Fethering 02 (2001) - Death on the Downs by Simon Brett, Prefers to remain anonymous

the driver’s ring at the doorbell. She shuffled up the post and bade farewell to Jude with the minimum civility her upbringing allowed.
    In the cab, Jude tuned out the driver’s views on alternative medicine and black magic, two concepts that his mind seemed unable to separate. All she could think about was what she’d seen on the doormat of Sandalls Manor.
    Among the returned booking forms had been a letter addressed to Tamsin Lutteridge.
    Jude would have challenged Charles Hilton with that fact, if she had not recognized the writing on the envelope. The letter had been sent by Tamsin’s mother.

FOURTEEN
    D etective Sergeant Baylis sat comfortably in front of Carole’s log-effect gas fire. Gulliver, with that immediate trust of strangers that made him such an ineffectual guard dog, fawned around the policeman, trying repeatedly to put his bandaged paw up on Baylis’s knee. The dressing was much smaller now. On the Friday Carole had an appointment when the vet would remove it completely.
    “I was really just calling to see that you were all right,” the sergeant said.
    “That’s very kind of you. I’m fine.”
    “The effects of shock can sometimes be delayed, Mrs Seddon. If you do need any help…counselling or…”
    God, thought Carole, isn’t there anything these days you aren’t offered counselling for? “Really, I’m fine. It was just a nasty moment, but it’s gone. I mean, it’d be different if she’d been someone I knew.”
    “She?”
    “The…The body…The person whose remains I found.”
    “How do you know it was a she?”
    “Why? Isn’t that common knowledge?”
    “It is, but only just. That’s one of the things I was coming to tell you, Mrs Seddon. They were the remains of a woman’s body.”
    Now it had been confirmed, Carole did feel a shiver of something not unlike shock. “Poor girl,” she said.
    “Poor girl?”
    “Yes, Tamsin Lutteridge.”
    Detective Sergeant Baylis shook his head wearily. “Oh, they’re not still saying that, are they? Bloody Weldisham gossips.”
    “You mean it’s not true?”
    “The bones are in the labs now. There’ll be more detailed information soon. But the preliminary path, report tells us they belonged to a woman, probably aged thirty to fifty, and she died at least five years ago.”
    Carole found it strange how much relief the news brought her. She’d never known Tamsin Lutteridge, but had felt Jude’s affection for the girl and compassion for her illness. Whoever the bones did belong to, she was glad it wasn’t Tamsin.
    “So, Sergeant, they’ve no idea who the dead woman was?”
    He shook his head. “Take some time. We do have procedures, you know. Start with talking to people locally.”
    “Like the person who owns the South Welling Barn?”
    “Phil Ayling. Yes, we’ve talked to him. Needless to say, he doesn’t know anything about it. Why should he? Probably those bones belonged to someone who’s never been to the village. Which means of course that we will have to go through missing persons files, all that stuff.” He sighed in disbelief. “Tamsin Lutteridge, though…Doesn’t change, Weldisham. However many ends a stick has, the people in that village can be guaranteed to get hold of the wrong one. Always had a reputation for gossip, even when I was growing up there.” In response to Carole’s interrogative look, he went on, “Yes, I’m a local boy. My parents used to live in one of the cottages by the pub.”
    “Near Heron Cottage?”
    “That’s right. Mind you, we’re talking when all that lot belonged to the Estate. My dad worked for the Estate. All his life. Started at age fourteen, dropped dead driving a tractor when he was fifty-seven. And the cottages weren’t all tarted up when we lived there, I can tell you. Estate sold them off about fifteen years ago. That’s when the central heating came in, and the fitted kitchens, and the double-glazing—and the fancy prices.”
    He seemed to realize he was