Death at Rainbow Cottage by Jo Allen (book club books txt) 📗

stay. I can’t be bothered to make up the bed in the spare room, though. You’ll have to share mine.’

They clinked glasses, and she settled back down on the sofa, close to him. On principle, she didn’t, wouldn’t, love him and she knew that on the same basis he didn’t love her, but sometimes a devil at her shoulder tempted her to whisper that little lie. Only the fear of the consequences stopped her.

Discretion – and experience – triumphed. One day she’d have to tell him about her affair with Faye but tonight wasn’t the night for confessions.

Setting her glass down on the side table, she clasped her hand round the packet, reached for Jude’s hand and closed his long fingers around it. ‘You can deduce what it is before you open it.’

‘Jeez, Ashleigh. I’m not at work now.’ But he laughed as he moved the packet from one hand to the other to feel its shape and weight, lifting it to sniff at it. Everyone knew his heart was never off duty. ‘Soap.’

‘Not even close.’

‘Chocolate.’

‘You think I’d get a bar of chocolate all the way from Sri Lanka without eating it?’

‘Fair point. Then it must be a door stop.’

‘Now you’re being ridiculous. You know perfectly well what it is, don’t you?’

‘Indeed, Moriarty. I hypothesise that you’re trying to drag me into your web with a pack of tarot cards.’ He delved into the bag and drew out a cardboard box, a little thicker than a standard pack of playing cards, which he turned over and over in his hands, examining the abstract pattern on the back, lifted it to sniff at that teasing scent of patchouli and sandalwood. ‘Where did you got them? A temple?’

‘I found them in a little shop in Kandy. It was full of all sorts of stuff and I was just browsing, but as soon as I looked at the cards I thought of you. You’ll see why.’

He opened the box and fanned the cards out, and then he laughed. The cards were cheap and gaudy with stylised images of gods and goddesses, and in the bottom corner of each one a tiny, smoke-grey cat stretched or slept or yawned. ‘Well, well.’

Too late, she realised that it might have been a mistake. When she’d seen the cards in the shop she’d remembered a moment when she’d seen him with a grey cat just like that one, reaching his hand down to fuss it, and the cat had entwined itself around his hand in utter ecstasy. But Holmes wasn’t his. The cat belonged to his former girlfriend. ‘It was just a bit of fun.’

‘Thank you. But I know the real reason you bought them.’

‘You do?’

‘Yes. Because now I’ve got a set of tarot cards my credibility will be completely ruined as a detective if anyone finds out.’ He cut the cards, shuffled them, grinned at her. ‘And so I daren’t risk telling anyone that you read the bloody things seriously. You’ve stitched me up completely, Madame Vera. But don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me.’

She relaxed. ‘It’s okay. I’m not going not lead you any further astray.’

‘That’s a shame.’

‘Not with the cards, at least.’ She sipped her wine. Reading the cards was an unconventional hobby, one she kept secret from her workmates. Once he’d found out about it Jude had teased her mercilessly, but she thought he was beginning, at last, to understand that it wasn’t the psychobabble he though it was. Thoughtful consideration of the cards had led her towards the solution to many a personal problem, not least of them the decision to end her toxic marriage.

If only she’d found a moment before she came out to quiz them over the problem of Faye Scanlon.

‘Why don’t you have a go at reading them?’

‘Because I’m a sceptic. I give off all the wrong vibes.’ But he looked at them with interest, shuffling them face up as if he were born to it. ‘And it’s all nonsense.’

The fortune telling side of it was nonsense, and there were plenty of charlatans who’d used it to take advantage of others, but today Ashleigh was in the mood to push it. It mattered that he understood her, why it was important. ‘I’ve told you endlessly. It’s about making you think. One card in isolation tells you very little, but a proper spread can lead you in the right direction.’

‘Not unlike your average criminal investigation,’ he said, in a tone that suggested he was humouring her. ‘Take all the bits of evidence, look at them in context, and see the answer.’

‘Just like that.’ She took the pack from him, carried on shuffling and then held them out. ‘Of course, each card can be read in isolation. I sometimes choose one just to give me food for thought.’

‘Like a thought for the day,’ he said, distracted from the cards and running a finger through the curling end of her pony tail.

‘Yes.’ She shook him off. There would be plenty of time for that later. ‘It’s probably a good place for a beginner to start. Go on. Take one.’

‘You’re secretly filming this, aren’t you? You’re going to show it to the team and I’ll be buying cakes till kingdom come on the back of it to shut them up.’ But he took a card from the pack and held it out to her. ‘What’s this?’

‘That’s the Queen of Wands. Look at it and tell me what you think of it.’

‘I don’t suppose it does any harm to get into the mind set of you spiritual people.’

‘There are more of us than you think. You might learn something about human nature.’ If you wanted to you could rationalise anything, and it amused her to see Jude peering down at the card with the intense concentration he applied to any other problem.