by Simon Brett
‘I see.’ So at least there was some connection between the worlds of the pop impresario and the Pillars of Sussex. ‘You still haven’t told me, Rick, why what I’m doing frightens you so much.’
‘I’m not frightened.’ But he sounded at least anxious. ‘I just know how out of hand publicity can get. News of a murder at a hotel owned by Suzy Longthorne would get all those scavengers licking their chops. Then, if they found out that I’d actually been on the premises when it happened.’
There was another tap at the door. ‘I’m bloody coming!’ he screamed. The door didn’t open.
‘You used the word “murder”, Rick,’ said Jude coolly. ‘I thought there was general agreement that Nigel Ackford committed suicide.’
‘I used the word “murder” because that’s what you seem to think it was. And if you go on snooping around, other people will start using it. Which will be extraordinarily bad news for Suze and for me.’
‘You still haven’t given me a good reason to stop “snooping”, as you call it. In fact, the more you go on about it, the more I get the feeling you have something to hide.’
He shrugged, and sighed. The anger was back under control. ‘I’m not going to convince you, am I, Jude?’
‘Not unless you give me a reason, no, Rick.’
‘If I said for the sake of your friendship to Suzy?’
‘You’ve already said that. My friendship with Suzy is fine, even though I know she’s holding out on me just as much as you are.’
He stood up, apparently defeated. ‘I’m going to have to get back.’
Jude rose too. ‘It’s been good to see you. Though I don’t know why you bothered to drag me over here. This conversation doesn’t seem to have advanced much from the ones we had on the phone.’
‘No.’ He gave her the big, toothy smile again. All friends, it seemed to say. ‘Incidentally, Jude, I gather from Suze that you first thought the boy had been murdered because of something he said to you the night he died.’
‘That’s right.’
‘And, since then, have you found out anything else that has confirmed your suspicions?’
Jude was forced to admit that she hadn’t much more corroboration. ‘Only the fact that everyone involved in the case seems desperate to hush it up.’
Her answer apparently relieved him. ‘Yeah. Well, like I say, nobody likes bad publicity.’ He paused for a moment, then turned the beam of his smiling charm on her. ‘Nothing I can do to make you lay off, is there, Jude?’
‘What do you mean?’
He made a wide, slack gesture with his hands. ‘Might be something you need. Few people have got everything they need these days, have they?’
Jude couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘Are you trying to bribe me, Rick? Are you offering me money?’
‘Needn’t be money.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m lucky enough to be able to organize most things people might want.’
‘Like what?’ asked Jude, still incredulous. ‘An appearance in the starting line-up for Pop Crop?’
The speed and violence of his reaction amazed her. Suddenly he was close to her, his hand on the scarf around her neck. Then he seemed to remind himself of who he was, where he was, and what he was doing. He relaxed his grip and stepped backwards, manufacturing a little laugh. ‘No, Pop Crop’s all above board. No cheating or unfair influence allowed there. The auditions are sacrosanct.’ Still trying to lighten the atmosphere, he went on, ‘Besides, we haven’t quite got to your generation of singers yet.’
A very tentative tap on the door sounded. ‘This time I must go.’ He opened the door. ‘See you, Jude.’ And he was gone.
Leaving her with more questions than answers.
The biggest question being – why had he asked her to meet him? As she walked back through the anonymous carpeted corridors to the hotel’s main reception, Jude went through their conversation in detail. And the question that seemed most important to her was Rick’s asking whether she had any new evidence to support the theory that Nigel Ackford had been murdered.
She could be wrong, but Jude got the feeling he’d been trying to find out how much she knew.
