Simon Brett - The Stabbing in the Stables

As health faddishness developed during the 1990s, the hotel’s small gym and pool area had been expanded into a large health spa, which offered every kind of traditional and alternative therapy. There the jaded wealthy could have their bodies balanced, their chakras realigned, their toes articulated, their force fields refocused, their skins scoured and scrubbed with a variety of unguents, their limbs wrapped in seaweed, their flesh exfoliated or their colons irrigated.

Though Jude believed in the efficacy of many of these treatments, she was less than convinced by the way the health spa offered them, in a kind of pick ’n’ mix assortment for the idle rich. Her own approach to alternative medicine was very different from the Yeomansdyke way.

But the fact remained that she did have a voucher for a free day at the place. It had been given her as a Christmas thank-you by a grateful client who, though Jude hadn’t thought about the fact before, was extremely well heeled and could afford such gestures.

Jude got the silver envelope out of the drawer where she had shoved it carelessly on Christmas Day. “A full day’s treatment in the understated luxury of Yeomansdyke’s state-of-the-art health spa, with use of all the facilities. Just ring to book your day and one of our fitness professionals will advise you on the exciting range of health and beauty treatments available.”

So Jude rang to book her day. Or, since it was by then early afternoon, her less than half a day. But the fitness professional to whom she spoke said, yes, it would be fine for her to go straight there and wondered whether she would be requiring the services of a personal trainer to work out her gym routine. Jude, whose consistently good health derived from walking and yoga, declined the offer. She said she’d rather assess the therapies on offer when she got to Yeomansdyke, and the fitness professional was very happy with that. Without the words actually having been said, Jude got the distinct impression that business was pretty quiet that afternoon.

Carole, she was sure, would have given her a lift to the hotel, but Jude didn’t want to impose. She ordered a cab and, aware of her neighbour’s sensibilities to the slightest of imagined slights, fixed to be picked up at the seafront end of the High Street.

Close to, Yeomansdyke was even huger and more impressive than it had been in the brochure or glimpsed from the road. At the reception a smartly suited young man of exquisite manners and a vestigial Swiss accent directed her to the spa entrance, where a female receptionist of equally exquisite manners welcomed her and proffered a silver menu of available treatments. Avoiding the most exotic, Jude plumped for a full body massage. After that she planned to have a swim and then maybe make a further selection. The receptionist summoned a girl in clinical white, who-also exquisitely mannered-led Jude to the changing area, found her a locker and produced a swooningly soft bathing robe and pair of slippers. On hearing that her client had not brought a bathing costume, she offered a broad array from an adjacent cupboard. Jude, never one to be self-conscious about her substantial figure, chose a black two-piece, too substantial to come under the definition of “bikini.” But she didn’t put it on. Massage first.

Then the girl in white led her through to an elegantly tiled treatment room, and left her alone. A minute later, her masseur appeared. Tall, thin and very dark, his name was Ahmet and he wore a white uniform. And he was good. Jude knew more than a little about various forms of massage, and the minute Ahmet started on her shoulders, she recognised she was under the hands of an expert. So she abandoned herself to the sensation. He said little, but-clearly it was part of the job description for anyone working at Yeomansdyke-he had exquisite manners.

The massage was thorough and took nearly an hour and a half. At the end, feeling deeply toned and relaxed, Jude showered off the oil on her body, donned her borrowed bathing costume and made her way to the swimming pool. It was set in a mini Crystal Palace, a huge vaulted structure of cast iron and glass; its previous role as a conservatory was hinted at by the huge potted palms and other tropical trees on the poolside area. The atmosphere was steamy and deliciously warm, in vivid contrast to the cold, darkening February outside.

There were wicker loungers and tables around the pool. Abandoning her robe, slippers and towel, Jude eased herself down the steps into the water, whose temperature exactly matched that of the ambient air. She swam a brisk ten lengths, using the efficient crawl she had perfected during one long summer with a lover in the south of France. Then she bobbed about in the water for a few minutes, taking a covert look at the other spa users, searching for Sonia Dalrymple.

There was no sign of her in the poolside area. Four or five loungers were occupied, all by women, no men. And none of the bodies on display could ever have been mistaken for Sonia’s. Perhaps it had taken a long time for these women-or, more likely, their husbands-to attain the kind of wealth that made the Yeomansdyke experience accessible, but none of them was in the first flush of youth, and indeed the first hot flush of the menopause was quite a distant memory. No, if Sonia Dalrymple was around, she was in some other part of the spa.

Jude got out of the water, towelled herself down, resumed her bathrobe and slippers, and ambled back to the spa reception.

“I was rather expecting to meet a friend of mine here today. Mrs. Dalrymple…I don’t know if she’s been in.”

“Yes, Mrs. Dalrymple has booked into the hotel for three nights. She’s in one of the tanning suites at the moment,” said the girl with exquisite politeness. She consulted a printed sheet. “Suite 4.”

“Oh, well, I’ll wait till she comes out.”

“You don’t have to. If you’re a friend, I’m sure she’d be delighted to see you. Just knock on the door. The tanning suites are down there.”

“Thank you very much.”

The suites’ numbers were on brass plates worn smooth with much polishing. Jude tapped on the heavy oak door of Number 4, but there was no response. She entered unbidden.

Sonia Dalrymple lay on a bed under the sunlamp, wearing only a wispy black bikini bottom. She was on her back, showing to full advantage the stunning figure that made Jude a little wistful for what she once had been. But, even at her height of beauty, she had never been so precisely toned. Amazing to think that that firm, flat stomach had given birth to twins. Sonia’s body, like everything else about the Dalrymples, was absolutely perfect.

She wore a designer eyeshade and, rather than the dark goggles on the table, beneath it a thin silk scarf was laid across her eyes. Either she was breathing very shallowly, or she was not breathing at all.

Jude felt a moment of anxiety. There was something wrong. She opened her mouth, but before she could speak, the mobile phone on the table beside Sonia rang. Instantly alive, she snatched at the phone as a man dying of thirst would snatch at a drink.

But at the same moment she recognised her visitor and stabbed at the phone to hold the call.

As she did so, the scarf slipped away from her face, to reveal the purplish bruising around both her eyes.

Jude wondered whether she now knew what Lucinda Fleet’s words had meant. “She often goes to Yeomansdyke to recuperate after Nicky’s been home.”

Sonia Dalrymple snatched up the scarf to hide her eyes, then switched off the phone without answering it. “Jude, what on earth are you doing here?”

Time for a little tactical finessing of the truth. “Someone gave me a day’s voucher here as a Christmas present”-that bit was true-“and I saw your name on one of the receptionist’s sheets. When I asked about you, she told me you were in here.”