Death on the Downs

by Simon Brett

  ‘Well, they are in everything but name. I mean, it’s difficult to get a divorce if you’ve completely lost touch with the person you’re trying to divorce.’

  Or if you’ve murdered them.

  Suddenly Carole realized something else. She’d thought Barry’s intonation had been slightly odd when he said to her, ‘If you need help with your will or something’, but now it made sense. ‘You’ve been to see Graham Forbes to sort out his will, haven’t you?’

  He looked at her in amazement. ‘How on earth did you know that?’

  ‘You virtually told me, Barry.’

  ‘Did I?’

  It all made sense. Graham Forbes had felt the net tightening around him, and realized he had to put his affairs in order. He’d never been able to marry Irene. Sheila Forbes hadn’t been around to give her permission, and for proof to be found that she was dead . . . although it might have freed him for remarriage . . . that was the one thing that Graham couldn’t risk happening. As his wife, Irene would have inherited everything by law. Since they weren’t married, he needed to make a will if she was to benefit when he died.

  Carole smiled triumphantly at Barry, who looked perplexed and a little guilty. He knew he’d said something he shouldn’t have done, but hadn’t quite worked out what it was. ‘And I know,’ she announced, ‘why he suddenly needs to make a will in a hurry.’

  ‘Well, obviously, because of the stroke.’

  ‘Stroke?’

  ‘Didn’t you know? Graham had a minor stroke on Friday afternoon.’

  Friday afternoon. When Lennie Baylis had gone to visit him. The sergeant had confronted him with his crimes and the shock had brought on a stroke.

  But she needed more information. ‘Was Graham taken to hospital?’

  ‘Yes. Only brought back this morning. That’s why I came up this afternoon. First opportunity there was.’

  ‘Right.’

  Carole was thoughtful. In one way the stroke fitted perfectly into her theory. But in another way it didn’t. If Graham Forbes had been hospitalized until that morning, there was no way he could have started the fire in Heron Cottage which killed Pauline Helling.

  Her mind raced as she tried to accommodate these new facts into her scenario. She was aware that Barry Stillwell was saying something, but she wasn’t listening.

  It was only when she felt his hand on her upper thigh that Carole stopped and looked at him. His thin lips were moving towards hers, puckering like a drawstring purse.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

  She’d spoken louder than she intended and conversations around them stopped. Barry Stillwell looked uncomfortable, but tried an ingratiating grin. ‘Come on, Carole,’ he urged quietly, ‘you know we both feel the same about each other. You know we’re going to get it together one day soon, aren’t we?’

  ‘When hell freezes over!’ shouted Carole Seddon, and, marching out through silenced customers, left the pub.

  Outside, the weather had turned suddenly cold, but Carole didn’t notice. Nor did she have any reaction to her flare-up with Barry. She’d forgotten it almost as soon as she was through the door, because her mind was full of other thoughts.

  One thought dominated the rest. Maybe Graham Forbes couldn’t have done the deed, but Irene Forbes could easily have torched Heron Cottage.

  She looked across at the gutted building, roped off by police tapes. She remembered the little Chinaman pincushion that had stood on the window sill, and would have put money on the fact that Pauline Helling had brought it back from her one trip abroad. A souvenir of Kuala Lumpur.

  Carole hurried through the dark car park to her Renault. She needed to get back to Fethering as quickly as possible. She must talk to Jude. They must pool their ideas. Then they must talk again to Detective Sergeant Baylis. Soon they’d have all the loose ends tied up in neat little bows.

  She had her key in the car door before she was aware of the noise behind her.

  ‘I think you’d better come with me, Carole,’ said a voice she recognized.

  She turned. Thin moonlight caught the outline of a long knife in a gloved hand.

  Chapter Forty

  Tamsin had been persuaded to turn off the television. She lay on the crumpled cover, propped on a pile of pillows against the pine bedhead. Her manner wasn’t adversarial, just exhausted and apathetic. Defeated.

  ‘How’s it been?’ asked Jude.

