The Body on the Beach (21 page)

Carole was determined to find out. She waited dutifully for the chuckle and the, ‘I may be slumming, but at least I’ll slum in style’, before saying, ‘I heard a dreadful
rumour about Rory in Allinstore this morning.’ (She certainly wasn’t going to tell Winnie Norton that she’d heard it in the Crown and Anchor. Everyone in Fethering knew that
Carole Seddon wasn’t a ‘pub person’.) ‘I do hope it’s not true.’

The light that blazed in Winnie Norton’s eye revealed that she knew all the details. And also revealed that she was at least as proficient as her dog at looks of pure malevolence.
‘It’s true, all right. And absolutely typical of the man! Selfish to the end!’

If Rory Turnbull’s suicide had been an attempt to make people feel guilty and realize how much they’d undervalued him during his lifetime, the gesture had clearly failed with his
mother-in-law.

‘But it’s definite, is it? I mean, they’ve found the body?’

‘No, not yet. The police’re still looking. Typical of Rory again – wasting police time like that. That man’s never thought of anyone but himself from the moment he was
born. I always told Barbara he was a dubious factor. Not our class of person at all. I could see that from the day I first met him.

‘Barbara is, needless to say, distraught,’ Winnie went on. ‘What a terrible thing to happen to her. And, if it’s confirmed as a suicide, that could well invalidate all
the life insurance policies. Selfish, selfish, selfish. What’s more, everyone in Fethering will assume that there was something wrong with their marriage.’

‘And wasn’t there?’ asked Carole.

‘There were faults on his side certainly. The only thing Barbara did wrong in that marriage was choosing an unsuitable man in the first place. But she knows it’s a wife’s duty
to stay by her man. She’s discussed her situation with Canon Granger – you know, Roddy – and he has nothing but admiration for the way Barbara has coped. She’s behaved like
a saint throughout . . . in spite of all the dreadful things Rory did.’

‘What kind of things?’ Carole decided it was going to be quite easy to get the information she was after. Such was the level of spleen Winnie Norton harboured for her son-in-law, the
old woman didn’t stop to consider why she was being asked all these questions.

‘Well, he was always boorish. Had no manners. Someone brought up in the gutter never quite loses the tang of it, you know. Rory was a product of state education, as you could probably
tell. Jumped-up little oik from a secondary modern who managed to scrape into a university and somehow get his dental qualifications. As I said, always a dubious factor. Barbara did all she could
to make something of him, but . . . well, you know the proverb about silk purses and sow’s ears . . .’

‘But what kind of things specifically did Rory do?’ Carole persisted. ‘Was he unfaithful to Barbara?’

‘Good heavens, no. Even he wouldn’t have dared do that. No, it was more mental cruelty, I suppose you’d call it. He collected pornography, you know.’

‘Did he?’

‘Oh yes. Poor darling Barbara found boxes of the stuff when she was looking through their loft. And that was only the part of it.’ Winnie Norton shook her head in shocked
disapproval. ‘Rory was up to all kinds of other things as well . . .’

‘Like?’

‘Like staying out late. Like getting into fights.’

‘Getting into fights?’

‘He came back in the small hours only a couple of months ago and he’d had a tooth knocked out, would you believe? Well, imagine how difficult it was for Barbara to maintain
appearances when her husband was walking around looking like a prizefighter. And then there was the drinking . . .’

‘Had he always drunk? Right through their marriage?’

‘He’d always had it in him,’ Winnie Norton replied portentously. ‘But it was only the last few months it’d got out of hand. And it wasn’t just drink
. . .’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Drugs.’

‘Really?’

‘Oh yes.’ The old lady nodded vigorously. While she did so, her sculpted hair made no independent movement. ‘Barbara had suspected something of the kind was going on, and I
found some stuff in Rory’s study.’

In other circumstances Carole might have asked what Winnie Norton was doing snooping round her son-in-law’s study, but she didn’t want to stop the flow.

Winnie seemed to anticipate the thought anyway. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have been looking into his affairs, but I couldn’t go on seeing my daughter suffer like that. So I took
things into my own hands, and I found . . . this stuff.’

‘What kind of stuff? Are you an expert on drugs?’

