by Simon Brett
‘Carole, may I introduce Barry Stillwell. Barry – Carole Seddon.’
The newcomer was effusively polite in his greeting.
‘And of course you two know each other.’
Harry Grant nodded.
‘I dare say Barry’s done some of your conveyancing for you, Harry.’
‘No way. He’s too bloody slow for me. When I want some legal work done, I go to a specialist.’
Graham Forbes might have used his diplomatic skills to ease this rather sticky opening to their conversation had not the doorbell once again rung. He scurried off, leaving the three of them together.
But not for long. Harry Grant moved away with a mumbled, ‘Oh well, better circulate.’ Since his wife and Irene Forbes were the only other people available to circulate with, it could be deduced that Barry Stillwell was not his favourite person.
‘I gather you’re a solicitor,’ said Carole, clutching at the conversational hint Graham Forbes had dropped for her.
‘Yes, that’s right. Partner in a practice in Worthing.’
‘Ah.’
There was a silence. Carole had a nasty feeling she knew exactly the kind of man she was up against. Barry Stillwell, she reckoned, like many country solicitors, having limped through some exams in his early twenties, had thereafter made a comfortable living involving no intellectual effort of any kind. And, so long as people continued to buy houses, divorce and die, that comfortable living would remain secure.
‘Are you connected with the law at all, Carole? I may call you Carole, I hope?’
‘Please do. No, I’m not a lawyer myself. I used to come in contact with a lot of lawyers when I worked for the Home Office.’
‘The Home Office? That’s interesting.’ She’d suspected Barry Stillwell would be a dreadful bore, and his use of the word ‘interesting’ confirmed it. The seriously boring claim to find everything interesting, maybe in the hope that some of it may rub off and they’ll be found interesting too.
‘But you’re not still there?’ he went on.
‘No. Retired.’
He curled his lips into a thin smile. ‘It must have been a very early retirement.’
Oh dear, thought Carole. Is there only one compliment available in Weldisham?
‘It was a bit early,’ she conceded. ‘Have you thought about when you’ll retire, Barry?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. I might not.’ He assumed an expression of pious suffering. ‘Since my wife died a couple of years back, my work has rather been my life.’
‘Ah.’
‘Though I live in hope of course that I will one day recover my joie de vivre.’ He simpered.
Oh, my God, thought Carole. I know why I’ve been invited to this dinner party. He’s a spare man.
Chapter Eighteen
She was relieved that the seating plan did not put her next to Barry Stillwell. In fact, she was well placed between her host and Harry Grant, but it was Graham Forbes who enlivened her evening. She was surprised. In the Hare and Hounds the evening she’d found the bones, he’d sounded very right-wing and intolerant. Maybe he’d taken on that role for the benefit of the regulars, because in his home environment he showed himself to be a man of genuine wit and sophistication. At first Carole thought he might have a tendency to name-drop, but after a while she realized that he did actually know all the people he was talking about. His work at the British Council meant that he had acted as host to some of the most eminent figures in the arts world.
He’d just concluded a hilarious anecdote about William Golding at an event in Cairo, when Carole said apologetically, ‘I’m afraid I don’t know many writers.’
‘Your loss, my dear lady. They’re most of them paranoid depressives, serial philanderers and improvident alcoholics, but enormous fun. I think I’ve had more pure unadulterated fun getting drunk with writers than from anything else in my life . . .’ He grinned at Irene across the table. ‘Possibly excluding sex.’
Graham Forbes certainly had a relish for drink and a well-educated taste in wine. He was putting away a lot himself and ensuring that none of his guests ever had an empty glass for long. Carole had to keep putting her hand across the top of hers, or she was never going to drive safely back to Fethering. The West Sussex police, she knew, were notoriously vigilant about drink-driving.
