Meredith turned right and found to her great relief that they had left the traffic behind them. They now followed a narrow twisting lane which led them up hill and down dale until they reached a pub, two or three cottages and a ramshackle garage.
‘This is the village,’ said Toby confidently.
‘Are you sure?’ Meredith peered doubtfully at the two petrol pumps sited in isolated splendour before a large dilapidated building bearing a board reading: G. Melhuish. Repairs. Tyres and Exhausts. MOT.
‘Must be, it’s on the map. We go on for a quarter of a mile towards the sea.’
The sun was starting to go down when they finally reached their destination. The cottage stood in an exposed position atop the cliffs with a magnificent view of the River Camel estuary below. As Meredith got out of the car, the wind caught her hair and sent it flying wildly around her head. She could smell the salt spray of the sea rushing up the beach below. There was no one to be seen and the red glow of the setting sun bathed them in a strange, other-worldly light. The cottage, a curious affair, half stone and half timbered, looked as if it might have started life as some kind of barn. She mentioned this to Toby.
‘I think it did.’ Toby’s expression, flushed with the dying sun’s rays, was almost exalted. ‘Alison said there was a story that smugglers kept their illicit cargoes in it during the eighteenth century. But every old building along this part of the coast will tell you a similar tale. Mind you, they did land contraband along here in the bad old days, in the smaller bays like Trebarwith and Tintagel or Boscastle and, of course, at Polperro. Sometimes the excise cutter would intercept and arrest the smugglers but they had their work cut out. Informers didn’t last long and local people kept their mouths shut. No one saw anything wrong in it. The most respectable ladies bought their tea at the back door late at night. The West Country has always been at odds with authority.’
‘“Brandy for the parson, ’baccy for the clerk”,’ Meredith quoted Kipling, but Toby was pulling their suitcases from the car and didn’t hear her. She turned back to the odd little building which was to be their base.
It had the abandoned air of a habitation which wasn’t lived in except for occasional weeks here and there. There was life, however, in the form of a dozen small rabbits hopping about the front garden. At the human approach they scattered, bouncing away across the dry turf in a dozen directions.
‘There must be a warren nearby,’ Meredith commented.
Apart from the rabbits, the only other sign of life was an occasional seabird wheeling overhead. As a holiday cottage, a place to get away from the hurly-burly, it would be ideal. As a place to retire to and live out your final days, much less so. Freda Kemp, thought Meredith, must have been very lonely in her last years. She must have looked forward eagerly to her niece Alison’s visits. Even the daily visit from her cleaner, Mrs Travis, must have assumed a huge importance.
‘Mrs Travis,’ said Meredith as they opened the front door. ‘We ought to try and find Mrs Travis.’
‘Will she still be alive?’ Toby asked.
‘Why not? She had a ten-year-old son way back then, twenty-five years ago. She probably wasn’t much more than my age now, in her mid-thirties. She can’t be more than in her sixties at the most, and we ought to be able to find her.’
‘She didn’t like Alison,’ warned Toby.
‘So, we won’t mention Alison.’
They carried their provisions in from the car and stashed them in the cupboards and fridge. The cottage was comfortable and attractive, furnished inside with modern pine pieces. Quick inspection of the neat kitchen showed that it was equipped, as such lettings usually were, with the standard six of everything in the way of crockery and cutlery. Alison must have cleared out everything reminding her of her aunt. Only in the living room did two old but nice rugs suggest they might have survived from earlier days. There was a splendid wide-screen television set. In a cupboard, in case the weather turned against the holidaymakers, they found a supply of board games and much-thumbed paperback novels.
Meredith went to sleep that night listening to the roar of the incoming tide as it surged up the estuary until it reached the rocks below the cottage. Once there, the waves growled angrily against the base of the cliff. The creak of the house timbers mingled with the sea noises. It made her more than ever conscious of the loneliness Freda Kemp must have endured. Endured, she thought, was the word. Why hadn’t she sold up and moved somewhere livelier? Perhaps her decision to stay had been due to a wrongheaded obstinacy. She had made her choice and she would stick with it. But people differ in their idea of lonely. Perhaps Freda hadn’t felt her isolation. There were people who were happy enough on their own. Freda might have been one of them.
