The Torso in the Town

by Simon Brett

  Time enough to find that out. Her hostess, gesturing her guest to an armchair which was bleached to a rose colour, sat herself down in front of a table with a waiting cafetière. ‘Thank you very much for warning me about the police. Theirs was the first message on the answering machine. Might’ve given me a nasty shock if you hadn’t said anything.’

  Carole shrugged that it had been no problem.

  ‘Now, how do you like your coffee?’

  ‘Just a dash of milk. No sugar.’ As Debbie busied herself pouring, Carole asked, ‘Have the police talked to you then?’

  ‘And how! Had about three hours with them yesterday afternoon.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Yes.’ Debbie smiled. ‘They didn’t take me down to the station. So far as I can gather, I’m not their number one suspect.’

  ‘No, of course not. I don’t suppose they have any idea who the body – the torso – was.’

  ‘If they have, they didn’t confide it in me. There you are.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Would you like a biscuit?’

  There were none on display, but Carole would have refused the offer, anyway. Though there had been a strong biscuit culture in the Home Office, she had always borne in mind her mother’s proscription of eating between meals.

  ‘So what did the police ask you about?’

  ‘Oh, purely factual stuff. When we moved into the house . . .’

  ‘When was that, actually?’

  ‘Two . . . no, I suppose two and a half years ago.’ The recollection threatened her poise for a moment, so she moved quickly on. ‘And of course the police wanted to know who we’d bought Pelling House from . . .’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘Man called Roddy Hargreaves. I doubt if you’ve met him. A Fedborough “character”. Bought up the place where the pleasure boats used to run down on the Fether, but the business didn’t work out. He had to sell up.’

  ‘Did he move away?’

  ‘No, no one ever moves away from Fedborough. They just move into smaller premises,’ she added ruefully. ‘Not sure where Roddy’s place is currently. He’s moved around the town a bit in the last couple of years. His permanent address seems to be the Coach and Horses in Pelling Street.’

  ‘Hm. What else did the police ask you?’

  Though Carole’s questions were already tantamount to an interrogation, Debbie Carlton seemed either not to notice or not to mind. ‘They wanted to know when we sold Pelling House, all that sort of detail. And, needless to say, whether we often went down to the cellar.’

  ‘And the answer to that was . . . ?’ This time Carole realized that her instinctive curiosity was becoming a bit too avid for a Fedborough coffee morning, and backtracked. ‘That is, if you don’t mind my asking . . . ?’

  ‘I don’t mind at all . . . Mrs Seddon.’

  ‘Please call me Carole.’

  ‘All right, Carole. And call me Debbie. Well, in answer to your question – and indeed the police’s question, I very rarely did go down to the cellar in Pelling House. We had so much space there that we reckoned we’d colonize it slowly. Did our bedroom first, then the sitting room, then the kitchen and . . .’ The sentence, like the relationship it referred to, was left in mid-air.

  ‘But the cellar must’ve been inspected when you bought the house, you know, when it was surveyed?’

  Debbie Carlton shook her head. ‘We actually didn’t have it surveyed. Mad, I know, but I’d have still bought Pelling House if a survey had said the whole of Dauncey Street was about to fall into the Fether. And Francis saw the economic sense of it. He resented the idea of paying the money to some surveyor who’d just spend ten minutes in the place and send in a whacking great bill. You see, my husband was – well, is – an architect, so he checked the basics.’

  ‘Seem to be a lot of architects in Fedborough.’

  ‘Certainly are. Architects, antique dealers, and the retired. Anyway, Francis had always been careful with his money, and he came into some when his parents died, so we didn’t need a mortgage. Which meant we didn’t need a survey for the building society. And I’d dreamed of living in Pelling House since I was a little girl. Dreamed of bringing up a family there, but . . .’

  Carole began to realize the depth of the pain moving out must have caused. But there had been another implication in Debbie’s words. ‘You were brought up round here, were you?’

  ‘Yes. Fedborough born and bred. I’m a genuine Chub.’

  ‘Chub?’

