Bones Under The Beach Hut (18 page)

    
Shrimphaven
was still locked up. Whatever it was that the girl did in there on her laptop,
she wasn't doing it that Monday afternoon.

    Outside
Mistral,
as ever, Lionel Oliver, still apparently dressed for the office,
lay back on his deckchair, his suit jacket hanging over its back. There was no
sign of his wife but, as Carole approached, he waved down to the shoreline and
she saw Joyce walking along with her bare feet in the water.

    'Loves
paddling,' the old man observed. 'The wife's always loved paddling. Even now
she's whatever age she is.'

    'Well,
there's nothing like the feeling of the sand between one's toes,' said Carole,
more expansive than usual. The fact that she would do anything to avoid the
feeling of the sand between her toes was not relevant. Making conversation with
people on Smalting Beach was now part of an ongoing enquiry, and Carole had
always been more at ease doing things for a work purpose rather than just in
her own persona.

    She
was surprised how affable Lionel Oliver appeared. When she'd seen him before,
he'd looked detached, 'in a world of his own' as Joyce had put it. But now he
seemed ready to talk, and it wasn't an opening that Carole was about to waste.
Any of the regular beach hut users were potential witnesses to what had really
happened on Smalting Beach.

    She
told Lionel her name and he gave her his. Though they had been aware of each
other on the beach, this was the first time they had actually spoken. Then
Carole moved into investigative mode.

    'Terrible
business, wasn't it?' She nodded over towards
Quiet Harbour.

    'What's
that?'

    She
spelled it out. 'What was found under the beach hut there.'

    'Oh
yes,' he said. 'Most beaches have had their tragedies. Funny how everyone
thinks of a beach as a friendly place and you look out from somewhere like here
and the tide goes out so far and you think of the sea as a warm, friendly
thing. But it has great power. Even here it has power to wash people away,
power to drown them.'

    Carole
wasn't quite sure what kind of conversation she'd been expecting from Lionel
Oliver, but it hadn't been a disquisition on the qualities of the sea. She
didn't make any comment, though. He hadn't finished yet.

    'I
worked as an undertaker,' he went on. 'And I suppose in that line of business
we do get closer to human tragedy than people in other walks of life. We see
people at their most disturbed, and we see the consequences of carelessness and
folly . . . and misery.'

    'Well,
most people are bound to be miserable when they lose someone,' suggested
Carole.

    But
that wasn't what he'd meant. 'I mean sometimes it's misery that makes someone
do something that requires an undertaker's services. It's very sad, that. I
mean, if you're dealing with bodies every day, you get a kind of immunity to
the sort of shock most people'd feel. Because most people, what, they see a
dead body once, twice in their lives perhaps? But we ... we never get to the
point of forgetting that the bodies we deal with are human beings - at least I
hope we don't. I hope I never did. But we get so's we can deal with bodies
without emotions getting in the way.

    'And
most of the bodies we dealt with . . . well, it's clearly a blessing that they
come to the end. Bodies that have been worn away by disease and decay and pain
. . . that cliché "a merciful release" . . . it's true for many of
them. But when there's a body there's nothing wrong with, that's when it gets
to you.'

    '"Nothing
wrong with"? But they're dead, aren't they?'

    'I'm
talking about the ones who needn't be dead, who've made the decision to die.'

    'Suicides?'

    The
old man nodded. He looked out over the placid grey-green sea as he continued,
'There was one did it here, you know.'

    'Oh?'

    'Ten
years back, maybe not that long. I didn't see it, not when it happened. But
obviously I saw the body. They'd got him out of the water quite quickly, so
there wasn't a mark on him. Wearing a suit he was, he'd come straight down to
the beach from his office. He worked in one of the Smalting estate agents. And
the reason he'd done it, well, it wasn't a good enough reason. I'm not sure
that anything's ever a good enough reason, not for that. Some girl he was in
love with had dumped him, that was all. I mean, all right, I can see you might
get upset over something like that, it might take you a few months, even a few
years to get over it, but's not a reason to top yourself, is it? Not enough
reason.'

    He
was silent for a moment, but Carole was confident he'd continue.

    'What
he'd done, how he did it . . . he'd just filled his pockets with stones, hardly
stones, really. There are not many big stones on the beach here, mostly just
shingle. And he'd put the shingle in the pockets of his jacket and his
trousers, and he'd just walked straight out into the sea.

    'It
was low tide, I heard, so it took him a long time before the water got up to
his knees, a long time till it got up to his waist, a long time till it got up
to his neck. So he had plenty of time to think about what he was doing, plenty
of time to change his mind. But he didn't.

    'There
were quite a lot of people on the beach, apparently, but no one did anything. I
don't think any of them realized what he was doing. Yes, perhaps they thought
it odd, a man dressed in a suit walking straight into the sea, but maybe they
thought it was some stunt, that he'd done it for a bet or something. And by the
time they'd realized that he'd disappeared under the sea and someone had phoned
the coastguard . . . well, it was too late.

    'And
when they brought the body to my parlour, there was, like I say, not a mark on
him. He must have worked out in a gym, he was well toned. Could have lasted
another fifty years. It was when I had to bury ones like that that it upset me.
That and the children too. You never quite get used to burying the children.'

    The
old man shrugged, shook his head and relapsed into silence.

