Death on the Downs

by Simon Brett

  Baylis still wasn’t convinced about the whole picture, but some of Carole’s ideas intrigued him. ‘Let’s just go along with your theory for a moment. If it were true, how do you explain more recent developments? If the bones did belong to Sheila Forbes, why do they suddenly turn up where you found them, in South Welling Barn?’

  ‘All right.’ Carole took another deep breath. ‘There are things that happened in Malaysia which I’m guessing about, but which could be checked. I think Graham Forbes had met Irene before 1987 and fallen in love with her, which was why he did away with Sheila. He reckoned the body would be safe in the old barn behind his house, because it was only used as a village dumping ground and people very rarely went in there. When he retired, and felt able to introduce his new bride to Weldisham, he quickly got a position of power on the Village Committee. A man of his administrative skills, with time on his hands, would be welcomed with open arms. And thereafter, every time an application came up for planning permission to develop the old barn, Graham Forbes marshalled the Weldisham opposition against the idea. Everyone thought his motivation was to protect the village environment, but in fact he was protecting something else that was much more significant to him.’

  ‘So why were the bones moved?’

  ‘I’m getting there, Sergeant. Harry Grant had bought the barn and he, like others before him, kept trying to get permission to turn it into a dwelling. He was always turned down . . . until last week. I don’t know how it happened . . . local back-scratching perhaps, maybe a few palms greased . . . that’s not important. What was important, from Graham Forbes’s point of view, was that the barn was about to be developed, its floor was going to be dug up to build foundations. His guilty secret was about to be uncovered. So, as soon as he got wind of the Planning Committee’s likely decision, Graham Forbes knew he had to move his wife’s remains.’

  ‘But why would he only move them as far as South Welling Barn?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe it was a temporary measure. Maybe he was going to take them to a more permanent hiding place and got interrupted.’

  Baylis pursed his lips thoughtfully. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What?’

  Carole hadn’t really worked out the next part of her allegations. The first bit had been conjecture supported by some facts and a good ration of logic; this bit was pure conjecture. ‘I think something . . . my finding the bones perhaps . . . had an effect on Pauline Helling. Maybe she had a guilty conscience about the crime of which she’d been part, but for whatever reason she decided that she was going to tell someone the truth of what happened.’

  ‘Tell who?’

  ‘I don’t know. You perhaps. But I think she let Graham Forbes know about her change of heart . . . or he found out about it somehow . . . and, for that reason, he decided that he had to keep her quiet.’

  Baylis looked shocked now. ‘So you’re saying Graham Forbes torched Heron Cottage?’

  Stated like that, the theory sounded rather bald. Carole backtracked. ‘I’m saying it’s a possibility. I’m not certain about that yet. It’ll need a bit of investigation.’

  ‘Yes,’ the sergeant agreed, slightly mocking. ‘That kind of thing often does.’

  ‘All I am certain of, though,’ said Carole, reasserting her authority, ‘is the fact that the bones I found belonged to Sheila Forbes, who was murdered by her husband.’

  The door behind the bar opened. Will Maples stood there. ‘Sorry, have to open up to the thirsty public now.’

  His manner was full of apology, but of something else as well. Carole wondered how much of their conversation the manager had overheard.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Charles Hilton led Jude up the heavy mahogany staircase to the second floor of Sandalls Manor. The landings off which the bedrooms opened showed no signs of the building’s New Age make-over. They were opulently decorated with rich carpets and curtains, as in any other luxury country house hotel. Again Jude got the impression that the minimum amount of change would be required to convert from psychotherapeutic to clay-pigeon-shooting weekends.

  Tamsin Lutteridge’s bedroom was at the end of the corridor on the top floor. Charles tapped on the door. Jude didn’t hear a voice granting admission, but he pushed in regardless.

  The room, like the landings, was expensively upholstered. Pine dressing table, chairs, bedhead and wardrobe gave a rustic impression, as did the chintzy curtains and bedcovers. The tall windows behind the closed curtains must in daytime have commanded wonderful views across the Downs and down to the glinting line of the sea. Jude wondered how much Gillie Lutteridge was paying for accommodation, before she even started on her daughter’s medical treatment.

