by Simon Brett
‘Don’t like a lot of things about The Times these days,’ he went on, confirming her conjecture. ‘Going very tabloid, all those colour photographs and what have you. Any excuse to get a pretty girl on the front page. And the Diary is an absolute disgrace. I’m afraid I’m of a generation that looks back fondly to the days when The Times didn’t have any news on the front page.’
‘I can remember that too.’
‘Well, all I can say is you must’ve been very young at the time.’
Graham Forbes’s gallantry was of another time, but it was comforting. Carole regretted that political correctness had rendered modern men wary of making that kind of remark.
‘Tell you the favourite Times crossword clue I can remember . . . It was a Down clue, and it was just two words. “Bats do.” Five letters.’
He looked interrogatively at Carole. ‘ “Bats do” . . .’ she repeated slowly, trying to take the words apart.
‘Not fair to throw it at you like that. You have to see it written to make sense of it. I’ll tell you, because I don’t want to prolong the agony. PEELS.’
‘Right.’ Carole nodded her appreciation. ‘SLEEP upside-down. Bats sleep upside-down.’
‘Exactly. Damned clever, I thought.’
‘It is, yes.’
‘Sorry, should have introduced myself.’ He stretched a thin freckled hand across the table. ‘Graham Forbes.’
‘Carole Seddon.’
‘Pleased to meet you. I live just a couple of doors from the pub, so I keep turning up here like a bad penny.’ He took a sip of his whisky. ‘Lovely stuff. I swear my innards are pickled in it, you know. So what do you do, Carole?’
‘I’m retired.’
‘Really? Must’ve been an extremely early retirement.’ Again the automatic chivalry contrived not to be offensive.
‘Well, it was early, yes.’ And that earliness still rankled with Carole. She hadn’t wanted to stay till she was sixty, but she’d have preferred to have made her own decision about her leaving date, rather than being informed of it.
‘What did you do before you retired?’
‘I worked at the Home Office.’
‘Fascinating. What part of the Home Office?’
‘Moved around. A lot of the time dealing with the Prison Service one way or the other.’
‘Hm. Travel much?’
‘Only round this country.’
‘I think maybe you were fortunate. Now I’m permanently settled here, I realize how much I missed about England.’
‘You worked abroad?’
‘Yes. British Council.’
‘Oh, I had a friend at university who went into the British Council.’
Carole hadn’t thought about him for years. She wondered whether he still kept up the front he’d maintained at Durham that he wasn’t gay. Or maybe more tolerant times had allowed him to relax into his own nature. ‘His name was Trevor Malcolm.’
Graham Forbes shrugged his thin shoulders. ‘It’s a big organization.’
‘Of course.’
‘Anyway, I worked for them all over the shop. Had the place here in Weldisham for a long time, but only used to come back for leave and breaks between postings. Often wonder if I wouldn’t have been happier staying here all the time.’
‘I never think there’s much point in talking about might-have-beens.’
‘And you’re absolutely right. What a sensible woman you are, Carole. No, I can’t really complain. Seen some fascinating places, met some fascinating people. Real characters, you know, the locals, librarians, drivers we had . . . And yet . . . Oh well, it’s human nature not to be content, isn’t it? Always remember a line of Hazlitt’s . . . “I should like to spend the whole of my life in travelling abroad, if I could anywhere borrow another life to spend afterwards at home.” ’
‘That’s good. I think it sums up what most of us feel.’
‘Yes, grass is greener, all that stuff. No, can’t complain. Had an interesting life, still with the woman I love at age seventy-five . . . What more can you ask, eh?’
‘Not a lot.’
‘No.’ There was a silence. ‘Incidentally . . . when you were in here on Friday . . . did you hear what I was talking about with that chap at the bar?’
Carole blushed, though there was no real reason why she should have felt guilty. Short of putting in earplugs, there was no way she couldn’t have heard what was being said at the bar.
‘About the discovery of the bones at South Welling Barn?’
‘Yes. Well, putting two and two together, I reckon you must have been the person who found them.’