  ‘I have good days and bad days. Sometimes I have some energy, sometimes I don’t have any. I find it terribly difficult to concentrate on anything. Even a half-hour television soap leaves me mentally exhausted.’

  ‘And are you managing to read much?’

  A shake of the head. ‘That’s too much concentration as well. I flick through the odd magazine, but . . .’ Tamsin gestured helplessly to the mess around her.

  ‘How about the physical symptoms?’

  The girl grimaced. ‘Bad. Like having flu a lot of the time. Some days my joints just ache so much that . . . Oh, I don’t know.’

  ‘And do you think what Charles is doing is making things better?’

  Tamsin seemed to contemplate a quick fiery response and reject the idea. There was a silence. ‘I don’t know. Sometimes I think it’s helping. I mean, I know this . . . what I’ve got . . . this illness . . . it’s partly to do with the mind. I don’t mean it’s in the mind,’ she added sharply.

  ‘I know what you mean,’ said Jude gently. ‘You don’t have to convince me it’s a real illness.’

  ‘No. That’s a good thing about Charles too. He never questions that it’s a real illness.’

  Jude felt the uncharitable thought forming in her head: at the prices he’s charging, why should he? She wished she could curb the distrust that the thought of Charles Hilton always prompted in her.

  ‘And he’s good,’ Tamsin went on, ‘about showing how the mind works. Some of what he says is garbage, but a lot of it makes sense. So if I can understand my mind . . . see how that ties in with what’s happening to my body . . . maybe I’ll get closer to getting better . . .’ With an unexpected surge of animation, she echoed her mother’s words. ‘I mean, we’ve tried everything else! I’ve had endless tests in hospital. I’ve been prescribed vitamin supplements, tonics, antidepressants. None of them’ve worked. Maybe what Charles is doing will help . . .’ She shrugged and repeated a despairing, ‘I don’t know.’

  The long speech seemed to have drained her. There was now no colour in her face at all; she was in monochrome, pale, pale grey. And her eyes a darker grey.

  ‘So you’re staying here because you think he may be able to cure you?’

  An almost imperceptible nod.

  ‘But that’s not the only reason, is it, Tamsin?’

  A wariness came into the dull eyes. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  Jude didn’t beat about the bush. ‘I talked to your mother. She said you were staying here because nobody knows where you are. She said you were afraid if you were out in the world, someone might kill you.’

  The girl was too washed out to argue. ‘Yes,’ she said, and tears spilled slowly down her cheeks, as if they too were exhausted.

  ‘Don’t bother to say anything, Tamsin. I’ll tell you what I think happened. You stop me when I’ve got something wrong.’ Jude took the silence as assent. ‘Let’s start that night at the beginning of February when you went back to Weldisham. You went to see your mother because your father was away on business. I think that night you couldn’t sleep and you wanted a cigarette. You knew your mother didn’t like smoking in the house . . . Anyway, there was the danger your father might smell the smoke when he came back and start asking questions . . .

  ‘So, as you often had done before, you went out into the garden to light up. But it was a cold night. Maybe you’d only got a dressing gown on over your nightie. You knew you’d be more sheltered in the old barn at the bottom of your garden.

  ‘I think it’s what you saw when you got into the bar
n that terrified you, Tamsin.’

  The haggard girl on the bed nodded and almost smiled. Jude’s words seemed to bring relief to her. She no longer had to bear her secret on her own.

  ‘What was it you saw in the barn?’

  ‘There was a light set up, fixed on a pole . . .’ The voice was very thin, but quite audible in the intense silence of the room. ‘There was someone there, digging . . .’

  ‘Digging like in a grave?’

  ‘Yes. But it wasn’t digging to put something in a grave . . .’

  ‘It was digging to get something out? Or someone out?’

  Flattened against the pillows the girl’s head could only just manage a nod.

  ‘It was a skeleton, wasn’t it, Tamsin? The remains of a human body?’

  ‘Yes.’ The word was no more than a breath.

  ‘And the person saw you, didn’t they? And they knew who you were.’

  ‘Yes. And he said he’d kill me.’

