Free The Strangling on the Stage by Simon Brett Page B

NHS, Carole’s move into a rant about Allinstore was only prevented by the ringing of Woodside Cottage’s doorbell. Jude went through to the hall. Carole heard the door being opened and the sound of a masculine voice, but her finely tuned gossip antennae were not up to hearing what was being said. Jude returned to the sitting room with a chubby, balding man, probably round the sixty mark, wearing a blazer with burgundy corduroy trousers and carrying a bottle of champagne. The colour of his face was not a bad match with the trousers.
    â€˜Carole, I’d like you to meet Mike Winstone.’ In response to her neighbour’s puzzled expression, she added the gloss, ‘Hester’s husband.’
    â€˜Oh, hello, how nice to meet you.’
    â€˜The pleasure’s mutual,’ he said in a hearty public school accent. ‘And it seems I should be offering you thanks too.’
    â€˜What for?’
    â€˜I gather you also helped Jude out when Hester threw her little wobbly.’
    â€˜Oh. Yes.’
    â€˜Sorry about that.’ He guffawed. ‘Can’t be keeping an eye on the better half all the time, can I?’
    â€˜Particularly not from New Zealand,’ said Jude with some edge.
    â€˜What? No, right. She told you I was off, playing cricket, did she?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Ridiculous at my age, isn’t it? Just this bunch of old overgrown schoolboys. Call ourselves the Subversives. Old fogeys now, but we have dreams – still waiting for that call from the England selectors, eh?’ This again was apparently worthy of a guffaw.
    â€˜As you see,’ Jude intervened, ‘we’re having coffee. Would you like a cup or …?’
    â€˜Bought you some champers by way of thank-you.’ He waved the bottle. ‘Still cold, fresh out the fridge. Why don’t we crack that open?’
    â€˜Well, it’s a bit early …’ Carole began, but she was overruled by Jude saying:
    â€˜What a good idea. I’ll get some glasses.’
    Left alone together, Mike Winstone favoured Carole with a bonhomous beam. ‘You interested in cricket, are you?’
    Her recollections of the game came from the very few occasions when she’d watched her son Stephen play while he was at school. Those games only lasted a couple of hours, but they’d still seemed interminable. What watching a full five-day Test Match must be like was too appalling for Carole to contemplate. Thank goodness Stephen had never shown any real aptitude for the game – or indeed for any others – and devoted himself increasingly to his studies.
    â€˜No, I’m afraid not,’ she replied.
    â€˜You’re missing a lot, you know, Carole. Very fine game, subtle mix of the very simple and the really quite complex. Lot of women getting interested in it now too, you know, and I must say some of them don’t half play a good game.’
    Jude returned with the glasses before Carole was required to amplify her views on cricket. Which was probably just as well.
    Mike Winstone expertly removed the foil, wire and cork from the champagne, then filled the three glasses. Passing two to what he referred to as ‘the ladies’, he raised his own. ‘As I say, thanks very much for helping out “her indoors” in her moment of need.’
    â€˜Our pleasure,’ said Carole.
    â€˜So she told you all about it?’ asked Jude, a little puzzled because Hester Winstone had so firmly assured her that she wouldn’t let her husband know about the suicide attempt. He was, she’d said, ‘no good with that sort of stuff’.
    â€˜Oh yes,’ Mike replied confidently. ‘No secrets between Hest and me. Got to tell the truth when you’re incarcerated in a marriage – worse luck.’ He guffawed again.
    â€˜So did she tell you as soon as you got back?’
    â€˜Well, we were having a chinwag about everything we’d both been up to