Bones Under The Beach Hut

Carole got the conversation back on track. 'But you were saying the Olivers tend to keep themselves to themselves?'

'Yes, I think they were probably more outgoing before . . . but things change. People get older.'

'Why, what happened?' asked Jude, alert to the slight hesitation in his voice.

'What do you mean — what happened?'

'You said the Olivers were more outgoing before, which suggests to me that something happened to make them less outgoing.'

'No, I didn't mean that. I didn't mean anything. Just that they've got older.'

'Right.' Carole and Jude exchanged looks. They both knew that Reginald Flowers was holding something back. Equally they both knew that they wouldn't get it out of him at that moment. But in time they would try to find out more about the Olivers.

Carole moved the conversation on. 'Then there's that grandmother, the one in the beach hut called Seagull's Nest.'

'Ah yes.' Reginald Flowers spoke without enthusiasm. 'Her name's Deborah Wrigley. Lives in one of those big houses on the Shorelands Estate, you know, over in Fethering.' The two women nodded. They knew all about the exclusively gated Shorelands Estate. People there were even more up themselves than the inhabitants of Smalting.

'Anyway, Deborah Wrigley's husband was something big in the City. Banker I think. Died maybe six years ago, very soon after retirement, probably the poor bastard succumbed to the effects of twenty-four hour nagging when he was at home all the time. Left his wife as rich as Croesus, and she now devotes her life to bitchy bridge parties, that is when she's not playing her children off against each other about their potential inheritances . . . oh, and bullying her grandchildren.'

Carole awarded herself an inward nod of satisfaction. Her initial assessment of Deborah Wrigley's character seemed to have been 100 per cent accurate.

'She's extremely put out at the moment,' Reginald Flowers continued with relish. 'Seagull's Nest is in the row that's still cordoned off by the police. Like The Bridge . . .' But he only allowed himself a brief moment of wistfulness. 'Deborah Wrigley's been bending the ear of that jumped-up little jack-in-office Kelvin Southwest about the situation. But of course he can't do anything. He just has to wait till the police decide the huts can be opened again. Like the rest of us. So the lovely Deborah must be continuing to antagonize her family somewhere else at the moment.'

Carole and Jude didn't reckon they were going to get much more out of him on Deborah Wrigley, but Jude made a mental note to check whether Philly Rose had had anything to do with the grandmother from hell. After all, Seagull's Nest was directly next door to Quiet Harbour.

Carole had meanwhile moved on to the subject of the SBHA's security officer. 'You haven't had any insights from him, have you, Reginald, you know, about what happened at Quiet Harbour?'

'No. And I don't expect any.' Curt Holderness was clearly another on the list of people disapproved of by Reginald Flowers. 'I regret that his powers of vigilance leave a lot to be desired. Not very punctilious in the discharge of his duties, I'm afraid. But then Kelvin Southwest had a considerable influence on the appointment.'

Carole immediately picked up the subtext of this. 'A bit of mutual backscratching involved — is that what you're saying?'

'It's exactly what I'm saying, yes.'

Interesting how whenever Kelvin Southwest's name came up, it brought with it the slight whiff of minor corruption.

There was a hiatus while their sweets were delivered, but after a brief discussion about the enduring appeal of nursery foods like spotted dick, Carole resumed her fact-finding mission. 'Actually, Reginald, there's another hut user I—'

'Not "hut user", Carole, "hutter".'

'Hutter,' she repeated, unconvinced that the word would ever trip naturally off her tongue. 'Anyway, there was another one I wanted to ask you about. I don't know if you'll know who I mean . . .'

'I think, Carole,' he said with quiet complacency, 'you will find that, as President of the Smalting Beach Hut Association, I know about the people in all of the huts.'

'Yes, well, the hut I'm interested in is called Shrimphaven.' Slight annoyance crossed his face at the name. 'It's right next door to Fowey, the one I'm currently using. There's a young woman in it.'

'Yes, I know the one you mean. Sits there all day and half the night with one of those laptops.'

'Do you know what she's doing there?'

'No. I've asked her on more than one occasion and she won't tell me.' It clearly irked him that he couldn't provide a more complete answer. 'I think I may have to take my enquiries further. You know, as President of the Smalting Beach Hut Association. I may even have to involve Kelvin Southwest.' He spoke the name with distaste. 'I mean, there are regulations about the proper uses of these beach huts. If we were to discover that someone was running a business from one of them . . . well, action would have to be taken.'

'What kind of action would there—?' But Carole's question was interrupted by the sound from the bar of a glass smashing.

Reginald Flowers looked across to the source of the noise, shook his head knowingly and said, 'Oh dear, here comes trouble.'

Chapter Thirteen

The cause of the commotion at the bar of The Crab Inn was a tall man with long, greying hair. Dressed in paint-spattered denim shirt and jeans, he was swaying slightly as he took issue with the black-clad French greeter.

'Look, all I want to do is buy a drink,' he was remonstrating in an aggrieved, languid upper-class accent.

'And I've told you, Mr Czesky, that I can't allow you to do that. The manager has banned you from this pub.'

'Yes, but you're not the manager. I bet the manager isn't even in today.'

'No, he isn't as it happens.'

'See, taking Sunday off. Your manager doesn't want to let work spoil his weekend, does he? So, since he's not here, he need never know that you've let me buy a drink.' The man pulled a crumpled pile of banknotes out of his pocket and scattered them on the counter. 'Look, my money's as good as anyone else's. Legal tender, got Her Majesty's face plastered all over it.'

'Mr Czesky, you've already broken a wine glass. There are a lot of other people waiting to be served.' It was true. While Carole and Jude had been talking to Reginald Flowers the pub had filled up considerably. 'I must ask you to leave.'

'Well, where else am I supposed to go? This is the only pub in Smalting, and pubs, you know, by tradition used to be places that would welcome anyone, particularly locals. Everyone in the village would come in and have a pint, the toffs mixing with the fisherman. Now suddenly The Crab Inn has become the exclusive preserve of the tight-arsed upper middle class — is that what you think is happening? Well, it isn't. This lot . . .'he gestured wildly round the bar ' . . . this lot haven't got any real class. Add all the real class in the bar together and the lump you'd come up with would be smaller than my little finger.'

The greeter in black kept trying to interrupt, but the tall man seemed only just to be getting into his flow. 'This whole area is so bloody up itself. Oh, it's all right if you've spent your life in some bloody office, working in insurance or banking or some other way of screwing money out of people. But no one has interest in the individuals who really add something to the value of this world. Look at all these people . . .' Another uncoordinated gesture round the bar. 'Forget their class — if you added together all the artistic talent they've got, it wouldn't be enough to cover my bloody fingernail. But you're happy to sell drinks to these talent-free clones, aren't you? Whereas someone like me, someone who's slightly different, someone with a bit of artistic talent, who doesn't fit into one of the moulds that you've—'