‘Of course I’m not!’ Winnie Norton snapped. ‘But I watch television. There’s hardly a drama on these days that doesn’t show people taking drugs. So I
recognized it when I saw it. In Rory’s desk drawer I found a syringe, and some metal foil, and a little packet of white powder. I think he was spending all their money on drugs.’

There were a lot of follow-up questions she could have asked, but Carole decided to bide her time until she’d talked to Jude. She’d already been given more than she had dared hope
for.

‘Well, I’m distressed to hear all that, Winnie,’ she said blandly. ‘Do give my condolences to Barbara, won’t you?’

If she’d thought this traditional formality would be met by an equally formal response, she was disappointed.

‘Condolences!’ Winnie Norton spat out the word. ‘Barbara doesn’t need condolences. She needs congratulations. Twenty-eight years of misery and now finally she’s
shot of him.’

‘Yes,’ said Carole. ‘Of course. Now, about these raffle tickets . . .’

‘The Canine Trust, yes, yes, yes.’ Winnie rose with surprising agility from her chair. ‘Just get my chequebook.’ She crossed to a writing desk decorated with intricate
marquetry designs. ‘This is a charming piece, isn’t it? You see, when I sold the big house after my husband died, I had to get rid of a lot of beautiful stuff. Phillips auctioned it,
and I’ve kept only the best, the very best.’ She chuckled, then continued, ‘There are museums all over the world who’d give their eye-teeth for what’s in this
room.’

Carole smiled graciously. Churchill emerged from behind the sofa and started yapping at her.

As she’d mentioned, Jude had done some acting in her time. She’d done a lot of things in her time. Hers had been a rich and varied life.

On the Saturday morning, while Carole went off to do her bit with Winnie Norton, Jude decided she’d have to call on her acting skills to further her own research. She rang through to J. T.
Carpets. Even if no carpet-fitting went on at the weekend, the showroom was bound to be open. And there must be someone working in the office.

There was. Jude put on a voice of excruciating gentility (school of Barbara Turnbull) and went into her prepared spiel. ‘Good morning. I’m trying to contact one of your
carpet-fitters. Named Dylan.’

‘I’m sorry. The fitters don’t work at the weekend.’

‘Well, could you give me his home address and phone number?’ she demanded imperiously.

‘I’m afraid it’s not company policy to give out our employees’ private details over the telephone.’

‘Then in this case you must make an exception to company policy. My name is Mrs Grant-Edwards.’ Jude was taking a risk that the girl in the office had never spoken directly to the
real Mrs Grant-Edwards. And perhaps less of a risk in assuming that the real Mrs Grant-Edwards would talk the way she was talking. ‘I live in a house called Bali-Hai on the Shorelands Estate,
where your people have just been fitting a carpet.’

‘Oh yes?’

‘And one of the fitters was this young man called Dylan.’

‘You haven’t found anything missing, have you?’

The anxiety in her voice was a real giveaway. Clearly Dylan didn’t have a reputation as the most trustworthy of employees. Jude wondered how many little pilferings had occurred in the
houses where he had fitted carpets. And wondered how much longer he would keep his job.

‘No, no, it’s not that. It’s rather the reverse. I’ve found something of his in the house.’

‘What?’

Jude had thought long and hard what her cover story should be. She wasn’t going to get anywhere with a complaint about Dylan. Inventing some domestic crisis was too risky; his employers
were bound to know more about his family circumstances than she did. What was needed was something urgent, but unthreatening, something that would sound as though Mrs Grant-Edwards was actually
doing him a good turn. Jude felt pleased with the solution she’d finally come up with.

‘It’s a wallet containing his credit cards. And since he hasn’t come back to our house looking, I assume he doesn’t know where he left it. Well, I know how tiresome it
can be to lose one’s credit cards. It happened to me last year and caused an awful kerfuffle. So I just wanted to ring him to put his mind at rest.’

The approach worked with the girl at J. T. Carpets. ‘That’s very kind of you, Mrs Grant-Edwards.’

‘If we don’t all help each other out in this life, what will become of us?’

‘What indeed? Right, just a moment. I’ll find Dylan’s home number for you.’

The girl gave it. Jude had asked for his address too, but she couldn’t justify pressing for that. Her cover story didn’t require her knowing where he lived. So she just thanked the
girl for her help and put the phone down.

