by Simon Brett
“How?”
“I’m still his wife. I would inherit everything.”
“Though it doesn’t seem there’d be that much to inherit.”
“Don’t you believe it. Someone as canny as Mark’s always going to have something stashed away.” There was a gleam of pure greed in her eyes as she spoke.
Repelled by this, Jude said, “Well, he’s not dead, so the issue doesn’t really arise, does it?”
“No.” Nuala Cullan took another look at her watch and picked up her handbag. “I won’t say thank you, because so far as I’m concerned our meeting has been a total waste of time. But if you do find out where Mark is, let me know. You have my mobile number.” She stood up.
“And there wasn’t any other contact Mark gave you?” asked Jude, desperate to retrieve something from the situation.
The tall woman stood undecided for a moment. Her desire to be uncooperative conflicted with her interest in tracking down her absent husband. She still wanted to leech more money out of him.
She made up her mind. “There was a number he gave me, some acquaintance down in Smalting where he said I could leave a message. I tried it a few times, but my messages never got a response from Mark, so I stopped bothering.”
“Did you speak to this acquaintance of his?”
“No, the phone was always on voicemail.”
“Would you mind giving us the number?” asked Jude.
The area code was 01903, which covered Worthing, Littlehampton, Fethering and Smalting. Jude wrote it down, and Nuala Cullan walked out of Sec without a word of farewell.
The two women decided to have another glass of Sauvignon Blanc to bolster them for the slow train journey back to Fethering. And they both knew exactly why Mark Dennis had wanted to get away from his wife.
∨ Bones Under The Beach Hut ∧
Twenty-Two
They were back home too late to do anything else that evening. And on the Wednesday morning Jude had to go and visit one of her Fethering clients who was immobilized with what the patient thought to be a slipped disc, but the healer knew to be anxiety about her daughter’s forthcoming wedding.
It was after her neighbour had gone – and therefore too late – when Carole realized that Jude had got the piece of paper with the phone number Nuala Cullan had given them. That was annoying. She’d been hoping that contact might offer some breakthrough on the intractable mystery that confronted them.
But even as she felt the frustration building within her, Carole received a phone call that brought her new information. It was from Curt Holderness.
She was surprised that he had rung back. The message had been left on his mobile without much optimism. But the fact that he had got back to her and his manner when he spoke gave Carole a lift. He was clearly still worried that she might draw the attention of the authorities to his lax approach to his job. Which gave her a position of power over him.
“You rang me, Carole. What can I do for you?” Curt Holderness’s opening words were breezy enough, but there was an encouraging undercurrent of anxiety in his voice.
“Oh, thank you so much for getting back to me. Yes, there was something I wanted to follow up with you, further to our previous conversation…”
She let the silence dangle for a moment and was rewarded by a nervous “What?” from the other end of the line.
“Oh, it was about that night, you know, when you saw Mark Dennis going on to Smalting Beach.”
“Yes.” He sounded relieved now he knew the subject of her enquiry. She wasn’t raising issues of low-grade local council corruption.
“You said that he was with a woman…”
“Yes.”
“…but you didn’t recognize her.”
“Right.”
“So could you give me a description of her?”
“Shortish.” If Nuala Cullan hadn’t already ruled herself out that would have done it. “I don’t know, it was fairly dark that night. Shortish, as I say, and maybe on the chubby side.”
“What age?”
His manner implied a shrug as he replied, “I don’t know. I mean, she wasn’t the kind of woman who made much impression, if you know what I mean. Just like plenty of women you see in the street, nothing remarkable about them.”
“Hair colour?”
“Blond, possibly.” He didn’t sound very sure.
“And how was Mark Dennis behaving with her?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, were they holding hands, arm in arm?”
“Oh no, nothing like that.”
“Were they just ambling along or were they looking furtive? Were they hurrying?”
“Yes, I’d say they were hurrying. The man might even have been swaying about a bit.”
“You mean – as if he was drunk?”
“Possibly.”
“And you couldn’t tell exactly where they were going?”
“I was just driving past,” he protested. “I only saw them for a couple of seconds.”
“You’re absolutely certain the man was Mark Dennis?”
“Absolutely certain,” said Curt Holderness.
A silence stretched out between them. Then suddenly a new thought came into Carole’s head, a recollection of something the security officer had mentioned when they’d first spoken. It was a long chance that the question would lead anywhere, but anything was worth a try. “There’s another thing I want to ask you,” said Carole.
“Oh?” He was once again wary.
“When we first spoke on the phone, Mr Holderness, you assumed – wrongly – that I’d contacted you because there was some rule about use of the beach hut on Smalting Beach that I wanted you to bend for me.”
There was an uncomfortable silence from the other end of the line, so Carole pressed on. “You also gave examples of rules that you had managed to bend, of people having small generators in their huts, or staying overnight in them…”
“So? Are you planning to report me for it?” There was a new menace in his question. Carole visualized the thickset security officer and was in no doubt that he would be quite capable of physical violence.
“I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” she said, more calmly than she felt, “if you were to tell me which of the current owners of Smalting Beach beach huts you have allowed to stay there overnight.”
“Well, in the past there’s been the odd adulterous couple who use the place for their assignations…”
“Any of that going on at the moment?”
“No. Last one of those broke up just before Christmas. The woman’s husband found out and surprised them at it in the beach hut. Very messy and violent.”
“How violent?”
“Nobody was killed, if that’s what you mean. But a heavy beating was administered to the wife and her lover.”
“Was it reported to the police?”
“Of course not. Not in any of their interests to make the thing public, was it? Mind you, we had to get professional cleaners in to get the blood off the walls.”
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.”
Caro
le 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 Office 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.”