The Hanging in the Hotel (21 page)

‘Oh, good. Well, if you don’t mind leaping in straight away, my ladies are coming round here for coffee tomorrow morning for a meeting about the auction. Eleven o’clock. Would
you be free?’

Carole assured Brenda Chew that she would be, and confirmed she knew the address from the phone book. As she put the phone down, the feeling of caution came back to her. Her entrée to the
world of Pillars of Sussex womenfolk had been so smoothly achieved, she wondered whether they were as keen to find out about her as she was about them.

‘Jude?’

‘Yes.’

She had instantly recognized the voice at the end of the line, but made him go through the process of identifying himself. ‘Rick Hendry.’

‘Two calls so close from a major celebrity. How exciting.’

He ignored her sardonic tone. ‘Listen, I know you had lunch with Suze.’

‘Impossible to have secrets these days, isn’t it?’

‘Well, I like to think it is.’ Once again he deepened his voice to concentrate his charm; once again, to her annoyance, a part of her responded. ‘That’s really what
I’d like to talk to you about, Jude.’

‘Talk away.’

‘No, not on the phone. I’d like us to meet.’

‘Why?

‘Because I think we have mutual interests.’

‘Suzy?’

‘Suzy’s one of them. And Suzy not getting hurt is another.’

‘Keep going.’

‘The rest can wait until we meet. Tomorrow morning all right for you?’

‘Possibly.’

He ignored the wariness in her response and gave her the address of a hotel conference suite in Brighton. ‘Eleven o’clock. Ask for me.’

Jude was annoyed she’d let herself be steamrollered, but pleased the meeting had been set up. Rick Hendry had known she’d say yes, partly because she was in the course of an
investigation, but also because women rarely said no to him. His arrogance about his magnetism had some justification, and that annoyed Jude even more.

The Chews’ home in East Preston was a bungalow. The purchase had been prudent, as had everything else in the life of Donald and Brenda Chew. The mortgage had been long
paid off, and its accompanying endowment bonus shrewdly invested. Those dividends, together with the extensive pension schemes Donald had set up – not to mention his continuing income from
the practice – ensured that the couple lived in considerable splendour.

Though splendour, of course, was not the same thing as taste – or, at least, not the same thing as Carole’s taste. After only a few moments in the bungalow, she found she was
challenging herself to find anything in the living room to which she would have given house room. No expert, and fully aware that her own decorative style was minimalist to the point of austerity,
Carole still winced at everything that caught her eye.

None of it was cheap. A great deal of money, and quite possibly the services of an interior designer, had been lavished on the room, but there wasn’t a single item Carole would have bought
– or even have put on display if it had been given to her by her dearest friend. Carole had never liked windowpanes with swirling designs of lilies on them, or pink curtains ruched like the
petticoats of a Toulouse-Lautrec dancing girl. She’d always had an aversion to gold Dralon three-piece suites, and never been that mad on rough brown stone fireplaces with beaten brass
surrounds. She disliked porcelain figurines of small children with tears welling from their eyes, had a positive aversion to floppy clowns splaying winsomely out of baskets. And she really hated
tasselled velvet picture frames holding photographs textured to look like oil paintings.

Carole knew that in time the challenge to find something in the house that she might have bought herself would become obsessive. She found herself taking against the door handles and the
window-catches. Even the window sills were spoiled by curlicues of gold, and the light switches were tarted up with brass and onyx surrounds.

Competition to this decorative nightmare was offered by her hostess’s dress sense. Brenda Chew was tiny-boned and delicate; mere survival without being crushed by her large husband must be
one of the achievements of their marriage. She was wearing a skirt, blouse and cardigan of pastel fluffiness, whose every available edge was beaded with gold braid. Diamond-patterned white tights
did little for her thin legs, and her patent-leather shoes had large pink bows on them. The impression she gave was of being gift-wrapped rather than dressed.

But any image of fluffy femininity was dispelled as soon as Brenda Chew spoke. Her voice on the phone had expressed only the imposed gentility, not the steel that lay beneath. ‘Carole, do
let me introduce you to some of our other ladies. All towers of strength, without whom I could not begin to achieve all that I do.’

