Guns in the Gallery Read Online Free Page A

like to see it?’ asked Jude.
    â€˜See what?’
    â€˜The glamping site at Butterwyke House.’
    â€˜Why?’
    Jude shrugged. ‘Interest. I’m going up there on Saturday. You’re welcome to come if you want to.’
    â€˜Why are you going there?’
    â€˜Amongst the services offered to the happy glampers are a variety of alternative therapies. Sheena asked if I’d be interested in providing some of them. She’s suggested the idea to Chervil. So I’m going up there to have a look round, see if it’ll be suitable for me.’
    â€˜Do you need the money?’ asked Carole characteristically.
    Another shrug. ‘One can always use a bit more money.’
    This prompted another recurrent question in Carole’s mind. What did Jude live on? Her lifestyle wasn’t particularly lavish, and she never seemed to be hard up. But was there really that much profit to be had in the healing business? These were things that should have been asked when her neighbour first moved into Woodside Cottage. They now knew each other far too well for such basic enquiries to be made. Whenever she introduced someone new to Jude, Carole was always tempted to prime them beforehand to ask the relevant questions. But somehow it never happened.
    â€˜Anyway, why should I come with you, Jude? You’re not proposing I should masquerade as an acupuncturist, are you?’
    â€˜No, I just thought you might want to have a look around.’
    â€˜But how would you explain my presence?’
    â€˜It wouldn’t need any explanation. I’d just say, “Carole’s a friend of mine. She wanted to have a look round, so she came along with me”.’
    â€˜â€œHave a look round”? That sounds like snooping.’
    â€˜Only to you it does. Look, Ned and Sheena are running this glamping as a commercial business. For all they know, you’re a prospective client. You might want Stephen, Gaby and Lily to stay there at some point.’
    â€˜Oh, I don’t think so. Camping and Stephen never really did get along.’
    â€˜Well, as I say, if you want to come with me to Butterwyke House on Saturday, fine. If you don’t, equally fine.’
    It was far too casual an arrangement to match Carole’s standards, typical of her friend’s vagueness in social matters. If the owners of Butterwyke House had actually invited Jude to take a friend along, that would have been entirely different. Carole was rather intrigued by the suggestion, though.
    â€˜Anyway, what we need now,’ announced Jude, ‘is two more of those large Chilean Chardonnays.’
    â€˜Oh, I don’t think we—’
    â€˜Yes, we do,’ said Jude as she sailed magnificently up towards the bar.

THREE
    C arole Seddon arrived at the Cornelian Gallery on the dot of ten thirty on the Thursday morning. As she prepared to leave High Tor, Gulliver had got very excited, thinking he was going to get another walk. When it was clear that wasn’t on the cards, he went off and lay down reproachfully in front of the Aga. Soon be time to switch that off for the summer, thought Carole. Gulliver wouldn’t like his source of warmth being removed either. His lugubrious expression seemed to anticipate future annoyances.
    The gallery door had a sign on it saying ‘OPEN’ and it gave when Carole pushed, but there was no one inside. Everything looked exactly the same as it had on the Monday. Maybe the odd Monet pencil sharpener had been sold, but all of the framed artworks were still in place on the walls. It was a long time, Carole began to think, since business had been brisk in the Cornelian Gallery.
    She looked more closely at the Piccadilly snowscape on the wall and wondered why it intrigued her. The buses struggling up Regent Street were old-fashioned double-deckers, and the clothes of the red-faced people in the streets suggested the work had been done some thirty years before.