Fethering 02 (2001) - Death on the Downs

by Simon Brett

  “What about drugs?”

  A shadow of caution crossed the sergeant’s face. “I’m fairly sure he dabbles in drugs, but he’s never been convicted for it. No, he’s not into anything that you’d call major-league criminal. Brian’s always been a bloody nuisance, though—just like he was at school. Always trying to join everyone else’s gang—and nobody wanted anything to do with him, because he was…I don’t know…creepy.”

  “In the Hare and Hounds yesterday,” said Carole, “he was talking about the possibility of there being a serial killer in Weldisham.”

  “Was he?” Detective Sergeant Baylis turned very pale. “Was he really?”

  FIFTEEN

  “The bones weren’t Tamsin Lutteridge’s!” Carole and Jude spoke the words simultaneously.

  Baylis had gone and Carole had hurried to answer the doorbell’s summons, hoping it was Jude. She was dying to share her news. And amazed that Jude had the same news to impart.

  “What do you mean? Come in. It’s cold.”

  “What do you mean? How do you know it’s not Tamsin?”

  “Justfhad Detective Sergeant Baylis round. Can I get you a coffee?”

  “No, thanks.”

  They went through into the sitting room and Carole quickly brought her friend up to date with what Baylis had said about the bones. “I should have realized at the time. When I think about it, the bones looked old. Older than four months, anyway.”

  “You weren’t to know. You’re not a pathologist. And there are all kinds of factors that can affect how quickly a body decomposes…whether it’s left in water…if scavengers can get at it…”

  “Maybe. I still think I should have known.” Carole had never enjoyed looking stupid—or, perhaps more accurately, thinking she looked stupid. “Anyway, Jude, how did you find out they weren’t Tamsin’s bones.”

  “Because I’m pretty certain Tamsin’s still alive.” And she gave an edited version of her morning’s visit to Sandalls Manor.

  “Do you think she’s being kept there against her will?”

  “No, I’m sure her stay is entirely voluntary.”

  “But you hear of these cases of young women getting caught up in cults…You know, falling under the spell of some guru and—”

  “Carole!” Jude sounded uncharacteristically annoyed. “This is nothing to do with a cult. It makes me really angry when people lump every alternative lifestyle in together. We’re not talking about some crazed religious zealot here; we’re talking about a psychotherapist with legitimate qualifications.”

  “But from your tone of voice, it doesn’t sound as though you like him very much.”

  “I may not like him, and I may not like some of the things he does, but that doesn’t stop me respecting him as a healer. Charles Hilton has had a great deal of success with bringing people back to health, both emotional and physical.”

  Carole suspected that her friend was protesting a little too much in her respect for the therapist, but she didn’t mention it. “If Tamsin is up at Sandalls Manor, undergoing legitimate treatment, then why did he deny she was there?”

  “Maybe he was respecting her wishes. If a patient asks for confidentiality, it’s a therapist’s duty to provide it.”

  “But she’s only a child. And her parents are so worried.”

  “Tamsin’s twenty-four years old. Quite old enough to make her own decisions. And I think it’s only one of her parents who’s worried.” Jude stood up with sudden resolve. “Anyway, I’m about to find out.”

  “Hm?”

  “I’m going to pay another visit to Gillie Lutteridge.”

  §

  Jude accepted the offer of a lift up to Weldisham, but didn’t respond to the unspoken request for them to do the interview together. Carole knew she shouldn’t even have had the thought—Jude had Gillie Lutteridge’s trust and they had discussed Tamsin’s illness together—but, in spite of herself, Carole was getting excited about the case and didn’t want to be excluded from any part of the investigation. However, she didn’t raise the issue when she dropped Jude outside the Lutteridges’ irreproachable house.

  “Give me an hour,” said Jude. She looked up at the sky. It was only four, but already nearly dark. “Don’t know what you’ll do.”

  “It’s all right,” said Carole, unwilling to appear resource-less. “I’ve got time to make a quick raid on Sainsbury’s.”

