Snapped in Cornwall

by Janie Bolitho

  Doreen Clarke’s duties were supposed to end at ten thirty, by which time the guests would have eaten. Any remaining food was to be neatly rearranged and left in the kitchen to be eaten later, if required. Cyril Clarke had been turned away at the gates and told to come back for his wife later.

  When she was finally allowed to leave she had remained silent throughout the drive home, mystifying her husband further. Once at the cottage she had said she felt ill and, after filling a hot water bottle, had gone straight to bed. She was asleep when Cyril joined her half an hour later. Doreen, he realised, coped with things her own way. Major catastrophes not only silenced her tongue but allowed her eight or nine hours’ sleep, three more than she was accustomed to. Anxiety or stress caused some people to eat more or less than was usual, not so his wife, but the extra hours of rest did not make her any more tolerant.

  Cyril rose at seven to another sunny day although the thermometer in his small greenhouse showed it had been chilly in the night and there was an autumnal feeling in the early morning air. Satisfied that no plague of destructive insects had destroyed his plants, Cyril inspected the last of the tomatoes growing against the side of the cottage. They were still green and hard, and he decided they probably wouldn’t ripen now. Doreen might as well have them to make chutney. Cyril Clarke, ex-miner, had taken quite a few years to come to terms with things above the earth’s surface. With the closure of Geever mine came the end of life as he, and his ancestors, had known it. For him, and many others, there was no work to be found. Moving away was not a consideration. He and Doreen were Cornish-born, had never lived anywhere else and could not bear the thought of doing so. It was Doreen who had kept things going by doing other women’s housework. Now he had his pension things were a little easier. Cyril, for want of something to do, had taken to putting things into the ground rather than digging tin out. There was a sense of achievement in being able to hand Doreen a head of lettuce or some peas or potatoes. It was cheaper than buying vegetables and the excess he sold to local shops. His pocket money, he called it.

  He did not hear Doreen get up. She watched her husband from the back door as he peered at the undersides of the leaves on the rose bushes. His grey, grizzled hair was covered with a cap which he wore winter and summer. Doreen reckoned all those years in a miner’s helmet made him feel naked when his head was uncovered.

  ‘Cyril!’

  ‘Dear God, woman. You gave me a fright.’ The secateurs had clattered to the path.

  Doreen, despite the sleep, was pale through her tan, her eyes heavy and her fading blonde hair untidy. ‘Cyril, we’re not supposed to talk about it, but I can’t not tell you. You won’t say anything, will you?’

  ‘Of course not, love. What is it?’ He approached her and smiled gently.

  ‘She’s dead. Mrs Milton. She’s been murdered. Oh, they say she might’ve fallen off the balcony, but I know better. The railing’s waist-high. Besides, she doesn’t drink, not more than the odd glass, so it wasn’t that.’

  ‘Murdered?’ Cyril rubbed his newly shaved chin. It seemed impossible, with the sun shining and birds singing, that such a thing could have happened to mar the peace of the village. Despite his wife’s foibles he loved her and he did not doubt that what she said was true. She had stuck with him through the bad times, put up with less money and his own frustration and occasional bouts of bad temper which were the result of having no job. Once he had reached the official retirement age when his job would have ended anyway, he had come to terms with life. He had also come to terms with Doreen. He saw now that this was no hyperbolic description of some incident she had witnessed.

  ‘Come on, let’s go in and we’ll talk about it.’ He took her arm and lowered her into a kitchen chair, then plugged in the kettle. It was cool inside, the sun not having moved far enough from the east to be visible from the windows.

  ‘I couldn’t keep it from you, Cyril. We’ve never had any secrets in the past. It’s just the thought that someone there did it, that’s what gets me. To think I may have served them food.’ Doreen shook her head. ‘What’ll we do if Mr Milton doesn’t want to keep the place and the new people decide they don’t want me?’

  ‘Oh, Dor, it doesn’t matter. Really it doesn’t.’ He put an arm around her shoulder and kissed the top of her head. ‘We’ll cope.’ But he had a rough idea of what she was going through, he had been through it himself. And on top of that was the thought that someone they knew might be capable of murder.

  4

  Inspector Pearce knew it would be foolish to assume someone who had attended the party was Gabrielle Milton’s killer, although it seemed most likely. There was the possibility that the party, with guests and cars arriving randomly, had been used to disguise the arrival of someone else whose presence would have been noticed at any other time by curious, nosy or suspicious neighbours. Cornish himself, Jack Pearce was aware that strangers were summed up and not accepted until they had proved themselves to be not wanting.

  The hardest part of the job was having to treat people he knew as suspects. Of those present at the Miltons’ on Saturday night he knew only Dr Phillips and his wife personally. Barry Rowe he had met two years previously when his printing premises had been broken into. A case, he recalled, which had never been solved.

  It would be up to his counterparts in the Met to make inquiries into Mrs Milton’s London connections. She had not lived in Cornwall for long enough to rule them out. Meanwhile he had to concentrate on the guests and those with whom she had come into contact locally. And in seven months they numbered quite a lot. There had been builders and decorators, electricians and plumbers, delivery men and tradesmen, each of whom had helped turn the house from a draughty, expensive place to run into the luxurious residence it now was.

