The Fethering Mysteries 12; Bones Under The Beach Hut

Simon Brett

Bones Under The Beach Hut

The Fethering Mysteries #12

2011, EN

The affluent seaside resort of Smalting is unaccustomed to crime. So when human remains are found beneath the floorboards of one of its beach huts, the community is awash with suspicion and fear.

Amateur sleuths Carole Seddon and best friend Jude are drawn into the mystery, and their suspicion quickly falls on attractive Philly Rose, a young Londoner newly arrived in the area, whose boyfriend has recently vanished in mysterious circumstances. Meanwhile, Kelvin Southwest, self-appointed ‘ladies’ man’ and caretaker of Smalting’s beach huts, seems to be hiding a dark secret beneath his smooth exterior, while Reginald Flowers, pompous President of the Smalting Beach Hut Association, becomes increasingly defensive about his own history.

When the bones under the beach hut are identified, the ghosts of the past are painfully reawakened, and long-hidden secrets begin to surface. Bones Under the Beach Hut is an ingenious mystery from one of England’s favourite crime writers, exquisitely plotted, teeming with wonderful characters and packed with unexpected twists.

? Bones Under The Beach Hut ?

One

There weren’t many proper beach huts on Fethering Beach. Just a few ramshackle sheds once owned by fishermen, which had been converted for use by holidaying families. For proper regimented beach huts, with pitched roofs and the proportions of large Wendy houses, you had to go west along the coast to the neighbouring village of Smalting. And it was there that Carole Seddon had the use of a beach hut for the summer.

Smalting was a picturesque – very nearly bijou – West Sussex village, whose inhabitants thought themselves superior to the residents of Fethering. In fact, they thought themselves superior to the residents of anywhere. Like many of the villages along that stretch of coast, the earliest extant buildings were fishermen’s cottages, which had been refurbished many times, ending up as elegant well-appointed dwellings, mostly bought by comfortably pensioned people downsizing in retirement. A couple of large houses had been added to the village in the eighteenth century, and a few more spacious holiday homes had been built by the late Victorians. In the first decade of the twentieth century, Smalting had become a fashionable seaside resort and rows of neat Edwardian terraces had sprung up. In the nineteen thirties two private estates had been developed either side of the village, and with that further building stopped. Unlike Fethering, Smalting did not spread northwards and so did not have room for any of what was still disparagingly referred to as ‘council housing’. The army of cleaners and home helps who serviced the needs of its residents all came from outside the village.

Nobody did any basic shopping in Smalting. There was nothing so common as a supermarket. The newsagent was the nearest to a practical shop in the village, selling milk and bread as well as more traditional stock and beach items for holidaymakers. The other retailers were highly expensive ladies fashion boutiques, tiny craft galleries and antique dealers. Facing the promenade stood a row of dainty tea shops. Smalting’s one pub, The Crab Inn, had such a daunting air of gentility about it and such high prices for food that it was rarely entered by anyone under thirty. But it did very well from the over-sixties.

The beach huts conformed to the high standards that were de rigueur for everything else in Smalting. There were thirty-six of them at the back of the beach, just in front of the promenade, and they were divided into three slightly concave rows of twelve. Eight foot in height and width, each one was ten foot deep and set on four low concrete blocks. They were painted identically – the bitumenized corrugated roofs green, the wooden walls and doors yellow and blue respectively. Touches of individualism were clearly discouraged, though a considerable variety of padlocks was on show, and some of the owners had indulged in rather elaborate name signs. These tended to feature anchors, coils of rope, shells and painted seagulls. The names chosen – Seaview, Salt Spray, Sandy Cove, Clovelly, Distant Shores and so on – didn’t demonstrate a great deal of originality.

The beach hut of which Carole Seddon had use was called Quiet Harbour, and she felt rather guilty about her new possession. This was not unusual for Carole. Despite her forbidding exterior and controlled manner, inside she was a mass of neuroses, though this was something that she would not acknowledge to anyone, least of all herself. She had been brought up to believe that everyone should be self-sufficient, that turning to others for help was a sign of weakness. Afraid of revealing her true personality, Carole had always tried to keep people at arm’s length, not allowing anyone to get close to her. This had certainly been her practice during her career at the Home Office. She had also tried to keep her distance within marriage, which was perhaps the reason why she and David had divorced.

And when she had moved permanently to Fethering in retirement (early retirement) Carole Seddon still kept herself to herself. She had acquired a Labrador called Gulliver for the sole purpose of looking purposeful, so that her walks across Fethering Beach did not appear to be the wanderings of someone lonely, but the essential behaviour of someone who had a dog to walk.

So intimacy was not a natural state for Carole Seddon. Even Jude, her neighbour and closest friend, sometimes found herself shut out. Carole was hypersensitive to slights, quick to take offence. And she worried away about things.

Just as she was now worrying away about her use of Quiet Harbour. Like many people who lack confidence, Carole was wary of breaking even the most minor of regulations. There were many things in her life that she couldn’t control, but one thing she could was keeping the right side of the law. Her work at the Home Office had encouraged her natural law-abiding tendencies, and she would try to avoid even tiny infringements, like keeping out a library book beyond its due date or being twenty-four hours late in applying for the road tax on her Renault. And Carole wasn’t convinced that her using the beach hut was entirely, 100 per cent legal.

The contact had come through Jude, inevitably from one of her clients. In Woodside Cottage, the house next to Carole’s High Tor, Jude worked as a healer and alternative therapist. Neither of these job descriptions cut much ice with her neighbour, who regarded as suspect any medical intervention that wasn’t carried out by a traditionally qualified doctor. Whenever the subject of Jude’s work came up in their conversations, Carole had to keep biting her lips to prevent the words ‘New Age mumbo-jumbo’ from coming out of them. But she had to admit the benefits of her neighbour’s work when it came to broadening their social circle. And on more than one occasion, it had been through a client who had come to Woodside Cottage for healing that Carole and Jude had become involved in criminal investigations.

It was in the role of client that Philly Rose had come to Jude. She was crippled by back pain and, as was so often the case, the cause of the agony lay in her mind rather than her body.

Philly, in her early thirties, and her older boyfriend Mark Dennis had moved down from London to Smalting some six months before, just at the beginning of January. For both of them it had been a new start, Philly giving up employment as a graphic designer to go freelance and Mark chucking his highly paid City job to do what he’d always wanted and be a painter. Cushioned by his savings and recent huge bonus, the two of them had embraced country living, involving themselves in everything that the South Coast had to offer. Their two sports cars were traded in for a Range Rover. They acquired two cocker spaniels, bought a sailing dinghy, planted their own vegetables. Both took a lot of exercise. Mark lost the extra weight put on by his City lifestyle. Their make-over seemed complete.

Renting one of Smalting’s beach huts was just another symbol of how deeply they were digging their roots into the new environment.

And then one day at the beginning of May, Mark had walked out. That was all the information Carole had.