The Death on the Downs. Simon Brett

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СКАЧАТЬ love you to come and meet my wife, Irene, at some point. As I say, we’re just down the lane. Warren Lodge. We always give a little dinner party Friday nights. Maybe we could inveigle you along to one of them?’

      ‘I’d like that very much.’ Carole was slightly surprised by the offer, but certainly not averse to the idea. Her Fethering social circle was narrow and not wildly interesting. It would be a pleasure to meet some new people, particularly if they were all as charming and cultured as Graham Forbes.

      They exchanged phone numbers and he left for his lunch. Carole readdressed her crossword. Instantly she got her first solution.

      The clue was: ‘A sailor’s in brass, for example, and bony (10).’

      She wrote in METATARSAL.

Chapter Nine

      Jude had been to the Lutteridges’ house before, and the first time she had seen its interior she had been impressed by how ‘finished’ everything was. All the paintwork gleamed like new, the carpets might have been laid the day before, the furniture just delivered from the showroom. Jude, whose own style of décor was ‘junk-shop casual’, was amazed how anyone could keep a home looking like that. She could understand that a museum might maintain such standards, but couldn’t equate it to an environment in which people actually lived. When she first went there, the fantasy grew within her that somewhere in the house was a glory hole, a haven of dusty squalor into which were tumbled all those miscellaneous objects which lend character to the average dwelling. But the more time she spent with the Lutteridges, the more that fantasy dwindled. There was no glory hole; the house was perfect throughout.

      Gillie Lutteridge also looked as if she had stepped straight out of a brochure. Jude had worked out, from hints and date references in conversation, that Tamsin’s mother must be in her late forties, but the smoothness of her made-up face and the immaculate shaping of her blonded hair could have placed her anywhere between thirty and fifty.

      She didn’t seem to possess any ordinary clothes, like most people did. Her garments came straight out of the brochure too – and a pretty up-market brochure at that. She wore them in a way that defied creasing. If she hadn’t seen it happening with her own eyes, Jude would have sworn Gillie Lutteridge never sat down.

      That morning, she was wearing a loose ash-grey cashmere sweater, black and white tweed trousers with ruler-edge creases and gleaming black shoes with gold buckles.

      In spite of her deterrently flawless exterior, Jude got on very well with Tamsin’s mother. Gillie was sensitive, compassionate, warm; she possessed all of the qualities that her appearance seemed to make unlikely. And, from the moment it first manifested itself, she had been deeply anxious about her daughter’s illness.

      But that Monday morning she seemed no more anxious than she had been when Tamsin disappeared from the family house four months previously. So unworried did Gillie Lutteridge seem that Jude wondered whether she had actually heard the rumours about the bones in South Welling Barn. Having no skills in prevarication, that was the first thing Jude asked her about.

      ‘Yes, I heard,’ Gillie replied. ‘But that’s just village gossip. I’m sure the bones have nothing to do with Tamsin. Tamsin’s not dead.’

      The words were spoken with firmness and a degree of calm. But was that just the desperate resolution of a mother unable to believe her child was no longer alive?

      ‘Still, it must be hurtful for you even to hear people make the suggestion.’

      Gillie Lutteridge shrugged her perfectly tailored shoulders. ‘People are not very bright – certainly not here in Weldisham,’ she said. ‘They tend to go for the obvious. A dead body’s found. A girl’s missing. If you haven’t got much imagination, then you assume the two must be related.’

      ‘Have the police talked to you?’

      ‘Yes. Nice young man, Lennie Baylis. I’ve often seen him round the village. I think he even used to live here. Anyway, he came. He was very reassuring.’

      ‘What, you mean they’ve identified the bones and they definitely know they’re not Tamsin’s?’

      ‘No. Apparently that’ll take a bit longer. The . . .’ For a moment her equilibrium was shaken by the thought of what she was saying. ‘The . . . remains are at the police laboratories. But Lennie said there was nothing so far to connect them with Tamsin. There was no reason for us to panic.’

      ‘It looks as if panicking is the last thing you’re doing.’

      ‘I’m very optimistic by nature, Jude. I’m positive Tamsin’s still alive. Miles, though . . . Miles is taking it rather hard.’ Gillie Lutteridge sank into an irreproachable armchair, giving for the first time some hint of the strain that she was under. ‘Miles sees this as kind of . . . the end of a process.’

      ‘What process?’

      ‘The process that began with Tamsin’s illness. That hit him very hard. Everything had always gone well for us. We’d been fortunate. Tamsin had always done well . . . school, university, walked straight into her job in magazine publishing. When she got ill, it was the first reverse in her life, in our lives too, I suppose. Miles couldn’t really cope with the idea. He saw it as a reproach, almost as if it was his fault.’

      ‘Of course, he never really believed in Tamsin’s illness, did he?’

      ‘No, he thought it was psychosomatic, that she was malingering. Everything’s very black and white for Miles.’

      ‘And very black at the moment?’

      Gillie nodded. ‘It’s dreadful to see him like this. He’s always been so positive. He’s not gone into work today. The weekend was dreadful. Ever since Lennie Baylis told us about what had been found in South Welling Barn, Miles has just been twitching round the house, waiting for the phone to ring.’

      ‘Is he here now?’

      ‘In the garden. Pretending to be busy. He won’t stay out there long.’

      As if to prove her point, Miles Lutteridge appeared in the doorway. He looked at Jude with undisguised disappointment. ‘Oh, it’s you.’

      The husband manifested the same brochure-like quality as his house and his wife. He was expensively dressed in a pale lilac jumper with a designer logo which hid the designer logo on the cream polo shirt he wore underneath. The creases in his beige trousers were as sharp as his wife’s and his brown slip-on shoes carried the same shine.

      The only things that would have kept him out of a leisurewear catalogue were his thinning hair on top and the expression of grey anxiety on his face.

      ‘Good morning, Miles,’ said Jude.

      She knew he didn’t like her – or perhaps just didn’t trust her. She was too forcible a reminder of his daughter’s illness, the very existence of which he sought to deny. He had met her once or twice when she’d come up for exploratory chats with Tamsin and hadn’t disguised the fact that he thought her only one step away from charlatanism.

      ‘I’m very sorry to hear about the rumours going round the village,’ Jude continued. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing to do with Tamsin.’

      ‘What СКАЧАТЬ