The Fethering Mysteries 01; The Body on the Beach tfm-1

by Simon Brett

  “And that’s what you did?”

  “Yes.”

  Huge sobs were shuddering through the boy’s frame. Jude reckoned she had got everything she was going to get out of him. “One final question…Your mother said it was after you’d come back in the morning that you were in the really bad state, not the night before…”

  “She didn’t see me the night before, did she? Anyway, I was still full of the booze and the cannabis…I just passed out. But the next morning…the shock hit me. I knew it wasn’t a dream. I knew we’d actually done it. I knew what I’d done.”

  Something prompted a renewed outburst of emotion, more powerful than any that had come before. The boy’s jaw trembled and his whole body shook uncontrollably.

  “What is it?” pleaded Jude. “What is it? What was so terrible?”

  For a few moments he was incapable of framing any words, just mouthing hopelessly. Finally he managed to control himself. Nick Kent sounded like a very young child as he admitted, “I’d never seen a dead body before.”

  ∨ The Body on the Beach ∧

  Twenty-Four

  “Well, behaviour of that kind,” concluded Carole, sitting back on her barstool in disgust, “is all too typical of the youth of today.”

  “That’s a very Fethering thing to say,” said Jude.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s the kind of remark I’d have expected from some old codger whose skin’s already turned to tweed. Not from someone your age.”

  “I’m not young,” Carole protested. But she was flattered by the implication.

  “You’re too young to start sounding off about ‘the youth of today’.”

  “But what Nick Kent and the others did was appalling.” She lowered her voice as she catalogued: “Illegal drinking, taking drugs, breaking and entering – probably with intent to burgle – and then mutilating a corpse.”

  “He wasn’t involved in that.”

  “No, but he was in everything else. Really, Jude, am I supposed to condone that kind of behaviour?”

  “No, of course you’re not. But you didn’t see the boy. You didn’t see how much he was suffering.”

  “From what you’ve told me, he deserves to suffer. You’re not making excuses for him, are you?”

  “No, no. I’m just saying that Nick Kent has had a rough deal. And, OK, he drank and smoked dope, and OK, he gave in to peer pressure and behaved disgustingly, but at least you can understand why. Seeing his father fall apart before his eyes can’t have been easy.”

  “Huh,” Carole snorted. “I’m sorry. If you’re trying to win me round to some woolly liberal idea that there’s a psychological explanation for everything, and criminals should take their shrinks to court with them to ensure that they get off with light sentences…well, you’re not going to convince me. If there’s one thing I learned from all my years in the Home Office, it’s that there is such a thing as evil within man. And that every criminal who is not technically insane has to take responsibility for his or her own actions.”

  Jude took a long swallow from her wine glass before replying. This was the nearest during their brief acquaintance that she and Carole had come to a row. It demonstrated how little they knew of each other’s attitudes and politics. “I’m not excusing the boy’s behaviour,” she said calmly. “I’m just saying, from the pain in his eyes, he’d hurt himself by what he’d done much more than he’d hurt anyone else. Now let me get you another drink.”

  She waved at the unfamiliar girl behind the counter, who came to sort out their needs. There were only the three of them in the bar. “Two large white wines, please. Ted not in tonight?”

  “He’s in the office out the back, talking to some people who came round.”

  “Ah.”

  “Well, I say ‘people’,” the girl insinuated. “In fact it’s the police.”

  “Really? What’ve they come for?”

  “I’ve no idea. I’m not one to pry,” the girl replied righteously, as though it were Jude who’d initiated the speculation.

  “Some problem with the licence?” suggested Carole, though that wasn’t what she was thinking.

  The pub door clattered behind them and they turned to see an agitated Denis Woodville approaching the bar.

  “Evening, Vice-Commodore.”

  “Oh, hello, ladies. Is Ted in?” he asked the barmaid.

  “He’s out the back, talking to some people.”

  “The police, actually,” said Jude, upstaging any second attempt from the barmaid to cast aspersions on her boss.