  “OK. Then we can maybe go to the pub and see where we’ve got to—if anywhere.”

  “The Hare and Hounds?”

  “I was thinking the Crown and Anchor.”

  For some reason, Carole didn’t object to that idea.

  §

  Gillie Lutteridge looked once again as if the cellophane had just been removed from her package. This time she was wearing a burgundy chenille waistcoat over a cream silk shirt and black linen trousers, which, like every other pair she possessed, defied creasing. Flat black shoes with a little burgundy bow across the front.

  Jude had phoned ahead, so she was expected. Before Gillie even had time to offer tea, she asked, “Have you heard from the police about the bones?”

  “Yes. I think they must have known earlier that they couldn’t have been Tamsin’s. It can’t have been definite when Detective Sergeant Baylis came to see us, or he’d have said. But I suppose they didn’t know about the rumours in the village, so they had no idea what we’d been thinking.”

  “Miles must have been very relieved.”

  “He’s totally transformed. You cannot believe the difference between knowing your daughter’s missing and thinking that she’s dead. Now would you like some tea?”

  Jude ignored the question and looked piercingly at Tamsin’s mother. “You, on the other hand, Gillie, don’t look totally transformed.”

  “Sorry?”

  “You look exactly the same as you did yesterday.”

  “Yes. Well, one has to keep up some kind of front, however much one’s hurting inside.”

  “What I’m saying, Gillie, is that I think you’ve known all along that Tamsin’s alive.”

  The shock in Gillie Lutteridge’s face took a moment to establish itself. “How could I?”

  “Easily, if you were in touch with her.” Before the denial could come, Jude pressed on. “I’ve been at Sandalls Manor this morning.”

  “Ah.” The surrender was immediate. Gillie Lutteridge did not try to argue.

  “By chance a letter in your handwriting arrived. Addressed to Tamsin.”

  “Did you see her?” The question was full of maternal eagerness, desperate for any news of her daughter.

  “Charles Hilton said she wasn’t there.”

  Gillie nodded, partly resigned, partly relieved. “We’d agreed that. I was afraid that Miles might find out, and Tamsin…Well, she didn’t want anyone to know she was there either.”

  “Because she was ashamed of her illness?”

  “No. She just…she said she wanted to vanish off the face of the earth for a while.”

  “That’s a rather strange thing to say.” Gillie shrugged. “You don’t think she meant she was suicidal?”

  “No, Jude! Certainly not!” The girl’s mother was appalled by the suggestion. “Tamsin’s got a bit depressed while she’s been ill, but she’s never thought like that. All she wants to do is get better, so that she can get back to her normal life. She’d never do anything to harm herself…”

  “Good. So Charles is curing her, is he?”

  “I hope to God he is, yes. She’s having long sessions with him, and doing an exercise routine, and she’s on a special diet. She has been getting better.”

  “Has she?”

  “Yes. Last week she was much stronger. She even came here.”

  “What did Miles say?”

  “He was away on business. Otherwise she wouldn’t have come. Even then, she came in a taxi, after dark, so no one would see her. We just wanted to find out if she could cope.”

  “And could she?”

 
The perfectly coiffed head drooped. “No. Next morning she had gone right back. She seemed worse than ever. No energy, terribly jumpy and depressed. She didn’t want to stay here a minute longer than necessary, went straight back to Sandalls Manor. That’s what’s so cruel about this wretched illness. Tamsin can go a day or two with hardly any symptoms at all, and then, just when she starts to make plans for the future, it comes back again.”

  “But, in spite of that relapse, you still think Charles can cure her?”

  “I’m praying that he can.” She read in Jude’s face a scepticism that wasn’t there. “We’ve tried everything else! We’ve tried doctor after doctor. Tamsin’s been in hospital for every test known to man. She’s been prescribed vitamin supplements, tonics, antidepressant after anti-depressant. Nothing has made her any better. Nothing has brought back her energy. Charles Hilton offers an alternative possibility. I’d say it was worth trying.”

