The Man by the Sea (The Slim Hardy Mystery Series Book 1)

by Jack Benton

  When he made the call, Slim decided to be straight up with June, and told the kindly-sounding, well-spoken lady that he was trying to track down an old friend.

  June invited him right over for afternoon tea.

  Glad he’d managed to stay sober for nearly a full day, Slim drove over, bringing the leaflet with him.

  He had to sign in at a central security desk, and was informed by a guard that, for general security purposes, his visit may be interrupted. Then he was led to a third-floor corridor and a door at the end. Through a fire door window he saw a pleasant view of hills and a lake glittering between them.

  The door opened. June Taylor peered up at him from a wheelchair, then gave him a welcoming smile more deserving of a long lost son. Her face was lined but kindly, like a familiar towel.

  ‘So nice to meet a fellow thespian,’ she said. ‘Won’t you come in?’

  The guard left them alone and returned to the downstairs reception. Slim followed June into a small living room where she had already prepared a tray of tea and biscuits. Warmth emanated from every corner: the photographs of family lining the shelves, the colourful throws over the sofa, the little table in front of the window with its collection of ornamental teddy bears.

  ‘I’m afraid I haven’t cleaned,’ June said, sounding genuinely apologetic, even though the place was spotless. ‘I wasn’t expecting company until tomorrow, when my son will visit.’

  Slim suddenly felt like a fraud. Sitting in this delightful room with this charming old lady, a hangover still gnawing at the back of his skull and an army of lies on his tongue ready to march out in procession, he fought an urge to confess like a gum ball that needed spitting out.

  ‘Um, Mrs Taylor—’

  ‘I got out some old pamphlets,’ she said, picking up a bundle by her feet, and the dice were left uncast. ‘You’re an old friend of Ted’s, aren’t you?’

  ‘I knew him from school,’ Slim said. ‘But I moved away and we lost touch. I had this flyer lying around, but that’s my only link to him. I know it’s likely to get me nowhere, but it was a place to start.’

  ‘I’m afraid I haven’t seen him in years, not since he left the club, not long after this. It was shortly after Joanna died, actually. My, my, Ted was heartbroken.’

  And there, just like magic, a link. Slim took a slow breath and concentrated on getting the flurry of words on his tongue out in the correct order.

  ‘Joanna was his girlfriend?’

  June gave a fervent shake of the head. ‘Oh, no. But any fool could see they were perfect for each other. Any fool except Joanna, who had that other man she planned to marry.’

  The way her tone dipped suggested distaste. Perhaps June had a more romantic view of the world than Slim did.

  ‘She was beautiful?’

  ‘Oh, an oil painting. You’ll never have seen a more beautiful lady in all your life. She could act, too. She certainly had a career ahead of her. Here, this is her.’

  June held out a pamphlet. The front picture showed an ensemble cast at the front of a stage at the end of a performance. Creases obscured some faces, and one third was faded from a folded side left too long in the sun.

  In the centre, though, the two leads shone resplendent, their smiles filled with confidence and joy.

  ‘This is her?’

  ‘Joanna? Yes, that’s her. The best Juliet I ever produced. And that’s your friend, Ted.’

  He was barely recognizable from the stooped, morose figure Slim had watched through binoculars for the last two months. His arms were held aloft as though he could carry the weight of the world and laugh off all its problems.

  The title read, Romeo and Juliet.

  ‘Ted was the lead?’ Slim asked.

  June smiled fondly. ‘They had such chemistry. Everyone could see it. We were never a huge company, but our performances always did well. We were selling a thousand tickets a night for our last couple of shows, and I’m sure a lot of that was down to Ted and Joanna. I was thinking we might do a tour. Then Joanna died, and Ted was so broken up by it that he quit and moved away. We carried on for a few years, but it was never the same. I could never find two leads with quite the same magic.’

  ‘And you don’t know what happened to Ted?’

  June shrugged. ‘I believe he moved south. If he came back, I’d never know. He has certainly never come to visit. I don’t think he could. Too many memories and all that.’

