‘He broke his bloody leg,’ said Shelley, finally sitting down on a chair beside her husband, perching the tiny white dog on her knee and looking greedily at Strike.
‘Liss of the “bloody”, you,’ said Leonard, smirking. He had the air of a joker used to commanding the room, but he didn’t seem to resent Strike’s temporary hogging of centre stage, perhaps because he and his wife were enjoying playing the role of impresarios who’d brought this impressive exhibit for their friends’ amusement.
‘Tell him what you was up to whan you broke it,’ Shelley instructed her husband.
‘Thass neither hare nor there,’ said a smirking Leonard, clearly wanting to be prompted.
‘Go on, Leonard, tell him,’ said Gillian, giggling.
‘I’ll tell’m, then,’ said Shelley. ‘Minigolf.’
‘Really?’ said Strike, smiling politely.
‘Bloody minigolf!’ said Shelley. ‘I said to him, “How the hell d’you manage to break a leg doing minigolf?”’
‘Tripped,’ said Leonard.
‘Pissed,’ said Shelley, and the audience on the sofa chortled more loudly.
‘Do you shet up, woman,’ said Leonard, archly innocent. ‘Tripped. Could’ve happened to anyone.’
‘Funny how it olluz happens to you,’ said Shelley.
‘They’re olluz like this!’ the giggling Gillian told Strike, inviting him to enjoy the Heatons’ madcap humour. ‘They never stop!’
‘We stayed out in Fuengirola till he could walk better,’ said Shelley. ‘He didn’t fancy the plane and tryina manage the steps down the esplanade at home. We had to miss out on a couple of summer bookings, but thass the price you pay for marrying a man who breaks his leg tryina git a golf ball into a clown’s mouth.’
The trio on the sofa roared with laughter, darting eager looks at Strike to see whether he was suitably entertained, and Strike continued to smile as sincerely as he could manage while drawing out his notebook and pen, at which a silence tingling with excitement fell over the room. Far from dampening anyone’s spirits, the prospect of raking back over the accidental death of a child seemed to be having a stimulating effect on all present.
‘Well, it’s very good of you to agree to see me,’ Strike told the Heatons. ‘As I said, I’m really just after an eyewitness account of what happened that day on the beach. It’s a long time ago now, I know, but—’
‘Well, we were up right arly,’ said Shelley eagerly.
‘Ah, crack of dawn,’ said Leonard.
‘Before dawn,’ Shelley corrected him. ‘Still dark.’
‘We were s’pposed to be driving up to Leicester—’
‘Fur me auntie’s funeral,’ interjected Shelley.
‘You can’t leave a Maltese,’ said Leonard. ‘They do howl the place down if you leave ’em, so we needed t’ampty har before we got in the car. You’re not s’posed to take dogs down on the beach in th’oliday season—’
‘But Betty was like Dilly, she wus only tiny, and we always pick up,’ said Shelley comfortably. After a split second’s confusion, Strike realised she was referring to dog shit.
‘So we took har along the beach, just out there,’ said Leonard, pointing left. ‘And the gal come a-runnin’ out of the dark, screaming.’
‘Give me a hell of a tann,’ said Shelley.
‘We thowt she’d had a sex attack or something,’ said Leonard, not without a certain relish.
‘Can you remember what she said?’
‘“Hilp me, hilp me, she’s gone under” sorta thing,’ said Leonard.
‘“I thenk she’s drowned”,’ said Shelley.
‘We thowt she meant a dog. Who goes swimming, five a.m. in the North Sea? She wus in her undies. Soaking wet,’ said Leonard with a smirk and a waggle of his eyebrows. Shelley cuffed her husband with the back of her ringed hand.
‘Behave yoursalf,’ said Shelley, smirking at Strike, while the sofa-sitters snorted with renewed laughter.
‘She wasn’t in a swimsuit?’
‘Undies,’ repeated Leonard, smirking. ‘Freezing cold.’
Shelley cuffed him again while the sofa-sitters laughed.
‘I thowt at fust she’d stripped off to go in ahter the dog,’ said Shelley. ‘Navver dreamed she’d been swimming.’
‘And she said, “Help me, she’s gone under”?’ asked Strike.
‘Ah, something like that,’ said Leonard. ‘Than she says, “We wus over hare” and goes running off to—’
‘No, she navver,’ said Shelley. ‘She asked us to git the coastguard fust.’
‘No, she navver,’ said Leonard. ‘She showed us the stuff fust.’
‘No, she navver,’ said Shelley, ‘she said, “Git the coastguard, git the coastguard.”’
‘’Ow come I seen the stuff, then?’
‘You seen the stuff ahter you come back, you dozy foal,’ said Shelley, to further chuckles from the sofa.
‘What stuff was this?’ Strike asked.
‘Towels and clothes – the little gal’s driss and shoes,’ said Shelley. ‘She took me over to tham, and whan I seen the shoes, I realised it was a kid. Orful,’ she said, but her tone was matter-of-fact. Strike could tell that the drowning had receded into the distant past for the Heatons. Such shock as it might have caused them two decades ago had long since subsided.
