Bones Under The Beach Hut (25 page)

    Miranda
Cutter had changed considerably in the years since her son's disappearance. The
slender blond had morphed into a plump woman with dyed red curls. And her
surname had changed to Browning.

    In
the interview she said what all bereaved parents say in such situations, that
at least now she finally knew Robin was dead, that now he could have a proper
funeral, and she could try to move forward with her life. Miranda Browning didn't
say anything about her son's killer and the need for him to be brought to
justice. She didn't need to. Every newspaper in the country was doing the job
for her.

    As
soon as the interview had finished Carole looked across at Jude and saw a strange
expression on her neighbour's face. 'What is it?'

    'I
know her. Miranda Browning. She's one of my clients.'

    'Oh?'

    'Yes.
Someone referred her to me last year because she'd been getting these terrible
headaches. I managed to alleviate the symptoms, but I knew what was really
causing them was some deep inner tension, some powerful emotion she was holding
in. She wouldn't tell me what it was. Now I know, though.'

    'When
you say she's a client, Jude . . .'

    'Hm?'

    '. .
.do you mean she's a friend too?'

    'I
don't know her that well.'

    'Well
enough to ring her with condolences, you know, about what's happened?'

    'I
wouldn't want to trouble her at a time like this.'

    'A
time when she probably needs your healing services more than ever,' Carole
suggested. 'If our investigation's going to get any further . . .'

    'What
do you mean?'

    'If
we find out who killed her son, then we'll help her get that psychological
thing Americans go on about so much.'

    'Closure?'

    'Yes.
Look, she probably knows more about the case than anyone else, and you've got a
direct line to her.'

    Jude
felt uneasy. When it came to client confidentiality, she had strict boundaries.
To contact Miranda Browning at a time like this simply to find out more about
her son's disappearance would definitely be a step too far. On the other hand,
if her intervention as a healer could help ease the woman's suffering . . .

    'What
do you say, Jude?'

    'I
say that at times you can be surprisingly unsentimental.'

    Carole
Seddon smiled. She took what her friend had just said as a compliment.

    On
the following morning, the Friday, the phone rang in High Tor. It was a very
flustered-sounding Reginald Flowers. 'Carole, I'm ringing about the quiz night
tonight.'

    'Oh
yes?' She had forgotten all about the event, but quickly prepared a battery of
excuses as to why she couldn't attend. Then she had a moment of uncertainty.
The Smalting Beach Hut Association quiz night would quite possibly gather together
many of the principals who might have information about the grisly discovery
under
Quiet Harbour.
Maybe if she and Jude were to attend, they might
advance the course of their investigation.

    But
this thought became immediately irrelevant, as Reginald Flowers went on,
'Anyway, I'm afraid I'm going to have to cancel it.'

    'The
quiz? Oh dear. Is that out of respect?'

    'I'm
sorry? What do you mean?'

    'Out
of respect for Robin Cutter, you know, now he's been identified as—'

    'For
heaven's sake, it's nothing to do with Robin Cutter,' he responded testily. 'I
wouldn't change my plans because of something like that. I thought all that was
safely dead and buried - in every sense. If some silly child chooses to put
himself in danger's way. This was a novel reaction to the tragedy, one that
Carole certainly hadn't heard before. 'No, the reason the quiz night is going
to have to be cancelled is that I have once again been guilty of assuming that
other people are as efficient in the basic, simple things of life as I am
myself. The SBHA has a secretary - or at least someone who has the title of
secretary—'

    'Yes,
I met her with you on Smalting Beach the other day. Dora Pinchbeck.'

    'Dora
Pinchbeck, exactly. Dora, who, as I say has the title of secretary of the
Smalting Beach Hut Association, but who turns out to be totally incompetent.
She undertook to make the booking for tonight's quiz night at St Mary's Church
Hall, but when I rang the caretaker there this morning to check some details,
it turns out she hadn't done it. Not a difficult task to undertake, you might
think, but clearly beyond the capacity of our secretary Dora. "Oh, I'm
sorry, I forgot," she said when I rang her about it this morning.

    Forgot!
And, needless to say, there's now something else booked into St Mary's Hall for
tonight. A meeting of the Smalting Local History Society, would you believe? I
am, needless to say, extremely angry. It's the old thing, isn't it - if you
want a job done properly, do it yourself. Dora, my so-called secretary, offered
to ring round all the members of the SBHA, but I said, "No, thank you,
Dora. I want to ensure that everyone gets the message, so I'll do it
myself." Which is why I'm calling you, Carole,' he concluded, on a note of
affronted martyrdom.

    'So
all we lack for this evening's quiz night is a venue?'

    'You
say "all we lack", Carole, but it is a rather major lack. There's
nowhere else suitable in Smalting, except for one of the rooms at The Crab Inn
and, as I may have said, the prices there are now quite extortionate . . .'
Belatedly he seemed to catch on to something in her intonation. 'Why, you're
not suggesting that you might know of a suitable alternative venue?'

    'There's
somewhere I could try. I'll ring you back if I have any luck. Well, I'll let
you know either away.'

    She
rang straight through to the Crown and Anchor. Ted Crisp was initially grouchy
at her suggestion, but then it was a point of honour with him to be initially
grouchy to most suggestions. And his attitude quickly softened. Though Carole
Seddon didn't have the natural charm of her neighbour, in her background was
the unlikely fact that she and Ted Crisp had once had a brief affair, and he
was still more indulgent to her than he might have been to other supplicants.

