The Fethering Mysteries 12; Bones Under The Beach Hut tfm-12

by Simon Brett

  “Anyway,” she said, “good to see you, Dora. Come along, Gulliver.”

  She was stopped by a question from Dora that was spoken so softly that she hardly heard it. But it sounded like, “Any developments on the case?”

  She turned back. “I beg your pardon?”

  “The investigation into Robin Cutter’s death.”

  Oh dear, thought Carole, are Jude and I that transparent? There we are, imagining we’re conducting our enquiry secretly and it seems that the whole of Smalting – and quite possibly Fethering too – knows all about our endeavours. She tried to think of some appropriately enigmatic response, but before she could say it, Dora Pinchbeck went on, in a confidential tone, “I’m a friend of Helga Czesky…”

  “Oh?”

  “…and she told me…you know, who you really are.”

  “Ah.” It took Carole a moment to realize the significance of this. It was only a few days since she and Jude had had the confrontation with Gray and Helga Czesky at Woodside Cottage, but so much had happened since that it felt a lifetime away. Of course, as she recalled with some pleasure, the Czeskys had left that meeting convinced that Carole and Jude were both plain-clothes policewomen. If that was the information that Helga had imparted to Dora Pinchbeck, then Carole was in a situation of which she could take advantage.

  She tested it out by saying, “I’m afraid I’m not allowed to give out any information about the case until there’s an official press conference.”

  “No, no, of course I can see that.” Dora sounded disappointed but realistic. It had just been a punt. She hadn’t really been expecting to be given the inside track on the investigation.

  “And in fact,” Carole went on, gaining confidence in her new spurious role, “I would rather you kept the information that Helga Czesky gave you under wraps. The work we do is kind of undercover, so we don’t want everyone in Smalting to know about it.”

  “I understand completely.”

  Carole fixed Dora Pinchbeck with a beady eye. “May I ask whether you have told anyone else what Jude and I really do.”

  The embarrassed expression on the woman’s face told Carole that she had struck gold. “Well, I’m sorry,” Dora Pinchbeck floundered. “I shouldn’t have, I suppose, but, you know, if you’re in conversation with someone, well, it is quite easy to let things slip.”

  “Who have you told?” came the implacable question.

  There was a long silence, during which Carole suddenly became aware of a moral dilemma. Given her background in the Home Office, she knew full well how serious was the crime of impersonating a member of the police force. That was black and white. But considerably greyer was the ethical position of someone being assumed to be a policewoman and not putting right the person who had made the assumption. Jude, she knew, would have had no worries at all about the situation, regarding it as an instance of serendipity, of some cosmic force displaying generosity, a gift from the gods, which it would be bad manners to turn down, or some other New Age mumbo-jumbo. But Carole Seddon was wary of such casuistry.

  Fortunately, her moral meanderings were cut short when Dora Pinchbeck gave her the name of the person she had told about her supposed status as a plain-clothes policewoman. And the minute she heard the name, all qualms vanished.

  “Kelvin Southwest.”

  “When did you tell him?”

  “Thursday night. Just after he arrived at the Crown and Anchor. I was chatting to him and then when you and your friend came in, he said something about the two of you, and I told him what I’d heard from Helga. I’m terribly sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Carole with magisterial generosity.

  She couldn’t believe her luck. Now she knew why Kelvin Southwest had avoided her at the beginning of the previous evening. And now she had a hold over him. If Kelvin Southwest thought she was a member of the police force, then he wasn’t going to refuse to answer her questions about what he got up to in an empty beach hut with binoculars, was he?

  ∨ Bones Under The Beach Hut ∧

  Thirty-Four

  There was no ‘lovely lady’ flirtatiousness from the Fether District Council official when Carole rang his mobile number. The tension in his voice suggested that he had been expecting her call, and he proved to be very biddable. Yes, of course he would meet her whenever she liked. He’d rather not make it at his house, because he didn’t want his mother to get upset. On Smalting Beach would be fine. Yes, at Fowey. He’d be with her in as long as it took.

