Free The Strangling on the Stage by Simon Brett Page A

for help. Jude doubted whether, after the shock of the first incision, Hester would have had the nerve to make another cut. So there was really nothing to investigate.
    For the rest of the week Jude got on with her business of healing, while Carole continued her business of disapproving of most things. And presumably in Saint Mary’s Hall in Smalting, on the Tuesday, the Thursday and the Sunday, rehearsals for
The Devil’s Disciple
continued in the usual way.
    On the following Monday morning Carole came to Woodside Cottage for coffee. By arrangement, of course. Carole was not the kind of person who ever ‘dropped in’ for coffee – or indeed for anything else. ‘Dropping in’ on people was the kind of habit that Carole Seddon associated, disparagingly, with ‘the North’. Except at times of great urgency, even though she only lived next door, she would never have appeared on Jude’s doorstep without having made a preparatory phone call. So the arrangement to meet for coffee that Monday had been made some days before. Carole had an appointment at Fethering Surgery for a blood pressure test – ‘just a routine thing, not serious – just something that came up at one of those Well Woman appointments they insist on dragging you along to.’
    Carole’s health had in fact been remarkably good throughout her life, and retirement from the Home Office had not changed that. She ate sensibly and fairly frugally (except when coerced by Jude into the Crown and Anchor). She drank little (except when coerced by Jude into the Crown and Anchor). And long walks on Fethering Beach with her Labrador Gulliver ensured that she got plenty of exercise and sea air.
    But if Carole Seddon were ever to have anything wrong with her, she would certainly not tell anyone. She had a strong animus against people ‘who’re always going on about their health’ or ‘imagine that you’re interested in their latest operation’. Carole had been brought up not to ‘maunder on’ about that kind of stuff. Her ideal relationship with the medical profession would be never to have anything to do with any of them. (In fact, at times her ideal relationship with all of mankind would be never to have anything to do with any of them.)
    She was not a stupid woman, however, recognizing that growing older one should keep an eye on one’s health. So if at a Well Woman appointment she was told she needed to go back to the surgery for a blood pressure test, back to the surgery she would go.
    But that didn’t stop her from moaning about the experience afterwards. ‘You’d think they’d get some system of dealing with appointments in that place,’ she said as Jude presented her with a cup of coffee in the jumbled sitting room of Woodside Cottage. ‘I’d have been here half an hour ago if those doctors just got vaguely organized. I mean they have all this technology, checking in on a screen when you arrive at the surgery, appointments being flashed up in red lights on another screen, but none of that changes their basic inefficiency. I can’t remember a time when I’ve actually got into an appointment there at the time scheduled.’
    â€˜Well, what did the doctor say?’
    â€˜Oh, I wasn’t even seeing a doctor. Just one of the nurses for the blood pressure test. Nothing important.’
    â€˜Are you sure?’ asked Jude.
    â€˜Yes,’ Carole replied, ever more determined not to be one of those people ‘who’re always going on about their health’, and firmly moving the conversation in another direction. ‘I noticed as I was walking past Allinstore –’ she referred to Fethering’s only – and uniquely inefficient – supermarket – ‘that they’re advertising a new delicatessen counter. If that’s as successful as all their other modernization efforts—’
    Having dealt with the