TWO DIE IN SOUTH MUNDHAM CAR CRASH
A fatal car crash in South Mundham on Tuesday evening has shocked the village. The victims were named as Patrick and Angela Casey, both aged 27. Their overturned Ford Cortina was found by office cleaner David Allday close to Limekiln Barn in Runcton Lane. He was returning from his late shift at 1.45 a.m. The couple appeared to have died instantly, a police spokesman said. ‘No other vehicle seems to have been involved. There was ice on the road and they may have taken a turn too fast.’
The Caseys are survived by one daughter, Gemma, aged 8. Their son Terry died in another tragic incident in 1978, when he drowned in their garden pond at the age of 3.
‘So sad, isn’t it?’ Miss Peabody said. ‘Gemma had to be fostered. My health wasn’t good, or I would have taken her on. Between you and me, she was quite a handful. Very wilful. Still is, from what I see of her.’
‘And the little brother drowned?’
‘Yes, that was awful. One August afternoon the children were playing in the garden. I think Angela was watching television. Gemma came in and said Terry was lying in the pond and wasn’t moving. She’d tried to lift him, poor mite. Her little dress was soaking. When Angela got out there it was too late.’
TWENTY-FIVE
Austen Sentinel was his usual unfriendly self. ‘Some other time. I’m interviewing students,’ he told Hen on the phone.
‘Fine,’ she said, prepared for this. ‘Finish your interview. We’ll have a car pick you up in twenty minutes.’
With an impatient sigh, he said, ‘What is it?’
‘Cast your mind back to nineteen-eighty-seven. The dig at Selsey. You told me you were only twenty-five at the time.’
‘That’s correct.’
‘Young, energetic, and with leadership qualities.’
‘I don’t remember claiming all that.’
‘In short, attractive.’
‘That was for others to judge.’
‘You mentioned all those young girls in bikinis.’
‘Ha.’ From the satisfied sound, he might have been a chess player whose opponent has at last revealed her strategy. ‘You won’t get me on that. I behaved myself.’
‘I believe you. You told me after the inquest-I’m quoting you now-you would have been a total idiot to risk your career by going to bed with a student.’
‘And I stand by that.’
‘You also said that the ratio of women to men at the university meant you were the proverbial kid in the teashop.’
‘There’s no contradiction there. One can look at the sweets without sampling them.’
‘But what about the sweetshop across the street?’
‘I don’t follow you.’
‘You said you recruited local people for the dig as well as students. It wouldn’t have broken university rules to chat up some of the local totty.’
‘So why are you raising it?’
‘Because one of the Selsey lasses apparently took a shine to you. And I dare say you encouraged her.’
‘If I did, the memory has faded.’
‘Hers didn’t fade. She carried a torch for you for twenty years.’
‘Oh, what nonsense.’
‘It wasn’t nonsense to her. She formed a plan. She’d have a reunion with you, a private one. Just the two of you, at Selsey, letting you believe it was a beach barbecue for everyone who took part. She went to all the trouble of getting an invitation printed- just for you-and sent it.’
‘You’re mistaken. That invite wasn’t meant for me.’
‘It was.’
‘My wife opened it. I told you.’
‘Because it was addressed to Dr Sentinel. You both had doctorates.’
Some seconds of silence followed.
Hen resumed, ‘Unluckily for the sender, you were booked for St Petersburg, and Helsinki. If you saw the invitation, you chucked it aside.’
‘So what are you accusing me of?’
‘Nothing. I’m telling you why your wife was murdered. She found the invitation. She may have been the one who opened it. If so, I’m sure she found it tempting.’
‘Oh, she would, knowing Merry.’
‘She decided to go.’
‘We know that.’
‘Right. But this is the crux. When Merry got there it was a tremendous shock for your old flame, expecting you to turn up. And when Merry said who she was-your wife-the shock must have been seismic. I doubt if the wretched woman knew you were married. People who harbour fantasies for many years don’t move on mentally. She pictured you as you were in nineteen-eighty-seven, young, amorous, and hers alone. The existence of a wife would have been unthinkable.’
‘This deluded creature murdered Merry? Is that what you’re saying?’
‘The two women meet for a non-existent barbecue. They wait on the beach for others, who, of course, don’t turn up. They drink some wine-she’s sure to have brought some to make the evening a success, and Merry may have brought some, too-and it all appears friendly, swapping their memories of nineteen-eighty-seven. Finally, Merry is invited for a moonlit swim.’
‘And she was attacked in the water and drowned?’
‘She made two fatal mistakes. The first was going there at all.’
‘And the second?’
‘Admitting she was your wife.’
He took a sharp breath. ‘What kind of lunatic was behind this?’
‘An attractive young woman you loved and left who developed an obsession about you.’
‘Grotesque.’
From all she had seen of Austen Sentinel, Hen was inclined to agree. Actually, the man sounded as close to genuine regret as he was ever likely to get.
The right moment for Hen to take it a stage further. ‘Think back and tell me if there was anyone who might match up.’
‘God, what an impossible question! In those days I was sleeping with hundreds of women.’
Talk about delusions, Hen thought.
He was wrestling with the impossible. ‘Someone from the dig? All I can recall at the moment are summer nights after the tide was in and we’d salvaged and stored our finds. We used to adjourn to a pub close to the beach near the lifeboat station.’
‘It’s called the Lifeboat Inn.’
‘We’d drink the evening away. We were young people, warmed by the sun, pleased with a good day’s work. I have a faint recollection of slipping away from the crowd with a local girl and indulging in a few kisses on the beach.’
‘Only kisses?’
‘It may have led to something more intimate.’
‘“May have”? Who are you kidding?’
She’d massaged his ego. ‘Two or three times. Once in the back of the van, I think, because doing it on pebbles is not ideal. But if you’re asking me to remember the girl’s name, I’m stumped. Certainly I wouldn’t have
