary.
“Anyway, come on, Carole, we both want to get to the bottom of what’s been going on. We want to find out if there really has been an organized campaign of harassment against the Cat and Fiddle and the Crown and Anchor. We also want to know who killed Ray and Viggo. And do we have any other leads at the moment apart from talking to Dan Poke?”
Carole was forced to concede that they didn’t.
“Then I’ll call him.”
“Yes. Erm…Jude, you don’t think you should suggest that I should come and meet him as well, do you?”
“For the kind of encounter he’s envisaging, I don’t think he’d want a gooseberry there, no.”
Carole Seddon blushed.
Dan Poke didn’t answer the phone, but he rang back later in response to the message. Yes, he remembered Jude. If she wanted to meet up with him – “That could be quite enjoyable.” He was starting ‘a little mini-tour of gigs’ on the Wednesday, but he would be free the next evening. He’d got a flat at Notting Hill. If she got out of the tube station and went along Pembridge Road –
Jude interrupted him and suggested they meet in a bar she knew just near the tube station. He came up with predictable lines about how difficult he found being in public places, how ordinary people regarded celebrities as common property. Jude insisted; they would meet in the bar or not at all. Dan Poke seemed eventually to be amused by what he took as a show of coyness on her part, but he did agree to meet her there at six-thirty the following evening.
As soon as she had finished that call, she rang through to the bar which was to be their rendezvous. It was a place she had often frequented in the company of an actor with whom she’d lived in Notting Hill for a couple of years. She was relieved when the phone was answered by a voice she recognized. Yes, it was Garcia, and he was still running the place. And of course he remembered Jude. Was she still with…? Silly man, said Garcia, always was rather immature, didn’t realize what he was giving up.
It would be wonderful to see her the following evening. Jude was always welcome at Garcia’s place. And yes, though they weren’t the same individuals, his bouncers were as tough as they had ever been.
Jude put the phone down, confident that her security was in place for the following evening’s meeting.
Thirty-Four
Jude was going to catch the first cheap train up to Victoria the next morning. When she heard this plan, Carole had objected, “But you’re not meeting him till the evening.”
“No, but there’s some shopping I want to do.”
“What? Clothes?” In Carole’s view, it wouldn’t hurt if her neighbour bought some different clothes, to make herself look a bit less of a hippy. Though, mind you, she didn’t have to go up to London to do that. The Marks & Spencer’s in Worthing would, in Carole’s view, have been perfectly adequate.
But no, Jude said it wasn’t clothes. What then? It was with an impish grin that Jude revealed that there were some shops round Covent Garden she wanted to look at. They specialized in crystals.
“Oh,” said Carole dismissively. “Well, I suppose if you want to spend a steaming hot day traipsing round Covent Garden looking at crystals…”
In her neighbour’s absence, Carole felt restless. As a result, Gulliver got an extra walk, which he was almost too hot to appreciate. And he had the dressing changed on his leg, which had nearly healed. But Carole still felt ill at ease. Even though she had found a rather good free online computer course, her attention kept straying from the screen. She was keen to learn more about the mysteries of the laptop, which she no longer even pretended to resist, but she just couldn’t sustain her concentration.
Partly, she knew that she was a little jealous of Jude. Carole Seddon had amazingly sensitive antennae for slights, particularly in the area of criminal investigation. Although she fully accepted the logic of Jude’s meeting Dan Poke on her own, she didn’t like feeling excluded from any part of their enquiry.
There was also an unease in her mind, similar to that which Jude had felt over the weekend, a sense that there was something obvious she wasn’t seeing. There was another connection to be made somewhere in relation to the deaths of Ray and Viggo, but she couldn’t for the life of her work out what it was.
It was in the early evening, after a long, hot and frustrating day, that the lightbulb finally came on in Carole Seddon’s brain. She had once again Googled Home Hostelries and was ploughing through the endless links offered when she came to a reference to another local pub.
The Hare and Hounds in Weldisham. Of course! That had been made over in exactly the same way as the Middy in Portsmouth. And in fact it had been in the Hare and Hounds that she’d first heard the words Home Hostelries some years before. It must have been one of the first pubs bought by the chain.
Carole decided that she would take Gulliver for yet another walk, this time on the Downs near Weld-isham. And then she would have a drink in the Hare and Hounds. She didn’t know what she was expecting to find there, but it was the nearest place with a Home Hostelries connection. And going there would give her the illusion of contributing as much as Jude to their investigation.
The bar run by Garcia had been exclusive before Notting Hill attained maximum trendiness, and it had become more exclusive as the area became richer. The decor hadn’t changed in all that time; it was still predominantly black, the contours broken up by darkly tinted mirrors and the gleaming steel of the bar.
A famous television actress was sharing a bottle of wine – and by the appearance of their intimacy would soon be sharing more – with a very recognizable Newsnight anchor. They were relaxed; they knew no publicity stories ever made their way out of the club. Jude congratulated herself on her choice of venue.
Garcia greeted her like a long-lost sister and, once she had caught up with news of his very extended family, Jude took her drink to a shadowy corner table and sat down to wait for Dan Poke.
While she was walking an ecstatic Gulliver on the Downs near Weldisham, Carole asked herself why she had come there. And the only answer she could come up with was the feeble one of ‘instinct’. Oh dear, she was beginning to think like Jude. Next thing she’d be talking about the ‘auras’ and ‘atmospheres’ of places, about ‘synchronicity’ and other mumbo-jumbo.
But something still told her she was right to have come to the village. Going to another Home Hostel-ries pub might provide some clue, some connection to ease the confusion of her speculations. The trip was a form of research.
There were already quite a few customers at the pub, but because of the heat most of them were sitting at tables outside. The wine list was, of course, identical to that they had consulted in the Middy, so Carole once again ordered Maipo Valley Chardonnay. She went for a small one this time, righteous because she was driving.
The girl who served her, purple-haired, nose-studded and wearing a mulberry shirt with grey logo across the breast, was perfectly friendly, but not much use as a research source. She handed over the change and Carole had just started on, “I used to come to this pub a long time ago…” when the girl said, “Sorry, I must serve that customer over there.” Carole took her drink to a table near the bar.