Guns in the Gallery Read Online Free

any mother in her sixties suddenly to have a son in his thirties around all the time.’ Her neighbour waited patiently, sensing that Jude had more to tell. ‘Also I gather Giles has plans to work with Bonita in the business.’
    Carole pointed to the invitation on the table. ‘Hence this?’
    â€˜I’d say so, yes. Denzil Willoughby is rather different in style from the artists Bonita usually exhibits.’
    A nod from Carole, as she looked at the twisted images on the invitation and mentally compared them to the innocuous watercolours she had seen on display in the Cornelian Gallery. ‘Well, you seem to know quite a lot about them,’ she said, an edge of sniffiness in her tone.
    Jude smiled. ‘I could tell you some more.’
    â€˜Oh?’ Carole didn’t want to sound too eager.
    â€˜There’s another reason why Giles Green wants to be down here. His new girlfriend lives near Chichester.’
    â€˜Do you know her too?’
    â€˜I’ve met her. Girl called Chervil. I know her sister Fennel better.’
    â€˜Chervil? Fennel? What happened? Did their parents have an accident with a spice rack?’
    Jude giggled. ‘I don’t know. There’s certainly something hippyish about them. The parents, Ned and Sheena Whittaker, demonstrate that other-worldliness which only the very rich can afford. They have this big estate near Halnaker. Butterwyke House. And they’re always experimenting with the latest ecological fad. Solar panels, wind turbines, organic gardening, they’ve done the lot. But, as I say, they can afford it, so good luck to them.’
    â€˜Is it inherited money?’ Carole was always intrigued by the very basic question of what people lived on.
    â€˜No. The Whittakers made their pile in the nineteen-nineties’ dot-com boom, and were lucky enough – or possibly shrewd enough, though I think it was luck – to get out before the whole thing went belly up. The result is they’ve got shedloads of money.’
    â€˜And did you meet them through your healing?’
    â€˜Yes. Ned put Fennel in touch with me.’
    â€˜Ah. Right.’ Carole didn’t expect any more details. Jude was always very punctilious about client confidentiality. And while she continued to see Fennel Whittaker, a beautiful and talented artist with a crippling medical condition, she would never divulge the secrets of the sessions the two of them had shared in the front room of Woodside Cottage.
    â€˜So Giles Green has a thing going with this Chervil?’ asked Carole.
    â€˜Yes. She used to work in the City too, but she’s moved back down to Butterwyke House to help her parents in their latest business venture.’
    â€˜Which is?’
    â€˜â€œGlamping”.’
    â€˜What on earth is “glamping” when it’s at home?’
    â€˜The word’s a contraction of “glamorous” and “camping”.’
    â€˜There’s nothing glamorous about camping,’ said Carole with a shudder. She remembered all too well the damp misery of holidays under canvas on the Isle of Wight with her parents. And equally watery experiences in France with David and Stephen, when they made yet another attempt to do things that they imagined normal families did. The awful smell of musty damp canvas came unbidden to the nose of her memory.
    â€˜Well, there’s quite a vogue for it now, Carole. Wealthy City folk getting what they imagine to be a taste of country life. Totally authentic experience . . . yurts with wood-fired stoves . . . not to mention gourmet chefs and sometimes even a butler thrown in.’
    That prompted a ‘Huh’ from Carole. Though she didn’t vocalise it, another of her mother’s regular sayings had come into her mind. ‘More money than sense’. Amazing how many things that could be applied to in the cushioned world of West Sussex.
    â€˜Would you