“Look,” she said. “I might have made a mistake. That’s always a possibility. But I’m as sure as I would be of anything I had seen with my own eyes.”
“I’ll tell the captain what you saw. He’ll come in to the surgery at midday to have his dressing changed. He might even need you to testify for him at a disciplinary inquiry.”
With a wave of farewell to Fay and Pen, David got in his car and left the lifeboat station.
It wasn’t easy to plunge into a busy, high-season morning after such a disturbed night. Fay’s only consolation was that everyone who had been involved in aiding the crew of the Sinead was in the same predicament. They were all working people. Not one of them could spend the morning taking a nap. They would all have to power through the day on coffee and adrenaline before crashing early that evening.
Fay was surprised to find how cheerful she and Morwen were as they got on with the breakfast service.
It felt good to know that they had done something really helpful. Most of the guests had heard about the shipwreck and were full of excited questions that morning. Morwen’s phone buzzed with speculation as her various WhatsApp group discussed the incident.
Fay tried to pay no attention to some of the wilder rumors.
“No, the Sinead was not a warship on a secret mission for Her Majesty the Queen,” she sighed as Morwen repeated the latest story. “It was a small freighter travelling from Dublin to Falmouth and carrying a load of Irish linen. The cargo must be completely ruined by now. I imagine they won’t be able to salvage so much as a single pillow case.”
After breakfast, Fay took the kittens out for their customary playtime.
It occurred to her that she still needed to make an appointment to have them vaccinated. The previous vet had abandoned his practice and someone new had moved in. Fay wasn’t sure who it was.
She looked around and spotted Pen trimming a hedge on the other side of the Garden of Remembrance. He was another one who’d had to throw off his fatigue and get on with the working day.
“Oh, Pen,” she called. “You know everything. Who’s the vet that’s taken over from Martin Trenowyth?”
“You mean that psychopath what killed poor Mrs. Saville for her money? That would be Dr. Snow. She’s a lady vet, she is. Used to have a practice in Bristol but has been looking for more large-animal work.”
“A woman? That’s interesting. What do the farmers make of her?”
“So far, so good. They moaned a bit when they saw a lady coming along to deal with their bulls and what not, but I haven’t heard a word of complaint since.”
“Sounds like she might fit in well here. Is the phone number for the practice still the same?”
“Far as I know, it is.”
As the kittens scampered around, Fay phoned and made an appointment for five o’clock that afternoon.
Much as she felt like a nap, Fay wanted to visit the headquarters of the Museums and Heritage Sites committee that morning. She was convinced they could tell her more about Tabitha’s state of mind at the time of her death.
Once she had settled the kittens into her bedroom for their morning snooze, she walked down to the village to do exactly that.
Penrose House was situated on high ground, with a road that swept steeply downhill, bending from left to right as it descended to the village nestled in the bay below. Fay reached a bend in the road that allowed her to view the northern part of the island.
Yes, there it was.
The Sinead was still stuck on the rocks and visibly smoldering. She wondered if the fire had reached the fuel tanks yet. There must be plenty of flammable material on board with that cargo of linen. Fay’s police officer brain couldn’t help wondering whether the cargo was insured and if so, who would benefit from the payout.
The Museums committee had its headquarters just above a shop that sold sewing supplies on the corner of Leafy Lane and the High Street. According to Doc Dyer, the offices were manned between ten am and two pm every day, which was when most of the museums were open too. Only the official Bluebell Village Museum had longer opening hours – nine until six during the summer.
With only a slight difficulty, Fay managed to locate the flight of stone stairs behind the sewing shop that led up to the second floor. The committee’s offices were open as promised. Two elderly ladies were sitting working at desks that were set at right angles to each other. They looked up enquiringly as Fay entered. She was glad she had thought of a cover story. Bluebell Islanders were always happy to gossip about the hot topics of the day, but it was good to have a pretext for being there.
