The Fethering Mysteries 12; Bones Under The Beach Hut

Robin Cutter, but she wasn’t about to tell the man that. Let him suffer a bit longer.

And in the meantime she would get back in touch with Curt Holderness.

? Bones Under The Beach Hut ?

Thirty-Five

Unlike Kelvin Southwest, Curt Holderness wasn’t under the illusion that Carole Seddon was attached in any way to the police force. Nor, given his career background, did she reckon he’d be fooled for a moment if she claimed she was. But she still didn’t reckon he’d argue when she said she’d like to meet and talk.

He didn’t. She rang him as soon as a very chastened and nervous Kelvin Southwest had left…with many pleas that she would not tell anyone else about what they had discussed. But she wasn’t about to let that particular little worm off the hook by giving him any such undertaking.

When she passed on to Curt Holderness what she’d heard from the Fether District Council official, the security officer agreed instantly to a meeting. He asked where she was and said he’d come straight to Smalting. Fowey that morning was becoming a kind of ‘Incident Room’ and in Carole’s view the beach hut served the purpose pretty well. Though there was no one near enough to overhear any conversations conducted there, it was in full public view and therefore safe.

As she had the thought, she remembered that it was in full public view, in a situation that anyone might have thought to be safe, that Robin Cutter had been abducted on that very beach. A little shudder ran through her.

But no feeling of fear could overpower the sense of excitement welling up inside her. She was finally making real progress on the case. And on her own. Jude might live to regret wasting her time at a Past Life Regression Workshop in Brighton.

“Funny, Carole. I hadn’t got you down as a blackmailer.”

She looked up to see the stocky figure of Curt Holderness standing between her and the sun. She was sure he had chosen to approach from that angle to emphasize his menace. And he’d succeeded. In spite of the June heat, he was once again wearing his black motorcycle leathers, though he stripped off the blouson as, uninvited, he sat in the chair opposite her. Underneath he had on a Metallica tour T-shirt.

“I’m not a blackmailer,” said Carole, with a calm that she didn’t feel.

“Then what is all this about?”

“I am interested in the disappearance of Robin Cutter.”

“You’re not alone in that. Everyone on the South Coast has theories on the subject.”

“Yes, but I’m interested in your involvement in it, Curt.”

He shrugged, remarkably insouciant, given the implied accusation in Carole’s words. “All right. I was still on the force then. I worked on the case briefly. Went through some of the foot-slogging, house-to-house inquiry stuff. Didn’t come up with anything useful. If you’re hoping to get new information out of me, forget it. I don’t have any.”

“That wasn’t what I meant. Robin Cutter was assumed to have been abducted by a paedophile…”

“That was the general view, yes. After another high-profile local case, people were seeing paedophiles everywhere. God, the number of paranoid calls we got at the station round that time.”

“Are you suggesting you think there was another explanation for Robin Cutter’s disappearance?”

He shrugged again. “Not particularly, no.” His answers sounded laid-back, but Carole could sense the tension in him. He was on the alert, waiting to see which direction their interview was taking.

“I said on the phone what Kelvin Southwest had told me…”

“Uh-huh.”

“…about you supplying him with child pornography.”

“Okay, I’m not denying it. The little creep wanted the stuff, I had access to it, we made a deal. It was a business arrangement.”

“A business arrangement that led to your early retirement from the police force?”

“Yes, all right. I don’t deny that either. And if you’re planning to blackmail me over it, I don’t think you’ll find the top brass in the force any keener to bring that out into the open now than they were at the time.”

“No, but the fact that you dealt in child pornography has other ramifications, doesn’t it, Curt?”

“Like what? I had access to the stuff. I had the technology to copy it. I saw a way of making a quick buck. Salaries in the police force aren’t that generous, you know.”

“I do know. I used to work for the Home Office.” If she had hoped that Curt Holderness might be impressed by that, she was disappointed, so she went on, “It’s a well-known fact that paedophiles exchange pornography with each other, that they form rings.”

“So?”

“I’m just suggesting that when you and Kelvin Southwest exchanged pornography you might have discussed going a step further, to move from using images of the stuff to realizing your fantasies with an actual child.”

It took him a second to take in the full implication of her words. And when he did, he was furious. “Are you saying that I’m one of them? That I’d be in a ring with a little perve like Kel? God, they repel me, people like that! Scum! Filth! So far as I’m concerned you could string up the lot of them today without a trial!”

“Given that’s your view, you seem surprisingly friendly with Kelvin Southwest.”

“That’s a business arrangement, nothing more. We’ve both done favours for each other in the past and they’re the kind of favours that we don’t want to become public knowledge.”

“Your continuing to supply him with pornography, him having organized the security officer job for you?”

“Exactly that, yes. The reason we spend time together is because we don’t trust each other. He’s keeping an eye on me and I’m keeping an eye on him.”

“Curt, you say you’re not a paedophile –”

“Too bloody right I’m not.”

“But your police career was ended early and in disgrace because you’d been accessing child pornography.”

“Accessing it, yes. Not bloody using it for my own purposes! God, at times I had to watch some of the stuff for professional reasons, you know, when we were trying to nail some pervy schoolteacher or someone like that…and it bloody turned my stomach. I’m glad I don’t even have to copy the stuff any more. My mate who’s still in the force does that. He hands over the CDs to me, I pass them on to Kel. Thank God, I don’t see any of the content now.”

“But,” Carole persisted, “you were turned out of the police force for –”

“I was turned out of the police force for copying and selling the stuff. How many times do I have to tell you? I don’t get any kick from watching filth like that. It’s disgusting!”

“Then why did you come here so promptly when I reported what Kelvin Southwest had told me?”

“I came because I’ve got a good little business going, and I don’t want a nosy bitch like you to bugger it up. The police wouldn’t have any interest in prosecuting me – I’m ancient history – but if they found out about my mate on the inside who’s keeping up the supply for me…well, they’d close down the operation sharpish, and I could lose a lot of money out of that.”

“Are you implying that Kelvin Southwest isn’t the only client you supply?”

“What if he isn’t? The important point you seem to be failing to take on board is that I deal in the stuff, I don’t use it myself.”

Carole found herself in a familiar dilemma. What Curt Holderness said sounded very plausible. His repulsion at the thought of watching child pornography seemed genuine. But then again, as with Kelvin Southwest, someone who really was a paedophile would make himself sound just as plausible.

“So,” she asked rather desperately, “you have no idea what happened to Robin Cutter?”

“Not until his bones were found under that beach hut over there, no.” Curt Holderness suddenly turned businesslike. “Listen, Carole, I’ve got to know what you’re planning to do. That’s why I came here. Are you going to keep the information about my mate supplying the porn to yourself? And if so, on what terms? You say you’re not a blackmailer –”

“And I’m not.”