Bones Under The Beach Hut

When she reached the back of the hut, she felt the solid surface give under her. She stepped back quickly and then gingerly probed at the carpet with her toe. Yes, there was definitely something that felt like a hole in the wooden floor.

She peeled back the corner of the carpet and soon enough saw what had nearly made her trip. There was a hole in the corner, spreading across two of the planks that made up the hut's floor. Its edges were black and charred.

Someone appeared to have lit a fire under Quiet Harbour.

Chapter Four

Carole inspected the outside of the hut to see if there were any clues as to what had happened. The structure, presumably prefabricated elsewhere and assembled on Smalting Beach, was set on four concrete slabs to prevent damp from the ground seeping up into its woodwork. And yes, under the back corner of the hut, there was evidence of a small fire having been lit.

Using a children's spade, which she had found inside, Carole poked at the charred debris, releasing a smell of petrol that had been trapped in the folds of what appeared to be cloth. Inspecting it more closely, she saw that strips of old rag had been bundled together. Outermost were the remains of a tea towel, with a design of ponies on it, maybe a souvenir from the New Forest. The minimal evidence of flame damage on the rags suggested to her that the fire hadn't been lit too long ago, and also that it had been extinguished before the flames could spread and burn down the whole beach hut.

Going back inside, she also deduced that the green carpet in Quiet Harbour must have been put down after the fire had been discovered. There was no sign even of scorching on the underside, which might — though not necessarily — suggest that the same person who had put out the fire had also covered up the evidence of it.

Another deduction: the lack of sand on its surface suggested that the carpet hadn't been in position for that long.

Before she flipped it back into place, she noticed that, though most of the nails fixing the floorboards to the struts beneath were old and deeply hammered in, the silver round heads of a few stood almost proud of the wood. It looked as if some running repairs had been done, but clearly before the fire had happened. Otherwise surely the burnt planks would have been replaced . . . ? Odd, she thought, as she flattened the carpet back down.

Carole had decided that she needed to talk to Jude about her discovery, so she packed up her thermos and tote bag. In spite of her promising start she hadn't got far on The Times crossword. Have to finish it back at High Tor.

As she clicked the padlocks shut on Quiet Harbour, she heard the voice of the matriarch in Seagull's Nest pontificating. 'You really shouldn't give in to the child so much, Nell. If you spoil Tristram now, he'll grow up without any backbone or moral values.'

Jude had all the windows open, which meant there was enough breeze to set her bamboo wind chimes going. When she had first heard them, Carole had dismissed the chimes as just more evidence of her neighbour's New Age idiocy, but now she had come to find the sound rather comforting. Not, of course, that she would ever have told Jude that.

The sitting room of Woodside Cottage looked as it always did: throws and drapes and cushions disguising the precise outlines of its sofas and armchairs. Scarves and floaty tops, as ever, did the same service for the house's owner. Even in the summer, Jude was bedecked in extras that blurred the contours of her substantial, comfortable body. Her blond hair was piled up on top of her head, tentatively secured by an array of pins and clips.

Carole had always envied the ease with which Jude carried herself. Spontaneity seemed to come spontaneously to her, in her choice of clothes and in every other area of her life. Whereas Carole, whose sartorial ambition was not to draw attention to herself, still agonized over the extent to which she was achieving that desired effect. She avoided bright colours, wearing unpatterned shirts, jackets and skirts. Though she frequently wore trousers, she never wore jeans. Her shoes were sensible enough to chair an official inquiry.

Every six weeks Carole had her grey hair cut into exactly the same helmet-like shape, and her pale blue eyes always took in the world suspiciously through rimless glasses. She was thin — to her mind, angular — and it never would have occurred to her that she actually had rather a good figure.

To Jude life always seemed a natural state of affairs, to Carole something of an imposition.

But over coffee that Tuesday morning in Woodside Cottage she was too excited by her news to indulge her usual anxieties. 'And there was quite a lot of petrol-soaked rag under the corner of the beach hut, so I think there must have been a serious attempt to burn the whole thing down.'

'Yes, but it could just have been vandals,' said Jude. 'I mean, even in a place as up itself as Smalting I'm sure there's a rough element.'

This idea didn't accord with Carole's image of the neighbouring village. 'Or they could have come in from somewhere else,' she said darkly.

'Perhaps. Anyway, I'm sure there's a lot of vandalism to everything on the beaches. Young people have a few too many drinks, feel like a bit of wanton destruction, there's no one there protecting the beach huts ... I don't quite see what you find sinister about it, Carole.'

'Not sinister so much as intriguing. Not the attempted burning of the hut — that, as you say, could be just mindless vandalism — but the fact that a new bit of carpet had been put inside to cover the evidence.'

'There could be a perfectly innocent explanation for that too. Philly Rose wanting the hut to be usable until it got repaired?'

'Who would she get to repair it?'

'I would imagine there'd be someone from the Fether District Council who'd deal with that sort of thing.'

To Carole's mind, Jude wasn't getting nearly as excited as she should be about the charred hole in the floor of Quiet Harbour. 'But maybe Philly Rose didn't want to tell anyone from Fether District Council about the fire? Maybe she has a secret to hide?'

'Maybe she has, but if that secret is to do with the fire, you wouldn't have expected her to agree to let out the beach hut if the new occupant was going to discover it as quickly as you did.'

Carole felt disgruntled. Her neighbour was being uncharacteristically negative. 'Listen, Jude,' she continued, 'I was wondering whether the fire had anything to do with the disappearance of Philly Rose's boyfriend?'

'Mark? What, are you suggesting she burnt him to death in the beach hut?'

'No, of course I'm not. I just do think that there's something odd about the fact that there had been a fire under the hut, someone had put it out and someone — possibly the same person or maybe another — had covered the hole up with a bit of carpet. And I would like to ask Philly Rose if she has any explanation for what happened.'

'All right,' said Jude casually. 'Then let's ask her.'

'What?' Carole was taken aback by such a direct suggestion. 'Can we do that?'

'Yes, of course we can.' Jude looked at the large-faced watch secured to her wrist by a broad red ribbon. 'I'll call Philly and ask her if she'd like to join us for lunch at the Crown and Anchor.'

'Today?' Carole had an instinct that any kind of social meeting should always be arranged a few days in advance. 'Will she be free?'

'I don't know. If she isn't she won't come. And if she is she will.'

'How can you be so sure?'

'Three reasons. A) She's become a good friend of mine. B) She's very hard up and would love to have lunch bought for her. And C) She's very lonely since Mark left and needs people to talk to.'