Bones Under The Beach Hut (12 page)

    'You
said the Olivers were more outgoing
before,
which suggests to me that
something happened to make them less outgoing.'

    'No,
I didn't mean that. I didn't mean anything. Just that they've got older.'

    'Right.'
Carole and Jude exchanged looks. They both knew that Reginald Flowers was
holding something back. Equally they both knew that they wouldn't get it out of
him at that moment. But in time they would try to find out more about the
Olivers.

    Carole
moved the conversation on. 'Then there's that grandmother, the one in the beach
hut called
Seagull's Nest.'

    'Ah
yes.' Reginald Flowers spoke without enthusiasm. 'Her name's Deborah Wrigley.
Lives in one of those big houses on the Shorelands Estate, you know, over in
Fethering.' The two women nodded. They knew all about the exclusively gated
Shorelands Estate. People there were even more up themselves than the
inhabitants of Smalting.

    'Anyway,
Deborah Wrigley's husband was something big in the City. Banker I think. Died
maybe six years ago, very soon after retirement, probably the poor bastard
succumbed to the effects of twenty-four hour nagging when he was at home all
the time. Left his wife as rich as Croesus, and she now devotes her life to
bitchy bridge parties, that is when she's not playing her children off against
each other about their potential inheritances . . . oh, and bullying her
grandchildren.'

    Carole
awarded herself an inward nod of satisfaction. Her initial assessment of
Deborah Wrigley's character seemed to have been 100 per cent accurate.

    'She's
extremely put out at the moment,' Reginald Flowers continued with relish.
'Seagull's Nest
is in the row that's still cordoned off by the police. Like
The Bridge . .
.' But he only allowed himself a brief moment of
wistfulness. 'Deborah Wrigley's been bending the ear of that jumped-up little
jack-in-office Kelvin Southwest about the situation. But of course he can't do
anything. He just has to wait till the police decide the huts can be opened
again. Like the rest of us. So the lovely Deborah must be continuing to
antagonize her family somewhere else at the moment.'

    Carole
and Jude didn't reckon they were going to get much more out of him on Deborah
Wrigley, but Jude made a mental note to check whether Philly Rose had had
anything to do with the grandmother from hell. After all,
Seagull's Nest
was directly next door to
Quiet Harbour.

    Carole
had meanwhile moved on to the subject of the SBHA's security officer. 'You
haven't had any insights from him, have you, Reginald, you know, about what
happened at
Quiet Harbour?'

    'No.
And I don't expect any.' Curt Holderness was clearly another on the list of people
disapproved of by Reginald Flowers. 'I regret that his powers of vigilance
leave a lot to be desired. Not very punctilious in the discharge of his duties,
I'm afraid. But then Kelvin Southwest had a considerable influence on the
appointment.'

    Carole
immediately picked up the subtext of this. 'A bit of mutual backscratching
involved - is that what you're saying?'

    'It's
exactly what I'm saying, yes.'

    Interesting
how whenever Kelvin Southwest's name came up, it brought with it the slight
whiff of minor corruption.

    There
was a hiatus while their sweets were delivered, but after a brief discussion
about the enduring appeal of nursery foods like spotted dick, Carole resumed
her fact-finding mission. 'Actually, Reginald, there's another hut user I—'

    'Not
"hut user", Carole, "hutter".'

    'Hutter,'
she repeated, unconvinced that the word would ever trip naturally off her
tongue. 'Anyway, there was another one I wanted to ask you about. I don't know
if you'll know who I mean . . .'

    'I think,
Carole,' he said with quiet complacency, 'you will find that, as President of
the Smalting Beach Hut Association, I know about the people in
all
of
the huts.'

    'Yes,
well, the hut I'm interested in is called
Shrimphaven.'
Slight annoyance
crossed his face at the name. 'It's right next door to
Fowey,
the one
I'm currently using. There's a young woman in it.'

    'Yes,
I know the one you mean. Sits there all day and half the night with one of
those laptops.'

    'Do
you know what she's doing there?'

    'No.
I've asked her on more than one occasion and she won't tell me.' It clearly
irked him that he couldn't provide a more complete answer. 'I think I may have
to take my enquiries further. You know, as President of the Smalting Beach Hut
Association. I may even have to involve Kelvin Southwest.' He spoke the name
with distaste. 'I mean, there are regulations about the proper uses of these
beach huts. If we were to discover that someone was running a business from one
of them . . . well, action would have to be taken.'

    'What
kind of action would there—?' But Carole's question was interrupted by the
sound from the bar of a glass smashing.

    Reginald
Flowers looked across to the source of the noise, shook his head knowingly and said,
'Oh dear, here comes trouble.'

    The
cause of the commotion at the bar of The Crab Inn was a tall man with long,
greying hair. Dressed in paint-spattered denim shirt and jeans, he was swaying
slightly as he took issue with the black-clad French greeter.

    'Look,
all I want to do is buy a drink,' he was remonstrating in an aggrieved, languid
upper-class accent.

    'And
I've told you, Mr Czesky, that I can't allow you to do that. The manager has
banned you from this pub.'

    'Yes,
but you're not the manager. I bet the manager isn't even in today.'

    'No,
he isn't as it happens.'

    'See,
taking Sunday off. Your manager doesn't want to let work spoil his weekend,
does he? So, since he's not here, he need never know that you've let me buy a
drink.' The man pulled a crumpled pile of banknotes out of his pocket and
scattered them on the counter. 'Look, my money's as good as anyone else's.
Legal tender, got Her Majesty's face plastered all over it.'

