Bones Under The Beach Hut (16 page)

    'That
would be very cruel,' said Carole. 'Would coming here and crowing about your
unhappiness be in character for Mark as you knew him?'

    'Not
for Mark as I knew him, no. But when he's with Nuala he's not Mark as I knew
him. She poisons his mind. She's a vile malevolent bitch.'

    'I
thought you said you hadn't met her?' Jude pointed out mildly.

    'I
don't need to meet her. I know from the effect she had on Mark what kind of
woman she is.'

    As
she tried to make sense of her boyfriend's actions, the pain that Philly Rose
had suffered for the past few weeks had clearly now been curdled with paranoia.
And deep hatred of the Irishwoman she had never met.

    '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.

    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.'

    'Look,
you're only discussing the possibility of commissioning the painting. Obviously
you don't go through with it.'

    'But
I can't raise this man's expectations about—'

    'Carole,
it's a commercial transaction. He's offering a service that you can accept or
refuse. You're just checking out the possibilities. It's quite plausible that
you could subsequently find another artist prepared to do you a watercolour of
Fethering Beach at a much more reasonable price.'

    'But
I don't want a watercolour of Fethering Beach!' wailed Carole.

    'It'll
be fine.'

    'It
won't. Jude, you've put me in a very difficult position. I have to lie to this man
about wanting a painting painted, and then I'll have to lie to him again about
not wanting a painting painted.'

    'As I
say, it'll be fine. Trust me.'

    'Huh,'
Carole snorted.

    Gray
Czesky's studio was on the first floor of Sanditon, a large front bedroom
commandeered for the cause of art. Carole and Jude could see why he had chosen
it. A bay of huge picture windows meant that the light was excellent. The scene
it illuminated, however, was one of total chaos.

    Though
the rest of the house, the hall into which the artist's wife Helga admitted
them, the staircase and landing they were led through, was almost excessively
neat, the studio was grotesquely untidy. Its bare boards and walls were deeply
encrusted with spilled paint, the floor was a refuse dump of paint pots, broken
brushes and soiled rags.

    So
total was the disarray that there was an air of parody about it, as though the
artist had modelled his working space on images of Francis Bacon's studio. But
here were no visceral canvases of tortured souls and twisted bodies. Instead,
Gray Czesky's neat chocolate-box watercolours struck a discordant note in the
surrounding squalor.

    The
artist himself also seemed a parody. His long, greying hair and paint-spattered
clothing presented an image of someone who didn't care about his appearance,
but a lot of effort had gone into creating that effect. It was in marked
contrast to his wife's
hausfrau
look, her neat blue skirt and a pink
blouse fussy with ruffles.

    'If
you'd like coffee - or a drink maybe - Helga'll get you some.'

    Carole
and Jude both refused the offer and Helga left the room, her husband hardly
having acknowledged her presence. He reached for a whisky bottle fingerprinted
with paint, and poured a good measure into a filthy glass. After a long swig,
he gestured to a spattered sofa on to which Carole and Jude sat gingerly. Gray
Czesky perched on a tall paint-covered stool.

    'Alcohol
is a good antidote to thought,' he observed lackadaisically. 'I find I often
need to curb my thoughts. Otherwise they overpower me. My mind is so
ceaselessly active. I suppose that is one of the penalties of the artistic
temperament.'