    Within
three minutes he had agreed that the Smalting Beach Hut Association could use
his function room that evening at no charge, 'so long as they all drink lots of
booze'.

    Carole
immediately rang back Reginald Flowers to pass on the good news.

    Jude
was still tussling with her moral dilemma. Part of her wanted to ring Miranda
Browning, to offer condolences and, if required, some healing treatment. But
another part accused her of shabby opportunism for even thinking of the idea.
Was it born out of compassion or, as Carole had baldly suggested, to help them
advance on their investigation? Jude couldn't decide.

    While
she was going through this uncharacteristic agonizing, her phone rang. The
woman at the other end identified herself as Miranda Browning.

    'I
was desperately sorry to hear the news,' said Jude. 'I hadn't realized that you
were the poor boy's mother, you know, when I met you before under that name.'

    'Browning's
the name of my second husband.' The woman's voice was strong. Though there was
tension in her tone, there was no self-pity. She wasn't about to give way to
tears.

    'So
you are Lionel and Joyce Oliver's daughter and you first married someone called
Cutter?'

    'No,
Cutter's my maiden name. His father's Rory Oliver.'

    'But
why was Robin's surname not Oliver?'

    'Rory
and I weren't married when Robin was born.

    We
weren't together at the time. I didn't think it likely we ever would be again,
so I registered Robin under my surname. All his documentation was as
"Cutter", when he started at play school he was "Robin Cutter'.
By the time Rory and I had got back together and married, the name had stuck.
I'm sure in time we would have changed it, but . . .' Her voice wavered for the
first time, '. . . we weren't given that opportunity.'

    'No.'
Jude spoke softly, already in therapist mode. 'As I say, I'm desperately sorry
. . . about what happened eight years ago . . . and about what's happened now.'

    'Thank
you,' said Miranda Browning, with considerable grace. 'Obviously this has
brought it all back, and, inevitably perhaps, the headaches have started again.
I could hardly get out of bed or stand up this morning. And I can't imagine the
stress is going to get any less over the next few weeks, so I just wondered . .
. the treatment you gave me last time worked so well . . . if you've got a
spare appointment you could slot me into?'

    'I'm
free this afternoon,' said Jude.

    They
fixed a time. As she put the phone down Jude beamed, unsurprised by what had
happened. But she wouldn't tell her neighbour whether she had made the call to
Miranda Browning or Miranda had called her. Unlike Jude, Carole Seddon didn't
believe in synchronicity.

    Miranda
Browning arrived at the gate of Woodside Cottage in a taxi. In spite of the
June heat, she had a scarf tied over her hair and wore dark glasses. She looked
anxiously from side to side as she paid the cabbie and was still casting
nervous glances back to the road when Jude opened the door to her.

    After
welcoming her client and leading her into the sitting room, Jude gestured to
the glasses and asked, 'For the headaches?'

    'Not really,'
replied Miranda Browning, taking them off. 'More so's I'm not recognized. It's
all started again. Bloody press camped outside my front door. They're quite
capable of following me here and door- stepping you as well.'

    'So
how did you get away?'

    'Practice,'
came the wry response. 'I've got a cab firm I trust completely. They pick me up
in the alley at the back of my garden. So far the press pack haven't caught on
to that yet. Early days, though, this time round.'

    Again
Jude was aware of the lack of self-pity in Miranda Browning's tone. The woman
had had to develop a stoicism, a survivor's instinct. Whatever she was feeling
inside, she was damned if she was going to expose her emotions to the world.
Which was probably why her deep, suppressed pain manifested itself in physical
symptoms, like headaches.

    Jude
uncovered her treatment bench, another draped shape in her sitting room of
swathed furniture. The windows were all open, letting in a light breeze that
set her bamboo wind chimes tinkling. She pulled out paper sheeting from a roll
at the end of the bench and laid it over the plastic surface. Then she set down
a pillow shaped like a fat horseshoe. 'Take off as much as you feel comfortable
with, Miranda. And then lie on your front.'

    The
woman stripped down to bra and pants. Though she had put on weight in the eight
years since she'd appeared on television after her son's disappearance, her
skin was still firm and her muscles well toned.

    'Just
lie still, relax as far as you can and I'll check where the trouble's
originating from.' Jude's eyes fixed in an expression of intense concentration
as she ran her hands up and down the woman's body, not quite touching,
sensitive to the variations of temperature she could feel. The hands lingered a
while over the small of the back, then moved up and hovered around the
shoulders. Jude's fingers tensed. Although they still made no contact, they
seemed to be pressing against some resistance.

    'We
both now know what's been causing the headaches, don't we, Miranda? The problem
is convincing your body of what's really going on. Stop it from expressing your
grief in this physical way.'

    'I
don't know that it is grief now, Jude. Oh, I've had my share of grieving, but
that's been kind of subsumed. Since the remains were identified as Robin's I
haven't cried at all.'

    'Maybe
it'd be better if you did?'

    'I
don't know. I've certainly served my time on the crying front. But now . . .
there's a kind of dead- ness in me. Not the wild mood swings I used to have
after it first happened. I think, except for the bloody headaches, I feel
better now I know there's no hope. I suppose, so long as there was a
possibility that somewhere in the world a thirteen-year-old Robin was walking
around, so long as there was this vague, vague chance that I might one day see
him again . . .'