The detective inspector leading the inquiry, a face unfamiliar to her, said how committed the police were to finding out who the dead woman was and what had happened to her.
Then the presenter moved bumptiously on to introduce an item about a Jack Russell terrier in Gosport who had learned to use the cat-flap.
¦
“It seems to me that there isn’t a case,” said led Crisp, holding a pint glass he’d just cleaned up to the light.
“Oh, come on. There are the bones,” Jude insisted. “They’re real. They once belonged to someone.”
“Still do belong to someone, I suppose…depending of course on your religious persuasion. But the way I see it, there was this girl in Weldisham who everyone thought had disappeared, and so long as no one knew to the contrary, there might have been a link between her and what Carole found in the barn. But now you’ve lost that link, you’re back to the much more likely scenario – that the bones have nothing to do with anyone in this area.”
“Surely – ”
“No, listen, young Jude. In my long and varied career, I may have done a lot of things, but I’ve never actually committed a murder. Wanted to a few times, maybe, but I never succumbed to the temptation. And the fact that my former wife’s still walking about is living proof of that. But even I – with my limited knowledge of murderers’ know-how – can work out that if I had topped someone, I’d want to put as much distance as I could between me and the body. So it’s much more likely that Carole’s bones were paying their first visit to Weldisham – first visit to West Sussex, quite possibly.
“This is how I see it. You kill someone in Brixton, say…Don’t know what – gangland turf war, drugs, whatever. Well, once you’ve done that, if you got any sense, first thing you do is get the evidence away from Brixton. South Downs, you think, that sounds nice, miles from anywhere. Dump the remains on the South Downs and scarper back home to Brixton quick as you can. That’s what I’d do.”
Carole felt dispirited. For a start, what Ted Crisp was saying was probably true. But also there was the way he was behaving towards her. Exactly as he always had in the past. She felt stupid for her misinterpretation of his manner to her last Friday, and even more stupid about the thoughts she had since allowed to flow from that encounter. If anything, Ted was paying more attention to Jude than he was to her.
But that was always going to be the case. Jude was more outgoing than she could ever be. People responded to Jude. They found her fun to be with. They found her sexy.
Carole had long since written off the possibility that anyone would ever find her sexy.
Anyway, Ted Crisp was very far from her type of man. He was scruffy, possibly not even very clean. His hair and beard looked beyond hairdressers’ help. And he had no intellectual credentials. A publican who had formerly been a stand-up comedian. He was hardly the kind of man with whom Carole could see herself swapping clues from the
Jude, needless to say, wasn’t cast down by Ted’s arguments. “No, there’s more to it. Let’s go with your murderer from Brixton, if you like…OK, all he knows about the South Downs is that they’re a long way away from Brixton…So he drives down here, body in the boot, and he goes
In spite of herself, Carole had become caught up in the argument. “What’s more, where did he find fertilizer bags in Brixton? The fertilizer bags are the most interesting feature of the case.”
Ted opened his mouth.
“And before you say anything, I am absolutely certain there is a case. Those fertilizer bags give us two important pieces of information. One, they possibly connect the bones with this area. Two – and this is more significant – they prove that the bones had been moved. Which also raises the possibility that two people could have been involved – one who committed the murder years ago and another who, at a later date, moved the evidence so that it wouldn’t be found.”
“Except,” Jude pointed out, “the evidence was found. You found it, and you didn’t have much difficulty doing so. Which raises an even more interesting possibility…”
Carole caught the sparkle in Jude’s eye and nodded. “That the bones were moved deliberately so that they would be found.”
The two women turned triumphantly towards the landlord. He shook his shaggy head. “Too many guesses in that. Too many details we don’t know. We certainly don’t know there’s been a murder. No proof of that at all. The person whose flesh was once wrapped around those bones could easily have died in an accident…Could even have died a natural death, been ceremoniously buried with all the pomp and circumstance of religion, and then been dug up in the churchyard by some dog.”
“A dog who then stacked up the bones in fertilizer bags?” demanded Carole sceptically. “I must see if I can teach Gulliver that trick.”
“No, no. I’m not saying that’s what happened. I accept that some human agency was involved in gift- wrapping the bones and popping them in the barn, but we have no means of knowing where the body came from or what happened to it.”
Jude chewed her lip. “Frustrating, isn’t it? I bet the police know more about it than we do.”
“It is their job,” Carole pointed out, reasonably enough.
“Not fair,” said Jude. “They have all those advantages of forensic labs and fingerprints and DNA and they still get it wrong most of the time.”
Ted Crisp chuckled. “Well, that’s good for you, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“Police getting it wrong. If they got it right every time, wouldn’t be any openings for talented amateurs, would there?” And the wink he gave seemed to be specifically targeted at Carole.
“Oh, shut up,” she said.
Jude pursed her lips and slowly shook her head. “If only we had one piece of information, we could move forward…”
“What piece of information’s that?” Ted pointed at their glasses. “Another large white wine in there, is it, Jude?”
“Yeah, go for it.”
“Carole?”
“Certainly.”
As he turned to open a new wine bottle, he called over his shoulder, “Sorry, Jude. You said you needed one piece of information. What’s that then?”
“Exactly how old the bones were. When the person died. The police must know that by now.”
“Oh, well, why don’t you just ring up and ask them? Keep reading in the papers how user-friendly the police’re trying to make themselves, how touchy-feely. I’m sure they’d be only too pleased to share their laboratory reports with you.”
“Ha, ha.” Jude stuck her tongue out at him. “But if we did have that information, then we could concentrate our enquiries on that specific time…You know, find out who went missing from Weldisham round then.”
“‘Concentrate our enquiries’?” Ted echoed. “Who do you think you are – the West Sussex Constabulary.”
“No, we’re just interested, that’s all,” said Carole.
“Interested’s one way of putting it. Another’s bloody nosy.”
“Don’t listen to him. We’ll find out what happened up in that village, don’t you worry.” As she spoke, Jude patted her arm. Carole found the gesture of solidarity strangely reassuring. “Ooh, I’m starving,” Jude went on. “I’m going to order something to eat. What about you?”
Carole’s freezer contained a clingfilm-wrapped portion of fish designated for that evening, but it wasn’t a plan that couldn’t be shelved. “Yes. Excellent idea.”
“What’s good to eat tonight?” asked Jude as Ted put their wine glasses down on the counter.
“Apart from me?” Ted Crisp simpered coyly, but, getting no reaction, moved quickly on. “You won’t go wrong with the Kate and Sidney.”
“Sounds great to me. I’ll have one of those.” Jude picked up her glass. “We’ll be sitting over there by the fire – OK?”
