Bones Under The Beach Hut

by Simon Brett

  Carole winced. 'And currently?'

  'How do you mean?'

  'Is there anyone staying overnight in any of the huts to whom you're currently turning a blind eye?'

  'Look, if I tell you this, will you get off my back?'

  'Oh yes,' said Carole glibly. But she had no intention of doing so. She knew she had a powerful hold over Curt Holderness, and if there was further information she thought she could get from him, she wouldn't hesitate to put further pressure on him.

  'All right,' he said grudgingly. 'There's just the one. Girl in Shrimphaven.'

  'The one next to Fowey, which I'm using at the moment.'

  'That's right. Kel Southwest put the girl on to me and we . . . sorted out an arrangement.'

  'Of the folding variety?'

  'Maybe.'

  'What's her name?' asked Carole.

  'Katie Brunswick.'

  Carole smiled to herself. Her hunch had been right. Now she had a potential witness to night-time goings-on on Smalting Beach. She decided another trip to Fowey might be in order.

  The day was nondescript. Warm enough, but with no sun showing through the clogged clouds. When - and if - they blew away, the afternoon might be quite pleasant.

  Carole had the decency to take Gulliver for a walk along Smalting Beach before subjecting him to the ignominy of being chained up. She had brought a bottle of water with her to fill his bowl and after a couple of thirsty slurps from it he lay down in the shade, apparently reconciled to his fate.

  Carole's preparations had not only included the water. She had brought with her her customary smokescreen of The Times crossword and also a bag of chocolate brownies that she had made that morning. This was most unusual behaviour. Carole Seddon didn't have a sweet tooth and she rarely baked anything. She also, from her childhood onward, had Calvinistically resisted the wicked crime of eating between meals. But the chocolate brownies had been made with two purposes in mind. One was the imminent arrival of Gaby and Lily on the Sunday. Both her daughter-in-law and granddaughter were suckers for anything containing chocolate.

  And the second purpose of the brownies was to act as an ice-breaker to the young woman in Shrimphaven. After erecting a base camp on The Times crossword by filling in a couple of clues, Carole picked up her bag of goodies and steeled herself to the challenge of being affably sociable. It was something that she knew Jude would do more naturally - and better.

  She had noticed that the doors of Shrimphaven were open when she'd walked Gulliver back. And she'd even directed a kind of 'Fethering nod' to its interior, though she couldn't say whether any response had emerged from the shadows. But she had definitely seen the outline of the girl she now knew to be called Katie Brunswick, hunched as ever over her laptop.

  Carole took a deep breath and stepped across to block the daylight from Shrimphaven's doors. Inevitably Katie Brunswick had to look up at her.

  'Good morning,' said Carole in her best attempt at affable sociability. 'Since we're kind of beach hut neighbours I thought I'd say hello. My name's Carole Seddon and I was about to have one of these chocolate brownies I've just made. And then I thought maybe you would like one?'

  She was now close enough to get her first proper view of Katie Brunswick, seated on the bench at the back of what was an otherwise very empty beach hut. Probably in her thirties, the girl had large round glasses and black curly hair pulled back untidily into a scrunchy. Her slight figure was dressed in a plain white T-shirt, jeans and flip-flops.

  She didn't exactly look pleased to be interrupted, but was too well brought up to be positively rude. 'That's very kind of you,' she said in a voice that had also been well brought up.

  Carole stepped into Shrimphaven and proffered her paper bag. With something like reluctance, Katie Brunswick shifted her laptop on to the table by her side and accepted a brownie. Carole also took one out and bit into it, an indication that she was going to stay until the cake was finished. Katie was again too well brought up not to gesture Carole to sit on the bench beside her. There were no other chairs in the hut.

  'Would you like some coffee?' she asked, gesturing to a large thermos on a white table through whose paint little aureoles of rust had worked through like acne.

  'No, thank you. I've just had some.'

