The Body on the Beach Read online

  The door-closing movement stopped. Through the remaining crack the woman’s eyes took in the speaker’s face.

  ‘Unless you want the police to talk to you about why you drew a gun on me.’

  Reluctantly, the crack of the door widened.

  ‘You better come in then.’

  Theresa Spalding lived in a maisonette. Whether the house had been built like that or subsequently converted into two dwellings was hard to tell. The sitting room, into which Carole and Jude were grudgingly ushered, was dominated by a huge television screen. Throughout their interview, some American sitcom full of overacting teenagers was running with the sound off.

  Theresa Spalding gestured to a couple of broken-down chairs, stubbed out the remains of a cigarette and, with trembling hands, shook another out of a packet. She remained standing while she lit the new one. She took a drag, as though gulping in oxygen on the top of Everest.

  ‘Look, I don’t know what you want, but I’ve already got enough grief.’

  The room was full of traces of her son. A poster of the Southampton football team. A Playstation with a scattering of CD-ROM games by the television. Stephen Kings and similar paperbacks littered on a shelf, along with a neat row of horror videos. A grubby pair of trainers left by the sofa, exactly where he’d kicked them off.

  Jude took the lead. There had been no discussion between them, but instinctively they fell into their roles. If Carole, with her threats of police involvement, was the Bad Cop, then Jude was going to be the Good Cop.

  ‘Yes, Mrs Spalding, I understand—’

  ‘It’s not “Mrs”. I never been married. But if you think that means I didn’t bring up Aaron right—’

  ‘We’re not saying that . . . Theresa. Can I call you “Theresa”?’

  Carole knew she could never have got away with it, but the woman snorted permission to Jude for her first name to be used. There was something in Jude’s manner which made such things possible.

  ‘Thank you. I’m Jude, and my friend’s called Carole.’

  This first use of the word ‘friend’ gave Carole a warm feeling. She wasn’t sure whether she was ready yet to reciprocate the compliment, but it was still nice to know that Jude thought of their relationship in that light.

  ‘And we’re both desperately sorry about what happened to Aaron.’

  ‘Why? What business is it of yours?’

  ‘It wouldn’t be our business,’ Carole responded sharply, ‘if you hadn’t come to my house and threatened me with a gun.’

  ‘You needn’t have worried. It wasn’t a real gun.’ Theresa Spalding crossed to a dresser and pulled the weapon out of a drawer. She chucked it across into Carole’s lap for inspection. No parts of the gun’s mechanism moved except for the trigger. A moulded replica. ‘Just a thing Aaron bought.’

  ‘Why did he buy it?’ asked Carole.

  ‘Not to do any harm!’ Theresa snapped. ‘He’d never have done an off-licence with it. He wasn’t like that. Aaron was just a little boy and little boys like playing with guns. That’s just a toy. He bought it as a toy!’

  ‘Yes.’ Jude’s voice smoothed down the flare-up. ‘But you can see why your use of the gun got us interested. What was so important to make you go to the house of someone you’d never met before and pull a gun on them – even if that gun was just a replica?’

  Theresa was sullenly silent.

  Carole picked up the baton of interrogation. ‘What interests me even more is the fact that you mentioned the body that I’d found on the beach that morning. How did you know about that?’

  Again there was no response.

  ‘Did Aaron tell you about the body?’ suggested Jude gently. ‘Had he seen it down there?’

  ‘Aaron didn’t have anything to do with that bloke dying! Aaron was a good boy . . .’ Once again, as in her television interview, these words unleashed a flood of tears from Theresa Spalding.

  Jude rose and, with an arm around her, led the woman to sit down. ‘Cry,’ she murmured. ‘It’s good. You need to cry.’

  Then, crouched beside the chair, she rocked the woman in her arms, crooning words whose sound was more important than their meaning. Carole watched the calming process with surprise and a degree of envy, knowing that she did not possess such skills.

  Gradually, the shudderings of Theresa Spalding’s body became tremors, which twitched away to nothing. She reached into the pocket of her jeans for a crumpled tissue and rubbed it against her nose.