  “Is that so?” The news seemed to be of significance to Denis Woodville.

  “Can I get you a drink, sir?”

  “Oh yes, all right. A large brandy, please.”

  “Soda or anything with that?”

  “Just on its own, thanks.”

  “No more break-ins at the club?” asked Carole.

  “What?” He seemed distracted. “No, no, I don’t think so. Though in fact it does seem that we have been the victim of criminal activity.”

  He might have elaborated on this portentously delivered hint had not Ted Crisp at that moment appeared through the door behind the bar. He looked as scruffy as ever, but unflustered. If the police presence had had anything to do with his own illegal activities, he wasn’t going to let it get to him.

  “Evening, Jude…Carole…Denis…” His eyes moved along from face to face. “What’re you all looking at me like that for?”

  Denis Woodville voiced what the two women would have been too polite to raise. “I gather you’ve had the police with you…”

  “Yes. But don’t get the wrong impression. I haven’t done anything they could touch me for. My record is as driven snow-like as any of Cliff Richard’s.”

  “I wonder if they came to see you for the same reason they came to see me.”

  The landlord cocked an interrogative eye at the Vice-Commodore. “Missing person, was it?”

  “Yes.”

  The barmaid hovered, all ears. “Oh, love,” said Ted, “could you go and get us some tomato and orange juices from round the back? I noticed we was getting low.”

  With very bad grace, the girl slunk out of the bar. She needn’t have worried, though. It was only a temporary delay. She’d hear all the dirt soon enough. The Fethering grapevine was extremely efficient.

  “Look, if you both know, you might as well tell us,” said Jude impatiently. “Come on, what’s it all about?”

  Ted Crisp saw no point in secrecy. “The police came in asking if I’d seen Rory Turnbull recently. Same with you, Denis?”

  “Yes.”

  “But we only saw him this morning,” Carole protested. “Up at his house.”

  “Well, maybe you’d better tell the police that,” said Ted. “Though in fact they do know he was still at home at twelve, because he paid the cleaning lady when she left.”

  So the police must already have been out to Spindrift Lane to talk to Maggie. Jude wondered what effect their arrival must have had on the terrified Nick Kent.

  “Sometime after twelve, however,” the landlord went on, “our Rory buggered off in the BMW. His wife got home round two and immediately raised the alarm.”

  “What? Was she afraid he’d run off with another woman?” suggested Jude.

  Denis Woodville’s bald head was firmly shaken. “Can’t think so. There’s never been any talk of that kind of thing with Rory.”

  “It’s always the quiet ones. These things happen.”

  “Not in Fethering they don’t,” said Carole tartly, before continuing, “But why did Barbara raise the alarm? Surely there’s no harm in a grown man going off for a drive in his own car when he feels like it?”

  “Not usually, I agree, there isn’t,” said Ted. “But there is when he leaves a suicide note.”

  ∨ The Body on the Beach ∧

  Twenty-Five

  A silence followed led Crisp’s words. Then Jude said thoughtfully, “He certainly had the ai
r of a man who was tired of life.”

  “Well, comes of being a dentist – living from hand to mouth all the time.”

  “You’ve already used that line, Ted.” Carole may not have been much good at spotting the humour of jokes, but she could certainly recognize one she’d heard before.

  “Sorry. One of the hazards of a publican’s life. You’ve only got so many jokes, and you keep forgetting who was in the bar when you last told them.”

  “Mind you,” Jude went on, as though this exchange hadn’t happened, “there’s a difference between being tired of life and actually ending it. What kind of major event is needed to push someone over the brink like that?”

  “It needn’t be a major event,” said Carole. “When I worked for the Home Office, I was involved in a survey on suicides in prison. If a victim gets really depressed, often the tiniest reverse or setback will make them do it. They’re not rational at that point.”

  “No, but I’m sure something must’ve changed in Rory Turnbull’s life. I mean, he hated being a dentist. Apparently, he hated his wife too. And I’m certain he hated his mother-in-law. But he’d put up with all of that for years. Why is it suddenly now that he can’t take any more?”

