‘Possibly. He’s an attractive man.’
‘Huh,’ said Carole Seddon as only Carole Seddon could. ‘Well, was there anything else he talked about, apart from just chatting you up?’
‘He talked a bit about how he is the star of all the local amdrams and they’re all falling over themselves to get him to play the leads in their productions. And he talked about The Devil’s Disciple.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Well, he did ask about Hester …’
‘What about her?’
‘He asked if she had been “all right” last night. Which I found rather odd.’
‘Why? Obviously he was worried that he’d upset her.’
‘But when had he upset her?’
‘Just before she went out to the car park.’
‘Really?’
‘Oh, you probably couldn’t see from where you were at the bar.’
‘No, I just saw her being cold-shouldered by Neville Prideaux.’
‘Well, I saw Ritchie Good stop Hester on the way to the door. He didn’t say much, but whatever it was it seemed to upset her. She broke away from him and rushed out of the pub.’
‘Oh, really?’ said Jude.
And suddenly there were two men whose behaviour towards her might have made Hester Winstone feel suicidal.
Nothing more was heard from anyone to do with SADOS for the next week. Jude was unsurprised to have no call from Storm Lavelle. She knew of old that, once her friend became involved in rehearsals for a play, she hardly noticed what might be happening in the rest of the world. It was only after the performances had finished that Storm would be back on the Woodside Cottage treatment table, bemoaning all the shortcomings of her life.
Jude was also unsurprised to hear nothing more from Ritchie Good. She had had no expectation of hearing back from him again, but his silence once again made her question why he had contacted her so urgently in the first place. If his motive was purely sexual, then perhaps her combative banter had scared him. What he’d thought might be another easy conquest had turned out to be a trickier proposition, so maybe he’d just backed off. But Jude still couldn’t help thinking that the important part of their conversation had been his anxiety about Hester Winstone.
Her investigative antennae were alerted by the situation, but she knew there was no case to explore. Hester Winstone, a woman possibly unhappy in her marriage, had made a very unconvincing suicide attempt. It had really been the classic cry for help. Jude doubted whether, after the shock of the first incision, Hester would have had the nerve to make another cut. So there was really nothing to investigate.
For the rest of the week Jude got on with her business of healing, while Carole continued her business of disapproving of most things. And presumably in Saint Mary’s Hall in Smalting, on the Tuesday, the Thursday and the Sunday, rehearsals for The Devil’s Disciple continued in the usual way.
On the following Monday morning Carole came to Woodside Cottage for coffee. By arrangement, of course. Carole was not the kind of person who ever ‘dropped in’ for coffee – or indeed for anything else. ‘Dropping in’ on people was the kind of habit that Carole Seddon associated, disparagingly, with ‘the North’. Except at times of great urgency, even though she only lived next door, she would never have appeared on Jude’s doorstep without having made a preparatory phone call. So the arrangement to meet for coffee that Monday had been made some days before. Carole had an appointment at Fethering Surgery for a blood pressure test – ‘just a routine thing, not serious – just something that came up at one of those Well Woman appointments they insist on dragging you along to.’
Carole’s health had in fact been remarkably good throughout her life, and retirement from the Home Office had not changed that. She ate sensibly and fairly frugally (except when coerced by Jude into the Crown and Anchor). She drank little (except when coerced by Jude into the Crown and Anchor). And long walks on Fethering Beach with her Labrador Gulliver ensured that she got plenty of exercise and sea air.
But if Carole Seddon were ever to have anything wrong with her, she would certainly not tell anyone. She had a strong animus against people ‘who’re always going on about their health’ or ‘imagine that you’re interested in their latest operation’. Carole had been brought up not to ‘maunder on’ about that kind of stuff. Her ideal relationship with the medical profession would be never to have anything to do with any of them. (In fact, at times her ideal relationship with all of mankind would be never to have anything to do with any of them.)
She was not a stupid woman, however, recognizing that growing older one should keep an eye on one’s health. So if at a Well Woman appointment she was told she needed to go back to the surgery for a blood pressure test, back to the surgery she would go.
But that didn’t stop her from moaning about the experience afterwards. ‘You’d think they’d get some system of dealing with appointments in that place,’ she said as Jude presented her with a cup of coffee in the jumbled sitting room of Woodside Cottage. ‘I’d have been here half an hour ago if those doctors just got vaguely organized. I mean they have all this technology, checking in on a screen when you arrive at the surgery, appointments being flashed up in red lights on another screen, but none of that changes their basic inefficiency. I can’t remember a time when I’ve actually got into an appointment there at the time scheduled.’
‘Well, what did the doctor say?’
‘Oh, I wasn’t even seeing a doctor. Just one of the nurses for the blood pressure test. Nothing important.’
‘Are you sure?’ asked Jude.
‘Yes,’ Carole replied, ever more determined not to be one of those people ‘who’re always going on about their health’, and firmly moving the conversation in another direction. ‘I noticed as I was walking past Allinstore –’ she referred to Fethering’s only – and uniquely inefficient – supermarket – ‘that they’re advertising a new delicatessen counter. If that’s as successful as all their other modernization efforts—’
Having dealt with the NHS, Carole’s move into a rant about Allinstore was only prevented by the ringing of Woodside Cottage’s doorbell. Jude went through to the hall. Carole heard the door being opened and the sound of a masculine voice, but her finely tuned gossip antennae were not up to hearing what was being said. Jude returned to the sitting room with a chubby, balding man, probably round the sixty mark, wearing a blazer with burgundy corduroy trousers and carrying a bottle of champagne. The colour of his face was not a bad match with the trousers.
‘Carole, I’d like you to meet Mike Winstone.’ In response to her neighbour’s puzzled expression, she added the gloss, ‘Hester’s husband.’
‘Oh, hello, how nice to meet you.’
‘The pleasure’s mutual,’ he said in a hearty public school accent. ‘And it seems I should be offering you thanks too.’
‘What for?’
‘I gather you also helped Jude out when Hester threw her little wobbly.’
‘Oh. Yes.’
‘Sorry about that.’ He guffawed. ‘Can’t be keeping an eye on the better half all the time, can I?’
‘Particularly not from New Zealand,’ said Jude with some edge.
‘What? No, right. She told you I was off, playing cricket, did she?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ridiculous at my age, isn’t it? Just this bunch of old overgrown schoolboys. Call ourselves the Subversives. Old fogeys now, but we have dreams – still waiting for that call from the England selectors, eh?’ This again was apparently worthy of a guffaw.
‘As you see,’ Jude intervened, ‘we’re having coffee. Would you like a cup or …?’
‘Bought you some champers by way of thank-you.’ He waved the bottle. ‘Still cold, fresh out the fridge. Why don’t we crack that open?’