Fethering 02 (2001) - Death on the Downs

by Simon Brett

  She didn’t think she slept at all, but the suddenness with which she was aware of the light outside meant that maybe she had dozed fitfully towards the end of the night. Her body felt bruised, aching from the hardness of the floor and the constrictions of her bonds. In spite of the cold, she had managed to control her bladder through the night, but she knew that couldn’t last for ever.

  Carole Seddon was a fastidious woman; she didn’t want to die in a mess of her own making.

  She didn’t want to die full stop. Now that death was a realistically imminent possibility, she realized how enormously she wanted to live. She wanted to see Jude again. She wanted to see Ted Crisp. She wanted to experience another bone-headedly enthusiastic welcome from Gulliver. She wanted to walk again on Fethering Beach with the dog scampering manically around her.

  But none of that looked very likely, as thin sunlight, reflected in pools of stagnant water, began to play on the slimy dome of the cave. The day had started for the rest of the world. In her prison that was irrelevant. However hard they searched, no one would ever find her here. She had been left to die in her own time. She found herself praying for a big freeze-up so that that time would be as short as possible.

  She had reached the point where she could deny the imperative of her bladder no longer, when she heard the sound of an approaching vehicle. Even though she felt certain that it was her captor returning, the fact that he had come back gave a disproportionate lift to her spirits.

  His return changed the nature of her incarceration. All through the night she’d thought he’d left her there to die. Now it was clear he had some other agenda. Carole Seddon wasn’t about to be murdered; she had merely been kidnapped.

  She shut her mind to the other reasons why he might have come back to her.

  His body blocked the light as he rolled in through the narrow aperture. Carole wasn’t feeling light-hearted, but she thought a light-hearted approach might be worth trying.

  “If you’ve come to give me another loo-break,” she said, “you’re only just in time.”

  He didn’t speak, but untied the end of the rope from its root and helped her out into the open. The air was cold outside, but didn’t have the deathly chill of the cave.

  “You’re going to have to untie me or I’ll wet myself.”

  He obliged, releasing her legs. But he only freed one hand, keeping her like a child on a parental lead in a shopping precinct. For a moment Carole thought she’d fall over, but she stamped some consciousness into her legs and arms, before giving in to the urgency of her bladder and squatting down. Again he averted his eyes.

  Once she’d rearranged her clothing, Carole sat down facing her captor. “How long are you planning to keep me here?”

  “That depends,” he said, the first words he’d spoken to her that morning. “Depends on how much you know.”

  “About what?”

  “Don’t play games!” He snatched at the rope that still held her wrist and gave it a vicious tug.

  Carole realized that, up until that point, she’d just been lucky. He wasn’t afraid to hurt her; he just hadn’t hurt her so far.

  “I know some of what you know,” he went on. “Will Maples keeps his ears open in the Hare and Hounds.”

  “And he tells you everything, does he?”

  “Will Maples owes me a few favours.” He grinned complacently.

  “Why? Is it something to do with drugs?”

  “Oh, well done. Not just a pretty face, are you?” His grin turned cruel. “Not even a pretty face. Still, you’re right. Will Maples has been dealing drugs from the Hare and Hounds ever since he’s been there. I’ve known that for a long time, and so for a long time he’s done exactly what I tell him.”

  “Otherwise you’ll shop him to his bosses?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Is he involved with the Brighton dealers?”

  “Yes.”

  “Strange life yours, isn’t it?” Carole felt defiant now. Since nothing she said was likely to do her much good, she might as well say what she thought. “A counterbalance of threats and blackmail. You’ve got information on someone, they’ve got information on you.”

  “Exactly, Carole. And so long as the people concerned agree to keep that information to themselves, everything in the garden’s lovely.”

  “And, if they don’t agree to keep that information to themselves?”

  “Ah, then…” He shook his head regretfully. “Then, I’m afraid, they have to die.”

  Suddenly he was alert to a sound that Carole had not heard. “Get in the cave!” he hissed. “There’s someone coming!”

  FORTY-FOUR

  Irene Forbes ushered Jude into the sitting room. She seemed unfazed to have a visitor, but then it was hard to tell what emotions lay behind that smooth Chinese face. Jude was moved by the woman’s beauty, and also by her appearance of youth. From what Carole had said of her history, Irene Forbes must have been at least in her late forties, but she could have been twenty years younger. Her skin, the colour of Rich Tea biscuits, was unlined, and there was no touch of grey in the black bell of her hair.

  She was simply dressed in white trousers and brown jumper, but somehow contrived to look exotic, a hothouse flower in the Englishness of a Weldisham sitting room.

  Jude refused the offer of tea or coffee and said, “I was very sorry to hear about your husband’s illness.”

  Irene Forbes bowed acknowledgement of the sentiment. “I’m pleased to say he’s a lot better than he was at the weekend.”

  “Good. People seem to make complete recoveries from strokes these days.”

  It was unlike Jude to get caught up in this cycle of civilities, but there was something about her hostess’s serenity that unnerved her. Jude, a woman with her own inner strengths, could sense in Irene a matching or even stronger power.