  ‘Did he come chasing after you?’

  ‘Mm. But he had to . . . put the bones down and . . . I managed to get back into the house and lock the back door . . . and he didn’t follow then.’ Jude could see the energy demanded by every word, but she could not come to the girl’s rescue until Tamsin had finished what she had to say.

  ‘The next morning . . . I just knew . . . I had to get back here . . . I had to stay here . . . It’s the only place I’m safe. So long as he’s around . . . there’s no way I can ever go back to Weldisham . . .’

  ‘Who was it?’ asked Jude. ‘Who was the man you saw digging up the bones?’

  Chapter Forty-one

  The vehicle clattered to a halt and its lights were switched off. The darkness around them was thick, almost tangible. They had left the village on the track that led towards South Welling Barn, but soon veered off cross-country, over bumpy fields, through woodland. Carole had quickly lost her bearings. Apart from the fear, all she felt was a desperate desire to pee.

  She had tried talking to him at first, but got no response and soon gave up.

  Carole had no idea where they were. Just before the lights had been switched off, she’d had an impression of something rising up ahead of them, some barrier, but she hadn’t had long enough to identify it.

  She felt a solid point pressing against her side. Not pressed hard enough to pierce her layers of clothes, just enough to remind her that he still had the knife. And wasn’t afraid to use it.

  ‘We get out here.’ He reached to a shelf under the steering column and produced a large rubber torch, which he switched on. He flashed it across into Carole’s face, probably just to blind and disorient her while he got out of the vehicle. Then he opened the door her side.

  ‘Out. Don’t try anything.’

  ‘What do you think I’m going to try?’ demanded Carole, glad at last of the opportunity for some kind of dialogue. ‘I don’t make a habit of carrying hidden weapons. I’ve no idea where we are, so I’m hardly going to make a run for it, am I?’

  ‘I’m sure you’re not. But, in spite of that, I’m afraid I’m going to have to tie you up.’

  A coil of rope was lifted into the cone of light. He must have picked it up at the same time as the torch. Nylon rope, stridently orange. The bright colour brought to Carole’s mind the piercing blue of the fertilizer sacks that she’d found in South Welling Barn. She shivered as she stepped out into the torch-beam.

  But other priorities were more pressing than her fear. ‘You’re not going to tie me up before I’ve had a pee. Otherwise it could be extremely messy.’

  He hesitated for a moment. Then, ‘All right.’

  The torch was still focused on her. ‘I wouldn’t mind a bit of privacy,’ Carole snapped. ‘But I suppose, if you imagine that I’m about to run away with my tights around my ankles, then you’d better keep me fully illuminated . . .’

  She reached down through the folds of her Burberry to lift her skirt. The torch-beam stayed put, then faltered and moved discreetly away. At least he had some decency.

  The pee was a merciful release, but Carole felt the coldness of the night on her bare flesh. How long was he planning to keep her there? She wondered again where they were, and what he planned to do once she was tied up.

  Her eyes were adjusting to the darkness and, as she straightened her clothes, Carole managed to get some impression of her surroundings.

  There was a cliff ahead of her. Though mostly obscured by scrubby vegetation and dangling tendrils of ivy, here and there a dull white glowed through. They were in an old chalk pit. She knew there were many such workings on the Downs. Some, like the one at Amberley, were even tourist attractions.

  But it was a long time since anyone had visited the forsaken spot where Carole Seddon found herself. Thick woodland had grown right up to the foot of the chalk cliff.

  ‘Done?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The torch-beam swung round to frame her as she finished straightening her Burberry.

  ‘Right. Don’t try anything. I’ve still got the knife. Put your arms behind your back.’

  She could do nothing but what she was told. She felt the rope tightening around first one wrist and then the other as he strapped them together. He wasn’t gratuitously sadistic. He tied the rope over the cushion of her jumper and raincoat, and not so tight as to wrench her shoulder blades.

  But tight enough. There was no way she could free herself.

  He stopped when her wrists were secure.

  ‘Aren’t you going to do my feet too?’ asked Carole, managing to find a note of insolence from somewhere.