The following morning was bright and clear. Their attempt to find Mrs Travis was held up, however, by Toby’s insistence that they climb down to the beach.
‘Because the tide is nearly out now,’ he said simply.
Meredith didn’t know what time the tide had turned but Toby was right. It was racing back towards the open sea, slowly exposing the yellow sands. Luckily, they hadn’t to scramble down the rocky incline using hand- and toeholds. There was a concrete stairway from the cliffside path to the beach below. The sand, now that they’d reached it, could be seen to be dotted with wormcasts, shells, the occasional dead crab and odd strands of seaweed. In places the smooth surface was broken by groups of large boulders. The rocks here were pale grey with tinges of pink and blue. Meredith discovered that, if viewed through sunglasses, the pinks and blues became quite startling. In the far distance someone was walking a pair of large dogs which gambolled happily along the water’s edge, splashing in and out of the shallows. Otherwise they were alone. Toby seemed to have regressed to his childhood, clambering over the boulders and exclaiming in delight over tiny finds of crabs or shrimps in the rock pools. Eventually Meredith dragged him sternly away.
‘Look, we came down here to try and find some clue or other to what’s happened back at Overvale. We won’t do it like this.’
Regretfully Toby followed her back to the steps and they climbed up to the road at the top.
‘Where first?’ he asked.
‘It’s too early to try the pub. Let’s go back to that garage. I could buy some petrol and ask a question or two, just casually.’
But when they drew up at the garage, that also seemed to be deserted. They got out of the car and looked about them.
‘There must be someone about,’ Toby fretted. ‘The doors are open.’
At that moment there was a clang from inside the large rickety building and the sound of a robust oath. They made their way towards it.
Meredith stepped out of the bright sunlight into the interior and a shutter seemed to come down before her eyes, isolating her in a world of darkness which smelled strongly of oil and grease. Then her eyes accustomed themselves to the dim light and she saw she was surrounded by all the contents of a garage workshop. Something moved at the far end and a bear-like figure materialized, coming towards them, wiping his hands on a grimy rag.
‘Hello,’ he greeted them. ‘What can I do for you, then?’ He looked even bigger close at hand, clad in extremely dirty overalls and strong boots. He had a mop of curly hair and very bright blue eyes which made her think of Alan. Meredith guessed him to be G. Melhuish, owner and chief, if not sole, mechanic.
Meredith put in her request for fuel. As she sorted out the money to pay for it, she wondered how to begin a general conversation. But she needn’t have worried. They were strangers, the first visitors of the day, and the garage owner was keen to talk to them.
‘Down here on holiday, then?’ he asked affably, leaning one blackened hand against the nearest pump.
‘No—’ began Toby but was overridden by Meredith.
‘Yes, but not a proper holiday. Just a couple of days.’
‘Where are you staying, then?’ The man looked from one to the other of them as if fixing them in his memory.
‘At the cottage along there, on top of the cliff.’
‘Ah, the old Kemp place,’ he said, and scratched his chin leaving a smear of grease.
‘I understand it belongs to a Mrs Jenner,’ Meredith said carefully. ‘Who are the Kemps?’
He gave her a canny sideways look. ‘Only one of them, an old lady. She used to live there. It’ll be a while back now.’
‘But everyone still calls the cottage after her? Why is that?’ Meredith affected wide-eyed innocence but had the feeling he wasn’t fooled by it.
‘She died,’ he said. ‘Can’t say I knew her. Before my time.’ He pushed himself away from the pump. ‘Well, got to get some work done! I hope you enjoy your stay.’
His desire to chat seemed to have evaporated. He began to amble back to the garage.
‘Can you tell us whether there is there a shop around here?’ Meredith asked loudly.
