The Fethering Mysteries 03; The Torso in the Town tfm-3

by Simon Brett

  A huge beam broke out like sunshine, finally thawing Carole Seddon’s face. “Ah. Now I do know who used to live there.”

  ∨ The Torso in the Town ∧

  Four

  Fortunately, Carole did have a reason to get in touch with Debbie Carlton. During the brief glow of confidence she had felt while things were working out between her and Ted Crisp, she had decided to do something to her house. Just as her wardrobe had blossomed with new colours to edge out her customary pale greens, greys and beiges, so she started to think of changing the safe magnolia walls and white gloss which characterized – or perhaps bleached character from – her home. She even – momentarily – contemplated changing its name from High Tor. Such a move would have been unthinkable for her in any other mood. Names of houses – even names as inappropriate as ‘High Tor’ in the totally flat coastal plain of West Sussex – were among the many things that were never changed in Fethering.

  But in that mood of heady insouciance, Carole Seddon reckoned she could change anything she wanted to. Even her customary financial caution started to dissolve. She was, after all, very comfortable on her Civil Service pension. The mortgage on High Tor was paid off; if she wanted to spend money on the house, there was nothing to stop her.

  Having consulted the local directory for interior designers, Carole had selected Debbie Carlton because of her local telephone number and on the – frequently fallacious – assumption that someone operating on their own might be cheaper than a large company. Debbie had paid one visit to High Tor to assess what was needed, and breathed all kinds of fresh ideas into the functionality of the house. Despite finding some of the suggestions a bit extreme, Carole had still felt sufficiently daring to say she would mull over what Debbie had said and get back to her.

  Though the interior designer had not imposed any of her personal history on her client, Carole had still pieced together that Debbie Carlton had recently moved from the splendour of Pelling House to a small flat in Fedborough. The reason had been a common one – divorce. The subject once broached, Debbie had been very upfront about the details. “Francis fell in love with someone else, and that was it, really. She’s very wealthy and they divide their time between London and Florida. Just one of those things that didn’t work out. Thank goodness we hadn’t got any children, and it happened while I was still young enough to pick up the threads of my career.”

  The matter-of-fact stoicism had not disguised the hurt, at least from Carole, who knew how much she had suffered when her husband David had left her. The common experience, she felt, forged an unspoken bond between them, and she was determined that, if she did go ahead with the transformation of High Tor, Debbie Carlton would get the job.

  But just around that time things had started to get sticky with Ted and, preoccupied with the collapse of their relationship – or non-relationship, as with increasing hindsight she thought of it – she had never made the follow-up call.

  So common courtesy – not to mention an interest inthe torso found in the basement of Pelling House – dictated that she should phone Debbie Carlton.

  “It’s Carole Seddon.”

  “Oh, hello.”

  There was no resentment or recrimination in the greeting, but Carole still felt obliged to say, “You’ve been on my conscience. I promised I’d call you back…what, three months ago…and I’m sorry, I never did.”

  “Don’t worry. Happens a lot in my sort of business. People watch some television programme, suddenly get caught up in the idea that they’re going to ‘make over’ their house, then lose interest, or decide they’re going to buy a new car instead. It’s not a big deal.”

  “No, but I still feel I should have got back to you, so…I apologize.”

  “Well, thank you. You’re in the minority who would think that was necessary.”

  There was a silence, and Carole realized that Debbie was waiting for a decision. Interior design was, after all, the woman’s business. She would assume that this was a call to say whether Carole wanted to proceed with the job.

  “Um…I was actually ringing to say that…though I was terrifically impressed by the ideas that you put forward…”

  “Don’t worry, it’s fine,” said Debbie Carlton, too quickly. There was a slight disappointment in her voice. To have got the job at High Tor would have meant a lot to her.

  “The thing is, you see, my circumstances have changed somewhat…”

  A cynical “Huh. Tell me about it, Mrs Seddon.”

  Carole realized, with some dismay, that Debbie thought she was referring to her financial circumstances.

  Normally, she would have hastened to correct this embarrassing misunderstanding, but on this occasion, having a rather different agenda, she let it go.

  “Anyway, I do hope you’ll understand.”

  “Of course. And maybe, if things pick up for you, you’ll get back to me.”

  It hurt to have the misunderstanding compounded, but Carole still didn’t make any correction. “Yes, yes, that’ll be fine.” She paused for a moment. Unless she changed its direction quickly, the conversation was about to come to a natural end. “I bet you’re glad to be out of Pelling House,” she said abruptly.

  “What? No, as it happens, I still miss the place dreadfully. Feel a great pang every time I walk past.”