The other ladies, a half dozen of them seated around the room, were mostly about Brenda’s age, sexagenarians on the verge of becoming septuagenarians. They were expensively dressed and
cosseted, their faces lined in spite of the large volume of designer creams that had been rubbed into them over the years. Carole got the feeling that few of these ladies had worked for their
living. They were of the generation that had played golf, tanned themselves in Spanish villas, brought up children with the help of au pairs, and cooked cordon bleu meals with the bacon their
husbands had so satisfactorily brought home.

She took in the names as they were introduced, but there was only one who really interested her. She was the youngest woman in the room, in her early forties, ten years younger even than Carole.
Expensively dressed, but with more taste than the rest of them: grey knitted silk top, well-cut white jeans, black boots with high heels. Short blonde hair and a family likeness so strong Carole
had identified her before being told that her name was Sandra Hartson.

Her shape and posture shadowed her daughter’s, though Kerry carried herself with more attitude, a stroppier jutting of the hips than her mother. Sandra Hartson had probably looked more
like Kerry when Bob had married her, but now she was altogether more tentative, even self-effacing, as though her fragile personality had been crushed between the egos of her daughter and her
second husband.

Carole felt a little glow of triumph. She would talk to the woman, get to know her, and through her find out more about Bob Hartson. The thought made Carole feel empowered. Up to this point,
Jude, because of her connection with Hopwicke Country House Hotel and Suzy Longthorne, had been the dominant partner in their investigation. Contact with Sandra Hartson offered Carole a more equal
role in the proceedings.

But she couldn’t start her probing straight away. Particularly because no one else was allowed to take the initiative in any room which contained Brenda Chew.

‘You haven’t missed much, Carole. I was just bringing the ladies up to date with what’s been achieved so far. As you know, the auction of promises is being held on Saturday
week at Hopwicke Country House Hotel.’

Carole nodded knowingly, though the information was new to her.

‘Members of the Pillars of Sussex will be filling up tables with their guests, and remember, ladies, we don’t want any empty seats. Sixty is the dining room’s capacity, so we
want sixty paying bottoms on those seats. Tickets are only a hundred and fifty pounds a head, and for that the guests will not only be able to enjoy the auction of promises, but also an excellent
gourmet dinner cooked by the resident chef at Hopwicke House, Max Townley. I’m sure most of us have already tasted his cuisine and know what a treat we have in store.’

A murmur of pampered agreement ran around the room.

‘We’re only up to thirty-two definite acceptances at the moment, so I really do urge you to use all your feminine wiles’ – a little giggle greeted this daring proposition
– ‘to get those seats filled. Of course, I will be doing a ring-round of some of those who’re dragging their feet, but I can’t do it all on my own, so, ladies, I am relying
on you as well.’

‘I’m quite optimistic of getting four from the bridge club,’ one elderly lady volunteered.

‘Very good, Betty.’

‘And I’m sure Bob can be relied on for half a dozen,’ said Sandra Hartson, ‘if he pulls in a few favours.’

This was greeted by an appreciative chuckle. The womenfolk all knew about Bob Hartson pulling in favours. But his wife hadn’t spoken with any pride in her husband’s power. She had
simply said what was required of her, and retreated back into her shell.

‘Thank you, Sandra. So lots of effort from all of you, please. I want to be in a position of actually turning people away. Use any means at your disposal – not forgetting those
feminine wiles.’

If something had been worth giggling at the first time, it proved worth giggling at again.

‘Another thing I wanted to mention was our auctioneer. Now we all remember that James Baxter did the job for us last year. And, though we’re very grateful for all the hard work he
put into the job, the fact remains that he wasn’t really very good. It makes so much difference to these kinds of occasions if you can get an auctioneer with a bit of personality, a bit of
charisma. A celebrity, of course, would be an enormous bonus. James has volunteered to do the job again this year and since I haven’t actually said no, we do have him there as a long stop
– but, if we could get someone else . . . So, ladies, think of all the celebrity friends you have.’

There was a silence. The womenfolk didn’t seem to have many celebrity friends.