  ‘Joanna?’

  ‘He was devastated. He was like a wrecking ball. The night after she died he broke into the club and ran amok, breaking props, destroying costumes, burning scripts. I knew it was him because I caught him at it. I could have pressed charges, but I didn’t have the heart.’

  ‘You say Joanna died?’

  ‘She drowned at Cramer Cove, the night before her wedding. Such a tragedy. Shocking.’

  ‘And you don’t believe there was any foul play?’

  For the first time, June gave Slim a look of exasperation. ‘I’m a romantic, but I’m also a realist. The coroner’s report was conclusive. I haven’t the foggiest idea what she was doing down there. Likely no one does. I know she did like to practice her lines outdoors. Maybe that was it. For some reason she fancied a swim.’

  ‘You don’t think Ted—’

  ‘Not for an instant. He was besotted. Absolutely. And afterward, the Ted we had known, the fantasist, the dreamer, was gone. It’s not a lie to say that part of him died with Joanna. So, Mr Hardy, when you finally catch up with him, he might not be the man you remember.’

  Slim nodded. ‘A lot of time has passed. You said they weren’t a couple? I did hear a rumour elsewhere that Ted was married. I don’t know about children.’

  June nodded. ‘He was an attractive man. It’s likely he settled for someone. Many of us do, even if the love of our life might have eluded us.’ She gave a fond smile. ‘I was married to my old Jim for forty years, rest his soul. A wonderful, loving man, but steady as an old bus. I rarely felt that ... oomph after the first couple of years.’ Her eyes twinkled, and for a moment the years fell away. ‘There was someone once ... but that’s another story. I won’t lie that the reason I cast Ted and Joanna as the leads was as a shameless attempt to match-make. We were all in on it.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘Joanna had an old boyfriend from college she had agreed to marry sometime before she joined the company. Turner, he was called. That was his first name. A bland nobody, worked in taxes. But Joanna was stubborn. She had agreed to his proposal, and it would have been too messy to break it off. I know what she felt for Ted. I had her crying on my shoulder one night.’

  ‘About Ted?’

  June nodded. ‘About everything.’

  ‘So she planned to go through with it.’

  ‘Absolutely. Even though we both knew she was turning away from true happiness.’

  ‘If you don’t mind me asking, where was Ted on the night Joanna died?’

  ‘I believe he was at home. He was of course interviewed by police, and he claimed to have been home in his room, practicing his lines for our upcoming production along with a taped version of Joanna’s. His mother told police she had heard voices into the early morning.’

  ‘What about the boyfriend? What was his name ... Turner? What happened to him?’

  June shrugged and shook her head. ‘I didn’t know him well so I can’t say. His fiancée—I’m sure he was distraught. It was a tough time. I heard he moved away and later married. I saw him around town once with a couple of children. I think Turner got over Joanna and moved on. Ted, he might have gone through the motions, but I don’t think he ever got over Joanna. He can’t have.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘You can’t understand, and I can’t explain it in a way that would make you, but Ted and Joanna ... they were like halves of the same soul. And they realised it too late.’

  32

  WORRIED HE WAS TIRING HER, Slim bid June farewell and headed home, his m
ind swirling with emotions he couldn’t have expected.

  So, Ted and Joanna had known each other, possibly even been lovers. Joanna’s death had devastated Ted, causing him to give up his dream of working in the arts, move south, and end up working a dull office job.

  After returning to his flat via a stop at a supermarket for supplies, Slim switched on the radio link to the bug he hoped was now in Ted’s room at the hospital, then scrawled his ideas down on a sheet of paper. Another link had formed, but there were so many doors yet to close. The book and the Friday visits to Cramer Cove had taken on a greater significance. Ted, a fantasist and dreamer, in June’s words, believed Joanna was haunting him. And the nature of his words—forgive me—suggested he harboured a responsibility for her death.

  More missed calls had come in while Slim was with June. Arthur, saying he had procured the crime scene photos. A manager from Ted’s former company, stating they held no such records for employee business trips, but that if they did, they would be classified company information anyway. And two from Emma, saying she was afraid and needed to see him.