He stopped and looked back at them. ‘If it’s groceries you want, you can find shops at Polzeath. We’ve a post office down the road here. That sells a few things. If it’s a supermarket you’re after, you’d do best to drive to Wadebridge.’ He nodded and carried on his way.
‘He knows about Freda Kemp!’ Toby said fiercely as they got back in the car. ‘He just wasn’t going to tell us.’
‘It’s understandable,’ Meredith pointed out. ‘We’re staying in the cottage. It might spoil our holiday to know an unexplained death had taken place there.’
‘Well,’ Toby mused. ‘At least it shows we didn’t come down here on a complete fool’s errand. People do remember Freda Kemp living there.’
‘One person,’ she corrected him. ‘That’s all we’ve found so far. He’s probably telling the truth, too. It was almost before his time. He’d have been a young boy twenty-five years ago. He wouldn’t have known much about it.’
‘A possible murder?’ Toby exclaimed, turning to her.‘In a place like this? You bet they talked about nothing else, young and old! When I was ten years old I’d have been there, hanging round the police at the scene of crime, snapping them with my camera, keeping a scrapbook. Little boys are ghouls.’
‘That’s why I was hoping there would be a local shop,’ Meredith sighed. ‘We could have asked there and found someone with a long memory. Let’s try this post office.’
But the woman in the post office, though affable, couldn’t help. She had only been there a couple of years.
They went back to the cottage, drank coffee and wrangled over what to do next. As it was after midday by then, they decided to walk to the pub and see if they could get some lunch.
‘And some information,’ said Toby hopefully. ‘Good places for that, pubs. You know, all the old inhabitants gather there. They like to gossip and if we buy them a pint or two …’
Sadly it didn’t work out like that. The pub didn’t do lunches, only sandwiches. Like the postmistress, the people who ran it had only been there for two years. They had come from Basingstoke to live in Cornwall. No oldest inhabitant obligingly showed his face, only a pair of tourists and a tough-looking young man with an earring and tattoos.
‘No use talking to him,’ whispered Toby. ‘Once he realizes we want information, he’ll tell us anything we want to hear in return for fifty quid, and all of it straight from his imagination.’
‘We’ll try again this evening,’ Meredith suggested, as they left. ‘Perhaps more people will be there. After all, you can’t expect the locals to turn up at lunchtime. They’re probably all working somewhere.’
They ended up walking along the clifftop path above the beaches below. The tide had receded so far that there seemed to be only a strip of water left between them and the far side of the estuary where they could make out the roofs of Padstow. They had run out of conversation and ideas and mostly walked in silence, buffeted by a stiff breeze from the sea. Meredith was aware how much she missed Alan. Perhaps, when all this was over, and after they were married, she and Alan could come here and spend some time just relaxing and walking. But that wasn’t what she and Toby were here to do now. There had to be some other way of getting back to what happened twenty-five years earlier.
‘Alan hasn’t dropped any hints, I suppose,’ Toby asked wistfully. ‘You know, to give us a lead.’
‘No, not a thing. He hasn’t said a word about the investigation since you and I decided to come to Cornwall. He didn’t say a lot before, except to tell me they’d found Fiona’s hairband.’
Meredith stopped walking. ‘But I have just had an idea!’
‘What?’ asked Toby, taking off his shoe to shake out the grit and small stones.
‘There is one person we may well be able to find and who would know all about Freda Kemp. The police officer in charge of the case at the time.’
‘He’ll be retired, he must be,’ said Toby.
‘He may be retired but he could still be around. If you worked in Cornwall, would you retire somewhere else? What’s more, I know his name, Barnes-Wakefield. How many people will there be in the telephone directory for the area with that name? What we need is a public library.’
The idea appealed to Toby, who cheered up considerably. They drove to Wadebridge and sought out the library where, as Meredith had hoped, there was set of telephone directories. There was only one Barnes-Wakefield.
‘That has to be him,’ said Meredith firmly. ‘See, he still lives in Cornwall. I’ll phone him now.’
‘What do we tell him? We’ll need an excuse to go asking him about Alison.’ Toby eyed her hopefully, trusting she’d have the answer.