Chapter Twenty-Six
They certainly did a good Sunday lunch at Hopwicke Country House Hotel. Like everything Suzy Longthorne arranged on the premises, the meal was traditional, but with a few extras that distinguished it from the run-of-the-mill. So, yes, it was roast beef with Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes and vegetables, but each component was special. The meat had been selected from one particular farm in Scotland. The pudding batter contained a couple of secret ingredients known only to Max Townley. The roast potatoes were crisped to perfection, animated with the occasional surprise of a few sweet potatoes. The range of vegetables, and the way their tastes complemented each other, provided their own private gastronomic experience. The gravy was rich and thick, and the Hopwicke House home-made mustard (available in jars for purchase at reception) was to die for.
Stephen had ordered a wonderfully robust St Emilion to accompany the food and, in his practised perusal of the wine list, had shown an expertise which his mother would never have suspected. Carole wondered if he had always had an interest in fine wines, or whether this was a new skill born of his relationship with Gaby. And, once again, she felt guilty for not knowing the answer. Was it her fault she and Stephen seemed so far apart?
In physical appearance there was no doubt about their being related. Stephen had inherited his mother’s angularity, and had the same pale blue eyes. Like her, he had needed glasses from an early age and, after a flirtation with contact lenses in his twenties, had now reverted to them. That he sported rimless ones was a point of fashion rather than a homage to her own, but Carole could see how much they increased the likeness between them. And the fact that Stephen’s hair was prematurely greying only accentuated it.
Whether he was similar in personality, Carole realized with a shock, was another important detail she didn’t really know. Wouldn’t it be shaming to have to ask his fiancée what her son was really like?
Because there was no doubt that Gaby seemed to know Stephen really well. Carole had had no idea what to expect from her potential daughter-in-law, and had been seriously anxious about the encounter. Indeed, she’d woken at three and stayed awake for a couple of hours that morning, something that had rarely happened since the worst stage of her break-up with David.
If forced to put a face to Gaby before they met, Carole would probably have opted for an older version of Kerry. All she knew of her son’s choice was the implication of money – the parents’ spending summers in the South of France, the casual booking into Hopwicke House. The image that had formed in Carole Seddon’s prejudiced mind was of a spoilt trust-fund baby, someone who worked more for social convenience than financial necessity.
She certainly wasn’t expecting the plumpish, bubble-haired blonde with the comfortable body and broad smile who greeted her in the Hopwicke House bar. Nor was she expecting to be greeted with a warm hug. The embrace took her by surprise, and she responded like a stick insect.
The first good news, though, was that Gaby was undoubtedly English. Carole tried, without success, to stop herself from feeling a politically incorrect glee at this discovery.
She had expected the young couple would be drinking deterrently fashionable cocktails, but they were both on white wine, so she ordered the same. While Stephen went to the counter to get her drink, Gaby gestured to their elegant surroundings. ‘Fabulous place, isn’t it? Wonderful to see how the other half lives. I told Stephen it was daft to spend this much on a weekend, but you know what he’s like.’
And again Carole didn’t.
What became clear during their conversation in the bar, and later in the dining room, was that Gaby didn’t have private money. In fact, the rich one in the partnership was Stephen. Carole had known he was doing well at whatever it was he did, but she hadn’t realized quite how well. In a couple of hours, his fiancée told her more about
her son’s current life than she had ever known. Or perhaps had ever thought to ask.
Carole was also comforted to discover that Gaby was bored to tears when Stephen talked about his work. So it wasn’t just her. Even better, Gaby didn’t understand what he did either. Carole realized her image of her son had been coloured by this. Since there were so many subjects off-limits in their occasional conversations – subjects like David, Stephen’s childhood, Carole’s banal daily life in Fethering – she had allowed her son to go on about his work in exhaustive detail. At least the subject was a safe one. But by making him talk about other things, Gaby revealed a whole new side to her fiancé, a side hitherto unknown to his mother.
To Carole’s amazement, she discovered her son could actually be quite funny. He had a disposition towards pomposity which she had always accepted as part of his personality, but Gaby constantly punctured that self-importance. And Stephen took it from her, with good humour, even relish.