  Debbie grinned at her bewilderment. ‘People who’re actually born in Fedborough are nicknamed “Chubs”. After the fish. Chub still get caught off the bridge sometimes.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘My parents used to run the local grocery – in the days when there was a grocery in Fedborough. So I was brought up and went to school round here. Then obviously moved away when I went to St Martin’s College of Art. After that Francis and I moved back down here and . . .’ She grimaced wryly. ‘Here I am again, as Debbie Carlton.’ A frown. ‘I should really have changed back to my maiden name after the divorce, but I’d got the design stationery printed before I thought of it.’

  ‘What was your maiden name?’

  ‘Franks. Debbie Franks.’

  ‘Either of them sounds all right for an interior designer.’

  ‘Yes.’ A light chuckle. ‘At least I had a maiden name I could go back to. Unlike my poor mother.’

  Carole waited for a gloss on this, but it didn’t come. So she smiled briefly, then asked, ‘Didn’t you want to move after the divorce?’ She remembered after David’s departure how frantic she had been to get out of the marital home as soon as possible and make her permanent base in their country cottage in Fethering.

  ‘I desperately wanted to move,’ said Debbie with feeling. ‘But my parents are still down here. Dad’s in a home, which means Mum’s virtually on her own. She sold the big house, to pay for Dad’s hospital expenses and lives in a houseboat on the Fether. I can’t really leave her, so . . .’ The shrug this time encompassed all the hopeless inevitability of life.

  ‘Mm. You say you were at art college . . .’ Carole gestured to the walls. ‘Are those yours?’ Debbie nodded. ‘They’re lovely.’

  ‘Thanks. I’m hoping to start selling a few, you know, bolster the old income a bit. This flat’s actually going to be part of the Art Crawl.’ In response to Carole’s puzzled expression, she explained, ‘In the Fedborough Festival in July. Only a couple of weeks away now. You’ve heard of the Festival, haven’t you?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Carole thought of the programme book that had come through the letter-box a month before, and which this year had remained unopened. ‘I’ve been to the odd play or concert in the past. But I haven’t been aware of the . . . what did you call it?’

  ‘ “Art Crawl”. So called because it’s kind of modelled on a pub crawl, I suppose. You move from venue to venue. Artists display their work in various houses round the town, and people get maps showing where the stuff is and walk round looking at it. Very popular. Possibly brings more people to the Festival than the theatre and the concerts do.’

  ‘Does a lot of art get sold?’

  ‘Some artists do quite well, yes. Some less so.’ Her face twisted with the effort of saying what she was about to say with the maximum of diplomacy. ‘The fact is, in a place like Fedborough you get a lot of self-appointed artists.’

  ‘Whose talent isn’t up to that of professional artists?’

  ‘I didn’t say that. You did. I’d hoped to show my stuff in Pelling House during the Festival, but . . .’ Debbie briskly shook off maudlin thoughts. ‘So I’m going to turn this room into a bit of a gallery for the Crawl and see what happens. Which reminds me, I’ve still got a lot of framing to do.’

  ‘Do you do your own framing?’

  ‘Yes. Saves money.’ She sighed. ‘At least I can guarantee to get a lot of people through the flat, even if they don’t buy anything.’ She provided another explanation
. ‘For most people in Fedborough, the Art Crawl is just a Snoopers’ Charter – chance to have a crafty look round other people’s houses.’

  ‘Ah.’ Carole grinned.

  So did Debbie. But her mood swiftly changed, as an unwelcome thought returned to her. ‘The really horrid thing about this whole business . . . you know, what I’ve been talking to the police about . . . is that that . . . thing . . . the torso . . . must’ve been there all the time we lived in Pelling House . . .’ She shuddered. ‘A kind of malign presence. A curse on the house . . . and on those inside it.’ She let out a short, bitter laugh. ‘People of a superstitious nature might imagine that that’s what cast a blight on Francis and my marriage.’

  ‘And are you of a superstitious nature, Debbie?’

  ‘No. I’m of a very realistic nature. And I’m fully aware that the only malign presence which cast a blight on our marriage was a younger, richer American woman called Jonelle. Francis was always very interested in money. He was almost obsessively . . .’ She swallowed back the bile in her voice. ‘Sorry. I shouldn’t burden you with my troubles.’

