Fethering 01 (2000) - The Body on the Beach

by Simon Brett; Prefers to remain anonymous

  “But that’s not true,” Carole objected.

  Jude’s brown eyes took on a new vagueness. “True? Truth is such a relative concept, though, isn’t it, Carole? And telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth is the surest way of completely screwing up your life, wouldn’t you agree?”

  Carole certainly would not agree. Telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth to everyone had been one of the guiding principles of her life. It was an approach which had caused occasional awkwardnesses, moments when confrontations could have been avoided by a little tactful finessing of that truth. Indeed, if she’d been less strict in her adherence to the principle, she might still have been married. But Carole Seddon had never given in to the way of compromise. She had always told the complete truth and faced up to the consequences of her actions.

  So she didn’t give any answer to Jude’s question.

  §

  Rather than going straight down the High Street and turning left on to Seaview Road, they cut along one of the side lanes and approached the Yacht Club along the banks of the Fether. Though it was hardly a day for sightseeing, Carole wanted to show Jude another aspect of the village.

  There was a high path along the side of the river, the top of the defences which, further on by the Yacht Club, joined up with the sea wall. Cars were kept off this pedestrian area by serried rows of concrete bollards. Near the path a rusted Second World War mine had been converted into a collecting box for some maritime charity.

  It was low tide. The Fether was a truculent sliver of brown water between swollen mudflats, which looked bleakly malevolent in the driving rain.

  “Wouldn’t fancy falling down there,” said Jude.

  “No, I think you could have a problem getting out again. Everything sinks into that lot.”

  Carole pointed out a row of public moorings, pontoons loosely attached to tall posts which rode up and down the water level with every tide. The rectangles of slatted wood lay on the mud, as did a few motor launches, stranded at asymmetric angles. “One of those belongs to Bill Chilcott, I think.”

  “What’s that noise?” asked Jude.

  Once again Carole was aware of the heavy thumping which had done so little to help her headache that morning. As they turned a bend of the path, they saw its source. On top of the sea wall, beyond the gates controlled by the Fethering Yacht Club, a cluster of builders’ vehicles was gathered. There were a crane, two small vans and a JCB. Huge sheets of corrugated metal were piled by the blue fishermen’s chests, and a lot of men in fluorescent yellow jackets and hard hats milled around.

  Rising from the centre of this activity, at the edge of the Fether, stood a tall pile-driving machine. The rhythmic thumping sounded as it forced the metal sheets deep down into the mud. Gulls protested overhead, intrigued by the commotion.

  “Repairs to the sea wall,” Carole explained. “I’d heard it was due to be done some time.” She shivered. “What a day for them to start.”

  §

  From inside the Fethering Yacht Club, but for the dull thudding of the pile driver, you wouldn’t have known about the repair work taking place only fifty yards away. The building equipment was as invisible as everything else beyond the windows of the bar. The way the wind whipped the rain about in every direction, sitting in the Fethering Yacht Club that afternoon was like being in a car-wash.

  Carole’s conjecture had proved right and it was Denis Woodville who let them in. He was a tall, angular man with a high domed head surrounded by a little frill of white hair that gave the impression of a joke-shop tonsure. His nose was beaky and he had the sagging, papery skin of a heavy smoker. A politically incorrect Gauloise drooped from yellow-stained fingers and he kept sucking at it, as if desperate to tar up the last few unpolluted cells of his lungs. He perched on a stool and had gestured his visitors to sit on two others. Beside him, on the shelf that ran the length of the sea-facing window, was a balloon of brandy from which he took sips between drags of his cigarette. The bar-room was punctiliously neat and -the adjective could not be avoided—shipshape.

  “Wouldn’t surprise me at all if they’d nicked one of our life-jackets,” he said after Jude had glibly produced her lie. “Lot of bloody kids always trying to break into this place.”

  Denis Woodville’s accent was unusual, upper class on the surface but very carefully spoken, as if he was afraid he might at any moment betray a less cultured voice beneath.

