The Torso in the Town. Simon Brett

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      ‘Oh, just a minute,’ she said.

      Carole hovered by the pub door, feeling more than ever a social outcast, as Jude went back to the group of men.

      ‘Pleasure to meet you all,’ she said. ‘And it’s suddenly struck me . . . are you the James Lister who I’ve heard does Town Walks round Fedborough . . .?’

      He beamed. ‘The very same, at your service. Always at the service of the ladies,’ he smirked.

      ‘When do they happen?’

      ‘Sunday morning at eleven. I always service the ladies at eleven o’clock on a Sunday morning.’ He winked in a manner which was intended to be roguish rather than repellent, but failed to achieve its object. ‘Allow me to present my card.’

      ‘Thank you very much,’ said Jude. ‘I’d really like to find out more about Fedborough.’

      ‘Let’s go the long way round,’ she said when they got outside the pub. The June day was dwindling to twilight, but the tall frontages of Fedborough’s houses still looked unimpeachably respectable.

      ‘Did you find out much?’

      ‘Not a lot. You could have heard anything I did find out.’

      ‘Yes.’ A blush suffused Carole’s pale cheeks. ‘I’m sorry. There are certain situations when . . .’

      ‘It’s all right,’ said Jude easily. ‘Don’t worry. Roddy Hargreaves denied knowing the torso was there while he owned the house.’

      ‘Presumably he would have made that denial, whether it was true or even if he had killed and dismembered the body himself.’

      ‘Exactly. Still, we’ve made contact. If we need to follow up—’ Jude looked at the card in her hand. ‘Do you fancy doing a guided walk round Fedborough on Sunday morning?’

      ‘Well, I . . . What would be achieved by that?’

      Jude shrugged. ‘Bit of background. Get to know the place. Find out perhaps what horrors lurk behind all this middle-class respectability.’

      ‘All right. I’m game for it. Why’re we going this way?’

      ‘This is Pelling Street, which in the perverse way of English country towns is not where one will find the Pelling Arms, that being in the High Street, but is, however, where one will find Pelling House.’

      ‘Ah. We’re joining the ghouls, are we?’

      ‘If you want to put it that way, Carole, yes. Though I doubt if there’ll be many of those around now. Unless the police release more information soon, I think this murder will be very much less than a nine days’ wonder.’

      ‘The gossip won’t stop.’

      ‘Not in Fedborough, no. But I don’t think many more out-of-towners will bother to come down here in search of cheap thrills.’

      They were now within sight of the house. A Land Rover Discovery was parked opposite. ‘Ah, they’re back,’ said Jude.

      ‘Mm?’

      ‘Kim and Grant. That’s their car. They must have been allowed back into the house.’

      They walked past the red-brick façade and the fine white portico without breaking step. No bloodthirsty onlookers stood drooling outside. There was no police tape, no notices visible. Pelling House had lost all signs of its recent notoriety and reverted to being just an expensive, respectable dwelling in Fedborough.

      ‘Police didn’t really stay long,’ Carole observed thoughtfully. ‘Body discovered on Saturday night and by Tuesday the house is no longer sealed up. Well, maybe the cellar’s still closed, but otherwise the police would appear to have finished their on-site investigations.’

      ‘So, from the knowledge of their ways you gleaned in the Home Office, what would you say that indicated?’

      ‘One of two things,’ Carole replied. ‘Perhaps they’ve found no signs of anything untoward in the rest of the house and therefore concluded that the body was either killed in the cellar or moved to the cellar post mortem. So the cellar is the only part of the house they’re continuing to examine . . .’

      ‘Or?’

      ‘Or the police have already reached their conclusions as to who the torso belonged to, and how she was killed. Which would mean that their investigation is at an end.’

Chapter Ten

      The beach was the only place in Fethering where Carole Seddon felt secure. Ted Crisp never went on the beach. Indeed, he managed to conduct his whole life as if ignorant of the fact that Fethering was on the coast. His base was inside the Crown and Anchor, and for all the difference its location made to his lifestyle, the pub could have been in any part of the British Isles.

      To get to the beach, though, now involved a detour for Carole. The direct route from High Tor went too close for comfort to the Crown and Anchor, so, resisting Gulliver’s pulling the other way in his enthusiasm to be amongst the delectable smells of the shoreline, she walked determinedly along to the banks of the Fether, and followed the river to the shingle by Fethering Yacht Club.

      Carole’s spirits were low again that Wednesday morning. The detour made her feel foolish, bringing back the bilious taste of all her other foolishness. And the revival of excitement brought on by thinking about the Fedborough torso now seemed another example of over-reaction. She and Jude had so little to go on, so little information, there was no point in even thinking about the mystery. The fact that the Roxbys had been allowed back into Pelling House probably meant that the police already had the investigation neatly tied up with a bow on top.

      And now she couldn’t even discuss it. With characteristic casualness, as they parted the evening before, Jude had said, ‘I’m going to be away for a few days. Back Saturday, I should think. So hope we’re on for the Town Walk on Sunday.’

      It was typical. Jude was always making remarks like that, and never backing them up with any detail. Where was she going to be ‘away for a few days’? Was it work or pleasure? Who was she going to be with? Would that be work or pleasure? But, as ever, before these supplementary questions could be posed, the moment had passed.

      What increased Carole’s frustration was the knowledge that if she had managed to ask any of them, Jude would have given straight, truthful answers. The lack of precision which surrounded her life was not a result of deliberate concealment; but opportunities to ask about its basics were rare and, when they arose, seemed to flash by. After many months of what, by Carole’s standards, was close friendship, the sum total of the facts she knew about her neighbour was distressingly small.

      Jude had done a lot of varied things in her life. She had almost certainly been married at some point, and had had a lot of lovers. She might still have a lot of lovers, for all Carole knew. Jude had possibly once been an actress, she may have worked in catering, she’d certainly lived abroad for a while. She showed sympathy for New Age ideas, and may have done some СКАЧАТЬ