‘There was another rather amusing incident,’ Graham went on, ‘while I was based in Kuala Lumpur, where, um . . . I’d better call her a distinguished literary novelist out on a tour . . . developed a passion for one of the British Council drivers. Lovely chap called Shiva, my absolute favourite, I always got him to drive me everywhere. So, our, um . . . lady novelist . . . Sorry, the story’d be a lot better if I used her name, but I really can’t. Anyway, she started in unambiguous pursuit of Shiva, and I could see she was making life very difficult for him. I think her culture and sexual mores were rather less inhibited than his. Then one day, quite suddenly, she appeared to have lost interest in him, and when I was next alone with Shiva in the car I asked how he’d managed to get her off his back. And Shiva said . . .’ He dropped into the slightest of Indian accents, “‘Very easily, Mr Forbes. I told her I had started one of her books and that I had found it unreadable.”’ He chuckled. ‘Very sensitive plant, you know – writer’s vanity.’
Carole thought she should try to contribute to the conversation. ‘I met – well, I saw – a writer in the Hare and Hounds the other day. Local writer.’
‘We haven’t got any local writers,’ said Graham. ‘Not what I’d call writers, anyway. Who was this?’
‘His name’s Brian Helling.’
‘Brian Helling? Oh, for heaven’s sake, I said “writers”!’ In spite of the vehemence, he managed to retain his charm and courtesy. ‘I’m sorry, Carole, but I’m afraid you can’t mention Brian Helling in the same breath as William Golding, Ted Hughes, Margaret Drabble and the other people I’ve been talking about. Brian Helling is a . . . is a...’
For once Graham Forbes seemed lost for words. Harry Grant was happy to provide them. ‘He’s a useless bloody sponger.’
Their host nodded. ‘I couldn’t have put it better myself. Brian Helling is not the kind of person we want in a village like Weldisham.’
‘I hope you won’t ever say that to his face.’ It was Irene who had spoken. There was a look of concern on her smooth Oriental features.
‘Why shouldn’t I say it to his face? I’m not afraid of Brian Helling.’
‘No, but there is no need to antagonize him.’ ‘What on earth are you talking about, Irene, my love?’ ‘I just don’t think Brian Helling is someone you should rub up the wrong way, Graham. He’s potentially violent.’ ‘He’s never threatened you with violence, has he?’ ‘No.’ For a moment, the eyes of husband and wife interlocked across the table. Graham’s were puzzled, but in Irene’s there was something close to fear.
Then she looked away to continue her duty as hostess and talk to the man on her right. He was Freddie Pointon, the newcomer to the village whom Carole had seen in the Hare and Hounds the previous Friday. Before they sat down, she had been introduced to him and his large, loud wife, Pam, whose dress vied with Jenny Grant’s for the Christmas tree decoration stakes. The wine, Carole noticed, seemed to have made Pam Pointon even louder. Their conversation about Brian Helling had been a definite moment between Graham and Irene Forbes, though no outsider could judge its resonance within their marriage. After his wife had looked away, Graham slumped back and slightly petulantly continued his demolition of Weldisham’s so-called ‘local writer’.
‘Brian Helling’s all mannerisms and no substance. Always makes me think of that Chesterton line: “The artistic temperament is a disease that afflicts amateurs.” Brian’s that worst of combinations – a layabout and a poseur.’
‘But what’s he actually written?’ asked Carole.
‘Oh, plenty. And he still goes on writing it. He once asked me to read a magnum opus of his, and I was foolish enough to say yes. It was quite, q
uite horrible.’
‘Horrible in what way? The writing?’
‘No. The writing was functional, if not much more. But the subject matter . . . ugh. It all seemed to involve tying women up, imprisoning them and using them just as bodies on which to practise any number of disgusting tortures. Mutilations, amputations, eviscerations . . . It was all quite, quite ghastly . . .’
‘There’s apparently quite a market for that kind of horror stuff.’
‘I can’t imagine what Brian Helling had written having any market outside the inmates of Broadmoor. Anyway, in answer to your enquiry, that’s the kind of stuff he’s actually written. But the more pertinent question is: What’s he actually had published? And the answer to that one is, I’m pretty sure, nothing.’
