Fethering 01 (2000) - The Body on the Beach

by Simon Brett; Prefers to remain anonymous

  Again, Carole wouldn’t have put the question so bluntly, but Gordon Lithgoe still didn’t seem offended. “No, I’m basically looking for shipping. That’s what interests me.” His working hand fell on to the ledger by his side. “Make a log of all their comings and goings.”

  “And what about the people on the beach?” Jude maintained her direct approach. “Do you make a log of their comings and goings too?”

  He spun the wheelchair round and faced them. Against the brightness of the window, it was impossible to see his expression, and from the even signal of his voice, impossible to gauge his emotion.

  “Some,” he said. “Not all.”

  “We’re interested in the events of Monday night last week,” said Carole. “And then through Tuesday and Wednesday.”

  There was a moment’s stillness, and they were both afraid he was going to clam up. Then, suddenly releasing a brake, he glided the wheelchair down the ramp and swung gracefully round to come to rest beside them. They could now see his face. It was smiling.

  “Why do you want to know this?”

  Carole replied, “We think there’s been something criminal going on.”

  “And you’re not police. Otherwise, as soon as you’d arrived, you’d have flashed that fact at me—along with your ID, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “So what are you?”

  “Just two people who want to get to the truth of what happened.” Even as she said the words, Carole knew how pompous they sounded.

  “Oh, hurrah, hurrah.” Gordon Lithgoe’s sarcasm made itself felt through the electronic crackle. “How very noble. Truth-searchers, eh? Where would this great country of ours be without people who have a sense of public duty?”

  “Do I gather you don’t have a sense of public duty?”

  Again Jude’s lighter tone struck the right note. “Not in the obvious way,” he replied. “I’ve seen a lot of things in my life that were probably criminal, and I’ve never reported any of them. I’ve seen my role throughout as essentially that of an observer.”

  “But if someone were to come and ask you? If the police were to come and ask you?”

  “That would be entirely different. I would certainly cooperate and tell anything I knew—if asked. But I wouldn’t just volunteer information. However”—he drummed his right hand lightly on his sunken chest—“in this case the police haven’t come and asked me. They didn’t make the deduction that I might have seen something, while you two ladies did make that deduction and have arrived on my doorstep…”

  “So you’ll tell us what you saw?” asked Jude very softly.

  “Yes. Of course I will. I assume what you’re interested in is the dead body which you—Carole, is it?—found on the beach on Tuesday morning?”

  “How did you know it was me?”

  “I told you. That telescope enlarges the face of someone on the beach as if they’re here in the room with me. I recognized you, anyway. I didn’t know your name, but I’d seen you taking your dog for a walk every morning for the last three or four years.”

  It was uncomfortable to know that she’d been being observed for such a long time. Not, of course, that Carole had ever done anything on the beach of which to be ashamed, but all the same…

  “What we want to know is what happened to the body after I found it.”

  “Yes. It was rather active, wasn’t it—for one so dead? I’ll find the relevant log.” He spun the wheel-chair across the room to a shelf and selected one from a pile of ledgers. Carole and Jude both marvelled at the extent of his record-keeping. The ledger by the window was half full, but he had to go to another one for events of less than a week before.

  He flicked through the book with his good hand till he found the place, then, pressing it to his knee, wheeled himself back towards them. He looked down at his notes. “I was first aware of the body at 6.52. That was first light. But, given where he was on the breakwater, and the fact that the tide had gone all the way out and was on its way back in, he could have been there for a couple of hours before that.”

  “And I found him about seven, I should think.”

  “7.02. Then you went back home with your dog.” Again, Carole felt a little shiver from the knowledge that she’d been watched. “At 7.06 a boy climbed over the railings of the Yacht Club and raised the cover of one of the boats. He didn’t like what he saw inside, I suppose, because he came running out and along the sea wall, looking down into the Fether. Then he ran down on to the beach, and he found the body at 7.21. He ran back up the beach—don’t know where he went to, I couldn’t see—but about a quarter of an hour later he came back…”

  “With another boy?” Jude breathed.