  “Yes. Yes, of course it is. Presumably the course will take quite a long time?”

  “Chronic fatigue syndrome is a complex illness. There are no quick fixes.”

  “I know. But I dare say one-to-one therapy with Charles Hilton doesn’t come cheap.”

  “I can afford it,” said Gillie defiantly. “I got some money of my own when my mother died.”

  “Ah.” Jude nodded her blonde head. “I see.”

  “See what?”

  “You’re using money of your own. You and Tamsin have agreed to this cloak of secrecy so that Miles doesn’t find out.”

  “Is that so odd? You’ve heard him on the subject of alternative therapists. Miles doesn’t even believe Tamsin’s illness exists. Just imagine what he’d make of someone like Charles Hilton.”

  “Yes.” Jude understood completely. “But, Gillie…what I can’t understand…when the rumours in the village started about the bones being lamsin’s…when you could see how much pain Miles was suffering…you could have set his mind at rest with just a few words…and you didn’t. You could have told him you knew that Tamsin was still alive.”

  “But then he’d have wanted to know how I knew. He’d have tracked her down, and destroyed her last chance of getting better!”

  “Are you sure he would, Gillie? Couldn’t you have talked to him about it?”

  “No. I can’t talk to Miles. I can’t talk to Miles about anything.”

  And, without the slightest tremor of her body, Gillie Lutteridge began to weep. Tears spilled and coursed down her cheeks, destroying the perfection of her make-up and spotting the immaculate collar of her silk blouse.

  SIXTEEN

  They watched the local news in Jude’s cluttered sitting room. Although they’d already arranged to go to the Crown and Anchor, each had a glass of white wine in their hand. To Carole that seemed like the height of decadence. She also couldn’t help stroking the new juniper she’d put on when she’d nipped back into High Tor to feed Gulliver. It was only Marks & Spencer’s, but there was a bit of cashmere in the weave. And it was Cambridge Blue, a colour bolder than most in Carole’s sartorial spectrum.

  Jude’s television was still a tiny portable perched on a pile of wine crates. And it still required a hearty thump before the snow on the screen resolved into pictures. Carole wondered why her neighbour hadn’t replaced the set for something more modern. Could it be that Jude hadn’t got the money to do so? One of the old gnawing questions reasserted itself. What did Jude live on? And how did she spend the majority of her time when she wasn’t with Carole? Come to that, where had she been for the past few weeks? And with whom?

  Carole realized she’d let the obvious cues for that last question slip past her. Well, never mind, that could still be remedied. She’d ask Jude straight: Where have you been the last fortnight? Such a direct question couldn’t be evaded.

  “Here we go,” said Jude, as the signature tune for the local news started.

  And another cue had slipped past.

  The news presenter had never quite got over being described as ‘vivacious’ in a school report. Probably at some point she’d also been said to have a bubbly personality’. As a result her lip and eyebrow movements were far too big for the television screen.

  “Further to our report at the weekend of human remains being found near the West Sussex village of Weldisham, at a press conference today police…”

  She hadn’t much more to tell than they already knew. The skeleton was of a woman, aged between thirty and fifty, and she was reckoned to have died at least five years before. Police forensic investigations were continuing.

  There was a clip from the news conference. As ever on the local bulletin, it was too short to have any meaning. Carole had a moment of surprise not to see Detective Sergeant Baylis on the screen, but quickly rationalized his absence. He was too junior in the investigation for such a role.

  The detective inspector leading the inquiry, a face unfamiliar to her, said how committed the police were to finding out who the dead woman was and what had happened to her.

  Then the presenter moved bumptiously on to introduce an item about a Jack Russell terrier in Gosport who had learned to use the cat-flap.

  §

  “It seems to me that there isn’t a case,” said led Crisp, holding a pint glass he’d just cleaned up to the light.

  “Oh, come on. There are the bones,” Jude insisted. “They’re real. They once belonged to someone.”

