Bones Under The Beach Hut (35 page)

    'Different
department I suppose you'd be,' the old man went on. 'They use a lot of women
in this area, I believe, you know, when it concerns the death of a child.'

    There
was a strange calm about him, a kind of resignation, as if some great weight
had just been removed from his shoulders.

    'We
heard about the fact that you didn't put Robin's car seat in the car.'

    'No,
I should have thought of that. In the panic I forgot. Invented some story on the
spur of the moment that seemed to convince the police, but maybe they've been
suspicious all that time.'

    'And
no one in Smalting saw him, did they, when he waited for you outside the
ice-cream shop?'

    'No.'

    'I think
I know why,' said Jude softly.

    Carole
looked at her neighbour in astonishment. She knew Jude was capable of making
great - almost magical - leaps of logic, but had no idea what she was about to
reveal this time.

    'Robin
never came to Smalting that afternoon, did he, Lionel?'

    Slowly
the old man shook his head.

    'That's
why he didn't need the car seat. He was already dead, wasn't he?'

    A nod
confirmed this. Carole couldn't work out how Jude had reached the conclusion
she had, but it did make sense of a lot of anomalies in the case.

    'When
I saw he was dead,' said Lionel, 'I knew I had to hide the body. I couldn't
leave him there. Miranda would never have forgiven us. I had to hide him
somewhere temporarily, until the furore died down and I could make a more
permanent resting place for him.'

    'So
what did you do?'

    'I
put his body on the back seat of my car. I knew it wouldn't matter if traces of
him were found there, he'd been in the car with me often enough. And I drove
him to work.'

    'To
the funeral parlour?'

    'Yes.
It was lunch hour. I knew the girl on reception, who was meant to stay there
right through while all the others were out ... I knew she was in the habit of
sneaking off to the pub to meet her boyfriend and shutting the parlour up for
an hour.

    I'd
been about to take her to task for it, but that day I was glad she was skyving.
I drove in the back entrance, where we take the bodies in. Nobody saw me arrive
and there's a big shutter comes down so nobody saw what I was doing.

    'I
took Robin's body out of the car. I'd wanted to embalm him, but I knew there
wasn't time. So I wrapped him up tight in plastic sheeting and I took him
through to the room where we display the coffins. There was a small one we had
there, you know, for young children who die . . . like Robin. It's sad, that,
always sad showing it to the parents.

    'Anyway,
I put him in and sealed the coffin lid. I thought he'd be safe there. After
all, the last place anyone would look for a dead body would be in a funeral
parlour.' He let out a dry, humourless chuckle. 'After I'd finished, I went
back to the car and drove here to Smalting. I was in the parlour ten minutes
top-weight.

    'I
parked the car near the prom. There were a lot of people around, all caught up
in their own business. No one looked at me. I went into the shop to buy the ice
cream. When I came out, I rang the police and told them my story, about Robin
having been abducted, or at least having disappeared. I never thought they'd
believe it, but they seemed to, and the more they questioned me about it, the
clearer the details came in my mind. After a time I almost came to believe it
myself.

    'Obviously
I couldn't leave Robin in the parlour for too long, but a week later I came in
at night-time and embalmed him. That would preserve the body for a while.

    'And
all the publicity and the press conferences and the pleas on television from
Rory and Miranda . . . well, that all died down after a time. And I was doing
some work in the garden at home. Previously we'd just had the one pond, you
know, but I was adding to that, making a great big water feature and that
involved a lot of digging and—'

    'So
you took Robin's body from the funeral parlour back to your garden and buried
him there?' suggested Jude.

    The
old man nodded a weary nod. He seemed to have aged during his narrative. 'So
Robin was always close to me. I knew where he was. He was there, and it gave me
comfort to know he was there.'

    'And
everything was fine,' said Carole, joining up the dots, 'until you had to move
house?'

    'Yes.
I couldn't leave Robin in the garden there. Partly I was worried about a new
owner finding his remains, though I didn't care so much about that. It's more I
couldn't be parted from the child, from the boy I loved. We've no garden with
the new flat we're going to, just a window box. So . . .' He gestured rather
feebly towards
Quiet Harbour.
'I knew we'd still come here. I knew if I
put him under one of the beach huts he'd still be near me.' He let out a little
mirthless laugh. 'I think I also knew that it couldn't last, that very soon I'd
be found out. Which is, of course, what's happened.

    'In
fact, I was nearly found out earlier. Only a few nights after I'd taken the
bones from our garden and reburied them under the beach hut, some idiot tried
to set fire to it. Fortunately the fire didn't spread far - or someone put it
out, I don't know.'

    'And
you put down an old offcut of carpet so that the damage wouldn't show from the
inside,' said Carole, pleased to be filling in the gaps in the case.

    'Yes,
I did that.' Lionel Oliver sighed. 'I'm a stupid old man. I don't know why I
thought I'd get away with it. Or perhaps I didn't think I'd get away with it.
Perhaps I was just so tired of holding the secret inside me that I wanted to be
found out. Yes, I think that's probably it.'

    Jude
broke the long silence that ensued by saying, very gently, 'You still haven't
told us how Robin died.'

    'No.'

    'Are
you going to?'

    'Why
not? You know everything else. I'd taken the day off work, that day we were
going to look after Robin. I enjoyed playing with him.'

    'When
you say "playing with him" . . . ?' asked Carole tentatively.

