Beach Hut Surprise: Escape to Little Piddling this summer — six feel-good beach reads to make you smile, or even laugh out loud

by Libertà Books

  "Until they fell out," mused the Inspector. She went across to Strange.

  He opened one eye and groaned theatrically, nursing his jaw. "Estella Hope attacked me!"

  "He hit Lil," said Estella indignantly. "And he was getting away."

  "Citizen's arrest?" suggested DS Brooks, looking at his superior.

  "Possibly," said Inspector Danby.

  She made a gesture and DS Brooks helped Strange to his feet. The man gave an odd shuffle and DS Brooks looked down.

  "Hello, what's this?"

  Arthur Strange opened his mouth, looked round and shut it again.

  DS Brooks picked a squashy envelope-sized object off the floor. It was grey with age. He turned it over and coughed as dust flew everywhere.

  "Looks like a jewellery roll," said Libby, craning forward.

  DS Brooks started to unwind it. Once inside the dusty outer layer, it turned into a faded plum-coloured velvet grid. DS Brooks plunged a finger into one of the hand-sewn pockets and brought out a dangly earring, with a blue stone suspended from twisty grey metal.

  Inspector Danby drew in a long breath. "That looks like platinum. We need to bag it."

  "Better have a good look," said Fran practically. "There should be a Fabergé egg and other stuff somewhere here, as well. Unless Clive Hope already sold it, of course."

  Arthur Strange winced.

  As soon as the backup arrived, Inspector Danby cautioned Arthur Strange and sent him back to the station with an escort, while other officers took photographs and carefully removed the panelling, searching for more stolen items.

  Fran, Libby and Estella fell over themselves to explain what had happened. But then Lil struggled up in the old chair.

  "I followed Arthur Strange here, Friday before last," she said slowly. "The young man was already here. Strange was furious. They fought."

  "His neck was broken," said DS Brooks, before Inspector Danby could shush him.

  Lil said, "Pure bad luck. Must have hit his head when he went down."

  Inspector Danby frowned.

  "The L'Estrange family built this hut originally, during the war," Lil went on. "Perfect place to hide the Primly Court haul."

  "Primly Court haul?" Inspector Danby repeated, bewildered.

  Libby said, "Wartime theft. Eighty years ago. We've pieced it together. We can show you."

  Inspector Danby looked at her watch. "I need to get back to the station. DS Brooks, would you take Mrs Lil to A&E and…"

  But Lil refused to go to hospital. "It's just bruises," she said.

  "Look," said Fran, "it's dark and cold and Lil needs a cup of tea. Why don't you take us back to Manor Farm? We can look after her there. And you can take statements in comfort."

  Lil graciously indicated that she would go to Manor Farm. The inspector agreed impatiently and hurried away. So DS Brooks transported all four women in a slightly crowded squad car, leaving the crime-scene team to finish their work.

  Back at the Manor, DS Brooks stuck to Lil like glue.

  Libby followed Estella into the kitchen when she went to make hot drinks. "Can I help? Congratulations on the Wonder Woman act, by the way."

  "Batwoman," said Estella with a faint smile.

  "What? Oh, yes, that's what Lil called you, wasn't it? Do you know her then?"

  Estella shook her head. "No. But when Arthur Strange hit her, it was somehow as if he was hitting Granny Joan. It made me so mad. I'd let him walk all over me, but he wasn't going to get away with hurting someone like that. So I just launched myself at him." She was shamefaced. "Sounds crazy, doesn't it?"

  "Perfectly reasonable," said Libby, meaning it. "Let's take in the tea and see how she's doing."

  Fran had found Granny Joan's notebook, still with Libby's markers in it, and was explaining it to Lil and DS Brooks, who had his phone out, photographing pages.

  Lil looked round when Estella eased through the door, carrying an old-fashioned tray with a massive brown teapot on it, as well as mugs, milk and sugar.

  "I need to explain," said Lil, not taking her eyes off Estella.

  DS Brooks said firmly, "And I need to take notes."

  Lil shrugged.

