16. Clara
16
The sun was absent this morning, hidden from view by high grey cloud, but the day was still hot and humid. Clara turned her face to the sky for a moment and breathed in the smell of the sea. It was a perfect day for a picnic, but first she had someone to speak to.
Weaving in and out of the tourists thronging the quayside, Clara made her way to a small whitewashed cottage squeezed between two larger buildings. Lobster Pot Cottage was where former fisherman Claude lived. She’d known him all her life, but there was no guarantee he’d have anything to do with her today.
Claude was curmudgeonly, reclusive and unpredictable. But there was something about him, a vulnerability that surfaced occasionally, that meant she’d always liked him.
Her knock on the front door was greeted by a volley of barking from inside and a loud yell: ‘Give it a rest, Buster!’ Then the door was opened a crack and Claude peered out. His shock of grey hair, once long and wild, was more tamed these days and his beard less bushy, but he still looked like the local eccentric.
‘What is it?’ He gently pushed his dog to one side with his foot.
‘Hello, Claude. It’s Clara, from Brellasham Manor. I wondered if I could have a quick word with you.’
‘What about?’ he asked, his eyes narrowing.
‘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.’
‘That’s right. He’s sad about it but he can’t afford to keep the manor going.’
‘So you and your mother will lose your cottage, I dare say.’
Clara nodded. ‘That’s right. It’s going to be all change for everyone.’
‘Not much about to rent in the village, and you won’t want to be moving away from Heaven’s Cove.’
‘Mum definitely won’t want to go far but we might not have a choice.’ Clara breathed out slowly. ‘Brellasham Manor Fete is still going ahead next Saturday, Claude. You should come along, to say goodbye to the place.’
‘I don’t suppose I will but I appreciate the invitation.’
And with that, he stepped into his cottage, ushered Buster to follow him inside, and slammed the front door shut.
‘OK, then,’ Clara murmured to herself.
She glanced at her watch and, leaving Claude’s cottage behind, began making her way towards the village green. It was only just midday but Bartie had brought the time of the picnic forward by forty-five minutes and she didn’t want to be late.
Weaving her way past groups of tourists, Clara thought about the information that Claude had shared. Audrey was rarely seen after moving into the manor, and Edwin was full of himself and claimed that his wife had been swimming on that fateful night.
She remembered River’s words about the stigma surrounding suicide in the 1950s. Perhaps Edwin had lied to save his wife’s reputation, or his own face. Or maybe he was so grief-stricken, he couldn’t bear to admit what had really happened. If that was what had really happened?
Clara tried, unsuccessfully, to calm the thoughts tumbling through her brain, and quickened her pace. The more she delved into Audrey’s fate, the less she seemed to know for sure. It was probably a colossal waste of time when there were more pressing things to occupy her – finding a new home, for one. But her mother was right about her stubborn streak because she couldn’t let it drop.