  “Look,” she went on, trying to be more assertive, “it’s very kind of you to invite me in when you have no idea who I am. We have a mutual Mend, actually. Her name is Carole Seddon and she came to dinner a week or two back.”

  “A charming woman,” said Irene. “She comes from Feth-ering, I believe. Graham very much enjoyed her company. I believe they have a mutual interest in the Times crossword…Something, I fear, that I could never master.”

  “Nor me.” Jude found the woman’s stillness seductive. She felt the urgency within her seep away and it was with an effort that she continued, “Look, Carole’s gone missing, and I’m very worried about what may have happened to her.”

  “I am sorry she’s gone missing. And if I could do anything to help you find her, of course I would. But I’m afraid I do not know your friend well. I only met her that one evening.”

  Jude took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, this is difficult to say, but I’m afraid Carole’s disappearance may have something to do with the bones.”

  “Ah.” The monosyllable was one of acceptance.

  “The bones that she found at South Welling Barn. Carole had managed to discover a lot more about where those bones came from and, in doing so, she may have upset someone.”

  “I would think that was very possible.”

  “Mrs Forbes, I haven’t got time to beat about the bush. Carole thought the bones belonged to your husband’s first wife, Sheila.”

  There was a silence. Then Irene Forbes slowly lowered her face, so that she was looking at the floor. “They always say it is impossible to keep anything secret in an English village.” She sighed and looked up again, with a trace of a smile around her lips. “Graham and I have had thirteen years together, three in Kuala Lumpur and ten here. We have been lucky. Many people do not have so much in their lifetime.”

  “But how long have you known about…what happened?”

  “About Sheila? Not long. Only a matter of weeks.”

  “It must have been a terrible shock for you.”

  “A shock certainly. But more a sadness.”

  A detail fell into place. “My friend Carole told me she
first saw you in the church. St Michael and All Angels. She said you were crying. Was that because of what you’d heard?”

  The helmet of black hair hardly moved as the woman nodded. “Yes. Religion can sometimes help. Faith is so much more forgiving than morality. No, it was very sad. That for Graham and me to be happy, someone else had to suffer so much.”

  “Did it affect how you felt about him…when you knew?”

  Irene Forbes shook her head slowly, but very firmly. “No. You love what a person is, not what they’ve done.”

  “And the police know about it, do they? About the murder?”

  “They suspect. Soon they will know for sure. A policeman—Detective Sergeant Baylis—came to see Graham last Friday. He had phoned in the morning to say he was coming.”

  “Which was why Graham didn’t go for his usual pre-lunch drink that day?”

  A graceful inclination of the head acknowledged this. “I don’t think Sergeant Baylis had to come. I think he was just giving a warning, giving Graham time to prepare himself. He said there were suspicions about the bones belonging to Sheila, and that DNA tests would be conducted to try and make a match with other Helling relatives.”

  “So, from that moment, your husband knew that his time was limited?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hadn’t he known before?”

  “No. I tried to keep it from him. But when the police came, I could keep quiet no longer. That was the shock that brought on his stroke.” With sudden passion, Irene Forbes said, “I hope he will not live long. Graham has always hated the idea of being impaired, of doing anything at less than his best. He would make a bad invalid. And he would not enjoy court proceedings.”

  “No.” Jude let a moment of silence hang between them, before going on, “I’m sorry to keep interrogating you, Mrs Forbes…”

  “I am not really Mrs Forbes. Only in my soul.”

  “Yes. But, look, I’m very worried about Carole. I’m sure she’s been abducted by someone because of what she’d worked out about the bones.”

  Irene Forbes let out a humourless laugh. “Well, I can assure you it wasn’t Graham. He’s lying upstairs in bed, with only one side of his body working. He’s not capable of abducting anyone.”

  “I wasn’t suggesting he was. I was thinking of Brian Helling.”

  “Ah.”

  “He was the one who dug up the bones in the old barn, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes. And he was the one who came and told me about his discovery. He took pleasure in it. He liked the idea of having power over Graham. He liked the idea of having power over anyone.”

  “Irene, I’ve got to find him!”

  “I don’t know where he is.”

  “I know you don’t, but I just wondered…when he came to see you…presumably he talked of blackmail…”

  “Of course. That’s the only reason he’d dug up the bones in the first place.”

  “But presumably he also gave you a promise that, if you coughed up the money, he’d hide the bones somewhere safe…somewhere nobody else except for him could find them.”

  “Yes. He said he’d do that. I asked him to hand them over for us to dispose of, but he wouldn’t. He wanted to keep them, so that if he ever needed to raise his ransom demands…So that he would always have a hold over Graham…”

  “Mrs Forbes…Irene…did Brian Helling say anything about where he might hide the bones?”

  “No. Well, he didn’t say anything that meant anything to me.”

  “What were his exact words?”

  “He said, “Don’t worry about anyone finding the bones. Nobody ever goes to Fort Pittsburgh.””

  FORTY-FIVE

  Though flickers of unhealthy light intermittently penetrated her prison, Carole could see nothing of the outside world. Nor could she draw attention to herself. She had been securely gagged. But she could hear the two men talking.

  At first she was full of a wild, crazy hope. This was a rescue. Why else would he have come? He was her saviour.