  It was as if she had stopped playing a part, Libby thought.

  "Whatever. I'm sorry, Estella. I should have talked to you before." Lil's voice suddenly sounded different—more educated, somehow. "That's what your grandmother would have wanted."

  Estella said, "What's Granny Joan got to do with it?"

  Lil looked sad. "She left my mother some money. She wanted to be fair. And that's what put Arthur Strange onto my mother's trail."

  Estella seemed puzzled. "What?"

  Lil was clearly marshalling her thoughts. "My grandmother was Clive's older sister, Amy."

  "Oh. So we're some sort of cousins." Estella positively glowed. "How lovely."

  Lil looked surprised, then shyly pleased. But she said, "You'd better hear me out before you say that. The thing is—my mother's in her seventies now and ill. But in her day she was a real wild child. And she got mixed up with the L'Estrange family through glamorous Uncle Clive."

  Fran said, "Oh dear."

  "Quite. Joan's solicitor put a notice on one of those Trace Your Family websites and bloody Arthur Strange picked it up and found her. Started blackmailing her about her past. She was—is—terrified." Lil smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. "Well, IT is my game. I tracked him down."

  DS Brooks said, "And followed him here?"

  "Yes. Disguised myself as an eccentric fan of the 1940s and started surveillance on him. It worked, too. Strange always looked right through me," she said with satisfaction. "I followed him to Satis House several times. I thought he was probably looking for a drugs stash. I was going to photograph him and take the evidence to the police. The fight made me think twice, at least for a bit."

  "There could be a charge of failure to report a crime," mused DS Brooks.

  Lil was unimpressed. "I wasn't going to report him for something that would only get him a small fine." She looked a bit shamefaced. "I didn't realise it was that lad who'd died until today. The paper said it was the body of a walker."

  Estella said in a small voice, "Did you know that Clive was responsible for a big theft and had hidden the stuff in my— in the beach hut?"

  Lil said, "My grandmother always said he got pushed into it by the L'Estrange clan. She said that Clive was just a stupid gambler with a big education and no conscience."

  Estella closed her eyes and let out a long sigh.

  DS Brooks patted her kindly on the shoulder. "It was a long time ago. I reckon we've got all we need. Don't need to listen to your family history as well. Someone will type up your story, madam, and I'd be grateful if you'd come into the station tomorrow to check it for accuracy and sign it."

  He left.

  Estella said slowly, "Lots of people round here blamed Granny Joan for Clive staying away." She swallowed. "When I was at school, no one from my class would ever come to Manor Farm."

  Fran's eyes met Libby's. "Ganging up?"

  Libby nodded.

  Estella seemed not to notice. "And Clive told the whole town that Richard was illegitimate because he'd refused to marry Granny Joan."

  Libby stared open-mouthed. "Told—?"

  Fran said, "Oh, of course."

  Estella came out of her memory trance. "Why 'of course'?"

  Fran spread her hands. "It's obvious. Joan was already calling herself Hope. Clive's mother accepted her. Why would anyone question it? But you said all the locals knew that they weren't married, Estella. Someone must have spilled the beans."

  "Your Granny Joan sounds like a good egg," said Lil gruffly. "She deserved better than that shit Clive."

  Estella sat up. "Do you know what happened to him?"

  Lil nodded. "My mother said he died in Macau. Probably still gambling."

  It didn't seem to upset Estella, however. She and Lil were soon deep in reminiscences of Estella's grandmother. Clearly, in Li
l, Estella had found family and friend in one.

  Libby touched Fran on the arm. "Are your feelings OK now? Can we go home tomorrow?"

  Fran laughed affectionately. "Dear Libby. You're a stalwart friend. We can go home tonight, if you want to."

  "What? And miss fish and chips?" said Libby with mock horror. "Very warm, rather old, fish. And chips. And home tomorrow. Bliss!"

  THE END

  About Lesley Cookman

  Lesley Cookman writes the bestselling Libby Sarjeant Mystery series, and the Alexandrians, an Edwardian mystery series. A former editor, air stewardess and nightclub disc jockey, she lives on the Kent coast with two cats and occasional returning offspring.