  ‘It’s all right. I’ve been there.’ As she said the words, Carole realized that she was being sympathetic, showing people skills of the kind that came so effortlessly to Jude. For the first time in months, she felt a tiny flicker of returning confidence. Emboldened, she moved the conversation back to what in her mind was starting to be called ‘the investigation’.

  ‘The police didn’t say anything else of interest about the torso, did they?’

  Debbie Carlton, relieved by the change of subject, firmly shook her head. ‘No. Presumably they’re doing all the forensic tests, going through Missing Persons files and what-have-you, but they were hardly likely to share anything they knew with me, were they?’

  ‘Hardly. So, Debbie, you weren’t even aware of the boarded-up bit in the cellar in Pelling House, were you?’

  ‘No. I may have glanced down there when we were looking round with the estate agent, but that’s it. There wasn’t a light fixed up, so, as I say, I never went down to the cellar.’

  ‘Surely you must’ve been glad of the space for storage?’

  ‘No. We moved from a tiny flat just along the road here, so we didn’t have nearly enough furniture for somewhere like that. And you’ve no idea how much cupboard space there is in Pelling House,’ she added wistfully.

  ‘What about Francis?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You’ve said you didn’t, but did Francis often go down to the cellar?’

  There was a distinct beat of silence before Debbie Carlton replied, ‘No. Hardly ever.’

  Chapter Six

  There was a click of the downstairs door being unlocked, and someone called up, ‘Are you there, Debbie love?’ The voice was elderly, but strong, with the hint of a Sussex accent.

  ‘Yes, Mum, come on up. I’ve got someone here.’

  The woman who appeared at the sitting-room door was stout with a tight grey perm and a bulging raffia-covered shopping basket. She looked infinitely reliable. Carole had no difficulty picturing her behind an old-fashioned grocer’s counter, able instantly to put her hand on all her stock, ready to take and pass on confidences. The grocery would have been a sub-station in the network of Fedborough’s communications, the kind of essential information source which has disappeared in the days of out-of-town superstores.

  Debbie’s mother looked like a character from a bygone age, a card from a game of ‘Happy Families’. Mr Bun the Baker. Mrs Franks the Grocer. Comparing Debbie’s elegance, Carole reflected on the unlikeliness of Miss Franks the Grocer’s Daughter ever being part of the same set. But seeing the two of them together did help to put Debbie Carlton into context. Her rise to art school, wealthy marriage and interior design consultancy had been from comparatively humble origins.

  ‘This is my mother, Billie Franks. Carole Seddon.’

  The old woman’s brow wrinkled. ‘I don’t think we’ve met, have we?’ There was no criticism in her words, only puzzlement. It was unusual for Mrs Franks to meet anyone in Fedborough whom she didn’t know.

  ‘I live in Fethering.’

  ‘Ah. That would explain it.’ If Carole had said Reykjavik or Valparaiso, she would have got the same reaction. Billie Franks reached into her basket. ‘Reg got me a couple of lettuces out of his allotment, and I thought you could probably do with one, love.’

  ‘Thanks, Mum.’

  ‘I’ll put it through in the kitchen.’ Billie Franks bustled off. She treated the flat as if it were her own, and her daughter showed no signs of resenting the assumption.

  ‘I’d better be off, if your mother’s . . .’

  ‘Don’t worry. She won’t be staying. She’s just on her way to visit Dad.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘He’s in a nursing home down at Rustington. The Elms.’

  ‘Yes, you said. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Completely gone. Alzheimer’s, I’m afraid. He hasn’t a clue what’s going on, but Mum still goes and sees him every day.’ Debbie looked up as her mother came back from the kitchen. ‘Just telling Carole about Dad.’

  ‘Ah.’ Billie Franks held the basket comfortably against her stomach. ‘I thought he seemed a lot brighter yesterday. Really taking things in. He recognized me. Called me “nurse”, but he did definitely recognize me. I think he’s on the mend, you know.’

  There was a plea in Debbie Carlton’s eyes, begging Carole not to say anything about the unlikelihood of anyone making a recovery from Alzheimer’s Disease. Let my mother keep her fantasies, however unrealistic they may be. Carole smiled acknowledgment. She wouldn’t have said anything, anyway.

