Guns in the Gallery by Simon Brett Page B

it.’
    â€˜Crap!’ Denzil Willoughby countered. ‘I’ve got more political dissent in the fingernail of my little finger than you have in your entire bloody oeuvre !’
    The denizens of Fethering watched these exchanges with the concentration they would apply to a Wimbledon final. Maybe this really was what happened at every Private View. They felt excited to be part of the action.
    â€˜So that’s what you think, is it?’ Gray Czesky spat out the words.
    â€˜Yes, that’s what I bloody think. And if you want to make something of it—’
    â€˜Oh, for Christ’s sake, will you all shut up!’
    The words were spoken in a shriek, and it took a moment before the spectators could believe that they had issued from the lips of Bonita Green. They turned in amazement towards the diminutive figure of the gallery-owner as she went on, ‘This entire evening has been ruined! Probably the Cornelian Gallery has been ruined by all this shouting and insults and accusations.’
    She moved towards the back of the shop with considerable dignity. ‘I am going upstairs to my flat. And when I come down here tomorrow morning, Giles, I am relying on you to have all the rubbish in here cleared out.’
    â€˜Just a minute,’ said Denzil, cheated for the moment of one fight but eager to find another. ‘When you use the word “rubbish”, do you—’
    â€˜Yes, Mr Willoughby,’ said Bonita Green rather magnificently as she left the room, ‘I do include your work.’

NINE
    â€˜ I think we should go glamping,’ Fennel Whittaker announced, as Jude brought the Mini to a neat halt on the gravel in front of Butterwyke House.
    â€˜I think we should get you to bed,’ said Jude, trying not to sound too much like a nanny.
    â€˜Fine, but why not to bed in a yurt?’
    â€˜Well . . .’
    â€˜Go on. I want to.’ It was the urgent pleading of a small child.
    â€˜But Walden opens tomorrow.’ Jude looked at the girl shrewdly. ‘This isn’t a plan to mess up Chervil’s big day, is it?’
    â€˜No, of course it isn’t. I wouldn’t do anything like that. I’ve got nothing against Chervil.’
    â€˜You seemed to have back at the Private View.’
    â€˜What? When I . . .’ Her hand shot up to her mouth in consternation. ‘Oh my God! Did I actually slap her?’
    â€˜Yes, you did. Surely you remember?’
    â€˜It’s all a bit of a haze. I was so determined to be articulate in what I wanted to say to Denzil that I didn’t notice much else that was going on.’
    â€˜You had also had far too much to drink,’ said Jude severely.
    â€˜Yes, you’re right. I had,’ agreed Fennel, for a moment a contrite schoolgirl. But the mood didn’t last for long. Waving the nearly empty bottle she had brought from the Cornelian Gallery, she cried, ‘And now I need some more!’ She opened the passenger door and tottered out on to the gravel. ‘I’ll just go and raid Daddy’s wine cellar . . . and then . . . I’ll go and sleep in a yurt!’
    Jude was for a moment uncertain what to do. She knew that, in her current mood, Fennel would not take kindly to being coerced into bed. But she also knew the fragility of the girl’s temperament. The high Fennel was on was a big one and when she came down from it she was going to have a nasty hangover, both alcoholic and emotional.
    Jude decided the best thing she could do was to stay with the girl, try to be there to help when the mood changed, as it inevitably would. And if that meant spending a night in a yurt . . . well, she’d never spent a night in a yurt before and Jude was always up for new experiences. She hadn’t got transport back to Fethering, anyway.
    She took out her mobile to tell Carole what she was doing, but was prevented by the return from the