people about the Heron Cottage fire. But when he heard that was what Carole wanted to talk about, he suggested she came up as soon as possible. He was once again ensconced in the Snug of the Hare and Hounds. If she was quick, they could talk before the pub opened at six.
Carole drove to the village as fast as she could, but was impeded by the local rush-hour traffic. That was probably just as well, because her excitement would have made her careless of speed limits.
She was no longer suspicious of Detective Sergeant Baylis and was therefore unperturbed by the readiness with which he’d agreed to see her. Now she reckoned she knew the full scenario, and it didn’t involve him. The detective was no longer a suspect, just a useful professional contact.
Carole parked in the Hare and Hounds car park and, when she arrived in the pub at twenty to six, Baylis was in the Snug, chatting to Will Maples. Their behaviour definitely looked more like ‘chatting’ than ‘interviewing’. The sergeant had a very large Grouse in front of him, and the manager was sipping a cup of coffee, in anticipation of a busy evening ahead.
Carole didn’t find out what they were chatting about, though. They stopped as soon as she came in. On a little flick from Lennie Baylis’s eyebrows, Will Maples rose from his seat.
“Better sort things out in the kitchen,” he said.
“Maybe our lady friend would like a drink…”
“No, thank you, Sergeant.”
“Right. And you’re OK for the moment, Lennie?”
The whisky glass was raised in acknowledgement. “Fine, thanks.”
Will Maples left the bar. Detective Sergeant Baylis looked at the eternally repeating flame pattern of the log- effect fire. “Not so wet as you were last time we met here, are you, Mrs Seddon?”
“No. No, I’m not.”
“But I gather it’s still something to do with the same subject you want to talk about. The bones.”
“Yes.”
“Well, fire away.”
Carole nodded, and then a caution struck her. “What I’m going to say may be tantamount to an accusation…” He looked alarmed. “Of someone we both know.” He relaxed. “I wouldn’t like to think that kind of thing would become public knowledge.”
“Mrs Seddon…” Detective Sergeant Baylis spread his hands disingenuously. “It is my job to listen to wild accusations…often a lot wilder than anything I’m sure you’re going to come up with…and it’s also my job to keep the source of such accusations secret. Goodness, if all the murder theories I’ve heard in Weldisham the last few weeks ever became public, nobody in the village would ever speak to anyone else again. I can’t think of a single person who hasn’t been accused by someone. It’s amazing how the discovery of an unidentified body brings out all kinds of old resentments that have been bubbling under the surface for years.”
“And it still is an unidentified body?”
He smiled cannily. “Very clever, Mrs Seddon. Worth putting the question in. You might just catch me off my guard, and I might just let slip some classified information to you…but don’t count on it.”
She coloured at what was unmistakably a reproof. “I’m sorry.”
A grin. “OK, let’s hear your theory…”
Carole took a deep breath, and as she embarked on her theory she became aware that, beneath his laid-back exterior, Detective Sergeant Baylis was tense. He still thought what she was about to say concerned him at a personal level. He was waiting to hear what she had unearthed about his family history.
“I think,” she began slowly, “that what’s happened recently has roots that go back a long way into the past…”
He nodded assent. Nothing controversial so far. But he remained taut, waiting to see what would follow.
“I think the bones I found had lain undisturbed for more than twelve years, and might have lain undisturbed for a lot longer, but for certain recent developments.”
Baylis couldn’t keep quiet any longer. Still trying to sound casual, he said, “I assume this means you reckon you know who the bones belonged to?”
“Yes. I think they belonged to Sheila Forbes, Graham Forbes’s first wife.”
He gave no obvious reaction, but Carole thought a little of the tension had left his body.
“I think Graham Forbes murdered her over the weekend of the Great Storm, in October 1987, and buried her body in the floor of the old barn behind his house.”
The sergeant gave her a smile that was half congratulatory, half sceptical. “Nice idea. And I may say you’re not the only person to have had that thought.”
Carole felt a pang of disappointment.
“It’s a line of enquiry, I can tell you, that we in the police have pursued as well. But I’m afraid, persuasive though the theory might be, it doesn’t stand up to the facts.”
“No?”
“Sorry. One of the facts we know is that on the Monday morning after the Great Storm, 19 October 1987, Graham Forbes was witnessed travelling on a British Airways flight from Heathrow to Kuala Lumpur, in the company of his wife, Sheila. There’s no question about it. Her passport was checked and stamped. It’s on the records at Heathrow.”
Carole was a little shaken to find out how closely the official enquiries must have mirrored her own, but she kept her cool. “I’m sure Sheila Forbes’s passport was checked, but I don’t believe the person travelling on that passport was Sheila Forbes.”
She had the sergeant’s interest now. With mounting confidence, Carole continued, “I think the woman who travelled to Kuala Lumpur with Graham Forbes that Monday morning was Pauline Helling.”
“What?”
“There was sufficient family likeness for Pauline to pass herself off as her distant cousin, certainly among people who didn’t know her well, like passport officials.”
“But what about people who did know her well…like the British Council staff in Kuala Lumpur? They were never going to believe that Pauline Helling was the woman they’d seen around the house and office for three years.”
“I don’t think they saw her.”
“What do you mean?”
“When the Forbeses arrived at Kuala Lumpur airport in October 1987, Mrs Forbes was taken off in a taxi. Graham Forbes and the writer Sebastian Trent were taken off in a British Council car, but it wasn’t driven by Graham’s regular driver – in spite of the fact that the driver Shiva had worked with the Forbeses for years and was exceptionally loyal. I think Graham Forbes made that arrangement deliberately, so that the supposed Mrs Forbes wouldn’t be seen by anyone who could recognize her as an impostor.”
There was still scepticism around Baylis’s mouth, but he hadn’t yet rejected her theory out of hand. “So where did ‘the supposed Mrs Forbes’ go then? Some member of staff must have seen her when she finally got to their residence.”
“I don’t think Pauline Helling ever did get to the residence. I think Graham Forbes arranged for her to stay put in a hotel and then, after a suitable interval, she flew back to England on her own passport.”
“But why on earth would Pauline Helling do all that?”
“Money. Graham Forbes had done a deal with her. Don’t you think it’s a coincidence that, late in 1987, Pauline Helling suddenly has a pools win…suddenly finds herself in a position to buy Heron Cottage…and hopefully to live in the style in which her distant cousin had lived? A big step from being a cleaner in Weldisham to being a house owner in Weldisham.”
“Hmm…” Detective Sergeant Baylis’s head was shaking slowly.
Carole pressed home her advantage. “And don’t you think it’s another coincidence that round that time, Graham Forbes suddenly loses a lot of money. Nobody knows why he’s lost it – and being nice middle–class English people, the good folk of Weldisham would be far too polite to ask – but Lloyd’s is mentioned and that seems to make sense. Possibly Graham started the rumour himself…that he’d caught a cold in the Lloyd’s crash. It’s happened to a lot of other people, so no one questions the idea.”
Baylis still wasn’t convinced about the whole picture, but some of Carole’s ideas intrigued him. “Let’s just go along with your theory for a moment. If it were true, how do you explain more recent developments? If the bones
