The Body on the Beach (16 page)

‘Here we go,’ said Carole, her hand tightening round the Stanley knife in her raincoat pocket.

Two men got out of the van and went round to open the doors at the back. Both were middle-aged, one almost completely bald, the other with grizzled grey hair.

Jude shook her head ruefully. ‘Neither of those looks like Dylan.’

‘No.’

‘Maybe you read the duty roster wrong?’

Carole was offended. ‘I did not! There were three of them allocated to this job. Dave, Ken and Dylan.’

‘Well, there go Dave and Ken.’ Jude watched the two men, now carrying toolboxes, open the gates to Bali-Hai and go up to the front door. ‘Looks like Dylan’s called in
sick.’

But, as she spoke, they were aware of the sound of a car approaching fast. It was a Golf Gti, a good ten years old, tarted up with extra chrome and decals. The way it was being driven gave two
fingers to the demure ‘20 mph’ signs of Shorelands.

‘I think this could be our quarry,’ said Carole, as she opened the car door.

They were both standing in front of Bali-Hai’s railings by the time the boy emerged from his Golf. He fitted Ted Crisp’s description perfectly. Bleached hair, single earring,
‘a nasty bit of work’.

He looked through them as he came up to the gates.

‘Are you Dylan?’ asked Carole.

‘What if I am?’

‘I’ve got something that belongs to you.’

‘Oh yes?’

Carole took the Stanley knife out of her pocket and held it in her open palm, with the painted ‘
J. T. CARPETS
’ uppermost. Both women watched the boy closely.
Though he quickly covered it up, his first reaction was undoubtedly one of shock.

‘Oh, well, thanks,’ he said casually, reaching out for the knife. ‘I can take it in to work with me.’

Carole withdrew her hand. ‘Don’t you want to know where we found it?’

‘Not particularly.’ After the initial giveaway response, his manner had become cocky, on the edge of insolence.

‘We found it in a boat at the Fethering Yacht Club,’ said Jude.

A flicker of the eyelid showed he hadn’t been expecting that. But again he recovered quickly. ‘Wonder how it got there . . .’

Carole took over the attack. ‘We know that you were there on Monday night with Aaron Spalding and another boy.’

Dylan’s lip curled. ‘You know a lot. Nosy pair of old tarts, aren’t you?’

‘Being offensive isn’t going to help, Dylan. This is serious. And you know it’s serious. Aaron Spalding’s dead.’

‘Yes, I do know that. Stupid kid. Should have known better than to muck around on the banks of the Fether, shouldn’t he?’

‘And he’s not the only one who’s dead.’

The young man’s face became a rigid mask. ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve got to get to work.’ And he made to push past them.

Jude put her hand on his sleeve. ‘The police might be very interested to talk to you about what happened on Monday night.’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘We have proof that you were with Aaron,’ Jude went on, lying through her teeth.

Dylan turned back to look her straight in the face. ‘All right, yes, I was with Aaron. That’s not a crime, is it?’

‘No.’

‘We went down the Crown and Anchor, but that tight-arsed bastard of a landlord wouldn’t serve the other two, so we pissed off down Nowtinstore and got some cans. We sank a few in one
of them shelters on the front and Aaron asked me if I’d lend him my Stanley knife. So I did.’

‘What did he want it for?’

‘I don’t know, do I?’ Dylan replied, with a shrug of aggrieved innocence. ‘And then I went home. I didn’t go down the Yacht Club. What the other two done after I
gone, I’ve no idea.’

‘I think the police would want a rather fuller explanation than that, Dylan.’

But Carole’s bid to frighten him didn’t work.

‘Maybe they would. But you’re not the police, are you?’ he sneered. ‘And I don’t quite honestly think the police’d be that interested in what a pair of old
biddies like you have to say.’

Carole and Jude were rather afraid he was right. Their bluff had been called.

‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I do have work to do.’ Dylan put his hand on the railings of Bali-Hai’s gates.

‘Don’t you want your knife back?’ asked Carole.

‘Not that bothered. We get through a lot of those. Tools of the trade.’

‘Then I’ll keep it . . .’

‘Please yourself.’

‘. . . as evidence.’

‘Evidence of
what
?’ Suddenly he’d seized the lapel of Carole’s raincoat and brought his face close up to hers. Her nostrils were filled by a sickly musk-flavoured
aftershave. ‘You two harass me any more and things could get very unpleasant for you. I’ve seen you around. Fethering’s a small place. Wouldn’t be that hard for me to find
out where you live. I’d advise you both to get off my bloody back!’

