“Doing what?”
“Carpet-fitter.”
? The Body on the Beach ?
Nineteen
“What could be more logical,” asked Carole, “than that someone who has just moved into a new home should be looking to have it carpeted?”
“Fine.” Jude nodded cheerfully. “I’ll just think of it as an acting job.”
“Have you ever acted?”
“Oh yes,” said Jude.
“What – professionally?”
“Sort of.”
“Oh?” But, frustratingly, no further information was forthcoming. Carole swung the Renault into a parking bay.
J.T. Carpets was a flat, rectangular building on a retail estate just outside East Preston. Nearby was a Salisbury’s, a Do-It-All, a Halfords, a Petsmart, an MFI and a Ibys ‘R’ Us. Here the devoted homemaker could find everything he or she required – provided he or she possessed a car in which to cart it all away. (And in many cases, the devoted homemakers round the Fethering area arrived in huge four-wheel-drive off-road vehicles – essential equipment to negotiate the notorious gradients of the retail estate’s car parks.)
Inside the outlet (on retail estates what used to be called ‘shops’ had all become ‘outlets’), they were greeted by the distinctive smell of rope and rubber which rises on the air wherever new floor coverings foregather. Variegated rolls and piles of carpets were laid out across the floor area. Sample books spread over tables. Small displays of corners of room demonstrated to the unimaginative how some of the carpets would look with furniture on them.
There were few customers. Late afternoons in November were not a favourite time for buying carpets. With the run-up to Christmas, people had other purchases on their minds.
As a result, there were plenty of staff available, and the two women were quickly accosted by a young man in a sharp suit and cartoon-character tie.
“Good afternoon, ladies. What can I do for you?”
Jude was straight into her cover story. “Yes, I’m looking for a hard-wearing carpet for my landing and staircase,” she announced.
“Certainly, madam. What sort of quality had you in mind?”
“It’s not so much the quality that concerns me as the price. On a tightish budget, I’m afraid.”
“Yes. Aren’t we all?” He chuckled automatically. “Well, with carpets as with most things, you get what you pay for, but we do have some very competitive offers which you’ll find – ”
“Excuse me, do you have a toilet?” Carole broke in.
“What?” The young man was totally thrown.
“A toilet. I need to go to the toilet.”
“Oh. Well, we don’t have public toilets.”
“You must have staff facilities.”
“Yes, but – ”
“I’m desperate. It’s my age.”
The young man was so embarrassed by this that he immediately called over one of his female colleagues. Jude hid her grin as Carole was escorted out to the office area at the back.
“Now, your cheapest option,” the young man continued, blanking out the interruption, “would be a hard- wearing cord…”
Jude listened, occasionally throwing in doubts and questions. She moved easily – and with some relish – into the role of a dithery little woman unable to make up her mind. She invented a husband called Kevin whom she’d have to consult about the various options. Had Carole not returned from the lavatory at that point, she would soon have invented a couple of children and an ageing grannie whose opinions also required canvassing.
“Better?”
“Much better, thank you,” said Carole, showing Jude a covert thumbs-up sign. “It’s awful when you get taken suddenly like that, isn’t it? So embarrassing.”
“Oh yes.”
“How’re you doing?”
“This young man has been extremely helpful. He’s showed me all kinds of possibilities. I think what I’d better do now is go home and discuss them all with Kevin.”
“Good idea,” said Carole. It wasn’t until they were back in the car that she asked, “Who the hell’s Kevin?”
“A necessary fiction. But never mind him. Have you found out what you wanted to?”
“Yes. Dylan is scheduled to be fitting carpets in a house on the Shorelands Estate tomorrow morning. For a Mrs Grant-Edwards. House is called Bali-Hai. I’ve memorized all the details.”
“How did you find out?”
“There was a duty-schedule board up in the office. Wipe-clean calendar thing with staff names and addresses where they were going to be working. I thought there would be,” Carole concluded smugly.
“Well, congratulations. Very convincing. For a moment back there I thought you really did want to go to the loo.” Jude was silent for a moment. “Mind you, they might have told you where to find him if you’d just asked.”
“Yes,” Carole agreed. And then she did something that she did very rarely. She giggled. “But the way I did it was much more fun.”
¦
It was six o’clock and the Crown and Anchor had just opened. Carole had initially demurred at the idea of having a drink, but Jude had insisted they needed to talk to Ted Crisp as part of their investigation.
He was going round, wiping down the tables and emptying ashtrays into a bucket.
“Have to do everything yourself, I see,” Jude observed.
“That’s right. It’s tough at the top. Bar staff don’t come on till seven during the winter.”
“And in the summer?”
“Summers I’m open all day. That’s when I make my money. From all those dads sneaking off and leaving the mums on the beach with the kiddies.” He took up his post behind the bar. “What can I do you for? Two large whites, is it?”
“Yes, please,” said Jude, and Carole didn’t even make a token murmur of dissent. Instead, she moved straight to the purpose of their visit, “led,” she began, and paused for a nanosecond of shock at the knowledge that she, Carole Seddon, was actually standing at the bar of the Crown and Anchor and calling the landlord ‘Ted’, “you heard about that poor boy who was drowned the other day?”
“That Aaron Spalding? Course I did. Couldn’t miss it. All over the telly, for a start. And lots of the old farts in here was talking about it and all…moaning on about young kids today getting messed up with drugs…and saying that kind of thing wouldn’t happen if they brought back National Service.”
Carole wondered for a moment whether it had been Denis Woodville repeating his opinion, but decided it was probably a universal sentiment among the old codgers of Fethering.
“Did you know him at all? Aaron? Did he ever come in here?”
“Well, he shouldn’t have done, because he was underage, but yes, I seen him in here a few times. He’d come in with a bunch of them. They’d sit in that dark corner over there, hoping I wouldn’t clock them, and send up the one who looked oldest with a shipping order for drinks. They tried it on a few times, but I was wise to them. I’m not going to risk my licence for a bunch of kids.”
“Had you seen them in here recently?”
“Yes, three of them was in one evening this week. Monday, I think.”
The night they went on to the Fethering Yacht Club and found the body in Rory Turribull’s boat, thought Carole. “Who were the other two?” she asked.
