by Sarah Till
The Tintagel Secret
Sarah Till's STRONG WOMEN Series, Volume 2
Sarah Till
Published by Novelesque, 2020.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
THE TINTAGEL SECRET
First edition. April 30, 2020.
Copyright © 2020 Sarah Till.
Written by Sarah Till.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
READ AN EXCLUSIVE CHAPTER OF SARAH TILLS NEXT BOOK - Chapter One of The Tintagel Secret | Chapter One
Acknowledgements
Biography
For M
CHAPTER 1
It's just like any other day. Any other day for me, anyway. My life has hit rock bottom and, as I stand in the garden feeding the birds, I see it. A yellow tent, blurry at the other side of the bay. Tiny figures rush around and I can see the letters and numbers on the top of the police car parked nearby. I dress quickly. My American Tan stockings, the mark of old lady chic despite my not being there yet, are baggy around my ankles and I can feel the air on my legs. I'm in my layers, each one covering a hole in a different garment, and out of the gate, grabbing Macy as I charge down the hill.
When I reach the High Street I shuffle along the pavement with the sound of the sea behind me. I take care not to catch the eye of people who pass me in the opposite direction. They veer towards the road before they get too near and this used to bother me, but I can understand it now. Always judge a book by its cover. Anyway, I've made a habit of looking shabby. No need to brush my hair or think about matching colours. No fussing over make-up or nail polish. My nails are hard and yellow now, and, even with the palest pink hue, they would not improve my otherwise ragged appearance. I expect that people assume my odour before they get to it and avoid me.
In less than ten minutes I'm past the High Street, rounding the bay, skirting the police cordon and standing behind a huge oak tree. I know the terrain so well, and I know this place better than my own soul. Most of the village is gathered behind the yellow tape, waiting to see what happens next. My heart beats faster and faster, until I realise that this isn't what I think it is. My secret's still safe. I feel a little pang of sorrow, as if I wanted someone to find out. So then the words would flow and maybe, just maybe, I could have my family back.
The flaps of the tent blow open and from where I am, closer than anyone else, I see a woman lying twisted on the rocks. There's a flash of red hair and pale skin then she's hidden again. The blue glare of police lights alerts against the dim morning light makes the whole place look even more eerie than normal. I think about that night, all those years ago, and momentarily lose myself in Tintagel, until a long black car arrives and a stretcher is wheeled to the tent. There's a body bag and I can see the outline of the woman being lifted against the side of the tent as the sun peeks inappropriately from behind a cloud.
One of the policemen walks over to the yellow crime scene tape and shouts into the crowd.
'Nothing here to see. I'm sure you've all got homes to go to.'
I'm still thinking about having a home to go to, a never-ending problem for me, when I see Julia Scholes in the crowd. And she sees me. She’s pointing at me and waving people back to the cordon.
'Oh, I might have known. Here she is. Lizzie Nelson. I knew she'd have something to do with this.'
The police turn to look at me as I step out from behind the tree. Julia's reaching fever pitch already.
'She's up here all the time. I saw her here last night. Wouldn't be surprised if she has something to do with this. What's she doing behind the cordon? Caught in the act, were you Lizzie?'
Naturally, I'm mortified, both for myself and for the poor woman who's being zipped into a body bag. But, as usual, I can't find the words to shout back at Julia. I look at the nearest policeman, who starts to walk towards me.
But Julia carries on. 'Ask her why she's up here at all hours. She sleeps up here, you know, just over there. She hasn't got anywhere to live, and vagrancy's a crime, isn't it? I know my rights. She's a disgrace and now look what's happened.' Julia turns to address the crowd. 'I've reported this woman to the police many times. I've told them she makes the town untidy and well, you can see for yourself. Dangerous. Don't say I didn't warn you. It was only a matter of time before she hurt someone. She should be locked up.'
There's a long silence and everyone stares at me. Finally, and much to Julia's delight, two uniformed officers stand either side of me. Julia nods and chats to the remaining rubberneckers as everyone else drifts back to work. The black car pulls away and the body is gone. The tent is being pulled down and a woman in a black suit and high heels navigates the muddy turf to get to me.
'I'm DI Mia Connelly. I'm leading this investigation. Can I ask you a few questions? In my car? On second thoughts, we can sit in the back of the van over there.'
Her eyes run over my shabby clothes and my unkempt hair. She takes a tiny step backwards as she anticipates a smell, even though I'd showered less than an hour before. I nod and follow her, leaving Macy under the oak tree. Once we're in the van she lights a cigarette.
'Dirty habit, I know, but comes with the stress of the job. So, you know what's happened, do you? Lizzie, isn't it?'
I take a deep breath. I'm not used to talking at all, because when you're like me, people don't think you have anything to say.
'No. I don't know. I just saw the tent from my garden and I wondered what had happened.'
She frowns.
'From your garden? But I thought... oh. So, you do have a fixed abode then?'