  Carole Seddon felt a glow of satisfaction as she sat outside the beach hut waiting for him. The odds on her getting a solution to the case seemed suddenly to have shortened considerably. And she relished the prospect of telling her neighbour how she solved it single-handedly while Jude was in Brighton. Past Life Regression Workshop – huh.

  She looked along the row of beach huts and felt as if she belonged there. She was almost a hutter, and would be more than competent to welcome Gaby and Lily to Fowey the next day. Or would she be able finally to return to her original beach hut?

  Carole had noticed earlier that all traces of the police presence around Quiet Harbour had now been removed. Maybe she could reclaim it? Architecturally the two beach huts were absolutely identical, but, in spite of everything that had happened there, Carole did have a sneaking preference for Quiet Harbour over Fowey. It felt more hers.

  Smalting Beach was getting back to normal, though. The doors to Shrimphaven were open. Inside no doubt Katie Brunswick was continuing the Sisyphean task of rewriting her novel.

  And further along the Olivers had taken up their customary positions: Joyce on her lounger with another wordsearch book, Lionel, as ever dressed for work with his suit jacket over the back of his chair, looking out to sea. Carole could only conjecture what thoughts might be going through their heads, and the extent to which memories of their lost grandson filled them. She felt something approaching a crusading zeal at the prospect of her interview with Kelvin Southwest. At last she might be able to unearth some information that might help the Olivers and Miranda Browning come to terms with their family tragedy.

  “Good morning.”

  Carole looked up to see that her quarry had arrived. As a concession to the weekend, he was not in his Fether District Council livery, but still dressed in virtually identical style. A green polo shirt and much-pocketed khaki shorts strained over his chubby body. His footwear remained leather sandals over short white socks.

  He looked ill at ease, his right hand tugging nervously at his silky goatee.

  “Good morning. Do sit down.” Carole gestured to the other director’s chair she’d set out for him. Shiftily he did as she suggested, looking anxiously to the beach huts on either side. Both were closed up.

  “Nobody will hear what we’re saying,” continued Carole, “but of course if you’d rather go inside the hut or move somewhere more private…”

  “No, this’ll be fine.” Kelvin Southwest perched uncomfortably on the edge of his seat, as though suffering from a bad case of piles. “Incidentally,” he said, “we’ve had the all-clear from the police. They’ve finished their investigations in Quiet Harbour, so you can go back there if you want to.”

  “Oh, thank you. I might go back there tomorrow. That’s when my daughter-in-law and granddaughter are arriving. Do you have the key?”

  He had come prepared and passed it across.

  There was a rather awkward silence. Having actually got the man there, Carole was beginning to wish she’d given a bit more thought to how she intended to conduct their interview. But fortunately Kelvin Southwest made it easy for her by saying, “Look, I haven’t done anything that’s harmed anyone.”

  “No?”

  Happily this was sufficient prompt for him to continue, “Who told you about me using the binoculars? Who shopped me?”

  “I don’t think it’s relevant for me to disclose that information at this point,” said Carole, amazed at how instinctively she had once again dropped int
o police-speak.

  “Look, all right, I’m attracted to kids, but I’d never do anything that’d harm them,” he reiterated.

  “I’m not sure that you’re necessarily the best judge of that, Mr Southwest.” She was damned if she was going to go back to calling him ‘Kel’.

  “I can’t help the feelings I have,” he said, hoping – unsuccessfully – to engage her sympathy. “And I have now got much better control over them.”

  “Could you explain to me what you mean by that?”

  “Listen, all right, a few years ago, yes, I did sometimes take my binoculars into one of the empty beach huts. I actually made spy holes in it, so’s I could…Look, I’m not proud of what I’ve done, but back then I couldn’t control my urges.” He reverted to another thought that still nagged at him. “I bet I know who it was who shopped me to you. It’d be that Dora Pinchbeck. I’d put money on it. She’s always been a nosy cow.”

