The Body on the Beach

by Simon Brett

  ‘We were horrified when we found it. There was just moonlight – the moon was full that night – and –’ he shuddered – ‘we could only see this outline. But we knew he was dead. And then Dylan . . .’

  ‘Was Dylan as surprised to see the body as you and Aaron were? Or did he know it was going to be there?’

  Nick Kent gave a decided shake of his head. ‘He was shocked, just like us. Pretended not to be, pretended he was Mr Cool, but it got to him all right. And then . . .’

  The boy was having second thoughts about continuing, so Jude repeated coaxingly, ‘And then?’

  He made up his mind to go on. ‘And then Dylan had this mad idea. He’s into all this occult stuff, you know, black magic, the Undead, all that kind of thing . . . and he said that if Aaron and I wanted to show we were really hard . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  Nick flinched, as though he were trying to flick something off his face. ‘No, no, I can’t tell you.’

  ‘Was it something to do with the knife?’ asked Jude.

  The boy slumped back, resistance gone. The woman seemed to know everything anyway. He might as well tell her. ‘Yes,’ he agreed flatly. ‘He said if Aaron and me were really hard . . . he said cutting a dead man’s flesh under a full moon, it’d make us strong . . . and then if we wrote our names in our own blood and left them on the body . . . we’d have special powers . . . if we did it . . .’

  ‘And you believed him?’

  ‘We’d had a lot to drink. And the weed . . . the cannabis, you know. We weren’t thinking straight. And Dylan kept saying we were cowards and mother’s boys and . . . and then he took the knife and made a cut in the man’s neck. And then Aaron took the knife and he made a cut . . .’

  ‘And did you, Nick?’

  The boy looked away in embarrassment. ‘No. I couldn’t. I . . . Dylan said I was chicken, and I wouldn’t get the power that he and Aaron were going to get, but I . . . I just couldn’t . . .’

  The boy shuddered, too overcome by the recollection to speak.

  ‘And what about writing the names in blood?’

  ‘Aaron did that. He wrote his name. He wanted to have special powers. There’s a girl at school he fancies – he fancied. He wanted to have power over her.’

  ‘So he wrote his name and put it in the dead man’s pocket?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What about Dylan? Did he write his name?’

  ‘No, he said he didn’t need to. Because he was the leader and the power would come to him automatically.’

  Anger seethed within Jude, anger against Dylan. The older boy had egged on the others, probably making up his black magic mumbo-jumbo as he went along. But he wasn’t going to incriminate himself by leaving his name around the scene of the crime. He’d allow the gullible Aaron Spalding to do so, though – and no doubt build up the boy’s natural paranoia with garish tales of the Undead. Dylan, Jude felt sure, was directly responsible for Aaron’s suicide. But she felt equally sure the older boy would never be called to account for it.

  Her only comfort was the fact that it was Dylan who’d been careless enough to drop his Stanley knife in the boat. Without that she and Carole would never have made the connection to him.

  ‘And what about you, Nick? Did you write your name?’

  ‘No. Dylan said if I was too chicken to cut the man’s flesh, then I didn’t deserve to have any special powers. And they both laughed at me. Said I was just a kid and . . .’ The memory of his humiliation still festered.

  ‘And then what happened, Nick?’

  ‘We . . . I don’t know. We suddenly panicked when we realized what we’d done.’

  ‘But you personally hadn’t done anything.’

  ‘I’d broken into the club. I’d handled the dead body. We were all in a terrible state. I think the booze and the weed made it worse. Even Dylan lost his bottle. We didn’t want to leave any signs, any evidence, so we took the body out of the boat and we . . . and we . . .’

  ‘And you threw it over the sea wall into the Fether.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’ He was sobbing again. ‘You said you didn’t see us.’

  ‘I didn’t. And then you all went your separate ways home that night – yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But Aaron rang you the next morning. What did he say?’

  ‘He said he’d woken up early and he’d panicked about us having left some clue to what we’d done down at the Yacht Club . . . and he’d gone down to the beach . . .’

  ‘And found the body washed up by the tide.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Finally, there was corroboration for what Carole had seen on the Tuesday morning.

