by Simon Brett
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.”
“Also, if her body’s been hidden since 1987, why do her bones suddenly turn up now? And, if they are Sheila Forbes’s bones, why haven’t the police been to question her husband?”
“We don’t know they haven’t,” said Carole truculently. She had been so excited by the edifice of conjecture she’d constructed that she wasn’t enjoying seeing it demolished brick by brick.
“I’m sorry. I’d need more evidence before I could go along the route you’re suggesting. I’d need proof that Sheila Forbes wasn’t seen out in Kuala Lumpur after the weekend of the Great Storm. I’d need proof that Graham Forbes did know Irene before he supposedly murdered his wife. I’d need…I’m sorry, Carole. I’d just need so much more information.”
“What kind of information?”
“Information that presumably the police have access to. Surely these days they can identify human remains by DNA, apart from anything else.”
“Only if they have some sample of DNA to match it with,” said Carole, with a feeble attempt at triumph in her voice. “And if Sheila Forbes had totally disappeared they wouldn’t have that.”
Jude’s mouth was still crinkled with scepticism. “No, but they could probably link the DNA to her through relatives, other family members. We need something a bit more positive. As I say, if we had evidence from someone in Kuala Lumpur that Graham did arrive out there in 1987 on his own…”
“Well, I’ll get that,” said Carole defiantly. “I’ve got a friend who works in the British Council.” It didn’t seem worth mentioning that she hadn’t been in touch with Trevor Malcolm for nearly thirty years.
“OK.” Jude grinned one of her huge, all-embracing grins. “I’m ready to be convinced. Convince me.”
♦
Carole woke the next morning with a hangover. It was partly physical – she and Jude had finished the bottle – but more it was mental. She felt embarrassed by the way she had let her ideas run away with her the night before. Jude was right. The scenario she’d expounded, casting Graham Forbes in the role of murderer, was a fabrication of unsupported conjecture. Its logic was full of holes, and in the cold light of day looked even more threadbare.
Where, Carole thought, did I get the idea that I have any aptitude for criminal investigation? The evidence at the moment does not support the claim. Solving murders should be left to the professionals. The police have all the information; no one who hasn’t got all the information stands a chance.
But greater than all the mental discomforts she felt was the fact that she’d behaved out of character. Carole Seddon had always prided herself on having a rational mind, but the previous evening she had ignored its dictates and followed a path of whimsy. What hurt was that, by her behaviour, she’d lost any intellectual ascendancy she might have had over her next-door neighbour.
Carole had made a fool of herself, and Jude had been the one who was all sober and sensible.
∨ Death on the Downs ∧
Twenty-Two
Still, she could at least do the one bit of follow-up she’d promised. She found the number of the British Council office in Spring Gardens and rang through. It was a long chance that Trevor Malcolm had remained in the organization he’d started with in his early twenties and, even if he had, a long chance that he was still there. As Carole knew to her cost, there were a lot of early retirements around. And, in the unlikely event that Trevor was still employed by the British Council, he would almost certainly be working abroad.
But her gloomy prognostications proved unfounded. When she asked for the name, she was put through without hesitation and the girl at the other end certainly knew who she was talking about. But Trevor was out at a meeting. He’d be back after lunch…“Probably best to leave it till three-thirty or so.”
Oh well, thought Carole as she put the phone down, might give him a call then. But she didn’t think it with great determination. Whatever she’d felt about the case the night before had dwindled away into a vague residue of dissatisfaction. It was a police matter. Unidentified bones were their job.
♦
Only shortly after that, her doorbell rang. Jude was standing there, swathed in a long burgundy velvet coat. A peach-coloured scarf was wrapped around her face so high that only her bird’s-nest of blonde hair and her brown eyes showed over the top.
“Came round to say sorry.”
“Sorry?”
“For being a wet blanket last night.”
“Oh, I don’t know that you were. You were just sensible.”
“There are already enough sensible people in the world without me joining their ranks. No, I was just feeling down.”
“You? Down?” It was a novel concept. Jude always seemed to be on top of everything.
“Yes. Some bloody man.”
“Which bloody man?”
“Doesn’t matter which when they behave like that. They’re all the bloody same, aren’t they?”
“Well…Surely you can tell me what – ?”
But this new window for an insight into Jude’s private life was quickly closed. “Never mind. Perdition to the lot of them, eh? I want to make amends by taking you out for lunch…”
“What?”
“And I have to confess, Carole, my motivation is not entirely altruistic. I just had a call from Gillie Lutteridge, and I promised to go and see her. So I’m offering you lunch in the Hare and Hounds at Weldisham…”
“In return for a lift up there?”
“Exactly.”
After some havering, Carole decided not to take Gulliver, in spite of the agonized importunity in his endearingly stupid face. He still couldn’t be trusted up on the Downs, and he would hate being shut in the Renault behind the Hare and Hounds while they had lunch.
♦
There was a man leaving the pub as they reached the door. He wore a grubby denim jacket over a tartan working shirt. He crossed to a tractor with an enclosed cab that was parked opposite the pub.