  “I will neither confirm nor deny your conjectures, Mr Southwest,” Carole pronounced in magnificent police-speak. “The identity of the person who, as you put it, ‘shopped’ you is not important, and will only become important if that person needs to be called as a witness in court.”

  In a less excited mood Carole wouldn’t have gone so far. Threatening someone with legal action was taking the crime of impersonating a member of the police force to another level. But she was in no mood for caution. She was determined to get some kind of confession out of Kelvin Southwest.

  And the approach did pay off, because he responded, “Yes, all right, I used to look at kids undressing through binoculars, but that’s not a police matter.”

  And I’m not a policewoman, thought Carole, but what she actually said was, “If you seriously believe that, Mr Southwest, then you haven’t read a newspaper or watched the television news for the past twenty years.”

  “All right,” he whined. “But you don’t know what it’s like, having these urges that can’t find satisfaction in a way that’s publicly acceptable.”

  Thank goodness Jude isn’t here, thought Carole. His words echoed what her neighbour had said on the subject of paedophilia. Jude was quite capable of ending up feeling sorry for the little worm.

  “I’d like,” Carole proceeded magisterially, “to talk to you about Robin Cutter.”

  “What? Look, for God’s sake, you’re not going to try and pin that on me, are you?”

  “Were you questioned by the police at the time of his disappearance?”

  “No, of course I wasn’t! Why should I have been?”

  “Mr Southwest, you have just admitted that you have paedophiliac tendencies.”

  “Yes, but I’d never give them expression in that way. And, besides, I’m not on any register or anything. Nobody else knows that I have…you know, what you said.”

  “If that were true, Mr Southwest, we wouldn’t be having this conversation now. The person who ‘shopped’ you knows. Why shouldn’t a lot of other people?”

  “But nobody knew back then, you know, when Robin Cutter disappeared.”

  “And that was why the police didn’t question you at the time?”

  “Yes.”

  “Something which the police might now regard as something of an oversight.”

  It took a moment for the implication of her words to sink in. “Are you saying that I’m likely to be questioned about that?”

  “I would think it’s a very strong possibility.”

  He looked appalled at the idea. Sweat was now prickling on his pale brow as he repeated, “But I’m not on any Sex Offenders Register or anything. I’ve never touched a child in that way.”

  “We have only your word for that,” said Carole, rather enjoying the police ‘we’.

  “But if I’m questioned there’ll be lots of publicity. I might lose my job at Fether District Council.”

  “Mr Southwest, eight years ago a very serious crime was committed. By pure chance you weren’t questioned about it at the time. But given the facts: A) that you have admitted to me that you have paedophile tendencies, and B) that the remains of Robin Cutter were found under a beach hut for which you have responsibility, I think the very least that will happen is that you’ll be asked to prove that you had nothing to do with the boy’s abduction.”

  “I didn’t. You have to take my word for it.”

  “You’d say that whether you were innocent or guilty, wouldn’t you?” Shiftily he avoided her gaze. “Were you doing your current job eight years ago?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you could easily have been here at Smalting the day Robin Cutter disappeared?”

  “I could have been, but I wasn’t.”

  “Could you prove that?”

  “I don’t know. We’re talking about eight years ago, for God’s sake. I could have been here. All right, maybe I was, but if I was I didn’t see any small boy here and I certainly didn’t abduct one. I’d already found a way of controlling my urges.”

  “You’ve mentioned that more than once, Mr Southwest. Would you explain to me what you mean by ‘controlling your urges’?”

