Caught Out in Cornwall

by Janie Bolitho

  ‘Alive?’

  ‘No.’

  Rose inhaled deeply. She had seen Beth once, and then only for a very short time. If she felt like this, how on earth must those close to her be feeling? ‘How do you know?’

  ‘It was on the local news. They didn’t say it was her, just that the body of a child had been discovered somewhere several miles the other side of Marazion. It was well hidden, apparently. And it was the usual story, a dog walker found her. Well, the dog did. I’m so sorry, Rose. Would you like me to come over?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I would.’

  ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

  Rose replaced the receiver. Her meal was forgotten. She should have known that after all this time it was unlikely that Beth would be found alive, she had told herself so time and again but there had always been that grain of hope, the no news is good news point of view. Impossible to ring Sally now but some time in the future she would go and see her, and maybe Carol, too.

  She was still standing beside the small table which held the telephone when it rang again. This time it was Geoff Carter; he, too, had heard the news. ‘It makes me feel sick. I know what I’d do to the person who did this,’ he said furiously. ‘And now I don’t know what to do. Do you think I ought to ring Carol, or even go and see her? She was in such a state before I don’t know what this is going to do to her.’

  ‘I think it’s best to leave it for the minute, Geoff.’ Rose guessed that all the family would be questioned again this time in even more depth. And if Carol had had any part in the murder then it would be unwise for Geoff to become further involved.

  ‘You’re probably right, but I can’t help worrying about her, especially as she’s on her own.’

  ‘She won’t be. She’s picking her children up tonight.’ Rose wondered if she knew yet. But she would, of course. The police may not have released a name but they wouldn’t have released any sort of statement if the family didn’t know. Otherwise what worse way could there be to hear about the death of a child than over the radio?

  ‘I’ll be in touch.’ Geoff said goodbye and hung up.

  Within the next few minutes both Barry and her father telephoned. She was grateful for their concern but needed a few minutes for the news to sink in. When Laura arrived, clutching a bottle of wine which she had bought at the Coop on her way through Newlyn, Rose was in tears.

  Laura put the bottle on the kitchen table and hugged her wordlessly. She knew what her friend was thinking, that she was torn in two, half of her wishing she had never been on the beach that day because she would have been less emotionally involved, the other half believing she could have done something to prevent it. ‘Get it out of your system, as my mother used to say.’ She handed Rose a tissue from the box she kept on top of the fridge.

  ‘I’m sorry, it’s not like me to cry.’

  It wasn’t. In all the years they had known each other Laura had rarely seen her do so except after David died and, more recently, at her mother’s funeral. ‘I’ll open this, it’ll do us both good.’

  Rose sat down. She suddenly felt very tired. ‘I saw the sister today, Carol. She and Sally had had a row. She must feel terrible about that now.’

  ‘And you’re feeling terrible, too. I know you, Rose. But this time you really couldn’t do anything, you’re just going to have to accept that.’

  Rose smiled wanly as Laura stood, bent over, with the bottle between her knees and tugged at the cork. It came out of the bottle with a single heave. Laura’s long, curly hair, scrunched up in a bright red, frilly band, swung as she stood upright. ‘You’re right,’ Rose said.

  ‘Here, drink this. It’s Rioja. You’ll like it. It was on offer in the Co-op.’ Laura poured two glasses and sat down. She crossed her long, thin legs, which, today, were encased in harlequin patterned leggings. Her long sweatshirt was fluorescent pink. Only Laura could get away with wearing such clothes.

  ‘Thanks.’ Rose picked up her wine and took a sip. ‘You’re right, it’s very nice. I think I’ll buy some myself.’

  ‘Has Jack been in touch with you today?’

  ‘No. I’ve hardly spoken to him lately. He’ll be very busy now, though. Likewise, Barry. He’s spending a lot of time with Jenny.’

  ‘Good for him. He’s spent far too many years mooning around over you.’