  ‘Ready to talk?’ asked Jude.

  The woman nodded. To her surprise, Carole found Jude was looking at her, indicating that she was to take over for the next bit.

  ‘Right.’ Carole had taken her glasses off and was rubbing the lenses on the end of her scarf. It was a mannerism of which she was entirely unaware, but which had been noticed by all her Home Office colleagues, a little ritual she went through before any important interview. ‘We weren’t suggesting that Aaron had anything to do with the death of the man I found on the beach. We just want to know why you were so concerned about that body.’

  Theresa Spalding said nothing. Jude had calmed her, she didn’t mind Jude, but she was still resistant to the Bad Cop.

  ‘It was nothing to do with me. I didn’t even see the body. I had no connection with it.’

  ‘Apart from the connection through Aaron?’ said Jude.

  For a moment the woman’s face contorted. If the suggestion had come from Carole, she would have shouted some defiant response. Because Jude had spoken, though, she accepted it.

  ‘Yes. OK.’

  Carole picked up again. ‘You were particularly concerned about something in the dead man’s pocket.’

  Theresa nodded, still calm. ‘Yes. Aaron had told me about it. I was just afraid, if the police found it, they’d make the connection with him and come after my boy.’

  ‘What was it? What was in the man’s pocket?’

  She couldn’t face answering this question without another cigarette. Carole and Jude watched in silence while she fumbled with the packet and lit up again.

  ‘I don’t know what it was, but it was something with Aaron’s name on it. They all had to put their names on something. It was part of the test.’

  The Bad Cop and the Good Cop exchanged glances. The understanding passed that Jude should take over again. ‘Who’s “they”?’ she asked softly.

  ‘The other lads. The ones he was with when they found the body.’

  ‘Did they find the body at the Yacht Club?’

  Theresa nodded. ‘Aaron got in about four that morning. I started to bawl him out, but I could see what a bad way he was in. He’d been doing some stuff, I could tell. Weed, I suppose – maybe something stronger. Bit of smack perhaps. He was crying just like a kid. Wasn’t much more than a kid, really. Got in with the wrong company, that was all that was wrong with Aaron. What chance did he have, living with me, no man around . . . well, no man around for long? And me always on some medication for the depression and the panic attacks. I did try to look after him. He never got put into care. Times they wanted to, but I wouldn’t let them. I brought him up on my own, all on my own.’

  Jude nodded, soothing, commending the achievement. ‘So what did Aaron tell you?’

  ‘He said they’d been drinking. He didn’t say they’d been doing stuff too, but I knew they had. And then they decided to break into the Yacht Club . . . I don’t know what for . . . maybe a bit of thieving or just to smash the boats up. It wasn’t Aaron’s idea, it was the others. And they broke into one boat and they found this man’s body . . . He was dead. He was definitely dead before they found him. And they . . . I don’t know what they did to the body, or exactly what they put in his pockets, but it was some test . . . some kind of test . . .’

  ‘A test to prove how hard they were?’ Jude suggested. ‘How tough they were?’

  ‘Perhaps. I don’t know. Aaron’s been into a lot of this horror stuff, you know, books and films and stuff. A lot of that age are. Black m
agic stuff, you know. Maybe what they done to the body was something to do with that. You know what kids that age are like – terrified, but it doesn’t do to show they’re terrified, so they egg each other on to show how brave they are, and they do stupid things. Anyway, whatever they actually did, it ended up with them chucking the body over the sea wall into the Fether. That’s all Aaron told me, but he was in a bad way, a really bad way. He’d scared himself something terrible. He kept saying that the body would come back to life, that it was one of the Undead or some such crap, and that it’d come after him. And then he was afraid too the police was going to come and get him as soon as the body was found. I tried to calm him and put him to bed . . . Then I slept for a couple of hours, and Aaron was here when I woke up round eight . . . but later in the morning I went down the shops . . . and when I come back, he was gone . . .’ A sob came into her voice. ‘And that was the last time I saw my boy.

