Free The Strangling on the Stage by Simon Brett

still resolutely sat. ‘Well, I’ll call you,’ he said finally.
    But Jude very much doubted if he would. And she certainly didn’t mind if he didn’t.

SEVEN
    â€˜B ut what I still don’t know,’ she said to Carole, ‘is why he really wanted to meet up with me.’
    â€˜I thought it was your feminine charms,’ came the frosty response. ‘I thought you’d “made a great impression” on him.’
    â€˜No, that was just flannel. That’s how he talks to all women. He’s one of those men who never stops trying it on.’
    â€˜I believe you. He actually had the nerve to ask me in the Cricketers “where I’d been hiding all his life”.’
    Jude had to suppress a giggle at the way Carole put the words in quotes. After Ritchie had left, she had phoned her neighbour to come down and join her at the Crown and Anchor for a drink. And that drink, she knew, might well lead to having supper in the pub. She hadn’t put the idea forward yet, but she knew it would be greeted by a considerable barrage of disapproval before Carole finally agreed to eat out.
    â€˜It still seems odd, though, that he actually wanted to meet me.’
    â€˜Not so very odd. You said he’s one of those men who never stops trying it on. And if he comes on like that to every woman he meets, maybe he does get the odd one who actually responds.’
    â€˜Possibly. He’s an attractive man.’
    â€˜Huh,’ said Carole Seddon as only Carole Seddon could. ‘Well, was there anything else he talked about, apart from just chatting you up?’
    â€˜He talked a bit about how he is the star of all the local amdrams and they’re all falling over themselves to get him to play the leads in their productions. And he talked about
The Devil’s Disciple
.’
    â€˜Anything else?’
    â€˜Well, he did ask about Hester …’
    â€˜What about her?’
    â€˜He asked if she had been “all right” last night. Which I found rather odd.’
    â€˜Why? Obviously he was worried that he’d upset her.’
    â€˜But when had he upset her?’
    â€˜Just before she went out to the car park.’
    â€˜Really?’
    â€˜Oh, you probably couldn’t see from where you were at the bar.’
    â€˜No, I just saw her being cold-shouldered by Neville Prideaux.’
    â€˜Well, I saw Ritchie Good stop Hester on the way to the door. He didn’t say much, but whatever it was it seemed to upset her. She broke away from him and rushed out of the pub.’
    â€˜Oh, really?’ said Jude.
    And suddenly there were two men whose behaviour towards her might have made Hester Winstone feel suicidal.
    Nothing more was heard from anyone to do with SADOS for the next week. Jude was unsurprised to have no call from Storm Lavelle. She knew of old that, once her friend became involved in rehearsals for a play, she hardly noticed what might be happening in the rest of the world. It was only after the performances had finished that Storm would be back on the Woodside Cottage treatment table, bemoaning all the shortcomings of her life.
    Jude was also unsurprised to hear nothing more from Ritchie Good. She had had no expectation of hearing back from him again, but his silence once again made her question why he had contacted her so urgently in the first place. If his motive was purely sexual, then perhaps her combative banter had scared him. What he’d thought might be another easy conquest had turned out to be a trickier proposition, so maybe he’d just backed off. But Jude still couldn’t help thinking that the important part of their conversation had been his anxiety about Hester Winstone.
    Her investigative antennae were alerted by the situation, but she knew there was no case to explore. Hester Winstone, a woman possibly unhappy in her marriage, had made a very unconvincing suicide attempt. It had really been the classic cry