  The mess around the room was more characteristic of a teenager than a girl in her early twenties. Underwear, T-shirts and trainers lay on the floor. Make-up and perfume bottles, some open, spread in confusion on the dressing table. Open magazines and paperbacks littered the bedside table. Minidiscs and their boxes clustered at the foot of an expensive stack system.

  And, front down on the bed, watching an American high school soap, lay Tamsin Lutteridge.

  She looked up without much interest at their arrival, and Jude’s first impression was how ill the girl looked. Four months of Charles Hilton’s regimen seemed to have made no difference to her health at all. If anything, she looked worse than when Jude had last seen her.

  Tamsin Lutteridge was blonde, like her mother, with blue eyes which, at their best, could sparkle and entrance, but were now as dull as pebbles. The hair hung lank, not unwashed but lifeless. Her long, slight body was swamped in a grey sweatshirt and elasticated trousers of the same material. They were probably her normal day clothes, but gave the impression of pyjamas.

  The most striking feature of the girl, though, was her pallor. Perhaps aggravated by reflection from the television screen, the face looked actually grey, a kind of papier-mâché colour.

  Tamsin recognized Jude and nodded a greeting. It wasn’t unwelcoming, but the effort of making the gesture positively affable seemed too great.

  Charles Hilton either didn’t see the moment of recognition or – more likely – wanted to assert his control over the situation by making the introductions. ‘Tamsin, this is Jude, whom I’ve agreed can come and talk to you.’

  ‘OK.’

  The girl’s attention was now back on the television screen. Jude had anticipated a reaction of alarm, or even fear, to her arrival, but all she encountered was indifference.

  Charles Hilton gestured to a pine armchair and Jude sat down. Then he perched himself neatly on the stool in front of the dressing table.

  ‘Charles . . . I want to talk to Tamsin on her own.’

  His eyes grew darker. ‘I’m sorry, Jude. I can’t allow that. Tamsin is my patient. We’re going through a long therapeutic process and I can’t risk her getting upset.’

  ‘I have no intention of upsetting her. What I want to talk about is nothing to do with her illness. And, as I believe I mentioned, nothing to do with you.’

  Charles Hilton shook his head slowly, as if dealing with someone unschooled in the arcana of his profession. ‘I’m afraid, as her therapist, I can’t allow Tamsin to be alone with you.’

  ‘Why? Are you afraid she might have some critical things to say about you and the way you’re treating her?’

  ‘No, of course I’m not.’ He was piqued by that.

  Tamsin Lutteridge showed no reaction to the tension in the room. What little concentration she had was focused on her soap.

  ‘It’s just that Tamsin is in a very fragile and vulnerable state. I have to monitor all her dealings with the outside world. I can’t risk her delicate mental equilibrium being threatened.’

  ‘Charles,’ said Jude languidly, ‘if you don’t leave the room, I’m going to have a word with Anne . . . about what happened on that course where you and I first met . . .’

  He didn’t like the idea of leaving Jude alone with
Tamsin. But even less did he like the idea of his wife finding out about his groping her. Charles Hilton left the room.

  Tamsin Lutteridge continued to watch the television.

  No customers had come into the Hare and Hounds at six, but Carole and Detective Sergeant Baylis couldn’t continue their conversation with Will Maples ostentatiously busy polishing glasses behind the bar.

  The sergeant looked at his watch. ‘I’d better be off. Got a few more calls to make.’

  ‘Yes. We need to talk about this further.’

  ‘We certainly do.’ Suddenly he leaned in close and whispered fiercely into her face. ‘Whatever you do, don’t mention anything we’ve talked about to anyone else.’

  ‘Of course I won’t,’ said Carole, bewildered.

  And suddenly Baylis had straightened up, downed his whisky and, with a ‘See you, Will’, left the pub.

  The manager looked across at her, entertained by her discomfort. ‘Would you care to have a drink now, madam?’

