Carole Seddon smiled. She took what her friend had just said as a compliment.
On the following morning, the Friday, the phone rang in High Tor. It was a very flustered-sounding Reginald Flowers. 'Carole, I'm ringing about the quiz night tonight.'
'Oh yes?' She had forgotten all about the event, but quickly prepared a battery of excuses as to why she couldn't attend. Then she had a moment of uncertainty. The Smalting Beach Hut Association quiz night would quite possibly gather together many of the principals who might have information about the grisly discovery under Quiet Harbour. Maybe if she and Jude were to attend, they might advance the course of their investigation.
But this thought became immediately irrelevant, as Reginald Flowers went on, 'Anyway, I'm afraid I'm going to have to cancel it.'
'The quiz? Oh dear. Is that out of respect?'
'I'm sorry? What do you mean?'
'Out of respect for Robin Cutter, you know, now he's been identified as—'
'For heaven's sake, it's nothing to do with Robin Cutter,' he responded testily. 'I wouldn't change my plans because of something like that. I thought all that was safely dead and buried — in every sense. If some silly child chooses to put himself in danger's way. This was a novel reaction to the tragedy, one that Carole certainly hadn't heard before. 'No, the reason the quiz night is going to have to be cancelled is that I have once again been guilty of assuming that other people are as efficient in the basic, simple things of life as I am myself. The SBHA has a secretary — or at least someone who has the title of secretary—'
'Yes, I met her with you on Smalting Beach the other day. Dora Pinchbeck.'
'Dora Pinchbeck, exactly. Dora, who, as I say has the title of secretary of the Smalting Beach Hut Association, but who turns out to be totally incompetent. She undertook to make the booking for tonight's quiz night at St Mary's Church Hall, but when I rang the caretaker there this morning to check some details, it turns out she hadn't done it. Not a difficult task to undertake, you might think, but clearly beyond the capacity of our secretary Dora. "Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot," she said when I rang her about it this morning.
Forgot! And, needless to say, there's now something else booked into St Mary's Hall for tonight. A meeting of the Smalting Local History Society, would you believe? I am, needless to say, extremely angry. It's the old thing, isn't it — if you want a job done properly, do it yourself. Dora, my so-called secretary, offered to ring round all the members of the SBHA, but I said, "No, thank you, Dora. I want to ensure that everyone gets the message, so I'll do it myself." Which is why I'm calling you, Carole,' he concluded, on a note of affronted martyrdom.
'So all we lack for this evening's quiz night is a venue?'
'You say "all we lack", Carole, but it is a rather major lack. There's nowhere else suitable in Smalting, except for one of the rooms at The Crab Inn and, as I may have said, the prices there are now quite extortionate . . .' Belatedly he seemed to catch on to something in her intonation. 'Why, you're not suggesting that you might know of a suitable alternative venue?'
'There's somewhere I could try. I'll ring you back if I have any luck. Well, I'll let you know either away.'
She rang straight through to the Crown and Anchor. Ted Crisp was initially grouchy at her suggestion, but then it was a point of honour with him to be initially grouchy to most suggestions. And his attitude quickly softened. Though Carole Seddon didn't have the natural charm of her neighbour, in her background was the unlikely fact that she and Ted Crisp had once had a brief affair, and he was still more indulgent to her than he might have been to other supplicants.
Within three minutes he had agreed that the Smalting Beach Hut Association could use his function room that evening at no charge, 'so long as they all drink lots of booze'.
Carole immediately rang back Reginald Flowers to pass on the good news.
Jude was still tussling with her moral dilemma. Part of her wanted to ring Miranda Browning, to offer condolences and, if required, some healing treatment. But another part accused her of shabby opportunism for even thinking of the idea. Was it born out of compassion or, as Carole had baldly suggested, to help them advance on their investigation? Jude couldn't decide.
While she was going through this uncharacteristic agonizing, her phone rang. The woman at the other end identified herself as Miranda Browning.
'I was desperately sorry to hear the news,' said Jude. 'I hadn't realized that you were the poor boy's mother, you know, when I met you before under that name.'
'Browning's the name of my second husband.' The woman's voice was strong. Though there was tension in her tone, there was no self-pity. She wasn't about to give way to tears.
'So you are Lionel and Joyce Oliver's daughter and you first married someone called Cutter?'
'No, Cutter's my maiden name. His father's Rory Oliver.'
'But why was Robin's surname not Oliver?'
'Rory and I weren't married when Robin was born.
We weren't together at the time. I didn't think it likely we ever would be again, so I registered Robin under my surname. All his documentation was as "Cutter", when he started at play school he was "Robin Cutter'. By the time Rory and I had got back together and married, the name had stuck. I'm sure in time we would have changed it, but . . .' Her voice wavered for the first time, '. . . we weren't given that opportunity.'
'No.' Jude spoke softly, already in therapist mode. 'As I say, I'm desperately sorry . . . about what happened eight years ago . . . and about what's happened now.'
'Thank you,' said Miranda Browning, with considerable grace. 'Obviously this has brought it all back, and, inevitably perhaps, the headaches have started again. I could hardly get out of bed or stand up this morning. And I can't imagine the stress is going to get any less over the next few weeks, so I just wondered . . . the treatment you gave me last time worked so well . . . if you've got a spare appointment you could slot me into?'
'I'm free this afternoon,' said Jude.
They fixed a time. As she put the phone down Jude beamed, unsurprised by what had happened. But she wouldn't tell her neighbour whether she had made the call to Miranda Browning or Miranda had called her. Unlike Jude, Carole Seddon didn't believe in synchronicity.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Miranda Browning arrived at the gate of Woodside Cottage in a taxi. In spite of the June heat, she had a scarf tied over her hair and wore dark glasses. She looked anxiously from side to side as she paid the cabbie and was still casting nervous glances back to the road when Jude opened the door to her.
After welcoming her client and leading her into the sitting room, Jude gestured to the glasses and asked, 'For the headaches?'
'Not really,' replied Miranda Browning, taking them off. 'More so's I'm not recognized. It's all started again. Bloody press camped outside my front door. They're quite capable of following me here and door-stepping you as well.'
'So how did you get away?'
'Practice,' came the wry response. 'I've got a cab firm I trust completely. They pick me up in the alley at the back of my garden. So far the press pack haven't caught on to that yet. Early days, though, this time round.'
Again Jude was aware of the lack of self-pity in Miranda Browning's tone. The woman had had to develop a stoicism, a survivor's instinct. Whatever she was feeling inside, she was damned if she was going to expose her emotions to the world. Which was probably why her deep, suppressed pain manifested itself in physical symptoms, like headaches.
Jude uncovered her treatment bench, another draped shape in her sitting room of swathed furniture. The windows were all open, letting in a light breeze that set her bamboo wind chimes tinkling. She pulled out paper sheeting from a roll at the end of the bench and laid it over the plastic surface. Then she set down a pillow shaped like a fat horseshoe. 'Take off as much as you feel comfortable with, Miranda. And then lie on your front.'