There was no doubting the reality of the threat in his last words. He raised his free hand to Carole’s face. She flinched. Dylan chuckled and touched her cheek. Just one touch, very brief,
very gentle and very menacing. Then he let go of her coat and turned towards Bali-Hai.

‘Who was the third boy?’ asked Jude.

‘Who indeed?’

‘There was you, and Aaron Spalding, and somebody else.’

‘Spot on.’

‘Who was it?’

‘That’s for you to find out. Mind you, I don’t think you will.’

‘Why? Is he dead too?’ Jude called after the retreating back as Dylan strode up the drive.

But there was no answer. And the Stanley knife remained in Carole’s hand.

‘He’s lying,’ Jude hissed, the first time that Carole had seen her angry. ‘He was with them at the Yacht Club.’

‘I know.’

‘But how’re we going to prove it?’

‘That,’ said Carole pompously, ‘has been the problem with crime investigation since records began.’

‘Yes.’

‘Having an instinct for what’s happened, having a flash of inspiration – that’s the easy bit. It’s when you try to make the charges stick that most cases
collapse.’

Jude nodded thoughtfully. Then a slow smile spread across her broad features.

‘What is it?’ asked Carole.

‘You talked about flashes of inspiration. I think I’ve just had one.’

‘About what?’

‘About finding the third boy. I may be wrong, but at least I’ve an idea where we can start looking.’

They didn’t have far to go through the Shorelands Estate to reach Brigadoon. The front garden’s Victorian lampposts continued to look incongruous in their
mock-Spanish surroundings.

‘I still don’t understand,’ Carole complained as they approached the studded door. ‘We know Barbara won’t be there. We know her mother won’t be there. And
Rory’ll be at work in Brighton.’

‘It’s not them we’ve come to see,’ said Jude firmly, as she pressed the doorbell.

The woman who came to the door was probably late forties and could have been attractive in different circumstances. She wore jeans and a faded sweat shirt; her greying hair was scraped back into
a rubber band at the nape of her neck and her face had the taut, drained look of total exhaustion.

‘Good morning,’ she said, in a surprisingly cultured voice, and waited for them to state their business.

Jude took the initiative. ‘Good morning. This is Carole and I’m Jude. We’re both friends of Barbara Turnbull and—’

‘I’m afraid Mrs Turnbull isn’t in.’

‘No, we know that. You’re Maggie, aren’t you?’

‘Yes,’ the woman conceded cautiously.

‘It was you we wanted to have a word with.’

Her face closed over. ‘You’re nothing to do with the Social Services, are you?’

‘No, no, we’re not. I promise.’

But that didn’t resolve her suspicions. ‘I’m sorry. I’m working.’ She reached to close the door, but Jude’s next words stopped her.

‘We wanted to have a word about your son.’

A new wave of exhaustion flooded the woman’s body. Her shoulders drooped. There was a note of fatalism in her voice as she asked, ‘What’s he done?’

‘That’s what we want to find out.’ Jude pressed home her slight advantage. ‘In particular what he was doing last Monday night.’

This did frighten the woman. Her spoken response, that she had no idea what they were talking about, was belied by a wildness in her eyes.

Some instinct told Carole this was the moment once again to produce the Stanley knife from her raincoat pocket. The woman’s eyes grew wilder.

‘What’s that? Where did you find it?’

The telephone on the hall table rang. Indecision flickered in Maggie’s frightened eyes. She didn’t want to invite them in, but equally she didn’t want to let them go until she
knew as much as they knew. The phone rang on. It was clearly not going to be picked up by anybody else or by an answering machine. ‘Wait there,’ she said. ‘I’ll just be a
moment.’

She picked up the phone and gave the number. ‘What? Oh yes. Yes, he is here. I’ll get him to the phone.’ She crossed to the foot of the stairs and called up, ‘Mr
Turnbull! Telephone!’

She put the receiver down and crossed back to the women at the front door.

‘I thought Mr Turnbull would be at work,’ said Carole.

‘He’s not well.’ Dismissing the detail quickly, Maggie came closer and addressed them with a quiet urgency. ‘Look, I can’t really talk now. But I do want to
talk.’ Then, with a mixture of dread and pleading in her voice, she said, ‘You haven’t spoken to anyone else about Nick, have you?’

‘No,’ replied Jude reassuringly.

