by Simon Brett
'Do you think Curt might go to the police with what he knows?'
'Why should he do that? It's not a police matter. I paid my dues for my crime. I served my sentence. Why on earth should it have anything to do with the police?'
'I meant in the light of . . .' Carole nodded discreetly towards Quiet Harbour'. . . recent discoveries.'
Reginald Flowers stared at her in bewilderment. 'What's that got to do with anything?'
'Well, the boy, Robin Cutter, was supposed to be the victim of a paedophile and I—'
'Are you suggesting that I ever had anything to do with paedophilia?' He sounded appalled at the idea.
'Well, you did leave Edgington Manor School under a cloud.'
'Yes, but that wasn't because I was fiddling with the children. For God's sake, Carole! If you're looking for a pervert on Smalting Beach, you'd do much better concentrating on Kelvin Southwest. Ask him about those afternoons when he goes into one of the empty beach huts with his binoculars and spies on the nippers changing. And it wouldn't surprise me at all to hear that that's only the beginning of what he gets up to. But don't you dare accuse me of anything like that!'
'Then, if it wasn't for that reason, why did you leave the school?' asked Carole evenly.
He sighed, shook his head and looked shamefaced. 'I stole something.'
'Stole something? What?'
'Edgington Manor School was founded quite a long time ago. Late eighteenth century. And one of its first old boys was an admiral in Nelson's navy. Admiral Henryson. Not very well known, but like Nelson he was killed at Trafalgar. And his widow presented his dress uniform to the school. It stood in a glass case in the Lower Hall. I passed it half a dozen times a day, and each time I passed it I was more determined that it should be mine, that I should add it to my collection. At first the idea was just an idle fancy, but it became an obsession.
'So I worked out how I'd steal it. During the school holidays. Make it look as though vandals had broken into the school. I'd got it all worked out, all justified in my own mind. Edgington Manor School had never done me any favours, the place owed me something. I was two years off retirement and I was determined that there was one final favour the place was going to do me.
'Plan all went fine. I had keys to certain doors in the school, I knew how to switch off the burglar alarm. I took Admiral Henryson's uniform. Nobody in the school ever looked at it, none of those sports-obsessed spotty boys gave a damn about the thing. It was right that it should belong to someone who appreciated its full value. I felt no guilt. I still don't feel any guilt.'
'But you didn't get away with it, did you, Reg?'
He shook his head wearily. 'No. I'd been seen breaking into the school by some officious young housemaster. Out in the grounds pushing his bloody infant in a buggy or whatever they call those things. By the time I got out of the building, the police were waiting for me.'
'And you were charged with theft?'
'Yes. Some schools would have hushed it up. They wouldn't have wanted the adverse publicity. But that wasn't the way my sanctimonious bloody headmaster thought. He said Edgington Manor School was trying to make its pupils into honest citizens and they should therefore be made aware of the penalties for dishonesty. We'd always hated each other, and suddenly he saw the perfect opportunity to make an example of me. So yes, I went through the courts, which let me tell you was pretty bloody humiliating. I subsequently spent six months at Her Majesty's pleasure . . . which wasn't much fun either. However many times I told them the truth of what I was in for, the other prisoners assumed . . . schoolteacher, kicked out at my age, must have been for . . .' He shuddered. 'Anyway, somehow I survived that, but obviously when I was released, my career was finished.
'So after a time I moved down here, where I thought, where I hoped, that no one would ever know about that episode in my past. I still don't know how Curt Holderness did find out about it.'
'Through a policeman he'd met who'd worked up near Edgington Manor School.'
'Ah. Right.' Reginald Flowers looked very weary. His long confession had taken its toll.
'One thing I can't quite understand,' Carole began, 'is why it matters so much to you. I mean, you did wrong, but most people would not think that you did anything very seriously wrong. Given all the stuff you've got here in the beach hut, you could almost laugh it off, as an example of the single-mindedness of the obsessive collector. I mean, if Curt Holderness did go public about what you did, who do you think would actually be that worried? You're only successful as a blackmailer if your victim has got a lot to lose. And I don't really see that you have a lot to lose.'