  ‘I still thought he was coming back then, but I wanted to do a kind of damage-limitation thing – stop anyone who knew anything about the body talking to the police. That’s why I come round your place with the gun.

  ‘But Aaron didn’t come back.’ She swallowed down the sob welling up in her throat. ‘It was the drugs. He got into bad company and they started him doing drugs . . . and Aaron couldn’t cope . . . not with that and the other things they done. I think he just couldn’t take it any more. He was convinced this Undead body was going to come after him and get him . . . so he must’ve jumped into the Fether at high tide Tuesday night . . . and that was the end.’

  She didn’t burst into tears this time, but stood, her body shaking with dry sobs.

  ‘Did you tell all this to the police?’ asked Carole.

  ‘No, not the half of it. I don’t want them thinking my boy’d been messing around with dead bodies.’

  ‘So why did you tell us?’

  ‘To stop you telling the police about the gun.’ There was a naked appeal in the bloodshot eyes she turned on Carole. ‘That was the only reason I turned it on you. I was trying to frighten you, so’s you wouldn’t tell the police what Aaron’d done. You won’t tell them, will you?’

  ‘No. We won’t tell them.’

  ‘What about his friends?’ asked Jude. ‘The ones he was with?’

  ‘Friends!’ Theresa Spalding spat out the word. ‘You don’t call someone who gets a sixteen-year-old boy into drugs a “friend”, do you?’

  ‘No, you don’t. But who were they?’

  ‘I don’t know for definite. There’s a bunch that gets together. Could have been any of them. But there’s one who I’m sure was involved. Older boy. Aaron worshipped him, thought he was the business all right. Asked him round here once or twice, but I turfed him out. I can always spot a bad ’un. I’m sure it was him who got Aaron into drugs.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Dylan.’

  ‘Surname?’

  ‘Don’t know. Never heard it.’

  ‘Any idea where he lives?’

  Theresa Spalding shook her head. ‘Somewhere local. Went to the same school as Aaron. Few years older, though, like I said. He’s left the school. Think he’s got a job now.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Carpet-fitter.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  ‘What could be more logical,’ asked Carole, ‘than that someone who has just moved into a new home should be looking to have it carpeted?’

  ‘Fine.’ Jude nodded cheerfully. ‘I’ll just think of it as an acting job.’

  ‘Have you ever acted?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Jude.

  ‘What – professionally?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘Oh?’ But, frustratingly, no further information was forthcoming. Carole swung the Renault into a parking bay.

  J. T. Carpets was a flat, rectangular building on a retail estate just outside East Preston. Nearby was a Sainsbury’s, a Do-It-All, a Halfords, a Petsmart, an MFI and a Toys ’R’ Us. Here the devoted homemaker could find everything he or she required – provided he or she possessed a car in which to cart it all away. (And in many cases, the devoted homemakers round the Fethering area arrived in huge four-wheel-drive off-road vehicles – essential equipment to negotiate the notorious gradients of the retail estate’s car parks.)

  Inside the outlet (on retail estates what used to be called ‘shops’ had all become ‘outlets’), they were greeted by the distinctive smell of rope and rubber which rises on the air wherever new floor coverings foregather. Variegated rolls and piles of carpets were laid out across the floor area. Sample books spread over tables. Small displays of corners of room demonstrated to the unimaginative how some of the carpets would look with furniture on them.

  There were few customers. Late afternoons in November were not a favourite time for buying carpets. With the run-up to Christmas, people had other purchases on their minds.

  As a result, there were plenty of staff available, and the two women were quickly accosted by a young man in a sharp suit and cartoon-character tie.

  ‘Good afternoon, ladies. What can I do for you?’

  Jude was straight into her cover story. ‘Yes, I’m looking for a hard-wearing carpet for my landing and staircase,’ she announced.

  ‘Certainly, madam. What sort of quality had you in mind?’

  ‘It’s not so much the quality that concerns me as the price. On a tightish budget, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Yes. Aren’t we all?’ He chuckled automatically. ‘Well, with carpets as with most things, you get what you pay for, but we do have some very competitive offers which you’ll find—’

  ‘Excuse me, do you have a toilet?’ Carole broke in.

