The Death on the Downs. Simon Brett
been aware of much happening in Fethering, certainly. Though, according to the Fethering Observer, plans for a new entertainment complex on the seafront have just been turned down. That’s about the biggest news, I think.’
‘What does an “entertainment complex” mean? Slot machines, arcade games, that kind of stuff?’
‘Probably. Very un-Fethering, anyway. The residents here don’t want anything to change, ever. Most of them moved to Fethering because they were looking for a place where time stood still.’
Jude tossed her loose bundle of blonde hair. ‘That’s not why I moved here. And surely it’s not why you moved here?’
‘Well . . .’ Carole thought about it. ‘I think it probably is why I moved here in the first place. That illusion people who live in London have that values in the country have more permanence, more validity perhaps. And, after David left me, it’s maybe why I stayed here. I didn’t want any more change then, I didn’t want an environment that threatened any more surprises. Mind you, I don’t think it’s why I’m still in Fethering now.’
Jude grinned. ‘I’m sure it isn’t. Becoming a bit of a tearaway these days, aren’t you, Carole?’
‘Hardly.’ But she was flattered by the idea. Jude seemed so different, so unconventional, so alien in the all-enveloping conformity of Fethering, that to be described by her as a ‘tearaway’ was rather flattering. Even if, as Carole feared, it wasn’t really true.
‘Anyway, that’s it, is it? Planning permission for an entertainment complex turned down. Nothing more exotic? No New Age travellers’ convention at the Yacht Club? No ramraiders emptying all the stock out of Allinstore – assuming, of course, that they could find any? Nothing else to set the weak hearts of Fethering aflutter?’
‘Nothing in Fethering, no,’ said Carole.
Inside, she felt a little bubble of excitement. It was the feeling she had identified in Graham Forbes in the Hare and Hounds on the Friday evening – the knowledge that she had sensational news to impart. The same news as he had had, in fact. And, like Graham Forbes, Carole was going to deliver it at her own pace.
‘So where?’ asked Jude, on cue.
‘Weldisham.’
‘Ah.’
‘Ted Crisp said you’d got friends up there.’
‘I know some people, yes.’ But before Carole had time for the automatic supplementary question, Jude had pressed on, ‘What, though? What’s been happening up there?’
‘A lot of police round Weldisham on Friday,’ said Carole, deliberately enigmatic.
‘What brought them there?’
‘I did,’ she replied proudly.
‘How?’
Carole realized she’d strung out her revelation long enough. To continue the teasing would be merely tiresome. ‘I found some human bones,’ she said, ‘in a barn on the Downs.’
The rest was quickly told – how she’d called the police, her conversation with Detective Sergeant Baylis in the Hare and Hounds.
‘Have you heard from the police since?’ asked Jude.
‘No. Sergeant Baylis has got my number, so presumably he’ll be in touch when he needs to be.’
‘And you’re sure they were human bones?’
‘I’m not a pathologist, but they looked like it to me. And, as I said, a SOCO team was called for. They’re not going to do that if the victim is an animal, are they?’
Jude looked thoughtful. ‘Nor if they’re dealing with a natural death . . .’
‘However natural the death might have been, you’d be hard pushed to explain away what was done to the bones post mortem as a natural phenomenon.’
‘True.’ There was a sparkle in her eye as Jude took a large swallow of wine. ‘This is potentially rather exciting, isn’t it?’
‘Who knows? It depends rather on what the police come up with.’
‘I’d have thought it depends on what we come up with.’
‘Jude, we don’t know for sure there’s been a crime. We haven’t even got a definite identification of the victim.’
‘Your tone of voice suggests you do have some kind of identification, even if not a definite one.’
‘Well, only pub gossip. I stayed in the Hare and Hounds after Sergeant Baylis had gone, and the manager and an old bloke in there said they reckoned they knew who it was.’
‘Who?’
‘Apparently there was a girl in the village who’d gone missing.’
The sparkle in Jude’s eye was quickly extinguished. Her voice was tense as she asked, ‘Did the man say the
girl’s name?’
‘Yes,’ Carole replied. ‘It was Tamsin Lutteridge.’ All the colour drained out of Jude’s face.
Chapter Seven
It turned out that she had known the girl. ‘Her mother, Gillie, brought her to me.’
‘Why?’
‘To see if I could help.’
‘Help with what?’
Deliberately using the present tense, Jude said, ‘Tamsin is suffering from ME.’
‘Should I know what that is?’
‘Myalgic encephalomyelitis. Though it’s not called that now. I just thought you were more likely to have heard of ME than anything else.’
‘Though, as you see, I hadn’t.’
‘No. Was known for a while as “malingerer’s disease” or “yuppie flu”.’
Graham Forbes’s comments about Tamsin Lutteridge giving up her job and ‘coming back to sponge off her parents’ suddenly made sense. ‘Oh yes, I’ve heard of that,’ said Carole.
She had been brought up in the ‘snap out of it’ school of mental health treatment, and too much of that attitude must have come across in her voice, because Jude said firmly, ‘It’s a real illness, no question. Also called “post-viral syndrome”. Most recent name I heard for it was “chronic fatigue syndrome”, but there’s probably something new by now. Doctors – those who believe it exists, and there are still some, I’m afraid, who don’t – are divided on the proper treatment, anyway. All kinds of therapies are recommended, though the results are very variable.’
‘But why did Tamsin and her mother come to see you about it?’
‘Because I do some healing.’
Carole could not have been more surprised if Jude had said she did bungee-jumping. ‘Healing? You mean all that laying-on-of-hands nonsense?’
‘Call it nonsense if you like. It sometimes works.’
‘Yes, I’m sure it does, but . . . but . . .’
Carole tried not to think about illness. She knew what could be treated by aspirin, and she knew what needed a visit to the doctor for a prescription of antibiotics. Certain conditions required surgical procedures, and she devoutly hoped she would never experience any of them. Her attitude to alternative or complementary medicine was that it was all ‘mumbo-jumbo’.
‘Anyway, Gillie brought Tamsin to me, because she thought I might be able to help.’
‘By “help” you mean