  “I didn’t mean that. I meant you must be glad to be out of it…given what was found in the cellar there…”

  “I’m sorry? I’ve been away for a few days. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “The body. The torso. Didn’t you hear about it on the local news? On the national news, come to that.”

  “What? Well, I…Was that in Felling House?” The voice was quiet with shock.

  “Yes. I’m surprised the police haven’t been in touch with you yet.”

  “As I say, I’ve been away. Literally just walked in when you rang. Haven’t even checked the answering machine yet.”

  “Perhaps it’s as well I warned you, then. Because I’m sure the police will be in touch.”

  “Yes, I’m sure they will.” There was a shudder in her voice as Debbie Carlton went on, “So that…what they found in the cellar…may have actually been there while Francis and I were living in the house?”

  “I’ve no idea, but a friend of mine was having dinner with the new owners when the body…torso…was found. She said it looked as if it had been dead a long while.”

  “Oh. Well, thank you for warning me, Mrs Seddon. I’ll…Look, if you…if you hear any more details from your friend…I’d be most grateful if you could let me know. Or, if you happen to be in Fedborough at some point, give me a call and come round for a coffee.”

  “I’d like that very much.” Carole hesitated, then decided to be bold. “In fact, have to bring my dog in to the vet’s tomorrow. Round ten-thirty. I don’t suppose you’d be in…elevenish…?”

  “Couldn’t be better. You have my address on the card I left with you. I’ll look forward to seeing you at eleven tomorrow, Mrs Seddon.”

  Goodness, thought Carole, with a little spark of excitement as she put the phone down, that was easier than I expected.

  ∨ The Torso in the Town ∧

  Five

  She knew Fedborough well enough to find one of the few free parking spaces. Because of the constant invasion of tourists, the town boasted many double yellow lines and, since residents made it a point of honour not to succumb to the ‘Pay and Display’ car parks, the unrestricted roadsides were quickly filled. Still, ten-fifteen was too early for the daily summer influx of bewildered pensioners and spotty French students, so Carole managed to squeeze the Renault into a narrow space outside one of the many antique shops at the top of the town.

  Gulliver was disappointed. He had got into the car with high expectations of being taken for a walk, possibly up on the Downs near Weldisham, but getting out in the middle of a town dashed those hopes. Also Fedborough had connotations for him of the vet’s, and distant unhappy memories of
being unnecessarily pricked and probed. His woebegone head drooped and his bandaged tail hung between his legs as Carole attached the lead.

  She knew he didn’t like what was about to happen, but she had little sympathy. He had brought it on himself. Gulliver had taken the decision to chase that Yorkshire terrier on Fethering Beach, although he knew Yorkshire terriers are notorious for misinterpreting the playful advances of larger dogs. So he’d really asked for the biteon his tail. And the fact that the wound had become infected was ultimately his fault too. So Carole ignored the pitiful whining as she dragged Gulliver down Fedborough High Street towards the veterinary surgery.

  In the early June sunlight the town was looking its best. Set where the undulations of the South Downs met the flatness that led to the sea, Fedborough had once been a notable port. Ocean-going vessels had plied up the River Fether from Fethering to deposit their goods from far away – wines from France, coals from Newcastle – and this trade had been the foundation of the town’s prosperity. Now the only vestiges of seafaring were a few privately owned launches, moored with great care to accommodate the considerable tidal rise and fall of the Fether, and a string of some half-dozen houseboats to the north of Fedborough Bridge. The nearest of these had been punctiliously refurbished to its former Edwardian splendour, but the old hulks beyond appeared to be sinking into the river in progressive stages of decrepitude. Few of them looked as if they could still be inhabited.

  On the opposite side from the houseboats, a small quay had been dredged out of the riverbank. This was surrounded by a collection of wooden huts, on which faded notices advertised ice creams and pleasure-boat trips on the Fether. But there was an air of dilapidation and business failure about the silted-up inlet, no sign of any ice creams or pleasure boats.

  The bridge was at the bottom of the High Street, down whose steep incline Carole pulled the reluctant Gulliver. At the top of what was uncontroversially called Castle Hill, stood the remains of Fedborough Castle. On the site of an old fort, from which Saxons had resisted Vikings marauding up the Fether, a nobleman, rewarded by William the Conqueror with the lands around the town, had built a massive keep to dominate the river valley. Over the following centuries the fabric had been strengthened and the ground plan extended, until Fedborough Castle could withstand the worst that mediaeval armaments could hurl against its walls.

  But it could not withstand the cannons of Cromwell’s New Model Army during the Civil War. At the end of a short but brutal siege, the people of Fedborough paid the price of their loyalty to King Charles. Their town was sacked and most of their precious castle reduced to rubble. The ruin was left as a warning to future aspiring rebels.