    That did
make him angry. 'Oh, for God's sake! Don't you start! I went through all that
with the police, time and time and time again. What I meant by "playing
with him" was kicking a ball about in the back garden, hide and seek,
showing him the goldfish in the pond, the kind of things you do with a
five-year-old child. The games grandfathers and grandsons have played down the
centuries.

    'Anyway,
it was a hot day and I'd been busy at work the last few weeks and I wasn't as
young as I used to be, so I was very tired. And we were playing hide and seek,
and it was a big garden and so Robin had introduced this rule that we had to
count up to two hundred. He was a bright boy, very advanced for his age. He
could count up to two hundred, no problems. And then he'd shout at the top of
his voice, "Coming, ready or not!'"

    For a
moment the recollection was almost too emotional for him, but he managed to
control himself and went on, 'Well, it was my turn to count and Robin's to
hide. And, as I say, I started counting and ... I fell asleep. Don't know how
long it was for, probably only a quarter of an hour, but when I woke up, there
was no sign of Robin.

    'It
didn't take me long to find him. I knew he was fascinated by the goldfish. He
must have been peering down at them and lost his footing. There was a kind of
rockery at the side, with a little waterfall running down it, and when he fell
he must have hit his head on one of the rocks. It was only a small pond, but
big enough to drown my grandson.'

    The
long silence which followed this was finally broken by the voice of Joyce
Oliver from inside the beach hut. 'Except,' she said, 'that isn't what happened
at all.'

    The
expression on Lionel Oliver's face as he watched his wife walk out of the beach
hut was a complex one, combining puzzlement, annoyance and protective- ness.
'What are you on about, Joyce? Of course that's what happened.'

    'No,
it isn't. I think it must be true that Robin drowned in the pond, as you said
he did. I didn't know that till just now, Lionel. But if he did, it wasn't you
who was meant to be looking after him. It happened on my watch.'

    'That's
ridiculous, Joyce.'

    'It
happened on my watch,' his wife repeated. She looked at Lionel, daring him to
interrupt her, then turned firmly to Carole and Jude. 'I didn't know the half
of what he's just told you. I just woke up and heard almost all of it. Lionel,
why couldn't you have told me before?'

    'There
wasn't any point,' he mumbled. 'Why should you suffer too?'

    'I
should suffer because I deserved to suffer. I should suffer because it was my
fault.'

    'No.'

    'Yes,
it was. I don't know why you two are here, but since you've heard the rest of
it, I think that you should hear the truth. My daughter-in-law, Miranda, didn't
trust me. She didn't like me looking after Robin. And she was right. Because
back then I had a serious problem. A drink problem. We tried to keep it quiet
from everyone, but the family knew. Miranda certainly knew and that was why she
would only let Robin stay with us if she knew Lionel was going to be there,
that it wasn't just me on my own.

    'Well,
that day, the day that Rory and Miranda were going up to London to see the
matinee of
Les Miserables,
I'd had a real blinder the night before. I
was on more than a bottle of gin a day then, and that morning I woke up having
slept very badly and with the kind of crushing hangover that can only be
alleviated by a very large hair of the dog. But I'd drunk the house dry the
night before. I was desperate for a bottle of gin. I managed to disguise how I
was feeling from Rory and Miranda when they came to bring Robin over, but as
soon as they'd gone I ordered Lionel to go and buy me a bottle of gin. I'm not
proud of how I was in those days. I was a monster.'

    'No,
you weren't, love,' her husband protested feebly. 'You couldn't help yourself.
It's an illness.'

    'I
was a monster,' Joyce reiterated. Jude began to understand the great hatred
Miranda Browning had felt against her mother-in-law. 'So, I ordered Lionel to
go and replenish my stocks of gin and I was in sole charge of Robin. Except I
wasn't in a state to be in charge of anything or anyone. I remember that

    I
fell asleep at the kitchen table. Robin was around before I fell asleep, and I
know the door to the garden was open, and the next thing I remember was Lionel
waking me up.

    'He
seemed a bit agitated, but I didn't ask him why. All I cared about was the fact
that he'd brought me a bottle of gin. I got stuck into that. Lionel said he was
going to take Robin down to Smalting, get him an ice cream, maybe spend some
time with the boy here at
Mistral.
The next thing I'm aware of is the news
that Robin's been abducted and the police are coming round and...'

    There
was a long moment before Joyce Oliver turned back to her husband and said,
'Tell me the truth, Lionel. Did you come back that morning from buying the gin
and find Robin drowned in the pond?'

    There
was nothing he could do but nod abjectly.

    'But
why did you do all you did? Why?'

    'If
Miranda had ever found out that I'd left Robin alone with you ... If she'd
found out that you were dead drunk and had let him go near the pond on his own
. . .'He shook his head, unable to say out loud what would have happened.

    Joyce
Oliver looked at her husband with an expression of infinite pain and infinite
respect. She realized the extent of his love for her. To put himself through
all the trauma of police questioning, the inevitable suspicions that he might
be a paedophile . . . all that for the woman who had allowed the child he
adored to die.

    'The
only good thing to come out of any of it,' Joyce said, 'was that, although I
didn't know the details of what had really happened, the shock of Robin's
disappearance did stop me drinking. Maybe I felt guilty for the fact that the
last time I'd seen him, I'd been almost comatose from the gin, I don't know.' A
deep sigh trembled through her body. 'All of this is going to take a long time
to come to terms with.'