8. AN OLD FRIEND

The day after the murder dawns...

When Trayda and Angela rose next morning, and breakfasted on croissants smeared with marmalade washed down with cups of coffee, they became aware that there was a stirring somewhere within range of their ears.

There was, to Trayda, the familiar blues and twos tearing the distant air with sound, and when they opened the door of their van to see what might be going on there was a definite suggestion of blue lights flashing over the road that followed the bend of the coast.

“Something’s afoot,” decided Trayda, “let’s go and take a look.”

“I hope it’s not something awful,” murmured Angela, “we’re on holiday, and when I’m on holiday I don’t like awful things to happen. Not anywhere near me, anyway.”

“It’s got to be something,” muttered Trayda, “come on, then, and when my curiosity’s satisfied I’ll buy you an icecream.”

The two of them walked the short distance to the road and paused. The road (though it might be described more as a lane than a road) that passed Sandy Shores was almost blocked by two police cars and an ambulance. An unmarked car was parked nearby, and two obviously plain clothes officers were talking to a medic from the ambulance. In the near distance, clambering over the rocks, were figures clad in white from head to foot.

“Hey,” whispered Trayda, “I recognise that bloke, the one with the blonde hair and spectacles.”

“You mean the copper?” asked Angela, unable to keep the tiniest suggestion of sarcasm from her voice.

Trayda frowned at her. “Something’s gone on,” she said, “and I’m curious.”

“Once a copper, always a copper,” sighed Angela.

“He worked with me back in Brumpton before I, er, resigned,” Trayda told her. “He’s a bright spark. He applied for, and got, promotion, but I hadn’t realised he’d come here! His name’s Reuben. Reuben Richards if my memory serves me right, though I rarely used his surname.”

“So you fancied him, did you?”

“He was my sergeant, so not exactly.”

While they were talking the subject of their conversation noticed them. He frowned as he stared, then his face broke into a smile.

“Well if it isn’t Inspector Trayda Sibsey!” he called, and waved.

Trayda waved back. “I noticed you first, Reuben,” she said, closing the gap between them, “what’s got you all excited this early in the morning?”

“A nasty unexplained death,” he replied, “and it’s so good to see you! What are you doing in this neck of the woods?”

“Caravanning,” she replied briefly, “how nasty?” she added, curious.

“Bloke’s been bashed over the head and stripped before being left to the sea to do its worse, which was dump him on a low shelf of flint-like rock and leave him for the seagulls to munch at. Did you know anyone round here?”

Trayda shook her head. “Not really,” she said, “we only arrived yesterday, but we had a chat with the ice cream bloke, a young fellow who didn’t seem to be particularly happy with his lot, and the merry-go-round chappie gave us a ride for half price, which almost ruptured my backside, the seats being meant for five year olds and not middle aged biddies like us. Oh, and the caravan site manager, of course.”

“Well, one of your acquaintances is no more,” Reuben told her gravely, “I’m afraid the bloke who sold you ice creams will sell you no more. He obviously made an enemy of whoever took particular offence at the way he dressed because he was stripped naked and spent a night under the stars, dead as a dodo and naked as the day he was born.”

“Any theories?” asked Trayda, and Angela coughed obviously, next to her. “Sorry, let me introduce you to my best ever friend Angela. Angela, this is Reuben, and when I was queen pin at Brumpton he was my sergeant and a jolly good officer. Actually, he’s no plod but bright as a button, and I’d say that even if he wasn’t standing right here next to me.”

“Good to meet you,” acknowledged Reuben.

“And it’s good to meet you too,” grinned Angela, “Don’t tell me that you’re married because it would break my heart...”

“Consider your heart broken then,” laughed Reuben, and he turned back to Trayda, “as for theories, not as yet,” he admitted.

“Who found him?” asked Trayda automatically, and then realised she had no more right to police information than any other Tom, Dick or Harriet. “Sorry,” she added, “you don’t have to … I left the force.”