‘So he just lives on the proceeds of his mother’s pools win, does he?’
‘Something like that,’ said Graham Forbes and, almost abruptly, turned to talk to Jenny Grant, who’d become isolated by Irene’s conversation with Freddie Pointon, and looked more forlorn than ever.
Carole concentrated on her food. It was really excellent – roast pheasant with game chips and all the right trimmings. All the right wines too. The meal had been served by the woman dressed as a waitress, but Graham Forbes had made sure they all knew that Irene had done the cooking. A very English style of menu to be cooked by someone who looks like that, thought Carole, and once again kicked herself for the habit of stereotyping.
Her eye was caught by a pair of photographs on the dresser the other side of the table. Both were in beautiful frames of Indian silver and both were of weddings. One had clearly been taken in a hot climate and showed Graham, absurdly handsome in a linen suit, looming protectively over Irene. She wore a simple white dress and held a small posy of flowers.
But the second photograph was the more intriguing. A traditional English wedding with the full panoply of morning dress and bridesmaids is difficult to date precisely, but the quality of the print made this one a lot older than the other. The sharp-featured face of the bride felt distantly familiar to Carole, not familiar as a person she’d actually met might be, but familiar in the way of someone once glimpsed in a television documentary.
The remarkable fact was that the tall young groom was undoubtedly Graham Forbes.
At the moment Carole recognized this, it coincidentally became a matter of general discussion. Pam Pointon, her minimal inhibitions eroded by wine, called across the table, ‘So, Graham, I gather you two are in the same boat as we are.’
He looked up, offended to have had his conversation with Jenny Grant interrupted in this way, but far too well brought up to take issue. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘I gather from Irene that you’re like Freddie and me.’ He looked bewildered. ‘Second-time-arounders.’
‘Well—’
‘Freddie and I have both been married before, haven’t we, darling?’
‘Yes,’ her husband agreed, though at that moment he looked doubtful about the wisdom of his second venture into matrimony. He tried to signal minimal shut-up messages to his wife.
But Pam either didn’t see them or was too far gone to care. ‘My first husband was a complete bastard, Freddie’s first wife was a complete cow. What was your first-time-arounder like, Graham?’
There was an uncomfortable silence. Carole cringed. She felt sure her host was about to say his first wife had died of a lingering illness in tragic circumstances.
But no. ‘My first wife,’ said Graham Forbes, with considerable dignity, ‘left me for another man.’
The silence that followed that was more uncomfortable still. Even Pam Pointon looked momentarily abashed. But another slurp of wine restored her confidence and volubility. ‘See?’ she said. ‘So yours fits into the “complete cow” category, just like Freddie’s.’
Graham Forbes fixed her with expressionless brown eyes. ‘You know nothing about my first wife, so I’d be grateful if you stopped talking about her.’
There was no ambiguity about this rebuff, and an even longer silence was only prevented by Freddie coming in with an attempt to save some Pointon dignity. He had the look of a man who was by now certain he should have stuck with his first-time-arounder.
‘I must say, Pam and I are really getting to feel like we’ve lived in Weldisham for ever. It just feels so right. You know, when I got off that train from London this evening and felt the country air filling my lungs, I thought to myself, “Freddie, old man, you’ve arrived. This is where you were meant to be.”’
Not an inspired piece of fence-mending, but it served its purpose. Individual conversations restarted. Graham Forbes continued the uphill task of finding a subject of mutual interest with Jenny Grant. Carole couldn’t stop herself from turning to Harry and asking quietly, ‘Did you know the first Mrs Forbes?’
‘Oh yes. In fact, she was some relation of my wife’s. Aunt, second cousin or something. Jenny comes from one of those local families who’re all related to everyone else. Mind you, I never knew Sheila that well. Moved in different circles from us lot – particularly after she married Graham.’
‘But you saw a lot of her round the village?’
‘Not that much. They were abroad most of the time.’
‘Of course. With Graham’s British Council work.’