    After
a few moments, Carole said softly, 'And now there's another dead body on
Smalting Beach.'

    'Mm?'
He came out of his reverie and looked puzzled.

    'I
was meaning the body under
Quiet Harbour.'

    'Oh
yes.' He spoke without much interest in the subject.

    'You
haven't heard any thoughts from anyone as to who it might have been . . . ?'

    'No,'
he said, almost sharply. 'Well, that is to say I've heard lots of thoughts from
lots of people - all rubbish. I'm sure when the police have identified the
remains, they will make an announcement as to who it is.' Again he spoke as if
the subject was rather tiresome, not something that impinged on his own life.

    Carole
didn't think she would have found out much more from Lionel Oliver, but was in
fact prevented from asking further questions by the return of his wife from her
paddle. 'Lionel been keeping you amused, has he?'

    'He's
been very interesting.'

    'Oh
yes? That probably means he's been talking to you about undertaking. It's a
subject that was never very interesting while he was doing the job, and hasn't
got any more interesting since he's retired.' But Joyce Oliver spoke with
affection and no rancour.

    After
his surprisingly personal monologue, her husband seemed to have dropped back
into a kind of torpor. Maybe he was only talkative when his wife was absent.

    Joyce
got back into her chair and picked up one of her wordsearch books.

    'I
must be on my way. Nice to see you,' said Carole. 'Come on, Gulliver.'

    Carole
moved on to
Seagull's Nest,
the hut directly next to the still-cocooned
Quiet Harbour.
Outside it sat the matriarch who, thanks to Reginald
Flowers, she now knew to be called Deborah Wrigley. Dressed in a designer
towelling beach-robe, the widow had on her head another wide straw hat tied
with a scarf and on her feet golden rubber sandals. She wore sunglasses with
elaborate gold rims and an accumulation of rings sparkled on her bony brown
fingers.

    There
was no sign of her son or daughter-in-law, but nearby her grandchildren
Tristram and Hermione were deeply involved in patting crumbling sandcastles out
of plastic buckets.

    Carole
did the Smalting equivalent of the 'Fethering nod', a slight inclination of the
head to acknowledge someone one knew by sight but did not necessarily want to
engage in conversation with.

    Deborah
Wrigley smiled graciously back. 'We've had the best of the day, I fear,' she
observed.

    'Yes,
be rain before the evening's out,' said Carole, wondering what kind of
Pavlovian reaction it was that prompted her at such moments into talking like a
Central Casting Sussex fisherman. She nodded towards
Quiet Harbour.
'Nasty business, what they found there, wasn't it?'

    'Oh
yes. I have to be very careful with the grandchildren, making sure they don't
overhear people on the beach talking about it.'

    'Mm.
Are their parents not around? Last time I saw you here they were with them.'

    'No,
my son and daughter-in-law have gone back to London. I always insist on having
a couple of days' quality time with the grandchildren when they come down here.
I think it's good for them. Their parents indulge the little ones so much, you
know, and so they get tantrums and what have you. But Tristram and Hermione behave
very well when they're with me. They don't play up at all.'

    They
wouldn't
dare,
thought Carole. Recognizing the opportunity for a little
investigation, she gestured again towards
Quiet Harbour
and said, 'I
don't suppose you've heard any more than the rest of us about what was actually
found in there?'

    '"Human
remains", that's all I've heard.' But Deborah Wrigley was the kind of
woman who always liked to have some exclusive information, so she couldn't stop
herself from saying, 'Of course I knew the young couple who rented it before
you.'

    'What,
you mean you met them down here on the beach?'

    'I
met the girl down here for the first time. But I did actually know the young
man from some time back.'

    Carole
was instantly alert. 'Oh?'

    'He
used to work with my husband at NMB.'

    'NMB?
I'm sorry, the initials sound familiar, but I'm not sure I . . .'

    'Neuchatel
Mutual Bank. My husband Ronald ran the London end of that.'

    'Oh,
did he?'

    'And
Mark Dennis - that's the name of the young man who had the beach hut when—'

    'Yes,
I'd heard it.'

    'Well,
he joined NMB straight out of university. Very bright boy. Ronald had a lot of
time for him. And I used to meet Mark from time to time at business functions.'

    'Ah.'

    A sly
look came into Deborah Wrigley's face. 'They're not married, you know.'

    'Mark
and Philly? No, I know that.'

    The
older woman looked a little peeved at Carole having information about the
couple for which she had not been the source. 'He used to be married, you know.
Tall, beautiful girl, worked in another bank. Goodness knows why Mark let that
go wrong.'

    'Did
you meet her?'

    'Yes,
some odd Irish name.'

    'Nuala.'

    'That's
right.' Again Deborah Wrigley seemed peeved that Carole knew more than she did.
'Yes, I met her a few times. At functions, you know. Very attractive couple.
Very successful couple. They had a bit of motivation. So few young people seem
to these days. Like my son. He was a severe disappointment to Ronald.' Even
in absentia
Gavin Wrigley was not protected from his mother's sideswipes.

    'Have
you seen Nuala Dennis recently?'

    'No,
no reason why I should. I no longer moved in City circles after Ronald died.
Anyway, their marriage broke up. Then I heard through mutual friends that Mark
had given up his extremely promising career to become a painter or something
equally fatuous. Next thing I know he appears down here with this new girl in
tow.'