“Who’s that?” Jude whispered. “You looked like you recognized him.”
“Name’s Nick. He was in the Hare and Hounds first evening I came here. One of the Estate workers, I think. Extremely taciturn…or he certainly was that night.”
Inside the pub, although it was only twelve-thirty, tables were already full of pension-happy lunchers munching their way through the Home Hostelries blackboard specials. There was also a figure standing by the log-effect fire in the main bar whom Carole recognized from the Forbeses’ dinner party.
“Hello, Harry,” she said, as Jude went to get the drinks and order the food.
He gave her a bemused look, unfocused, as if he had already been drinking. “Oh yes…” he said vaguely. But even using it vaguely, his voice was loud.
“We met at Graham and Irene’s last Friday.”
He nodded, recollection slowly returning. “Of course. Caroline, wasn’t it?”
“Carole.” Big impression she’d made.
Harry Grant grinned. “I’m actually in here waiting to see Graham. Always comes in for his pre-lunch snifter. Isn’t that right, Will?”
The manager, who had just given Jude her change, looked across. “Sorry?”
“I said Graham always comes in for a pre-lunch snifter, isn’t that right?”
“Every day, regular as clockwork.” And Will Maples turned back to chivvy one of his barmaids.
Jude was standing beside her with their two glasses of white wine. “This is my friend, Jude.” Ridiculous, thought Carole, I still don’t know her surname. I really must ask. “Harry Grant.”
“Nice to see you.”
A grin spread across Harry’s broad face. He fancied Jude, Carole could tell. Jude was the type men fell for. Whereas she…Her exploratory use of ‘feminine wiles’ on Barry Stillwell felt a bit shabby in retrospect.
“All well with you and Jenny?” asked Carole, not sure whether she was deliberately mentioning his wife’s name to stop him ogling Jude.
“Yes, yes, fine.” He turned his thick neck and slowly refocused on her. There was no doubt. He had been drinking. “More than fine, in fact.” He raised a half-empty pint in salute. “I am celebrating my return to ‘the land of my fathers’.”
“You mean you’re Welsh?” asked Jude.
He found this funnier than it was. “No, no, no,” he said finally, wiping the spittle from his lips. “I was born here in Weldisham…and I’m coming back to live right here in Weldisham.”
Carole understood immediately. “You’ve got the planning permission on your barn?”
“Exactly. The application has finally been accepted. Yesterday’s meeting. Composition of the Planning Committee had changed a bit, one or two people I knew had joined…Suddenly they’re looking on my plans with a much more friendly eye. As everywhere else in the world, round these parts it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. And when I was growing up here, the only people I knew were Lennie and Nick. They might have been good at building forts and things, but otherwise…useless people. Now, though, I know the right people. At last I know the right people. So now all the toffee-nosed prigs of Weldisham are going to have Harry Grant as their neighbour…like it or not!”
He didn’t realize how much his excitement had raised his voice and looked embarrassed by the silence he’d created in the pub. He leaned close to Carole and Jude and confided, in an elaborate whisper, “So that’s why I’m waiting in here for Graham Forbes…just for the pleasure of seeing him laugh on the other side of his face.”
Triumphantly, Harry Grant swilled down the rest of his beer and turned back to the bar. “Think I could manage another of those, thank you, young Will.”
Carole and Jude made good the opportunity to take one of the few remaining empty tables. The developer didn’t seem to notice their absence. He stayed leaning against the bar, making desultory conversation with Will Maples when the manager wasn’t busy serving his customers.
Harry Grant wasn’t on his own for long, however. Detective Sergeant Baylis came into the bar and joined him. The meeting did not appear to have been prearranged, but Carole remembered that the two of them had grown up together in the village. They’d have plenty to talk about. Two Weldisham boys, both resentful that they couldn’t live there any more. Except, of course, for Harry Grant that exclusion was now at an end.
Lennie Baylis ordered a pint and got another one for Harry. To the scrutiny of Carole’s beady eye, once again no money seemed to change hands. What was the hold that the sergeant had over Will Maples? Was she witnessing some minor level of police corruption? And once again, Baylis didn’t seem to suffer from the ‘not while I’m on duty’ attitude to drink.
Carole chided herself. After the previous night’s exhibition, she should be a little more wary of leaping to conclusions. She kept an eye on the bar, but although the two men were deep in conversation, she had no inkling of what they might be discussing. Once or twice, Harry Grant turned round to look at the door and then consult his watch. Graham Forbes was evidently late for what she remembered he’d called his ‘pre-lunch tincture’, and so the developer’s moment of glory was postponed.
Downing the remains of his pint, Detective Sergeant Baylis turned away from the bar, and that was the first time he noticed Carole. With a word to Harry, he came across to join them.
“Sergeant, this is my friend Jude.”
Baylis seemed as impressed with Jude’s looks as Harry Grant had been.
“Jude, this is Detective Sergeant Baylis…Remember, the one I told you was so kind after my…after my unpleasant experience.”