“Good morning. Can we help you, dear?”
“Good morning. Yes, I’m looking for Mrs. Hart.”
“I’m Gertrude Hart. Everyone calls me Gertie. What can I do for you?”
“You’re Fay Penrose, aren’t you?” said the other woman before Fay could answer. “We don’t often hear American accents around th ese parts. Unless it’s a tourist, and you don’t look like a tourist.”
“That’s right, I’m Fay. You probably know that I run the Cat’s Paw B&B at Penrose House. Doc Dyer suggested I come and see you. He said you could let me have some leaflets advertising the various museums and attractions on the island. I’d like to be able to hand them out to my guests.”
Fay already had piles of leaflets advertising every possible attraction, but she wasn’t about to tell these ladies that.
“But of course.” Gertie stood up and walked around her desk to a display of leaflets. “Which ones are you particularly interested in?”
“Mostly historical stuff. The kind of thing that your committee controls. I already have advertising material for the various activities on the island.”
“Let’s see. The Bluebell Village Museum … the Maritime Museum … Bluff Lighthouse … the shipwreck hike … Tintagel mountain … the medieval village … the Fashion Museum … the Broken Man … the Henge.” Gertie checked them off on her fingers as she gathered leaflets. “How’s that to be getting on with?”
“That’s perfect, thank you. My guests will be very excited. They’re all talking about the shipwreck this morning, of course, but they’re going to be looking for something to do this afternoon.”
It was as though she had opened the flood gates.
“Ooh, wasn’t it terrible?” said the other woman. ‘I’m Aggie, by the way. To think that such a thing could happen in this day and age. Why, it must be years since we last had a shipwreck off the island.”
“Unless you count the fishing boats, of course,” said Gertie.
Aggie rolled her eyes. “Oh, those fishing boats. Sometimes I think they deliberately run into trouble just to give the lifeboat crew something to do. But their boats almost always get salvaged and towed back to shore. It’s normally bad weather that gets them into trouble. But there was no bad weather last night.”
“Quite right, Aggie. Why, there was hardly so much as a breath of wind. And the moon clearly visible and the stars shining fit to beat the band. I simply don’t understand how an experienced sailor could have gone wrong in those conditions. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Have you heard anything about Bluff Lighthouse not working on that day?” asked Fay.
Gertie sucked in air. She seemed to swell before Fay’s eyes. “Who said that? That’s simply not true. Who was it?”
“Just one of the rumors I’ve heard floating around this morning. It’s right up there with the one about the KGB being involved.”
“Well, it’s not true. People shouldn’t repeat such slander. That lighthouse is in perfect working order.”
“Who looks after it? I thought it was controlled by the harbormaster’s office.”
“It’s partly automated. The light is now electric instead of being powered by a giant paraffin lamp like in the old days. But the mechanism that makes the light revolve is controlled by clockwork, not by automation. One of us winds the mechanism every day to keep it going for the next twenty-four hours. On weekend
s and holidays, someone from the harbormaster’s office comes in to do it.”
“There was talk of automating the lighthouse a few years ago,” explained Aggie. “But an authentic clockwork lighthouse is a tourist attraction. Clockwork technology might be old-fashioned, but it’s accurate. As long as it is kept wound and in good working order, it will do the job perfectly.”
“Who works at Bluff Lighthouse?” asked Fay. “I saw Betsy McCloud and Colonel Trengove in there yesterday.”
“Yes, those two, and also Aggie and myself. Doc Dyer is on the committee, but he doesn’t volunteer at the museums because he still has a full-time job. And of course, Betsy’s nephew Duncan sometimes does a stint for us.”
“And then of course there was poor Tabitha,” sighed Aggie. “You were the one who found her, weren’t you? It has just been one thing after another lately. I assure you, our quiet little island is not normally such a hotbed of activity.”
“Yes, I found her. The whole thing is very distressing. I’ve heard rumors that she hadn’t been herself lately.”
