A Cornish Revenge (The Loveday Ross Cornish Mysteries Book 1)

by Rena George

  ‘We wouldn’t know one end of a boat from the other,’ Abbie said.

  ‘I was thinking of a sail down the Fal on one of the tourist boats,’ Adam said, ‘If they’re still sailing at this time of year.’ He picked up his bag and with a little bow to the three of them was out of the door and away.

  ‘Nice man,’ Kit mumbled, in one of her rare unprompted utterances. ‘I think we should be going now, Abbie. We’ve already intruded too much on Loveday’s day off.’

  This was new too. Kit taking control. It was good to see her asserting herself for once. Loveday wondered just how strong the little nerve pills Kit was popping actually were.

  She followed them out to their car and waved them off as they made a noisy exit up the drive and out onto the Marazion seafront.

  Her plans for a lazy day finishing the library book that was now overdue had been interrupted. Loveday changed into the tracksuit she wore for running and pulled on her old trainers. The tide was out and she headed for the beach.

  It was the reappearance of the women that had got her thinking. Loveday had tried to recall something that at the time she’d thought was strange. Now she remembered what it was.

  When she told them one of her friends had been taken in for questioning, Abbie had said, ‘They surely don’t think he could have done this?’ She’d said ‘he’, but Loveday was certain she’d made no mention of her friend being male. Had that been a reasonable assumption on Abbie’s part? She frowned. She was getting paranoid.

  Loveday got to work early next morning and was typing up an interview she had recorded earlier when her mobile rang. She picked it up.

  ‘Loveday? It’s Lawrence. I’m at the museum, and I need you to come over…right now, if you can.’

  The urgency in his voice set alarm bells clanging in Loveday’s head. She’d never heard him so agitated. ‘What’s wrong, Lawrence? What’s happened?’

  ‘There’s something I need you to see. It’s important, Loveday. Can you come now?’

  She could see her diary lying open at the page where she had scribbled in details of the telephone interview she’d arranged in half-an-hour’s time with a couple who had just opened a new bakery in Fowey.

  ‘Well, I’m a bit pushed this morning. Can it wait an hour or so?’

  ‘Not really. I need you to see this.’

  ‘I have to be back here within the hour.’

  ‘Yes, that’s fine. Just get over here, can you?

  She glanced up at Keri who was mouthing that she should go. ‘I’ll ring the people in Fowey and tell them you’ll be calling a bit later than planned.’

  Loveday smiled her thanks and reached for her jacket. Truro’s city centre was always busy and today was no exception, even though the lunchtime rush was still a long way off.

  Her heels clicked on the uneven pavement as she turned out of Lemon Street and, dodging traffic and shoppers, crossed Boscawn Street. A few minutes later she was running up the museum steps.

  Lawrence was waiting with Laura at the reception desk, and both smiled a greeting.

  ‘Well?’ Loveday asked, arching an eyebrow at him.

  ‘In the gallery upstairs,’ he said, taking her arm and hurrying her through the main exhibition hall, past the displays of Cornish artifacts in their glass cases.

  She struggled to keep pace with him as he bounded up the stairs to the upper gallery where his vandalised paintings had hung. She followed him in, narrowing her eyes to adjust to the darker surroundings. Spotlights picked out the various paintings, showing the work of the local artists to best advantage.

  Lawrence stopped before his picture of Borlase Cliffs.

  Loveday gasped. ‘Your painting, Lawrence! You’ve managed to restore it.’

  ‘No, this is another one that I painted weeks earlier, but it was so similar to the damaged one that the museum…well, Laura, agreed to hang it.’

  ‘It’s wonderful, Lawrence. Is that what you wanted me to see? I thought the building was on fire.’

  But he wasn’t listening.

  ‘I thought the paintings were more or less identical,’ he said. ‘It was only when I had hung this one that I remembered.’

  ‘Remembered what?’

  ‘The figure. Don’t you see? There was a figure in the other picture…somebody standing at the cliff edge. It looked kind of poignant somehow, so I painted him in. well, it…I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Lawrence.’ Loveday spread her hands in a gesture that showed she was mystified. ‘I don’t understand. What’s your point?’