  ‘Won’t you stay and have some tea, Mum?’

  ‘No, thank you, love. I’ll go straight down to Rustington. You know your Dad frets if I’m late.’ This, Carole felt sure, was another of the illusions that sustained Billie Franks in her hopeless predicament. ‘I’ll give you a call later and let you know how he is.’ She paused, for the first time ill at ease. ‘You haven’t, er . . .’

  Mother and daughter had an almost telepathic understanding. ‘Heard any more from the police? No, Mum, not since yesterday. I was just talking about it,’ she went on, with what sounded to Carole like deliberation.

  ‘Terrible business.’ Billie Franks shook her head. Not a hair of her tight perm shifted. ‘You’d heard presumably, Carole . . .?’

  ‘Hard to escape. It’s been all over the media.’

  ‘Yes. People are disgusting. You know, when I walked past Pelling House coming up here, there was a big crowd outside. Ghouls, I call them. Why can’t they go and look at the Castle instead? I don’t think murder should be a tourist attraction, do you?’

  Carole dutifully shook her head.

  ‘It’s the single, solitary reason, Debbie love, I’m glad you’re no longer in that house. To think that thing was probably down there in the cellar all the time that you . . . Ugh, it makes me shiver to think about it.’

  Carole decided to risk a little investigation. ‘Mrs Franks . . .’

  ‘Billie, please. Everyone calls me Billie.’

  ‘All right, Billie. It sounds to me that there’s not a lot goes on in Fedborough you don’t know about . . .’ The old woman smiled complacent acceptance of this truth. ‘So what’s the talk on the street? Does anyone have any idea who the torso may have been?’

  Billie Franks gave a contemptuous ‘Huh. There are as many theories as I’ve had hot dinners, and I’m seventy-four, so that’s a good few. No, the gossip-mills have been churning around like nobody’s business. Virtually everyone who’s left Fedborough in the last twenty years has been suggested, not to mention drug dealers, prostitutes and unacknowledged members of the Royal Family. Reg even reckons it’s the work of a serial killer.’

  ‘But surely this is only one case. There haven’t been any others, have there?’

  ‘Exactly, Carole. Which may give you some idea of the level of Reg’s intellectual achievement. He wa
s a dunce from the day he was born, always being kept in after school.’

  Carole grinned, then, casually, asked, ‘And do you have any theory as to who the dead woman might be, Billie?’

  Was she being oversensitive to detect an almost imperceptible hesitation, before Billie Franks said, ‘No. No idea at all’?

  Chapter Seven

  ‘There was nothing on the local news,’ said Jude. They were in Carole’s sitting room, in front of the log-effect gas fire, which looked even less welcoming when switched off. Every surface in the room gleamed from punctilious polishing. The décor was unimpeachable, but anonymous. Like its owner, the room resisted intimacy.

  Jude had tried to get Carole to come to her house for coffee – or even, as it was already late afternoon, a glass of wine – but her neighbour had opposed the suggestion. The process of rapprochement between them might have started, but any further progress would be at the pace Carole dictated. So Jude had acceded to the request to talk in High Tor rather than Woodside Cottage, and Carole had filled her in on the morning’s visit to Debbie Carlton.

  ‘So the police have no idea who the torso belonged to?’

  Jude shrugged. ‘No idea they’re yet ready to make public, anyway.’

  ‘It is frustrating,’ Carole observed, not for the first time, ‘knowing they have all kinds of information at their fingertips, and we don’t have access to it.’

  ‘Murder is their job,’ Jude pointed out. ‘With us it’s only really a casual interest.’

  ‘Like bridge and line-dancing and amateur dramatics and all those other things recommended for the retired to fill their lives with.’ The bitterness in her voice showed how much Carole still resented her enforced early departure from the Home Office. Jude was sometimes disturbed by the depths of varied resentments that lay within her neighbour, and wondered whether they could ever fully be eased away. Carole did seem to make life unnecessarily difficult for herself. Prickliness was not part of Jude’s emotional vocabulary, and she had had long-term plans to humanize Carole. The plans had even been making some progress, until the split-up with Ted Crisp had moved everything back to square one.