  ‘He was in a terrible state. He said the evil was coming back to haunt him, that the body was one of the Undead, and it was coming after him. So I went down to the beach and met Aaron,’ Nick went on, ‘and it was still nearly dark and we thought if we put the body back in the boat, then nobody’d ever know that we’d been there . . .’

  ‘And that’s what you did?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Huge sobs were shuddering through the boy’s frame. Jude reckoned she had got everything she was going to get out of him. ‘One final question . . . Your mother said it was after you’d come back in the morning that you were in the really bad state, not the night before . . .’

  ‘She didn’t see me the night before, did she? Anyway, I was still full of the booze and the cannabis . . . I just passed out. But the next morning . . . the shock hit me. I knew it wasn’t a dream. I knew we’d actually done it. I knew what I’d done.’

  Something prompted a renewed outburst of emotion, more powerful than any that had come before. The boy’s jaw trembled and his whole body shook uncontrollably.

  ‘What is it?’ pleaded Jude. ‘What is it? What was so terrible?’

  For a few moments he was incapable of framing any words, just mouthing hopelessly. Finally he managed to control himself. Nick Kent sounded like a very young child as he admitted, ‘I’d never seen a dead body before.’

  Chapter Twenty-four

  ‘Well, behaviour of that kind,’ concluded Carole, sitting back on her barstool in disgust, ‘is all too typical of the youth of today.’

  ‘That’s a very Fethering thing to say,’ said Jude.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s the kind of remark I’d have expected from some old codger whose skin’s already turned to tweed. Not from someone your age.’

  ‘I’m not young,’ Carole protested. But she was flattered by the implication.

  ‘You’re too young to start sounding off about “the youth of today”.’

  ‘But what Nick Kent and the others did was appalling.’ She lowered her voice as she catalogued: ‘Illegal drinking, taking drugs, breaking and entering – probably with intent to burgle – and then mutilating a corpse.’

  ‘He wasn’t involved in that.’

  ‘No, but he was in everything else. Really, Jude, am I supposed to condone that kind of behaviour?’

  ‘No, of course you’re not. But you didn’t see the boy. You didn’t see how much he was suffering.’

  ‘From what you’ve told me, he deserves to suffer. You’re not making excuses for him, are you?’

  ‘No, no. I’m just saying that Nick Kent has had a rough deal. And, OK, he drank and smoked dope, and OK, he gave in to peer pressure and behaved disgustingly, but at least you can understand why. Seeing his father fall apart before his eyes can’t have been easy.’

  ‘Huh,’ Carole snorted. ‘I’m sorry. If you’re trying to win me round to some woolly liberal idea that there’s a psychological explanation for everything, and criminals should take their shrinks to court with them to ensure that they get off with light sentences . . . well, you’re not going to convince me. If there’s one thing I learned from all my years in the Home Office, it’s that there is such a thing as evil within man. And that every criminal who is not technically insane has to take responsibilit
y for his or her own actions.’

  Jude took a long swallow from her wine glass before replying. This was the nearest during their brief acquaintance that she and Carole had come to a row. It demonstrated how little they knew of each other’s attitudes and politics. ‘I’m not excusing the boy’s behaviour,’ she said calmly. ‘I’m just saying, from the pain in his eyes, he’d hurt himself by what he’d done much more than he’d hurt anyone else. Now let me get you another drink.’

  She waved at the unfamiliar girl behind the counter, who came to sort out their needs. There were only the three of them in the bar. ‘Two large white wines, please. Ted not in tonight?’

  ‘He’s in the office out the back, talking to some people who came round.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Well, I say “people”,’ the girl insinuated. ‘In fact it’s the police.’

  ‘Really? What’ve they come for?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. I’m not one to pry,’ the girl replied righteously, as though it were Jude who’d initiated the speculation.

  ‘Some problem with the licence?’ suggested Carole, though that wasn’t what she was thinking.

  The pub door clattered behind them and they turned to see an agitated Denis Woodville approaching the bar.

  ‘Evening, Vice-Commodore.’

