The Torso in the Town

Twenty-One

The next day, the Saturday, the rain continued, and the promise of a good summer now seemed to have been a false one. Carole and Jude monitored the media all through the day but there was nothing on until the early evening television news.

The young female presenter, whose smile worked independently of the sense of what she was saying, announced, “Police reveal identity of Fedborough corpse,” and cut to a senior police officer who had long ago had the smile trained out of him. He was at a press conference, where he announced gravely, “The limbless body discovered two weeks ago in a house in Fedborough, West Sussex, has been identified after extensive forensic examination. It belonged to Mrs Virginia Hargreaves, a former resident of the town.”

As the presenter, smiling inappropriately, moved on to the fortunes of the local football teams, Jude crossed the room to turn down the television sound. Carole kept on saying she ought to get a remote control, but that kind of thing was low on Jude’s priorities.

The two women looked at each other. “So the gossips of Fedborough were right,” said Carole.

“ Some of them. I’m sure at least as many had other theories about the torso’s identity and have been proved wrong.”

“Still, at this moment Fiona Lister is no doubt rubbing her hands with glee and waiting to hear the news of Roddy Hargreaves’s arrest.”

“Or is Alan Burnethorpe shaking in his shoes because Virginia Haig’ eaves was his mistress and he killed her in a fit of jealous passion!” Jude’s impersonation of Andrew Wragg on the last few words was uncannily accurate.

“They were a strange lot last night, weren’t they?”

“Do you think, to an outsider, they’d seem any stranger than a group of Fethering locals?”

“Maybe not.” Carole narrowed her pale blue eyes with concentration. “So clearly, to solve this case, we have to concentrate on the period round Virginia Hargreaves’s disappearance.”

“If the case still needs solving.”

“What do you mean, Jude?”

“I’d have thought, now the police know who it was that died, they’d be pretty close to knowing how she died.”

“And who – if anyone – caused her death.”

“Even if she wasn’t murdered,” Jude reminded her friend gently, “someone cut off Virginia Hargreaves’s arms and legs.”

“Yes…” Carole shook her head slowly from side to side. “Things don’t look very good for Roddy.”

Later that evening she found out that things looked even worse for Roddy. Debbie Carlton rang with the news that his dead body had been found floating in the Fether.