having been shot before the fire at Gallimaufry had been started? Jude decided that, on balance, there wasn’t. For the time being, she would allow Flora Le Bonnier to go along with her son’s suicide explanation of his stepdaughter’s death.
But as to the business about ‘the Le Bonnier Curse’, Jude didn’t believe a word of it. And, in spite of the compelling way Flora had spoken on the subject, Jude wondered whether the old actress really believed a word of it either.
She looked at the large watch strapped to her wrist by a wide ribbon. It was nearly one o’clock. As ever, when she was performing her healing routines, she had lost sense of time. “I must be off,” she said, rising and looking down at the old woman, whose body lay relaxed on the bed and whose eyelids were drooping. “I think you’ll sleep now. And I think when you wake up, you will feel hungry. Have something to eat then. You need to keep your strength up.”
“I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done.”
“No problem. Pleased to help.”
Flora Le Bonnier raised herself on her pillows and reached across to the bedside table. “Ricky’ll sort out what we owe you. But, please, take this.”
She picked up a copy of her autobiography,
Jude thanked her and left the room, knowing that by the time she reached the foot of the stairs, the old lady would be asleep.
As ever, when dealing with actors, Jude was aware of the potential for duplicity, and yet by the time she left Fedingham Court House she had become more convinced by Flora’s performance. Talk of ‘the Le Bonnier Curse’ was – to any outside scrutiny – complete nonsense, but the old actress had expressed what she believed to be the truth. In the taxi back to Fethering, however, Jude remembered Ricky warning her against believing Flora’s opinions about Polly’s death. What had he been afraid his mother would say? Something that might betray him?
Because, in spite of their mutual alibi about tending the wakeful Mabel with her ear infection, Ricky Le Bonnier headed Jude’s current list of suspects. And, regrettably, Lola was not far behind him.
? The Shooting in the Shop ?
Twenty-One
Normally Carole discouraged Gulliver from bringing anything back from Fethering Beach, fearing the introduction of unwanted ‘mess’ into the sacred precincts of High Tor. But the stick he had found that morning, and to which he shown such obvious attachment, seemed a harmless enough trophy. Scoured pale and smooth by long immersion in the sea and about a foot in length, it could have been purpose-built for ‘fetching’ games. Having scrutinized its every surface for the smallest fleck of tar, Carole allowed him to walk proudly home with the stick held in his jaws, and even to lie down and chew it in his favourite spot beside the Aga. Meanwhile, she busied herself around the house removing any motes of dust that might have dared to settle during the previous twenty-four hours.
The whine that brought her hurrying back to the kitchen was more aggrieved than distressed, but the sight that greeted her was not a pretty one. There seemed to be a disproportionate amount of blood over everything and it took her some time to locate the part of Gulliver’s body that was its source. Mopping with tea towels and kitchen roll eventually revealed that the blood was coming out of his mouth, prompting an immediate panic about an internal haemorrhage. This was assuaged when Carole spotted that the wound was actually on his gum, but seeing what had caused it gave rise to renewed anxiety.
The remains of Gulliver’s perfect stick lay bloodstained on the floor. His assiduous chewing had split the wood open, revealing the rusty rivets which held it together. It was one of those that had gashed the dog’s gum.
Within minutes Gulliver was sitting on a dirty rug on the backseat of Carole’s immaculate Renault on an emergency rush to the vet’s in Fedborough.
¦
“He’ll have to have a general anaesthetic,” said Saira Sherjan.
“Oh dear, is it very serious?”
“No, Carole, it’s not very serious. Simply that dogs don’t like having their mouths fiddled about with. And while I could say to a human patient, ‘Now I’m just going to give you an injection of local anaesthetic so that you won’t feel a thing when I stitch up your gum’, it’s difficult to get a dog to take that information on board.”
“Yes, of course, I take your point,” said Carole, feeling rather stupid.
But the vet’s grin cheered her. “Simplest if we keep him in overnight. You could take him home later today, but he’ll be a bit woozy and we’d rather have a look at him in the morning, if that’s OK with you…?”
“Fine,” said Carole. She prided herself on not being one of those people who got sentimental about animals. But she was still surprised to feel a small pang at the thought of spending a night in High Tor without Gulliver.
“I’ll just give him an injection now to calm him down – not that he looks too much as if he needs calming down…Would you mind just holding him?”
Carole did as requested and Gulliver, docile as ever, submitted to the injection. Saira led him out of the surgery and returned a moment later. “By the way, do pass on my thanks to Jude for her party last week. I will get around to sending her a card, but you know how it is over Christmas.”
For a moment Carole was tempted to ask how Saira had come to meet her neighbour, but she decided that the question would be sheer nosiness. Instead, she enquired, “Have you been busy over the holiday?”
The vet’s fine eyebrows rose ruefully. “And how! I know human beings tend to have a lot of illness over Christmas, and I can understand that, because for many people it is a very stressful time, though how that anxiety communicates itself to animals I don’t know. But it does. It’s been emergency call after emergency call for the whole of the last week. And because I don’t have kids like most of the partners, guess who tends to get lumbered with most of those emergency calls? Rhetorical question.”
“So you haven’t had any problem in keeping to your no-alcohol routine?”
“No, I haven’t. I tell you, I’ve forgotten what alcohol smells like. And I’ve forgotten what my bed looks like too. So, Carole, tell me all the Fethering gossip.”
“I don’t think there is any, really.”
“Oh, come on. You must have heard some dirt. You’re one of the Fethering Beach dog-walkers, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I know for a fact that dog-walkers constitute one of the most efficient gossip grapevines in the world. Members of the Fethering Beach Dog-walking Mafia exchange all kinds of secrets on their early morning walks.”
Oh dear, thought Carole, something else I’m missing out on. The most she usually exchanged with another dog-walker was a curt ‘Fethering nod’. To avoid making herself sound completely anti-social (which, it occurred to her, perhaps she was), she told Saira Sherjan that the only topic of conversation in Fethering was still the tragedy at Gallimaufry. “But I expect you’ll have seen all about that on the news.”
“No. I’ve forgotten what my television looks like, as well as my bed.” She was unable to prevent a large yawn. “Sorry, Carole, but, God, it’s been insanely busy this last week. And actually, I don’t really mind, because I love the animals and I love the work, but…” she mimed propping her eyes open – “I’d be quite glad of an uninterrupted night’s sleep.”
“I remember,” said Carole, “you said you were going to be on duty the evening of Jude’s party. Was that a busy night?”
The question was random, merely a politeness, but by serendipity it had been exactly the right thing to ask. “That was one of the worst nights of the lot,” Saira replied. “At least with Gulliver you’ll never have the problem of puppies.”
“No, he’s the wrong gender, for a start, and then again whatever gender he might once have had has been surgically removed.” When Carole had decided on having a dog for her new life in Fethering, she’d done everything
