forgotten how surprisingly soft his beard was against her skin.
“So if you and Zosia are both here, who’s looking after the Crown and Anchor?”
“She’s trained up the young staff very well. They can manage for one lunchtime…not that there’ll probably be much business.” But he didn’t sound as down about the situation as he had when they last met. In response to Carole’s enquiring eyebrow, he went on, “Suddenly got a bit of a break yesterday. Lunch booking for thirty-five tomorrow. Firm’s Christmas do.”
“That was very short notice.”
He grinned with satisfaction. “That was because they were let down by the place they had booked. Someone there screwed up the reservation.”
“Where was that?”
His satisfaction grew. “Home Hostelries’ latest flagship venue. The Cat and Fiddle up near Fedborough.” Ted Crisp had many reasons for welcoming incompetence from that particular chain of pubs.
They were joined by a bustling, bubbling Jude. “Now I do want you two to meet my friend Saira.” The name was pronounced like the grape variety ‘Syrah’.
The woman indicated was in her early thirties. The shape of her face and the line of her hair suggested Indian or Pakistani ancestry, but her skin was surprisingly pale. Her brown eyes were flecked with hazel and she had a broad, toothy smile.
“Actually, we know each other,” said Carole, glad to see another familiar face.
“Oh, I should have thought of that. Through Gulliver?” asked Jude.
“Yes. I’m sorry, I’ve always known you as Miss Sherjan. I didn’t know your first name.” Rather formally Carole shook the woman’s thin hand and explained to Ted, “Saira Sherjan’s one of the local vets. Part of the practice at Fedborough. She’s patched up various injuries for Gulliver.”
“Pleased to meet you,” said the publican.
“And how is Gulliver?”
“Fine at the moment, Miss Sh – Saira. Still constantly reproaching me for not taking him on enough walks. But, touch wood, he hasn’t managed to cut himself on anything on Fethering Beach recently.”
“Good. He’s a lovely dog.” The woman’s affection for animals glowed within her. For her, being a vet was a vocation rather than just a job.
“Not very bright, I’m afraid.”
“What Labrador is?”
“Can I get you a drink, Saira?” asked Jude, waving the bottles of red and white she had in each hand.
“No, I’m just on the water.” She grinned at Carole. “That is partly because I’m on duty as Emergency Cover this evening. And also because I’m in training for the London Marathon.”
“So are you going to lay off alcohol right through Christmas?”
“You bet.” Saira Sherjan was evidently strong-willed. “Excuse me, I’ll just go and get some water.”
As she watched the finely toned figure move away, Carole asked Jude how she’d met the vet. “You don’t have any animals.”
“Oh, through friends,” said Jude, with her characteristic airiness, and darted off to fill more glasses. At this point Gerald Hume rejoined Carole to say he must be going. “I have an investment programme arranged for the afternoon.”
“The betting shop?”
“How well you know me.”
“I didn’t know you did Sundays there as well as weekdays.”
“The habit of losing money is a deeply entrenched one,” said Gerald Hume. “If we do not chance to meet again before the outbreak of festivities, I trust that you will have an enjoyable Christmas.”
The response, ‘Oh, I’m sure I will’, was instinctive. It was how she had covered up the loneliness of her recent Christmases. But, with a sudden surge of good cheer, for a moment Carole entertained the hope that her answer could be accurate for once. With Stephen, Gaby and Lily, she actually might have an enjoyable Christmas.
? The Shooting in the Shop ?
Seven
Carole was suddenly aware of a loud, cultured voice saying, “Ah, well, that’s something Elton John would have thrown a real tantrum about. Though fortunately, when I was working with him, he was in one of his calmer phases.”
She didn’t need telling that the speaker was Ricky Le Bonnier, but serendipitously Jude was passing and effected the introduction. Smiling, he took her hand in both of his and said, “Carole, such a pleasure to meet you.”
He certainly had charm – or even what someone less hidebound than Carole might have called ‘charisma’. Ricky Le Bonnier was tall, quite bulky above the waist, with grey, thinning hair hanging long to about jaw level. His glasses had narrow rectangular lenses set in frames whose designer appeared to have been influenced by the technology of the Eiffel Tower. He wore cherry-coloured corduroy trousers and a fuzzy cardigan with an abstract pattern of blues and greys.
Although he was in the centre of a small audience, Ricky Le Bonnier appeared to have brought two women with him, but neither was his wife Lola. The first was elderly, ensconced so deeply in one of Jude’s heavily draped armchairs that Carole had to bend double to talk to her. She was introduced as Flora, Ricky’s mother, and the expression of adoration that she fixed on her son might well have explained his robust self-esteem.
Although she had claimed to have no knowledge of the name, Carole recognized the woman instantly. Every period television drama of the previous decade seemed to have featured Flora Le Bonnier, usually as the proud head of some patrician family. And before that she had had a long career in British films. But it looked as though her acting days might now be over. She was thin, probably quite tall if she stood up, with a beaky nose and white hair expertly fluffed out by an expensive stylist. Her hands were curved rigidly inwards, the finger joints knobbly with arthritis. Propped against the armchair were the two sticks that, presumably, she needed for walking.
The other woman, perhaps in her late twenties, was introduced to Carole as Polly, Ricky’s daughter – though clearly not from his current marriage. Nor did she actually look very like him. Polly was thin, dark and wiry, attractive in a daunting, don’t-mess-with-me manner. She wore tight black jeans and a sweater which emphasized her trim figure. Her hands were fiddling restlessly with a mobile in a fluorescent pink phone sock. Polly’s dark eyes darted around the room, looking for someone else she knew, someone who might give her the excuse to move away from her current conversational group.
Carole told Ricky that she’d met Lola in the shop.
“Ah yes,” he said. “Gallimaufry, the great Le Bonnier indulgence.”
“Lost cause more likely,” snapped Flora. If Carole hadn’t recognized the face, she could not have failed to recognize the voice. Husky, finely modulated, marinated in centuries of aristocratic history.
“That remains to be seen,” said her son easily. “As we know from all the doom merchants in the media, England’s high streets are suffering in the current economic climate, and there will inevitably be some casualties.”
“I wouldn’t know. I never read newspapers,” was his mother’s rather grand response. “They are full of inaccuracies and libel. Which is why I have made it a rule throughout my professional life never to speak to the press.”
“All right, Mother, we all know you don’t read the papers. But you watch television and listen to the radio. You can’t pretend that you don’t know things are tough on the high street.”
“Very well. And I also know that first to the wall will be mimsy-pimsy shops which sell over-priced rubbish for people with more money than sense.”
Carole was glad to meet someone whose opinions of Gallimaufry coincided so exactly with her own (even though she had ended up buying a glittery boa and a Glow-in-the-dark Computer Angel there), but she was more interested in the subtext of the old woman’s words. The impression came across that not only did Flora Le Bonnier disapprove of the shop, but she hadn’t much time for its owner either. Ricky’s mother was not a fan of his most