  You can find Lesley on Facebook: Lesley Cookman Mysteries and on Twitter @Cookmancrime.

  PAST ECHOES

  by Liz Fielding

  DEDICATION

  To a group of friends with whom I've shared writing days, party nights and soul-nourishing shepherd's pie and who never fail to keep my eyes on the deadline.

  Chapter One

  Rose slowed as she saw a road sign that read, "Welcome to Little Piddling sur Mer".

  Despite the postcard and the website, she had still half-believed that it was a comic opera fantasy, but she'd already driven through the narrow streets of Piddling Magna. It was real enough.

  She pulled into a lay-by and climbed out of her van to take in the sea stretching out until it became one with the horizon. Below her, the town was tucked into the lee of the hill that stretched out to a headland.

  The town was huddled around a sandy beach, empty this early and—though it had not been evident on the website—there was a small island half-a-mile or so offshore that was topped with a picturesque ruin.

  She had never, to her knowledge, been here before; like "Adlestrop" she would surely have remembered the name and yet that island chimed in her memory.

  Maybe it had been used as a setting for an episode in one of those not-so-cosy crime series. The kind where the body count reaches massacre proportions before the detective finally has a lightbulb moment.

  With its narrow streets, it had the old-fashioned charm to have been used in an outing for Poirot or Marple.

  Or maybe it was simpler than that. The view from here was very like the retro cover of one of her grandmother's childhood books that Rose had devoured as a child.

  She'd found it when she'd been clearing the bookshelves in her father's house and, unlike the rest, which had gone to a charity shop, she'd put it in her keeper box.

  The one thing she could be sure of was that it hadn't been on the postcard.

  She'd been running a vacuum cleaner around the bedrooms, clearing away the last of the dust that had settled behind heavy old furniture that hadn't been moved in years, when she'd spotted it stuck in the skirting board.

  She'd plucked it out and wiped off the dust to reveal a row of brightly-painted beach huts.

  It was just an old holiday postcard but, as she'd looked at it, her heart had begun to beat a little faster and she'd had one of those goose-walked-over-your-grave moments.

  Less to do with the postcard than the fact that it was the last time she'd ever be in her childhood home with all its memories, good and bad, she knew, but she'd turned the card over to see who it was from.

  "Weather great. Katy can't wait for her birthday. Jules."

  There was a single cross that looked like an afterthought.

  Katy?

  Her name was Katherine Rosalind Redmayne, but she had always been called Rose. Rose Red when she was little. Cute when she was at primary school. No fun at all when the mean girls at High School had found out.

  The card was addressed to her father but not at this house, which meant that it had been sent before she was born. But the postmark was smeared, the date undecipherable.

  It must have fallen out of one of the boxes of photograph albums, cards, school reports, stored on top of the heavy walnut wardrobe that had been a fixture of her parents' room for as long as she could remember.

  She'd go through them in the dump-save-or-pass-on to her brother and sister triage when she had more time.

  Matt and Lisa had, of course, been "much too busy" to stay and give her a hand once they'd been through the house to grab what they wanted in the way of furniture, pictures or anything else of value.

  Too busy to help with the funeral arrangements or any of the endless details that had followed their father's death.

  All they were interested in was their share of the house sale, accompanied by grumbles about how much she intended to rip them off for her expenses as executor. She'd been too weary to fight with them, would have let it go. Their father's solicitor, realising how it was, had been firm on the subject at the will-reading, but a difficult time had been made a lot worse by their whingeing.

  Heaven help her if she threw away some cherished piece of their history.

  They wouldn't want this old postcard, though, and she slipped it in the back pocket of her jeans, intending to drop it in the rubbish on her way out.

  She found it there when, hours later, she stripped off her dusty clothes before sinking into a hot bath.

  The Beach Huts, Little Piddling sur Mer.

  The name was ridiculous, but it made her smile, which after the last grim months was worth a great deal. Her father was famously allergic to the sea but it must have meant something to him and, instead of tossing it into the wastepaper basket, she put it on her bedside table.