'What!' demanded Reginald Flowers in amazement. 'How can you say that? It'd be a total disaster. Are you suggesting that, if it was known I had a criminal record, I would be allowed to remain as President of the Smalting Beach Hut Association?'
* * *
Chapter Thirty-Three
Smalting Beach was considerably busier when Carole left The Bridge and continued Gulliver's interrupted walk. They covered half a mile in the Fethering direction, and though the dog would much rather not have been on a lead, he still patently enjoyed himself.
With a slight shock, Carole realized that she was only a day away from the arrival of Gaby and Lily. The mysteries of Mark Dennis and Robin Cutter had been preoccupying her. One of them was solved. She wondered what the chances were of the second being elucidated before she had to go into full-on grandmother mode. The odds weren't promising. She tried to close her mind to the case and concentrate on her imminent visitors. She wasn't successful.
On their way back to Fowey, Carole and Gulliver's route took them along the line of the other beach huts, of which more had been opened up during their walk. Outside Cape of Good Hope sat Dora Pinchbeck with a piled-high cornet of pistachio ice cream and a Daily Mail. In her personal domain, in front of her beach hut, she looked very much more in control of life than on the previous occasions Carole had met her. It seemed that, when she wasn't being diminished and patronized by Reginald Flowers, the woman did actually have an identity of her own.
She greeted Carole warmly and glowed when congratulated on the success of the quiz night. 'Yes, it all seemed to go very well,' she agreed. 'In spite of the snafu over the booking of the venue.'
Carole was surprised at Dora's use of the military slang expression 'snafu'. Easier to imagine it coming from Reginald Flowers's lips. And she wondered whether Dora was actually quoting her 'boss'.
'Oh well, everyone makes mistakes,' she said soothingly.
'I agree. Some of us just don't admit to them, though.' Carole's look asked for an explanation, so Dora nodded towards The Bridge. 'Lord High and Mighty over there never admits to having made a mistake.'
'Oh?'
'Did he tell you that I'd screwed up the booking at St Mary's Church Hall?'
'Yes, he did.'
'Typical. That's how control freaks always come unstuck. Incapable of delegating, on the rare occasions when they do make mistakes, they always have to find someone else to blame. And in Reg's case it's nearly always Little Me.'
She spoke with remarkable lack of rancour, given the way her 'boss' treated her. Carole began to wonder if the efficient master/incompetent secretary routine was some kind of game they played, and whether their relationship was in fact rather closer than it appeared on the outside.
'Anyway,' she said, 'good to see you, Dora. Come along, Gulliver.'
She was stopped by a question from Dora that was spoken so softly that she hardly heard it. But it sounded like, 'Any developments on the case?'
She turned back. 'I beg your pardon?'
'The investigation into Robin Cutter's death.'
Oh dear, thought Carole, are Jude and I that transparent? There we are, imagining we're conducting our enquiry secretly and it seems that the whole of Smalting - and quite possibly Fethering too - knows all about our endeavours. She tried to think of some appropriately enigmatic response, but before she could say it,
Dora Pinchbeck went on, in a confidential tone, 'I'm a friend of Helga Czesky . . .'
'Oh?'
'. . . and she told me . . . you know, who you really are.'
'Ah.' It took Carole a moment to realize the significance of this. It was only a few days since she and Jude had had the confrontation with Gray and Helga Czesky at Woodside Cottage, but so much had happened since that it felt a lifetime away. Of course, as she recalled with some pleasure, the Czeskys had left that meeting convinced that Carole and Jude were both plain-clothes policewomen. If that was the information that Helga had imparted to Dora Pinchbeck, then Carole was in a situation of which she could take advantage.
She tested it out by saying, 'I'm afraid I'm not allowed to give out any information about the case until there's an official press conference.'