  ‘Don’t you see…this could be why the painting was destroyed. Maybe it wasn’t the actual picture the vandal wanted to deface – just that figure.’

  Loveday shrugged. ‘I still don’t see.’

  ‘I painted that a couple of weeks before Bentine’s murder.’ He looked at Loveday, his eyes glowing with excitement. ‘What if my figure was the murderer…checking out the location…planning his crime?’

  Loveday’s eyes widened. ‘Where has all this come from? Come on, Lawrence. It’s all a bit far fetched.’

  ‘I know, but just think…What if that figure was the murderer…and he recognised himself in my painting?’ He searched Loveday’s face for any sign of her believing his theory. ‘That would explain why my painting was attacked. The killer was destroying the evidence!’

  Loveday let out long, slow breath. ‘It stretches credulity just a bit, don’t you think? I mean, could this figure actually be identified? You said you couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. And anyway…why would it matter?’

  ‘It might matter. That person was on the cliffs a few weeks before Paul Bentine’s body was found down there.’ He stopped to look at her. ‘I know it’s a long shot…but what if that actually was the killer and he or she was out there doing some kind of recce? How shocked they would have been if they had visited the gallery, seen my painting…and recognised himself, or herself?’

  A tiny knot of excitement began to form in Loveday’s own stomach. Lawrence’s theory was so far fetched to be bordering on the ludicrous, but what if he was right? On the other hand, the painting had been destroyed, so any evidence, however slight, was also gone.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking, that this is all in my mind and that I have no proof. But there’s this.’ he pulled a dog-eared sketchbook from his satchel.

  ‘I always start a painting by making a sketch of the subject.’ He flipped over the pages and turned the book towards Loveday. ‘You see,’ he said, pointing to the charcoal image, ‘That’s him.’

  Loveday looked down at the familiar image of the mine stack at Borlase and her eye was drawn to the edge of the drawing and the distant figure outlined against the emptiness of the sky. There was an outline of a jacket, trousers. It could have been anybody.

  ‘Is this your proof, Lawrence?’ she asked, her voice rising in disbelief.

  ‘I know it’s not much, but the figure in the painting would surely have been much more recognisable to the person involved. Look at the cap,’ he insisted, pointing, ‘Who wears anything like that any more?’

  Loveday shrugged. She could make out only the merest outline of a hat.

  ‘I know it’s not very clear here, but it was better in the painting, because I remembered it.’

  ‘Could you draw it again, Lawrence…just what you remember?’

  He took a pencil from the top pocket of his jacket and began to sketch.

  Loveday looked at the finished sketch. She had no idea how it would help. She could imagine Inspector Kitto’s disbelieving look if she produced this ‘evidence’, but she couldn’t afford to care about that. This was about Lawrence and she was determined to do all she could to help him. He was grinning at her now.

  ‘Ok, Loveday. I know you think I’ve lost my marbles.’ The light in his blue eyes was still confident. ‘But you have to look at this with an artist’s eye – and there was something about the body language of that person that ma
de me paint him into the picture.’ He shrugged. ‘That’s all I can say. Call it instinct.’

  Loveday still looked unconvinced and Lawrence went on, ‘The way a person stands, walks, turns, holds his head, the slope of a shoulder – all the clues are there. It’s how we recognise our family and friends if we don’t actually see their faces. Artists capture that all the time.’

  ‘I’m trying to understand, Lawrence, really I am.’

  He held her stare. ‘I think this person,’ he jabbed a finger at the crude sketch, ‘recognised themselves. And if he or she was on the cliffs that day, checking things out…’ He left the sentence unfinished.

  ‘Just a minute, Lawrence.’ Her eyes fell to the sketch. ‘I can’t believe you really think that that this –‘ She jabbed a finger at it. ‘is the murderer.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I’m suggesting. It would explain why my perfectly innocent painting was destroyed. Don’t tell me the police aren’t considering a connection?’ He took her hand. ‘Will you help me, Loveday. All this would sound so much better coming from you. Let’s face it, they’re not likely to believe me. They’ll probably think I’ve made the whole thing up.’