  ‘Very funny. Anyway, what you were saying, Laura, about the Bradley twins. I’m sure there’s something similar going on between Sally and her sister.’ She related what she had heard of the row and Carol’s comments later on that morning. ‘And Geoff Carter seems to think that Carol’s, well, unbalanced in some way.’

  ‘Geoff Carter? Good God, woman, where on earth does he fit into all this?’

  Rose explained how they had met and what had followed afterwards.

  Laura snorted. ‘That’s bloody typical. If there’s any chance of that man getting his leg over, he won’t waste it.’

  ‘I don’t think it was like that.’

  Laura raised an eyebrow in disbelief. ‘I see. Anyway, you’re now convinced that this Carol who, according to what you’ve told me, is obsessive, unbalanced, jealous of her sister and man mad, has murdered her sister’s child.’

  Rose didn’t answer. She was chewing her thumb nail, deep in thought.

  ‘Well, if she really is all those things, it’s possible, I suppose. Rose? Are you with me?’

  ‘Yes. I was listening.’

  They both looked up when they heard a car pulling into the driveway, its headlights illuminating the shed and turning the grass a peculiar shade of blue.

  ‘It’s Barry. I’d know the sound of that engine anywhere,’ Rose said as she got up to open the door. ‘Hello, I thought you and Jenny were going out.’

  ‘We were. I mean, we did. We spent the day at the Eden Project. You really must take Arthur there, he’ll love it. You should see the variety of plants and those dome things are amazing. Hi, there, Laura.’

  ‘Hi, there, yourself. If you get a glass you can help yourself to some wine.’

  ‘Thanks. Just a small one.’

  Laura grinned. Some things would never change. Barry would not risk even one full unit of alcohol when he had the car.

  He sat down. ‘I had to come, Rose, but I didn’t realise you already had company. I know how upset you must be.’

  ‘Company? Me? I’m just part of the furniture, dear. And there’s nothing like having a manly shoulder to cry on.’ Laura poured his wine.

  Barry removed his glasses and polished them with the hem of his sweater before replacing them immediately. During all the years the two women had known him he had always worn glasses. If his prescription had changed, his taste in frames had not. They were always the sort of plastic that looks like tortoiseshell. Without them his face had a naked vulnerability. ‘That’s why I’m here. Are you really all right, Rosie?’

  ‘Yes, I am now. It was such a shock even though I was sort of expecting it.’

  ‘Jack’ll have his work cut out now. Oh, damn.’ As he’d picked up his glass his elbow knocked against the edge of the table and red wine splashed over his sleeve. ‘My new jacket,’ he complained as if it was someone else’s fault.

  Rose had noticed how smart he looked, how, lately, his clothes matched and he no longer wore the V-necked jumpers with threadbare elbows. Tonight, shirt, sweater, trousers and jacket were all in shades of autumnal browns and tans. She got up to fetch him a damp dishcloth. ‘It probably won’t show,’ she said as she handed it to him, ‘and, besides …’ She stopped. New jacket. That’s what it was, that’s what had been at the back of her mind since this morning. She would decide what to do about it later. It was certainly not something which could be ignored.

  ‘Well,’ Laura said, ‘as we’re all at a bit of a loose end, why don’t we adjourn to the pub?’

  Barry smiled at her. ‘Well, now, that’ll make a real change, Laura, won’t it? Mind you, your friend here is just as bad.’

  Until he’d met Jen
ny, Barry had always been a solitary man, quite contented with his own company. Consequently, what he’d never been able to understand was that for Rose, living and working alone, and Laura, when Trevor was at sea, their individual or joint excursions to the pub were for socialising rather than drinking, although they did enjoy the latter too.

  The wind still blew as they got into Barry’s car, but it was more gentle now, with a hint of rain. A veil of mist hung over the horizon. It shrouded the top of St Michael’s Mount and blurred the numerous lights on the salvage tug.

  ‘Shall we go to the Tolcarne for a change?’ Barry suggested.

