Bones Under The Beach Hut

'Just suppose,' said Carole very calmly and judiciously, 'just suppose that Mark's motive in coming down to Smalting was not just to crow over you.'

'What do you mean?'

'When he was seen by Curt Holderness, Mark and the woman were walking down from the promenade on to the beach.'

'Yes?'

'And when we talked before you said you reckoned he probably still had a key to Quiet Harbour.'

'Well, I'm not sure . . .'

'You said you hadn't found it among his things.'

'No, but-'

Carole cut through the interruption. 'You said when Mark left, he told you he "needed a bit of time to sort things out"?'

'Yes. Something like that.'

'Do you remember the exact words he used?'

Philly Rose's brow wrinkled as she tried to remember. 'He promised that he would come back to me, but he said there were things he had to sort out before he did. He said the main thing he had to sort out was Nuala.'

'And a few days after Mark, who had a key to Quiet Harbour, was seen at night-time going down to Smalting Beach in the company of a woman, human remains were discovered under the beach hut.'

Philly Rose's hands shot up to clasp her face, as she took in the full implication of Carole's words.

Chapter Seventeen

Philly had clearly wanted them to leave. She needed to be alone to assess the full import of the new suspicion that Carole and Jude had planted in her mind, and they reckoned they would do more harm than good by staying with her.

It was around twelve when they emerged from Seashell Cottage. 'Lunch?' suggested Jude hopefully.

Carole's face disapproved. 'It's a bit early,' she said, 'and I've got the remains of a chicken in the fridge back at High Tor.'

'Oh, go on,' said Jude.

'No.' Carole was very firm. 'There's something else I want to do first.' And she led her friend along the Smalting promenade to a small former bakery, over whose shop windows was a silver-lettered sign reading 'Zentner Gallery'.

As she pushed the door open a bell tinkled, but the room they entered was empty. Its small space was inventively used. By the counter stood rotating stands of postcards and greetings cards. On the wall behind it hung framed prints of the predictably popular — Van Gogh's Starry Night, Jack Vettriano's Singing

Butler, Warhol's Marilyns, and so on. Sample posters and standard-sized frames were stacked upright in boxes to be riffled through. On the counter itself were grouped a selection of bookmarks, paperweights, decorative pencils and other knick-knacks. These items presumably kept the tills ticking over and were bought mostly by browsers who'd come into the shop with no intention of buying any original artwork.

But there was quite a lot of that on display in the rest of the gallery. On a central table stood bronze sculptures, mostly hares running and salmon leaping. Some colourful abstracts decorated the back wall, out of reach of the sun. On the side opposite the counter was a display of works by three artists. Nearest the window were some predominantly blue fantasy scenes — long-haired blue maidens peering through blue ferns at blue Arthurian boats on blue lakes with brooding blue Tolkien mountains in the background. Further back were a selection of splashy pictures of racehorses, all looking exactly the same, except presumably to their owners. And between the two was an array of Gray Czesky's bland seascapes and South Downs-scapes. Carole moved forward to look at them.

'Can I help you?' A small woman in her early fifties with short black hair appeared from the back of the shop, rubbing her hands on a J-cloth. 'Sorry, just been doing some framing. The glue gets all over the place.'

'Good morning,' said Carole. 'I was interested in these.'

'They're by Gray Czesky.'

'From the subject matter it looks like he's a local.'

'Could hardly be more local. Lives just four houses along from here. By the way, I'm Sonja Zentner.'

'Carole Seddon.'

'And I'm Jude. So you own the gallery?'

'Yes. Fulfilling a long-held dream. I spent twenty years teaching art to uninterested teenagers, and always promised myself I'd retire early and do this.'

'Good. And how's it going?'

Sonja Zentner twiddled her hands in a 'so-so' gesture. 'Comes and goes. Better in the summer, obviously. And the framing keeps things ticking over. Anyway, Carole, you like the Gray Czeskys, do you?'

'Yes,' Carole lied.

'But how much do you like them?' Sonja Zentner grinned. 'Enough to want to buy one? Here are the prices.' She handed across a printed sheet.

Carole's immediate reaction was that Gray Czesky's watercolours seemed very expensive. The cheapest was five hundred pounds and the prices ranged up to over a thousand. 'Oh well, I don't think—'

'Does he take commissions?' Jude interrupted.

The gallery owner laughed. 'Show me the artist who doesn't take commissions. Of course he does.'

'Because you see, we live in Fethering and Carole was only saying the other day that she'd really like a decent watercolour of Fethering Beach to hang in her sitting room.' Jude carefully avoided the look of suppressed fury in her neighbour's eyes. 'And she'd really like to talk to Gray Czesky about it.'

'No problem. I can call him now, if you like. He's usually at home. He might well see you straight away.'

While Sonja Zentner made the call Jude looked demurely out of the window at Smalting Beach, confident that Carole wouldn't make a fuss until they were alone together.

The gallery owner put the phone down. 'Yes, that's perfect. Gray's there and would be delighted to talk to you about a potential commission. As I say, he's just four doors along. The house is called "Sanditon".'

'Thank you, that's so kind,' said Jude graciously. Then looking down towards the white tent surrounding Quiet Harbour, she continued, 'Terrible, that business over there, wasn't it?'

'Oh yes. And, needless to say in a place like Smalting, all kinds of theories are being put forward about what actually happened.'

'Any theories that sound believable?'

'Most of them are pretty fanciful, to be quite honest. And I think they'll stay that way until we get a bit more information. The police haven't said anything more about what was actually found under the beach hut. Just "human remains". Once we know the age and gender of the poor unfortunate, I think that'll put paid to some of the sillier conjectures.'

'So what's the latest you've heard, Sonja?'

'There was someone in only this morning who was convinced she knew who'd hidden the remains under the hut.'

'Oh?'

'Yes, she reads rather a lot of crime fiction, I'm afraid, and she said that the police frequently ignore the most obvious solution. She said the first suspect should always be the person who discovers the body.'

'But in this case that was the Fether District Council-approved contractor who was about to repair the fire damage.'

'Oh no, Jude, she didn't mean him. She meant the one who discovered the fire damage. She was convinced that the murderer must be the woman who took over the hut rental from Philly Rose/

'Oh, was she?' said a very tight-lipped Carole.

'Jude, will you stop giggling!' They were walking along the promenade towards Sanditon. 'It is not funny. It is not funny that I've just been identified as a murderer. And it's even less funny that you have set up a meeting with an artist who's expecting me to commission him to paint a watercolour of Fethering Beach.'

'It's an introduction. How else were we going to get to talk to Gray Czesky?'

'But I don't want to commission a watercolour from him. Certainly not at those prices. Anyway, I loathe watercolours. I just find them so insipid.'