  ‘Oh, hello, ladies. Is Ted in?’ he asked the barmaid.

  ‘He’s out the back, talking to some people.’

  ‘The police, actually,’ said Jude, upstaging any second attempt from the barmaid to cast aspersions on her boss.

  ‘Is that so?’ The news seemed to be of significance to Denis Woodville.

  ‘Can I get you a drink, sir?’

  ‘Oh yes, all right. A large brandy, please.’

  ‘Soda or anything with that?’

  ‘Just on its own, thanks.’

  ‘No more break-ins at the club?’ asked Carole.

  ‘What?’ He seemed distracted. ‘No, no, I don’t think so. Though in fact it does seem that we have been the victim of criminal activity.’

  He might have elaborated on this portentously delivered hint had not Ted Crisp at that moment appeared through the door behind the bar. He looked as scruffy as ever, but unflustered. If the police presence had had anything to do with his own illegal activities, he wasn’t going to let it get to him.

  ‘Evening, Jude . . . Carole . . . Denis . . .’ His eyes moved along from face to face. ‘What’re you all looking at me like that for?’

  Denis Woodville voiced what the two women would have been too polite to raise. ‘I gather you’ve had the police with you . . .’

  ‘Yes. But don’t get the wrong impression. I haven’t done anything they could touch me for. My record is as driven snow-like as any of Cliff Richard’s.’

  ‘I wonder if they came to see you for the same reason they came to see me.’

  The landlord cocked an interrogative eye at the Vice-Commodore. ‘Missing person, was it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The barmaid hovered, all ears. ‘Oh, love,’ said Ted, ‘could you go and get us some tomato and orange juices from round the back? I noticed we was getting low.’

  With very bad grace, the girl slunk out of the bar. She needn’t have worried, though. It was only a temporary delay. She’d hear all the dirt soon enough. The Fethering grapevine was extremely efficient.

  ‘Look, if you both know, you might as well tell us,’ said Jude impatiently. ‘Come on, what’s it all about?’

  Ted Crisp saw no point in secrecy. ‘The police came in asking if I’d seen Rory Turnbull recently. Same with you, Denis?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But we only saw him this morning,’ Carole protested. ‘Up at his house.’

  ‘Well, maybe you’d better tell the police that,’ said Ted. ‘Though in fact they do know he was still at home at twelve, because he paid the cleaning lady when she left.’

  So the police must already have been out to Spindrift Lane to talk to Maggie. Jude wondered what effect their arrival must have had on the terrified Nick Kent.

  ‘Sometime after twelve, however,’ the landlord went on, ‘our Rory buggered off in the BMW. His wife got home round two and immediately raised the alarm.’

  ‘What? Was she afraid he’d run off with another woman?’ suggested Jude.

  Denis Woodville’s bald head was firmly shaken. ‘Can’t think so. There’s never been any talk of that kind of thing with Rory.’

  ‘It’s always the quiet ones. These things happen.’

  ‘Not in Fethering they don’t,’ said Carole tartly, before continuing, ‘But why did Barbara raise the alarm? Surely there’s no harm in a grown man going off for a drive in his own car when he feels like it?’

  ‘Not usually, I agree, there isn’t,’ said Ted. ‘But there is when he leaves a suicide note.’

  Chapter Twenty-five

  A silence followed Ted Crisp’s words. Then Jude said thoughtfully, ‘He certainly had the air of a man who was tired of life.’

  ‘Well, comes of being a dentist – living from hand to mouth all the time.’

  ‘You’ve already used that line, Ted.’ Carole may not have been much good at spotting the humour of jokes, but she could certainly recognize one she’d heard before.

  ‘Sorry. One of the hazards of a publican’s life. You’ve only got so many jokes, and you keep forgetting who was in the bar when you last told them.’

  ‘Mind you,’ Jude went on, as though this exchange hadn’t happened, ‘there’s a difference between being tired of life and actually ending it. What kind of major event is needed to push someone over the brink like that?’

  ‘It needn’t be a major event,’ said Carole. ‘When I worked for the Home Office, I was involved in a survey on suicides in prison. If a victim gets really depressed, often the tiniest reverse or setback will make them do it. They’re not rational at that point.’

