The Beach Hut Murders by Rachel McLean, book 12 in the Dorset Crime series - Chapter 1

Jude Bristow stood back from the pile of rubble obscuring the usually beautiful sea view and placed his palms on the small of his back.

He leaned back as far as his balance would allow, stretching out his grumbling back muscles. “Jesus Christ,” he said. “I thought this was going to be easier.”

Damian grunted. Jude’s mate was a man of few words, most of them not fit for public consumption.

“Bastard thing,” he muttered.

Jude nodded. “It is that. Did you have any idea so much of the concrete was going to be reinforced with metal?”

Damian shook his head. “It’s a bastard.”

Jude sighed. It was cold today, the wind whistling through the beach huts and the waves pounding onto the beach. Few of the beach hut owners had braved it out here. The Mudeford Ferry wasn’t running and most of the boats he normally saw out in Christchurch Harbour were moored up.

But Jude and Damian worked for Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council, also known as BCP. And there was no rest for council employees, whatever the weather.

In fact, the worse the weather, the more work there was for him, Damian and the aptly named Digsy, who even now was climbing into a digger. If the people who used these beaches knew how much sand had to be shifted after a storm…

“Bastard building,” Digsy grunted. “Should never have built the thing.” He turned the digger’s ignition and the machine shuddered into life.

“Digsy’s not wrong,” Damian said.

Jude looked up. “Digsy. Go easy, yeah?”

He squinted, perusing the progress they’d already made. They were under instructions to use non-invasive tools where possible, which meant pickaxes, shovels and pneumatic drills. This headland, with Mudeford Spit to the north and Hengistbury Head behind him, was a site of historic interest. Back at the visitor centre there was a display of the Bronze Age encampment that had been the last significant settlement here, long before some mad idiot had come along, plonked some wooden huts in a spot where the elements were determined to destroy them, and somehow managed to charge half a million quid each for them.

Half a million quid! That was what people were buying those huts for.

Sure, they were bigger than the average beach hut, and it was one hell of a location. They had kitchenettes and cute little mezzanine bedrooms in the eaves. But they didn’t even have plumbing. If the wealthy owners wanted to go for a piss in the middle of the night, they had to trek to one of these basic concrete toilet blocks.

One of which was slowly – too slowly – being reduced to a pile of rubble before his eyes.

He wiped his brow; he was sweating, despite the chill. He looked at Digsy, who’d stopped the digger and was waiting. Tel, their supervisor, had gone to answer the call of nature himself in one of the three remaining toilet blocks. At least he had a key to the private cubicles, usually accessible only to the beach hut owners and residents. It was still a stinking concrete block, though.

But with Tel away, Jude was the de facto leader of their little gang. Hence, Digsy waiting before he started the digger in earnest.

“Go on then,” Jude said. “I can’t stand another minute of this bloody reinforced concrete.”

The walls of the toilet block had metal running through them. The sort of ragged, twisted metal that felt more like scrap than anything manufactured for the purpose. And it was a bitch to cut the stuff out of thirty-year-old concrete.

Digsy started up the digger and moved forward. Jude heard a shout and saw Tel, running towards them along the path between the huts and the harbour, waving his hard hat. He was bellowing something unintelligible.

Jude ignored Tel – easier to seek forgiveness than permission, his partner Sal always said. He watched as Digsy brought down a sizeable section of the toilet block’s northernmost wall.

That’s more like it.

“What the bloody hell’s going on?”

Tel was back. Jude looked up to see him bending over, red-faced and wheezing. He spat into the sand.

“You know our instructions,” he continued. “Why are you using the digger?”

Digsy had his ear defenders on, so wouldn’t be able to hear Tel anyway from his perch inside the digger. Damian was on the other side of the digger, checking that Digsy didn’t overbalance on the uneven ground.

“Jude?” Tel said, standing in front of him. “I know they listen to you. Why didn’t you stop this?”

Jude shrugged. How long could he feign ignorance? He’d thought this job would be a welcome change from their normal routine. But he couldn’t bloody wait to get back to shovelling sand and hauling rocks along the beach for protection against the currents.

“Stop!”

Jude and Tel both turned. That wasn’t Tel’s voice, but Damian’s.

“Stop!” Damian yelled again.

Jude looked towards the digger. Digsy was oblivious, ploughing the digging arm into the foundations of the building, teeth gritted in concentration.

Jude waved his arms. He knew better than to get in front of the digger, so jumped up and down, still waving.

“What the fuck?” Tel said.

Jude looked at him with a shrug. Tel joined him in the waving and shouting.

It took long enough, but eventually Digsy noticed them. He turned off the digger, and it juddered to a halt.

He frowned and removed his ear defenders. “What? What’s up?”

Jude looked at the digger. It was level, no sign of it toppling. He looked at Tel, who seemed as puzzled as he was.

Whatever the problem was, it had to be on Damian’s side. He checked the digger had come to a total stop and walked around the back of it.

“Damo? Damo, mate! You OK?”

“I’m fine.” Damian was standing a few feet away from the digger, staring at the ground beneath it.

Tel was right behind Jude. “Why did you boys decide to start digging right when my back was turned? And what’s all the panic?”

Boys. Jude rolled his eyes. Damian was five years older than Tel. Jude himself wasn’t much younger. Digsy… no one knew how old Digsy was.

“What’s up, mate?” Jude asked, approaching Damian.

Damian was pointing towards the spot he’d been staring at.

“That,” he said. His voice was shaking.

Jude couldn’t see anything. He shifted sideways for a better view and followed Damian’s outstretched hand.

“Shit.”

He turned to look at Tel, who’d paled.

“Shit,” the supervisor echoed.

“Now do you see why I needed him to stop?” Damian asked.

Tel nodded. Jude took a step forward. Digsy lifted himself up, about to climb down from the digger’s cab.

“No!” barked Tel. “Neither of you move.”

Jude froze. He looked again at the ground beneath the digger.

Ah, hell.

This would slow things down. It would mean waiting for the archaeologists to do their thing before they could finish demolishing the toilet block and the external contractors could come in and build a fancy new one.

Maybe, if he was lucky, it might mean back to the other side of the headland. Back to shovelling sand and hauling rocks.

“Can I get down?” Digsy asked. “Or am I stuck up here forever?”

“Go down by the other side,” Tel said.

Digsy turned away from them and clambered down, his movements as careful as Jude had seen from him. He rounded the digger and joined them in staring.

“Bugger me,” he said.

The other three men nodded.

“Is that what I think it is?”

“Yeah,” said Jude.

“Reckon so,” said Tel. He sighed. “I’ll have to phone it in.”

Tel walked away from them, into a sheltered spot between two of the beach huts. Jude could hear him talking into his phone, but he couldn’t make out the words.

Digsy stepped forward. Jude put out a hand to stop him.

“Bugger me,” Digsy repeated. He turned to Damian. “Good job you stopped me.”

Damian grinned. “Saved your life, mate.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

Jude ignored the two of them. He squatted down to get a better view of what they’d uncovered.

He twisted his head to one side and then the other, trying to work out its shape. Was it even intact?

Either way, it was a body. Skull, at least two bones, although he couldn’t tell for the life of him whether they were arms or legs.

He swallowed. Hold it together.

You poor bastard, he thought. Whoever it was, they’d been here a long time.

The archaeologists were in for a treat.