  He left her no choice. ‘You know I’ll help,’ she said, smiling. But after the fuss about the keys for the Blue Lady, she guessed she wasn’t at the top of Sam Kitto’s list of favourite people.

  Will and Amanda exchanged knowing looks when Sam strode back into the office, his face like fury. ‘He’s had a rollicking,’ said Will, throwing down the pen he was using to check through the reports for the umpteenth time. ‘What do they bloody expect? Do they think we’ve been sitting on our backsides doing nothing for the past week?’

  ‘Of course they do,’ Amanda grimaced. ‘It’s the difference between them upstairs, and us. We do the work, they do the moaning.’

  ‘Aye, but they’re happy enough to take the credit when we do pull rabbits out of the hats,’ Will said, watching Sam’s back retreat into his office.

  ‘We should have known the Bentines had a boat, though,’ Amanda said, quietly.

  Will shrugged. ‘Well, we didn’t, and we all need to take responsibility for that. It’s not the boss’s fault, but he’s the one getting the kicking.’

  ‘Rank has its privileges,’ Amanda grinned, and Will threw an empty coffee carton at her before striding to the window to scowl down at the little cluster of journalists gathered outside. ‘And now we’ve got this lot breathing down our necks. It’s all we need.’

  The tabloids in particular were having a field day with the story, producing one sensational, and Will thought, outrageous front-page after another. The nature of Bentine’s demise had caught the collective imagination of a certain section of the press, and it was not letting go.

  But they hadn’t yet found out about the papers he and Sam had uncovered on the boat. This was a much more high profile list of characters than the local names they’d discovered on the computer stick.

  These people were big time, high ranking movers and shakers. Two of them were High Court judges; there was a junior cabinet minister, bankers, city bosses – and the owner of a High Street fashion chain who, if Bentine’s dossier was to be believed, was funding his business from his dealings with a crime syndicate.

  Any of these people could have killed Bentine, or at least put out a contract on him, Sam told the troops at the early morning briefing. The dossier was a potential bombshell – one for the Met, or maybe even MI5. But he was determined that his team, working as discreetly as possible, should check out alibis for some of the main characters before the information was out of their hands.

  Sam’s head appeared round his office door as he beckoned Will and Amanda. He was by the window when they came in, his arms folded over his grey suit jacket, his expression grim. ‘Sit down.’

  They did, but Sam remained standing.

  ‘OK. What’ve we got? You first, Will. What did the checks throw up?’

  Will blew out his cheeks. ‘The one we have to call X was out of the country at the time. Y has a watertight alibi. He was with his mistress.’ He shook his head. ‘They never learn.’

  ‘What about the banker?’

  Will shrugged. ‘Same thing. He has an alibi.’

  ‘What about these, then?’ Sam slid the pair of sinister, threatening notes they had found in Bentine’s box, across the desk.

  Will shrugged. ‘We’re still working on them.’

  ‘Well work harder,’ Sam snapped, turning to Amanda. ‘What about our artist friend, Kemp? He knows more than he’s saying. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘I agree, boss,’ Amanda said. ‘Want me to bring him in again?’

  Sam shook his head. ‘Not yet, but keep digging.’

  The phone rang and Sam snatched at it and barked ‘Yes?’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said the rich Cornish burr of Andrew Charlesworth. ‘Bad time?’

  ‘Sorry, Charlie…didn’t mean to snap.’ He nodded to the others to leave. The anger from having been made to feel like a naughty schoolboy in the Superintendent’s office earlier was still simmering. He had been given an ultimatum.

  ‘Forty-eight hours, Sam. That’s the best I can do. If you can’t shift this case on in that time then I’ll be taking charge of the investigation myself.’

  Superintendent Harry Bolger had spread his hands in a helpless gesture. ‘It’s not up to me, you know that.’ He flicked a thumb at the ceiling. It’s the top brass…never satisfied until the line’s drawn under every bloody case.’

  But Sam knew Harry Bolger was just itching to get his hands on this one.

