Bones Under The Beach Hut

Chapter Twenty-Four

It turned out to be remarkably simple. Gray provided Carole and Jude with a new mobile number for Mark Dennis. The moment the Czeskys had left Woodside Cottage, Jude, trembling with excitement, keyed it into her phone.

A brief ringing tone was quickly replaced by a message informing her that the phone she was calling was switched off. She tried again. With exactly the same result.

Neither Carole nor Jude could disguise their disappointment. To have come so close to making contact with Mark Dennis and then to . . .

'I'll keep trying it,' said Jude defiantly.

'Yes, of course. He'll answer it soon.'

But neither of them really believed the optimism in Carole's words.

Smalting was the lead story on the television news that evening. The human remains that had been found buried under a beach hut there had been identified by the police. They had belonged to a small boy called Robin Cutter.