Taking his cue, the second man moved vaguely away and came back. ‘Tizer bottle.’
‘Is the label wet?’ asked Topham without even looking at it.
‘Yer.’
‘Chuck it,’ snapped the inspector. ‘No use to us.’
He moved swiftly off to the slipway where the car was parked, not wanting the men to see his face. There had been too many deaths back in the War, but wasn’t that why he had fought? So there wouldn’t be any more? It was a man’s job to die, not a woman’s.
For a moment he turned to look back at the scene below. The dead body claimed his focus, but, beyond, it was as if nobody cared that the world had lost a soul this morning. In the distance two sand-yachts raced each other across the broad beach, and overhead an ancient biplane trailed a long banner flapping from its tail. Smith’s Crisps, according to its message, gave you a wholesome happy holiday.
Far in the distance he could see a solitary female figure, dressed in rainbow colours, standing perfectly still and looking out to sea as if what it had to offer was somehow more interesting than a dead body. It was as if nobody cared.
Inspector Topham got in the car and pulled out on to the empty road. He reached Todhempstead Spa station in a matter of minutes, but already the Riviera Express was pulling out, heading on towards Exeter at a slow roll – huffing, grinding, thumping, clanging. He could get it stopped at Newton Abbot to check if there was evidence on the front buffers of contact with human flesh from the downward journey, to quiz the train guard and the driver. But they’d all be back again this afternoon on the return trip, and he doubted, given the distance of the body from the railway embankment, that this was a rail fatality. Though, with death, you could never be sure about anything.
As he drove back to the Sands, his eyes lifted for a moment from the road ahead. It was already mid-June and the lanes running parallel to the beach were bursting with joy at summer’s arrival. Though the bluebells and primroses had retreated, the hedgerows were noisy with young blackbirds testing their beautiful voices, while, beneath, newly arrived wild roses and cow parsley reached out, begging to be noticed.
How, asked the policeman, could anyone wish a young girl dead at this season, when hope is in the air and the breeze is scented with promise? His years in the desert, those arid wastes of death, might be long behind but still they cast their shadow. He drove down the slipway on to the beach, got slowly out, and nodded to his men.
‘Body away,’ said one.
‘Come on then.’
Topham removed his hat and got back in the car. His square head, doughty and in its own way distinguished, grazed the ceiling because of his ramrod-straight back. Despite the rising heat he still wore the raincoat he’d donned in the early morning when he got the call. He’d been too distracted by what he’d seen to take it off.
Too honest a man, too upright, perhaps too regimented in his thinking to see life the way criminals do, Frank Topham was both the very best of British policing and, some might argue, the worst. There was a dead woman on the beach, but if it was murder – if – the culprit might never be caught. No clues, no arrest.
No hope of an arrest.
The car approached Temple Regis, the prettiest town in the whole of Devon, and, as the inspector drove up Cable Street and over Tuppenny Row, his eyes took solace in the elegant terrace of Regency cottages whose pink brickwork blushed in the summer sunshine. Further down the hill he could hear the clanking arrival of the 10.30 from Paddington, its sooty steamy clouds shooting upwards from Regis Junction station. Life was carrying on as if nothing had happened.
Topham entered the police station at his regulation quick-march. The front office was empty apart from the desk sergeant.
‘Frank.’
‘Bert.’
‘Anything for the book?’ The sergeant had his pen poised.
Topham hesitated. ‘Accidental. Woman on T’emstead Beach.’
The other man gazed shrewdly at him. ‘You sure? Accidental?’
Topham returned his gaze evenly. ‘Accidental.’ He tried to make it sound as though he believed it.
‘Only I got a reporter in the interview room. Saying murder.’
‘Reporter?’ barked Topham nastily. ‘Saying murder? Not – not that Miss Dimont?’
‘Nah,’ said Sergeant Gull. ‘This ’un’s new. A kid.’
Topham’s features turned to granite at the mention of the press. Though Temple Regis boasted only one newspaper, it somehow managed to cause a disproportionate amount of grief to those police officers seeking to uphold the law. Questions, questions – always questions, whether it was a cycling without lights case or that unpleasant business with the curate of St Cuthbert’s. As for Miss Dimont …
To Frank Topham’s mind – and in the opinion of many other Temple Regents too – the local rag was there to report the facts, not to ask questions. So often the stories they printed showed a side to the town which did little to enhance its reputation. What good did it do to make headlines out of the goings-on the Magistrates’ Court? Or ask questions about poorly paid council officials who enjoyed elaborate and expensive holidays?
And how they got on to things so quickly, he never knew. What was this reporter doing asking questions about a murder? It was only a couple of hours ago he himself had clapped eyes on the corpse – how had word spread so fast?
‘So,’ said Sergeant Gull, picking up his pencil and scratching his ear with it, ‘the book, Frank. Murder or accidental?’
‘Like I said,’ snarled his superior officer, and strode into the interview room.
You can be the greatest reporter in the world but you are no reporter at all if people don’t tell you things. A dead body on the beach is all very well but if you’re out shopping, how are you supposed to know?
In fact Miss Judy Dimont, ferocious defender of free speech, champion of the truth and the thorn in the side of poor Inspector Topham, hardly looked like Temple Regis’ ace newspaperwoman this afternoon. As she ordered a pound of apples in the Home and Colonial Stores in Fore Street she might easily be mistaken for a librarian on her tea break: the sensible shoes, the well-worn raincoat and the raffia handbag made it clear that here was a no-nonsense, serious person who had just enough time to stock up on the essentials before heading home to a good book.
‘One and sixpence, thank you, miss.’
The reporter reached for her purse, smiled up at the young shop assistant, and suddenly she looked anything but ordinary. Her wonderfully erratic corkscrew hair fell back from her face and her sage-grey eyes peeped over the top of her spectacles, which had slithered down her convex nose. The smile itself was joyous and radiant – the sort of smile that offers hope and comfort in a troubled world.
‘Tea?’
‘Not today thank you, Victor.’ She didn’t like to say she preferred to buy her tea at Lipton’s round the corner. ‘I think I’ll just quickly go over and get some fish.’
‘Ah yes.’ The assistant nodded knowledgeably. ‘Mulligatawny.’
This was how it was in Temple Regis. People knew the name of your cat and would ask after his health. They knew you bought your tea at Lipton’s and only gently tried to persuade you to purchase their own brand. They delivered the groceries by bicycle to your door and left a little extra gift in the cardboard box knowing the pleasure it would bring.
‘I tried that ginger marmalade,’ said Miss Dimont, with perfect timing. ‘Delicious! In fact it’s all gone. May I buy some if you have