  Later, limbs weary but her mind churning with the emotional fallout of the day, she picked it up and, seeking a distraction, tapped Little Piddling sur Mer into her tablet's browser.

  She half-expected a "not found" response—a place with a name like that belonged in a comic opera—but the town was real enough and a list of links immediately popped up.

  There were the usual cricket, bowls, rugby clubs, a couple of pubs and restaurants with websites, a brewery, an arts festival, a group called The Piddling Players...

  She clicked on the town's official link and there it was on the header, the kind of seaside town that you saw in art deco posters. The golden era when families took the train to the seaside for two weeks' holiday in the summer.

  The photograph, taken from the sea, showed a curve of sand, and a tastefully preserved promenade that gave the impression of municipal gardens and afternoon tea, rather than amusement arcades and hot dog stalls.

  There was a pier, too, with a little theatre, and a slipway for a lifeboat station.

  The town, intentionally or not, appeared to be aimed firmly at the nostalgia market and the row of colourful beach huts was very much part of that image.

  She clicked on the link and, in a close-up photograph, she could see that some of them, the older ones, she thought, had been individually decorated and given names.

  One, called Rassendyll Lodge, had been trimmed to give it the look of a Bohemian hunting lodge. There was a Blenheim, an Arundel, a Chatsworth, but in amongst the stately homes there were huts with candy stripes and some named after flowers. A pale blue Forget-Me-Not, and a Marguerite that had been painted yellow and decorated with large white Mary Quant daisies. Very nineteen-sixties.

  But it was the pink hut that caught and held her attention. Not just because the roof ridge had been adorned with an exquisitely-carved wooden garland of roses, but because it was called Rosa's Retreat. And at that moment, a retreat with her name on it sounded very appealing.

  She was aware that there was a big demand for beach huts with some, in the most desirable places, fetching ridiculous sums.

  A few of these were available to rent by the day, the week, the season. Some, including Rosa's Retreat, were for sale and, without the stately-home pretentions of its neighbours, at what seemed to be a very reasonable price.

  There was a button to click for more details that seemed to pulse, inviting her touch.

  You've had a rotten year, it seemed to be saying.

  Your fitness fanatic dad droppe
d dead while out running and you had to deal with the coroner, arrange his funeral, sort out probate and sell the house without any help from your shit of a partner.

  On the contrary, while you were dealing with grief, overwhelmed with paperwork and working all hours in an effort to keep your clients happy, he was consoling himself for your lack of attention with extras from a woman at the gym.

  You've got money coming from the house sale and there's nothing to keep you in Maybridge. Your clients are all over the country, you can work from anywhere, so come and sit here, breathe in the sea air, dip your toes in the sea, have an ice cream from the little kiosk on the front.

  It would be a fresh start.

  A beach hut is an investment...

  "Nice try, Rosa, but why would I buy a beach hut in a town I've never heard of?"

  Rolling her eyes, she shut down temptation. Talking out loud to a beach hut was a sure sign that she really did need a break.

  Somewhere warm, she thought. On one of the Greek islands, maybe, with a what-happens-in-Santorini-stays-in-Santorini holiday fling.

  Two days later, searching for a sock, she found the postcard under the bed.

  Rosa's Retreat seemed closer this time, a little brighter than the others; and when she ran a thumb over it, she could almost feel the texture of the carved roses.

  She blinked and it was just a faded old postcard, but hadn't there been a gull on the roof? She shook her head.

  It had been in the picture on the website, she told herself, propping the card against the lamp on her bedside table, hoping for sleep.

  She hadn't taken on new commissions whilst she was dealing with the aftermath of her father's death, but there had been unmovable deadlines, contractors and suppliers to be chased. She'd spent hours travelling between sites to sort out problems, hours online, sourcing the perfect fabric, light fitting, antique rolltop bath. Time spent calming a client who, when she saw the colour she'd chosen on the wall, had burst into tears.

  Rose had finally signed off on the last outstanding job, but the stress had taken a toll.