The Body on the Beach Read Online Free PDF

wounds on
its neck?
    Uncharacteristically, she wanted to talk to someone about the whole incident. For a brief, irrational moment, she even contemplated confiding in her new neighbour. She couldn’t forget the
unusual quality of empathy she’d seen in those wide brown eyes.
    But that was ridiculous. Even if Carole Seddon had been the kind of person who talked to her neighbours about anything more weighty than the weather, she didn’t even know this woman.
    These uncharacteristic thoughts were interrupted when the doorbell rang.
    She had received no early warning over the previous couple of days. No acquaintance was due to come round for tea. It must be someone selling something, Carole concluded as she approached the
front door. Probably one of those men with a zip-up bag full of dishcloths, oven gloves and plastic storage boxes who would flash some laminated card of authorization. If it was, she’d send
him off with a flea in his ear. There was a consensus view in Fethering that all such visitors were lookouts for criminal gangs. Carole Seddon wasn’t about to have her joint cased for the
benefit of burglars.
    By the time she opened the door, she had built up a healthy head of righteous steam against the expected salesman and was surprised to be confronted by a thin, haunted-looking woman she had
never seen before.
    ‘Did you find a body on the beach this morning?’
    Now Carole knew why she had let the woman in. Her instinct was always to get rid of unexpected callers – particularly callers in grubby jeans and purple quilted anoraks. But something in
the woman’s eyes had indicated that her visit was serious, maybe even important. Carole had ushered her stiffly into the sitting room, sat her down and waited till the reason for her presence
was explained.
    Now she knew she’d done the right thing. In the same armchair where Detective Inspector Brayfield had sat that morning, disbelieving her story of having found a body on the beach, here was
a woman actually asking about her discovery.
    ‘What makes you think I did?’ Carole responded cautiously.
    ‘I know you did.’ The voice was uneducated South Coast, not from the more discriminating purlieus of Fethering. ‘It was a woman with a beige raincoat and a Labrador,’ she
went on. ‘You fit the description.’
    ‘Whose description?’
    ‘Never mind that. Look, I know it was you, so we can cut out the bullshit.’
    Carole Seddon appraised the woman in front of her. The face had about it a deadness the colour and texture of papier mâché. The hair was flat and dull like tobacco. Only the eyes
were alive, burning with a desperate energy.
    ‘The police have been to see me this morning,’ said Carole evenly. ‘According to them, when they looked, there was no body on the beach.’
    ‘I’m not interested in the police. You know and I know there was a body on the beach this morning. Down at the end of the breakwater.’
    While it was gratifying to have her story corroborated, Carole still wanted to know where the woman had got her information. ‘Were you watching me? Was it you who I saw walking away from
the body?’
    ‘I didn’t go on the beach this morning.’ The woman dismissed these irrelevant details and hurried on to what really concerned her. ‘Did you take something from the body?
Something out of his jacket pocket?’
    ‘No, I certainly didn’t. I didn’t touch it.’ Carole spoke with the affront of someone whose upbringing did not countenance theft, least of all from the dead.
    ‘Are you sure?’
    ‘Of course I’m sure!’
    ‘Listen, it’s important.’
    ‘It may be important, but the fact remains that I did not take anything from the body I found on the beach this morning!’
    ‘There wasn’t no knife?’
    ‘Knife? I didn’t see any knife.’
    This answer seemed to provide a moment of reassurance. The woman was silent, her eyes darting from side to side as she considered the next tack to take. ‘Do you know where it