  ‘As long as they sell alcohol we don’t care,’ Laura said, playing up to the image Barry had created.

  He parked outside and they all went in. Barry had to stoop beneath the lintel of the door of the low-ceilinged pub.

  To their left was the dining area, to the right the narrow bar where jazz was played twice a week.

  There was room to sit in one of the window recesses. Laura and Rose sat down whilst Barry bought their drinks; wine for his guests, mineral water for himself.

  ‘Is it serious with Jenny?’ It was Laura who asked. She had wanted to know for several weeks but she had not had the opportunity to talk to him.

  ‘We’re not sure yet. We’re fine as we are at the moment.’ He did not want to talk about it, personal matters always embarrassed him. All he had wanted to do was to take Rose’s mind off the tragedy and any further part she might wish to take in it. He had not expected to see Laura or to end up in the pub.

  At nine thirty they went their separate ways, Barry in the car, Rose and Laura on foot because they had refused his offer of a lift.

  As an inspector, especially being the one already in charge of the case, Jack was responsible for organising things at the scene of the crime; the second crime; no longer abduction, but murder.

  On that bright Sunday morning Jacko Tonkin had been walking his dog. He lived in the centre of Marazion where it was impossible to let Benji off the lead. He had retired almost five years ago, by then already a widower, and driving out to the countryside where Benji could run free, gave him something to do.

  Jacko was fit for his seventy years and the dog helped him keep that way. Together they had discovered a footpath which crossed two fields and wound through some woodland. ‘What’s he found now?’ Jacko muttered as Benji began rooting around some distance off the footpath. When called, Benji, usually so obedient, failed to respond to his master. Still muttering crossly, Jacko went in after him; brambles, denuded of their fruit and foliage, tore at his clothing.

  He was about to reach for the dog’s collar but what he saw sent him staggering backwards. Beneath the tangle of the undergrowth was the decomposing body of a child. He steadied himself against the trunk of a tree as he first retched, then vomited, splashing his shoes in the process.

  With a great effort of will he fastened Benji’s lead and dragged him away. Not taking his eyes off the spot he used the mobile phone his daughter had given him last Christmas, insisting he didn’t go out without it, and rang the police.

  It seemed an age until they arrived, two men tramping along the path, although they had had to do as he had done and park in the layby before walking the rest of the way. When Jacko looked at his watch it had, in fact, been no more than twenty minutes.

  Trembling, he told them what Benji had found, then he pointed with a shaking finger towards where the body lay. Benji growled as the two men approached the spot.

  Like himself, one of the officers vomited. He was young, it might have been the first time he had faced death, at least in that form.

  An hour later Jacko was back in his house sitting by the fire, sipping hot, sweet tea laced with brandy. A policeman was with him to make sure he was all right as he had refused to go to hospital to be assessed for shock. In the morning he would be required to make a statement, but he wasn’t up to it yet.

  Without being told, he knew exactly who the person was that Benji had inadvertently found.

  By the time Jack arrived the arc lamps were in position and a tent had been erected over the place where Beth Jones lay. Only when the officers had reported back had he arranged for the members of the serious crime team to be despatched to the spot. It would have been a total waste of time and money if the call had been a hoax.

  What Jack saw sickened him but his stomach did not let him down. And at least they were fortunate in that there were no onlookers, no passing people needing to be moved on.

  It was dark by the time they had packed up. By then Jack realised that there was no way in which the mother could be asked to identify the child. The clothes would have to suffice because both the natural consequences of death and nature, in the form of foxes or rats, had taken their course. Clothes and a detailed dental comparison, Jack thought as they made their way back to their various vehicles.

  Sally Jones and her mother were accompanied to the hospital mortuary. The child’s clothes, not too badly damaged, were laid out on a table in plastic evidence bags. Sally took one look at them and fainted. No one was able to catch her before she fell to the floor. Alice Jones was bent double, her face in her hands.

  Someone must have taken them home but it was a journey they could not remember. Once more a female officer remained with them, making them tea and encouraging them to talk through their grief.