  “And into the boats,” he continued, gesturing outside.

  Though the windows were blinded with rain, Carole and Jude had seen what he was talking about as they approached the clubhouse. Rows of dinghies on trailers were regimented on a cement rectangle in front of the building, all zipped up to the necks of their masts in sturdy fitted covers.

  “Bloody awful times we live in,” Denis Woodville went on. “Nobody has any respect for property any more. Kids aren’t brought up with any respect for anything, that’s the trouble. May not be a fashionable sentiment, but bring back National Service, I say. A couple of years of doing what they’re told, thinking about other people rather than themselves for a change—that’d bring the little buggers into line.”

  His taking a reflective swallow of brandy enabled Carole to ask, “Is this clubroom open right through the winter?”

  “Yes. Every day. Normally a few regulars come in at midday, but when the weather’s like this…” He shrugged. “Won’t put off the evening crowd, though, I’m sure. Actually, just as well there’s no one in this lunchtime, because we’ve recently lost our barmaid -finished work on Friday. And you can’t really have the Vice-Commodore pulling pints, can you?” He chuckled at the incongruity of the idea.

  “So are you actually the Vice-Commodore?”

  The note of awe that Jude had injected into her voice had the right effect. Denis Woodville preened himself as he replied, “Yes. I am. Hotly contested election for the post last year, but I won through. Members of this club still appreciate the old-fashioned values of integrity and common sense, you know.”

  “I’m sure they do. Are there a lot of members?” Jude asked ingenuously.

  “Couple of hundred. Not all very active. Some’re London folk who’re just weekenders down here. We tend to be a bit careful about the kind of people we let in. Open the doors too wide and you could end up with all kinds of riff-raff, eh?”

  “I suppose you could,” said Jude, in a manner that might have implied agreement.

  “And it’s all run by volunteers, is it?” asked Carole. “You don’t have any permanent staff?”

  “We club officials give our services free,” the Vice-Commodore replied grandly. “Obviously, expenses taken when required by the Treasurer and so on. That’s Rory Turribull, he’s our Treasurer. Dentist chap. You know him, don’t you, Mrs Seddon?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s got problems at the moment, you know…”

  “Oh? Problems with what?”

  “Club accounts. Don’t tally, I’m afraid. It’s the bloody accountant’s cock-up. Honestly, these days you can’t even trust the professionals. Just scrape through their bloody exams and then reckon they’ve got a meal-ticket for life. And when they get their sums wrong, it’s the client who has to pay, of course. Do you know, the accountant who looks after the club has managed to mislay over a thousand quid somewhere during the last year. Rory’s on to the case and it’s getting sorted, but even so…it all takes time, doesn’t it? In the old days, if you employed a professional, you could rely on getting a professional job done. Not any more.”

  §

  “No,” Carole apparently agreed. “It’s rather impressive that this whole set-up’s run without any paid employees.”

  “Well, of course, we pay the casual workers…cleaners, bar staff…”

  “Except,” said Jude, “you say you haven’t got any bar staff at the moment.”

  “No. Tanya finished Friday, as I said. Did you know her?” Carole shook her head. “Rather large g
irl. No thing of beauty, and got this great industrial rivet punched through her nose, but polite enough to the members. And didn’t drink the profits, just cup after cup of coffee all day.”

  “Well, anyhow, she suddenly reckons in her wisdom that this place was ‘too far from Brighton’, so she’s going to look for something closer to home. I don’t know, young people nowadays just don’t stick at anything. She’d got a perfectly good job here, done six months, members getting to know her, doing very well, and suddenly she decides a twenty-minute train journey is too much for her. Kids’ve got no tenacity these days.”

  “So will you be advertising for a replacement barmaid?” asked Jude.

  “Yes, have to get round to it. Why, you looking for a job?”

  “Might be.”