‘Right. So they’d just be here for holidays and things. They let the house some of the time. He’d bought it quite early in his career, I think, to have a base in this country. Had private money. Or at least he did then. I don’t think that he’s got much of it left.’
‘And did you know the man who Sheila Forbes ran off with?’
‘No. He was—’
But further revelations about their host’s private life were prevented by the man himself clapping his hands. ‘Now, as Barry and the Grants will know, Irene and I have a little custom at our Friday night dinners . . .’
Oh God, Carole groaned. Please don’t say it’s going to be party games.
The threat was quickly removed. ‘After the main course we do a little revision of the seating plan, so that you all get a chance to speak to everyone.’ That old thing, thought Carole, bet they used to do it at all their British Council dinners. ‘Now, with only eight of us, it does mean a few husbands and wives will end up sitting together, but I’m sure you can cope with that.
‘Ladies, you’ll be glad to hear you don’t have to move at all. But, gentlemen, I would ask you to pick up your glasses and take the seat four to your right. So, effectively, Harry and Freddie change places, and I change places with . . .’
Oh no. I get Barry, thought Carole.
She did. He sat ingratiatingly beside her, his mouth once again curled into a smile, and set about the serious business of making conversation.
‘So . . . what are your leisure pursuits, Carole?’
‘Oh, not a lot. Reading, crosswords, taking my dog for walks.’
‘That’s interesting,’ said Barry Stillwell.
Chapter Nineteen
‘But I don’t like him,’ Carole objected.
‘You don’t know him. You might find he has likeable qualities when you know him better.’
‘I doubt it, Jude.’
‘Anyway, that’s not the point. Barry Stillwell’s invited you out. You’ve no reason to say no. You’re not attached to anyone. You’re not holding a candle for some unrequited love.’
Carole blushed.
‘Are you?’
‘No, of course I’m not.’
‘Then why not go out with him? It’s only a dinner, after all.’
‘Yes, but it’s a . . .’ Carole hesitated before she brought out the word ‘date’.
‘You’ve been on dates before.’
‘Not for a long time.’
Carole tried to think how long. She supposed the last date she had been on was with David, at the stage when they were . . . What were they doing? ‘Courting’ didn’t sound the right word. ‘Circling each other warily and both contemplating the possibility of gett
ing married’? Yes, that was about it.
‘Well, you’ve been in restaurants before, Carole. It’s not as if you won’t be able to understand the menu or will start setting fire to the tablecloth.’
‘No, I think I can probably avoid those pitfalls.’
‘Then where’s your problem?’
Before Carole could begin the catalogue of problems she had about the very thought of going on a date with the solicitor, Jude went on, ‘You’ve got to do it, because Barry Stillwell probably has a lot of information about the case. And you can pump it out of him.’
‘How? Using my “feminine wiles”?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m afraid, when it came to the handing out “feminine wiles” stage of creation, God was a bit mean to me. Anyway, you talk of a “case”. I’m moving round to Ted’s view that there isn’t a “case”.’
‘Of course there is. There’s still an unidentified pile of female bones.’
‘Yes, but that’s a case for the police and their forensic pathologists. I meant there isn’t a case that has anything to do with you and me.’
‘You mean you’re not interested?’
‘Of course I’m interested. But I don’t see that it’s our business.’
‘Oh, come on, Carole, if people only concerned themselves with things that were their business, what a very dull world it would be. I want to find out who those bones belonged to. And I want to find out what happened to her.’ She fixed Carole with her big brown eyes, less dreamy than usual and more powerful. ‘As do you.’
‘Yes, all right. I do.’
‘So ring Barry Stillwell back and say yes, you’d love to go out to dinner with him on Thursday.’
‘Very well.’ Carole jutted out a rueful lower lip. ‘Against my better judgement.’
Early on the Wednesday morning, Carole took Gulliver for his first walk on Fethering Beach since his injury. The dressing had been removed, and he scampered over the shingle and sand like a thing possessed. He snuffled frantically at every piece of flotsam and jetsam, as though determined to find another rusty can on which to cut his paw.