With a sigh at the poor quality of the people she had to work with, Brenda Chew continued. ‘Oh well, there we go. Now, can we move on to the promises themselves? I’ve made a
superhuman effort of persuasion, and the list is beginning to look quite impressive, but we still need more. We’ve had some examples of magnificent generosity – like Bob and
Sandra’s offer of a week in their villa near Malaga.’ She nodded graciously to the donor, before making an implied criticism, ‘All the successful bidders will have to pay for is
the cost of the flights.

‘And Suzy Longthorne has been kind enough to offer a luxury weekend at Hopwicke House. Then we’ve got parachute jumps and days in speedboats and a hospitality box at Goodwood and
lots of dinners for two. But we do need more – particularly in the services area. You know, last time the bidding went quite high for the complete bodyscrub, and the golf lesson with the
Worthing professional, and the week’s loan of a cleaning lady. So that’s the kind of thing we want to be thinking of, ladies. Things that people will bid over the odds for.’

For a moment, Carole tried to work out the economics of the auction of promises. She had got the firm impression that there was a three-line whip for attendance among the Pillars of Sussex. If
they all brought their womenfolk two-thirds of the seats in the hotel dining room would be filled, so the people who were doing the bidding would be the same people who had donated the promises.
Being a Pillar of Sussex was evidently an expensive business.

She was dragged out of her sums by the realization that Brenda Chew was addressing her. ‘. . . and we were wondering whether you, Carole, as a newcomer to our little group might have any
ideas?’

‘Ideas for promises?’

‘Yes. Particularly, as I say, for services. Any thoughts?’

Carole didn’t have any. Or, rather, the ones she had were so pathetic that she didn’t dare voice them. She was sure she could persuade Ted Crisp to donate a bar meal for two at the
Crown and Anchor. She herself could offer to walk people’s dogs on Fethering beach. Maybe Jude would agree to do a couple of hour’s healing? None of them seemed to have quite the gloss
the Pillars of Sussex womenfolk would require.

‘Sorry, I can’t think of any ideas off the top of my head. Give me a couple of days and maybe I’ll come up with something.’

Brenda Chew let out a long-suffering sigh, the schoolmistress whose charge had once again failed to produce her homework. ‘Don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll think of something
else. Not having children or grandchildren to distract me, of course I know I have lots more time on my hands than you other ladies.’ Her voice was heavy with sarcasm. ‘And, as ever, if
you want a job done – better to do it yourself.’

Carole suspected she had identified Brenda Chew’s type when they first spoke on the phone, but now she had no doubt about it. Her hostess was one of those women who went round in a
perpetual aura of martyrdom, who never let anyone forget how hard she was working and how little she complained of the fact. From her experience in the Home Office, Carole knew exactly how
impossible such people were to work with.

The meeting continued. Brenda Chew delegated various tasks to individual ladies, but with a kind of patient defeatism, as if she knew they’d get their commissions wrong and she’d
have to end up doing everything herself. She asked Sandra Hartson to co-ordinate any new offers of promises, but again with the air of someone who knew she’d have to come in and pick up the
pieces.

At twelve-thirty sharp Brenda signalled the end of the session, and the ladies dispersed variously to golf clubs, hairdressers or lunch parties. As she left the bungalow, Carole noticed its
nameplate. ‘Innisfree’ had been pokered out of a plaster piece of driftwood, over which three brightly coloured pixies coyly peeped. No, there really was nothing round the Chews’
home that she would have given house room to.

She found herself beside Sandra Hartson as they walked to their cars, and saw an opportunity to maintain contact. Carole tried to think what Jude would have said in the circumstances. Jude never
had any problem easing into a conversation; it was a skill Carole didn’t have, and envied.

‘I believe I’ve met your daughter,’ she announced, more brusquely than she’d intended.

Sandra Hartson stopped, slightly alarmed. ‘Kerry?’

‘Yes. I was looking round Hopwicke Country House Hotel and she was introduced to me. I gather she works up there.’

‘Work experience. She’s learning the rudiments of the hotel business. At least, she is for the time being.’