Fethering 02 (2001) - Death on the Downs

by Simon Brett

  Mario arrived with their starters. The restaurant owner himself oozed over with the Chianti Classico. There was much elaborate ceremonial with the corkscrew and with a peppermill like the bell-tower of a minor Italian cathedral. Barry Stillwell sniffed and sipped the wine as if it were the elixir of eternal life.

  After a long, lip-licking pause, he pronounced himself satisfied.

  Carole had to put up with an extensive questionnaire about the Home Office and how she liked living in Fethering, before she could get back to the subject that interested her: Weldisham, its inhabitants and their history. Common politeness meant her interrogation was unavoidable, but she got a bit sick of the way Barry kept punctuating the conversation with references to his late wife.

  Carole didn’t lack respect for bereavement, but Barry Stillwell’s deployment of it seemed calculated. As if he was trying to prove what a caring man he was, as if the late wife (her name, it soon became apparent, had been Vivienne) had become part of an elaborate chat-up routine. Carole had a nasty feeling that, if he ever met someone he was really interested in, Barry would very quickly be into the patter of, “After Vivienne died, I never thought I could feel anything for another woman, but you’re bringing to life feelings I feared were long dead and buried.”

  She hoped to God she was never cast in the role of the woman who had to hear that manifesto.

  When Barry reached the end—or maybe it wasn’t the end—of a recollection about how lonely he’d been when he went on a Rotary Club exchange visit to Cologne just after Vivenne died, Carole seized the opportunity and leapt back in.

  “Does Graham Forbes have any children?”

  “What?” Barry was thrown by the sudden change of direction.

  “From either marriage? I just wondered.”

  “No, no, he doesn’t.” He still looked bewildered. “What about you, Carole? I know you said you were divorced, but do you have any children?”

  “A son. Stephen.”

  “Ah.”

  “I don’t see him that often.”

  “But surely you must? Surely he’s still living at home?”

  It was Carole’s turn to look bewildered. Barry had a strange expectant expression on his face and she tried to work out what on earth it was meant to communicate. Not easy. She didn’t think she’d ever met anyone with whom she’d had less mental connection. In conversation with Barry Stillwell, everything needed to be interpreted and explained.

  Suddenly she realized. What he’d said had been a compliment. Cumbersome, contrived and lateral, but nonetheless a compliment. Barry was suggesting that no one of her age could possibly have a child old enough to have left home. It was in the same vein as the ‘early retirement’ compliment.

  “Stephen’s nearly thirty,” she said brusquely.

  Barry looked thoughtfully pained. “Sadly, Vivienne and I were not blessed.”

  “Sorry?”

  “With the gift of offspring.” A melancholy sigh. “I’d like to have had children,” he simpered. “Still live in hope.”

  Well, don’t look at me, Carole wanted to say. I’m well past my impregnate-by date.

  TWENTY

  “Still thinking about Graham Forbes,” she went on.

  “You seem to keep thinking about him,” Barry Stillwell observed, with a winsome chuckle. “Should I be worried? Should I start thinking you’re more interested in him than you are in me?”

  If only you knew…Carole couldn’t think of anything appropriate to say, so she came up with a chuckle of her own. Barry continued his. Oh no, she thought, he imagines we’re sharing a joke. He thinks we’re getting on well together.

  She pressed on. “Did you know his first wife?”

  “Yes, I did. Not well, because they didn’t spend a lot of time in Sussex while they were working abroad, but I did meet Sheila.” His face took on a pious expression. “Tragic, isn’t it, the way some bad marriages break up and the partners both survive…and then a marriage that does work can be suddenly ended by the cruel hand of fate…”

  He was about to get on to Vivienne again. Carole was now convinced that these references were part of Barry’s seduction technique, though she wondered how well advised they were. A woman, though possibly impressed by the tenderness implied in these constant mentions of his late wife, would surely be warned off the possibility of a relationship with someone over whom the memory of Vivienne loomed so powerfully. The Rebecca syndrome.

