“Yes. Are those two events connected? Hm…” Jude tapped her chin in frustration. “So where did the body go? Where, come to that, is the body now?”
Her eyes moved restlessly across the horizon of Fethering, and stopped focused on a high thirties house with glass-fronted top floor. As she looked a flash of reflected sunlight caught on something behind the glass. “Who lives there?”
“What?”
“That tall house, Carole. Who lives there?”
“Old bloke. I don’t know his name. He’s completely housebound, I think.”
“But from the top of that house, he can see everything that happens on the beach.”
“Well, yes, he probably can, but – ”
“Come on!” And Jude had started running up the sand, her wet shoes squelching protests at every step. Gulliver, having recognized another game, also ran, barking enthusiastically.
“But, Jude,” Carole wailed, “we can’t just burst into his house!”
“Why not?”
“Because we don’t know him.”
“Oh, Carole! For heaven’s sake!”
? The Body on the Beach ?
Thirty-One
The house that overlooked the beach must once have been in single ownership but had been divided into flats, one on each of its four storeys. Assuming a correlation between the flats and the entryphone buttons, Jude boldly pressed the top one.
There was no response. She was about to press again when an electronic voice from the little speaker said, “Hello?”
“Good afternoon. Are you the gentleman in the top flat?”
“Yes.”
“We wondered if we could come and talk to you.”
“Might I ask who you are?”
“My name’s Jude, and I’m with my friend Carole Seddon. We both live in Fethering. In the High Street. Please. We would like to talk to you.”
“About what?” the voice crackled back.
“About things you may have seen on the beach over the last week.”
“Uh-huh.” There was a silence while the voice seemed to assess the proposition. Then it went on, “So you are asking me, an elderly, housebound cripple, to open my door to two people I’ve never seen before…”
“Yes.”
“…in spite of the fact that the majority of crimes against the elderly are committed by malefactors who have infiltrated themselves into pensioners’ houses on some spurious pretext?”
“Yes,” said Jude, with less confidence.
“Come on up,” the voice from the box intoned. Then the door buzzed its release. Jude pushed and held it, while Carole sorted out Gulliver. He wasn’t going to enjoy being tied by his lead to a garden seat – particularly when he reckoned he was being taken out for a walk – but there was no alternative. As they went inside the building, he gave a couple of reproachful barks at the eternal perfidy of women.
The entrance was at the back, at the foot of a tower which housed a lift and had presumably been added at the time of the conversion into flats. Without the lift, surely no one in a wheelchair would live on the top floor.
“But we don’t even know his name,” Carole complained as they rose up through the building.
“Then we’ll ask him what it is.” Jude’s tone came as near as it ever did to exasperation.
They emerged on to a small landing. Framed in the doorway opposite, which he had opened ready for them, was a small man in a wheelchair.
Perhaps he wouldn’t have looked small if he could have stood up, but, crumpled down as he was, there seemed to be very little of him. He was partially paralysed, his head propped back at a strange angle. His left hand was strapped against the arm of his chair, while his right hovered over a control panel of buttons and levers. He wore a crested blazer and a
“Good afternoon…Carole and Jude, was it?”
When he spoke, they realized that not only the entryphone had made his voice sound electronic. He talked through some kind of voicebox. The cravat must have been there to hide a tracheotomy scar.
“Come on in,” he said, flicking a control and going into sharp reverse. “Close the door behind you.”
“Isn’t that a risk?” asked Jude, as they came into his sitting room. “If we were going to rob you or beat you up, nobody would hear your cries.”
Carole gave her neighbour a reproving look. What appalling bad taste. Had Jude no sense of the right remark for the right occasion?
But apparently it was exactly the right remark for their host. He let out a bark of electronic laughter and said, “I’m prepared to take my chance with you two. I know appearances can be deceptive, but you don’t project the traditional image of teenage tearaways.
“My name’s Gordon Lithgoe, by the way. I’d offer to make you tea, but I’m so cack-handed, you’d be better off doing it for yourself. The makings are over there.”
“No, thank you. We don’t require tea.” Carole didn’t want the atmosphere to become too relaxed. When they started asking him questions, Gordon Lithgoe might decide to throw them out.
“This is a pretty stunning little eyrie you’ve got here,” said Jude.
It was. The window that took up the entire front wall dominated the space, as if the sea were part of the decor. The original thirties metal-framed panes were still intact, but outside a more modern set of sliding windows protected them from the worst of the weather. The glow of the bright November afternoon permeated the whole room. There was little furniture; someone in a wheelchair had more use for space than armchairs and sofas. On the walls were pinned large-scale maps of shorelines, creeks and channels; there were a few plaques commemorating various ships; and in rows of bookcases stood the serried blue spines of books that looked as if they must have something to do with navigation.
Most interesting, though, from the point of view of the two women, was the area directly in front of the window. A platform had been built up there, and from it a ramp led down for the wheelchair. On the platform stood a telescope on a tripod. Two pairs of powerful binoculars lay on a nearby table, as well as an open ledger with a fountain pen lying down its middle crease. Some notes were written on the left-hand page.
“Very nautical flavour,” Jude went on. “Were you in the Navy?”
“No, no,” said Gordon Lithgoe. “No chance of someone like me passing the medical. So I’ve always had to remain as just an interested amateur.”
“Still” – Jude looked around the room again – “this is a wonderful place.”
“Just as well,” his voice crackled back, “since the only times I leave it these days is to have operations.” There was another rasp of laughter. “Apropos of which, ladies, sorry about the cap, but it’s prettier than the scars underneath.”
“Yes, I’m sure it is,” said Carole, ever ready with the required Fethering platitude.
Her recourse to what passed locally for good manners reminded him of his own. “Do sit down.” He pointed to two upright kitchen chairs. “Sorry, not very comfortable, but then I have few visitors. The woman who brings my meals never stays. Otherwise, it’s the nurse, the occasional social worker, very rarely the doctor and, even more rarely, the odd friend. Have to be odd to come and see someone like me – half man, half electronic gadget – wouldn’t they?”
There was not a nuance of self-pity in his words. There hadn’t been in anything he had said. He seemed, if anything, amused by his plight.
“Anyway,” he said, signalling the end of social niceties, “you are here for a purpose. I saw you deciding to come up here.”
