Читать книгу The Torso in the Town - Simon Brett - Страница 12

The beach was the only place in Fethering where Carole Seddon felt secure. Ted Crisp never went on the beach. Indeed, he managed to conduct his whole life as if ignorant of the fact that Fethering was on the coast. His base was inside the Crown and Anchor, and for all the difference its location made to his lifestyle, the pub could have been in any part of the British Isles.

To get to the beach, though, now involved a detour for Carole. The direct route from High Tor went too close for comfort to the Crown and Anchor, so, resisting Gulliver’s pulling the other way in his enthusiasm to be amongst the delectable smells of the shoreline, she walked determinedly along to the banks of the Fether, and followed the river to the shingle by Fethering Yacht Club.

Carole’s spirits were low again that Wednesday morning. The detour made her feel foolish, bringing back the bilious taste of all her other foolishness. And the revival of excitement brought on by thinking about the Fedborough torso now seemed another example of over-reaction. She and Jude had so little to go on, so little information, there was no point in even thinking about the mystery. The fact that the Roxbys had been allowed back into Pelling House probably meant that the police already had the investigation neatly tied up with a bow on top.

And now she couldn’t even discuss it. With characteristic casualness, as they parted the evening before, Jude had said, ‘I’m going to be away for a few days. Back Saturday, I should think. So hope we’re on for the Town Walk on Sunday.’

It was typical. Jude was always making remarks like that, and never backing them up with any detail. Where was she going to be ‘away for a few days’? Was it work or pleasure? Who was she going to be with? Would that be work or pleasure? But, as ever, before these supplementary questions could be posed, the moment had passed.

What increased Carole’s frustration was the knowledge that if she had managed to ask any of them, Jude would have given straight, truthful answers. The lack of precision which surrounded her life was not a result of deliberate concealment; but opportunities to ask about its basics were rare and, when they arose, seemed to flash by. After many months of what, by Carole’s standards, was close friendship, the sum total of the facts she knew about her neighbour was distressingly small.

Jude had done a lot of varied things in her life. She had almost certainly been married at some point, and had had a lot of lovers. She might still have a lot of lovers, for all Carole knew. Jude had possibly once been an actress, she may have worked in catering, she’d certainly lived abroad for a while. She showed sympathy for New Age ideas, and may have done some work as an alternative therapist. She was fifty-five years old.

And that was it. A pathetically meagre haul of information. Carole didn’t know where Jude had been brought up, where she had gone to school, whether she’d had further education of any kind. She didn’t even know her neighbour’s surname, for God’s sake. Or what Jude lived on. Though her home, Woodside Cottage, was filled with second-hand furniture and gave the impression that money was tight, she was still capable of sudden generosity and extravagance.

For Carole, who liked everything in her life defined by detail, this ignorance was extremely galling. Jude’s personal history was like the horizon; all the time you felt you were getting closer, it remained exactly the same distance away.

Carole let Gulliver off his lead, and he dashed off over the heaped pebbles to the flat sand, kicking up little flurries in his excitement. The tide was receding, exposing expanses of deep grey which in the June sunlight gradually turned lighter and crustier. Maybe there would be a good summer this year . . . Maybe not . . . Global warming had recently made such changes to the climate that even the weather-wise fishermen of Fethering no longer trusted their own predictions.

Carole found herself looking up towards the Yacht Club and the adjacent seawall that protected the beach against the fast tidal flow of the Fether. From what seemed like another life, her mind instantly pictured Ted Crisp helping in the rescue of a teenage boy from the river mud. Resolutely, she turned her back on the scene and strode across the crunchy sand, searching for new thoughts to drive out the unwelcome image.

The only subject that would engage her mind was the limbless body in Fedborough. If the police had reached a solution, then there would be something about it on the news. But if they hadn’t . . . maybe continuing her investigation would be worthwhile after all . . .

But how? Because of her standoffishness in the Coach and Horses the previous evening, Carole still had only one contact with any connection to the case. Debbie Carlton. But the interior designer seemed to have told her everything she knew that might be relevant. How could Carole justify further questioning, and indeed what further questions could she ask?

Behind her glasses the pale blue eyes scrunched up with the effort of concentration as she tried to get her thoughts in order and to draw a line of logic through them.