  ‘What?’ The young man was totally thrown.

  ‘A toilet. I need to go to the toilet.’

  ‘Oh. Well, we don’t have public toilets.’

  ‘You must have staff facilities.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘I’m desperate. It’s my age.’

  The young man was so embarrassed by this that he immediately called over one of his female colleagues. Jude hid her grin as Carole was escorted out to the office area at the back.

  ‘Now, your cheapest option,’ the young man continued, blanking out the interruption, ‘would be a hard-wearing cord . . .’

  Jude listened, occasionally throwing in doubts and questions. She moved easily – and with some relish – into the role of a dithery little woman unable to make up her mind. She invented a husband called Kevin whom she’d have to consult about the various options. Had Carole not returned from the lavatory at that point, she would soon have invented a couple of children and an ageing grannie whose opinions also required canvassing.

  ‘Better?’

  ‘Much better, thank you,’ said Carole, showing Jude a covert thumbs-up sign. ‘It’s awful when you get taken suddenly like that, isn’t it? So embarrassing.’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘How’re you doing?’

  ‘This young man has been extremely helpful. He’s showed me all kinds of possibilities. I think what I’d better do now is go home and discuss them all with Kevin.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Carole. It wasn’t until they were back in the car that she asked, ‘Who the hell’s Kevin?’

  ‘A necessary fiction. But never mind him. Have you found out what you wanted to?’

  ‘Yes. Dylan is scheduled to be fitting carpets in a house on the Shorelands Estate tomorrow morning. For a Mrs Grant-Edwards. House is called Bali-Hai. I’ve memorized all the details.’

  ‘How did you find out?’

  ‘There was a duty-schedule board up in the office. Wipe-clean calendar thing with staff names and addresses where they were going to be working. I thought there would be,’ Carole concluded smugly.

  ‘Well, congratulations. Very convincing. For a moment back there I thought you really did want to go to the loo.’ Jude was silent for a moment. ‘Mind you, they might have told you where to find him if you’d just aske
d.’

  ‘Yes,’ Carole agreed. And then she did something that she did very rarely. She giggled. ‘But the way I did it was much more fun.’

  It was six o’clock and the Crown and Anchor had just opened. Carole had initially demurred at the idea of having a drink, but Jude had insisted they needed to talk to Ted Crisp as part of their investigation.

  He was going round, wiping down the tables and emptying ashtrays into a bucket.

  ‘Have to do everything yourself, I see,’ Jude observed.

  ‘That’s right. It’s tough at the top. Bar staff don’t come on till seven during the winter.’

  ‘And in the summer?’

  ‘Summers I’m open all day. That’s when I make my money. From all those dads sneaking off and leaving the mums on the beach with the kiddies.’ He took up his post behind the bar. ‘What can I do you for? Two large whites, is it?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ said Jude, and Carole didn’t even make a token murmur of dissent. Instead, she moved straight to the purpose of their visit. ‘Ted,’ she began, and paused for a nanosecond of shock at the knowledge that she, Carole Seddon, was actually standing at the bar of the Crown and Anchor and calling the landlord ‘Ted’, ‘you heard about that poor boy who was drowned the other day?’

  ‘That Aaron Spalding? Course I did. Couldn’t miss it. All over the telly, for a start. And lots of the old farts in here was talking about it and all . . . moaning on about young kids today getting messed up with drugs . . . and saying that kind of thing wouldn’t happen if they brought back National Service.’

  Carole wondered for a moment whether it had been Denis Woodville repeating his opinion, but decided it was probably a universal sentiment among the old codgers of Fethering.

  ‘Did you know him at all? Aaron? Did he ever come in here?’

  ‘Well, he shouldn’t have done, because he was underage, but yes, I seen him in here a few times. He’d come in with a bunch of them. They’d sit in that dark corner over there, hoping I wouldn’t clock them, and send up the one who looked oldest with a shipping order for drinks. They tried it on a few times, but I was wise to them. I’m not going to risk my licence for a bunch of kids.’