  ‘No, but I’m sure something must’ve changed in Rory Turnbull’s life. I mean, he hated being a dentist. Apparently, he hated his wife too. And I’m certain he hated his mother-in-law. But he’d put up with all of that for years. Why is it suddenly now that he can’t take any more?’

  ‘I could tell you one reason . . .’ Denis Woodville spoke with the sly confidence of someone who had secret information to impart. He allowed himself a pause, sure of his audience’s attention, then went on, ‘Did I mention, ladies, when you came to see me at the club, that we’d had a bit of a problem with last year’s accounts?’

  Carole nodded. ‘Yes, you said the accountant had made a mistake.’

  ‘So I thought. The discrepancy involved was a little over a thousand pounds. Well, I had a meeting with the accountant yesterday and he took me through everything. It wasn’t their error. I’m afraid I had to eat rather a lot of humble pie for having even suspected them. No, it turned out that someone had actually been siphoning funds out of the club’s bank account.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘The only registered signatories for Fethering Yacht Club cheques are the Commodore, the Vice-Commodore and the Treasurer. Well, the Commodore has been abroad for the last four months, during which time most of the cheques were drawn. I can assure you I haven’t been putting my hand in the till – might have helped me out a bit if I had, but I haven’t. So that leaves the Treasurer.’

  He paused for dramatic effect, and was visibly miffed when Carole came in impatiently and upstaged him. ‘Who is, of course, Rory Turnbull.’

  ‘Yes,’ a tight-lipped Denis Woodville conceded. ‘So that might give him one reason for doing away with himself. He knew I was meeting the accountants yesterday. I imagine he just didn’t want to face the music.’

  ‘So he got into his BMW,’ Ted Crisp speculated, ‘drove up into the Downs, fixed a tube from the exhaust into the car’s interior—’

  ‘We don’t know that’s what happened, do we?’ asked Jude. ‘The police didn’t say they’d found him, did they?’

  ‘No,’ the landlord agreed. ‘B
ut from what they were saying, it’s pretty clear that’s what they were expecting to find.’

  ‘But why would he have done it?’ demanded Carole. ‘Put his hand in the Yacht Club till? For a thousand pounds? I mean, a thousand pounds would be very nice – none of us would say no to it . . .’

  ‘Certainly not.’ Denis Woodville’s agreement was heartfelt.

  ‘. . . but for someone in Rory Turnbull’s position – dentist’s salary, big house on the Shorelands Estate – a thousand pounds isn’t much. Certainly not enough for him to risk public humiliation and possible criminal proceedings. Why would he have done it?’

  ‘You’d be amazed.’ Ted Crisp shook his shaggy head at the recurrent follies of humankind. ‘Happens all the time – particularly in a place like Fethering. Somebody gets a position of power locally – only in the Cricket Club or the Yacht Club or something tinpot like that –’ he went on, apparently unaware of the Vice-Commodore’s bristling – ‘and they have access to another chequebook, and they suddenly think, “Ooh, I can get something out of this.” And they milk the funds. Just for the odd hundred they’ll do it. I don’t know why, but it certainly keeps happening.’

  ‘I suppose everyone needs money,’ Carole concluded. ‘People may look like they’ve got plenty, but we can’t see inside their bank accounts, can we? We can’t know what demands there are on their resources, what foolish investments they may have made, what reckless loans they’ve taken on. It’s one of the last taboos in this country, people actually talking about their financial affairs.’

  ‘You’re right.’ Ted Crisp looked at their glasses. ‘Come on, let’s have another drink. This round’s on me.’

  ‘That’s no way to make a profit,’ Carole observed.

  The landlord turned on her in mock anger. ‘Are you saying no? Are you saying you don’t want to take a drink from me?’

  She smiled graciously. ‘No, I’m not. Thank you very much indeed, Ted.’

  As she pushed her wine glass forward, she felt another little frisson from the knowledge that she, Carole Seddon, was in the Crown and Anchor, exchanging banter with the landlord and calling him by his first name. She’d come a long way in a week.