  ‘Yes. Please. I’ll have dry white wine.’

  Just one. Then straight back home. Jude must be back soon. They had so much to talk about.

  As regulars trickled into the pub, Carole sipped her wine, stared at the unchanging flames on the ceramic logs and felt mounting frustration. If only Baylis had given some response, some reaction to everything she’d just spilled out . . . Did he think of her as a perceptive sleuth or a hysterical menopausal woman? Had anything she’d said struck a chord with him? Had she provided him with any ideas he hadn’t already got?

  And, above all, how much did the police know? They must’ve run DNA tests on the bones by now. Had they been looking for a match with the Helling family? Baylis had said Carole wasn’t the first person to suggest the remains belonged to Sheila Forbes. Had they made a positive identification yet? What had Detective Sergeant Baylis said to Graham Forbes when he visited him the previous week? And what was the ‘everything’ that he was afraid might be ruined by her talking?

  ‘Well, hello. This is an unexpected pleasure. Very interesting that you should be here.’

  Carole looked up to find herself confronted by Barry Stillwell. He was wearing yet another pinstriped suit and a charcoal overcoat. His blue tie had a repeated gold logo on it. Some golf club perhaps . . . Yes, he probably would play golf. Carole thanked God they hadn’t got on to the subject when they’d last met. Golf would have added agonizing new refinements to the torture imposed by Barry Stillwell’s conversation.

  ‘Can I get you another glass of wine? The Bordeaux Blanc that Will has as a house white is not unacceptable.’

  Carole’s first instinct was to refuse the offer, but on consideration she accepted. Barry Stillwell might be an embarrassing creep, but he did know some of the principals involved in the case. Most significantly, he knew Graham Forbes. Barry could be a useful source of information.

  He bought her wine and sat down with a half of bitter for himself. ‘Just the half. Have to watch it when I’m driving.’

  Carole had said exactly the same words many times herself. Why, on Barry Stillwell’s lips, did they sound so impossibly prissy? And why was he suddenly talking like that anyway? On their ‘date’ he had boasted about his immunity to the attentions of the breathalyser police.

  He took a sip from his glass and grunted with satisfaction. ‘Ah, that hits the spot all right.’

  Why is it, Carole wondered, that all men – particularly those who patently aren’t – have to pretend they’re part of some blokish beer-swilling pub culture?

  Barry Stillwell looked at her in a manner that he imagined to be winsome. ‘If I didn’t know you better,’ he said, ‘I’d think you’d been trying to avoid me.’

  You don’t know me at all. And I have been trying to avoid you. But all Carole said was, ‘I’m sorry not to have returned your calls. I’ve just been so busy the last few days.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ said Barry archly. ‘I’m sure we can make up for lost time.’

  Carole let out a thin smile, before asking, ‘So what brings you up here – business or pleasure?’

  ‘I was about to ask you the same thing.’

  ‘I got my question in first.’ Carole realized that she sounded impossibly girlish. Oh dear, was she actually using her ‘feminine wiles’?

  Never mind. It was in a good cause. She might get something out of Barry to corroborate part of her theory of the crime. Because, though she was convinced by its general outline, Carole was aware that more than a few details needed filling in.

  ‘So have you been visiting a client?’

  ‘I have indeed, Carole.’

  ‘Graham Forbes?’

  ‘Yes. My oh my, you’ve got a good memory.’

  ‘Not that good. We did actually meet at the Forbeses—’

  ‘As if you imagine I could forget it, Carole.’

  ‘And you were introduced to me by Graham as his solicitor.’

  ‘So I was. Right. So you didn’t need such a good memory after all . . . though, mind you, I’m sure your memory is as excellent as everything else about you.’

  Carole couldn’t think what on earth he was talking about, until she realized that this was another of Barry Stillwell’s ponderous compliments.

  ‘Oh, that’s sweet of you.’ She giggled coquettishly, then moved firmly on. ‘So what have you been seeing Graham about today?’

  But he didn’t succumb to the direct question quite as readily as she’d hoped.