I can see from her face that this changes everything. People assume a lot from what you are wearing, how your hair is and if you have a job or not. I do have a home. Of sorts.
'Yes. Up on the hill. Coombes Cottage. That's my address. Coombes Cottage, Tintagel. Elizabeth Nelson.'
She nods now and writes it down.
'OK. You know there's been a serious crime committed, and Mrs Scholes seems convinced that you had something to do with it. So where were you last night?'
'Up until tennish I was on the High Street, sitting on a wall outside the Pasty shop. After that I went to Coombes Cottage.'
'Uhuh.' She takes a long drag of her cigarette. 'So, was anyone there with you?'
I watch her lower the cigarette.
‘Bad for you that, you know. You’ll never catch that way.’
She looks shocked.
‘But how...’
I point to the fertility bracelet she’s wearing. Rose quartz and moonstone. Classic.
‘The bracelet. It’s a dead giveaway. But smoking won’t help. I can get you something...’
‘No. No thank you.’ She’s very serious, almost sad. ‘Let’s get back to the matter in hand, Lizzie. Was anyone with you?’
I nod.
'Yes. In fact, there was a poli
ce car parked in the lane outside for most of the night. Responding to Julia's nuisance reports, I expect. Seems like she thinks I'm living in a field halfway down the lane. As well as up here. I get about, me.'
Mia smiles and taps her pen on the pad.
'And you didn't leave until this morning, about an hour ago?'
'Yes. I'm sure your CCTV cameras will see me walking back up the High Street and turning off at the pathway round the back of the headland, which is how I got here.'
She nods at me.
'OK Lizzie, you're free to go. But we might want to ask you some more questions.'
I hesitate and my heart beats a little faster. I stare at my leathery hands and wonder which, of the three things that I need to say, I can manage right now. I plump for the lesser of the three.
'Julia's been harassing me. Is there anything I can do about it? I mean, can I make a complaint about her?'
Mia looks at me and shakes her head.
'It's not a crime to have an opinion, Lizzie. And, to be fair to Julia, you are a, well, a little bit unkempt. I'm all for equality and all that, and I expect she is discriminating against you, but to make a case out of that would take a lot of money and a good lawyer. The best thing you can do is stay away from her. She hasn't hurt you, has she?'
I shake my head, even though there have been occasions where Julia has lashed out at me.
'If she does, call us straight away. But it shouldn't come to that, not if you keep away from her and tidy yourself up a bit.'
She manages to move around the cramped van without touching me or my clothes. We both step outside.
'So, what happened?'
We both stare at the huge black bloodstain on the ground nearby. It's seeped underneath the tent into the dusty scrub. Mia lights another cigarette.
'I don't know yet. But I guess someone had it in for her.' She looks around at the now clear blue sky and the silhouette of Tintagel Castle in the distance. 'Funny place this. So beautiful, but lots of crime. And that poor woman. I expect you saw her, did you, just then? Not very old. All her life in front of her.'
I sigh.
'Tourists, probably. It's always been like this. Death and violence, the place of legends. But who'd think it? Lots of people coming here for the mystery. That's kind of how I got here.'
Mia leans against the van.
'Really? Are you from up North originally? You've got a northern accent. And how did you, well, you know, what happened? Sorry, I shouldn't be asking you this, Lizzie, but you seem so nice. Once you speak. Not at all what Julia makes out.'
I laugh loudly. Perhaps a little bit too loudly.
'Top Secret!' Of course, this sounds mad and I rush to cover it up. I always do this when I'm nervous. 'We used to come here as children. Me and my family. Top Secret was something me dad used to say.'
It was true. Once upon a time I was a normal person, whatever that is. I fitted in. I grew up in the 1960's and sat with my family watching men walk on the moon. I was eight at the time and, even then, I knew there was something different about me.
'Dad, how did they get there in that little shiny thing?'
Dad, that mystical figure who I have almost forgotten now, was heavily into myth and legend and he answered appropriately. 'It's top secret.'
This was the answer he gave if he didn't know the actual answer. As a result, my brothers and sisters and I grew up thinking most of life was Top Secret. Secrets became something special in our family, something to be treasured and petted when no one else was around. Unless you knew something was definite and you knew exactly how to explain it, it was a secret. Top Secret.
We all sat quietly in our best room, watching our television, with Dad's Ford Cortina outside on the still-cobbled street. Mum would stay in the kitchen and I would see her warming her bottom on the stove, her eyes closed, her body swaying to an inaudible melody. I was different to the others because I was the only one to ask questions.
'Mam? Why don't you sit at the table with us? Where were you this afternoon?'
She'd turn around with a tight smile.
'Nowhere.' She'd look at me nervously and mouth, 'Top Secret.'
