Fortunately, before she had time to defend her profession against this predictable flood of scepticism, their conversation was interrupted by the opening of the door to the staff room. An unwilling Steve Chasen was the first to emerge, being pushed out by Di Thompson.
‘It wasn’t my bloody fault!’ he was protesting. ‘I didn’t spill it!’
‘Yes, you did,’ countered the librarian. ‘And you shouldn’t have been in there, anyway. The staff—’
‘You pushed the bottle over! I saw you!’ said Steve Chasen.
‘Do you need a hand?’ interposed the urbane voice of Oliver Parsons.
Di Thompson looked gratefully at her saviour, as Oliver took over her pushing duties. ‘Come on, old chap. You’ve just had a little bit too much to drink and I think it’d be better if—’
‘I’m going!’ said Steve Chasen, shaking himself free of his latest ejector and turning to face Burton St Clair. ‘I don’t want to stay in the same room as a bloody liar like you!’ He shook a finger at the more successful author. ‘But don’t worry, you’ll get your comeuppance!’
Then, with a failed attempt at dignity, Steve Chasen staggered out of the library.
Burton chose to ignore the interruption and, with a smiling face, turned towards the staff-room door, from which Vix Winter was issuing with his long-awaited glass of wine. She too was serenely pretending the recent scene hadn’t happened, but, as the girl passed, Jude heard her whisper to Di Thompson, ‘I’ll clear it up.’
‘Thanks,’ her superior hissed back. ‘Thank God we haven’t got a carpet in there.’
And Vix Winter scuttled through into the staff room.
‘Anyway, cheers!’ Burton St Clair raised his glass to Di. ‘Many thanks for making me so welcome in Fethering Library.’
He sounded sincere, but Jude knew him well enough to know just how patronizing he was being. ‘Never forget the little people’ – that’s what his mind was saying.
‘I think maybe we should call it a day,’ said Di Thompson. It was nearly half an hour later and she looked exhausted. The evening had gone on longer than expected and she had the demeanour of someone who desperately wanted to get home. Through the library windows, a sheet of sudden rain was illuminated by the moonlight.
‘Yes,’ said Jude. By then most of the audience had melted away. The only others still there were Burton, Di and Vix. The junior librarian was looking even more keen to get away than her boss, but apparently Di was going to give her a lift home, so she had no alternative but to wait.
‘How long will it take you to drive back to London?’ asked Di pointedly.
‘Oh, hour and a half I should think, this time of night. Fortunately, Barnes is on the right side of the river. And the Beamer can really open up on the A3.’
Jude didn’t think it was worth pointing out that Burton had had far too much wine to drive safely, since he was clearly going to do it anyway. He had form on the drinking. She remembered from way back that he always had a hipflask of whisky about his person or in the glove compartment of his car. Defiantly, at the end of a boozy evening, he would take a swig from it before driving home. She wondered whether he still did that, or had life with the saintly Persephone cured him of such antisocial habits?
She also found it interesting that the financial rewards of bestsellerdom had allowed him to graduate from Morden to the much more fashionable Barnes (and to graduate from Vauxhalls to BMWs). ‘Well, it’s very good to see you again,’ she said. ‘And I look forward to meeting Persephone at some point.’
He didn’t respond to that suggestion. Instead, he asked, ‘How’re you getting back home?’
‘Walk. It’s only half a mile.’
He looked through the window. ‘In this lot?’
‘Won’t take long.’
‘Have you got an umbrella? Or a waterproof?’
‘No, but—’
‘Apart from the rain, it’s bloody cold out there. I’ll give you a lift in the Beamer.’ He seemed very keen to mention his car. Maybe it was a new toy.
‘Well, that sounds fine,’ said Di Thompson, whose body language was urging them towards the door. ‘Now if we could …’
Yes, the car was a new toy. Even in the face of horizontal icy rain, Burton St Clair could not help taking an appreciative look at its sleek lines before zapping the unlock button.
Jude, protected only by her patchwork jacket, needed no invitation to leap in through the passenger door. The seat where she found herself was reassuringly plush in its leather upholstery, and the interior was redolent of that ‘new car’ smell.
‘So you live right here in Fethering?’ asked Burton as he closed his door. The howling of the wind and rain dropped in volume. When he turned the ignition key, cool jazz filled the space around them.
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘It’s not far. I’ll give you directions.’
‘With you, Jude, I don’t need any directions.’
His left arm was suddenly around her shoulders. His right had found its way under the jacket to her breasts.
‘God, Jude, how I’ve longed to do this,’ he murmured as he pressed his face forward towards hers. ‘It was agony for me every time I was with you and Megan, because you were the one I really fancied and—’
Fortunately, Jude had not had time to do up her seatbelt, which meant that her left hand was free to administer a stinging slap to Burton’s cheek.
‘What was that for?’ he asked, aggrieved. ‘Don’t play hard to get. You know you’ve always fancied me.’
‘Really? What the hell are you playing at, Al? You’ve just told your entire audience how perfect your life is with the sainted Persephone and now—’
‘Ah, Persephone understands.’
‘Does she?’
‘Yes, she knows I have a more powerful sex drive than she does; she understands that I’m attractive to other women. She wouldn’t make any fuss about—’
‘She might not make any fuss, but I would! And if you think, just because you’ve got a book in the bestseller list, that gives you some kind of droit de seigneur over any woman who you—’
‘Come on, Jude, be grown-up! You know you’ve always fancied me.’
‘I know many things,’ she responded, with uncharacteristic hauteur. ‘That I fancy you is not among them!’
She found the door handle and let herself out into the maelstrom of wind and rain. ‘Goodbye, Al,’ she said. ‘You get back home to Persephone.’
She slammed the door of his ‘Beamer’ and set off resolutely towards the seafront. Long before she reached it, the rain had seeped through her patchwork jacket and was trickling down her back and between her breasts. The cold penetrated to the very core of her being.
Before going left along the promenade, Jude turned back to look at Fethering Library. The BMW was still where it was when she had left it, with no exterior or interior lights on. As she turned towards the sea, there was no sign of activity from the glass-shattered shelter.
By the time she got back to Woodside Cottage, she was in desperate need of a hot shower to bring some warmth back into her frozen body.
She also needed the shower because she felt soiled by her encounter with Burton St Clair’s wandering hands.
FIVE
After