The Body on the Beach by Simon Brett Page A

installed in a sofa in front of her virtual fire, Carole felt
a little wistful for a grate glowing with real flames.
    She had felt uncertain about inviting Jude in for a cup of tea, but the unalterable rules of reciprocal hospitality dictated that she should. The trouble was, when you invited someone in, you
never knew how long they were going to stay. A drink with Jude in the Crown and Anchor had escalated, without apparent effort, into supper and a lot more drinks in the Crown and Anchor. With
someone like Jude, who could say what ‘a cup of tea’ might escalate into?
    And once inside the house, with Gulliver greeted and fed, the unalterable rules of reciprocal hospitality dictated that Carole should at least suggest the option of something other than ‘a
cup of tea’. In Jude’s house she’d been offered wine, so when she returned from the kitchen to the sitting room, she said, ‘I’ve put the kettle on, but if you’d
rather have a glass of wine . . .’
    This had prompted a quick glance at her large watch-face from Jude and a, ‘No thanks, I don’t want anything. Bit early for me to start on the wine, anyway. But don’t let me
stop you.’
    The response had caught Carole on the back foot, seeming to imply that if anyone had an over-enthusiasm for alcohol it was her. But Jude’s brown eyes contained no censure or patronage.
Carole was coming to the conclusion that her new neighbour was a very unusual person. Certainly in Fethering.
    ‘We’ve got the knife,’ said Carole, picking up from Jude’s question. ‘But whether that has any relevance to the body on the beach, we just don’t know, do
we?’
    ‘Let’s start from the other point of view,’ said Jude. ‘If we assumed that the knife did have something to do with the body . . . would that
help?’
    ‘It depends what it had to do with the body.’
    ‘All right. Well, your woman with the gun mentioned a knife, so that’s a start. But suppose it actually belonged to the dead man . . . that it dropped out of his pocket
while he was hidden away in the boat?’
    ‘We don’t know he was hidden away in the boat,’ Carole objected.
    ‘No, but let’s assume that too. Think about it. Where else could the body have been hidden where the police wouldn’t see it?’
    ‘The boats are the obvious place, I agree. Or I suppose there are those chest things on the sea wall, where the fishermen keep their stuff. They’re kept padlocked, but if someone was
prepared to break into a boat, they’d be equally ready to cut through a padlock.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Surely, though, if the police were looking properly for the body I told them about, then they’d have gone up to the Yacht Club, wouldn’t they?’
    ‘Ah, but were they looking properly? Or had they already marked you down as a hysterical fantasist before they got to the scene?’
    Carole was affronted. ‘I don’t see how they could possibly have done that. When I rang them, I was extremely unemotional and controlled.’
    ‘But you did say that you’d bathed Gulliver before calling them.’
    ‘Yes. Yes, I think I did.’
    Jude shrugged. ‘That was probably what did it.’
    ‘How? But . . .’ Carole didn’t pursue the objection. ‘All right, assuming the body was hidden in the boat after I found it, that does raise a few other
questions, doesn’t it?’
    ‘Like who hid it there?’
    ‘Certainly.’
    ‘And, more to the point, Carole, who removed it from the boat before we looked under the cover this afternoon?’
    ‘Yes. And, still maintaining all the assumptions about there being a connection, the only clue we have to help us answer those questions is the Stanley knife . . .’
    ‘Which might have belonged to the dead man . . . or might have belonged to the person who left the body there . . .’
    ‘Or might have belonged to anyone else in the world,’ Carole couldn’t help saying.
    ‘Ssh. Ssh.’ Jude spoke very soothingly, as if she were some kind of