“Death on the downs” is the second of Simon Brett’s murder mysteries, based in the fictional English village of Fethering and featuring middle-aged amateur sleuths, Carole and Jude. I was pleased to find a copy of it going very cheap in a second-hand bookshop recently.
Neighbours in Fethering, Carole and Jude are similar in age but vastly different in personality and life experience. As with other literary detective duos, the contrast between them is what makes their partnership work.
“Death on the downs” by Simon Brett (2001)
The story begins when Carole accidentally happens upon human remains. While out for a walk in the countryside one morning, she takes refuge in an old barn when it starts to rain. Inside the barn she accidentally tips over some fertiliser bags and a human bone falls out of one of them. When she gets back to her car she drives into the nearby village of Weldisham and phones the police from a call box to report her find. The police ask her to stay where she is until two of their officers arrive to speak to her and investigate her discovery.
One of the police officers, Detective Sergeant Baylis, takes her to the local pub for a chat. The pub hasn’t yet opened for the day but the manager lets them in. Baylis asks the manager to provide drinks, despite it being out of licensing hours, and tells him to put the cost on his tab, with a wink that makes the manager look distinctly uncomfortable. Ever observant and curious, Carole wonders what sort of a hold Baylis has over the publican.
A little later, when the pub opens up to customers, Baylis leaves and Carole stays there on her own, having been provided with another drink on Baylis’s tab. Sitting in the pub nursing her brandy, Carole observes several local characters who turn up and start chatting to the manager and each other. To her great surprise, one of them mentions the human bones found in the barn. Wondering how her discovery has become known about so quickly, she takes a particular interest in the man who makes the comment. Discussions amongst her fellow customers lead to the suggestion that the bones belong to a girl who went missing from the village some time ago.
When Carole gets back home she discusses her experiences with Jude, who by chance knows the girl the customers in the pub were talking about. From then on, Carole and Jude do their utmost to find out more about the mysterious bag of bones, but the more involved they become the more they have to watch their backs. Certain people are not pleased to find Carole asking questions in the village, but she feels she’s getting closer to solving the mystery and refuses to curb her investigating. Meanwhile, Jude is looking into the circumstances surrounding the girl who went missing and beginning to draw disturbing conclusions. When Carole fails to return home after a visit to Weldisham, and her car is found parked outside the pub with the keys on the ground beside it, Jude realises her friend’s life may be in danger.
Although some of the conversations and situations in this book were a bit far-fetched, I found it an easy and entertaining read, and possibly the most enjoyable of the Fethering books I’ve read so far. Having been reading the novels out of chronological order, I’ve now ordered the first in the series from my local library to find out how Carole and Jude started out on their detective partnership. Using my 4Ps rating system, I gave this novel 16/20.
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