  This reply, as well as amazing Carole, seemed to release some warmth in Denis Woodville. He smiled into Jude’s brown eyes as he said, “If you want to pursue it, let me have a CV, and maybe I can put in a word with the committee.”

  “I might just do that.”

  Did she mean it, Carole wondered. Could she possibly mean it? People who had cottages in the High Street of Fethering didn’t work behind bars. Once again she realized how little she knew of Jude’s background. Maybe her neighbour actually did need a job and maybe she wouldn’t be above working as a barmaid. Once again, Carole determined to get a few basic facts about Jude’s life sorted out.

  The relaxation of Denis Woodville’s formality continued. “Would either of you like a drink, by the way?”

  “No, thank you,” replied Carole firmly, before Jude could once again succumb and lead her further astray.

  “Oh.” The Vice-Commodore looked wistfully down at his empty brandy balloon. “Well, I’d better not have another one either. Better get back home, I suppose.”

  The prospect didn’t appeal to him. “Yes, better close up. Open again at six. The six o’clock regulars never miss a night, come hell, high water or both.”

  “I gather from Carole,” said Jude, “that we’re neighbours, Mr Woodville.”

  “Please…” He raised a veined hand in admonition. “Don’t call me Mr Woodville.”

  “All right, if you—”

  “Vice-Commodore’ll do fine.”

  “Oh. Very well, Vice-Commodore.”

  “And we’re neighbours you say? How’s that?”

  “I’ve just moved into Woodside Cottage in the High Street.”

  “Oh, right. Really? Place needs a hell of a lot of work, doesn’t it?”

  “I quite like it as it is.”

  “Do you?” Denis Woodville scratched his bald dome in disbelief. “Good heavens.”

  “And you’re just down nearer the sea? Carole showed me. The house with the dinghy in the front garden.”

  “That’s the one, yes.”

  “Next door to the Chilcotts.” Jude was apparently unaware of the clouding of the Vice-Commodore’s expression as she chattered on. “I’ve only met Sandra and Bill briefly. I look forward to getting to know them better.”

  “I wouldn’t get too excited about the prospect,” said Denis Woodville darkly.

  “Oh? Is he a member of the club here?”

  Carole couldn’t decide whether Jude had calculated the effect of her innocent inquiry, but it was certainly explosive.

  “Bill Chilcott? A member of the Fethering Yacht Club? Oh, for heaven’s sake! We do have quite strict requirements for entry here, you know. The last thing we want is the kind of jumped-up little creep who talks about boats and sailing all the time and in fact doesn’t know a blind thing about any of it.”

  “Ah.”

  “This is a serious Yacht Club, you know.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “The likes of Bill Chilcott have to moor their boats up on the public moorings. Bloody weekend sailors!”

  The Vice-Commodore seemed belatedly to realize that this diatribe wasn’t the approved method of welcoming a new resident. Swallowing his spleen, he announced formally, “Anyway, I do hope you’ll be very happy in Fethering.” And then, in apparent contradiction of much he’d already said, he went on, “You’ll find people round here are very friendly…I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name when you came in…”

  “Jude.”

  “Ah. Jude what?”

  “People just call me Jude.” Carole had a little inward seethe at another missed opportunity to get more information, and was surprised to hear Jude go on, “Did you hear about that poor boy who drowned, Vice-Commodore?”

  “What? Oh yes, of course I did. Another ‘Fethering Floater’.”

  “Sorry, what does that mean?”

  “Bit of local folklore you could call it. Based on a peculiarity of the tides round here. Fether’s not much more than a stream really, but it’s got a nasty kick at high water. Moves pretty damn fast. Strange thing is, though, you’d have thought it’d take a body out a long way to sea. But no. Anyone who’s so unfortunate as to fall into the Fether—or so damn stupid as to jump into it—some cross-current gets them, and they usually turn up on Fethering beach within twenty-four hours. They’re your ‘Fethering Floaters’. Name goes back hundreds of years, I’ve been told. A bit ghoulish…Still, nice to have a few local traditions, eh? Something for the tourists to get their teeth into.”

