Page 36 of The Diary at the Last House Before the Sea

‘I want to talk to you about a body.’

‘Killed someone, have you?’

Clara blinked. ‘What? No. Of course not.’

Claude stared at her for a moment more and then opened his door wider. A dark, narrow corridor lay behind him.

‘We can have a word but I don’t want to invite you in.’

‘That’s fine. Maybe we can have a quick chat in your garden instead?’

‘Garden’ was pushing it. The tiny space in front of Claude’s house was paved with cobblestones and the only greenery was provided by a withered hydrangea in a large pot. Rumour had it that an old lady friend of Claude’s had given him the flower to cheer up the front of the cottage, but he’d obviously forgotten to water it.

‘I’ll only take up a few minutes of your time,’ urged Clara, bending to pat Buster’s head.

‘All right,’ grunted Claude, stepping out of the cottage and pulling the door to behind him. ‘What’s this body, then?’

‘I’m trying to find out more about Audrey Brellasham. She’s the woman who drowned in the manor house cove in 1957. Do you remember it happening?’

‘Might do,’ said Claude, sitting down on the low stone wall that surrounded his garden. ‘Why?’

‘I’ve been finding out a bit about it and I’m surprised that Audrey’s body was never found. I thought you might have some knowledge about that.’

Claude sniffed. ‘Dunno what makes you think I’m an expert in body disposal.’

‘I thought you might have some knowledge about local tides, having fished in these waters since you were a boy. Wouldn’t Audrey’s body have washed back to shore if she’d drowned?’

‘It depends on weather conditions and the currents that night. I’d expect her body to wash up somewhere, but maybe it wouldn’t. It might still be trapped on the seabed, though it’d be nothing but bones now, stripped clean.’

Claude glared at a tourist who was taking a photo of the fraying lobster pot next to his front door. ‘People’ll take pictures of anything these days. The world’s gone mad.’ He tickled Buster behind the ear, still watching the tourist, who’d taken one look at Claude and wandered off. ‘So why d’you wanna know about something that happened so long ago?’

‘I’m just interested.’

‘Is that right?’ Claude gave her a searching look. ‘It was a strange business. I was young at the time and never saw Audrey around the village. I wasn’t sure she really existed. The current squire was only a kid too. Hardly saw him neither ’cos he went to some posh school up country.’ He paused. ‘Wasn’t there some trouble involving Violet Netherway after Audrey vanished?’

‘No,’ said Clara quickly. ‘I mean, there was an issue but it was all a misunderstanding.’

‘Makes sense. Life’s full of ’em.’

‘Was Edwin, Geoffrey’s father, around the village much when you were young?’

‘Oh yeah, he appeared often enough, lording it about over the rest of us. I didn’t much like him. Dead eyes. Mind you, local people pandered to him.’

‘In what way?’

‘With lots of bowing and scraping. There’s not so much of it these days which is just as well. It’s only an accident of birth them living in that big house while the rest of us are slumming it.’ Clara was minded to agree but she held her tongue. ‘He insisted that his wife was going swimming but not everyone believed him. I know posh folk can do stupid things sometimes but who, in their right mind, would go swimming at that time of year at that time of night?’

‘Maybe she wasn’t in her right mind.’

‘Maybe not,’ said Claude gruffly. ‘Happens to the best of us that life gets too much sometimes.’

Did life ever get too much for Claude? Clara wondered, sneaking a sideways glance at him. But he was getting to his feet.

‘Is that everything? I can’t spend all morning answering your daft questions.’

‘Yes, that’s all. Thanks very much for your time.’

Claude grunted in reply and had reached his front door when he said: ‘I hear the current squire is selling up and moving on.’

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