The Death on the Downs. Simon Brett
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‘You worked abroad?’
‘Yes. British Council.’
‘Oh, I had a friend at university who went into the British Council.’
Carole hadn’t thought about him for years. She wondered whether he still kept up the front he’d maintained at Durham that he wasn’t gay. Or maybe more tolerant times had allowed him to relax into his own nature. ‘His name was Trevor Malcolm.’
Graham Forbes shrugged his thin shoulders. ‘It’s a big organization.’
‘Of course.’
‘Anyway, I worked for them all over the shop. Had the place here in Weldisham for a long time, but only used to come back for leave and breaks between postings. Often wonder if I wouldn’t have been happier staying here all the time.’
‘I never think there’s much point in talking about might-have-beens.’
‘And you’re absolutely right. What a sensible woman you are, Carole. No, I can’t really complain. Seen some fascinating places, met some fascinating people. Real characters, you know, the locals, librarians, drivers we had . . . And yet . . . Oh well, it’s human nature not to be content, isn’t it? Always remember a line of Hazlitt’s . . . “I should like to spend the whole of my life in travelling abroad, if I could anywhere borrow another life to spend afterwards at home.” ’
‘That’s good. I think it sums up what most of us feel.’
‘Yes, grass is greener, all that stuff. No, can’t complain. Had an interesting life, still with the woman I love at age seventy-five . . . What more can you ask, eh?’
‘Not a lot.’
‘No.’ There was a silence. ‘Incidentally . . . when you were in here on Friday . . . did you hear what I was talking about with that chap at the bar?’
Carole blushed, though there was no real reason why she should have felt guilty. Short of putting in earplugs, there was no way she couldn’t have heard what was being said at the bar.
‘About the discovery of the bones at South Welling Barn?’
‘Yes. Well, putting two and two together, I reckon you must have been the person who found them.’
‘Where did you get your two and two from?’
‘Lennie. Sorry, Detective Sergeant Baylis. The policeman who you talked to.’ In response to her look of surprise, he explained. ‘Lennie talked to me on Saturday. I’m Chairman of the Village Committee here, you see. He wanted us to keep an eye out for press, snoopers, ghouls . . . You know, the people who turn up when something nasty’s happened, the kind who queue up on motorways to look at pile-ups. Anyway, Lennie said he’d been talking to you in the pub, I saw you in the pub, I put two and two together.’
‘Right. But was it Detective Sergeant Baylis who told you about my finding the bones in the first place?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Well, what struck me last Friday was how quickly you knew about what’d happened. I’d found the bones at . . . what . . .? Round four o’clock? And by six-fifteen you were in here, talking about them.’
‘Ah, with you, see what you mean. Yes, it was Lennie. He was brought up here in Weldisham. He knows how the gossip-mill works in a village like this. So he gave me a quick call the Friday afternoon. Thought it better someone heard officially about what’d happened, rather than letting rumours run riot. Dangerous things, rumours.’ Suddenly, he was into quotation.
‘Rumour is a pipe Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures, And of so easy and so plain a stop That the blunt monster with uncounted heads, The still-discordant wavering multitude, Can play upon it.’
‘I’m sorry. I don’t know the reference.’
‘No reason why you should. I think it’s probably too obscure to crop up in the Times crossword. The Bard, inevitably. Henry IV, Part 2. The Induction. “Enter RUMOUR, painted full of tongues.” I’m not sure that any of the good folk of Weldisham are actually “painted full of tongues”, but they’re nonetheless very skilled in the dissemination of vile rumour.’
‘Ah.’ There was a silence. Graham Forbes took another swig of whisky, before Carole asked, ‘So was there something you wanted to say about the bones?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Well, you raised the subject.’
‘Yes. Of course I did. No, I only wanted to say, so sorry, you have my sympathy. It must have been a horrible experience for you.’
‘It has been . . . surprisingly unsettling.’
‘I don’t think you should be surprised at all that you’ve been unsettled. Ghastly for you, coming upon that little cache by pure chance. Or at least I assume it was by pure chance . . .’
‘Hm?’
‘Well, you hadn’t set out looking for bones, had you?’
‘Hardly.’ She gave him a strange look, until she realized he was joking.
‘I’m sorry, Carole,’ he chuckled. ‘You get plenty of odd types walking on the Downs. Archaeologists, people with metal detectors . . . Some of them probably are looking for bones.’
‘Well, I can assure you I wasn’t.’
‘No. I’m sure you weren’t.’ Graham Forbes looked at his watch, swilled down the remains of his whisky and said, ‘Must be off. Lunchtime. It’s been such a pleasure to meet you, Carole.’
‘You too.’ She meant it.
‘I’d love you to come and meet my wife, Irene, at some point. As I say, we’re just down the lane. Warren Lodge. We always give a little dinner party Friday nights. Maybe we could inveigle you along to one of them?’
‘I’d like that very much.’ Carole was slightly surprised by the offer, but certainly not averse to the idea. Her Fethering social circle was narrow and not wildly interesting. It would be a pleasure to meet some new people, particularly if they were all as charming and cultured as Graham Forbes.
They exchanged phone numbers and he left for his lunch. Carole readdressed her crossword. Instantly she got her first solution.
The clue was: ‘A sailor’s in brass, for example, and bony (10).’
She wrote in METATARSAL.
Chapter Nine
Jude had been to the Lutteridges’ house before, and the first time she had seen its interior she had been impressed by how ‘finished’ everything was. All the paintwork gleamed like new, the carpets might have been laid the day before, the furniture just delivered from the showroom. Jude, whose own style of décor was ‘junk-shop casual’, was amazed how anyone could keep a home looking like that. She could understand that a museum might maintain such standards, but couldn’t equate it to an environment in which people actually lived. When she first went there, the fantasy grew within her that somewhere in the house was a glory hole, a haven of dusty squalor into which were tumbled all those miscellaneous objects which lend character to the average dwelling. But the more time she spent with the Lutteridges, the more that fantasy dwindled. There was no glory hole; the house was perfect throughout.
Gillie Lutteridge also looked as if she had stepped straight out of a brochure. Jude had worked out, from hints and date references in conversation, that Tamsin’s mother must be in her late forties, but the smoothness of her made-up face and the immaculate shaping of her blonded hair could have placed her anywhere between thirty and fifty.
She didn’t seem to possess any ordinary clothes, like most people did. Her garments came straight out of the brochure too