  The girl seemed relieved at this response, perhaps because it suggested Carole's visit was going to be eating-a-brownie length rather than eating-a- brownie-and-drinking-a-cup-of-coffee length. Or maybe she'd carefully calculated the contents of the thermos as her coffee supply for the day.

  'I'm sorry, I don't know your name,' Carole lied. Katie Brunswick identified herself. 'You're rather a woman of mystery on Smalting Beach.'

  'Am I? Why?'

  'Everyone's intrigued by what you do here all day.'

  'Oh?'

  'Do you know Reginald Flowers?' The young woman shook her head. 'He's the President of the Smalting Beach Hut Association.'

  'I haven't joined that.'

  'Anyway, he's worried that you might be running a business from here.'

  'Hardly. Is he the man with the beard and the beach hut that's full of naval stuff?'

  'Yes.'

  'Oh, I remember him coming to ask what I was doing, but I was embarrassed to tell him. He did actually ask if I was running a business.'

  'Well, you do seem to spend all day on your laptop.'

  'That's not running a business. I wish it were.'

  'Oh?'

  'I hope ultimately to make money from what I'm doing, but I think that's still a long way off.' Carole hoped that silence would prompt more revelation, and was rewarded when Katie Brunswick went on, 'I'm writing something.'

  'Oh?'

  'A book.'

  'Ah. Is it going to be published?'

  'I hope so. I've got the interest of an agent.'

  'That's a good thing for a writer to have, isn't it? I'm sorry, publishing is not a world I'm very familiar with.'

  'Yes, if you're a writer it's good to have an agent.'

  'So at least you've got one of those.'

  'Well, I haven't exactly got one. I've got the interest of one. I met her at the Truro Literary Festival. And she said she'd read anything I sent her.'

  'That sounds good. She must have liked your work.'

  'No, she hadn't actually read any of my work.'

  'Ah. Anyway, what kind of book is it you're writing? I mean, don't tell me if you don't want to. I've heard that some writers are superstitious when it comes to talking about "work in progress".'

  'No, I don't mind talking about it. I always welcome feedback. You can get very isolated when you're writing.'

  'I'm sure you can. But at least here you're surrounded by people.'

  'Still isolated, though.' She sounded almost proud of the fact. 'You're often at your loneliest when you're with people.'

  'So you use this beach hut as your writing room?'

  'Why not? Where else round here are you going to get an office for six hundred quid a year?'

  'That's true.'

  'So I've got a "room of my own".'

  'I'm sorry? I don't get the reference.'

  'Virginia Woolf said: "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.'"

  'Ah.'

  'So I've got the room.'

  'How about the money?'

  'I've got two years' worth.' Carole looked at her curiously. 'I'd saved enough for me to survive for two years when I gave up my job.'

  'You gave up your job to write this book?' To Carole that seemed a very odd thing to do.

  'Oh no. I'd already written it. In my spare time.'

  This was becoming increasingly confusing. 'So why did you take the two years off?'

  'I wanted to make it better.'

  'The book better?'

  'Yes. On a course I went on I was told that the most important part of writing was rewriting.'

  'Oh.' Carole supposed in a way she could see the sense in that. While she was at the Home Offi
ce she had prided herself in the accuracy with which she marshalled facts in memoranda. And that had involved a certain amount of redrafting. 'This was a writing course you're talking about?'

  'Yes.'

  'But I thought writing was something one either could do or couldn't do. It can't be taught, surely? I don't quite see how a course could help.'

  'Oh, they do. There's lots you can learn. I mean, obviously you have to want to write, have an innate aptitude for it. Joseph Joubert said: "A fluent writer always seems more talented than he is. To write well, one needs a natural facility and an acquired difficulty."'

  'Who was Joseph Joubert?'

  'I don't know. I heard the quote on another writing course I went on.'

  'Do you go on a lot of them?'

  'At least two a year.'

  'So, Katie ... if it's not a rude question . . . have you ever had anything published?'

  'No.'

  'But have you written other, unpublished books before this one?'

  'No. I've really just been working on this one.'

