the hangover?”
“I kept putting off calling her. I was worried about how she’d react to me, whether she’d be furious, whether I’d ruined everything. But finally by the Friday I’d convinced myself I had to take the risk. Call Philly, accept whatever consequences that action might trigger.”
“I don’t think they’d be bad consequences,” said Jude gently.
Mark Dennis appeared not to hear her, as he went on, “Then of course on the Thursday morning I hear on the news that human remains have been found under a beach hut at Smalting. Well, I knew that meant the place was going to be swarming with police and, though my recollections of what had happened to me after I was found on Dover Beach were vague, there was no way I was ever voluntarily going to put myself in touch with the police again, so…” His words trickled away to silence.
“Have you heard about the identification of the remains that were found?” asked Carole.
“Yes. It keeps being on the news. You can’t escape it.”
“And do you know anything about Robin Cutter?”
“Only what I’ve heard in the last few days.” From the way he spoke there was no doubt that Mark Dennis was telling the truth.
He shook his head in puzzlement. “So that’s where I am. Still totally confused.” He looked earnestly at Jude and asked, “What do you think I should do?”
She held out her mobile phone towards him. “Ring Philly.”
? Bones Under The Beach Hut ?
Thirty-One
Mark Dennis was afraid – tremblingly, shudderingly afraid. They had driven straight from the pub to Seashell Cottage. When the Renault drew up outside, he asked the two women to come to the front door with him. Then he changed his mind and asked Jude to go on her own and check whether Philly Rose really wanted to see him.
As they waited in the car, Carole was aware of his body convulsing with bone-deep sobs. She was embarrassed and couldn’t think of anything to say.
Their wait felt long, but it was only a couple of minutes. Then Jude came out on to the street and said through the Renault’s open window, “She wants to see you, Mark.”
Reassured but still scared, he again asked them to come into the cottage with him. The two women felt a little strange as they escorted Mark through the front door, which Philly held open, but such was the emotional tension between the two young people, they could recognize the need for some kind of catalyst for this first explosive contact.
Awkwardness filled the tiny hall while Philly closed the door. Wordlessly, she ushered her three guests into the kitchen/dining area. The uneasy silence continued until their hostess offered tea.
“Yes,” said Mark very formally. “Yes, thank you, Philly. I’d like a cup of tea.”
Carole and Jude refused the offer. “We should really be on our way,” said Jude.
“No, don’t go!” The plea from Mark Dennis was instinctive, and still frightened.
“I think we should.” Jude looked at the two of them, facing each other, frozen, their eyes avoiding engagement. “Come on, Carole. We’ll see ourselves out.”
In the Renault on the way back to Fethering, Carole asked, “What do you reckon? The minute we left, they fell into each other’s arms and love’s young dream was re-established?”
“I hope so,” said Jude. But she didn’t sound sure.
“Well, at least that’s one mystery solved,” Carole observed, “but I can’t believe Mark had anything to do with Robin Cutter.”
“No.” Jude was thoughtful, abstracted.
“So I suppose it’s another visit tomorrow morning to Smalting Beach. Hope that Reginald Flowers’s bronchitis has cleared up, assuming that that’s why he wasn’t there today.”
“Hm.”
“Are you up for a return visit?”
Shaking herself out of her reverie, Jude said, “What? Tomorrow? Saturday? No, sorry, I’m committed to a Past Life Regression Workshop in Brighton.”
A lot of knee-jerk responses sprang to Carole’s lips, but she restricted herself to a rather acid, “Are you? Well,” she continued, “I’ll see if I can get a chance to talk to Reginald Flowers.”
? Bones Under The Beach Hut ?
Thirty-Two
The bronchitis must have cleared up. Carole exactly repeated her timescale of the previous morning: a seven-thirty walk with Gulliver on Smalting Beach. Sure enough, even at that hour, as she and the dog passed, Reginald Flowers was sitting in his bolt-upright chair at the doors of his museum of naval memorabilia.
There was no problem about selecting her opening conversational gambit. “Very good do the other night. Jude and I really enjoyed the quiz.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“Thank you very much. It must have taken a lot of organization.”
“Oh, I’m used to it,” he said in heroic self-deprecation. “Anyway, I must thank you too. Without your prompt action, Carole, we wouldn’t have had a venue, would we?”
“I can always get round Ted Crisp,” she said with uncharacteristic winsomeness.
“He was the one with the beard behind the bar?”
“Yes.”
An expression of irritation crossed Reginald Flowers’s face. “I always think if a man is going to have a beard, he should keep it in good order. At least he had a full beard, rather than one of those goatees or other forms of contemporary topiary.” Instinctively his hand stroked his George V number. “But I can’t imagine why anyone would want to go around looking like a cross between a Viking and a hippy. It certainly made that landlord look very surly. Positively forbidding. And he wasn’t particularly forthcoming when he opened his mouth either. Downright rude, if you ask me.”
“That’s just his manner. Ted Crisp really does have a heart of gold.”
“Well, I’ll have to take your word for that. Anyway, many thanks for making the arrangement, Carole.”
“No problem at all.”
Reginald Flowers was silent for a moment, looking back inside
Carole was struck by the nervousness with which he made this offer, almost as though it were something much more momentous, like asking her out on a date. She was also aware again of his deep loneliness. The Thursday night in the Crown and Anchor she’d recognized it too. Reginald Flowers had been at the centre of everything, he’d known everyone there, but he still seemed separate, outside any community spirit there had been in the function room. The only person he’d connected with – and that had been at a level of guilt and reproach – had been Dora Pinchbeck.
“Yes, I’d love a cup of tea,” Carole replied. “Do you mind if I tie the dog up to that hook?”
“Be my guest.” Reginald Flowers went into his shrine to fetch another chair for her, and then to busy himself with the tea making.
The early morning sun was pleasantly warm and had already burned off any residual mist from the night before. Carole looked out over the sea and found herself recalling the image that Lionel Oliver had told her about – of a young man disappointed in love walking straight out to his death. The scene before her suddenly seemed less idyllic.
She looked across to Gulliver, now amiably reconciled to having his walk truncated and being tied up. He
