She hadn’t even elicited a surname, for goodness’ sake. Jude. Just Jude. That wasn’t very satisfactory. And then again, what was the woman’s status? What was her age? Was she married, single, divorced? Was there a regular man on the scene? Carole realized that, uncharacteristically, she hadn’t even checked out Jude’s ring finger. Something compelling about those big brown eyes made it difficult to divert one’s gaze elsewhere.
Did Jude have a job? A private income? A pension? Carole knew none of these things. Not that she was interested, but it was the kind of information that might be important at some stage.
Good heavens, Carole realized, she hadn’t even found out whether or not Jude came from ‘the North’.
? The Body on the Beach ?
Three
“So why were you walking on that part of the beach, Mrs Seddon?”
Carole didn’t like Detective Inspector Brayfield’s tone. She was the one who’d reported the body, after all. If anything, she deserved congratulation. Certainly not this hint of suspicion in her interrogator’s voice.
Also, why were there two of them? Not just the Inspector in his almost dandyish single-breasted black suit. There was also the uniformed WPG, Juster, who hadn’t said much but was clearly taking everything in. She sat on a straight-backed chair, tensely alert. Was there some new directive that the police always had to work in twos, even for routine inquiries? Maybe it was a gender thing. Allegations of sexual harassment would not be risked if a male police officer was never left alone with a female witness.
But the explanation didn’t seem adequate. Carole still had the feeling that their encounter was adversarial, as if the police were expecting more from her than mere corroboration of what she’d already said over the telephone. She had dealt with a great many police officers in the course of her work at the Home Office but had never before felt this aura of mistrust.
“I always go for an early-morning walk along the beach. I have a dog.” Gulliver hadn’t provided a visual aid when the police arrived. He was still sleeping off his walk at the foot of the Aga. As a guard dog he was hopeless. His first instinct was not to deter entry, but to give any new arrival at the house a fulsome welcome. “And I always take my dog on the beach first thing.”
“First thing’ was rather early this morning, wasn’t it, Mrs Seddon? Can hardly have been light when you set off.”
“I woke early. It always takes me a bit of time to adjust when the clocks change.”
“I understand,” said the Inspector, who clearly didn’t. “So why did you go to that particular part of the beach this morning?”
“It wasn’t a particular part of the beach. It was just where I happened to be walking.” Exasperated by the scepticism in Detective Inspector Brayfield’s eye, Carole went on. “There are only two directions in which you can go along the beach. Off Seaview Road there’s a path which goes down by the Yacht Club. At the end of that you’re on the beach and you have the choice of turning left or turning right. Left you go virtually straight into the sea wall, so this morning, like most mornings, I decided to turn right.”
She wasn’t meaning to sound sarcastic, but she knew that’s how the words were coming out.
“For any particular reason?”
What was it with that word ‘particular’? “No,” Carole snapped. “For no particular reason.”
“Are you sure you’re all right?” It was WPG Juster this time, her voice showing the professional concern of someone who’s done a counselling course.
“Yes, I’m quite all right, thank you!” Why were they treating her like some semi-invalid?
“How old are you, Mrs Seddon?” Juster went on.
“I don’t really see that it’s any business of yours, but I’m fifty-three.”
“Ah,” said the WPC.
“Ah,” the Inspector echoed, as if that explained everything.
What was this – some kind of medical assessment? Had they written her off as a menopausal hysteric? Surely not. She had told them everything in a manner that was unemotional to the point of being dull. What were they trying to insinuate?
Though these questions ran through her mind, being Carole Seddon, of course she didn’t voice any of them. Instead, she took the initiative. “Presumably,” she said, “when a body like that is found, it’s photographed
Detective Inspector Brayfield, stroking the knot of his brightly coloured silk tie, agreed that that would be the normal procedure. But he wasn’t to be deflected from his dissection of her story.
“You say there were cuts on the man’s neck and scar tissue on the inside of his wrist?”
“Yes.”
“Which might suggest he had been an intravenous drug user?”
“Quite possibly.”
“Do you know much about intravenous drug users, Mrs Seddon?”
“No, I don’t. But I do know enough to recognize that that was a possible explanation of the scars.”
“From things you’ve seen on television?”
“I suppose so, yes.”
Brayfield nodded, as if this too was of profound relevance. Then he said, “Could we just recap once again exactly what happened this morning?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” She couldn’t help herself. But, feeling the intense scrutiny of the two police officers after her outburst, she took a deep breath before saying, “Yes, yes, of course.”
“Was there anyone else around on the beach this morning when you took your walk?”
“Apart from the dead body?”
“Apart indeed from the dead body. Do you recall seeing anyone else?”
“No, I don’t think I did…” She screwed up her eyes with the effort of recapturing the scene. “Ooh yes, yes, there was someone.”
Carole was aware of WPC Juster tautening in her chair and realized how guilty she must sound, first forgetting, then remembering. But she was damned if she was going to feel guilty. She had nothing to feel guilty about. She was just doing her duty as a public-spirited citizen. Never again, though. Next time she found a dead body, she’d walk away and leave some other unfortunate passer-by the task of breaking the news to the police.
“So who was this?” asked Detective Inspector Bray-field evenly. “Who did you see?”
“It was someone in a shiny green anorak with the hood tied up tight. They were walking into the wind, you see. They hurried straight past me.”
“Hurried?”
“Almost ran.”
“Uh-huh. And was it a man or a woman?”
“I couldn’t tell.”
“Really?” Though deliberately ironing out the intonation, he still couldn’t remove the last wrinkle of scepticism. “You didn’t speak to this person?”
“No. I just gave them a nod.”
“And did they speak to you?”
“No.”
“Or give you a nod?” Carole shook her head. “That’s a pity, isn’t it?”
“Why?”
“Well, obviously if we had any means of tracking down this other person on the beach, then we might have another witness of your dead body, mightn’t we?”
“Yes.”
“Which might be very useful.” Before Carole had time to say anything, the Inspector moved abruptly on. “So you came straight back here from the beach?”
“As I told you, yes.”
“But before calling the police, you bathed your dog?”