  “I could tell you one reason…” Denis Woodville spoke with the sly confidence of someone who had secret information to impart. He allowed himself a pause, sure of his audience’s attention, then went on, “Did I mention, ladies, when you came to see me at the club, that we’d had a bit of a problem with last year’s accounts?”

  Carole nodded. “Yes, you said the accountant had made a mistake.”

  “So I thought. The discrepancy involved was a little over a thousand pounds. Well, I had a meeting with the accountant yesterday and he took me through everything. It wasn’t their error. I’m afraid I had to eat rather a lot of humble pie for having even suspected them. No, it turned out that someone had actually been siphoning funds out of the club’s bank account.”

  “Really?”

  “The only registered signatories for Fethering Yacht Club cheques are the Commodore, the Vice-Commodore and the Treasurer. Well, the Commodore has been abroad for the last four months, during which time most of the cheques were drawn. I can assure you I haven’t been putting my hand in the till – might have helped me out a bit if I had, but I haven’t. So that leaves the Treasurer.”

  He paused for dramatic effect, and was visibly miffed when Carole came in impatiently and upstaged him. “Who is, of course, Rory Turnbull.”

  “Yes,” a tight-lipped Denis Woodville conceded. “So that might give him one reason for doing away with himself. He knew I was meeting the accountants yesterday. I imagine he just didn’t want to face the music.”

  “So he got into his BMW,” led Crisp speculated, “drove up into the Downs, fixed a tube from the exhaust into the car’s interior – ”

  “We don’t know that’s what happened, do we?” asked Jude. “The police didn’t say they’d found him, did they?”

  “No,” the landlord agreed. “But from what they were saying, it’s pretty clear that’s what they were expecting to find.”

  “But why would he have done it?” demanded Carole. “Put his hand in the Yacht Club till? For a thousand pounds? I mean, a thousand pounds would be very nice – none of us would say no to it…”

  “Certainly not.” Denis Woodville’s agreement was heartfelt.

  “…but for someone in Rory Turribull’s position – dentist’s salary, big house on the Shorelands Estate – a thousand pounds isn’t much. Certainly not enough for him to risk public humiliation and possible criminal proceedings. Why would he have done it?”

  “You’d be amazed!” Ted Crisp shook his shaggy head at the recurrent follies of humankind. “Happens all the time – particularly in a place like Fethering. Somebody gets a position of power locally – only in the Cricket Club or the Yacht Club or something tinpot like that” – he went on, apparently unaware of the Vice-Commodore’s bristling – “and they have access to another chequebook, and they suddenly think, “Ooh, I can get something out of this.” And they milk the funds. Just for the odd hundred they’ll do it. I don’t know why, but it certainly keeps happening.”

  “I suppose everyone needs money,” Carole concluded. “People may look like they’ve got plenty, but we can’t see inside their bank accounts, can we? We can’t know what demands there are on their resources, what foolish investments they may have made, what reckless loans they’ve taken on. It’s one of the last taboos in this country, people actually talking about their financial affairs.”

  “You’re right.” Ted Crisp looked at their glasses. “Come on, let’s have another drink. This round’s on me.”

  “That’s no way to make a profit,” Carole observed.

  The landlord turned on her in mock anger. “Are you saying no? Are you saying you don’t want to take a drink from me?”

  She smiled graciously. “No, I’m not. Thank you very much indeed, Ted.”

  As she pushed her wine glass forward, she felt another little frisson from the knowledge that she, Carole Seddon, was in the Crown and Anchor, exchanging banter with the landlord and calling him by his first name. She’d come a long way in a week.

  “Of course, people develop expensive habits too,” Ted ruminated, as he poured the drinks. “Rory Turn-bull was getting through the Scotch in here like there was no tomorrow.”

  “But on his income presumably he could afford an alcohol habit.”

  “He could afford an alcohol habit, yes, Carole.”

