The Body on the Beach

Thirty-Four

There was no sign of Ted Crisp by the entrance gate of the Fethering Yacht Club, where they had agreed to meet. Carole looked at her watch and saw with irritation that it was already ten past seven. She had never been late for anything in her life and she couldn’t understand why everyone couldn’t be like her. There was nothing difficult involved. It was simply a matter of leaving enough time – in fact, a matter of being organized.

Her earlier prejudices about Ted Crisp started bubbling back to the surface. The landlord of the Crown and Anchor certainly wasn’t organized. No doubt, over a few drinks with his regulars, he’d completely forgotten the arrangement he’d made to meet Carole. The last thing you could expect from someone with a background as a stand-up comedian was reliability.

Still, she comforted herself, it might be just as well there was only one of them doing the first bit of her search. More than one might attract too much attention. When she fixed to meet Ted Crisp, she had forgotten that at seven o’clock in the evening the Vice-Commodore and his cronies would be setting the world to rights in the Fethering Yacht Club bar. She had once or twice peered covertly upwards and been relieved to see no one actually sitting in the window. Hopefully, on a winter’s evening, they’d all be clustered round the bar counter. But there were undoubtedly members up there, and they did represent a security hazard.

Of course, there was nothing to stop her from marching upstairs and telling the Vice-Commodore what she proposed to do. She wasn’t planning anything illegal – rather the reverse, it was a very public-spirited act. But such an approach to Denis Woodville would be too public. Carole didn’t want to raise a hue and cry. In the unlikely event of her actually finding Nick, she didn’t want him to be frightened off by too many people. The boy was in a very fragile emotional state…if he was still alive…and Carole had to make herself believe that he was still alive.

She lifted the latch on the white gate that led into the Yacht Club’s forecourt. It seemed to make a disproportionately loud click in the winter night and an equally loud one when she closed it. The sea was a long way down the beach, its rustling muted. The only sound seemed to be the harsh scrape of Carole’s boots on the cement.

She could have found her way to the right boat blindfold. The events of the previous week, and the images they had spawned, led her inexorably towards Brigadoon II. She trembled a little as she approached. The chill she felt had nothing to do with the weather.

Carole stopped, and the whole world seemed very still. She cocked an eye up towards the bar-room’s broad window, but her luck held. There was still no outline of anyone observing her.

It was when she took the next step that she heard the noise.

A low keening, like that of some small, injured animal.

And it definitely came from inside Brigadoon II.

Carole knew how pivotal her next actions would be. She couldn’t be sure what she would find inside the boat, but she had a good idea of what it might be. She must be very cautious.

She remembered exactly how Jude and she had turned the end of the cover over the previous Wednesday. She didn’t want to use the torch, but her eyes were becoming accustomed to the gloom. The cut rope had not been repaired. Everything was as it had been.

Carole held the switched-off torch high in her right hand, estimating the direction of its beam. At the moment she flipped back the boat’s cover, she pressed the on-button.

Blearily frozen in its beam was Nick’s face. He looked about ten years old. Tears coursed down his cheeks and still the low, thin wail poured painfully out of him. He was curled in a foetal position against the fibreglass of the hull. What had been hard ice was now a pool of water which had soaked through his school uniform.

“Nick,” said Carole, as gently as she knew how. Jude would be doing this better, her mind kept saying. Jude has a better touch. I’m not good with people.

She forced herself to banish these thoughts. They weren’t relevant. Jude might do it better, but Jude wasn’t there. Carole Seddon was the one facing the terrified boy. Carole Seddon was the one who would have to cope with the situation. There was no alternative.

“Nick,” she murmured again.

The boy squinted into the light. “Who are you?” he sobbed.

“My name’s Carole. I’m a friend of Jude, who you talked to last week.” He made no response. “Your mother’s been terribly worried. She really wants to see you, Nick.”

But this was the wrong thing to say. A new tremor of sobbing came over the boy. Through it, Carole could hear him saying, “No, I can’t see her. I can’t see Mummy. Not after what I’ve done.”

“You haven’t done anything so terrible,” said Carole, feeling in her words for the soothing timbre she’d heard in Jude’s voice. “Nothing that can’t be forgiven.”

“You don’t know what I’ve done.”

“True. All I know is that you need to go home. To see Mummy.”

She stretched out her hand over the transom of the boat and, to her huge gratification, saw the boy slowly uncurl himself, rise and step towards her. He put his icy hand in hers. Carole braced herself to take the strain, as Nick stepped on to the back of the boat, preparing to jump down. Maybe I’m not so bad at this people business after all, thought Carole with a little glow of pride.

It happened in a split second. Still in the air between boat and cement, he shook his hand free and landed facing away from her. He hit the ground running and weaved his way through the rows of boats towards the Fether.

“Help!” shouted Carole up towards the clubroom. “Help!” Now she wished she’d brought every member of the Yacht Club with her to trap the boy and seal off his escape.

Dropping her torch in confusion, she ran as fast as she could, but Nick had a start and was a lot faster. She saw him vault over the far fence and rush towards the sea wall.

By the time Carole, panting with effort, reached the railings, Nick Kent was standing swaying on one of the blue fishermen’s chests on the sea wall. Is that coincidence, Carole wondered, or does he know something about the whereabouts of the body?

Such speculation would have to wait. She heard behind her the clatter of feet down wooden steps and men shouting, as she called out, “It’s all right, Nick! Don’t panic! Everything’s all right!”

But the hue and cry she’d feared had started. One of the Yacht Club members had found a powerful spotlight, which he focused on the trembling boy.

That was the final straw. Nick Kent recoiled from the beam, as if the light had the physical power to push him.

Then he turned away and, trailing a thin scream, disappeared over the sea wall into the Fether.