The proscription on talking about his work also revealed that Stephen Seddon had a whole repertoire of other topics for conversation, most of which – to his mother’s total surprise – were related to the arts. This was down to Gaby’s influence. The ‘agency’ she worked for, which Carole had assumed to be something to do with the world of finance, turned out to be a theatrical one. She represented actors, of both genders. (She explained to Carole, amid some giggling, that the word ‘actress’ had become very démodé in these politically correct times. Now there were male actors and female actors.) As a result, most of Gaby’s evenings were spent crossing the country to see clients or potential clients in theatres and ever more unlikely fringe venues. Whenever possible, Stephen accompanied her.
This was Carole’s biggest surprise in a day of surprises. Apart from a couple of early attempts on her part to take him to pantomimes, her son had never shown even the mildest interest in the theatre. He was marginally more likely to go to a cinema, but even that hadn’t happened very often. So to hear him discussing the latest offerings from the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company was, for Carole, like being introduced to someone she had never met before.
Apart from the theatre, there was of course another topic of conversation. The wedding. Needless to say, Gaby did most of the talking on the subject, but Carole had been unprepared for the enthusiasm with which Stephen contributed his own views. She was also surprised to discover how little advanced the plans for September the fourteenth were. The young couple hadn’t even got a venue sorted yet.
‘But won’t you be getting married from your parents’ house?’ asked Carole, who knew the conventions in these matters.
Gaby grimaced. ‘Wouldn’t work. They’ve only just moved to this little flat in Harlow.’
Harlow. Essex, thought Carole, with all the prejudice a middle-class person in West Sussex automatically feels at the mention of that county, reckoned by everyone – except those who live there – to be the ‘commonest’ in England.
So what was all this about Gaby’s parents spending their summers in the South of France? Even as the question came into Carole’s mind, her potential daughter-in-law answered it for her. ‘Also, Mum’d flap terribly about organizing a wedding. She and Dad always go to France in August, which is when the arrangements would be busiest. It’s my gran, you see. Grandmère. Mum’s mum. She’s in a home out there, bit gaga, but they always go and visit.’
Oh. So Gaby wasn’t completely English. Carole comforted herself with the thought that, on first meeting her, nobody would ever know it.
‘Where are you thinking of getting married then? Somewhere in London?’
Gaby gave a large expressive shrug which, now Carole knew her provenance, looked distinctly Gallic. ‘Don’t know.’
‘But we’ve got to sort it out quickly,’ said Stephen.
‘I know that, darling. But it’s difficult, isn’t it, Carole, when you don’t have any faith? I mean, I totally lost it with Catholicism in my teens, and Stephen’s told me he was brought up without anything in the way of religion.’
Carole was a bit miffed. Was that the impression her son had given? Though Carole herself had never since her teens believed in any kind of god, she still put ‘Church of England’ in the box marked ‘Religion’ on forms. Stephen had been christened, and he’d had to undergo school assemblies with prayers and hymns. The way Gaby described it made Stephen’s upbringing sound godless.
But Carole suppressed such thoughts and asked, ‘So what are you going to do?’
Another – very definitely Gallic – shrug. ‘Find somewhere we like, set up the wedding there.’
‘What about here?’ Rather daringly, Carole gestured round the dining room.
Her son looked puzzled.
‘They do weddings here, I know. Suzy Longthorne told me.’
‘Is she the dishy one?’
‘That’s right. She owns the place.’
‘And seems to be doing most of the work.’
Carole had been too preoccupied with her lunching companions to notice before, but Stephen was right. Suzy Longthorne was doing everything in the dining room, with the help of only two waitresses. All the tables were full, and the various courses were arriving on time, but at the cost of a lot of hard work. Perspiration shone through Suzy’s perfect make-up as she scuttled back and forth to the kitchen.
Idly, Carole wondered what had happened to Kerry. The Sunday before, she remembered, Jude had said the girl was to have lunch with her parents. Maybe the relaxed terms of employment her stepfather had organized for her gave her every Sunday off.
And if Kerry was unavailable, why hadn’t another emergency call gone out to Jude to come in and help with the waitressing?