Gertie snorted. “That’s an understatement if you like.”
“Gertie …” Aggie’s voice sounded cautious.
“Don’t be silly, Aggie. She’s dead now. What possible harm can there be in telling the truth?”
“One shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.”
“Nonsense. And it’s not speaking ill of the dead to acknowledge the fact that she wasn’t well. She couldn’t help it, the poor dear. In fact, if anyone made a mistake with winding the lighthouse, it was probably her.”
Aggie made clucking noises, but Gertie rode over her.
“It’s the truth, whether we like it or not. Remember the milk incident? She could have killed the lot of us.”
Chapter 11
“That sounds awful,” said Fay. “What happened?”
“We were holding a meeting of the Museums committee,” said Gertie. “The way it works is that we each take turns to make the tea at these meetings. That way everything is fair, and we all take our turn.”
“Except for Colonel Trengove, of course,” said Aggie.
“Yes, dear. But Colonel Trengove is a gentleman. You can’t expect him to take his turn with the tea making.”
“Doc Dyer does.”
“Yes, but he volunteers to do it, which is quite a different matter.”
Aggie’s eyeroll clearly expressed what she thought of this philosophy.
“Anyway,” continued Gertie. “It happened to be Tabitha’s turn on this particular evening. She brought the tea tray into the conference room and distributed cups to all of us. Then she went around with the teapot pouring tea for everyone. Then she took the milk jug around, asking who took milk.”
“I prefer to put the milk in first,” said Aggie. “I find it mixes better with the tea.”
“Nonsense, dear. I don’t know where you get such notions. Poor old Tabitha might have tried to poison us all, but at least she knew better than to put the milk in first.”
“She was going around with the milk jug?” prompted Fay.
“That’s right. And as it happened, we all take milk in our tea. Tabitha made sure we could each reach a sugar bowl and sat down with her own cup. And then …” Gertie shuddered. “I swear I was actually holding my teacup to my lips when Tabitha let out the most frightful sound.”
“It was a roar.”
“Or a bellow. A roar or a bellow. It doesn’t matter which. The point is that it startled me so much I spilled tea all over the table.”
“Tabitha leapt to her feet,” said Aggie. “She told us all to stop what we were doing because there was something wrong with the milk. I remember looking down at my own cup and wondering if the milk had turned sour because it seemed to have separated in the tea. Then I smelled it and got the most awful whiff of cleaning fluid. Like a really strong detergent.”
“It turned out not to be milk at all, but a thick, white bleach. We use it to clean the bathrooms and the kitchen counters. It comes in a bright green bottle. Nobody in their right mind could have mistaken it for milk.”
“So, what happened?” asked Fay. “What did Tabitha say?”
Gertie sighed. “She swore she had taken the milk bottle out of the fridge and poured the contents into the milk jug. She insisted that we all come with her to the kitchen to see the bottle of milk. Then we would see that she was right – that it was the milk bottle that contained the cleaning fluid. But of course, when we got there, we found the milk in the milk bottle as usual and the thick bleach in its green plastic container standing in the cupboard with all the other cleaning equipment.”
“The thick bleach was almost empty too,” said Aggie. “Whereas I knew for a fact that it had been three-quarters full only that morning.”
“That’s quite a serious mistake,” said Fay.
“It certainly was. Tabitha burst into tears. She couldn’t understand how it had happened. You couldn’t help feeling sorry for her.” Gertie shook her head. “But you also couldn’t feel right about trusting her with real responsibilities after that. She begged to be given a second chance. She said it was just a moment of absent-mindedness and that she was still perfectly capable of doing her volunteer work at the museums. Now, if you ask me, forgetting that the Colonel prefers cream rather than milk in his tea is a moment of absent-mindedness. This was almost a mass poisoning.”
Aggie tutted. “You’re exaggerating, Gertie. We might have experienced some burning in the throat but not much more than that, I imagine.”