  The expression ‘house-to-house inquiries’ seemed ludicrous in that the Miltons had very few neighbours, but someone had killed her and someone, somewhere, may have noticed something unusual. He sent the men at his disposal to find out.

  Eileen Penrose was still recovering from her ordeal when someone from CID came to interview her husband. She had been uncooperative during her initial interview, claiming she had been too busy serving drinks and looking after the guests to notice anything that had happened during the evening. Asked where she had been when Mr Milton had decided everyone had better have another drink she had replied, ‘Where do you think I was? Everyone needs to use the bathroom at some point.’ But not upstairs, she had insisted, the facilities there were en suite with the bedrooms. There was a downstairs cloakroom for guests and staff. She had not lied but there were things she had omitted from her statement.

  As far as Eileen Penrose was concerned, she would shed no tears over the death of someone she considered to be a rival.

  ‘He’s out,’ she said sharply when the detective constable knocked on the door. ‘And I’ve only just got in myself.’

  It was now possible for the police to be more open in their questioning, having ascertained that Gabrielle Milton’s only relations were all present at the party and no one else needed informing of her death.

  Eileen narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms over her scrawny chest, partly to disguise the thudding of her heart which she was sure could be heard. Her sigh of relief was barely audible when she learnt it was Jim the man wanted to see. ‘He wasn’t even there,’ she told him.

  ‘We know that, Mrs Penrose, but we have to speak to everyone who’s been to the Milton place.’

  ‘My Jim saw to their heating system, if that’s what you mean. I can tell you where he is if you need to speak to him right away.’

  The young constable already pitied Jim Penrose and bet his pinched-looking wife demanded to know where he was every minute of the day. ‘I’ve got other people to see. What time are you expecting him back?’

  ‘Twelve thirty. For his dinner.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Before he had taken the two steps down from the front door it was closed.

  Eileen went straight
to the cupboard over the sink and took down a bottle of sweet sherry which was only ever used in trifles and gravy and poured an inch or so into a glass. Had anyone else done this, taken a drink in their own home in the middle of the morning, she would have claimed they were two steps away from being alcoholic.

  She prayed no one had seen her on that day and wished now she had kept her mouth shut instead of letting Maureen know she thought Jim was up to something with Mrs Milton. Feeling calmer, she hung out the washing, looking forward to watching Jim’s face when it was his turn to be questioned. ‘That’ll give him something to chew on,’ she muttered. ‘Teach him to mess about with other women. Serves him right if he’s arrested.’ But what she had seen worried her.

  Rose woke from a fitful sleep with a headache. Catching sight of her face in the dressing-table mirror on her way to the bathroom, she found it ironic that she had expected to look and feel this way after the party, but for different reasons. The headache, she guessed, was caused by lack of sleep and an empty stomach. Yesterday she had eaten little, not wanting to spoil her appetite for later, and what she had eaten had not stayed inside her for long.

  Once she had showered and cleaned her teeth she felt marginally better. Downstairs she pulled back the curtains. A sea fret hung over the bay like a veil. Only the tip of St Michael’s Mount was visible; Lizard Point was totally obscured. The unbelievable shades of blue of the sea were not in evidence. Today it was a milky green. Two trawlers were making their way of out of the harbour and in the middle distance a salvage tug, rolling fractionally on a swell, hovered like a vulture, its owners and crew hoping for the worst.

  Rose never knew what to expect when she drew the sitting-room curtains. The light and shade were ever-changing, the bay might or might not be busy. Now and then numerous sails would fill the far end of the bay where the yacht club was situated. Here was where she had finally understood the meaning of the word chiaroscuro. Light and shade. Here was so different from the memories of her childhood holidays, spent with her parents out of season in resorts such as Brighton and Great Yarmouth where the sea was the colour of dental amalgam and layers of clothes were required to keep out the biting wind and bursts of rain.

  Rose lit the grill of the gas cooker – the toaster had packed up several months ago – and allowed it to heat up. She felt she needed pampering so made coffee in the filter machine rather than instant. She opened the kitchen door, which was at the side of the house and led to the small garden. To the right was a rocky cliff face, ahead was the lawn bordered by hardy shrubs and tubs of plants. To the left was the open vista of the bay, seen from the sitting-room and her bedroom, but not from the kitchen. A herring-gull appeared to be performing some secret ritual as it side-stepped first one way then the other along the narrow ridge of the sloping roof of the shed, ignoring the mewing cries of the immature birds beside it. The gull and its mate had nested for the second year in the angle of the chimney stack on her roof.

  Rose ate two slices of toast and butter and was drinking her second cup of coffee when the news came on. There were brief details concerning Gabrielle Milton’s death which, the announcer said, the police were treating as suspicious. She had been right, then. Rose did not believe Gabrielle had simply fallen.

