The Fethering Mysteries 12; Bones Under The Beach Hut

dressed for work. The water was already up to his chest as he continued to march steadily forward away from Smalting Beach. Carole and Jude knew that his suit pockets would be full of shingle.

Jude looked at Joyce Oliver, but the old woman’s powdered face was unreadable. Had she deliberately created the delay in taking their phone numbers so that her husband would have the opportunity to make his escape before anyone could stop him? Had some secret message passed between the couple as they parted for the last time? Those were questions that Jude felt sure would never be answered.

Inspector Fyfield contacted the coastguard. A rescue helicopter was immediately mobilized. But of course it arrived too late.

? Bones Under The Beach Hut ?

Thirty-Nine

The following day, as arranged, Carole Seddon’s daughter-in-law and granddaughter arrived at High Tor just before lunch. Lily had slept in the car and was very lively. She had become much more mobile since Carole had last seen her and climbed the stairs unaided to inspect her bedroom, of which she approved. She was very excited by the folding cot that her grandmother had bought and by the two new cuddlies that had been put in it.

Lily’s speech had also developed. She could now vocalize a very convincing ‘Mummy’, ‘Biscuit’ and ‘No’. Gaby had clearly been tutoring her to say ‘Granny’, but she had only got as far as ‘Gaga’. Which, Carole reckoned, would soon not be a million miles from the truth.

Her concentration over the previous week on the investigations into Mark Dennis’s disappearance and Robin Cutter’s death had had the beneficial effect of stopping her from worrying about Gaby’s visit, and the two women were very relaxed over their Sunday lunch. Lily also ate well and when they had all finished Carole announced that they were going to a nearby village called Smalting, where she ‘had a beach hut’.

Lily of course had no idea what a beach hut was, but as soon as she saw Quiet Harbour she caught on very quickly. She liked the idea of their having their own little house to live in, and she loved her own little pink director’s chair. And she was even more pleased with the new red and yellow bathing costume that Gaby put her into. Even at that age, Lily had a real girlie fascination with clothes.

But of course she had no idea what a significant event she was witnessing when her grandmother stripped off her outer garments to reveal a sedate Marks & Spencer one-piece bathing costume in a flattering, deep red colour. Nor was the little girl aware how privileged she was to witness Carole Seddon removing her shoes and socks and letting the sand get between her toes.

Anyway, Lily was far too preoccupied to notice what anyone else was doing. She had become instantly busy with the plastic buckets, spade and shapes that her doting grandmother had bought for her. In no time she had worked out what the sea and the sand were for, and was trekking back and forth from the shoreline spilling buckets of water and preparing elaborate tea parties with sand pies for the two dolls she had brought with her.

Carole Seddon took in the scene and couldn’t have been happier. It was all so archetypally English – except of course for the fine weather.

And as she watched Lily busily playing, it seemed incongruous that that same beach had so recently been a witness to such tragedy.

¦

There were a few changes in the world of Smalting that summer. Following complaints about misuse of his authority and an internal enquiry, Kelvin Southwest was relieved of his job at Fether District Council and someone else took over the administration of the beach huts. No complaints were made about his paedophile tendencies, but then very few people knew about those. And perhaps his use of child pornography did keep him from committing worse crimes.

But he had to find another source of such material. The same Fether District Council internal investigation removed Curt Holderness from his sinecure as security officer. And following an enquiry and a clean-up, Curt’s pornography-copying friend in the local police also lost his job.

Kelvin Southwest (with his mother) and Curt Holderness both moved from the area.

So did Mark Dennis and Philly Rose. Their country idyll no longer seemed as attractive to either of them. Mark returned to work in the City, though at a much less high-powered level. The breakdown had burnt out most of his early promise.

Philly found more work as a graphic designer back in London. But she had genuinely loved Seashell Cottage and had been unhappy about moving.

Then, perhaps inevitably, her relationship with Mark broke up. It was a long time before either of them found anyone else. Mark certainly made no attempt to reignite his marriage, but Nuala would never completely let go of him. While she exploited other men, she would still come back to her undivorced husband from time to time, usually demanding more money.

A happier, though unlikely, romance did, however, come to fruition. It was announced in the September edition of The Hut Parade (with complimentary tide table for new members of the SBHA) that Reginald Flowers had married Dora Pinchbeck. So now he could dictate to her whenever he wanted to and she could polish his brass fittings.

Not a lot changed with the other members of the Smalting Beach Hut Association. Deborah Wrigley continued to use Seagull’s Nest as just another chamber in which to torture her family.

And in Shrimphaven Katie Brunswick continued endlessly to rewrite her novel (except of course when she was off on courses instructing her about different ways of rewriting it).

Meanwhile up on the Smalting prom at Sanditon Helga Czesky continued to indulge her husband’s middle- aged enfant terriblisme. And Gray Czesky, cushioned by his wife’s substantial tolerance and substantial income, still didn’t realize how lucky he was and would still maunder on to anyone foolish enough to listen about his world-shattering plans to epater le bourgeois. (The local bourgeois, it should be noted, remained remarkably unaware of and uninterested in his efforts to e pate them.)

After his grandfather’s suicide the police closed the case of Robin Cutter. He was found by an inquest to have died of accidental drowning. His grandmother still used Mistral a lot, still always had a wordsearch book with her, but she now spent a lot of time, as her late husband had done, just looking bleakly out to sea.

There was never any thought of a rapprochement between Joyce Oliver and her daughter-in-law. Miranda Browning perhaps received some comfort from the discovery that her son had not been the victim of a paedophile, but the sense of loss remained ever present in her life. As it did in the life of her divorced husband Rory.

For the inhabitants of High Tor and Woodside Cottage everything continued much as before. Jude was occasionally restless, feeling that perhaps it was time for her to move on from Fethering, but she didn’t confide these thoughts in her neighbour. Carole Seddon could always find sufficient imagined slights in her life, without being given any real ones to worry about.

And the general view in Fethering remained that the people in Smalting were a bit up themselves.