20. ON THE BEACH

The story comes to an abrupt ending on the beach on a sunny day.

Later that same day everything has handed over to the Seaholme police and Rosie was once again on holiday. The computer (though Rosie said loud enough to be heard and understood) she had an inkling it might return to her one day, when the evidence had been amassed and used in court). Tom’s escape and taste of freedom was short lived … Peter Jenson on a motor cycle soon caught up with him, long before he’d reached what could honestly be called an open road, and Tom put up very little in the way of resistance. He clearly decided that, at his age, he had no chance.

Jerry Bingham’s role in the explosion that had killed June couldn’t be proved one way or another, and it was dropped. After all, he’d suffered enough as a consequence of Coppleby’s wrong-doing in the past, and, as Rosie had said, the past was really the past, and it was obvious that Tom Coppleby had decided to get away now that the body in the caravan in the woods had been identified, and according to him he’d planned the explosion in order to destroy any evidence that might still be found in his van. He hadn’t intended June to die, but it was obvious her death hadn’t caused him too much grief.

Tom Coppleby was, by all accounts, a very selfish man.

And it was still that same day.

“There’s nothing,” breathed Rosie Baur quietly, “nicer than being on the beach with a pair of twins, and the sun’s shining well nigh hot enough to fry eggs and you’ve got a brave Sergeant at your side to rescue you when things turn bad!”

“You don’t ever seem to need to be rescued, ma’am,” grinned Peter Jenson, the Sergeant in question.

“Well, you never know what might happen one day,” Rosie told him, smiling. “I almost needed rescuing last night when this man climbed into my bed...”

“There was nowhere else,” murmured Peter, a lump in his throat.

“Come and sit over here,” decided Rosie, pointing to a row of concrete steps that served as a barrier to the sea when the tide decided to be dangerously high. “There’s nothing worse than sitting in sand with no panties on and getting sand where sand should never be allowed to go...”

“You mean, you’re commando?” Peter dared to ask, and she gave him an old-fashioned look.

“What do you think, Pete? You know me, after all. We’ve worked together for years.”

He nodded. “You’re probably commando,” he murmured, “and that dress is a weeny bit short if there’s a sudden gust of wind...”

“Do you mind?” she asked.

“I suppose … yes, I do!” he declared bravely. “Sometimes I reckon it’s best if we men have to ponder on matters rather than have them pushed under our noses! Rosie, last night...”

“I know,” she said, quietly. “I was commando then, but it’s you who think I’m sans panties now, not me!” and she giggled. She lifted the corner of her pretty summer dress, “see what colour they are,” she grinned.

“Mmm, very pretty. But last night … I couldn’t help it,” he confessed. “There we were, close as two peas in a remarkably comfortable pod, and that Coppleby idiot had woken us up...”

“And you took your truncheon to bed,” she teased him.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I suppose that I really am.”

“For what?” she asked. “Because I thought it was about time!”

“You did, ma’am?”

“And I’m Rosie!”

“I mean Rosie.”

“And I’m a woman. And you’re a man. A rather nice man, if the truth is to be told. And the twins had finally got back to sleep again.”

“And something happened. I’m sorry.”

“Then don’t be! It takes two to tango or do whatever it was we were doing last night, and even though I’ve been on my own and, believe it or not, celibate for a good two years, I’ve stayed on the pill, just in case….”

“What are those two up to?” asked Peter suddenly, pointing.

“It’s that metal detector I bought them! They seem to be digging for something. I do hope it’s gold!”

“If it’s really precious they’ll have to hand it in, you know.”

“And if it’s not claimed they get to keep it in the end. Yes, I do know. Which one of us is the Inspector!”

“Come on, let’s see what the little devils are up to.”

She let him take her by the hand and she let him lead her away, towards where two excited children were digging away with two plastic spades like fury.

“What is it?” she called when they were close enough to be heard above the roar of the sea and the voices of the Seaholme crowds.

“Treasure,” Jack told her, seriously. “We’ve found treasure!”

An inquisitive child from another family stopped and watched, joined by his parents and then a few others until there was a small crowd curious to see what two ten year-old children had unearthed.

Soon they had created a mound of damp sand, and the screeching of their metal detector transferred from above the hole they’d dug until they wafted it above the mound itself.

“It’s in here!” shouted Jill, “stop what you’re doing, Jack!”

He stopped digging and they both started sifting the sand between their fingers, slowly, carefully, in the best way ten year old excited children can manage.

Then didn’t seem to find anything, and the sand was moved, bit by bit, from the pile to form another pile, and it didn’t take them long to realise the bleeping noise from their detector had moved with it.

“We must have missed it!” announced Jill, “it must be very small!”

“Precious things are often small,” said Jack, knowingly. “As daddy used to say before his accident, the good lord never did make diamonds as big as bricks!”

“You remember that?” asked Rosie, surprised.

“He meant that big doesn’t necessarily go along with preciousness,” Jill told her.

Rosie nodded. “I know what you mean,” she murmured, squeezing Peter’s fingers.

“It’s here!” shrieked Jack, and he rubbed a little something in his hand until they could all see it glinting under the brilliant early afternoon sun.

It was a ring, a silver-coloured glittering thing with a central clear stone that could have been diamond or paste, surrounded my a small army of equally glittering tiny stones. Even with smudges of sand still stuck to it they could tell that it was beautiful, and the small group around them, now a larger group, gasped in a strange sort of dramatic unison when they saw it.

“Treasure,” sighed a deliriously happy Jack.

“Treasure,” confirmed a smiling Jill, and “a diamond ring...” she added.

“A diamond ring,” went through the crowd.

“If that’s real you’ll have to hand it in,” Rosie told the twins, “someone may have lost it quite by chance, and reported it missing. Only if nobody claims it can it be yours.”

“We know that, mummy!” replied a scornful Jack, “just because we’re only ten doesn’t mean we know nothing!”

“And if it doesn’t get claimed,” said Jill slowly, “maybe Uncle Peter could give it to you? Maybe we need a man in the family soon, to keep us safe and secure.”

“Hey, what do you think I do?” demanded Rosie, but secretly she squeezed Peter Jenson’s hands a second time, just to let him know.

And secretly he squeezed her back.

THE END

© Peter Rogerson 09.04.17