Bones Under The Beach Hut

    There
weren't many proper beach huts on Fethering Beach. Just a few ramshackle sheds
once owned by fishermen, which had been converted for use by holidaying
families. For proper regimented beach huts, with pitched roofs and the
proportions of large Wendy houses, you had to go west along the coast to the
neighbouring village of Smalting. And it was there that Carole Seddon had the
use of a beach hut for the summer.

    Smalting
was a picturesque - very nearly bijou - West Sussex village, whose inhabitants
thought themselves superior to the residents of Fethering. In fact, they
thought themselves superior to the residents of anywhere. Like many of the
villages along that stretch of coast, the earliest extant buildings were
fishermen's cottages, which had been refurbished many times, ending up as
elegant well-appointed dwellings, mostly bought by comfortably pensioned people
downsizing in retirement. A couple of large houses had been added to the
village in the eighteenth century, and a few more spacious holiday homes had
been built by the late Victorians. In the first decade of the twentieth
century, Smalting had become a fashionable seaside resort and rows of neat
Edwardian terraces had sprung up. In the nineteen thirties two private estates
had been developed either side of the village, and with that further building
stopped. Unlike Fethering, Smalting did not spread northwards and so did not
have room for any of what was still disparagingly referred to as 'council
housing'. The army of cleaners and home helps who serviced the needs of its
residents all came from outside the village.

    Nobody
did any basic shopping in Smalting. There was nothing so common as a
supermarket. The newsagent was the nearest to a practical shop in the village,
selling milk and bread as well as more traditional stock and beach items for
holidaymakers. The other retailers were highly expensive ladies fashion
boutiques, tiny craft galleries and antique dealers. Facing the promenade stood
a row of dainty tea shops. Smalting's one pub, The Crab Inn, had such a
daunting air of gentility about it and such high prices for food that it was
rarely entered by anyone under thirty. But it did very well from the
over-sixties.

    The
beach huts conformed to the high standards that were de rigueur for everything
else in Smalting. There were thirty-six of them at the back of the beach, just
in front of the promenade, and they were divided into three slightly concave
rows of twelve. Eight foot in height and width, each one was ten foot deep and
set on four low concrete blocks. They were painted identically - the
bitumenized corrugated roofs green, the wooden walls and doors yellow and blue
respectively. Touches of individualism were clearly discouraged, though a
considerable variety of padlocks was on show, and some of the owners had
indulged in rather elaborate name signs. These tended to feature anchors, coils
of rope, shells and painted seagulls. The names chosen -
Seaview, Salt
Spray, Sandy Cove, Clovelly, Distant Shores
and so on - didn't demonstrate
a great deal of originality.

    The
beach hut of which Carole Seddon had use was called
Quiet Harbour,
and
she felt rather guilty about her new possession. This was not unusual for
Carole. Despite her forbidding exterior and controlled manner, inside she was a
mass of neuroses, though this was something that she would not acknowledge to
anyone, least of all herself. She had been brought up to believe that everyone
should be self-sufficient, that turning to others for help was a sign of
weakness. Afraid of revealing her true personality, Carole had always tried to
keep people at arm's length, not allowing anyone to get close to her. This had
certainly been her practice during her career at the Home Office. She had also
tried to keep her distance within marriage, which was perhaps the reason why
she and David had divorced.

    And
when she had moved permanently to Fethering in retirement (early retirement)
Carole Seddon still kept herself to herself. She had acquired a Labrador called
Gulliver for the sole purpose of looking purposeful, so that her walks across
Fethering Beach did not appear to be the wanderings of someone lonely, but the
essential behaviour of someone who had a dog to walk.

    So
intimacy was not a natural state for Carole Seddon. Even Jude, her neighbour
and closest friend, sometimes found herself shut out. Carole was hypersensitive
to slights, quick to take offence. And she worried away about things.

    Just
as she was now worrying away about her use of
Quiet Harbour.
Like many
people who lack confidence, Carole was wary of breaking even the most minor of
regulations. There were many things in her life that she couldn't control, but
one thing she could was keeping the right side of the law. Her work at the Home
Office had encouraged her natural law-abiding tendencies, and she would try to
avoid even tiny infringements, like keeping out a library book beyond its due
date or being twenty-four hours late in applying for the road tax on her
Renault. And Carole wasn't convinced that her using the beach hut was entirely,
100 per cent legal.

    The
contact had come through Jude, inevitably from one of her clients. In Woodside
Cottage, the house next to Carole's High Tor, Jude worked as a healer and
alternative therapist. Neither of these job descriptions cut much ice with her
neighbour, who regarded as suspect any medical intervention that wasn't carried
out by a traditionally qualified doctor. Whenever the subject of Jude's work
came up in their conversations, Carole had to keep biting her lips to prevent
the words 'New Age mumbo-jumbo' from coming out of them. But she had to admit
the benefits of her neighbour's work when it came to broadening their social circle.
And on more than one occasion, it had been through a client who had come to
Woodside Cottage for healing that Carole and Jude had become involved in
criminal investigations.

    It
was in the role of client that Philly Rose had come to Jude. She was crippled
by back pain and, as was so often the case, the cause of the agony lay in her
mind rather than her body.

    Philly,
in her early thirties, and her older boyfriend Mark Dennis had moved down from
London to Smalting some six months before, just at the beginning of January.
For both of them it had been a new start, Philly giving up employment as a
graphic designer to go freelance and Mark chucking his highly paid City job to
do what he'd always wanted and be a painter. Cushioned by his savings and recent
huge bonus, the two of them had embraced country living, involving themselves
in everything that the South Coast had to offer. Their two sports cars were
traded in for a Range Rover. They acquired two cocker spaniels, bought a
sailing dinghy, planted their own vegetables. Both took a lot of exercise. Mark
lost the extra weight put on by his City lifestyle. Their make-over seemed
complete.