  'For how long?'

  'Well, I suppose in this form for about twelve years.'

  'Ah.'

  'I mean it came from an idea I had for a short story. And then I started writing it in a different way. And then I submitted the first chapter in a First Chapter Competition for the Godalming Arts Festival and it got commended.'

  'That must have been encouraging.'

  'Yes. But of course the first chapter now has changed quite a lot from the first chapter as it was then.'

  'Right.'

  'Apart from anything else it was a first person narrative and I've changed it to third person.'

  'Ah. So this is all improving the book?'

  'I hope so, yes. There are some friends I get to read it, and some people in my Writers' Circle, and a lot of them think it's getting better.'

  'And when do you think you'll finish it? I mean, this draft?'

  Katie Brunswick jutted forward a dubious lower lip. 'Ooh, hard to say. I mean it's seven months since I gave up my job, that was just before Christmas, so I've still got, what . . . seventeen months to go.'

  'So that's your deadline?'

  The girl still looked doubtful. 'I don't know that I'll have finished it by then.'

  'Look, I'm sorry,' said Carole, 'I know I don't know anything about writing, but I can't see why this book's going to take so long.'

  'Well, I want to get it right. . .'

  'Mm. Yes, well, I can see that would be a good idea.'

  'And every time I go on a course, I learn new ideas.'

  'I see.'

  'And I want to apply them, you know, to the book.'

  'So you start rewriting the book again, to accommodate these new ideas?'

  'Yes, that's what I do exactly, more or less.'

  The girl was silent. Carole didn't think it was the moment to comment that Katie Brunswick's way of writing a book seemed a rather odd approach to any enterprise, so she moved on to the real purpose of her chocolate-brownie subterfuge. 'I was speaking to Curt Holderness this morning.'

  'Oh?' Katie was alert, alarmed even.

  'He was offering me various ways in which he could bend the rules with regard to these beach huts.'

  'Was he?' she asked cautiously.

  'He did actually tell me that he's made an arrangement with you . . .'

  'Mm?'

  '. . .allowing you to stay here overnight when you want to.'

  'Yes, well, I went on this course where one of the tutors told me two important things about being a writer. He said that you had to have a dedicated room of your own to work in - just like Virginia Woolf said. A space with the minimum of distractions in it.'

  'Which you've got here.'

  'Yes.'

  'And he also said a writer never knows when inspiration is going to strike, and you must never ignore its summons. As soon as you have an idea you must leap to pen and paper, or the keyboard or whatever else you use.'

  'I see. So sometimes you need to stay here overnight when inspiration strikes you?'

  'Yes. Or when inspiration might strike me.'

  'Ah.'

  'Curt Holderness only charged me a hundred quid for the concession. It still makes this a jolly cheap office, doesn't it?'

  'Yes. Well, I hope inspiration didn't strike much in the last few days.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'The most recent couple of times I've been here, this place was locked up.'

  'Yes.' Katie Brunswick looked a little embarrassed. 'The fact was, when the police started investigating here on the beach, well, I didn't particularly want to be around.'

  'Squeamishness?'

  'No, I just didn't want to be questioned . . . you know, in case the fact that I was sometimes staying here overnight came up.'

  'Ah. I understand.' Carole looked beadily at her. 'So when was the last time you spent the night here?'

  Katie Brunswick screwed up her eyes as she tried to remember. 'Last Monday. I mean, not the Monday just gone, the one before.'

  A little charge of excitement ran through Carole. 'And did you see anything that night?'

  'What sort of thing?' came the cautious response.

  'Any people on the beach?'

  'I did see some actually.'

  'Oh?'

  'Normally if I stay overnight I close the doors, so that it's not so obvious that I'm in here. But it had been a hot day and was still pretty warm in the small hours. It was very stuffy in here, so I reckoned I could risk leaving the doors open.'

  'So who did you see?' asked Carole, her throat tense with excitement.

  'I saw that painter guy who lives on the prom.'

  'Gray Czesky?'

