TP Fielden - Resort to Murder - A must-read vintage crime mystery

‘Stuff something into that top, Dartmouth,’ he said roughly to Molly. ‘You’re flat as a pancake.’

Molly was used to this.

‘As for you Exmouth,’ he said, referring to Eve’s title – he never used Christian names – ‘those shoes!’

‘You’ll have to let me have some on tick,’ said Eve, unsurprised by this attack on her battered high heels. ‘Can’t afford a new pair.’

The fat man looked at her meanly. ‘Borrow some,’ he snapped. ‘And get a move on, you’re due out there in two minutes.’

Altogether twenty-one girls were entered in this eliminating heat. Up for grabs was not only the Riviera queen title, but also the chance to go through to the next round of Miss Great Britain. And, after that, Miss World! Here in the church hall in Temple Regis there was a lot at stake, even if most of the girls were experienced enough to predict the outcome.

Normandy moved away towards the door, blowing a whistle as he went. The prettiest girls in Devon – those at least who were prepared to take part in this fanciful charade – lined up by the door, giving each other the once-over. They were uniformly clad in one-piece bathing suits, high heels, lacquered hair and bearing a cardboard badge on their right wrist signifying their competition number. Their elbows were as sharp as their mutual appraisals.

The Slug launched into his usual pre-pageant routine like a football manager before the match.

‘Just remember,’ he barked, ‘smile. You’re all walking advertisements for Devon so smile, damn you!

‘You’re all about to become famous. And rich. Watch your lip when you’re interviewed, keep smiling, and don’t fall over. There’s expenses forms on the table in the corner you can fill in afterwards.’

‘That’s a laugh,’ whispered Eve to Molly bitterly, thinking about the shoes.

‘“ Smile ”,’ parrotted Molly, but she did not suit the action to the word.

Normandy was adjusting his bow tie and smoothing his hair prior to sailing forth into the sunshine. His fussy self-important entrance into the Lido would cause the gathered crowds to cease their chatter and crane their necks. This was part of the joy of seaside life, the beauty pageant – an opportunity to sit in the sun and make catty comments about the size of the contestants’ feet.

‘I hadn’t expected this on my first day,’ said Valentine Waterford. ‘A murder and a beauty competition.’

‘Don’t get too excited,’ said Judy, putting on dark glasses with a dash of imperiousness. The bench they were sitting on was extremely hard. ‘And move over, you’re sitting on my dress.’

The young man edged apologetically away. ‘Look, it’s good of you to come,’ he said, ‘I rather expected to have to fend for myself.’

‘I wanted to go out to Todhempstead Beach. Just to take a look at where they found the girl.’

‘Wasn’t anything to see,’ said Valentine. ‘I drove out there after talking to the Inspector.’ His account faltered as the bathing belles made their entrance to a round of wild applause; Eve Berry wobbled slightly in her borrowed heels but managed to avert disaster. ‘By the time I got there it was all over, bit of a waste of time.’ He was betting with himself who would win.

‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ snipped Miss Dimont. ‘If you’re going to be a journalist you must learn to use your eyes.’ Why was she behaving like this? Rude, short, when really he was very charming. It must be the girls.

‘Empty beach, almost nobody there,’ he replied. ‘Only a couple of markers where presumably they found the body, but the tide was in and so you couldn’t see the sand. What else was there to see?’

Miss Dimont considered this.

‘Your story, the one you wrote this morning, said “mystery death”’ she said. ‘If you’re going to be a reporter and you’re going to write about mysteries, don’t you think it’s part of your job to try to get to the bottom of them?’

‘I see what you’re getting at,’ replied Valentine, ‘in a way. But surely that’s the police’s job? We just sit back and report what they find, don’t we, and if they mess it up we tell the public how useless they are?’

He certainly has got a relative in the business, thought Miss Dimont. A lazy one.

‘Tell me, Valentine, who’s your uncle, the one who’s in newspapers?’

‘Gilbert Drury.’

‘Oh,’ said Miss Dimont, wrinkling her nose. ‘The gossip columnist. That makes sense.’

‘Well,’ said Valentine, beating a hasty retreat, ‘not really my uncle. More married to a cousin of my mother’s.’

A wave of applause drowned Miss Dimont’s reply as the contestants for the title of Queen of the English Riviera 1959 were introduced one by one.

The master of ceremonies introduced his menagerie. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he boomed into the microphone, ‘you do us a very great honour in being here today to help select our next queen from this wondrous array of Devon’s beauty.’

Something in his tone implied however that he, Cyril Normandy, was the one conferring the honour, not the paying public. The hot June sunlight was gradually melting the Brylcreem which held down his thinning hair and at the same time it highlighted the dandruff sprinkled across the shoulders of his navy blazer.

‘As you know, it has fallen to Temple Regis to host these important finals this year, and let me remind you, ladies and gentlemen, the winner of today’s crown will go on to compete in Miss Great Britain in the autumn. So this is a huge stepping stone for one of these fine young ladies, on their way to fame and fortune, and, ladies and gentlemen, it will be you who is to be responsible for their future happiness!

‘Just take a very close look at all these gorgeous girls, because, ladies and gentlemen, it is your vote that counts!’

‘Are you taking notes?’ said Miss Dimont crisply from behind the dark glasses.

‘I, er …’

‘You’ll find it an enormous help as you go along to have a pencil and notebook about your person. Sort of aide-memoire,’ she added with more than a hint of acid. ‘For when you’re back at the office searching your memory for people’s names. You’ll find they come in handy.’ Maybe the hot sun was reacting badly to the lost sleep and the early-morning rum, not to mention the force nine. This was not like Miss Dimont!

The well-padded MC had a microphone in his hand now and was interviewing the girls by the pool’s edge, apparently astonished by the wisdom of their answers. But while he debriefed them on how proud they were to be an ambassador for Britain’s most-favoured county, about their ambitions to do well for themselves and the world, and, most importantly, what a thrill it was to support the town whose sash they had the honour to wear, they were thinking of the free cosmetics and underwear, the trips to London, the boys they might yet meet, and how their feet hurt.

‘Don’t seem to have the full complement,’ puzzled Valentine, looking down the flimsy programme.

‘What was going on back at the police station,’ pondered Miss Dimont, ignoring this and returning to her earlier theme, ‘about whether it was murder or misadventure?’

‘One missing. Erm, what?’

‘Inspector Topham.’

‘He was definite it was accidental.’

‘Something has to account for the fact that Sergeant Gull told you it was murder. I’ve never known him wrong.’

‘But the Inspector outranks him. It was the Inspector who went out to view the scene. So it must be the inspector who’s right.’

‘Never that simple in Temple Regis,’ murmured Miss Dimont, thinking of Dr Rudkin, the coroner, and how he always liked to sweep things under the carpet. ‘No, for the word to have got back to the sergeant that it could be murder must mean that’s what the first call back to the station said.’