Jude’s description of the state of the body made Carole increasingly sure that it had not been killed in the cellar of Pelling House. The crime – or accident, it could still just be an accident – had happened elsewhere and the body had then been moved. If she’d seen the torso herself, Carole might have been able to judge whether the dismemberment had also taken place elsewhere. Her ex-Home Office reference library contained some pretty gruesome photographs of pre-mortem and post-mortem injuries. But the description relayed by Jude hadn’t been detailed enough for her to form a reliable opinion. All she knew was that the removal of the limbs had been a neat job.

Another argument for the death taking place elsewhere was the collapse of the cardboard box which had contained the remains. The damp, or rising water, in the Pelling House cellar had got to that, but had little effect on the torso, suggesting that mummification had taken place before the body was put in the box. Carole wished she could have seen that box. Once again she felt unreasoning resentment against the advantages the police force have over the enthusiastic amateur.

The movement of the body to Pelling House could have happened during the ownership of the Roxbys (which was very unlikely), the Carltons, or of Roddy Hargreaves . . . and maybe of his wife. He’d talked about a marriage breaking up, which might well have coincided with his moving from the marital home . . . She must try to find out something about Mrs Hargreaves.

Carole strained for other connections, for other pointers, other clues. All she could come up with was the moment of hesitation before Debbie Carlton had said her husband rarely went down to the cellar, and the flash of caution exchanged between Debbie and her mother when Carole had asked if they knew who the dead woman might be.

Not much, but it was all she had. Carole called to a reluctant Gulliver and set off back up the beach to make a phone call.

‘Debbie, I just wanted to say thank you so much for coffee yesterday . . .’

‘My pleasure. It was nice to see you.’

‘And I also wanted to apologize . . .’

‘I told you there’s no need. In my line of business people are always blowing hot and cold. Don’t worry about it.’

‘That wasn’t what I wanted to apologize for. I’m sorry that I went on so much about the . . . you know, the discovery in Pelling House.’

‘If I hadn’t wanted to talk about it, I wouldn’t have done.’

‘No, but I’m sorry. I got a bit carried away,’ said Carole, who had spent her entire life in avoidance of getting carried away. And, she thought bitterly, regretting it on the rare occasions when I do.

‘You’re not the only one. Nobody in Fedborough seems to be talking about anything else. And everyone’s got their own pet theories about who the body is, and who killed her. All kinds of dreadful old prejudices are rising to the surface. Sometimes it’s hard to believe the depths of resentment you get in a place like this.’

‘In small country towns everyone has always known everyone else’s business.’

‘Yes. Or thought they did. And in many cases been one hundred per cent wrong.’ Debbie Carlton spoke as if she was referring to some unpleasant experience of her own. ‘Not, of course, that that stops the gossip-mills from churning round.’

‘I gather the Roxbys have been allowed to move back into Pelling House,’ said Carole tentatively.

Debbie seemed to have no curiosity about her source of information. ‘Yes, they have.’

‘Mightn’t that suggest that the police have finished their investigations there?’

‘Who knows? They haven’t said anything about it to me.’

‘But they have spoken to you again?’

‘Oh yes. They wanted Francis’s address. He’s in Florida. With Jonelle.’ She tried to say the name with no intonation, but failed. ‘Seems in the future he’ll be spending a lot of time out in Florida.’

‘Ah. The police didn’t say why they wanted to talk to him?’

‘Presumably the same reason they wanted to talk to me. Check dates, when we bought Pelling House and so on.’

‘And how often Francis used to go down to the cellar there?’

‘Yes,’ said Debbie Carlton shortly.

‘You implied yesterday that Francis went down there more often than you did . . .’

‘Well, obviously, men spend more time doing DIY and . . . He kept some tools down there . . . He—’ She was flustered. ‘But I’m sure he didn’t know about the torso.’

‘You can’t be positive about that.’

‘No, I can’t be positive, but . . . Look, I know we ended on bad terms, but I was with Francis for more than five years. I was in love with him, and I can still recognize the good qualities in his character. OK, he wasn’t that reliable and he was a bit tight-fisted and, yes, I know he had other affairs before Jonelle . . . but there is no way my husband – my ex-husband – is a murderer!’

Funny, thought Carole, I didn’t mention the word ‘murder’. At the end of their conversation, she put the phone down with some satisfaction. She knew what she had just heard: the sound of a woman protesting too much. Debbie Carlton was suspicious that her ex-husband might have some connection with the torso.