  'Yes. He was very drunk. He wandered down on to the beach and staggered off behind the beach huts over there.'

  'What? Near Quiet Harbour? Near the one the police are investigating?'

  'Yes.'

  'Was he carrying anything?'

  'Perhaps. I can't remember. I think perhaps he had a plastic carrier bag with him.'

  'What time would this have been, Katie?'

  'I don't know. I was quite caught up with what I was writing. Early hours, I suppose. One or two in the morning.'

  'Did you see him leave the beach?' A shake of the head. 'Did you see anyone else?'

  'Yes. A bit later ... I don't know how much later because I was caught up in the book, but I heard voices whispering. A man and a woman.'

  'Could you hear what they were saying?'

  'No. But I looked out and I saw them both going the same way Gray Czesky had gone.'

  'Towards Quiet Harbour?'

  'Yes.'

  'Who were they, Katie?'

  'One was the guy who used to be in Quiet Harbour with his girlfriend.'

  'Mark Dennis?'

  'I don't know his name, but he's got that small girlfriend with almost white-blond hair. Actually, come to think of it, I haven't seen them down here on the beach much recently.'

  'And did you see the woman he was with?' asked Carole.

  'Yes. She doesn't go out much, seems to spend most of her time in the house. But I have seen her a couple of times with Gray Czesky. It was his wife, Helga.'

  Jude was back at Woodside Cottage when Carole returned to Fethering. They stood tensely together in Jude's sitting room while Carole dialled the number Nuala Cullan had given them.

  A machine answered. It requested anyone who wanted to leave a message for Gray or Helga Czesky to speak after the tone.

  * * *

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Carole switched off the phone, then consulted Jude who advised her to leave a message. 'We need to see them, don't we?'

  'What should I say? Maintain the pretence that I want Gray to do me a watercolour of Fethering Beach?'

  'No, I think we've gone beyond that. Take the direct approach. Say you want to talk about the fire that was started under Quiet Harbour.'

  'Strange that they don't ans
wer. I got the impression that they were both in the house most of the time. Katie Brunswick said Helga don't go out much.'

  'Maybe they're the sort who always leave the answering machine on. So that they can screen incoming calls.'

  So it proved. Carole left a terse message ending with Jude's number, and it was a matter of moments before the phone rang. Jude answered. It was Helga. She sounded cautious and a little distressed.

  'Please, who am I talking to?' Over the phone her German accent was thicker.

  'My name's Jude.'

  'It was not your voice which left the message.'

  'No. That was my friend Carole. We did meet on Monday. We were the ones who came to your house to discuss a commission with your husband.'

  'Ah.' Helga didn't take issue with them about the subterfuge. She had more pressing priorities. 'You said you knew something about the fire at Quiet Harbour . . . ?'

  'Yes. We know who lit it,' said Jude, making what was little more than a conjecture sound like a certainty.

  'I see.' Helga was silent for a moment. 'Yes, we must meet,' she said finally, in a voice of long suffering.

  They had agreed to come round to Woodside Cottage. Gray Czesky had been tidied up, presumably on his wife's insistence. He was out of his paint-spattered work clothes, and in grey trousers and a blue blazer looked somehow like a large naughty schoolboy waiting for a dressing-down from the headmaster.

  It was evident that in the current situation his wife represented that kind of authority figure at least as much as Carole and Jude did. Once the couple had sat down and refused offers of tea and coffee, Helga announced, 'Gray has something he wishes to confess to you.'

  He was shamefaced, but still had a bit of his old bravado left. 'It's hell,' he began, 'having an artistic temperament. Nobody really understands, nobody knows what goes on inside my brain.'

  None of the three women said anything, leaving him to dig himself out of his own hole. 'I don't really always have control of myself. My emotions are so volatile, I don't know what I'm going to feel from one moment to the next. It's as if I'm being blown all over the place by an unidentifiable power that is stronger than I am.'

  'An unidentifiable power like drink?' Carole suggested rather meanly.