for heaven’s sake, Gina! This is important. And dangerous. This is no time for petty demarcation disputes.’
The Director’s mouth was open for her response to that, but she didn’t manage to get it out, before Sheila Cartwright turned the beam of her disapproval on to one of the Volunteers. ‘Mervyn. How is it you always seem to be on the scene when there’s trouble?’
He was a thin man in his thirties with a shaven head, and the effect of her words was unexpected. Suddenly he started to sob; his whole body shook with the strength of his emotions. Jonny Tyson moved to the man, and enfolded him in an instinctive hug, the comfort given by one child to another who had just fallen over in the school playground.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ snapped Sheila Cartwright. ‘This is a serious situation. We’ve got enough on our plates without you having hysterics!’
‘I’m sorry, it’s just . . .’ The man called Mervyn’s thin, Northern voice trembled. ‘ . . . Seeing a dead body . . . I’ve never been able to stand that . . .’
‘Must make life difficult for you,’ said Sheila Cartwright unsympathetically, ‘ . . . given your past history.’
Chapter Five
‘I’ve been sworn to secrecy . . .’
‘Carole, I just love openings like that.’ Jude rubbed her hands together with glee. ‘The ones which mean the exact opposite of what’s being said. “I’d be the last one to criticize . . .”, but that’s exactly what I’m about to do. “To be perfectly honest . . .” – always sets the alarm bells ringing for me. And, of course, “I’ve been sworn to secrecy . . ”, but that’s not going to stop me telling you every gory detail.’
‘Well, perhaps I shouldn’t.’
‘Oh, come on. You know you’re going to tell me eventually. Just get on and do it.’
It was two days after the discovery of the skull. They were sitting in the bar of the Crown and Anchor, which was full of Saturday seaside visitors, bulbous parents bursting out of sweatshirts, children with sand in their plastic sandals. The tables outside were even busier. The day was hot for late October, the kind of weather that made local residents talk darkly of ‘global warming’.
Fethering’s only pub had about it the feeling of a well-used armchair, and the same could be said for its landlord. Ted Crisp’s shaggy hair and beard were the same all the year round, but now he was in his summer uniform of grubby T-shirt rather than his grubby winter sweatshirt. Carole had an uncomfortable feeling that he might be wearing shorts too, but since Jude had been the one to buy their glasses of Chilean Chardonnay and Ted hadn’t emerged from behind the bar yet, she had no proof of this.
There was an air of ease about Jude too, a lightness that was unusual in a woman of her ample dimensions and fifty-five years. The sun had generously toasted her broad face and bare arms; the blonde hair, secured by an insufficiency of pins, made a gravity-defying structure on top of her head. As ever, she breathed serenity, a quality which Carole recognized her own more uptight personality could never hope to attain.
The two women could not have been more different, and yet, ever since Jude had moved into Wood-side Cottage next door to Carole, their friendship had flourished.
‘So tell me,’ said Jude.
‘There’s not much to tell. Just the finding of a skeleton.’
‘That doesn’t happen every day.’
‘Not to most people. I think you and I are bringing up the national average, though.’
Jude chuckled. ‘But we are talking about a murder, aren’t we? Please say yes.’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘You haven’t heard anything from the police?’
‘No. They were around Bracketts, of course. Still are around, I imagine. They interviewed all of us, told us not to tell anyone anything . . .’
This prompted a grin. ‘An instruction which, I’m glad to say, you, Carole, have ignored completely.’
‘Look, this goes no further. OK?’
‘Of course not.’ Jude grinned innocently. ‘What do you take me for?’
Carole didn’t bother to answer that.
‘I’m sure it’s a murder,’ Jude persisted. ‘You said that there was a hole in the skull.’
‘You can get a hole in your skull from something falling on it. Doesn’t have to be foul play.’
‘But if someone dies accidentally, you don’t hide their body in a kitchen garden, do you?’ Jude’s face took on an expression of childlike insistence. ‘Go on, say it was a murder.’
‘I can’t say that,’ Carole responded primly. ‘The person who owned the skull is dead; beyond that I haven’t got anything definite to go on. Everyone at Bracketts has clammed up. Certainly no information coming out of there.’
‘Not even to a Trustee?’
‘Particularly not to a Trustee. Or particularly not to this Trustee. The Director was acutely embarrassed that I even saw as much as I did.’
‘Who is the Director? Sheila somebody?’
‘No, you’re thinking of Sheila Cartwright, the one who got the place going as a literary shrine.’
‘Yes, that’s the name.’
‘So do you know Bracketts?’
‘I did the Guided Tour soon after I moved down here. I had a friend staying who’s interested in that period of literary history.’
‘Oh, did I meet her?’
‘Him. No.’ Carole would have liked more information about the friend, but Jude had already moved on. ‘We saw Sheila Cartwright then. She was pointed out to us by the guide, almost as if she was one of the remarkable exhibits. Very much Lady of the Manor, I thought.’
‘Well, she’s no longer in charge of the place . . . though you’d never know it from the way she goes on.’ Jude raised interrogative eyebrows, but Carole shook her head. ‘Complex management politics which I’m not going to go into at the moment. I’ll fill you in soon enough.’
‘Then what are you going to go into at the moment?’
‘Just the discovery of the skull.’
‘You used the word “skeleton” earlier.’
‘Yes, there were other bones around. Certainly part of a spinal column. Only the top bit had been unearthed, but it was lying as if it was still with the rest of the skeleton.’
There was a silence. Jude prompted, ‘There was something you thought odd, though, wasn’t there?’
‘I