  “Yes. The two of them manhandled the body up the beach, over the railings into the Yacht Club and put it into the boat, the same boat the first boy had looked in.”

  “And then?”

  “And then the boys ran off. Out of vision of my telescope at 7.47. At 10.12 the police arrived, looked along the beach—not very hard—and then they left.”

  “But what about the body?” asked Carole.

  “That’s it. That’s all I can offer you. Great telescope I’ve got there, but it doesn’t have night sights. If I could afford one with those, I’d get it tomorrow.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Jude chuckled. “You’ve got to sleep sometime.”

  “I don’t sleep that much,” said Gordon Lithgoe.

  “So…” Carole sighed despondently. “It looks as though the body was removed on the Tuesday night, under cover of darkness. But by whom and where to, we have no means of knowing.”

  “Where would you put a body, Mr Lithgoe?”

  There was a scrape of electronic laughter. “I’m glad to say, Jude, that’s not a problem I’ve ever had to address. However, where you’d put a body depends on where you think people are going to look for it.”

  “Ye-es. With you so far.”

  “And, among the multiplicity of pastimes available to the human species, carrying dead bodies around is one of the most hazardous. If you get caught doing it, you’re facing a hell of a lot of uncomfortable explanations. What I’m saying is that, unless you’ve got transport, you don’t want to move a body far. So if, say, you’re hiding a body in a boat, and you think there’s a strong chance someone might look in that boat, then you move it to somewhere close by where they’re not going to look.”

  “Into another boat?”

  “Possibly. Except if one boat’s a security risk, maybe they all are.”

  “Where else then?”

  “Come and have a look.” Gordon Lithgoe powered his wheelchair back up the ramp. His right hand slightly reangled the telescope and adjusted the focus. “I don’t know. It’s a possibility. Have a butcher’s.”

  Carole looked first. She had to arch her back to get down low enough. The telescope was trained on the top of the sea wall, where the repairs had been taking place for the previous few days. The heavy machinery had all gone, as had the workers.

  Revealed were the two blue-painted low chests used by local fishermen to store their bait and equipment.

  “Bit big,” said Gordon Lithgoe, “but otherwise it’s the right shape for a coffin, isn’t it?”

  “Jude, have a look. And of course,” Carole went on thoughtfully, “if whoever it was put the body in there just as a temporary measure…and they didn’t know what was about to happen…their plans would have been really screwed up by the builders coming in.”

  “Yes.” Jude rose from the telescope. “They would, wouldn’t they?”

  “Are you off to have a snoop?” asked Gordon Lithgoe eagerly. “I’d love to watch your exhumation through the telescope. But hurry—while the light lasts.”

  “Yes, we must go. Mr Lithgoe, I can’t thank you enough—”

  “Please call me Gordon.”

  “No, but you’ve been so generous with your time.”

  “Time is not a commodity I need to ration. I have far too m
uch of it. Any visitor is a welcome diversion. As I said there are people who come and see me occasionally, but—”

  “Theresa Spalding,” said Jude with one of her sudden insights.

  “What?” asked Carole.

  “Theresa Spalding used to come and see you, didn’t she, Gordon?”

  “Yes, yes, she did.”

  “And you mentioned the body on the beach to her?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And described Carole?”

  “Yes.”

  “Which explains why she came to your house, Carole.”

  “It must do, yes.”

  “But, Jude, you said she used to come and see me. Is she not coming again?”

  “I hope she is, Gordon. But she’s not well at the moment. Did you hear, her son died? She’s taken it very badly and she’s in hospital.”

  “Ah.” The news seemed to bring him deep sadness. “I hope she’ll be all right. She’s had a lot to cope with, that girl.”

  “Yes.”

  “Anyway,” Carole broke in briskly, “we must be on our way. Can’t thank you enough for—”

  “Carole, there’s something we’re forgetting!”

  “What, Jude?” She spoke testily. She wanted to be on her way. Gulliver had been left tied up in the garden for far too long.

  “The person you saw on the beach before you found the body.”

  “Oh, my goodness, yes.”