  ‘Sorry, Charlie. Bad day. What can I do for you?’

  ‘I heard something over lunch that might interest you. It might be nothing, but there was a bit of a drama at the museum earlier…concerning that artist chap you had in for questioning.

  ‘Lawrence Kemp?’ Sam sat up.

  ‘That’s the one…something to do with that painting that got trashed.’

  ‘What about it Charlie?’

  ‘Don’t know, really, but according to Laura, he got very excited…insisted on calling some journalist he knows.’

  ‘Not Loveday Ross?’ Sam’s jaw tightened. Everywhere he turned it seemed that Loveday was there before him. She was beginning to set his teeth on edge.

  ‘That’s the name. She’s a friend of Laura’s actually. Anyway, she came round and there were some heated discussions about the painting. It might be something, Sam. I don’t know. I’ll leave you to it. By the way, have you decided about the wedding yet?’

  ‘Wedding?’

  ‘You’ve forgotten, you bugger…the wedding…my wedding? Ring any bells?’

  ‘Oh yes…no I hadn’t forgotten,’ Sam lied. ‘I’ll be there.’

  ‘You better be. You’re one of the witnesses.’

  ‘I’ll be there, Charlie. Don’t worry. But his mind was on Loveday Ross. What was she up to now?’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Loveday’s head was spinning as she walked back to her office. Even if Lawrence’s theory that he might have captured Bentine’s killer on canvas was a cockeyed one, surely it must prove his innocence? No guilty man would come up with a story like that and expect to be taken seriously…would he?

  The streets were busier now and she bit her lip as she hurried on, trying to make sense of what she’d just heard. Surely it proved he’d had nothing to do with Bentine’s murder? For all his artistic talent, Lawrence wasn’t devious enough to make up a story like that…was he? She shook her head, oblivious to the looks she was attracting from passing strangers, angry now with herself for harbouring even a second’s doubt. No…she’d been right all along, and Lawrence had absolutely nothing to do with this business.

  As she reached the end of River Street something made her glance back, and she caught sight of a figure, head bowed, turning quickly away from her. She stopped, frowning. She hadn’t seen the face, but there was something…the body language Lawrence had been talking about perhaps? A
nd then she knew what it was she had recognised. The hat! The person was wearing a hat exactly like the one Lawrence had drawn for her.

  She narrowed her eyes, scanning the crowd, seeking out the figure that had caught her attention. It was weaving a way through the throng of shoppers, too far ahead to be sure if it was a man or woman, but judging by the height and dress, Loveday thought it was a man.

  On impulse she hurried after him, followed as he turned along one of the narrow passages between the shops and into busy King Street. He was moving quickly, extending the gap between them. Did he know he was being followed? By the time she had reached the Coinage Hall she’d lost him. She stopped, staring back through the crowds. What was she doing? Her imagination was playing tricks on her. She suddenly felt foolish.

  Loveday was on the point of turning back to her office when she caught sight of a face she really did recognise. ‘Inspector Kitto,’ she called across the street. ‘I was coming to see you.’

  ‘About what?’ he called back, striding towards her.

  The pavement was crowded and they were beginning to attract attention. ‘We can’t talk here. Can we go back to the police station?’

  ‘I’ve a better idea,’ Sam said, steering her towards the pub.

  Loveday found an empty table up at the back while Sam went to the bar to order their drinks – a pint of ale for him and a glass of house white for her. ‘I’ve ordered a couple of sandwiches,’ he said. ‘Hope you like cheese and pickle.

  He put down their drinks and slid into the bench seat opposite, holding her gaze for a split second, before saying, ‘Well, what is it you have to tell me?’

  Loveday bit her lip, unsure where to start. She looked up, meeting his expectant stare. She suddenly felt embarrassed. He was waiting for her to reveal some vital piece of information, but what did she have?

  He raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to begin.

  ‘Ok…maybe it’s nothing,’ she started, ‘…but I promised Lawrence I would pass this on.’ Loveday spent the next five minutes recounting Lawrence’s theory about the figure he had painted into his vandalised picture of the Borlase cliff top.