  Not, of course, that any of this concerned Carole. The evening had only confirmed her first adverse impressions. She’d rather have a relationship with Bill Sykes than with Barry Still well.

  Before the sainted Vivienne had the chance to re-enter the conversation, Carole demanded, “So when did his first marriage end?”

  Barry gave a prim smile. “Well, as it happens, I can give you an exact answer to that. Not that I was present when they did split up. Might have been difficult to engineer, because that happened when they were in Kuala Lumpur.” He snickered at his rather amusing remark. “But I did see them the weekend before they went off on that fateful trip.”

  “Oh?”

  “Graham wanted me to draw up a new lease for the house, because they were letting it again. So…always ready to mix business with pleasure…” He grinned an arch, man-of-the-world grin. “…I suggested we meet in the Hare and Hounds to thrash things out. The Hare and Hounds in those days, by the way, was rather primitive. Rough wooden floors, only a couple of beers to choose from and a menu of ploughman’s lunch or sandwiches. Not sophisticated like it is since Will Maples has been in charge. It’s so much better now.”

  The evening was becoming a challenge to Carole. Was Barry Stillwell going to express one single opinion with which she didn’t disagree?

  “Anyway, I saw Sheila when I arrived to pick up Graham. She wasn’t coming to the pub with us—too busy packing. Big undertaking when you’re going to have tenants in for the best part of a year. Sheila was ordering the cleaning woman around like nobody’s business. But I chatted to her while I waited for Graham…Very important in my line of business to get on with everyone, you know.”

  “And at that stage you weren’t aware of any cracks in the marriage?”

  “Good heavens, no. They behaved together exactly as they always had done. They were always very polite, you know, very correct, very good at entertaining people…”

  “Part of the job they had to do abroad.”

  “I imagine so. Graham was brought up to that, of course—the right schools, universities and so on, moneyed background, you know.”

  “At their dinner party, Harry Grant implied Graham had lost a lot of money.”

  “Well, I believe he caught a bit of a cold at Lloyd’s, but, you know, he’s not the sort to talk about that kind of thing. Anyway, as I say, Graham was from a very privileged family, and Sheila must have caught up very quickly after they got married.”

  “You mean she didn’t come from his kind of family?”

  “No, local girl, in spite of her posh schools. Lots of relatives in Weldisham and all round here. There are some families that never seem to move from this area, however much—”

  But Carole wasn’t interested in Barry Stillwell’s views on the demographics of West Sussex. “And was that the last time you saw them together, Graham and Sheila?”

  “Yes,” Barry replied a little sourly. He didn’t like being hurried in his story-telling. “Anyway, the reason I have cause to remember—and this is interesting—is that I had lunch with Graham in the Hare and Hounds on the Thursday.” He paused portentously. “Thursday 15 October 1987. And that weekend was the weekend of the Great Storm. You remember the Great Storm, do you, Carole?”

  She assured him she did. It was the weekend when the south of England had been devastated by a most un-English hurricane. Thousands of trees had been uprooted, roofs lifted, greenhouses smashed. A BBC weatherman by the name of Michael Fish had become famous overnight for pooh-poohing the warning from a viewer that such an e
vent was likely to happen. And cosmic conspiracy theorists were rewarded on the following Monday when the Great Storm’s climatic augury produced the biggest London Stock Market crash of recent years.

  Although she hadn’t lived in the area at the time, Carole Seddon certainly knew all about it. There wasn’t a man or woman in West Sussex who hadn’t got their own story to tell about the Great Storm.

  And she had a horrible feeling she was about to hear Barry Stillwell’s.

  “Have you any idea what the storm did to my conservatory?” he began.

  “No,” said Carole. “Tell me about Graham and Sheila Forbes first. Then tell me about your conservatory.”

  Barry was so surprised by her bossiness that he did exactly what he had been told. “Well, there’s not much to say, really. They were due off to Kuala Lumpur on the Monday, the 19th, and though the village was briefly cut off by trees across the lane, they’d been cleared by then, so presumably they got to the airport all right. It was six months before they were next due back in Weldisham, and when they did arrive…Graham was on his own.”