  ‘Not yet,’ he replied ominously. ‘Come on, walk ahead of me. I’ll show you where to go.’

  The beam of the torch marked out the route. They seemed to be heading through a tangle of snagging undergrowth straight towards the cliff face.

  Carole stopped. ‘I can’t go any further.’

  ‘Yes, you can. Down on your knees. Push that lot aside.’

  Once again, the torch-beam showed her the way. Pushing through the natural barbed wire of roots and creepers, she saw a narrow horizontal crevice in the chalk. Its lips were stained green with the slime of old vegetation.

  ‘Inside.’

  A cold recollection came to Carole. She was sitting in the Forbeses’ dining room and Harry Grant was talking to her. ‘There are some nasty places out on the Downs . . . Marshy bits . . . Chalk pits . . . Caves . . . We used to scare ourselves witless, some of the games we played. Tying each other up, that kind of stuff. Not very nice to each other, kids . . . Certainly we lot weren’t.’

  She started to object. ‘But I—’

  ‘Inside!’

  Once again, obedience was Carole’s only option. She kneeled, crouched and slid, awkwardly crabwise, into the gap.

  Inside she found herself slipping down, and would have rolled, but for the tension of the rope securing her wrists.

  She didn’t slide far. The cave was bigger than it appeared from outside, but not very big. She felt a sepulchral chill. There was a smell of death, of trapped air, stagnant water, rotted vegetation.

  The space filled with flickering light as he came in after her.

  ‘Now we do your feet.’

  Again, he wasn’t vindictive as he trussed her ankles together. But he was efficient. There was no way she’d be able to free herself unaided from those knots.

  But Carole’s panicked mind was still circling on thoughts of escape. Though the floor of the chalk cave was lower than its entrance, she still reckoned, if she were left alone, even tied up as she was, she’d be able to work her way back up and out.

  He put paid to the thought even before it had taken proper shape. The low curved ceiling of the natural vault was broken here and there by gnarled rafters of tree roots. And round one of these thick loops of wood he tied the loose end of the orange rope.

  He left enough slack so that Carole’s legs weren’t actually lifted off the ground, but not enough for her to be able to stand up. She
was stuck where she lay until someone decided to untie her.

  ‘Why’re you doing this?’ she demanded. ‘What do you hope to get out of it? This is only going to make things worse for you.’

  He didn’t answer, just let out a little dry laugh.

  Then he flashed the torch over his handiwork to check the knots were solid and rolled back out of the cave. Leaving total darkness. And the smell of death.

  Carole felt her body trembling uncontrollably.

  It trembled more when she heard the engine spark into life. The noise of the motor receded until it was lost in the silence of the dark.

  Chapter Forty-two

  Jude thought it odd that she hadn’t heard from Carole after she got back from Sandalls Manor on the Wednesday evening. There was so much she wanted to discuss. But she knew her neighbour was sometimes spikily unpredictable and assumed that an early night had seemed a more attractive option than staying up late over a bottle of wine spinning theories of murder.

  Jude had been mildly surprised, but unfazed. It was not in her nature to be judgemental about other people’s behaviour. If Carole didn’t want to talk that evening, her decision should be respected.

  Still, perhaps she should make an official report about what she’d heard. Carole had given her Detective Sergeant Baylis’s number. Jude tried it. He didn’t answer. She was invited to leave a message. She asked him to ring her. Nothing else she could do at that point.

  So, although Jude’s mind was seething with the implications of what she had heard from Tamsin Lutteridge, she put those thoughts away and spent the late evening dealing with a much more difficult problem. She’d had a letter that morning from the man she’d met in London the weekend before. He claimed to have seen the error of his ways and claimed to want her back. Though she knew the idea was insane, Jude could not pretend that she wasn’t tempted.

  Couching her reply to his letter in words that were neither dishonest nor misleading took a long time and a lot of concentration.

  She woke the next morning, tired and a little wistful. But she was still convinced that she’d made the right decision. Her long-term sanity demanded that the relationship should be over for good.