¦
As someone who’d never possessed a mobile phone, Carole’s image of their technology was out of date. They were unreliable machines, prone to constant loss of signal and other breakdowns. So she wasn’t that surprised to have been cut off.
She used the last-number redial on Maggie’s phone. The ringing went on for some time, then a bloodlessly polite voice informed her that the caller was not responding, but she had the option of leaving a message.
There didn’t seem much point. Jude had definitely heard her say that Nick was all right. That was the important news. Anything else would keep.
Odd, though. One moment Jude was answering her phone; a moment later, even though their conversation had been unfinished, she’d switched it off.
Maybe another vagary of mobile-phone technology…The explanation gave Carole reassurance. Partial reassurance.
¦
Three-quarters of an hour had elapsed before Maggie Kent came back downstairs. “I’ve got the worst of it off him. It’ll take another few weeks of baths – or possibly a course of sandblasting – to get it all out of his pores, but he’s OK.”
“You don’t need to call the doctor?”
“I think all Nick needs is a lot of sleep. He’s tucked up in bed and I’ve given him one of my sleeping pills. I’ll get him a hot-water bottle. But he did want to have a word with you – just to say thank you.”
“Fine.” Carole rose to her feet, but Maggie still lingered in the doorway, not yet ready to lead her upstairs. “What is it?”
“It’s just…tell me…did Nick really try to kill himself?”
Carole answered with complete honesty. “He thought that’s what he wanted to do, yes. But when he got close to the reality, he changed his mind. He thought of the effect it would have on you and he couldn’t allow himself to do it.”
“Good.” Some of the tension eased from Maggie Kent’s shoulders and a warmth came into her tired face. “Let’s go up and see him.”
The decor of Nick Kent’s room was the perfect illustration of a life poised uneasily between the pulls of the child and the adult. A poster of the Manchester United football team on one wall was having a face-off with the pouting images of the latest girl band on the other. A copy of
Nick was propped up on pillows under a duvet with a Manchester United cover. He looked exhausted but calm. His scrubbed face bore the soft glow of childhood. His eyelids flickered. He would soon be asleep.
“I just wanted to say thank you very much,” he slurred. “Wanted to thank you…should’ve thanked the men who pulled me out…didn’t thank them properly…”
“Don’t worry. There’ll be plenty of time to do that.”
There was a shelf of treasures by the boy’s bedhead and on it Carole saw something which unleashed a landslide of explanations. Among Subbuteo footballers, swimming certificates and snaps of leering boys from some long-past school trip stood a framed photograph.
It showed a smiling, grey-haired man in his late forties. Undoubtedly the missing Sam Kent.
And also undoubtedly, in spite of the fact that in the photograph he had no tooth missing, the man whose body Carole Seddon had found on Fethering beach.
? The Body on the Beach ?
Thirty-Eight
“Well, thank you,” said Jude, “for interrupting my phone call.”
Rory Turribull put the turned-off mobile down on a table. “Some people believe it’s bad manners to take calls on mobiles in other people’s homes.”
“Possibly. But that’s not why you switched it off, was it?”
“No.” He moved to stand, almost protectively, behind Tanya’s chair.
Jude took in the pair of them. The dentist looked less raddled than he had when she last saw him in the Crown and Anchor. For the first time, there was some confidence about him, the successful professional in his early fifties. Beside him, the lumpen girl in her crumpled black, surprisingly, did not look out of place.
“So you two are an item,” said Jude.
Rory looked as if he might have denied it, but Tanya responded instantly, “Yeah, all right, and what if we are? He’s a good man, first man I ever met who actually cares about me, isn’t just trying to use me. What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing. There’s nothing wrong with love.”
“Then why are you here…what’s your name – Jude?” asked Rory.
“Jude, yes. There could be a lot of answers to why I’m here, but let’s start with the fact that everyone who knows you thinks you’ve committed suicide. You did leave a note to that effect. The police have been searching for you for days.”
“I know.”
“Well, wouldn’t you say that justifies a degree of curiosity? Why does someone want to stage his own death? And what might that deception have to do with the body that was found on Fethering Beach last Tuesday? I assume I don’t have to explain to you which body I’m talking about? I’m taking it for granted you were listening from behind the bathroom door?”
“You’re right. I encouraged Tanya to get you talking to find out how much you knew.”
A couple of details at least were explained – why Tanya had changed her reaction the second time Jude had phoned and the girl’s long absence in the bathroom early on in their interview.
“And how much do you reckon I do know?” asked Jude coolly. She recognized that her situation was uncomfortable but was trying to work out whether or not it was dangerous.
“You tell me,” Rory replied. “You’ve clearly made some connections. The fact that you’re here and the fact that you’re talking about the body demonstrate that. But how much else have you pieced together?”
“Well…” She hadn’t pieced much together until that moment, but suddenly certain conclusions became glaringly obvious. “If, on the one hand, you have a middle-aged man who, with maximum publicity, has declared he is about to commit suicide…and, on the other hand, you have the body of a second middle-aged man of similar build…I might suspect some substitution of bodies was being contemplated.”
There was a sharp breath from Tanya, but Rory neither confirmed nor denied the conjecture. He waited to see what else Jude was going to say.
“I don’t know how the apparent death would be staged. In a car, I imagine. But not exhaust fumes. No, it has to be a method that would disfigure the corpse sufficiently to make identification difficult. Fire would probably be best. Body wearing Rory Turribull’s clothes found in burnt-out car belonging to Rory Turnbull, body must belong to Rory Turribull. God knows the poor man had enough reasons to do away with himself. The heroin habit that was ruining him financially, leading him to remortgage his house, put his hand in the till at the Yacht Club, try to cheat the Dental Estimates Board…Many men have killed themselves to avoid lesser ruin than that little accumulation. Open and shut case.”
Rory Turnbull nodded slowly. “Yes. You have done well, haven’t you?”
Tanya had been silent too long. “All right, so what’s wrong with all that? It hasn’t done anyone any harm, has it?”
“What about Rory’s wife, Barbara?”
“That frigid bitch deserves everything that’s coming to her! She’s never given Rory anything all the time they’ve been married, just sucked out his lifeblood. And she’ll be cushioned by her mother’s money, whatever happens. She’s not suffering from this.”
“All right, Tanya, putting Barbara on one side…what about the dead man? The one who would so obligingly pretend to be Rory? Are you telling me he didn’t suffer either?”