  “Sheila had left him?”

  “Yes. It came out slowly, but obviously, as soon as he’d told one person, everyone in the village knew.”

  “Do you know who she went off with?”

  “Apparently some academic from a university in Kuala Lumpur.”

  “Had they been having an affair before?”

  “I’ve no idea.” The solicitor shrugged his shoulders testily. He was getting increasingly irritated by her interest in Graham and Sheila Forbes. He was her host, after all; she ought to be showing interest in him. Carole knew she hadn’t got much longer to continue her grilling.

  “Do you know where they are now?”

  “Of course I don’t.” There was petulance in his voice. “I gather after a time the man got a job at a university in Singapore. Whether they’re still there or not, I’ve no idea.”

  “Sheila was the same sort of age as Graham?” Barry Stillwell nodded. “So she could be dead by now.”

  “I don’t think so. There would be legal implications if she were. Graham would have told me.”

  “If he knew.”

  “Yes. Look, I didn’t come here this evening to talk about Graham Forbes. I’m much more interested in you, Carole.” He leered across the table.

  “Yes, and I’m much more interested in you, Barry,” she lied. “But, just before we leave the subject…can you tell me when you first met Irene?”

  “Oh, very well.” Her saying she was interested in him had bought Carole a little more goodwill. “It was when Graham retired. After 1987, he came back to Weldisham for a few weeks each year, always on his own, always very lonely and miserable. Then in 1989 he told me he was retiring from the British Council the next year and all lettings of the house would cease, because he was going to live in it all the time. Well, he must have got lucky during that last tour in Kuala Lumpur, because when he did come back, he had a new bride in tow. The lovely Irene.”

  Carole really didn’t think she could push it any further. She tried to justify her unusual conversational approach. “Thank you so much, Barry. I’m a nosy old thing, but I do love knowing all the details about people.”

  “There are lots of interesting details you don’t know about me yet,” he said coyly.

  “I know.” She gave him a smile which she hoped would qualify as a ‘feminine wile’. Jude should be proud of her. “So many interesting details I don’t know about you…Where to begin?”

  He sat back with a complacent smile on his thin lips. “Up to you, Carole.”

  “Tell me, Barry…what did happen to your conservatory during the Great Storm?”

  She couldn’t have picked a better subject. He leaned forward with relish and began, “Well, this is extremely interesting…”

  Carole’s mind was racing and she didn’t take in anything he said. She didn’t really notice the end of the meal. She was still distracted when Barry asked her if she’d like to meet up again, and dangerously vague in her answer.

  And she hardly noticed as he leaned down to kiss her when she was safely ensconced in the Renault. All she was aware of was a sensation as if her cheek had been wiped by a soapy facecloth.

  TWENTY-ONE

  The downstairs light in Woodside Cottage was still on when Carole drove past on the way back from the restaurant. As she parked the Renault, what for her was a daring thought crept into her mind. Suppose she went round straight away to see if Jude was still up…

  It was a very un-Fethering idea. In Fethering no one except the police or a family member who had lost their key would knock on a door after nine o’clock at night. And ten o’clock was very definitely the curfew for phone calls. These rules did not trouble Carole—she had instinctively abided by them all her life. But, emboldened by two glasses of wine and bubbling with the ideas her conversation with Barry Stillwell had engendered, she went straight round and tapped on the wooden front door of Woodside Cottage. Even though it was nearly half past eleven.

  Jude was, of course, totally unfazed when she let her neighbour in. “Oh, thank goodness you’ve come. You’ve made a decision for me.”

  “What decision?”

  “I’d just finished a bottle of wine. I was divided between opening another one and going to bed. Now opening another one is no longer mere self-indulgence; it’s become a social necessity. Do sit.”