  Slim got back to sorting through the box of Ted’s papers, but the deeper he delved, the less he felt he would find anything. It all felt sanitised, as if Ted had removed anything of any use, leaving only junk: shopping lists, bank statements, receipts for local restaurants, notes for reminders of tennis matches, memos of missed phone calls from double-glazing companies.

  Slim poured himself a a tall glass of whisky and began writing down all the dates he could find. Something, somewhere had to hold. Ted was the acting, poet son of a respected local vet, and Joanna Bramwell, engaged to be married to Turner, he of the first name, was Ted’s unrequited love. She had drowned at Cramer Cove on the night before her wedding while Ted practiced his lines for their upcoming performance of Romeo and Juliet. In the intervening years, Joanna’s supposed ghost had been seen on multiple occasions, and three other drownings at Cramer Cove could be linked—circumspectly, at least—to her. There was even a rumour that Joanna had survived her supposed death, and Ted, at least, believed she was haunting him.

  Slim skim-read a receipt for horse-tranquilliser, and felt like head-butting the nearest wall.

  There was something, just out of reach. Not an answer, maybe, but at least a clue. Perhaps Arthur’s pictures would shed some light. Slim stood up to go to bed, almost knocking over his glass on his unsteady feet.

  ‘I miss you...’

  Slim coughed, his chest tightening. He spun, looking for the source of the voice, saw only the recording device he had left on.

  ‘I miss you, too.’

  Slim stumbled as he moved toward it, tripped, and hit his forehead on the edge of a chair.

  Pain bloomed. He rolled onto his back, clutching his face, as a gravelly voice repeated over and over:

  ‘Never leave me ... never leave me ... never leave me...’

  33

  ‘VISITING HOURS CLOSED AT EIGHT. And the hospital confirmed there was no one in Ted’s room after that time other than scheduled doctors and nurses. It’s also impossible that he spoke because he’s still hooked up to a ventilator that he couldn’t have removed by himself.’

  ‘Then I’m going insane.’

  Arthur smiled. ‘You and me both. There was nothing else?’

  Slim shook his head, a gesture which sent judders of pain through him. His own visit to the hospital this morning was still fresh in his mind, even though he had been released with a clean bill of health and the advice to drink less.

  ‘I knocked the machine when I tripped and disconnected the receiver. It’s like there’s a conspiracy against me.’

  ‘I got you the pictures,’ Arthur said. ‘I’m still waiting on the DNA guy, but the enhanced photos should come back tomorrow.’

  He slid an envelope across the table. Slim sighed as he took it.

  ‘You know, there are times I want out of this mess,’ he said. ‘This isn’t what I was hired for. I’m broke. I’m not getting paid for this. I want to walk away ... but I can’t.’ He shook his head. ‘Not until I know.’

  ‘If this is really Joanna Bramwell, back from the dead?’

  Slim gave Arthur a weary smile. ‘Something like that. Hopefully before she decides she has a bone to pick with me and lines me up in her crosshairs. Right, let’s take a look at these.’

  ‘Are you going to tell me what you’re looking for?’

  ‘Only if I find it.’

  Frowning, Slim shuffled through the photographs of Andrea Clark, Becca Lees, and Elizabeth Tanton. Those of Elizabeth, the most recent of the three, were clearest, but those of Becca, the youngest, were most harrowing. At least she looked peaceful in death, her eyes closed, almost a smile on her lips.

  Slim looked over each, moving the close-ups to one side and focusing on those showing the whole scene.

  ‘Goddamn it, it’s there,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  He pointed at a photo of Andrea, lying face down. A handful of shells lay in a crease of her clothing, scattered like someone leaving the first handful of dirt at a loved one’s funeral.

  ‘What did the report find in Elizabeth’s pockets?’

  Arthur lifted a sheet of paper. ‘Just a handful of broken shells she was collecting for her art project.’