  ‘Ah, now, Carole, I’m sure you’re aware that there is such a thing as client confidentiality.’

  ‘Of course.’ Damn. Her ‘feminine wiles’ were going to need a little more fine-tuning. She backed off and started a more roundabout approach. ‘Was Graham very upset when he heard about the planning permission for the barn?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ asked Barry, confused by the sudden change of direction.

  ‘The barn behind his house. You know, the one that Harry Grant’s been wanting to turn into a house for so long.’

  ‘Well, we haven’t actually discussed it, but I can’t imagine Graham’s best pleased. It’s something he’s fought vigorously for many years.’

  Yes, and I know why, thought Carole.

  ‘Of course, I could see it coming,’ Barry went on, moving into his ‘I know everything that goes on around this area’ mode. ‘Get a few new faces on the Planning Committee and it’s amazing how quickly things can change.’

  ‘Presumably you know most of the major players,’ Carole suggested sycophantically.

  It had been the right approach. Barry Stillwell almost glowed as he said, ‘Oh yes indeed. Not many movers and shakers round here I don’t know.’

  ‘So you’d probably also know how all the planning decisions get made, Barry . . .’

  He chuckled knowingly.

  ‘Who scratches whose back . . . and what with? How much with?’

  He raised an admonitory finger. ‘Now, Carole, there’s no actual corruption in West Sussex . . .’ Another informed chuckle. ‘Mind you, certain builders who got the decisions they wanted might well . . . find themselves issuing surprisingly reasonable estimates for jobs for certain individuals . . . Or they might build the odd road or do some public maintenance work at a very competitive price . . .’

  ‘And that’s not corruption?’ she asked ingenuously.

  ‘No, no, no, Carole, my dear. That is simply shrewd business practice . . . Been going on as long as business itself . . . and it’ll continue for the foreseeable future . . .’

  ‘Mm. So how far ahead of the Planning Committee meetings will people know who’s likely to get their plans given the green light?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think anyone knows ahead of the meeting.’

  They must sometimes, thought Carole. Otherwise bang goes my motivation for Graham Forbes’s moving of the bones.

  Meanwhile Barry Stillwell continued his vindication of local business practice. ‘There’s nothing illegal in any of this, you know. It’s just a fr
iendly way of doing business. Everyone likes to work with people they know.’

  ‘As you do. I mean, I dare say, in your case, a lot of your clients have become friends?’

  ‘I like to think that, Carole, yes. And I’m also delighted when it works the other way round.’

  ‘The other way round?’

  ‘When friends become clients. So if there’s ever any help you need of a legal nature – if you need help with your will or something – please don’t hesitate to pick up the phone . . .’

  ‘That’s very kind of you, Barry.’

  ‘Though . . .’ Carole was aware of the effort as another cumbersome compliment was cranked up into position. ‘When we’re talking about someone as lovely as you, I hope you won’t wait till you need my professional advice before you pick up the phone to me.’

  Another girlish giggle seemed appropriate to the situation and, from Barry Stillwell’s reaction, it had been the right choice. But, even as she giggled, Carole wondered how she was ever going to get round to the questions she wanted to ask. Unfortunately, she didn’t think it was going to work to say, ‘Barry, have you been seeing Graham Forbes because he’s been charged with murder?’

  Still, she had got as far as mentioning his clients being also his friends. Build on that. ‘And it was as a client you first met Graham, of course?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘You did the conveyancing when he first bought the house here in Weldisham?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And did you do his divorce?’

  ‘Divorce?’

  The solicitor looked puzzled, and Carole knew she was on to something. ‘Yes, when he divorced his first wife, so that he could marry Irene.’

  ‘Oh.’ Puzzlement had given way to confusion, which was now giving way to a cover-up. ‘Ah. That divorce. I didn’t have anything to do with that. I suppose it must have been arranged out in Malaysia . . . You know, that’s where Sheila was when she . . . when she went off with this other chap . . . I suppose . . .’

  Carole had him now. Triumphantly, she said, ‘You mean Graham and Irene aren’t actually married?’