The Body on the Beach

Thirty-Six

“My friend Carole and I have been working it out, you see,” Jude explained. “We’ve got these two deaths and a disappearance. There’s the body you found, Tanya – the one you refuse to tell me more about. There’s Aaron Spalding, who committed suicide. And then there’s the dentist, Rory Turnbull, who we’re meant to think has committed suicide.”

The girl had looked frankly bored throughout the speech, but the last words lit a spark of interest. “What do you mean by that?”

“You know Rory Turnbull, don’t you, Tanya?”

“Sure.” She was about to say more, but changed her mind. Sullenly, she went on, “He was Treasurer down the Yacht Club. I saw him there quite often.”

“And he sometimes gave you a lift from Brighton to Fethering for your evening shifts, didn’t he?”

She was surprised. “How’d you know that?”

Jude shrugged. “You can find out most things if you ask around enough. Tanya, when did you last see Rory Turnbull?”

The girl coloured. “I don’t know. I finished working at the Yacht Club Friday before last…Round then, I suppose.”

“You’re sure you haven’t seen him since?”

“No. Where would I have seen him?”

The answers sounded clumsy, but then the girl’s normal manner was clumsy. Jude couldn’t be absolutely certain that she was lying.

“Anyway,” Tanya went on, “I couldn’t have seen him the last few days, ‘cause he gone missing, hasn’t he?”

“How do you know that?”

“It’s common knowledge.”

“Common knowledge in Fethering. I wouldn’t have thought it got talked about much in Brighton.”

“I’m still in touch with people from Fethering. Denis Woodville told me.”

“I see.”

Petulantly, the girl kicked at the carpet with one black-booted foot. “Anyway, what’s all this about? Where’s it all leading? Is there something you definitely know about this body I saw on the beach?”

“There are two things I definitely know. One is that there is a connection between the body on the beach and Rory Turnbull. And the other is that Rory Turnbull is still alive.”

“Well, you’re right in at least one of those.”

The bathroom door had opened silently and there was a third person in the room.

Rory Turnbull.