  She was quickly on to the slight pressure he’d put on the word. “What do you mean? Are you saying he had another expensive habit? Are you saying Rory Turnbull was into drugs?”

  But either Carole had mistaken his intonation or the landlord had decided he didn’t wish to amplify the hint. He just said, “Hardly. Don’t somehow see him in the role of crazed junkie, do you?” He punctuated the end of such speculation by plonking the two replenished wine glasses on the counter. “There you are – compliments of the management. Treasure this moment. Record it on the mental video cameras of your minds. Because I can assure you, it doesn’t happen very often!”

  When the round of thank-yous had subsided, Jude looked thoughtful. “It’s odd, though, isn’t it? Two suicides in a week…”

  “Two?” asked the Vice-Commodore.

  “That boy Aaron Spalding.”

  “Was that suicide?”

  Jude caught Carole’s eye and read caution in it. What they had been investigating was private, between the two of them, at least for the time being.

  “Well, that’s certainly been suggested,” said Jude, making her tone more generalized. “I don’t know whether there’s been an inquest yet. OK, not two suicides – two unnatural deaths. All I’m saying is that for someone like me, who’s lived here less than a week, that seems rather a high number. Or is it the usual pattern in Fethering?”

  “By no means,” Denis Woodville replied. “There’s probably a higher death rate here than in most other parts of the country, but that’s simply because of the average age of the residents. Two unnatural deaths like this is most unusual.”

  Jude’s brown eyes signalled to Carole not to worry, she was only floating an idea to see if it got any response, before she asked ingenuously, “Makes one wonder whether there could be any connection between the two.”

  The suggestion produced a snort of laughter from the Vice-Commodore. “A connection between a highly respected middle-aged man living on the Shorelands Estate and some teenager from Downside? I would think not.”

  “No,” said Jude.

  “Hardly,” said Carole.

  But they were both increasingly convinced that there was a connection.

  There was the clatter of the bar door opening and a voice said, “Evening, mine host.”

  Bill Chilcott had arrived for his nightly half.

  Denis Woodville stiffened and downed the remainder of the brandy Ted Crisp had bought him. �
�Sorry, I must be off,” he said. “Suddenly a rather nasty smell around this place.”

  And, as if his next-door neighbour didn’t exist, the Vice-Commodore stalked out of the Crown and Anchor.

  ∨ The Body on the Beach ∧

  Twenty-Six

  “It was in Rory Turribull’s boat,” said Carole, as they reached the gate of Woodside Cottage. The evening was mild. The frost would probably hold off that night. “The body was put in BrigadoonII. That’s the only thing we’ve got linking Aaron Spalding’s death and Rory Turnbull’s suicide.”

  “It’s not much,” said Jude.

  Carole sighed despondently. “Maybe there is no connection. Maybe it’s just an unfortunate coincidence.”

  Jude shook her head. “No, there’s a link between them. They are connected.”

  So strong was the conviction in her voice that Carole didn’t argue. Instead, characteristically, she moved on to practicalities. “Well, I think we need to know more about Rory Turnbull. What he was like, what was happening in his life, what pushed him over the edge.”

  “And whether he did have anything to do with drugs.”

  “You noticed that too? When Ted hinted at something and then clammed up?”

  “Oh yes. I’ll follow up on the drugs thing tomorrow.”

  “How?”

  “Let’s say I have an idea of where to start.”

  “And I,” Carole announced confidently, “will make it my business tomorrow to find out more about Rory Turnbull.”

  “How'll you do that?”

  “Let’s say I have an idea of where to start,” came the lofty reply.

  Carole Seddon could also play mysterious when she needed to.

  ♦

  Carole wasn’t a dog person. When she left the Home Office, she’d taken on Gulliver for purely practical reasons. He would give a purpose to the many walks with which she had planned to fill the longeurs of her retirement. Being accompanied by a dog, she would avoid unwelcome questions and speculation. And anyway, people with dogs never look lonely.