Guns in the Gallery

‘Thank you for that,’ said Jude to her rescuer.

Sam Torino shrugged. ‘No problem. So many people just don’t get healing. They think it’s some kind of conjuring trick.’

‘Have you had some yourself?’

‘Yes, a good few times.’ The famous hazel eyes looked into Jude’s brown ones. ‘I get the feeling you’re a good healer.’

The line needed no explanation; their contact was instinctive. ‘Thank you,’ said Jude.

‘I have a problem,’ Sam Torino confided. ‘Would you be able to take a look at it?’

‘For the cameras?’

‘Of course not. For me. Would you mind staying a bit when all this hoopla’s over?

Jude agreed.

Wandering round Walden, taking everything in and feeling atypically mellow after her third glass of Pimm’s, Carole found herself with Sheena Whittaker and suddenly realized that she hadn’t expressed condolences to the bereaved mother. She made up for lost time, stammering out appropriate platitudes.

But she was surprised to be cut short in her sentiments. ‘We don’t need to talk about that today,’ said Sheena quite sharply.

‘I’m sorry. I just thought—’

‘Fennel was headstrong. She always went her own way. And she was always drawing attention to herself too. I know this is not something that a mother should say about her daughter, but in many ways my life will be simpler without Fennel in it.’

Carole Seddon was profoundly shocked. For two reasons. First, because Jude hadn’t told her what Ned had said about his wife’s reaction to their daughter’s death. And, second, because of the transformation in Sheena Whittaker’s manner. Gone was the tentative insecurity Carole had noted on their previous meeting. It was as if the absence of Fennel had literally lifted a burden from her mother’s shoulders.

So marked was the change that, for a moment, Carole even wondered whether Sheena Whittaker might have had a hand in arranging the outcome which was clearly such a relief to her. It was not impossible.

EIGHTEEN

‘Are you sure this is all right? There isn’t something else you should be doing?’

‘It’s fine and dandy, Jude,’ said Sam Torino. ‘They got their pound of flesh. I’ve done all they asked me to. I’ve earned a little “Me Time”.’

‘What about the kids?’

‘They’re fine. They’re toasting marshmallows over the bonfire with Katya.’

‘Katya?’

‘One of their nannies.’

‘Oh. Right. You said you had a problem . . .?’

They were in one of the side rooms of the treatment yurt with the door firmly closed. Even though everything had been meticulously cleaned and the white tiles gleamed, Jude could not quite remove from her memory the image of the space spattered with Fennel Whittaker’s blood.

Sam Torino, incapable of looking less than elegant in any posture, draped her long limbs across the treatment couch. ‘It’s a back thing. I always swore I’d never turn into one of those old women who had backs, and Lordy, Lordy, it’s caught up with me. Maybe growing old is just a process of becoming all the things one swore one’d never be.’

‘You’re not old,’ said Jude.

‘I am too.’

‘You still look stunning.’

‘Maybe. But if you knew how much longer it takes me to look stunning these days . . .’ She laughed grimly. ‘As I say, it’s a back thing.’

‘Caused by any particular injury?’

‘I don’t think the last divorce helped.’

‘But no physical injury?’

‘Not that I know of. Mind you, I grew up in the School of Hard Knocks. So it could be any one of those knocks that started the thing off.’

‘How long have you had the pain?’

‘Since the last divorce.’

‘Really?’

Sam Torino nodded. Close to, Jude could see the fine tracery of lines around her eyes. The model had been right. She’d always be beautiful, but time was beginning to fray away at her perfect outline.

‘Lie down on the couch and let’s have a look.’

‘Sure.’ Sam swivelled round to lie on her back. ‘Do you want me to take anything off?’ After a lifetime of backstage changing at catwalk shows, she had no coyness about removing her clothes.

‘Just the shoes for the time being.’

Sam Torino slipped off what looked like Converse Hi Top trainers (though a discerning fashionista would have recognized them as being by a far more exclusive designer). Like all her clothes, they appeared to have been put on the first time that day.

‘Could you just lie down on your front?’ Sam obeyed. ‘Just get comfortable. From what you said, you’ve used healers before.’

‘Sure. I’ll try anything. Anything that helps.’

‘And did the healing help?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘When you said you’d had the pain since your last divorce, was that a joke?’

‘No, I had the pain before the divorce, but then I divorced him.’ She stopped herself. ‘Sorry, I suffer from Reactive Wisecrack Syndrome. When I’m nervous I make dreadful jokes.’

‘Are you nervous now? You don’t look it.’

‘One thing you learn with a career like mine . . . Whatever you’re feeling, don’t look it.’

‘Well, you’re succeeding. Nobody would know you’re nervous.’

‘I am too.’

‘So why are you nervous now?’