The Body on the Beach

Five

Carole was too affronted to feel any fear. “Put that thing away!” she ordered. “What on earth do you think you’re doing? This is Fethering, not Miami Beach.”

The woman waved the gun threateningly. “You shut up! I think you’d better cooperate with me.”

Carole rose from her seat and moved towards the telephone. “I’m going to call the police.”

“Do that and I’ll shoot you!”

The words stopped her in her tracks. Carole turned to look at the woman, assessing the risk of the threat being carried out.

Something she saw in the wild, darting eyes told her that the danger was real. The woman’s expression wasn’t natural. Perhaps she was under the influence of some drug. Indeed, that would make sense of her erratic behaviour since she’d arrived at the house. She wasn’t entirely in control of her actions.

Which being the case, she was quite capable of using the gun. Carole returned silently to her seat.

“So tell me what you did see,” the woman demanded.

“I didn’t see anything other than what I’ve told you about.”

Apparently coolness wasn’t the best response. It seemed only to inflame the woman more. Waving the gun with increasing – and rather disturbing – abandon, she said, “Cut the crap. You’re nothing in this. You get shot, it doesn’t matter. So long as the police never find out who moved the body.”

Her speech was slurring now, becoming something of a ramble. But that didn’t make its content any less disturbing. Being shot by someone coherent or being shot by someone rambling didn’t make a lot of difference, Carole realized. You were still dead.

“They’ll never find out from me,” Carole said calmly, “because I don’t know who moved the body.”

The woman looked puzzled. “Whose body? My son’s body? My son’s not dead.” Then, with another worryingly casual wave of the gun, she slurred, “You could be lying.”

“Yes, I could be, but I’m not.”

“Does this gun frighten you?”

“Of course it does. I’m not stupid.”

“Sometimes,” the woman maundered on, “people get shot just to keep them quiet. To make sure they don’t say anything.”

This is ridiculous, thought Carole. I am sitting in my own sitting room – in Fethering of all places – and a woman I’ve never seen before is threatening to shoot me with a gun. People will never believe me when I tell them. On the other hand, of course, I may not be around to tell them.

Though her brain was working fast, her body was paralysed. Carole could do nothing. The gun was still pointing straight at her and a new, dangerous focus had come into the woman’s eyes when…the front doorbell rang.

There was a momentary impasse. Then the woman hissed, “Don’t answer it.”

“But everyone knows I’m here. The lights are on. If I don’t answer, they’ll get suspicious and call the police.”

The barrel wavered while the woman weighed this up. Then she relented. Flicking the gun towards the door, she said, “See who it is. Don’t invite them in, though.”

“All right. I won’t.”

As she went towards the front door, Carole reflected wryly on Gulliver’s qualities as a guard dog. Two people – one at least of whom was carrying a gun – had rung her front doorbell in the previous half-hour. And Gulliver hadn’t even stirred from his cosy doze by the Aga.

Carole opened the front door. The frost had set in fiercely while she’d been indoors and the cold air scoured her face. In the cone of light spreading from the overhead lamp stood Jude. Her blonde hair was covered by a floppy hat and she appeared to be wearing some kind of poncho.

“Carole, hi. I wondered whether you fancied going down to the Crown and Anchor for a drink?”

Under normal circumstances, the knee-jerk response would have been, “No, thank you. I’m afraid I’m not a ‘pub person’.” But the presence of a gun-toting, possibly drug-crazed woman in her sitting room disqualified the circumstances from being normal. “Well…”

But that was all she had time to say. There was the clatter of a door behind her. Carole rushed back to find her sitting room empty. The sound of the back door slamming shut drew her through into the kitchen. That too was empty. From his position at the foot of the Aga, Gulliver looked up blearily. A real help, he was.

She moved with caution towards the window over the sink and peered into the encroaching darkness. There was no sign of the woman, but the gate at the end of the garden flapped open.

Carole turned back to see Jude framed in the kitchen doorway. That wasn’t the Fethering way, her instincts told her. To come into someone’s house without being invited, that wouldn’t do at all.

“So what about a drink?” asked Jude casually.

To her surprise, Carole Seddon found her lips forming the words, “Yes. Yes, what a good idea.”