The Fethering Mysteries 12; Bones Under The Beach Hut

“Well, were they holding hands, arm in arm?”

“Oh no, nothing like that.”

“Were they just ambling along or were they looking furtive? Were they hurrying?”

“Yes, I’d say they were hurrying. The man might even have been swaying about a bit.”

“You mean – as if he was drunk?”

“Possibly.”

“And you couldn’t tell exactly where they were going?”

“I was just driving past,” he protested. “I only saw them for a couple of seconds.”

“You’re absolutely certain the man was Mark Dennis?”

“Absolutely certain,” said Curt Holderness.

A silence stretched out between them. Then suddenly a new thought came into Carole’s head, a recollection of something the security officer had mentioned when they’d first spoken. It was a long chance that the question would lead anywhere, but anything was worth a try. “There’s another thing I want to ask you,” said Carole.

“Oh?” He was once again wary.

“When we first spoke on the phone, Mr Holderness, you assumed – wrongly – that I’d contacted you because there was some rule about use of the beach hut on Smalting Beach that I wanted you to bend for me.”

There was an uncomfortable silence from the other end of the line, so Carole pressed on. “You also gave examples of rules that you had managed to bend, of people having small generators in their huts, or staying overnight in them…”

“So? Are you planning to report me for it?” There was a new menace in his question. Carole visualized the thickset security officer and was in no doubt that he would be quite capable of physical violence.

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” she said, more calmly than she felt, “if you were to tell me which of the current owners of Smalting Beach beach huts you have allowed to stay there overnight.”

“Well, in the past there’s been the odd adulterous couple who use the place for their assignations…”

“Any of that going on at the moment?”

“No. Last one of those broke up just before Christmas. The woman’s husband found out and surprised them at it in the beach hut. Very messy and violent.”

“How violent?”

“Nobody was killed, if that’s what you mean. But a heavy beating was administered to the wife and her lover.”

“Was it reported to the police?”

“Of course not. Not in any of their interests to make the thing public, was it? Mind you, we had to get professional cleaners in to get the blood off the walls.”

Carole winced. “And currently?”

“How do you mean?”

“Is there anyone staying overnight in any of the huts to whom you’re currently turning a blind eye?”

“Look, if I tell you this, will you get off my back?”

“Oh yes,” said Carole glibly. But she had no intention of doing so. She knew she had a powerful hold over Curt Holderness, and if there was further information she thought she could get from him, she wouldn’t hesitate to put further pressure on him.

“All right,” he said grudgingly. “There’s just the one. Girl in Shrimphaven.”

“The one next to Fowey, which I’m using at the moment.”

“That’s right. Kel Southwest put the girl on to me and we…sorted out an arrangement.”

“Of the folding variety?”

“Maybe.”

“What’s her name?” asked Carole.

“Katie Brunswick.”

Carole smiled to herself. Her hunch had been right. Now she had a potential witness to night-time goings-on on Smalting Beach. She decided another trip to Fowey might be in order.

¦

The day was nondescript. Warm enough, but with no sun showing through the clogged clouds. When – and if – they blew away, the afternoon might be quite pleasant.

Carole had the decency to take Gulliver for a walk along Smalting Beach before subjecting him to the ignominy of being chained up. She had brought a bottle of water with her to fill his bowl and after a couple of thirsty slurps from it he lay down in the shade, apparently reconciled to his fate.

Carole’s preparations had not only included the water. She had brought with her her customary smokescreen of The Times crossword and also a bag of chocolate brownies that she had made that morning. This was most unusual behaviour. Carole Seddon didn’t have a sweet tooth and she rarely baked anything. She also, from her childhood onward, had Calvinistically resisted the wicked crime of eating between meals. But the chocolate brownies had been made with two purposes in mind. One was the imminent arrival of Gaby and Lily on the Sunday. Both her daughter-in-law and granddaughter were suckers for anything containing chocolate.

And the second purpose of the brownies was to act as an ice-breaker to the young woman in Shrimphaven. After erecting a base camp on The Times crossword by filling in a couple of clues, Carole picked up her bag of goodies and steeled herself to the challenge of being affably sociable. It was something that she knew Jude would do more naturally – and better.

She had noticed that the doors of Shrimphaven were open when she’d walked Gulliver back. And she’d even directed a kind of ‘Fethering nod’ to its interior, though she couldn’t say whether any response had emerged from the shadows. But she had definitely seen the outline of the girl she now knew to be called Katie Brunswick, hunched as ever over her laptop.

Carole took a deep breath and stepped across to block the daylight from Shrimphaven’s doors. Inevitably Katie Brunswick had to look up at her.

“Good morning,” said Carole in her best attempt at affable sociability. “Since we’re kind of beach hut neighbours I thought I’d say hello. My name’s Carole Seddon and I was about to have one of these chocolate brownies I’ve just made. And then I thought maybe you would like one?”

She was now close enough to get her first proper view of Katie Brunswick, seated on the bench at the back of what was an otherwise very empty beach hut. Probably in her thirties, the girl had large round glasses and black curly hair pulled back untidily into a scrunchy. Her slight figure was dressed in a plain white T-shirt, jeans and flip- flops.

She didn’t exactly look pleased to be interrupted, but was too well brought up to be positively rude. “That’s very kind of you,” she said in a voice that had also been well brought up.

Carole stepped into Shrimphaven and proffered her paper bag. With something like reluctance, Katie Brunswick shifted her laptop on to the table by her side and accepted a brownie. Carole also took one out and bit into it, an indication that she was going to stay until the cake was finished. Katie was again too well brought up not to gesture Carole to sit on the bench beside her. There were no other chairs in the hut.

“Would you like some coffee?” she asked, gesturing to a large thermos on a white table through whose paint little aureoles of rust had worked through like acne.

“No, thank you. I’ve just had some.”

The girl seemed relieved at this response, perhaps because it suggested Carole’s visit was going to be eating-a-brownie length rather than eating-a-brownie-and-drinking-a-cup-of-coffee length. Or maybe she’d carefully calculated the contents of the thermos as her coffee supply for the day.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know your name,” Carole lied. Katie Brunswick identified herself. “You’re rather a woman of mystery on Smalting Beach.”

“Am I? Why?”

“Everyone’s intrigued by what you do here all day.”

“Oh?”

“Do you know Reginald Flowers?” The young woman shook her head. “He’s the President of the Smalting Beach Hut Association.”

“I haven’t joined that.”