The Torso in the Town. Simon Brett
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Fed. He had something to do with the pleasure boats down near Fed Bridge.’
‘Presumably the police will have talked to him?’
‘I imagine so. Again, it’s so frustrating not knowing what they’re up to.’
Jude smiled. ‘Unless we can find someone who’ll hack into their computers, I’m afraid we’re stuck with that.’ She pushed a hand thoughtfully through the twists of her blonde hair. ‘There was something about the body that was funny, you know . . .’
‘Having no limbs is pretty funny. Funny peculiar, that is, not funny ha ha.’
‘Something else. I don’t know anything about forensics or pathology, but I’d have thought a body that’d been dead three years would have lost most of its skin and flesh.’
‘Depends entirely on where it’s been kept for those three years.’ Here was a subject Carole did know a bit about. Her work in the Home Office had occasionally involved talking to policemen on related subjects. ‘Bodies buried in peat or in glaciers have been preserved virtually intact for centuries.’
‘Not a lot of peat or glaciers round Fedborough, are there?’
‘No, but there are other things that can have a kind of mummifying effect. Being in a very smoky environment, for one. Or in some cases, bodies have been preserved by wind, draughts even . . . I think I’m right. Hang on, I’ve got a book on the subject.’
Carole knew exactly where on her shelves the required volume was, and quickly found the relevant page. ‘It can be in a draught. Or in the sun and air. The tissues don’t putrefy, but just slowly dry up.’
‘Like dried meat or fish.’
‘I suppose so, yes.’ Carole grimaced.
‘Well, if that’s the case,’ Jude went on, ‘then I don’t think the torso could’ve been in Pelling House for very long.’
‘Why not?’
‘The cellar was terribly damp. It smelt musty and mildewy. And Grant was saying earlier in the evening that he’d heard it actually fills up with water when the Fether gets really high.’
‘Maybe the body had been moved then . . .’ Carole’s eyes were still scanning the page as she spoke. ‘Ah, no, that may not be it, though . . . Book also says a body can become petrified . . .’
‘I’d be petrified if someone was cutting off my arms and legs.’
‘Very funny, Jude,’ Carole responded primly, and went on, ‘Adipocere – that’s a sort of waxy stuff – forms on the external parts of the body and it can end up looking like a marble statue. Trouble is, that only happens in very damp, airless conditions. So . . . did the torso you saw look more mummified or petrified?’
Jude shook her head glumly. ‘I don’t have the expert knowledge to answer that, I’m afraid.’
‘Well, all right, did it look more dried-up or waxen?’
‘Dried-up, I’d say.’
‘That would mean it’d been mummified, which would certainly be unlikely in a damp cellar.’ Carole closed the book with annoyance. ‘There’s so much we just don’t know.’
‘Like, for instance, where are the two arms and legs that were once part of the torso?’
‘Good point.’ Carole returned the reference book to its allotted place. ‘Mind you, if for the moment we put on one side the more extreme explanations, like a psychopath getting his kicks, a religious ritual . . . or cannibalism . . . there’s only one sensible reason why someone would cut up a body.’
‘What?’
‘Ease of disposal. It’s a cliché of criminality that murder’s easy enough to commit; the difficult bit is getting rid of the body. Much less difficult, though, if you scatter limbs round the country and then get rid of the torso separately. You could even carve the torso up too. And doing that could also help to make identification more difficult.’
‘So,’ Jude started slowly, ‘we might be looking at a scenario where our murderer . . .’ Carole didn’t pick up her use of the word. Both of them were now convinced that they were dealing with a murder. ‘ . . . our murderer was in the process of disposing of the body, had got rid of the arms and legs, and then had to stop for some reason . . .’
‘For some reason.’ Carole sounded testy with frustration. ‘And what chance do we have of finding out that reason? Very little, I would think. We seem to be up against a brick wall. There’s no other avenue of investigation we can follow.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘We know the name of the person who owned Pelling House before the Carltons.’
‘Yes, but we don’t know him. We don’t know where he lives.’
‘Debbie said he’s always in the Coach and Horses in Fedborough.’
‘But we still don’t know him,’ Carole wailed. ‘We haven’t been introduced.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake! Come on, get your coat. I’m going to treat you to supper in the Coach and Horses.’
As recollection of her recent shame encompassed her, Carole froze. ‘Jude,’ she whispered, appalled, ‘I can’t go into a pub.’
Chapter Eight
There were no rough pubs in Fedborough – there was nothing rough in Fedborough – so the town’s drinking-holes had to be graded upwards by degrees of gentility rather than downwards by loucheness. On this scale the Coach and Horses in Pelling Street was just over halfway up, not aspiring to the manicured hotel splendour of the Pelling Arms, nor yet as ordinary as the Home Hostelries chain predictability of the Black Horse.
The Coach and Horses had been built as a pub in the early nineteenth century, and sympathetically restored at the end of the twentieth. The new owners were a shrewd couple, skilful managers who recognized the appeal of old beams and large fireplaces in a tourist trap like Fedborough. The stripped-down brick walls were decorated with old photographs of the town – horse-drawn carriages labouring up the High Street, a long-aproned poulterer with a display of Christmas turkeys hanging from his shop front, an Edwardian pageant amid the ruins of Fedborough Castle, a flag-waving crowd celebrating VE Day. The bar was lit by discreet coach-lamps, whose reflections sparkled on polished tables, on the handles of beer pumps and on the display of bottles behind the counter. Elegantly done, but a little impersonal in its efficiency. As they entered the pub, Carole couldn’t help thinking of the scruffier welcome of the Crown and Anchor, and once again tried to force her mind away from corrosive thoughts.
The evening was warm enough for people still to be sitting in the back courtyard, but Jude and Carole decided they would stay inside. A man, in Debbie Carlton’s words, whose ‘permanent address seems to be the Coach and Horses’, was more likely to be found propping up the bar than enjoying the evening sunshine.
The well-trained young barman offered a good choice of white wines and they settled on a Chilean Chardonnay. Carole’s instinctive demurral about having any alcohol was swept aside. ‘One glass isn’t going to affect your driving. And it’s bound to end up as two, which won’t affect your driving either.’
Carole didn’t raise objections, but it wasn’t the thought of the car that had prompted her reaction. Much of the time she’d spent with Ted Crisp had been in a pleasant vinous haze, and to resist alcohol now seemed a necessary deprivation – or even punishment.
They found a table and consulted the menu, whose offerings were carefully themed to the locality: ‘Steak and Sussex Ale Pie’, ‘Cod in Batter, fresh every day from LA (Little ‘Ampton)’, ‘Fedborough Fishcakes’, ‘Castle