The Killer in the Choir. Simon Brett

stepdaughter and stepmother …’

      ‘So Fethering gossip has it.’

      ‘Never underestimate Fethering gossip, Carole. It’s almost always hopelessly wrong on detail, but it often gets the main outlines right.’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘The daughter … Alice did you say?’

      ‘Mm.’

      ‘She doesn’t live down here?’

      ‘No. London, I think.’

      ‘I’ve never met her. Nor the mother … Heather … I don’t think I’d even recognize her.’

      ‘She’s very rarely seen around the village.’

      ‘Oh?’

      ‘Just church on Sundays and church choir rehearsals on Fridays.’

      ‘Ah. Where do they – well, where does she – live?’

      ‘Shorelands Estate.’

      ‘Say no more. That lot are always a bit up themselves, aren’t they?’

      It was true. Shorelands was one of those private estates, not quite gated, but with controlled access. The houses were overlarge, trumpeting their owners’ wealth, and each one built in a different architectural style. The Shorelands Estate was the kind of place where there were regulations about which days you could put your washing out. And where you could walk your dogs. And when you could mow your lawns.

      ‘Of course, “killing” …’ Carole began.

      ‘Hm?’

      ‘Well, I was just going to say … “killing” could mean a lot of things.’

      ‘As in Heather Mallett’s having “killed” her husband?’

      ‘Exactly. From an aggrieved – and bereaved – stepdaughter … it could be kind of metaphorical.’

      ‘“You killed my father by making his life a misery” … that kind of thing?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘“You killed my father by feeding him lots of fatty food” … or by “stopping him from going to the doctor when he felt ill” …?’

      ‘Mm.’

      ‘Infinite possibilities.’

      ‘It could also, of course mean …’ began Carole cautiously, ‘that Alice was actually accusing Heather of murdering her stepfather …?’

      Jude grinned wryly. ‘I wondered how long it would take you to get there.’

      ‘Well, it’s possible.’

      ‘Undoubtedly. Unlikely, but possible. And do we know how Leonard Mallett was supposed to have died?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Because information about that might help us to establish the viability of the murder hypothesis.’

      ‘Yes.’ Carole looked at her neighbour suspiciously. Lacking a robust sense of humour, she was never quite sure when she was being sent up.

      ‘Well, Carole,’ said Jude with a grin, ‘if you hear any more about the murder of Leonard Mallett, you will keep me up to speed about it, won’t you?’

      ‘Of course. And you’ll do the same?’

      ‘I will share every last piece of incriminating evidence with you,’ promised Jude. She looked at her watch. It had a large round face and was tied to her wrist with a kind of ribbon. This idiosyncrasy always irked Carole. She thought watches ought to be discreetly small, with proper straps. ‘Better be going,’ said Jude. ‘As I said, client coming at two.’

      ‘Oh yes. Of course,’ said Carole, her scepticism once again evident about the whole business of healing.

      It was not the first time Jude had treated Jonny Virgo. She hadn’t mentioned the name of her two o’clock booking to her neighbour. She had strict rules about client confidentiality.

      She knew about Jonny’s past career as Head of Music at a school called Ravenhall, but he’d never before mentioned that he played the organ at All Saints. As soon as he said he’d just come from post-funeral drinks, though, she made the connection.

      ‘I went to the Seaview Café to get some lunch,’ he confided. ‘There were only nibbles in the church hall after the ceremony. And, you know, I have to have regular meals. Because of my blood sugar.’

      Jonny Virgo’s ‘blood sugar’ was a much-discussed topic. From an early age, his mother had made him aware of the importance of keeping up the right level of blood sugar in his body, and from this he had developed a paranoia about the dangers of missing meals. He had a good few other paranoias about his health, mostly related to digestion. The easy diagnosis of Jonny Virgo’s condition would be hypochondria.

      But Jude looked deeper than that. She knew, from what he had said to her, that Jonny had tried all kinds of conventional medicines and alternative therapies for his many ailments before he had approached her. She found him a challenge, and one that she wanted to prove equal to. Yes, a lot of the symptoms he described were psychosomatic, but there was some genuine malaise at the centre of it all. Jude did not believe in separating physical and mental illness. She knew how inextricably intertwined they were, and her aim was always to heal the whole person.

      The one unarguably genuine ailment that Jonny Virgo suffered from was a bad back. Her practice had taught Jude that a lot of bad backs were more in the head than in the muscles, but Jonny’s was the real thing. It had been caused, he admitted, by a lifetime of piano playing, both practising by himself and teaching. All those long hours of sitting on a stool with no back support had taken their toll. Jude could tell from the tightness of his muscles, particularly in the lower back area, how much concentration he put into his work at the keyboard, channelling the works of the world’s great composers. She knew that the only prospect of a cure for his pain was for him to give up playing, but she also knew that that was the one solution she could not suggest. Playing the piano was what defined Jonny Virgo to himself. It was not only the work that had always been at the centre of his life; it was also his favoured means of release. Playing piano relaxed him.

      And he needed some form of relaxation. Jude had gathered, in previous sessions, that caring for his elderly mother was very stressful. Though he didn’t mention the word, the old lady was clearly on the slide towards dementia. ‘She can’t remember what she said two minutes ago, but she still loves hearing me play the piano,’ he kept saying. ‘She says hearing me play makes her very peaceful. I can’t stop playing because of Mother, apart from anything else. It wouldn’t be fair on her.’

      So, Jude recognized that she could never cure his pain, only offer him ways to manage it.

      Jonny knew the routine. He took off his jacket and shoes, removed the cravat from around his neck and lay face down on the treatment bed which Jude had put up in her sitting room. On first moving into Woodside Cottage, she had contemplated having a dedicated area for her healing work, but decided – rightly, as it turned out – that her clients would be more relaxed in the charming disorder of her living space. Jude’s style of décor reflected the clothes she wore. Just as a variety of floaty garments blurred the exact outline of her plumpness, so a range of rugs, throws and floppy cushions disguised the contours of her furniture. Carole had never actually vocalized her views on the organized chaos in which her neighbour lived, but Jude knew full well what she thought. She gloried in the contrast between the soft confusion of Woodside Cottage and the sharp edges of High Tor’s immaculate interior.

      The interest in crime-solving that she and Carole shared had occasionally presented Jude with ethical dilemmas in relation to her work. More than once it had happened that a client had been deeply involved in an investigation, either as a research source, a witness or, on occasion, a perpetrator. Jude tried not to use her confidential healer role as a means of eliciting information, but sometimes