    'Mr
Czesky, you've already broken a wine glass. There are a lot of other people
waiting to be served.' It was true. While Carole and Jude had been talking to
Reginald Flowers the pub had filled up considerably. 'I must ask you to leave.'

    'Well,
where else am I supposed to go? This is the only pub in Smalting, and pubs, you
know, by tradition used to be places that would welcome anyone, particularly
locals. Everyone in the village would come in and have a pint, the toffs mixing
with the fisherman. Now suddenly The Crab Inn has become the exclusive preserve
of the tight-arsed upper middle class - is that what you think is happening?
Well, it isn't. This lot . . .'he gestured wildly round the bar ' . . . this
lot haven't got any real class. Add all the real class in the bar together and
the lump you'd come up with would be smaller than my little finger.'

    The
greeter in black kept trying to interrupt, but the tall man seemed only just to
be getting into his flow. 'This whole area is so bloody up itself. Oh, it's all
right if you've spent your life in some bloody office, working in insurance or
banking or some other way of screwing money out of people. But no one has
interest in the individuals who really add something to the value of this
world. Look at all these people . . .' Another uncoordinated gesture round the
bar. 'Forget their class - if you added together all the artistic talent
they've got, it wouldn't be enough to cover my bloody fingernail. But you're
happy to sell drinks to these talent-free clones, aren't you? Whereas someone
like me, someone who's slightly different, someone with a bit of artistic
talent, who doesn't fit into one of the moulds that you've—'

    How
long he might have gone on who could say - he certainly seemed to have got into
his groove - but he was at this point interrupted by a woman who had just
entered the bar. She was a short plump blond in her forties of rather faded
beauty and with permanent worry lines between her eyebrows. Her dress was blue
cotton with white broderie anglaise trimmings.

    'Gray,'
she said, with a hint of a foreign accent. 'Come on, you must come home.'

    'Why
should I?' he asked truculently. But it was the truculence of a little boy who
had already conceded victory. He could have protested to the pub's greeter all
day, but this woman - presumably wife or girlfriend - had instant control over
him. With a gesture of contempt to everyone in the room, the man turned and
meekly followed the woman out of The Crab Inn.

    Carole
and Jude, who had been too absorbed by the scene at the bar to speak up until
this point, both turned to Reginald Flowers for some explanation.

    'Gray
Czesky,' he announced. 'Calls himself an artist.'

    'And
has he got one of the beach huts?' asked Carole.

    'Good
heavens, no. We don't want people like that in the Smalting Beach Hut
Association. He's got a house on the front.'

    'What,
here in Smalting?' asked Carole, surprised.

    'But
those houses on the front are all rather splendid. He doesn't look the sort to
own one of them. Unless he's a very successful artist.'

    'So
far as I know,' said Reginald Flowers, 'he's completely unsuccessful. I've no
idea whether he has any talent or not.'

    'Those
are his watercolours on the wall over there. I noticed the name while we were
getting the drinks.'

    'Are
they? Well, maybe he makes a few bob selling those.'

    'Perhaps
he's got a private income?'

    'Of a
kind. You see, the one thing Gray Czesky does have is a rich wife. That's why
he can afford to live on the seafront at Smalting.'

    'Presumably
it was his wife who took him out just now?'

    'Yes.
Helga. Constantly having to bail him out of somewhere. God, what some women are
prepared to put up with.'

    'It
must be
lurve,'
Jude suggested.

    That
got a very dismissive snort from the President of the Smalting Beach Hut
Association. The two women got the impression that love in any of its forms did
not register highly on his list of priorities.

    For
the rest of their meal Reginald Flowers moved back into ranting anti-immigrant
mode, so that Carole and Jude were quite relieved when it was time to settle up
and return to the beach. Their lunch companion didn't leave at the same time.
He had been nursing the contents of his second pint and clearly planned to eke
it out a little longer. Saying their goodbyes, both women were again aware of
the deep loneliness in his eyes. He couldn't really function properly without
his haven of
The Bridge
to go to.

    As
they walked back towards
Fowey
with Gulliver, Carole looked up at the
three or four splendid houses on the Smalting promenade. Someone who lived in
one of them - like Gray Czesky - had a perfect observation point to see
everything that happened on the beach. It was worth bearing in mind.

    The
other thought that struck her was that in just a week's time she'd have Gaby
and Lily with her.

    They
didn't stay long in front of
Fowey
after lunch. With sad British
predictability, the weather had turned. While they had been inside The Crab Inn
the cloudless sky of the morning had become overcast with dull clouds and the
rain was starting to spit down.

    In
the Renault on the way back to Fethering, Carole and Jude assessed the new
information they had got from Reginald Flowers and were forced to admit it
wasn't very much. They were faced by an impasse, which would probably remain
until the police revealed more about the human remains that had been
discovered. Carole felt a bit headachey after the lunchtime wine and the two
women parted at the gate of High Tor. By then it was raining heavily.

    Once
she'd brushed the sand off Gulliver, Carole sat down in her front room with the
Sunday Times,
and was annoyed to find half an hour later that she had dozed
off. She disapproved strongly of going to sleep during the day, regarding it as
one of the many slippery slopes towards old age that must be avoided at all
costs.