The Body on the Beach Read Online Free Page A

Inspector in his almost dandyish single-breasted black suit. There was also the uniformed WPC, Juster, who hadn’t said much but was clearly
taking everything in. She sat on a straight-backed chair, tensely alert. Was there some new directive that the police always had to work in twos, even for routine inquiries? Maybe it was a gender
thing. Allegations of sexual harassment would not be risked if a male police officer was never left alone with a female witness.
    But the explanation didn’t seem adequate. Carole still had the feeling that their encounter was adversarial, as if the police were expecting more from her than mere corroboration of what
she’d already said over the telephone. She had dealt with a great many police officers in the course of her work at the Home Office but had never before felt this aura of mistrust.
    ‘I always go for an early-morning walk along the beach. I have a dog.’ Gulliver hadn’t provided a visual aid when the police arrived. He was still sleeping off his walk at the
foot of the Aga. As a guard dog he was hopeless. His first instinct was not to deter entry, but to give any new arrival at the house a fulsome welcome. ‘And I always take my dog on the beach
first thing.’
    ‘“First thing” was rather early this morning, wasn’t it, Mrs Seddon? Can hardly have been light when you set off.’
    ‘I woke early. It always takes me a bit of time to adjust when the clocks change.’
    ‘I understand,’ said the Inspector, who clearly didn’t. ‘So why did you go to that particular part of the beach this morning?’
    ‘It wasn’t a particular part of the beach. It was just where I happened to be walking.’ Exasperated by the scepticism in Detective Inspector Brayfield’s eye,
Carole went on. ‘There are only two directions in which you can go along the beach. Off Seaview Road there’s a path which goes down by the Yacht Club. At the end of that you’re on
the beach and you have the choice of turning left or turning right. Left you go virtually straight into the sea wall, so this morning, like most mornings, I decided to turn right.’
    She wasn’t meaning to sound sarcastic, but she knew that’s how the words were coming out.
    ‘For any particular reason?’
    What was it with that word ‘particular’? ‘No,’ Carole snapped. ‘For no particular reason.’
    ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ It was WPC Juster this time, her voice showing the professional concern of someone who’s done a counselling course.
    ‘Yes, I’m quite all right, thank you!’ Why were they treating her like some semi-invalid?
    ‘How old are you, Mrs Seddon?’ Juster went on.
    ‘I don’t really see that it’s any business of yours, but I’m fifty-three.’
    ‘Ah,’ said the WPC.
    ‘Ah,’ the Inspector echoed, as if that explained everything.
    What was this – some kind of medical assessment? Had they written her off as a menopausal hysteric? Surely not. She had told them everything in a manner that was unemotional to the point
of being dull. What were they trying to insinuate?
    Though these questions ran through her mind, being Carole Seddon, of course she didn’t voice any of them. Instead, she took the initiative. ‘Presumably,’ she said, ‘when
a body like that is found, it’s photographed in situ first, and then taken off for forensic examination?’
    Detective Inspector Brayfield, stroking the knot of his brightly coloured silk tie, agreed that that would be the normal procedure. But he wasn’t to be deflected from his dissection of her
story.
    ‘You say there were cuts on the man’s neck and scar tissue on the inside of his wrist?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Which might suggest he had been an intravenous drug user?’
    ‘Quite possibly.’
    ‘Do you know much about intravenous drug users, Mrs Seddon?’
    ‘No, I don’t. But I do know enough to recognize that that was a possible explanation of the scars.’
    ‘From things you’ve seen on television?’
    ‘I