The highlight of our year was the Wakes holiday. It was a remnant from the Northern cotton mills days where the town 'wakes' and goes away while the mill machines are serviced. Dad got two weeks off work and mum packed up our buckets and spades and our summer clothes and we all piled into the car. Our journey was dominated by Dad's temper if we spoke, and his lashing out if we crunched a sweet or peeled an orange. We'd set off in the middle of the night, and, if we were lucky, we would be in Tintagel by lunchtime. We’d park up at the edge of the beach and we'd run into the sea, heavy with sleep and anticipation. Dad would sleep in the car and, by teatime, our guest house would be ready.
Dad spent all his life studying the Legends of King Arthur, and Tintagel was home to him. I can see his reasons for coming to here so often. When we were small, we'd sit around his feet whilst he told vivid stories of knights and dragons, every bastion of innocent good and evil visited. It was only when we were older and he was pickled in whiskey that the stories grew more sordid and frightening.
Mum was his Guinevere. Literally, because when I was fifteen, she had an affair with a grocer from out of town and buggered off with her Lancelot. This was convenient for me in many ways, as it took the spotlight completely away from anything except my mother's evilness during the summer that would shape my life. The summer that produced the ultimate Top Secret that keeps me here, even today. I was the middle child, but the eldest girl, so I took over from her. I cooked and cleaned and looked after the house until I met Stanley Nelson.
We'd come back every year, me and Stan. After all, I was eager to come back, to retrace my steps from that last holiday we all shared together, before Mum left. To cover my tracks. So, it's no wonder, really, that I ended up here permanently.
Mia was lighting yet another cigarette and signing a form that had been passed to her. I could tell her mind was back on the murder, and she waved me aside.
'Right then. Thanks for that, Lizzie, we'll be in touch. And I hope you don't have any more trouble from Julia Scholes. Unfortunately, we can't stop her ringing in, but it might help if you tell her you have an address? We can only tell her you have a fixed abode, and not the address. You have to tell her.'
I smile.
'It'll all come out in the wash. It usually does. And if you need something, you know, something herbal.'
She's gone. Off to her car to another crime; all the police cars are leaving now. The yellow crime scene tape is strewn everywhere, the sea breeze harsh to the north. There are big holes in the ground where the tent was erected, and the whole area, usually tranquil, is littered with cigarette packets and chewing gum. I stare at the black pool of blood and wonder when it will rain. Rain always washes blood away, that and the sea. Even though this is the obvious place for anyone to find me, up here with my Top Secret, this is probably the safest place for me now. My secret's safe for the time being, but I'm not. Because someone's trying to kill me too.
CHAPTER 2
I wait about an hour at the oak tree, picking up the litter and watching as the wind blows away most of the tape. When it's almost gone I feel better, alone again with my Top Secret. Since I was a child I've liked order, everything to be just so, and now I'm feeling calm again. I collect Macy and soon I'm back amongst people on the High Street. All the traders are outside their shops and there seems to be a head count going on, all accounting for each other. I realise that it's a process of elimination to see who the victim is. Everyone wondering why someone would be up on the headland at nighttime, then realise that I go up there in the dark all the time.
That's different, though, I know this area like the back of my hand. I've a map in my head of every inch of Tintagel, and the route I walk every day is etched into the map. Someone up there at night on the rocks would have had no chance. With only the moon to light the way, and the moon is new r
ight now, they would easily slip on the rocks. She could have easily slipped and fell.
Then there were the jumpers. The cliffs on the headland had seen their fair share of human sacrifice in the time I had been here, doubtless much more over the centuries. Perhaps this was a potential suicide and she just didn't make it to the cliffs but slipped on the green slime and cracked her head open. But Mia Connelly seemed convinced that it was murder. She said that someone had it in for her. Like they have it in for me.
I feel a pang of fear in the pit of my stomach and I try to push the threats to the back of my mind. I'd heard the doors to Coombes Cottage rattling in the night and wondered if that was someone trying to get in to find me and kill me, like they had spelt out so clearly. At first, I'd thought it was Julia, but the threats were so awful and violent that even Julia, with her sharp tongue, would struggle with them. No, Julia liked to do things the right way. Through the police, and it now seems, the Council. She's trying to get me banned, sent away from the village. I walk a little further along the road and suddenly, she's in front of me, holding her Spaniel at the neck as if he's an attack dog.
'Lizzie Nelson. I’ve told you. Get away from my shop and don't be scavenging around the back. I'll set Bruno on you.'
Bruno runs up to me and I give him a doggy treat. He jumps up and licks my face and I smile. Just the feel of contact against my skin is a relief, a protection against Julia Scholes and her kind; against the day. Julia doesn't want me here; it doesn't take a detective to work that out. Which is how I like to think of myself when things get tough and I almost forget how I got here. Sometimes I do look into the eyes of the passers-by, the tourists who visit Tintagel in the summer, and see pity. Some of them feel sorry for me and throw me a pound. Mostly it's hatred that they fling in my face. After all, who would want someone who collects rubbish and dog-ends, in their town? Who would want someone who shops a little too locally in the skips behind the supermarket? Who would want someone with a secret that gnaws away at them until they can't think about anything else while shuffling through their lanes and streets?