“I heard,” Reuben told her, “and I reckon you got a rough deal. Don’t tell anyone, least of all not anyone higher up than a superintendent, but you’re not the first to have availed yourself of, let’s call it comfort, in a cell with an officer of the opposite persuasion.”

“I’m the first to do it at the precise moment when a vulnerable kid topped himself,” she pointed out.

“Possibly,” he agreed, “but that was bad timing on your part and nothing else! As for who found him, it was a bloke walking his dog along the beach. Says he does it every day, several times when the weather’s like this.”

“I suppose he’s not on your list?” asked Trayda.

“If he is he’s very low down,” sighed Reuben, and then he looked her in the eye, quite deliberately.

“Look, Trayda, I’m on a spot here. I’ve got this body to sort out and find a culprit for, and at the same time there’ve been a spate of robberies back in Southwesthampton. That wouldn’t be so bad, but one of them was at the home of an assistant chief constable, and he’s furious that it happened and even more furious that I haven’t sorted it out yesterday! How would you fancy nosing about a bit? Unofficially, of course, it would have to be on the QT.”

Trayda looked at Angela. The two of them were on holiday, but…

“It’s all right,” said Angela with a bright smile, “I know you, Tray. You won’t be happy until you’ve got your nose to the grindstone and someone’s under arrest.”

“Then I’ll put my well ground nose about, Reuben, just for you,” grinned Trayda, “but don’t expect too much from a bird without a warrant card.”

“It will be a load off my mind to know you’re around,” murmured Reuben, “and I know that I can depend on you for thoroughness.”

“I’ll do my best,” she whispered, smiling.

oo0oo

“You’re in a grumpy mood this morning, William,” said Annie to her husband as she prepared breakfast for him. They were both naked, as was their usual way, especially during the season when the site was open and busy. And neither minded it. Naturism was what had drawn them to each other in the first place, and although William was no longer the lithe and athletic man he had been and she sometimes wondered why he was letting himself go, they didn’t find each other objectionable.

Not yet, thought Annie, projecting her thoughts into the future.

“Where were you last night, then?” asked William, eyes bulging as they tried to penetrate to her very thoughts.

“I told you. I planned to go to the Shell,” she replied.

“And I followed you and you never did,” he accused her, “are you seeing someone? Someone I’m not supposed to know about? Someone, maybe, who smells of ice cream?”

She was and didn’t want to confirm it. Her life was comfortable where it was and she didn’t want it to change to something inferior.

“What are you on about?” she demanded, “me seeing someone? Are you off your rocker?”

“I went to the Shell and nobody had seen you,” he insisted, “I asked around, and nothing. I even asked a woman to check in the ladies in case you were in there, but no!”

“Spying on me, are you, William?” she growled, dishing up Greek yoghurt with an irritable splash.

“No. Not spying. But I do worry about you.” he mumbled, knowing that his only real worry was losing her.

She saw the anguish behind his words and felt a momentary pang of grief. Their marriage wasn’t the happy go lucky venture it had been when they’d first plighted their troth. Back then he had been a bit more than the fading naked businessman but an extrovert with a penchant for lust, and she had worshipped him. But when lust faded it didn’t morph into love but became something irritating, something with a history, little present and, so far as she was concerned, no future.

“David doesn’t mean anything to me, not really,” she lied, “he’s just a bloke who sometimes gives me a Neapolitan ice cream and spends the time of day telling me his woes...”

“I don’t like him!” spat out William, “I can’t stand the sight of the man and I wish … I wish … I wish he’d go away!”

“Well, he might if he gets a better pitch,” she said crossly, “and that wouldn’t matter to me and it shouldn’t matter to you!”

But, what a liar I am, she thought, the things David Stokesey does to my flesh, and the way it responds, and I tell him, I can’t help it … I tell him… that I love him…

© Peter Rogerson 25.03.19