  With the restoration of the monarchy, its symbolism changed but there seemed no purpose in rebuilding the structure. Gradually, surreptitiously, over the years the loose stones were appropriated by local builders and incorporated into the fabric of the growing town.

  And the familiar silhouette of the remains, like the irregular teeth of an old man, continued to dominate Fedborough from Castle Hill. With the advent of the Romantic Movement, when ruins suddenly took on fashionably Gothic qualities, the outline became the subject of many paintings, etchings and prints. Then, through the twentieth century, as the heritage industry developed, the Castle ruins were translated into a symbol of West Sussex, a logo for the town of Fedborough, and an essential part of any tourist itinerary.

  The major expansion of the town had occurred during the late Georgian and Victorian periods. Fedborough’s market attracted produce from the riches of surrounding agricultural estates, while improvements in communications by road, rail and water made the town a centre fortrade. With only a few flint-faced cottages surviving from earlier times, newly enriched entrepreneurs built substantial brick houses to demonstrate their unassailable social position. Large, elegant shops were erected to supply their growing consumerism, and Fedborough found itself in the genteel stranglehold of the middle classes – from which it has never escaped.

  Though a certain amount of building occurred during the twentieth century, most of the construction work was new houses being put up on the sites of old ones. There was also a lot of conversion work, as buildings changed usage. Former shops, warehouses, workshops and even chapels were transformed into tasteful flats and houses for the newly wealthy or the wealthy retired. Fedborough’s geographical position gave little opportunity for the outward sprawl which has affected so many towns. Trapped in a triangle, bounded on one side by the Downs, on another by the River Fether, and on the third by Sussex’s main east-west arterial road, the A27, there was no direction in which Fedborough could expand further.

  So the vista down which Carole Seddon and Gulliver walked was predominantly Victorian. Tall, graceful buildings with multi-paned windows lined the High Street. A few were residential, though most of the town centre population lived in the equally elegant side roads. An old coaching inn, the Felling Arms, offered tourists the charms of anachronistic authenticity. The logos of a chemist chain, three estate agents and two of the major banks distinguished other buildings. There were a couple of teashops and four pubs (from which Carole, after her recent involvement with the landlord of Fethering’s Crown and Anchor, found herself instinctively shrinking).

  But, except for those listed above, every other building in Fedborough High Street was an antique shop.

  Carole hauled Gulliver, whimpering with unwillingness, into the vet’s reception area. He continued to whimper while they waited their turn, while the vet cleaned his wound, gave him an injection and prescribed further antibiotics. He was still whimpering when Carole took him back up the High Street and locked him in the Renault to await her return.

  As she set off towards the address Debbie Carlton had given her, Carole deliberately turned her back on the look of reproach that followed her through the partly opened car window. That look summed up all the perfidy of humankind. To put a dog in a car as if taking him out for a walk, then to trick him into a visit to the vet’s, and finally to lock him back up in the car…Gulliver was having a seriously bad day, and it was all Carole’s fault.

  Debbie Carlton was thin, but the thinness implied toned muscle rather than frailty. She had naturally blonde – almost white – hair and surprisingly dark blue eyes. Carole always found it difficult to judge the ages of those younger than herself, but reckoned mid-thirties must be about the right mark.

  Debbie was wearing a large sloppy red jumper, in which – as intended – she looked waif-like. Deceptively simple black trousers and frivolously large red trainers. For make-up only a hint of blue on her upper eyelids and red lipstick the exact colour of her shoes. She knew precisely the effect of the ensemble.

  Her designing skills were also evident in the small sitting room into which she ushered Carole, but forsomeone working from home, that made good business sense. Her domestic décor had to be an advertisement for the skills she hoped to sell.

  The flat was pleasant enough. On the first floor, above a hairdresser’s in Harbidge Street, it was not what the finely tuned local snobs would call one of the best addresses in Fedborough. Perfectly acceptable, though, for anyone who hadn’t once enjoyed the lavish expanses and magnificent proportions of Pelling House.

  The décor demonstrated Debbie Carlton’s ability to do the best she could with the space she had. On walls and ceiling the predominant colour was terracotta; furniture had been stripped down and stained the colour of pumice stone. Dusty green in the curtains and cunningly faded red on the upholstery gave an impression of a sleepy Italian town, which was intensified by robust morning sunlight streaming through the small panes of the windows.

  The Mediterranean theme was maintained by the rows of framed paintings on the walls. Delicate watercolours picked out the apricot honey of tiled roofs, the hazy green of cypresses, the silver shimmer of olive leaves and the soft grey of ancient statuary. The style was so uniform that they had all to be the work of the same artist. Carole wondered whether it was Debbie
herself.

  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 cafétière. “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 placewhere 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.”