'No, no, of course I can see that.' Dora sounded disappointed but realistic. It had just been a punt. She hadn't really been expecting to be given the inside track on the investigation.
'And in fact,' Carole went on, gaining confidence in her new spurious role, 'I would rather you kept the information that Helga Czesky gave you under wraps. The work we do is kind of undercover, so we don't want everyone in Smalting to know about it.'
'I understand completely.'
Carole fixed Dora Pinchbeck with a beady eye. 'May I ask whether you have told anyone else what Jude and I really do.'
The embarrassed expression on the woman's face told Carole that she had struck gold. 'Well, I'm sorry,' Dora Pinchbeck floundered. 'I shouldn't have, I suppose, but, you know, if you're in conversation with someone, well, it is quite easy to let things slip.'
'Who have you told?' came the implacable question.
There was a long silence, during which Carole suddenly became aware of a moral dilemma. Given her background in the Home Office, she knew full well how serious was the crime of impersonating a member of the police force. That was black and white. But considerably greyer was the ethical position of someone being assumed to be a policewoman and not putting right the person who had made the assumption. Jude, she knew, would have had no worries at all about the situation, regarding it as an instance of serendipity, of some cosmic force displaying generosity, a gift from the gods, which it would be bad manners to turn down, or some other New Age mumbo-jumbo. But Carole Seddon was wary of such casuistry.
Fortunately, her moral meanderings were cut short when Dora Pinchbeck gave her the name of the person she had told about her supposed status as a plain-clothes policewoman. And the minute she heard the name, all qualms vanished.
'Kelvin Southwest.'
'When did you tell him?'
'Thursday night. Just after he arrived at the Crown and Anchor. I was chatting to him and then when you and your friend came in, he said something about the two of you, and I told him what I'd heard from Helga. I'm terribly sorry.'
'Don't worry about it,' said Carole with magisterial generosity.
She couldn't believe her luck. Now she knew why Kelvin Southwest had avoided her at the beginning of the previous evening. And now she had a hold over him. If Kelvin Southwest thought she was a member of the police force, then he wasn't going to refuse to answer her questions about what he got up to in an empty beach hut with binoculars, was he?
* * *
Chapter Thirty-Four
There was no 'lovely lady' flirtatiousness from the Fether District Council official when Carole rang his mobile number. The tension in his voice suggested that he had been expecting her call, and he proved to be very biddable. Yes, of course he would meet her whenever she liked. He'd rather not make it at his house, because he didn't want his mother to get upset. On Smalting Beach would be fine. Yes, at Fowey. He'd be with her in as long as it took.
Carole Seddon felt a glow of satisfaction as she sat outside the beach hut waiting for him. The odds on her getting a solution to the case seemed suddenly to have shortened considerably. And she relished the prospect of telling her neighbour how she solved it single-handedly while Jude was in Brighton. Past Life Regression Workshop - huh.
She looked along the row of beach huts and felt as if she belonged there. She was almost a hutter, and would be more than competent to welcome Gaby and Lily to Fowey the next day. Or would she be able finally to return to her original beach hut?
Carole had noticed earlier that all traces of the police presence around Quiet Harbour had now been removed. Maybe she could reclaim it? Architecturally the two beach huts were absolutely identical, but, in spite of everything that had happened there, Carole did have a sneaking preference for Quiet Harbour over Fowey. It felt more hers.
Smalting Beach was getting back to normal, though. The doors to Shrimphaven were open. Inside no doubt Katie Brunswick was continuing the Sisyphean task of rewriting her novel.
And further along the Olivers had taken up their customary positions: Joyce on her lounger with another wordsearch book, Lionel, as ever dressed for work with his suit jacket over the back of his chair, looking out to sea. Carole could only conjecture what thoughts might be going through their heads, and the extent to which memories of their lost grandson filled them. She felt something approaching a crusading zeal at the prospect of her interview with Kelvin Southwest. At last she might be able to unearth some information that might help the Olivers and Miranda Browning come to terms with their family tragedy.