‘Where did you get your two and two from?’
‘Lennie. Sorry, Detective Sergeant Baylis. The policeman who you talked to.’ In response to her look of surprise, he explained. ‘Lennie talked to me on Saturday. I’m Chairman of the Village Committee here, you see. He wanted us to keep an eye out for press, snoopers, ghouls . . . You know, the people who turn up when something nasty’s happened, the kind who queue up on motorways to look at pile-ups. Anyway, Lennie said he’d been talking to you in the pub, I saw you in the pub, I put two and two together.’
‘Right. But was it Detective Sergeant Baylis who told you about my finding the bones in the first place?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Well, what struck me last Friday was how quickly you knew about what’d happened. I’d found the bones at . . . what . . .? Round four o’clock? And by six-fifteen you were in here, talking about them.’
‘Ah, with you, see what you mean. Yes, it was Lennie. He was brought up here in Weldisham. He knows how the gossip-mill works in a village like this. So he gave me a quick call the Friday afternoon. Thought it better someone heard officially about what’d happened, rather than letting rumours run riot. Dangerous things, rumours.’ Suddenly, he was into quotation.
‘Rumour is a pipe
Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures,
And of so easy and so plain a stop
That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,
The still-discordant wavering multitude,
Can play upon it.’
‘I’m sorry. I don’t know the reference.’
‘No reason why you should. I think it’s probably too obscure to crop up in the Times crossword. The Bard, inevitably. Henry IV, Part 2. The Induction. “Enter RUMOUR, painted full of tongues.” I’m not sure that any of the good folk of Weldisham are actually “painted full of tongues”, but they’re nonetheless very skilled in the dissemination of vile rumour.’
‘Ah.’ There was a silence. Graham Forbes took another swig of whisky, before Carole asked, ‘So was there something you wanted to say about the bones?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Well, you raised the subject.’
‘Yes. Of course I did. No, I only wanted to say, so sorry, you have my sympathy. It must have been a horrible experience for you.’
‘It has been . . . surprisingly unsettling.’
‘I don’t think you should be surprised at all that you’ve been unsettled. Ghastly for you, coming upon that little cache by pure chance. Or at least I assume it was by pure chance . . .’
‘Hm?’
‘Well, you hadn’t set out looking for bones, had you?’
‘Hardly.’ She gave him a strange look, until she realized he was joking.
‘I’m sorry, Carole,’ he chuckled. ‘You get plenty of odd types walking on the Downs. Archaeologists, people with metal detectors . . . Some of them probably are looking for bones.’
‘Well, I can assure you I wasn’t.’
‘No. I’m sure you weren’t.’ Graham Forbes looked at his watch, swilled down the remains of his whisky and said, ‘Must be off. Lunchtime. It’s been such a pleasure to meet you, Carole.’
‘You too.’ She meant it.
‘I’d love you to come and meet my wife, Irene, at some point. As I say, we’re just down the lane. Warren Lodge. We always give a little dinner party Friday nights. Maybe
we could inveigle you along to one of them?’
‘I’d like that very much.’ Carole was slightly surprised by the offer, but certainly not averse to the idea. Her Fethering social circle was narrow and not wildly interesting. It would be a pleasure to meet some new people, particularly if they were all as charming and cultured as Graham Forbes.
They exchanged phone numbers and he left for his lunch. Carole readdressed her crossword. Instantly she got her first solution.
The clue was: ‘A sailor’s in brass, for example, and bony (10).’
She wrote in METATARSAL.
Chapter Nine
Jude had been to the Lutteridges’ house before, and the first time she had seen its interior she had been impressed by how ‘finished’ everything was. All the paintwork gleamed like new, the carpets might have been laid the day before, the furniture just delivered from the showroom. Jude, whose own style of décor was ‘junk-shop casual’, was amazed how anyone could keep a home looking like that. She could understand that a museum might maintain such standards, but couldn’t equate it to an environment in which people actually lived. When she first went there, the fantasy grew within her that somewhere in the house was a glory hole, a haven of dusty squalor into which were tumbled all those miscellaneous objects which lend character to the average dwelling. But the more time she spent with the Lutteridges, the more that fantasy dwindled. There was no glory hole; the house was perfect throughout.