  “Yes, all right.” He was reluctant and the words came out slowly. “The fact is, Carole, that I’ve always felt like I do and there was a time when perhaps I did represent a danger to children, when perhaps my urges would have got the better of me. It was something I was always afraid of. I tried to avoid being in situations where I might be left alone with children, and yet at the same time I wanted to be in situations where I was left alone with children. I was afraid that I might touch one of them, and then I might not be able to stop myself and…” The sweat was by now pouring profusely down his brow and temples. “Then I found that I could stop myself from thinking about actually doing things to children, actually touching them, by seeing images of other people…” His words petered out.

  “Of other people doing things to children?”

  “Yes.”

  “You mean by watching pornography?” asked Carole in disgust.

  “Yes, but don’t be so dismissive of it. For me child pornography is a harmless release for –”

  “But it’s not harmless! The children who feature in that kind of material are being harmed. At the time they’re filmed they’re being abused by –”

  “Listen, Carole. If the existence of that pornography is stopping one person – me – from abusing a child, then surely that’s a good thing?”

  “Well, it’s –”

  “All I can say is that it works for me. It controls my urges, it provides a release for me – and it stops me from actually harming a real child!”

  There was a silence. Carole recognized that she was never going to see eye to eye with Kelvin Southwest on the subject. But, more importantly, she found she was beginning to believe his protestations that he had had nothing to do with the abduction of Robin Cutter. Her certainties of earlier in the day were melting away. But then again, she told herself, paedophiles were notoriously devious and plausible. As she had pointed out to him, a guilty Kelvin Southwest would say just the same things as an innocent one. She needed to find out more.

  “So where do you get this pornography from?” she asked with a shudder. “Do you download it from the internet? Are you part of some paedophile ring? Or do you have another source?”

  “I have another very good source,” he replied almost smugly. “A very good source indeed.”

  “Where do you get it from?”

  There was a note of pride in his voice as he said, “You should know this, Carole, given your background in the Home Office.”

  “Oh?” she asked, puzzled.

  “Where does child porn go when it’s confiscated?”

  “Well, obviously it goes to the police.”

  “Exactly. So if someone like me had a contact in the police, a contact let us say who owed one a favour…that person might be persuaded to access…to copy that kind of material for one, mightn’t they?”

  “And are you saying you have that kind of a cont
act?”

  “I do.”

  Carole didn’t need to ask him for the name. Suddenly the whole shabby set-up was crystal clear to her. “Curt Holderness,” she said.

  Kelvin Southwest nodded, pleased with his own cleverness. “Yes, and even though he’s left the force, he still has a friend there who keeps up the supply.”

  “And does Curt Holderness enjoy that kind of material too?”

  He chuckled. “Why do you think he left the force early? Under something of a cloud? He could have been charged with stealing and disseminating the stuff, but the local police bigwigs didn’t want the adverse publicity. He was shuffled out unceremoniously but discreetly. And since he was doing a favour for me…”

  “You organized for him to get the job as security officer for the Smalting Beach Hut Association?”

  Kelvin Southwest gave another self-satisfied nod.

  Carole Seddon’s mind was reeling. Everything she had thought about the case was suddenly turned on its head. Earlier in the day she had contemplated ending her interview with the Fether District Council official by revealing that she wasn’t really a police officer, but now no thought could have been further from her mind.

  She also felt fairly convinced that Kelvin Southwest had had nothing to do with the abduction and murder of Robin Cutter, but she wasn’t about to tell the man that. Let him suffer a bit longer.

  And in the meantime she would get back in touch with Curt Holderness.

  ∨ Bones Under The Beach Hut ∧

  Thirty-Five

  Unlike Kelvin Southwest, Curt Holderness wasn’t under the illusion that Carole Seddon was attached in any way to the police force. Nor, given his career background, did she reckon he’d be fooled for a moment if she claimed she was. But she still didn’t reckon he’d argue when she said she’d like to meet and talk.

  He didn’t. She rang him as soon as a very chastened and nervous Kelvin Southwest had left…with many pleas that she would not tell anyone else about what they had discussed. But she wasn’t about to let that particular little worm off the hook by giving him any such undertaking.