The Torso in the Town

Twenty-Two

And, so far as Fedborough was concerned, that was it. The mystery was solved. Three and a half years previously, Roddy Hargreaves had killed his wife, dismembered her, and hidden her torso in the cellar of their home, Felling House. When he knew the police were close to identifying the body, he had taken his own life. Case closed, so far as Fedborough was concerned.

On the Saturday evening Jude received a phone call that could have suggested this was the official view as well. Harry Roxby was on the line, elaborately conspiratorial, living up to the hilt his role as private investigator. “The police came again today,” he whispered.

“Oh?”

“They took the seals off the cellar door.”

“The ones you’d sawn through?”

“Yes.”

“Did you get into trouble over that?”

“No. I was dead lucky. One of the cops was all set to bawl me out, but Mum sort of smoothed it over. She said I’d been very traumatized by what had happened and I was in a fragile emotional state…”

“Are you?”

“Well…” He giggled nervously.

“Sleeping better?”

“Yes. What you said was good. Now I’m thinking of the case as something that needs investigating, I sort of feel more, I don’t know, further away from it…”

Excellent, thought Jude. That was the aim of the exercise. “So the cop backed off, did he? Didn’t bawl you out any more?”

“No. After what Mum said, he didn’t seem that bothered. Just removed the remains of the seals, and said we could use the cellar again like normal.”

“Which might suggest the police have concluded their investigation.”

“Yes.” He sounded wistful at the thought of his detective game ending. “So they reckon that this Mr Hargreaves killed his wife?”

“I can’t be certain what the police think, but I’ll bet that’s what a lot of people in Fedborough are saying.”

“Mm,” he mumbled gloomily. “I haven’t even met Mr Hargreaves, which makes me feel, I don’t know, sort of cheated over the case. Like I haven’t got the whole story.”

“Happens a lot in police work.” Jude was joking, but there was sympathy in her voice too.

“I don’t know,” said Harry disconsolately. “Even if the police have got the right solution, it still leaves a lot of loose ends untied.”

“Like what?”

“Well, where the body’s arms and legs went, for a start.”

“You’re right. Trouble is, Harry, we don’t have access to police files. Who knows, the limbs may have been found a long time ago, and the cops only needed the torso to match them up.”

“Perhaps.” He sounded even more despondent. “Why would someone cut off a body’s arms and legs?”

“Well, if we put aside sadism or a psychopath getting a cheap thrill…”

“Yeah.” A bit of interest crept back into his voice. “I saw a video about a guy who did that. Somebody I knew in London had this great collection of that kind of stuff.”

Jude didn’t want to go up that alley. “As I say, putting sadism on one side, the most usual reason for dismembering a body would be ease of disposal.”

“Oh, I get you. So someone – perhaps the woman’s husband – killed her, cut her up, and got rid of the arms and legs…Where do you reckon he’d have done that?”

“Lots of places around here. Bury them up on the Downs. Chuck them in the sea. Or the Fether, maybe. When the tide’s going out, they’d get swept out into the Channel in no time.”

“Yes.” Harry was more enthusiastic. Now he felt he was back being an investigator. “But if that’s what happened, why didn’t he get rid of the torso too?”

“Maybe he was interrupted? Someone got suspicious of him?”

“Frustrating not knowing more, isn’t it? I think it’s unfair that the police keep all the information to themselves.”

“The full details would usually come out later in court…but of course that’d only happen if someone was charged with the murder. If the gossip’s right and the police do reckon Roddy Hargreaves killed his wife, then the whole story’ll never be known.”

“No…” The boy was cast down again.

“But the police may not be right,” said Jude encouragingly. “There may still be something to investigate. So, Harry, I’m relying on you to keep thinking about the case and listening to what people say. You might come up with that vital detail that turns the whole thing on its head. You might be able to prove that the police were wrong, and that Roddy Hargreaves wasn’t a murderer.”

“You’re right.” Now she’d given him his role back, Harry Roxby sounded positively perky. “Don’t worry, Jude. My investigation of the case continues.”

“That’s what I like to hear, Sherlock.”

On the Sunday morning Carole and Jude went for a walk on Fethering Beach. As if apologetic for the recent rain, the day was exceptionally fine, the sky a gentle blue, and the beige sand stretched for miles. Gulliver circled ecstatically around them. He appreciated having the attention of two people, and he loved the intriguing smells of the low tide flotsam and jetsam. A late June day scampering across the pungent sand, with infinite sniffing detours, was his idea of dog heaven.

The two human beings with him were less cheerful. The sadness of Roddy Hargreaves’s death, and the unsatisfactory way in which it might tie up the mystery of his wife’s death cast a pall over both the women.

“I don’t want to leave it like that,” said Jude.

“But how else can we leave it?” asked Carole. “We have no information. We don’t even know for sure that the police do think Roddy killed her.”

“No, and we probably never will know.” Jude picked up a stone and threw it into the retreating sea. Her mood was uncharacteristically despondent. “I don’t think he did kill her, though.”

Carole was silent for a moment, before saying, “Nor do I”

“But why do we think that? Given how little hard factwe’ve got about the case, why are we both convinced Roddy didn’t do it?”

“I suppose…”

“It’s because we liked him, didn’t we? We met him, and though we could recognize he was an alcoholic and a man with problems, we both had a gut instinct that he wasn’t the kind of man who’d commit a murder.”

Carole, reluctant to admit to such an irrational impulse as ‘gut instinct’, had nonetheless to admit that Jude had a point.

“So, just for a moment, let’s pretend that our gut instinct is right.”

“Why?”

“Because in my experience gut instincts usually are.” Carole awarded that a rather frosty harrumph. “Come on, if Roddy didn’t do it, who did?”

“We’re back to the same thing, Jude. We have no idea. We don’t have enough information.”

“Then we’d better get some more information, hadn’t we?”

“About what? About whom?”

“Roddy’d be a good person to start with. If we find out more about him, maybe we can actually prove he didn’t do it.”

“All right. So who do we know who can tell us about Roddy?”

“James Lister, I suppose. If we can talk to him without the dreadful Fiona present.”

“Yes. Or…” A smile irradiated Carole’s thin features. “There’s someone else.”

“Hm?”

“At the dinner party on Friday, Jude, don’t you remember? Someone admitted he’d had ‘one or two conversations’ with Roddy Hargreaves round the time Virginia disappeared.”

“Yes.” Jude smiled too as she nodded agreement.

“You know,” said Carole Seddon, “I think I might go to church in Fedborough this evening.”