Read Online The Stabbing in the Stables by Simon Brett - Free Book Online Page B

there are psychologists. Some researches have suggested there’s a link to paedophilia. Personally, I find that quite convincing.”
    Carole shuddered. “There are some disgusting people about, aren’t there?”
    â€œOh yes.” But Jude was always going to take a less rigid view of such matters. “There are also a lot of people about who suffer enormously from instincts that the world finds unacceptable, and over which they themselves have very little control.”
    â€œWhat—are you making excuses for paedophilia?”
    â€œI’m not making excuses for it. I’m just saying it must be very difficult to go through life with feelings the entire world despises.”
    â€œHuh.” Although Carole was a Times reader, there was, at bottom, a lot of Daily Mail in her.
    But she was still hungry for the displacement activity of investigation. “Isn’t there anyone else we know who’s got something to do with the Long Bamber Stables set-up? Don’t we have any other contacts?”
    â€œDon’t think we do, I’m afraid. We could ask Ted Crisp. A lot of people come and go through the Crown and Anchor. He might have heard something.”
    â€œYes…”
    â€œOr, of course, we do know where we can find Imogen’s mother.”
    â€œOh, really? How do we know that?”
    â€œSorry, I forgot to tell you. Imogen told me that her mother works at the checkout at Allinstore.”
    Carole’s knee-jerk reaction was characteristically snobbish. “Really? I thought, from what you’d said, that they were a nice middle-class family.”
    â€œDivorce has unfortunate effects even on nice middle-class families. I gather Imogen’s mother is doing it for the money.”
    â€œBut it’s an extremely public way of earning money. I mean, everyone in Fethering sees you sitting at a checkout. It’s very humiliating.”
    Jude thought about this. From what she’d heard of Hilary Potton, she wouldn’t be surprised if she’d sought out that kind of humiliation, a public martyrdom to show all of Fethering the straits to which her husband’s behaviour had reduced her. She shared the thought with Carole. “Anyway,” she concluded, “Mrs. Potton, so far as we know, has only the most tenuous of links to Walter Fleet. I mean, her daughter rides at Long Bamber, but that’s about it.”
    â€œMaybe, Jude, but tenuous links are all we seem to have at the moment.” Carole rose and picked up her handbag. “Anyway, as it happens, there are a few things I need from Allinstore. I’m going straight down there.”
    Â 
    The building must have been converted from something else; it couldn’t have been designed as a supermarket, unless by an architect who was either incompetent or had a wicked sense of humour. The large pillars that supported the roof seemed to have been placed where they would cause maximum obstruction to the smooth flow of shoppers. Some vindictive expert in space management had elected to put the tills directly behind two of them, so that most people seemed destined to make their purchases sideways.
    An equally dead hand was in charge of the supermarket’s stock. Shelves were either overloaded with the things nobody ever wanted, or empty of the products everyone required. Carole Seddon used Allinstore infrequently. Her major shopping was done in one weekly foray to Sainsbury’s. She only resorted to the local supermarket when she had run out of something. And, given the strict way in which she organised her life, she very rarely did run out of anything. Jude, amongst whose priorities housekeeping took a much lower rank, was a more regular visitor to Allinstore.
    Still, there are certain rules of domestic life. You can never have too many tins of chopped tomatoes on your shelves. And an extra pack of kitchen rolls never goes amiss. More important, these were both products that