  But they weren’t far into their conversation before that hope was crushed. More than crushed—stifled, strangled till no breath of life remained.

  “It’s an impasse,” she heard Brian Helling’s voice say. “A Mexican stand-off with no weapons.”

  “No weapons?” Lennie Baylis’s voice echoed.

  “Well, no guns. One knife between the two of us.”

  “But I hold all the cards,” said Baylis. “I’ve got the authority of the West Sussex Constabulary behind me.”

  “Hardly.” There was triumph and derision in Brian Helling’s tone. “You shop me, I tell them about your deals with the boys in Brighton. How long have you been taking a percentage for turning a blind eye to their transactions? Nice little pay-offs from all the pubs and clubs. You must’ve salted away quite a bit by now, Lennie.”

  “The police look after their own. Nobody’d in the force’d believe you, Brian.”

  “No? All right, maybe not me on my own, but I could get Will Maples to back me up.”

  “He won’t say anything. He’ll keep quiet to save his own skin.”

  “You can’t be certain of that. I still know too much for you to turn me in, Lennie. You can’t afford the risk.”

  “Maybe not.” There was a silence. “Of course, it needn’t be the police. I could just alert the Brighton boys to where you are.”

  An intake of breath. Brian Helling was frightened, but he disguised his fear as well as he could. “Another risk too far. I might still be able to get information to the police.”

  Baylis seemed to accept this and changed tack. “I’ve got plenty on you, though, Brian. I know about you digging up the bones in the barn behind the Forbeses’ place. I can get you on blackmail—and on torching your mother’s place.”

  “You’ve got no proof of that. The fire could have been an accident.”

  “No way. There was petrol on the dog’s fur.”

  “The dog? Wasn’t that little bugger burnt to a cinder?”

  “No, it got out of the cottage. Forced its way through a half-open window, we reckon.”

  “Damn.”

  “Yes. Bad luck, Brian. Always enjoyed hurting animals, didn’t you?”

  “Better than enjoying hurting people, Lennie.” The line was spoken with deep viciousness. “You remember what you did to me here, don’t you?”

  Baylis laughed, and in her prison Carole shivered. The sound was pure cruelty.

  Then he asked, “Why did you kill your mother, Brian?”

  “She’d lost her nerve. After Carole Seddon went to see her and then you went to see her the same day, she was all set to turn me in. I couldn’t allow that.”

  “I see.”

  “And with the insurance on Heron Cottage, I’ll be able to pay off what I owe in Brighton.”

  “What? No way you’re ever going to get the insurance. You’re mad, Brian, do you know that? Always have been, from when you were a kid.”

  “I’m not! But if I were, what you did to me here might help explain why!”

  There was another callous laugh from Baylis.

  With an effort, Brian Helling calmed himself. “So, like I said, it’s a Mexican stand-off. We know too much about each other. Each one of us has the power to destroy the other. And that’s what’s going to keep us both quiet.”

  There was a long silence while Lennie Baylis took this in. At the end he asked flatly, “So what about her?”

  “We both know the answer to that. Carole Seddon’s got rather a lot of information, hasn’t she? You know exactly how much. That’s why you’ve been taking such a personal interest in her investigations—to find out if she’s got anything incriminating on you.”

  “Hm.”

  “And you know she has, or you wouldn’t have come out to this godforsaken place. Carole Seddon knows enough to shop both of us—particularly if she’s overheard what we’ve just been saying.”

  “Yes.”

  To Carole the ensuing silence felt
very long. Agonizingly long.

  “So we have to kill her?”

  “Needn’t be as proactive as that.”

  “You mean we just leave her here?”

  “That’s right. We just leave her here.”

  FORTY-SIX

  “No sign of Baylis,” said Ted Crisp gloomily. “I’ve phoned his office. They don’t know where he is. Or if they do, they’re not saying.”

  He and Jude were sitting in his car by the village green in Weldisham. Her brow wrinkled with effort as she tried to make sense of what she’d heard. “Fort Pittsburgh…Fort Pittsburgh…I’m sure Carole said something about forts. Someone had talked to her about forts. I’ve heard someone talking about forts. Oh, damn, who was it?”

  There was a long silence, finally broken by Ted. “If anything happens to her, I’ll never forgive myself.”

  “Don’t worry, Ted. Carole will survive,” said Jude with a confidence she didn’t feel. Suddenly she slapped her hands to the side of her face. “Forts—yes! Harry Grant said something about him and Lennie Baylis playing with forts when they were kids. Maybe Fort Pittsburgh fits in with that!” She reached for her mobile. “I must get Harry Grant’s number.”

  Directory Enquiries obliged, but when she called, the phone rang and rang. Jude wasn’t to know that Harry and Jenny Grant were at that moment getting off a plane in Portugal.

  She and Ted Crisp exchanged looks of total despair.

  There was nothing they could do. Both felt sure that Carole was somewhere close, but they had no means of tracing her.

  Jude put her hands over her eyes and tried to focus on the scene in the Hare and Hounds when Harry Grant had mentioned forts. Her brow scrunched up with the effort. Then it cleared. She snapped her fingers.