‘Not yet,’ added Carole, who thought their level of menace should be maintained. Maggie had something to tell them; having hooked her, they didn’t want to lose her.

‘Carole. Good morning. What’re you doing here?’

Rory Turnbull was coming down the stairs. He wore a shapeless towelling dressing gown. He looked raddled, hungover and haunted.

Carole improvised wildly. ‘We were just calling about a Labrador charity I’m involved in. The Canine Trust.’

‘If you’re looking for a handout, I’m afraid dogs come fairly low down my pecking order of good causes.’

‘No, we were just . . .’ Not wishing to get tangled up in details of her fictitious charity call, Carole moved on. ‘You met my new neighbour, Jude, in the pub,
didn’t you?’

‘Did I?’ Rory Turnbull’s bloodshot eyes showed no recognition but took Jude in, as though he were memorizing her features for future reference. ‘You will excuse
me.’ He turned to Maggie and asked gracelessly, ‘Who did you say was on the phone?’

‘The BMW garage. Something about a bill or—’

‘I’ll take it in the study.’ Without a word to the two women still standing on his doorstep, Rory Turnbull left the hall.

The urgency remained in Maggie’s voice as she said, ‘Listen, I can’t talk now. I’m through here at twelve. Could we meet after that?’

‘Sure,’ said Jude. ‘Where?’

‘You’d better come round to my place. It’s not far. Spindrift Lane – do you know it?’

Carole nodded. ‘I do.’

‘Number 26. Say half-past twelve. I’ll be back by then.’

‘Fine.’

‘And please don’t say anything to anyone.’ There was a naked appeal in Maggie’s eyes as she echoed Theresa Spalding’s words. ‘Nick’s a good boy. He is,
really.’

‘I’m wondering why Rory came down,’ Carole mused as she drove them back to the High Street. ‘They must have a phone upstairs in a house that size. In
their bedroom certainly.’

‘Come to that, why didn’t he answer it in the first place?’

‘Asleep? He looked pretty crumpled when he did come downstairs.’

‘Yes. Alternatively, he may just have been curious as to who was at the door. He heard our voices and came to have a snoop.’

‘He certainly subjected you to a rather searching look, didn’t he?’

Jude nodded and gave a little shudder. ‘Uncomfortably searching. There’s something very strange happening with that man, isn’t there? He doesn’t seem to be behaving like
the pillar of society a Fethering dentist should be.’

‘Certainly not. He’s behaving like an alcoholic.’

‘Or someone who’s in the throes of a nervous breakdown?’

‘Maybe. Still, poor old Rory’s not really our concern. Except for the fact that his boat was possibly used as a temporary morgue, I can’t see that he has anything to do with
our body on the beach.’

‘No, I guess not.’

‘Though Maggie clearly does have something relevant to tell us. How on earth did you know that she would, Jude?’

‘It was just a guess. Intuition, if you like. Barbara Turnbull had said something about Maggie’s son having psychological problems and . . . I put two and two together. You
know, sometimes you just have a sense of things being connected, don’t you?’

‘No,’ replied Carole, who never did.

‘Bad luck. Oh, here we are.’

Carole brought the Renault to a halt outside Wood-side Cottage. She looked at her watch. ‘Spindrift Lane’s only five minutes’ walk away. Hardly worth taking the car. Shall I
knock on your door about twenty past twelve?’

‘That’d be fine.’

Carole couldn’t help herself from fishing a little. ‘So you’ll have time for a nice cup of coffee with Brad . . .’

‘No,’ said Jude breezily. ‘I’ll have to empty a few more boxes upstairs, I’m afraid. Brad’s car’s not here. He’s gone.’

‘Oh.’ Carole couldn’t for the life of her have left it there. ‘But I dare say you’ll be seeing him again . . .’

‘I dare say,’ Jude agreed, with an infuriating, but probably not deliberate, lack of specificity.

Carole parked the car in her garage. As she was doing so, she noticed on the mat a little scrape of mud left by Jude’s boot. She got out the dustpan and brush which was used only for the
car and swept it up.

Spindrift Lane was part of the residential network which spread out from Fethering High Street. While not aspiring to the wealth-proclaiming grandeur of the Shorelands Estate,
the houses there bore witness to lives well spent and money well invested. Paintwork gleamed and anything that could be polished had been polished. Even in November, no front grass was allowed to
grow ragged and weeds had been banished from the interstices between flagstones in garden paths. The area was a testament to bourgeois values, which are, for the most part, financial values.