Carole tuned back in to the conversation between her son and his fiancée about the possible merits of Hopwicke House as a wedding venue. They seemed surprisingly keen on the idea, and Carole began to question her wisdom in suggesting it. If the wedding was right on her doorstep, she’d be bound to get involved in local arrangements. Better somewhere distant, anonymous, where she would have independence, where she could just turn up for the ceremony and leave as soon as she wanted to. But she couldn’t deny that the thought of her son’s wedding being at Hopwicke House did give her a little buzz of excitement.
At the end of the lunch, after lingering over their coffee, Carole insisted that it was her treat. Stephen demurred, saying the suggestion had been his and everything would go on the one bill, but his mother stood her ground. She was so delighted to have met Gaby, she would like to buy them lunch as an early engagement present. On his own, Stephen would have dug his toes in, but Gaby’s presence rendered him gracious. With a shrug and a smile, he accepted Carole’s largesse.
They said goodbye in the hall. Stephen and Gaby announced they were going to have a walk and would collect coats from their room. But the eye contact between them suggested that was not at all what they intended to do when they got back to the four-poster. Carole realized she wasn’t at all embarrassed by the blatant lust she saw in the young couple’s eyes; she found it heart-warming.
After they had gone upstairs, she settled the bill with Suzy Longthorne at the reception desk. Carole had never in her life paid half as much for a meal for three, but she didn’t mind. Such gestures were rare, not because she was ungenerous, but because she didn’t feel at ease with the flamboyance generosity usually required. Paying for this lunch, though, made her feel good, even gracious.
Suzy Longthorne presented her customary polished exterior, but she looked absolutely exhausted.
‘That was a terrific lunch,’ said Carole. ‘You were a bit short-staffed, weren’t you?’
The hotelier did not take this as a criticism. She just grimaced and said, ‘Couple of people let me down at the last moment.’
‘Surprised you didn’t ask my friend Jude.’
‘Oh, I did, but she couldn’t make it.’
‘Ah.’ Carole took the proffered credit card slip and, enjoying her new mastery o
f the grand gesture, added a tip that would have covered a meal for three at the Crown and Anchor.
Carole Seddon drove the Renault back to Fethering in a haze of well-being. The most remarkable thing had happened. She found that she actually liked her son’s fiancée.
And, through Gaby, she saw the prospect of getting to know – and like – Stephen.
On her arrival back at High Tor, Carole was surprised to see Jude pottering around in her front garden. She had assumed her neighbour had some other commitment which had prevented her from answering Suzy Long-thorne’s SOS. Carole was even more surprised to hear that Jude had received no summons to help out at the hotel.
It had indeed been a day of surprises.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
‘I don’t suppose,’ said Carole, as she served coffee to Jude on Monday morning, ‘that you can think of any promises?’
‘Promises? Sorry, you’ve lost me.’
‘For this auction of promises thing. I want to get back in touch with Sandra Hartson – you know, Kerry’s mother – and I feel I need an excuse. If I had a promise to offer her, she wouldn’t be suspicious.’
‘What kind of promises are they?’
‘Weeks at Spanish villas, weekends at hotels, dinners for two – all the kind of stuff the well-heeled middle classes value.’
‘Forget it. Unless someone fancies an afternoon for one at Woodside Cottage.’
‘Oh, and services.’
‘Like what?’
‘Facials, hairdos – usual stuff.’
‘Hm.’ Unconsciously Jude’s plump hand played with a hanging tendril of blonde hair. ‘I suppose I could offer a balancing session.’
‘Balancing session?’ Carole was constantly surprised by her neighbour’s new skills. Had Jude spent some time working in a garage? ‘What, for the wheels of their cars, because most of them have got these huge big off-road vehicles with—’
‘No, Carole, no. Balancing their bodies, their personalities.’
‘Oh.’ The voice went frosty. This sounded like more of Jude’s New Age healing nonsense.