  The Vice-Commodore seemed unaware of any potential bad taste in his remarks, given Aaron Spalding’s recent death. He looked at his watch and said for the second time, “Anyway, ladies, I think I’d better be closing up for the afternoon. So, if you’ll excuse me…”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Carole and Jude stood up.

  Outside the weather had, if anything, worsened. The rain had turned to stinging sleet and the day was dwindling into darkness. It was also bitterly cold. Soon the sleet would stop and a major freeze-up set in. Denis Woodville let the two women through the small gate beside the clubhouse and reached into his pocket for the key to its padlock.

  “So, if you see any more Fethering Yacht Club property round the place, you let me know. And I’ll get on to the police sharpish. These little buggers have got to be caught and taught some sense of responsibility. They’ve got to learn to respect other people’s property, and if it took horse-whipping to achieve that end…well, you wouldn’t hear any complaints from me. What about you?”

  Gracefully, Carole avoided answering the question by saying, “Thank you so much for your time, Vice-Commodore. If we all work together, I’m sure we can make Fethering a much more secure place to live in.”

  “Absolutely certain we can. May I accompany you back up to the High Street, ladies?”

  “Well, since we’re all going the same—”

  “That’s very kind,” said Jude, “but in fact we were going to have a walk along the beach before it gets completely dark.”

  “Were we?”

  “Yes,” Jude informed Carole firmly.

  TWELVE

  “Are you really looking for a job as a barmaid?” Carole couldn’t help asking as they pressed on into the icy gloom.

  “Good heavens, no,” Jude replied. “I just said that to keep the old boy sweet.”

  “So what, do you have a job or are you retired?”

  “Ah, you mean what do I live on?”

  Carole wouldn’t have put it quite that crudely, but she admitted that yes, that was more or less what she meant.

  Jude chuckled. “Like the rest of us, I live on money. And money comes and money goes, doesn’t it?”

  This did not come within Carole’s definition of an adequate answer, but she had no time to probe further as her sleeve was snatched and Jude’s voice hissed in her ear, “It’s all right. He’s gone.”

  “What?”

  A gloved hand waved up towards the top of the beach. “Our Vice-Commodore. He’s out of sight.”

  “So?”

  “So he can’t see what we’re doing.” And, tugging on Carole’s arm, Jude pulled her round, so that they were both walking back the way they cam
e.

  “I wish you’d tell me what we are doing,” Carole complained.

  “We’re going back to where you found the body on the beach. The water’s far enough out for us to see.”

  “But we’re not going to see anything. The tide’s washed over the area a good few times by now.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  However, Jude granted her no more information until they were standing at the foot of the breakwater, where, in what seemed like another lifetime, a dead man with a missing tooth had lain. Out of sight now in the encroaching darkness, the relentless thudding of the pile driver continued, eerily echoing off the sea.

  Jude looked at the water-filled indentation at the foot of one of the breakwater’s worn stanchions. “It was here?”

  “Yes. Exactly here.”

  Scrunching up her eyes, Jude looked across the rain-slicked sand to where the pebbles started. “And you say the tide was coming in?”

  “Yes.”

  “So how far was it away from the breakwater when you found the body? How far did it have to come in to reach here?”

  “About twenty yards.”

  “Hm.” Jude nodded thoughtfully. “Well, there’s no way the body was swept out to sea again.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because if the incoming tide was going to move him at all, it’d move him further up the beach. He wouldn’t be swept out till after the tide had changed. And the police came to see you too soon after they hadn’t found the body for that to have happened.”

  The deduction was undeniably true. Carole was surprised to encounter this new, logical streak in her neighbour.

  “So…” Jude spun on her booted heel and looked around the semicircle towards the village. She stopped, facing the Fethering Yacht Club. “I think we go back up there.”

  “Hm?”

  “For anyone who wanted to hide a body, it’s the nearest place, isn’t it?”