  As she went through to the kitchen, Jude waved vaguely to the array of sofas and armchairs, all covered with brightly coloured drapes and bedspreads. Carole sank tentatively into one. It was surprisingly comfortable. She couldn’t feel the outlines of the structure that lay beneath the patchwork quilt, but the contours settled easily around her thin body.

  Jude returned carrying a moisture-beaded bottle of white wine and a corkscrew. “You open this. I’ll get some life back into the fire.”

  A few seconds’ ministration with coal, logs and poker set up a promising blaze. Jude squatted back on her heels and looked teasingly across at her friend. “So what have you come to tell me? That you completely misjudged Barry Stillwell? That he is the Mr Right you have been searching for all these years? And that you are going to spend the rest of your lives together?”

  “God, no. I’ve got something much more interesting than that. I think I know who…” But she stopped herself. Carole reckoned she had a good story to tell and she didn’t want to give away the best bit first. “You remember the Great Storm, don’t you, Jude?”

  “Well, I heard about it. I was living in Australia when it happened.”

  “What were you doing in Austr—?”

  “But what’s the Great Storm got to do with the case?”

  Never mind Australia. Carole could find out about that another time. What she had to say was much more interesting.

  “I think the weekend of the Great Storm has a huge significance in the case. I think that was the date of the murder, the evidence of which I found in South Welling Barn.”

  “And you got this from Barry Stillwell? Well, that is a turn-up. You turned the heat on him and he confessed to you, did he?”

  “God, no. Barry’s far too boring to do anything as interesting as murder.”

  “So who is your murderer?”

  “Let’s start with the victim. You know I told you that Graham Forbes had been married twice…”

  “Yes.”

  “I think the victim was his first wife, Sheila.”

  “What do you base that on?”

  “Instinct.”

  A sceptical lower lip was jutted out.

  “What’s the matter with you? Why aren’t you excited?”

  Jude slowly shook her head, in some bewilderment. “There’s something wrong here, Carole. I’m the one who’s supposed to respond to instinct. I thought, of the two of us, you were the rationalist.”

  “I am.”

  “Well, then give me your rationale for saying that the bones belonged to Sheila Forbes.”


  “All right. They’re a woman’s bones for a start. Aged between thirty and fifty. That fits.”

  “OK.” Jude looked at the fire through the wine she was swirling in her glass. “What else?”

  “Graham Forbes is deeply in love with his second wife, Irene.”

  “Are you saying that means he must’ve murdered his first wife?”

  “I’m saying it would give him a motive to do so.”

  “Only if he had met Irene before his first wife died.”

  “He must’ve done.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “Well, let’s assume he did.” Carole ignored Jude’s sardonic expression as she hurried on, “So, the weekend of the Great Storm, Graham Forbes, tortured by his love for Irene and infuriated by the loveless marriage he shares with Sheila, decides to solve all his problems at a stroke. He murders his wife, hides her body somewhere in the village and on the Monday travels back to Kuala Lumpur alone. Everyone in Weldisham imagines that Sheila went with him. Then on his next leave, he comes back without her and tells everyone she’s dumped him and run off with this academic. Everyone believes him. Why shouldn’t they? He’s a pillar of the local community. When he’s out in Malaysia he happily spends all his time with Irene. Back in England, he does his impression of the miserable abandoned husband. Then when he retires, he brings Irene back to Weldisham as his new bride, maintaining he’s only recently met her.”

  There was a long silence. At first Carole was disappointed not to see Jude carried along by her enthusiasm. Then she started wondering quite how watertight the scenario she’d presented was.

  Finally, Jude spoke. Shaking her head wryly, she said, “How much did you have to drink this evening, Carole?”

  “Only a couple of glasses. What’re you on about? Can’t you see the logic of what I’ve just spelled out?”

  “I can see a logic,” said Jude, “but I don’t think it’ll stand up to very close scrutiny. I know Malaysia’s a long way away, but I’m sure somebody would have noticed if Graham Forbes’s wife suddenly vanished off the face of the earth. I mean, they must’ve had staff out there, friends, who’d notice her absence.”