'Good morning.'
Carole looked up to see that her quarry had arrived. As a concession to the weekend, he was not in his Fether District Council livery, but still dressed in virtually identical style. A green polo shirt and much-pocketed khaki shorts strained over his chubby body. His footwear remained leather sandals over short white socks.
He looked ill at ease, his right hand tugging nervously at his silky goatee.
'Good morning. Do sit down.' Carole gestured to the other director's chair she'd set out for him. Shiftily he did as she suggested, looking anxiously to the beach huts on either side. Both were closed up.
'Nobody will hear what we're saying,' continued Carole, 'but of course if you'd rather go inside the hut or move somewhere more private . . .'
'No, this'll be fine.' Kelvin Southwest perched uncomfortably on the edge of his seat, as though suffering from a bad case of piles. 'Incidentally,' he said, 'we've had the all-clear from the police. They've finished their investigations in Quiet Harbour, so you can go back there if you want to.'
'Oh, thank you. I might go back there tomorrow. That's when my daughter-in-law and granddaughter are arriving. Do you have the key?'
He had come prepared and passed it across.
There was a rather awkward silence. Having actually got the man there, Carole was beginning to wish she'd given a bit more thought to how she intended to conduct their interview. But fortunately Kelvin Southwest made it easy for her by saying, 'Look, I haven't done anything that's harmed anyone.'
'No?'
Happily this was sufficient prompt for him to continue, 'Who told you about me using the binoculars? Who shopped me?'
'I don't think it's relevant for me to disclose that information at this point,' said Carole, amazed at how instinctively she had once again dropped into police-speak.
'Look, all right, I'm attracted to kids, but I'd never do anything that'd harm them,' he reiterated.
'I'm not sure that you're necessarily the best judge of that, Mr Southwest.' She was damned if she was going to go back to calling him 'Kel'.
'I can't help the feelings I have,' he said, hoping - unsuccessfully - to engage her sympathy. 'And I have now got much better control over them.'
'Could you explain to me what you mean by that?'
'Listen, all right, a few years ago, yes, I did sometimes take my binoculars into one of the empty beach huts. I actually made spy holes in it, so's I could . . . Look, I'm not proud of what I've done, but back then I couldn't control my urges.' He reverted to another thought that still nagged at him. 'I bet I know who it was who shopped me to you. It'd be that Dora Pinchbeck.
I'd put money on it. She's always been a nosy cow.'
'I will neither confirm nor deny your conjectures, Mr Southwest,' Carole pronounced in magnificent police-speak. 'The identity of the person who, as you put it, "shopped" you is not important, and will only become important if that person needs to be called as a witness in court.'
In a less excited mood Carole wouldn't have gone so far. Threatening someone with legal action was taking the crime of impersonating a member of the police force to another level. But she was in no mood for caution. She was determined to get some kind of confession out of Kelvin Southwest.
And the approach did pay off, because he responded, 'Yes, all right, I used to look at kids undressing through binoculars, but that's not a police matter.'
And I'm not a policewoman, thought Carole, but what she actually said was, 'If you seriously believe that, Mr Southwest, then you haven't read a newspaper or watched the television news for the past twenty years.'
All right,' he whined. 'But you don't know what it's like, having these urges that can't find satisfaction in a way that's publicly acceptable.'
Thank goodness Jude isn't here, thought Carole. His words echoed what her neighbour had said on the subject of paedophilia. Jude was quite capable of ending up feeling sorry for the little worm.
'I'd like,' Carole proceeded magisterially, 'to talk to you about Robin Cutter.'
'What? Look, for God's sake, you're not going to try and pin that on me, are you?'
'Were you questioned by the police at the time of his disappearance?'
'No, of course I wasn't! Why should I have been?'
'Mr Southwest, you have just admitted that you have paedophiliac tendencies.'
