LITMIR.BIZ

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he overcame drowsiness for another mumbled communication. ‘Going to be a good year, this one. All my troubles are over. All sorted out. I’ve made up my mind which way I’m going. This is going to be a good year.’ His head nuzzled luxuriantly back into the soft pillow. ‘I’m going to ask Wendy to marry me. And I’m pretty confident she’ll say yes . . .’

      He was asleep. Jude left the room quietly, but she needn’t have bothered. Nigel Ackford was so deeply under nothing would wake him until, presumably, the crushing agony of the morning’s hangover.

      Jude was used to the routine of the staff quarters. She took the remaining key from its rack and went out into the deep blue calm of the April night. In the last light before she locked the kitchen door, she saw from her watch that it was nearly three o’clock.

      There was no bulb in the hall light of the stable block, so Jude couldn’t see the number on her key tag. With an internal grin, she remembered Suzy’s warning about not gatecrashing the dreams of the chef or the chauffeur, but if she didn’t take the risk, she wouldn’t have anywhere to sleep. So she pushed against the nearest bedroom door, which gave easily.

      It was the wrong room, but not as embarrassingly wrong as it could have been. A small bedside light had been left on to reveal the usual chaos left by a teenage girl. Distinctive T-shirts thrown down on the unmade bed left no doubt as to the occupant’s identity. But of Kerry herself there was no sign. The room was empty.

      The next door was locked. Jude’s key fitted, so no worries about chefs or chauffeurs. She let herself in. Suddenly aware of how tired she felt, she had only the most perfunctory of washes and fell into bed. The alarm was set for seven, so that she’d be back on duty to serve breakfasts to the Pillars of Sussex. She wondered, after the excesses of the night before, how many of them would feel ready to face the full English. Most, she reckoned, as she fell instantly into sleep.

Chapter Seven

      Suzy, sensible as ever, recognized that Edwardian nanny costumes would look incongruous at eight o’clock in the morning, so the staff’s daytime uniforms were neat blue suits. Jude always found at least two in the uniform cupboard which fitted her, suggesting that a lot of the hotel’s staff were mature matronly women.

      As she had surmised, almost all the Pillars of Sussex went for the full English breakfast option. One or two looked a little sweaty and greenish about the gills, but they managed to keep up a diluted version of the night-before’s banter. The misogyny certainly remained. There were many shouted exchanges along the lines of ‘Don’t get sausages this big at home!’

      ‘That’s what your wife was saying to me only the other day!’

      And each such sally would be rewarded by its statutory guffaw.

      Because the Pillars came down to breakfast in dribs and drabs, and because Suzy was busy at reception collating their bills, it was a while before any kind of head-count could be done. And since eating breakfast was not mandatory, guests who chose to could stay in their rooms until the ten-thirty check-out time.

      So it wasn’t until then that the absence of three of the previous night’s diners was observed. Jude checked the names against a printout of the guest list, which showed who had been allocated which room. Two gaps were quickly explained. Donald Chew, for reasons of his own, had gone early. He’d demanded his bill at seven-thirty, and left before breakfast. Next, after a couple of slices of toast and a cup of coffee on the dot of eight, Bob Hartson had been driven away by his chauffeur.

      But no one had seen Bob Hartson’s guest, Nigel Ackford.

      Having witnessed the state of the young man the night before, Jude wasn’t surprised. Either he was still sleeping it off, or he was simply immobilized by his hangover. Stupid boy, she thought as she climbed up towards the top floor. She wasn’t judgmental about people who over-indulged; she just reckoned they made life unnecessarily difficult for themselves. Jude drank a lot of white wine, but she very rarely got drunk. In spite of her laid-back manner, there was within her a steely core of discipline. Perhaps it was recognizing the same quality in Suzy that had kept the two of them friends.

      She climbed up the hotel stairs, pushing the folded guest list into the pocket of her blue suit. On the top landing, she took out a pass-key, and opened the door of Nigel’s room Inside it was still pitch dark. As the sprung door clicked shut behind her, the brocade curtains squeezed out every glimmer of daylight.

      ‘Time to get up, I’m afraid, Mr Ackford.’ She crossed to the curtains and grasped the pull-string. ‘Shield your eyes, because I’m about to let the day in.’

      Jude pulled the curtains wide, and turned back to face the bed.

      Nigel Ackford had not shielded his eyes. They stared, prominent in their sockets, their whites discoloured with specks of red. His face was congested to the colour of claret. His body hung still, sock-clad feet dangling over the edge of the bed. Around his neck, suspending him from the end crossbar of the four-poster, was one of the silken ropes that had tied back the curtains.

      Nigel Ackford had been spared his hangover.

Chapter Eight

      Carole couldn’t believe how relieved she was to see Jude on her doorstep the following afternoon. She hadn’t slept well. The news from Stephen had upset her, and the fact that it upset her, upset her more. She should have been ecstatic. The announcement of a son having found the woman with whom he wishes to spend the rest of his life is something for which every mother should be waiting. There was potential for a new generation and all kinds of old-fashioned things, like hope. Joy should be unconfined.

      And yet joy was not Carole’s predominant emotion; it was confusion, closely followed by guilt. This defining moment in family life had left her examining the shortcomings of that family life, had highlighted the failure of her marriage, and had reminded her of her lack of maternal instinct. She needed to talk to Jude about it. Jude was sympathetic. Jude was a constructive listener.

      But that particular afternoon Jude was not in a listening mood. Her priority was the news she had to impart. And when she had imparted it, Carole realized her neighbour was shaky, perhaps even in shock. Jude’s customary serenity was so ingrained that Carole was surprised to see her in this state. She quickly supplied them both with glasses of white wine and sat Jude in an armchair in the sitting room. To avoid delay, she even resisted her instinct to put out a little table beside the chair for her friend’s wine glass.

      ‘Presumably you’ve talked to the police?’

      ‘Yes, they sent me home. There weren’t any cabs available, I had to get two buses. That’s why it’s taken me so long.’

      ‘You should have called me from your mobile. I’d have picked you up.’

      ‘Sorry, I didn’t think.’ Unwontedly twitchy, Jude looked out of the window into Fethering High Street. ‘The police said they’d be round later to talk more. Suzy wanted the minimum of fuss at the hotel.’

      ‘One can understand that she would.’ Carole couldn’t quite keep disapproval out of her voice when Suzy Longthorne’s name came up. They’d never met, but the former model’s public image predisposed Carole against her. Being splashed over papers and magazines, having high-profile lovers, building a career simply from being pretty . . . all of it offended Carole Seddon’s Calvinist work ethic. Deep down, there was also the natural, inescapable resentment of a plain woman towards a beautiful one.

      Feeling guilty for her disapproval – everything was making her feel guilty that day – she compensated with solicitude. ‘You must be feeling terrible – awful for you to have actually found the body.’

      Jude nodded. ‘It was nasty. Particularly as I’d talked to the boy only a few hours earlier.’

      ‘And he hadn’t sounded suicidal then?’

      ‘Far from it.’

      Carole

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