  “Still do belong to someone, I suppose…depending of course on your religious persuasion. But the way I see it, there was this girl in Weldisham who everyone thought had disappeared, and so long as no one knew to the contrary, there might have been a link between her and what Carole found in the barn. But now you’ve lost that link, you’re back to the much more likely scenario—that the bones have nothing to do with anyone in this area.”

  “Surely—”

  “No, listen, young Jude. In my long and varied career, I may have done a lot of things, but I’ve never actually committed a murder. Wanted to a few times, maybe, but I never succumbed to the temptation. And the fact that my former wife’s still walking about is living proof of that. But even I—with my limited knowledge of murderers’ know-how—can work out that if I had topped someone, I’d want to put as much distance as I could between me and the body. So it’s much more likely that Carole’s bones were paying their first visit to Weldisham—first visit to West Sussex, quite possibly.

  “This is how I see it. You kill someone in Brixton, say…Don’t know what—gangland turf war, drugs, whatever. Well, once you’ve done that, if you got any sense, first thing you do is get the evidence away from Brixton. South Downs, you think, that sounds nice, miles from anywhere. Dump the remains on the South Downs and scarper back home to Brixton quick as you can. That’s what I’d do.”

  Carole felt dispirited. For a start, what Ted Crisp was saying was probably true. But also there was the way he was behaving towards her. Exactly as he always had in the past. She felt stupid for her misinterpretation of his manner to her last Friday, and even more stupid about the thoughts she had since allowed to flow from that encounter. If anything, Ted was paying more attention to Jude than he was to her.

  But that was always going to be the case. Jude was more outgoing than she could ever be. People responded to Jude. They found her fun to be with. They found her sexy.

  Carole had long since written off the possibility that anyone would ever find her sexy.

  Anyway, Ted Crisp was very far from her type of man. He was scruffy, possibly not even very clean. His hair and beard looked beyond hairdressers’ help. And he had no intellectual credentials. A publican who had formerly been a stand-up comedian. He was hardly the kind of man with whom Carole could see herself swapping clues from the Times crossword.

  Jude, needless to say, wasn’t cast down by Ted’s arguments. “No, there’s more to it. Let’s go with your murderer from Brixton, if you like…OK, all he knows about the South Downs is that they’re a long way away from Brixton…So he drives down he
re, body in the boot, and he goes by chance up the lane to Weldisham, and once he’s there he drives off into the wild, and by chance he finds this barn in the middle of nowhere. “Ooh,” he thinks, “what a great hiding place for my body.” Sorry, Ted, it doesn’t work for me.”

  In spite of herself, Carole had become caught up in the argument. “What’s more, where did he find fertilizer bags in Brixton? The fertilizer bags are the most interesting feature of the case.”

  Ted opened his mouth.

  “And before you say anything, I am absolutely certain there is a case. Those fertilizer bags give us two important pieces of information. One, they possibly connect the bones with this area. Two—and this is more significant—they prove that the bones had been moved. Which also raises the possibility that two people could have been involved—one who committed the murder years ago and another who, at a later date, moved the evidence so that it wouldn’t be found.”

  “Except,” Jude pointed out, “the evidence was found. You found it, and you didn’t have much difficulty doing so. Which raises an even more interesting possibility…”

  Carole caught the sparkle in Jude’s eye and nodded. “That the bones were moved deliberately so that they would be found.”

  The two women turned triumphantly towards the landlord. He shook his shaggy head. “Too many guesses in that. Too many details we don’t know. We certainly don’t know there’s been a murder. No proof of that at all. The person whose flesh was once wrapped around those bones could easily have died in an accident…Could even have died a natural death, been ceremoniously buried with all the pomp and circumstance of religion, and then been dug up in the churchyard by some dog.”

  “A dog who then stacked up the bones in fertilizer bags?” demanded Carole sceptically. “I must see if I can teach Gulliver that trick.”

  “No, no. I’m not saying that’s what happened. I accept that some human agency was involved in gift-wrapping the bones and popping them in the barn, but we have no means of knowing where the body came from or what happened to it.”