Gillie Lutteridge also looked as if she had stepped straight out of a brochure. Jude had worked out, from hints and date references in conversation, that Tamsin’s mother must be in her late forties, but the smoothness of her made-up face and the immaculate shaping of her blonded hair could have placed her anywhere between thirty and fifty.
She didn’t seem to possess any ordinary clothes, like most people did. Her garments came straight out of the brochure too – and a pretty up-market brochure at that. She wore them in a way that defied creasing. If she hadn’t seen it happening with her own eyes, Jude would have sworn Gillie Lutteridge never sat down.
That morning, she was wearing a loose ash-grey cashmere sweater, black and white tweed trousers with ruler-edge creases and gleaming black shoes with gold buckles.
In spite of her deterrently flawless exterior, Jude got on very well with Tamsin’s mother. Gillie was sensitive, compassionate, warm; she possessed all of the qualities that her appearance seemed to make unlikely. And, from the moment it first manifested itself, she had been deeply anxious about her daughter’s illness.
But that Monday morning she seemed no more anxious than she had been when Tamsin disappeared from the family house four months previously. So unworried did Gillie Lutteridge seem that Jude wondered whether she had actually heard the rumours about the bones in South Welling Barn. Having no skills in prevarication, that was the first thing Jude asked her about.
‘Yes, I heard,’ Gillie replied. ‘But that’s just village gossip. I’m sure the bones have nothing to do with Tamsin. Tamsin’s not dead.’
The words were spoken with firmness and a degree of calm. But was that just the desperate resolution of a mother unable to believe her child was no longer alive?
‘Still, it must be hurtful for you even to hear people make the suggestion.’
Gillie Lutteridge shrugged her perfectly tailored shoulders. ‘People are not very bright – certainly not here in Weldisham,’ she said. ‘They tend to go for the obvious. A dead body’s found. A girl’s missing. If you haven’t got much imagination, then you assume the two must be related.’
‘Have the police talked to you?’
‘Yes. Nice young man, Lennie Baylis. I’ve often seen him round the village. I think he even used to live here. Anyway, he came. He was very reassuring.’
‘What, you mean they’ve identified the bones and they definitely know they’re not Tamsin’s?’
‘No. Apparently that’ll take a bit longer. The . . .’ For a moment her equilibrium was shaken by the thought of what she was saying. ‘The . . . remains are at the police laboratories. But Lennie said there was nothing so far to connect them with Tamsin. There was no reason for us to panic.’
‘It looks as if panicking is the last thing you’re doing.’
‘I’m very optimistic by nature, Jude. I’m positive Tamsin’s still alive. Miles, though . . . Miles is taking it rather hard.’ Gillie Lutteridge sank into an irreproachable armchair, giving for the first time some hint of the strain that she was under. ‘Miles sees this as kind of . . . the end of a process.’
‘What process?’
‘The process that began with Tamsin’s illness. That hit him very hard. Everything had always gone well for us. We’d been fortunate. Tamsin had always done well . . . school, university, walked straight into her job in magazine publishing. When she got ill, it was the first reverse in her life, in our lives too, I suppose. Miles couldn’t really cope with the idea. He saw it as a reproach, almost as if it was his fault.’
‘Of course, he never really believed in Tamsin’s illness, did he?’
‘No, he thought it was psychosomatic, that she was malingering. Everything’s very black and white for Miles.’
‘And very black at the moment?’
Gillie nodded. ‘It’s dreadful to see him like this. He’s always been so positive. He’s not gone into work today. The weekend was dreadful. Ever since Lennie Baylis told us about what had been found in South Welling Barn, Miles has just been twitching round the house, waiting for the phone to ring.’
‘Is he here now?’
