Jude deduced from the vehemence of this response that it was Mrs Urquhart who had left her husband, rather than vice versa. And she didn’t blame her.
She noticed that Andy Constant had just entered the pub and so, with an ‘Excuse me’, edged her way towards a table for two she’d just seen vacated.
He flopped down in front of his pint, long limbs drooping in a parody of exhaustion. “God, I’m wiped out. I find directing takes more out of me than acting ever did. Particularly with these kids…you never quite know what they’re going to do from minute to minute.”
“They seemed very disciplined to me, from what I saw on stage.”
“Yes, but it takes a while to get into their heads what acting’s about. Very few of them understand the concept of an ensemble. They don’t know that acting’s not about the individual, it’s about everyone working together.” Which Jude understood as ‘everyone doing what I tell them’.
“Still, the show played pretty well tonight,” Andy Constant went on complacently. “I like it when the audience gasps.” The audience had indeed gasped, but only at the crowbarring-in of a few four-letter words, which Jude hadn’t reckoned added anything.
“I’m intrigued that the show was worked out through improvisation,” said Jude. “It all felt very structured.”
He grinned, as if she had given him a compliment. “Yes, well, the ideas the kids come up with are not always very practical. You have to have someone there who’s shaping the thing.”
“And in this case that person was you?”
He acknowledged the fact with a nod, took a long sip of his lager and then looked at Jude through narrowed eyes. She guessed that at some stage he had been told he looked sexy doing that, and was annoyed with herself for actually finding it sexy.
“So…Jude…I don’t know much about you.”
“No.” That was, generally speaking, the way she liked things to stay. “Well, I live in Fethering. Is that enough information?”
“I’d like to know whether you’re married?”
“No.”
“In a long-term relationship?”
“No.”
“I’m surprised. You’re an attractive woman.”
“Thank you.” Jude had never been coy about accepting compliments. “And what about you…in the marital stakes?”
He ran his fingers through his long grey hair, flattening it either side of the central parting. “I am technically married, in that my wife and I haven’t bothered to divorce, but we haven’t really been married for sixteen years…no, I tell a lie, it’s seventeen now.”
“Children?”
“A couple.”
“How old?”
“Oh, finished with education. Off our hands.” The answer was airy and, to Jude’s mind, calculatedly vague. He didn’t want her to know exactly how old he was, which probably meant he was older than he looked.
This impression was confirmed by the way he immediately moved the conversation on. “You haven’t got any further in your search for the killer of Tadeusz Jankowski?”
“No further progress. Nor in finding a connection between him and Clincham College.”
That caught him on the hop. A momentary expression of anxiety was quickly quelled as he said, “Well, I think you’re very unlikely to find one.”
“Carole and I can keep looking.”
“Of course you can. It’s a free country. Though, with the current government, I’m beginning to wonder…” It was a line he had to say, to maintain his pose as the free-thinking outsider.
Their exchange of information was still incomplete, so Jude asked, “And are you in a relationship at the moment?”
He did the narrowed eyes routine again. “Nothing I couldn’t get out of if something better came along,” he murmured. God, the arrogance of the man.
“I think we should meet again,” he announced suddenly. “When we have more time to…appreciate each other.”
“It’s a thought,” said Jude, against her better judgement.
“A good thought.” He smiled lazily. “I’d suggest extending, this evening’s encounter, but…” He shrugged “…I’m afraid there’s some stuff I’ve still got to sort out back at the college.”
Jude didn’t say anything. The bar was quieter now. The first rush of students had gone back to the campus. Her hand was lying on the table. Andy Constant moved his forward as if to touch it, then abruptly changed his mind as he caught sight of the approaching Sophia Urquhart.
“Andy, bit of a problem.”
He looked shaken and turned to face the girl. “Something to do with the show?”
“No. A message from Joan.” She looked piercingly at Jude, not recognizing her but perhaps with a degree of suspicion. “If I could just have a quick word, Andy…”
“Excuse me.” He shrugged, as if to apologize for the bad timing of all young people, and uncoiled his lanky body from the chair.
There was a short exchange between him and Sophia, then he ambled back to the table with a magnanimous smile. “Sorry, she was just picking up on a note I gave her about tonight’s performance.”
Which was a perfectly reasonable explanation for what had happened. But for the fact that Jude had exceptionally good hearing and had caught the words the two of them had whispered to each other.
Sophia had said, “Joan thought her father would have gone straight after the show, but he’s just offered her a lift home. So she can’t come back with you tonight. She says she probably could tomorrow.”
“Tell her she’d better be able to,” Andy Constant had hissed. “I want her.”
“I’ll pass on the message.”
“Make sure you do,” he said intensely. “Make sure she knows what I feel.”
Jude found the exchange, to say the least, intriguing.
Nineteen
Andy Constant looked at his watch, before turning his narrowed eyes back on to Jude. “Actually, I could show you the college’s Drama facilities now if you like…”
“I’ve seen the theatre.”
“But not the Drama Studio. I keep a secret supply of hooch in the Drama Studio. We could have our second drink there.”
“No, thank you,” said Jude firmly.
Andy Constant’s reaction was like that of a spoiled child. He swallowed down the rest of his lager and, with a brusque ‘Thank you for the drink – I’d better go and sort things out back at the college’, left the pub.
Jude was appalled by his behaviour. If she read what had happened right, Andy Constant had had some kind of assignation set up with the Joan that Sophia Urquhart had mentioned…quite possibly back in the Drama Studio. Within seconds of hearing that Joan couldn’t make it, he had, presumably on the ‘bird in the hand’ principle, asked Jude to share the delights of the Drama Studio with him. And when she, who hardly knew him, had refused, he had immediately thrown his toys out of the pram.
But Jude had a feeling that wouldn’t be the last she heard from Andy Constant. She recognized the kind of man who wouldn’t acknowledge failure when it came to women. He’d be on the phone again before too long, suggesting another meeting. And Jude hated herself for knowing that she’d probably respond to his invitation.
Oh dear, how weak she could sometimes be. Time to get back to Woodside Cottage. She reached into her handbag for her mobile to call a cab, and then realized she’d left it on charge in her bedroom. Never mind, there was bound to be a public phone in the pub. In fact there was a sign to it over the far side of the room.
As she approached the bar, she found herself passing the three Urquharts. “Jude,” said Ewan bonhomously, “are you after another drink? Please, allow me to do the honours.”