  Yet another night passed without sleep in that household. Sally knew that both Carol and Michael had been informed but neither of them made contact. It was just as well; she wouldn’t have been able to bear to speak to them.

  Back at the station in Camborne, Jack had sent someone to break the news to Michael Poole and Carol Harte, then he set the paperwork in motion. Once that was done he sat in his chair and thought over all that had happened. The Home Office pathologist estimated that Beth had been dead for at least four days, possibly even five, which meant that she was killed immediately after she was taken from the beach. From his initial examination it appeared that no sexual motive was involved; the post mortem would tell them for certain. Would that be a comfort to her parents? He could only hope so. As yet, the identification could not be taken for granted, although Jack had little doubt that the child was Beth. Murderers did change their victims’ clothes and any other forms of identification, but in this case it seemed highly unlikely, especially as no other child was on their books as missing. The hair is hers, Jack thought, the long, dark hair of the photograph that Sally had provided, the same colour her mother’s would have been had she not dyed it blonde.

  He had already roused the dentist who had promised to go straight to his surgery for Beth’s notes. ‘Do you want me to deliver them to you?’ he had asked, surprising Jack with his willingness, even eagerness to help.

  ‘If you don’t mind. We’d be very grateful.’ They would be on hand ready for the post mortem which had been scheduled for the morning.

  There was nothing more that could be done that night. In the morning, in daylight and when a little of the shock had worn off, the interviews would begin again. But where to go with them? The only difference now, horrendous as it was, was that Beth was dead. Nothing they did could bring her back. What more can we do that we haven’t done already, Jack asked himself as he switched off the light and left the building.

  He felt dirty and in need of a long scalding shower and a stiff drink, but more than that he wanted to see Rose.

  He drove straight to her house. No longer tired, but fuelled by adrenalin, he needed to talk.

  The roads were busier than he had anticipated and approaching headlights flashed past him at regular intervals. On the more brightly lit outskirts of Penzance he wound down his window and let the chill air wash over him. He began to feel less stale.

  Driving along the Promenade he could smell the sea, a smell he had known all his life apart from the short time he had lived in Leeds, where he had transferred to gain experience; a time when he learnt that he could never be happy anywhere other
than Cornwall. He had persuaded Marian, his then wife, to move back down with him, but the same had applied in reverse. They were divorced not long after she returned to Leeds. It was all quite amicable; they simply realised that they wanted different things from life. The boys, men now, had spent a great deal of their holidays with Jack and both were keen surfers. He smiled as he recalled how, on his last visit, Daniel had proclaimed that Rose was ‘a bit of all right’.

  As he changed gear to turn the sharp corner into Rose’s drive he was relieved to see that the lights were on. Good. Rose was at home.

  ‘I’ve seen it all before, Trevor,’ Laura commented as she made him a sandwich for supper. They had eaten earlier but Trevor had been working on the boat and was hungry again. The small gold cross he wore in his ear glinted beneath the kitchen spotlights, revealed only when he pushed back his hair which rested on the collar of his thick, checked shirt.

  ‘Seen what before?’ he asked without raising his head from the newspaper.

  ‘Don’t you ever listen to anything I say?’

  He put the newspaper down and saw his wife’s shoulders jerking as she sliced his sandwich in two. The danger signs were all too familiar. He had better pay attention now. ‘Of course I do. This, I assume, has to be to do with Rose.’ He reached out and slapped her on the bottom, but only gently.

  She turned to him and smiled. The danger was over, another row had been averted. ‘Yes. It’s bad enough that she saw that little girl taken from her mother, how’s she going to feel now?’

  Trevor understood what Laura meant. He knew Rose as well as anyone could know another person who did not share his house. She would feel responsible and guilty without reason, that was how she was. And this was what was bothering his wife. Rose would desperately want to make amends and would probably end up in trouble by doing so. ‘You can’t stop her, Laura, you know that as well as I do.’