‘In the garden. Pretending to be busy. He won’t stay out there long.’
As if to prove her point, Miles Lutteridge appeared in the doorway. He looked at Jude with undisguised disappointment. ‘Oh, it’s you.’
The husband manifested the same brochure-like quality as his house and his wife. He was expensively dressed in a pale lilac jumper with a designer logo which hid the designer logo on the cream polo shirt he wore underneath. The creases in his beige trousers were as sharp as his wife’s and his brown slip-on shoes carried the same shine.
The only things that would have kept him out of a leisurewear catalogue were his thinning hair on top and the expression of grey anxiety on his face.
‘Good morning, Miles,’ said Jude.
She knew he didn’t like her – or perhaps just didn’t trust her. She was too forcible a reminder of his daughter’s illness, the very existence of which he sought to deny. He had met her once or twice when she’d come up for exploratory chats with Tamsin and hadn’t disguised the fact that he thought her only one step away from charlatanism.
‘I’m very sorry to hear about the rumours going round the village,’ Jude continued. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing to do with Tamsin.’
‘What do you know about it?’ Miles Lutteridge demanded brusquely. In their previous encounters he’d always managed to stay the right side of politeness. Worry was taking its toll on his civility.
‘I don’t know anything for certain,’ Jude replied evenly. ‘I just think it very unlikely that Tamsin would have stayed around this area.’
‘Do you mean you know where she did go?’ The glint in his eye revealed both hope and suspicion. ‘I bet she went off with one of your lot.’
‘By “my lot”, do you mean some alternative therapist who was trying to help her with her illness?’
‘If “alternative therapist” is what you want to call it, yes. I mean some New Age quack doctor who took my daughter for everything she was worth by giving her false hopes he’d find her a cure.’
‘Are you talking about someone specific?’ asked Jude.
But Gillie decided the conversation had become too adversarial for polite society. ‘Miles,’ she intervened, ‘it’ll be all right, I promise.’
‘How can you make promises like that? What meaning do they have? You aren’t a god. You can’t bring Tamsin back to life, Gillie.’ He was getting very overwrought now. Tears glinted in his eyes.
‘Can you give me any proof of that?’ he bellowed.
There was a long silence while husband and wife held each other’s gaze. Gillie seemed about to say something, but decided against it. She looked down and shook her head.
‘See!’ He spat the word out. ‘Why does it happen to my daughter? First she gets some phoney illness. Then she starts mixing with alternative therapists.’ He loaded the words with contempt. ‘And now she’s probably dead!’
‘Miles, she isn’t!’
But he’d gone. Afraid to have his tears witnessed, Miles Lutteridge had stormed out of the room.
Jude talked to Gillie for a while, but little new was said. The mother retained her conviction her daughter was alive; the father was convinced she was dead. And all Jude was aware of was how much this new situation had driven a wedge into their marriage. While everything had been going well, Miles and Gillie Lutteridge seemed to have been fine. Tamsin’s illness made the first crack in their unity, pointing up the differences between them – Gillie’s belief in the illness and her search for a cure, Miles’s disbelief and desire to pretend it wasn’t happening. And the discovery of the bones at South Welling Barn had made that rift wider still.
Chapter Ten
Having cracked that first clue, Carole’s mind moved up a gear and she had nearly completed the Times crossword by the time Jude joined her in the Hare and Hounds. They ordered cottage pie and yes, both did have a glass of white wine.
‘Just the one,’ said Carole automatically. ‘Driving.’ Then she asked about her friend’s visit to the Lutteridges.
‘Odd. Very odd.’ Jude screwed up the skin around her large brown eyes. ‘Miles was in a terrible state of panic, but Gillie seemed unnaturally calm.’
‘Is she normally a calm person?’
‘From the outside, yes. If you didn’t know her, you’d have no idea what she’s thinking. But over the time I spent with her and Tamsin, I did get to know her quite well, and she’s not calm – at least not where her daughter’s concerned. But this morning she kept saying she knew Tamsin was all right.’