The number had a Worthing code, which meant it was local, and the first two digits were the same as Jude’s own, which meant it was very local. Dylan probably lived in Fethering. But
whether with his family, a girlfriend or on his own she had no means of knowing.

The next call was going to need a change of persona and she had to get it right. Jude made herself a cup of peppermint tea while she focused on the role she was about to play. In spite of her
floaty dress style, Jude was far from being a superannuated hippy, but she had met plenty of the breed. Indeed, during the time she’d lived on Majorca, people who didn’t know her well
might have reckoned her as one of their number. Most of her acquaintances from that period of her life had long since settled into the worlds of domesticity and employment, often as schoolteachers
or in the social services. They remained harmless idealists, benignly ineffectual, posing no threat to society at any level. True, they did break the law on a regular basis, but the one they broke
Jude didn’t think should be a law anyway.

She concentrated on getting the voice right. Laid-back, lazy, full of trailing vowels, that was it. And she’d use her mobile phone, so that the precise location she was calling from
wouldn’t be revealed if Dylan checked 1471.

She waited till half-past eleven, which she reckoned gave a lad-about-Fethering – assuming that’s what Dylan was – time to wake up after the excesses of Friday night, and keyed
in his number. She was in luck. He was at home.

‘Hi.’ He managed to invest the single syllable with insolence and menace.

‘Is that Dylan?’ Jude got exactly the right relaxed diffidence into her voice.

‘Yeah. Who wants him?’

‘I was given your name by someone. I want to get hold of some gear.’

‘What kind of gear?’

‘Pot.’ She knew that’s what most users of her generation would still call it. ‘Cannabis.’

Dylan laughed harshly. ‘So you’re after some weed, eh? And what makes you think I might be able to help you?’

‘I told you. A friend gave me your name.’

‘I think you’d better tell me who the friend is. Otherwise I might suspect this is some kind of set-up.’

Jude took the risk. If Dylan didn’t bite, then she knew she’d have lost him. She backed her hunch. ‘Rory Turnbull.’

The silence lasted so long she thought she must’ve miscalculated. Then Dylan repeated, ‘Rory Turnbull, eh? Our fine upstanding dentist?’

He didn’t mention the fine upstanding dentist’s recent disappearance. Which was good news, because it almost definitely meant he didn’t know about it. When he did, he’d
be on his guard, knowing the inevitability of police investigations into all aspects of Rory Turnbull’s life.

‘Yes. He said he was a customer of yours.’

‘Not much of a customer. He bought very little from me. Just a bit of weed on a couple of occasions.’

‘Oh?’

‘I don’t carry the stuff he was after.’

‘He wanted hard drugs?’

‘Yes. Smack. I gave him the name of a contact in Brighton and didn’t hear from him again. So I guess that’s where he took his business.’

‘Who was that contact?’

Jude realized she had been over-eager even before Dylan responded. ‘Hey, just a minute, just a minute. I thought you said it was weed – or was it “pot”? – you were
after.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed contritely. ‘Can you help me?’

‘Maybe. It depends how much you’re prepared to pay.’

He quoted her prices for the various grades of goods he had available. She agreed his terms without haggling, and he fixed to meet her in the seafront shelter nearest to the Fethering Yacht Club
at seven o’clock that evening.

‘How will I recognize you?’ he asked.

‘I’m very tall, nearly six foot. Thinnish, black hair. I’ll be wearing a long brown leather coat and a brown fur hat.’ Jude felt fairly safe with this anti-description of
herself. And, for ethical reasons, her wardrobe contained nothing made of either leather or fur.

‘OK. And a name? Or at least something you can identify yourself by, in case there’s more than one tall bird in a leather coat down on the seafront tonight.’

‘Caroline,’ said Jude.

‘OK, Caroline. See you later.’

And he put the phone down. As she switched off her mobile, a little tremor of distaste ran through Jude’s body.

One thing she knew for certain, though. She would not be anywhere near a Fethering seafront shelter at seven o’clock that evening.

For a moment she contemplated ringing the police and suggesting they make a rendezvous with Dylan at a Fethering seafront shelter at seven o’clock that evening.

But no. Deep though her hatred for the boy was, shopping him to the authorities would have been a very unJude thing to do.