“Yes. Nice to meet you, Sergeant.”
“I think you should both be calling me Lennie.”
He hadn’t suggested that when there was just me, came Carole’s knee-jerk reaction.
“This becoming your regular, is it, Mrs Seddon?”
“Carole, please,” she said in a way which, to her hypersensitive ear, sounded clumsy. “No, just happened to be up here. Jude’s visiting a friend in Weldisham.”
“I see,” said Baylis, easily enough. But he gave Carole a rather sharp look.
“Is there anything more you can tell us about the bones Carole found?” asked Jude, direct as ever.
Like everyone else, he responded to her manner. “Try me.”
“Well, for instance…are you any nearer to finding out who the woman was?”
“We’re getting there.” Lennie Baylis suddenly cocked a challenging eye at them. “Why? Have you got any ideas of who it might be?”
Carole felt Jude’s eyes boring into her as she looked down at her wine. “No,” she mumbled. “No idea at all.”
“I can guarantee that, as soon as we know anything definite, it’ll be all over the television and radio,” he said, as if drawing the conversation to an end.
“Presumably…” Jude held his attention. “Presumably these days it’s fairly simple to identify bodies by DNA?”
He grimaced. “Dead easy if you’ve got a record of their DNA, certainly. Or if you know who their relatives are. If you’re starting from scratch, you’re no further advanced than a copper any time over the last couple of centuries…relying on educated guesswork.” He glanced at his watch, straightened up and looked around the pub. “No sign of him. Ibid me on the phone he’d be in here.” He shrugged. “Oh well, if the mountain won’t come to Mohammed, then Mohammed must go to the mountain.”
“Are you casting yourself as Mohammed in this scenario?” asked Jude.
“Guess so.”
“Then who’s the mountain?”
“Graham Forbes. Goodbye, ladies.”
As Detective Sergeant Baylis left the pub, the two women exchanged looks. In Jude’s there was an element of apology, and in Carole’s something that approached triumph.
∨ Death on the Downs ∧
Twenty-Three
When they emerged from the Hare and Hounds, the weather was brighter than it had any right to be in the middle of March. A cloudless sky and sunlight gave a false promise of summer. Moving into the shadows, however, they still felt as if they had stepped into a vault.
Carole and Jude didn’t say any more about the case as they walked down to Conyers. There was a kind of tacit agreement between them that they’d discuss it later. Even though Tamsin’s retreat to Sandalls Manor now seemed to be an irrelevance, Gillie had sounded urgent on the phone. What she had to impart to Jude might be important.
Carole had briefly contemplated another dutiful trip to Sainsbury’s, but her kitchen shelves were adequately stocked. There was nothing she couldn’t get at Allinstore in Fethering. And, as she said to Jude, it was wicked not to take advantage of such an afternoon for a walk on the Downs. So they parted at the Lutteridges’ gate, agreeing to meet back at the car in an hour.
Carole felt a guilty excitement as she watched her friend cross the immaculate gravel up to the front door. Her talk of a walk, though not entirely inaccurate, had been incomplete. A little plan had been hatching in Carole’s mind, an investigation opportunity right there in Weldisham. If her conjecture proved correct, when they next came to discuss the case she’d certainly have something that’d make Jude sit up.
From in front of the Lutteridges’ house she could once again just see the sagging rooftop of the old barn behind. Fro
m lack of alternative candidates, it must be the one that Harry Grant had bought and for which he had finally received planning permission. From that position, in a few months’ time he would be able to celebrate his return to Weldisham, one of the few local boys who’d made good enough to afford to live in his own village.
The decaying barn was set behind the row of houses that lined Weldisham’s only street and there was no way through to it. That was one of the reasons that the Village Committee produced with such regularity to block the development of the old shell. The barn had no access. A new road would have to be built, with all the attendant disruption.
So Carole knew she’d have to walk down to the end of the village and double back, hoping there was a route to the site through the fields. Belting her Burberry tighter around her, she set out to do just that.
As she walked past the house next door to the Lutteridges’, Warren Lodge, she wondered what was happening inside. Detective Sergeant Baylis had said he was going to talk to Graham Forbes, but on what subject? Were the official enquiries moving in the same direction as her conjectures? How much did the police know?
Whatever the detailed answer to the last question, Carole knew one thing for certain. The police knew more than she and Jude did. Once again she felt the eternal frustration of the amateur, aware that she was on the back foot, pitting her wits against a highly organized and scientifically supported institution whose sole purpose was the investigation of crime.
The houses petered out and ahead of her Carole saw the track that led up over the Downs to South Welling Barn. The thought of that place and what she had found inside the fertilizer bags could still send a chill tremor through her body.
She turned right and walked along the road out of the village, along the garden wall of the first house in Weldisham. When the garden gave way to fields, the next stage of her route proved easier than she had anticipated. There was a stile, and a post with a wooden sign reading ‘Public Footpath’, which pointed in the direction of Harry Grant’s barn. Lifting up the skirts of her Burberry, Carole stepped over the stile.