  “Ah,” said Gordon Lithgoe, “I wondered if you’d ask about that.” He referred again to his ledger. “That’d be the one who saw the body at 6.57.”

  “Around then it must have been, yes.”

  “In a shiny green anorak.”

  “Yes. Who was he?”

  “Wasn’t a ‘he’. It was a ‘she’.”

  “Really?”

  “Young girl. It was hardly light, so I couldn’t see when she actually came on to the beach, but she was running down from the direction of the Yacht Club. Seemed to be in a panic, until she found the body.”

  “What did she look like?” asked Jude.

  “Couldn’t see the colour of her hair, because she had her anorak hood done up tight. Large young woman, though. And I could see one thing…She had a silver stud in her nose.”

  THIRTY-TWO

  When they got out of the building, Gulliver provided an excellent illustration for the meaning of the word ‘hangdog’. He was very reproachful.

  “I’ll have to take him home before we do anything else,” said Carole. “Anyway, I don’t want him present if there is going to be an exhumation.”

  “No.”

  They set out back towards the High Street, keeping on Seaview Road, which was firmer underfoot than the beach.

  “We’ve got to talk to Tanya,” said Jude.

  “She’s not the only young woman in the world with a silver nose-stud.”

  “No, but she’s the only one who has a connection to Fethering Yacht Club. If only we could also find a connection between her and Rory Turnbull…”

  “Well, he was Treasurer of the club, so she must’ve met him there.”

  “Ye-es. Have we got anything else, though?”

  “Hm…Ooh, just a minute, we might have. What about the girl your dental hygienist mentioned?”

  “Well done, Carole. How stupid of me! I should’ve remembered that. Of course! Denis Woodville said she lived in Brighton, so if she was coming to do an evening shift at the club bar, then the timing would be absolutely right for Rory to give her the occasional lift to work when he’d finished at the surgery.”

  The two women exchanged looks as they strode along. Carole’s pale eyes sparkled behind their glasses. “Then we definitely need to talk to Tanya.”

  “Before we go into the exhumation business?”

  “Yes.” Carole shuddered. “And I certainly don’t think we should do the exhumation bit alone.”

  “You’re not suggesting calling in the police, are you?”

  “Certainly not! Not till we’ve confirmed that the body’s there. I can just imagine the expression on Detective Inspector Brayfield’s face if we got him to help us burglarize one of those fishermen’s chests and found nothing in it except for boathooks and rotting bait. No, I think we should ask Ted Crisp to help us.”

  “Oh?”

  “You sound surprised, Jude. Don’t you think it’s a good idea?”

  “I think it’s a very good idea. My only surprise is that you were the one who suggested it.”

  And it was surprising, when she came to think about it. The Carole of a week before would never have dreamed of making the suggestion.

  As they took the left turn into the High Street, Jude went on, “I’ll give Ted a call. I’m sure he can slip away from the pub for half an hour.”

  “It’s got to be this evening.”

  “Hm?”

  “When we look for the body.” Carole went through the logic. “If Gordon Lithgoe’s idea is correct and the body was moved as a temporary measure, then tonight’s the first opportunity whoever moved it will have to retrieve it. The building workers have been there all the time since Wednesday.”

  Jude nodded, then stopped. They were outside Denis Woodville’s cottage. Its paintwork and paths were immaculately clean. The dinghy on its trailer was still in front of the garage. On his gatepost a new, meticulously hand-printed felt-tip notice read, BEWARE! WEEKEND SAILORS IN VICINITY! NEXT DOOR! and a large arrow pointed towards the Chilcotts’ house.

  On their gatepost was a new printed notice. In a choice selection of fonts, it read, DANGER! LITTLE HITLER NEXT DOOR! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! and an arrow pointed back at Denis Woodville’s.

  “I’d have thought these two were getting a bit close to the libel laws,” Jude observed.

  “Only if one of them chooses to sue. And I think, deep down, both of them enjoy the game so much that they’re not going to risk putting an end to it by court procedures.”