‘We tell him near enough the truth,’ she said simply. ‘You’re Alison’s cousin, or more or less her cousin. After all these years, she’s still anxious to clear her name. She feels the court verdict didn’t entirely do that. She was very fond of her aunt and she wants to know the truth about how she died. Barnes-Wakefield will buy that, believe me. You’re appealing to him for help, for his special knowledge. That flatters him. He might not want to help Alison, but he’ll still meet you and chat about it. It gives him a chance to show off. Look, it’s human nature. He won’t refuse to see us.’
The retired Chief Inspector Barnes-Wakefield lived in an immaculately presented bungalow on the outskirts ofNewquay.The front garden was largely taken up with a rockery and a minute fish pond. Two small brightly painted figures hunched by the pool with tiny fishing rods.
‘Gnomes!’ exclaimed Toby. ‘I don’t believe it. People really still put those things in their gardens!’
‘Toby,’ said Meredith. ‘You have got to look upon DCI Barnes-Wakefield as you would a senior member of the diplomatic staff of a not very friendly nation. Watch every word you say, right? You love his garden. You particularly like the gnomes. Tell him about your happy childhood holidays in the area. Get him on our side.’
‘You don’t have to tell me!’ replied Toby huffily.
Barnes-Wakefield had warned Meredith on the phone that he might not answer the doorbell and, if he didn’t, to try the back of the property. They walked down the path beside the bungalow and found themselves in a neatly tended garden. At the far end was a greenhouse and they could see a figure moving about inside it.
Toby strode forwards, leaving Meredith in his wake, and put his head through the open greenhouse door. ‘Chief Inspector? My name is Toby Smythe. I understand you’re expecting us? I’m really very grateful to you for agreeing to see us.’ He stuck out his hand.
Barnes-Wakefield was a wiry, grey-haired man with the tanned skin of someone who spent most of his time out of doors. His eyes had probably been quite dark once, but age had faded the irises to a milky brown. His gaze, beneath his bushy eyebrows, was nonetheless sharp. He was treating Toby to a very comprehensive assessment.
‘And this is Meredith,’ Toby surged on, ‘a friend and Foreign Office colleague of mine.’
‘You have a lovely garden here,’ she told him promptly.
The old man smiled and his expression became marginally less wary. ‘Yes, it�
�s very nice, isn’t it? The air carries a lot of salt here and one has to be careful to choose plants which tolerate it. The garden was always my hobby and has pretty well been my life since my wife died last year.’
Meredith and Toby both expressed their regrets.
Barnes-Wakefield heard them out, staring into the distance. When they had finished speaking, he said. ‘Would you like to go indoors and talk or stay out here?’
Toby glanced briefly at Meredith. ‘I think it would be nice to sit out here. It’s quite warm. I spent a lot of time in Cornwall as a kid and it’s really nice to be able to just sit and breathe Cornish air.’
‘Then make yourself comfortable on the garden seat over there. I’ll just go and wash my hands.’
They watched him amble across the lawn and disappear into the house.
‘He seems quite willing to chat,’ said Toby. ‘I don’t suppose he gets many visitors.’
‘It’s sort of sad,’ Meredith said. ‘He’s lost his wife and his hobby is all he’s got. I hope Alan doesn’t end up like that.’
‘Look on the bright side,’ Toby urged. ‘You’re not married to the guy yet. Don’t make him a widower.’
Barnes-Wakefield was coming back, carrying a tray with three mugs on it. He set it down on a small wooden table.
‘I made us coffee. You do drink it? I brought sugar separate. I take three spoonfuls myself.’
When they were all three settled with coffee Barnes-Wakefield sat back and fixed his deceptively milky gaze on his visitors. ‘Now then, you want to ask me about the Kemp case.’ It wasn’t a question but a statement.
‘It’s as I tried to explain on the phone—’ Meredith began.
‘Alison Harris, as she was, is now Alison Jenner and married to a cousin of mine,’ Toby interrupted. ‘She’s been getting some poison pen letters.’
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