“You take an optimistic view of the situation.”
“You obviously decided to give her a second chance,” said Fay. “Seeing as she was working at Bluff Lighthouse on the day she died.”
“I allowed myself to be persuaded by Betsy. She said that Tabitha would be lost without her volunteering. She had been a working woman her whole life and found retirement difficult. It was only her committee work that gave her a reason to get up in the morning.”
“They’re such good friends,” said Aggie. “Or at least they were. It’s only natural that Betsy would plead her case.”
“Betsy is too soft-hearted for her own good. I should have gone with my instinct and restricted Tabitha to some clerical work around the office. The problem was that she seemed so sane and rational when you spoke to her. It was hard to believe that there was anything wrong with her.”
“True,” agreed Aggie. “Quite true.”
“And see what came of it. Now Tabitha is dead, and Betsy McCloud has only herself to thank for that.”
“Betsy said something about the poor condition of the railing around the platform at the top of Bluff Lighthouse,” said Fay.
“Stuff and nonsense! I checked that railing myself yesterday afternoon. It is perfectly intact and there is nothing wrong with it. Typical Betsy. She is trying to shift the blame onto me when she knows perfect well that she is responsible. She refused to acknowledge how badly Tabitha’s mental state had deteriorated.”
“What about Colonel Trengove? What did he think about Tabitha’s condition?”
“He was worried about the lighthouse,” said Aggie. “That was the most responsible part of our job. No one really cares whether there are four tea towels left over at the museum gift shop at the end of the day, or five. But the lighthouse mechanism has to be kept properly wound. I remember Colonel Trengove saying that he was going to check on the lighthouse after Tabitha had been there and make sure it was in good order.”
Fay took a stroll down to the Royal Hotel just before midday.
She sent a text to Morwen letting her know that she wouldn’t be home for lunch. The hotel offered good, if slightly old-fashioned, fare. It had occurred to Fay that she could kill two birds with one stone by satisfying her appetite for food and for gossip at the same time.
The waitress who worked in the dining room at the Royal Hotel, Mavis Meadow, was better than Google when it came to supplying information. Any guest who had ever passed through her
doors was stored in her memory banks forever.
She liked to strike up conversations as she took people’s orders and had a way of extracting information under the guise of casual chit-chat. Even if the guest was unresponsive – and there were always those that didn’t feel like talking – she would gather data on them like the FBI. She remembered what people were wearing, what they sounded like, and how many spoons of sugar they preferred in their tea.
Today, Mavis was in her element. The shipwreck was the single most exciting thing to happen on the island in months, and several of the crew members, including the captain, were staying at the Royal. Mavis was ground zero for all the latest information.
Fay slipped into the hotel dining room as it opened at twelve. She was the first person there.
“Fay, love,” said Mavis. “I haven’t seen you in ages. Are you joining us for lunch?” She turned and barked an order at her colleague, Donny. “Fetch Fay a jug of water, Donny. You know what Americans are like. They can’t get enough water at meal times.”
“Thanks, Mavis.” Fay was feeling quite thirsty after her morning at the Museums Committee. “You must be busy today.”
“Never too busy to talk to you. Is it true that you were at the rescue last night?”
“I was. My grandmother used to provide food and hot drinks on such occasions, so I did too.”
“And is it true that the ship exploded at five o’clock this morning, and that you could see sheets and duvet covers flying everywhere?”
“Um … no. I was still there at five o’clock packing up my urn and I didn’t see any explosion. I do remember David Dyer saying that an explosion could occur if the fire reached the fuel tanks, but I don’t think it has happened yet.”
“Oh well, if Dr. Dyer said it, then it must be true. He’s such a knowledgeable man, isn’t he? Nice to look at too.”
“Sure. He and his father were right in the thick of things last night. I don’t know how the lifeboat crew would have managed without them.”
The Cat That Wasn't There Page 7