  ‘Did the report mention what variety?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘I doubt broken shells would be useful, would they? Not for a serious artist like Elizabeth Tanton?’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘And look here.’ Slim pointed at the sand beside Andrea Clark’s head. ‘That grey area? Anything in the notes say what that is?’

  Arthur shook his head. ‘Nothing. Just part of the beach.’

  ‘It’s not part of the natural beach. Look at its colour. In some parts of the world, spotting an unnatural line in the sand can stop you getting your face blown off.’

  ‘I guess you would know.’

  Slim was quiet a moment, remembering the time he had failed to spot one, and its consequences.

  ‘Look.’ He retrieved a jar from his bag, then unscrewed the lid and upended the contents onto the tabletop.

  ‘Been beach combing?’

  ‘I picked these up off the road near Ted’s car accident.’

  ‘A handful of broken shells?’

  Slim nodded. ‘A handful of broken shells, similar to those found in the vicinity of the previous three people to die at Cramer Cove. You know what this is, don’t you?’

  Arthur nodded slowly. ‘It proves it, doesn’t it? It’ll never stand up in court, but still, it’s proof they were murdered.’

  ‘And by the same person. What I think is that this is the calling card of a killer.’

  Arthur didn’t buy it, Slim was sure, but it made perfect sense in his mind. Sure, it was tenuous, and had little value in court, but it was another link. With no evidence in the photographs of Joanna’s body that the same calling card had been left, it meant her death could be disassociated from the other three.

  And that opened up a terrifying possibility.

  There was no change in Ted’s condition, according to Arthur, who was in regular contact with the hospital. He remained unconscious, hooked up to a ventilator.

  After bidding Arthur farewell, Slim called Emma, and met up with her in Ted’s family’s fishing cabin. She had wanted to meet at his place again, but with paraphernalia from the case strewn everywhere, she would ask questions for which he had no answers. Meeting her in public, too, was a risk; it was possible, in the light of Ted’s accident, that his wife might attract journalistic interest.

  Slim didn’t waste any time telling her what he wanted to say.

  ‘I think you should leave town for a while,’ he said. ‘If you have family down south, could you perhaps stay with them?’

  ‘I can’t,’ she said, as Slim had expected. ‘You know I no longer love Ted, but how would it look for me to abandon him?’

  ‘I think you
should seek police advice,’ he said. ‘I don’t believe it to be safe in Carnwell for you. Not until everything is cleared up.’

  He didn’t specify what he meant, but Emma shook her head. ‘I’m not running away,’ she said. ‘And what about us?’

  ‘If someone is after Ted, I’m not sure if I can protect you,’ he said, deflecting the main thrust of her question. Their relationship was a situation he needed to address soon, but for now it could wait.

  ‘Do you think his accident was just that, or something else?’

  Slim shrugged. ‘I was informed by the police that it’s not uncommon for accidents to occur on that stretch of road. At the moment they’re not treating it as suspicious, but they haven’t concluded the investigation yet.’

  Emma shrugged. ‘It was a new car,’ she said. ‘He’d had that sedan for years. I don’t think he was used to the new one yet. His foot might have hit the wrong pedal, who knows? It happens.’

  Slim nodded. ‘It looks like an accident,’ he said.

  Emma nodded. ‘I actually feel happier, knowing that.’

  They had sex, then parted company, Emma to run some errands, Slim to return to his flat, where he found nothing to do but get drunk and sit in front of the television. There wasn’t much on, so he put on a DVD he had forgotten to return to the public library, and sat watching Romeo and Juliet while waiting for a bolt of inspiration to strike.

  He was avoiding what he needed to do, but if he were honest with himself, he hadn’t been this scared since his days on active duty. His discharge from the military had been an embarrassment, but he didn’t miss it. Knowing there were sniper sights and booby traps with his name on them had never made for easy sleeping, and now he was getting too close to a possible serial killer for his liking. If the ghost of Joanna Bramwell was an angel of vengeance swooping down to ruin the lives of Ted Douglas and his family, it might pay to stay out of her way.