‘I come along with yarsalves,’ said Leonard stubbornly. ‘I warn’t gonna call up the coastguard fur a dog. I wus there, I seen the shoes—’
‘All right, Leonard, you wus with us, ha’it your own way,’ said Shelley, rolling her eyes.
‘So then I go to phone the coastguard,’ said Leonard, satisfied.
‘And you stayed with Cherie, Mrs Heaton?’
‘Ah, and I said to har, “The hell was you doing in the water, this hour of the morning?”’
‘And what did she say?’ asked Strike.
‘Said the little gal wanted a paddle.’
‘I said to Shelley ahter,’ interjected Leonard, ‘“thass what the word “no”’s for. We see kids like that hare avery summer, spoiled as hell. We navver had any ourselves—’
‘How’m I supposed to manage kids? I’ve got my hands full with you, breaking your bloody legs playing minigolf,’ said Shelley, drawing more giggles from the sofa. ‘I should tell you no more often.’
‘You tell me no plenny, thass why we ha’n’t got kids,’ said Leonard, which provoked shrieks of laughter from George, Gillian and Suzy and another cuff from his smirking wife.
‘Did Cherie tell you what had happened in the sea?’ Strike asked Shelley patiently.
‘Ah, she said the little gal went too deep and went under, said she tried to reach har and couldn’t, so she swum back to shore. Than she seen us and come a-running.’
‘And how did Cherie seem to you? Upset?’
‘More scared’n upset, I thowt,’ said Shelley.
‘Shell din’t like har,’ said Leonard.
‘He liked har, ’cause he was gitting an arly morning eyeful,’ said Shelley, while the chorus on the sofa chuckled. ‘She said to me, “I nearly drowned mysalf, the current’s right strong.” Looking fur sympathy for harsalf, and thar’s a kid dead.’
‘You’ve olluz been hard on—’
‘I weren’t the one with the hard on, Len,’ said Shelley.
The trio on the sofa shrieked with scandalised laughter, and both Heatons threw a triumphant glance at Strike, as if to say they doubted he’d ever been entertained like this during an investigation. The detective’s jaw was starting to ache with all the fake smiling he was having to do.
‘An’ she giggled and all,’ Shelley told Strike, over the others’ laughter. ‘I said to har, put your clothes back on, no point standing there like that. “Oh yeah,” she said, an’ she giggled.’
‘Narves,’ said Leonard. ‘Shock.’
‘You warn’t there whan that happened,’ said Shelley. ‘You wus phoning.’
‘You didn’t think she was genuinely upset Daiyu had drowned, Mrs Heaton?’ Strike asked.
‘Well, she wus crying a bit, but if it’d been me—’
‘You took agin har,’ Leonard told Shelley.
‘She bent down to Betty and fussed har,’ said Shelley. ‘Whass she doing playing with a dog whan there’s a little gal drowning?’
‘Shock,’ said Leonard staunchly.
‘How long were you away, Mr Heaton?’ asked Strike.
‘Twenny minutes? Haaf hour?’
‘And how quickly did the coastguard get out?’
‘They wus out there not long ahter I got back to the beach,’ said Leonard. ‘We seen the boat going out, seen the lights, and the police wus on the beach not long ahter that.’
‘She was bloody scared whan the police got there,’ said Shelley.
‘Natural,’ said Leonard.
‘She run awff,’ said Shelley.
‘She navver,’ scoffed Leonard.
‘She did,’ said Shelley. ‘“Whass that over there?” She went tanking off to see something along the beach. Pebbles or weed or something. Sun wus just coming up by then. It wus an excuse,’ said Shelley. ‘She wanted to look busy whan they arrived, poking around in the weed.’
‘Thass not running awff,’ said Leonard.
‘Lump of seaweed, a seven-year-old gal? She wus playing up fur the police. “Look at me trying averything t’find har.” No, I din’t like har,’ Shelley told Strike unnecessarily. ‘Irresponsible, warn’t she? It wus har fault.’
‘What happened when the police arrived, can you remember?’ asked Strike.
‘They asked how she and the little gal got there, ’cause she warn’t local,’ said Shelley.
‘She took us up to the scrappy owd truck with dirt and straw all over it, in the car park,’ said Leonard. ‘Said they wus from that farm, that church place full of weirdos, up Aylmerton way.’
‘You already knew about the Universal Humanitarian Church, did you?’ asked Strike.
‘Friends of aars in Felbrigg, they’d towd us about the place,’ said Shelley.
‘Weirdos,’ repeated Leonard. ‘So we’re standing in the car park and the police wants us all to go t’station, to make statements. I says, “We’ve got a funeral to git to.” The gal was crying. Then owd Muriel come out the café, to see whass going on.’
‘This is Muriel Carter, who saw Cherie take Daiyu down to the beach?’
‘Know your stuff, don’tchew?’ said Shelley, as impressed by Strike’s thoroughness as Jordan Reaney had been disconcerted. ‘Ah, thass her. Used to own a café down by that bit of beach.’