  Poor Dennis, she thought. But it was the reactions of both Paul and Anna which she had found interesting. They were shocked, certainly, but not distraught and they had exchanged a look she could not guess the meaning of. And the auburn-haired woman – there had been a gleam of something Rose could only think of as satisfaction when Dennis had broken the news. No, she told herself, pouring a third cup of coffee. It is not my concern. The fish-eyed inspector would sort it out. He would, he had told her, probably need to speak to her again and had written down her address. Well, it won’t be this morning, Rose decided, because I’m going out. She set off in the car.

  The tide was perfect, on the turn, leaving bare the shiny mud of the Hayle estuary where many birds were feeding. Barry Rowe liked her bird paintings. They were not accurate, detailed representations but shaded impressions of shape and line. She laid down a waterproof sheet and sat down to work.

  A slight breeze lifted her hair and soughed through the grasses behind her. There were few people in sight from the spot she had chosen and after this weekend there would be fewer still. The holiday season was coming to an end. In the distance cars crawled along the narrow road but the only sounds were rustlings and the occasional whistling call of an oyster-catcher.

  An hour and a half later, feeling stiff, Rose packed away her things and decided to walk along the bank. The tide was coming in now. She continued on to where the shops started and crossed the bridge over the estuary and followed the road up into the Towans. Here, steep banks of the well-advertised golden sand had been warmed by the sun and trickled down the backs of her calves as she descended a path trodden by other feet between the waving marram grass on to the flat sweep of the sands. The sky was clear, the sea a darker blue, almost turquoise; there was no sign of the damp mist which hung over Mount’s Bay and which could do so for days on end whilst everywhere else remained sunny. A frill of white foam separated sea from sand. Rose walked until her legs ached and she realised she still had to get back to the car.

  Yesterday’s guilt had disappeared. Rose was thinking more of the murder than of David, and of the strangers she had met. She was hungry again so she decided to go straight home, stopping only once at the Co-op in Newlyn for milk and some tomatoes. She had to wait to be served. A crew from a fishing boat had two trolleys to be checked out but she was not in a hurry.

  ‘Zat all you got, maid?’ One of the older men nodded towards her two items. ‘You gwon then.’

  ‘Cheers.’ Rose smiled and handed over the right money.

  The shock of finding Gabrielle was wearing off but Rose knew it would take at least another twenty-four hours. Work had helped to take her mind off it and she knew Barry would be pleased with her efforts. The bird scenes he used on cards left blank for the sender to write their own message.

  Taking a doorstep sandwich containing cheese and salad up to the attic, Rose decided she would continue to work. Hopefully she would be able to fall into bed exhausted tonight and sleep properly. It was an advantage of being her own boss that it did not matter if she slept late in the mornings.

  Another idea of Barry’s had been to photograph churches, buildings which abounded in Cornwall and ranged from picturesque to Gothic to the no-nonsense style of the Methodists. The singing of hymns by the whole congregation had appealed to the Cornish; consequently John Wesley, who had introduced this idea, had left his mark by adding to the Methodist influence. Rose had agreed to Barry’s suggestion and had added that they would be more striking in black and white matt. There was a roll of undeveloped film awaiting attention. Barry required them for a trade fair and thought they would make alternative Easter cards. Although he was in business to make money, like Rose he hated the commercial aspects of the two main religious festivals. ‘Go on,’ he had urged. ‘I know how much you despise yellow chicks and bunnies. The most you can lose is a film.’

  Leaning forward to catch a slice of tomato in danger of sliding out of her sandwich, Rose remembered she had left the proofs of the Milton photographs at the house. She might not have been allowed to retrieve them, she thought cynically; DI Pearce might consider them as evidence.

  The work completed, Rose slid the first of the church shots under the enlarger, then decided against it. The pictures would lose their stark impact if they were made bigger. Let Barry decide, she thought. Before she went downstairs again she took out her own copies of the photographs she had taken for Gabrielle. Something troubled her but she could not remember what it was. She kept copies of everything in clearly marked folders in a filing cabinet, both for her own reference and in case a client desired a further order.

  The sun was an orange globe by the time she was seated in the armchair nearest the window, a small table beside it. She had negl
ected Laura, whom she had promised to ring to tell her how the party went – although she was surprised Laura had not contacted her. Surely she must have heard the news? But Laura was out.

  Six thirty. It was not too early for a glass of wine. She poured one and returned to the sitting-room. The first shots of the Milton house were what she expected. It was the last one which puzzled her. It took several minutes before she realised what it was.

  On the far right-hand side was a minute blur. Rose picked up a magnifying glass but whatever it was became no clearer. When she had released the shutter the final time she had registered a movement. When she stepped back from the camera Dilys had gone. ‘But Dilys’, she said aloud, ‘must have fled immediately after the picture was taken.’ Because in that picture Dilys was still there. Standing, it was true, ready to jump, but there all the same. Rose doubted the enlarger would clarify the blur if the magnifying glass had not done so.

  ‘Barry,’ she said, having dialled his number, ashamed that she expected him both to be in and to respond to her wishes. ‘How about that drink I owe you?’

  ‘I was just about to ring you. I thought I’d leave it until this evening to give you a chance to … well, to rest.’ He wasn’t sure what he meant, only that he had guessed Rose would prefer to be on her own.