  Jude chuckled. “You’re probably right. Anyway, I’m just going to see if Denis is in…”

  “To get a contact number for Tanya?”

  “That’s right. You take Gulliver back. I’ll be round in a minute.”

  §

  The Vice-Commodore was in, though on his home territory he seemed diminished, less assured than he had been in the surroundings of the Fethering Yacht Club. Jude sensed in him a reluctance to invite her in, which was overcome only by ingrained good manners.

  When he ushered her through to his sitting room, she could see why. In marked contrast to the neatness of its exterior, the house’s interior was distinctly shabby. Some months had elapsed since the sitting room had experienced even the most cursory of cleaner’s attentions. In the air, as well as stale Gauloise smoke, hovered the sickly smell of rotting fruit.

  Denis Woodville’s awareness of, and embarrassment about, the state of his home suggested he very rarely had visitors. “I’m sorry, bit of a tip,” he barked, with an attempt at bluffness. “Fact is, I was never up to much on the domestic front and, since my wife passed away, I…Not that I spend any longer here than I have to…Busy at the club a lot of the time anyway…”

  Escaping to the club, Jude translated. The squalor of the room brought home to her the emptiness of the old man’s life.

  “Do take a seat.” He gestured vaguely to a selection of subsiding armchairs, none of which looked particularly inviting.

  “No, I’m fine. If you could just find that number…”

  “Yes, yes, of course.” Moving aside an ashtray and a couple of smeared beer mugs from a dresser, he riffled through a pile of dusty newspapers and unopened letters. “I’ve got it here somewhere.” He had shown no surprise at being asked for Tanya’s number and no curiosity as to why it might be wanted. “Tell the young lady when you do get through to her that, if she’s changed her mind, she can have her job back. I haven’t found a replacement yet…that is, unless of course you were serious about wanting to do it?”

  Jude grimaced. “Still finding
my feet round here, actually. Bit early for me to commit myself to anything.”

  “Yes, yes, of course. Damn, it doesn’t seem to be here. Maybe it’s in this lot.” He moved across to attack another pile of detritus on a coffee table.

  “Nice-looking dinghy you have in the front there,” said Jude, to make conversation.

  “Yes, she’s a Mirror.”

  “Ah.” This meant nothing to her. “I’m surprised you don’t keep it down at the Yacht Club.”

  “Well, I used to, but, erm…well, times change…” Jude suddenly understood. Denis Woodville was saying that he could no longer afford to keep his dinghy at the Yacht Club. “I probably won’t keep her that much longer. Dinghy like that’s a bit of a handful. I’m thinking of selling her…and getting something else…more suitable for my advanced years,” he added, with an unconvincing flourish of bravado.

  “Good idea,” said Jude, not believing a word of it.

  “Damn, it’s not here. I know I’ve got the number down at the club.” The very mention of the word seemed to raise his spirits. He looked at his watch. “Should be opening up there soon anyway.” The confidence in his voice mounted as the moment of leaving his squalid home drew closer. “Damned place can’t function without the Vice-Commodore, you know. If you wouldn’t mind coming along with me…”

  There was a little knot of elderly cronies already waiting for Denis Woodville to unlock the clubhouse.

  They called out raucous comments about his timekeeping and did not let the fact he had a woman with him pass unremarked. The Vice-Commodore glowed in their attention.

  Inside the bar-room, with the lights switched on, he whispered to Jude, “Have to get their drinks sorted out first or I’ll never hear the end of it. Can I get you a little something?”

  Jude refused, anxious to get away. She had a sense that the pace of the investigation was accelerating.

  Denis Woodville lit up another Gauloise and then made a great meal of pouring the drinks, with constant comments about how unsuitable it was for the Vice-Commodore to be involved in such menial tasks. Though it was clear he’d been doing it every night since Tanya left.

  None of the others moved to help him. They just sat and pontificated on the appalling state of the world and how much better everything would be if they were in charge. One of them harked back to when he’d been stationed out in Singapore and pretty well ran the show out there. If the half of what these elderly gentlemen said was true, Jude was privileged to be in the company of the finest political and logistical brains in the entire world.