ridiculous name? Cindy was far too young for her, apart from anything else. And it was also common.
She decided that even a complete stranger might ask Mopsa if she lived there on her own, and did.
“Yes, at the moment. Some of my family’ll probably be down soon.”
“So do you work round here?”
The girl looked affronted. “This is my job. I run the lettings of the cottages.”
“Oh yes, of course, I’m so sorry. You told Ju – J – Jenny.” It didn’t seem to be much of a job. Taking the odd phone call, checking the website. When business was as slack as it appeared to be, the duties could hardly be described as onerous. And when she had got something to do, like getting the forms ready for new visitors, Mopsa didn’t appear to have done it.
Carole looked round the room for some other prompt to conversation. Fixed on two pegs over the fireplace was an old–fashioned single-barrelled shotgun. Gesturing to it, she asked, “Is that a trophy or something? An antique?”
“Antique it may be,” Mopsa replied, “but it still works. I use it when the rabbits get too close to the gardens.”
There was another silence, which the girl appeared quite happy to have maintained until Jude returned, but Carole thought she ought to say something more. “I suppose you’re very busy here during high summer?”
Mopsa jutted forward her lower lip. “Not as busy as we should be. People don’t seem to be coming in the numbers they used to. And there’s lots of competition in self-catering accommodation.”
“Yes, I’m sure there is. We saw all those signs on the way down, offering ‘En Suite Bathrooms’ and ‘Sky Television’.”
“We don’t have that kind of stuff here,” said the girl with an edge of contempt. “Why, do you want an ‘En Suite Bathroom’ and ‘Sky Television’, Cindy?”
Carole winced. She didn’t know whether she was more offended by the name or the suggestion. “No, I certainly do not,” she replied icily.
Further awkwardness was prevented by Jude’s return from the bathroom. As ever, her presence lightened the atmosphere. She signed the necessary form, listened to Mopsa outlining the small amount of housekeeping information new tenants required, and gratefully took the handful of crumpled flyers and brochures for local attractions.
“I’ll show you Number Three now. Is there anything else you want to know?”
“Ooh yes. Is there by any chance a pub relatively nearby, where we could get something to eat?”
Carole’s instinctive reaction was: again? But we had a pub meal at lunchtime in Lyme Regis. And we haven’t even looked at the Welcome Pack in the fridge.
The pub Mopsa had recommended was the Tinner’s Lamp in the village of Penvant, about three miles distant. Since she reckoned they stopped serving food at eight-thirty, Carole and Jude had only the briefest of visits to their cottage before hurrying off for supper. They did just have time to register, with some relief, that the standards of housekeeping in the rental properties were higher than in the Lockes’ own cottage. (Probably there was a local woman who sorted them out, while Mopsa was responsible for her Number One.) Then Gulliver, tantalized by his brief taste of aromatic freedom, was once again consigned gloomily to the back of the car.
Very little was said on their way to the Tinner’s Lamp, and Jude was pretty certain she knew the reason for her neighbour’s frostiness. As soon as they had delivered their order at the bar, she was proved right. The pub was another stone-built building of considerable antiquity, but again skilfully and sympathetically modernized. There weren’t many customers, but those present seemed definitely to be locals – not rustic fishermen with Cornish accents, but retired solicitors of the last generation to enjoy nice index-linked pensions.
At the solid wooden bar Carole had asked for white wine and been a little surprised to be offered a choice of five, including a Chilean Chardonnay, for which they inevitably plumped. Why did she imagine that, being so far from the metropolis, the Tinner’s Lamp would not rise to the sophistication of a wine list? Pure Home Counties prejudice. Jude had then ordered a pasty – “Well, after all, we are in Cornwall” – and Carole, feeling suddenly very hungry, had surprised herself by doing the same. Then, when they were ensconced at a small table between the bar and the open fire, Carole voiced the resentment she had been bottling up.
“Why on earth did you have to call me Cindy?”
“It was something I came up with on the spur of the moment,” replied Jude in a tone of well-feigned apology. “I should have worked out names for us before, but I didn’t think. It just came to me.”
“Well, I wish something else had ‘just come to you’. Cindy! I mean: do I look like a Cindy?”
“We none of us have any control over the names our parents gave us.”
But Carole wasn’t mollified by that. “We might, however, hope to have some control over the names our neighbours give us.”
“I was thinking on my feet, and all I knew was that it was important to come up with a name that had the same initials as your real one.”
“Why’s that?”
“Oh, really, Carole. Haven’t you read any Golden Age whodunnits? The bounder who’s masquerading under a false identity is always given away by the fact that the name he’s chosen doesn’t match the initials on his monogrammed luggage.”
“But I haven’t got any monogrammed luggage.”
“Ah.” Jude suppressed a giggle. “I knew there was a fault in my logic somewhere.”
“Cindy…” Carole muttered again despairingly.
“Putting that on one side,” said Jude, “I do have a result to report from my carefully engineered loo-break at Mopsa’s cottage.”
“What? You didn’t really want to go?”
“Not that much. But I thought…there we were actually in the place. Maybe it was a good opportunity for a little snoop.”
“And what did your little snoop reveal?” asked Carole, slightly miffed that she hadn’t thought of the idea. “Did you see Nathan Locke sitting in his hideaway, planning further murders?”
“No, not quite that. But I did see two steaks.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You know I had to go through the kitchen to get to the loo…”
“Yes.”
“Well, on the work surface there was a meal being prepared. And there was a chopping board which had two slabs of steak on it.”
“Suggesting that Mopsa wasn’t just cooking for herself?”
“Suggesting exactly that, yes. Now, all right, maybe she’s got a local boyfriend…some rough-hewn Cornish lad who is even now enjoying his hearty steak prior to enjoying the delights of Mopsa’s wispy body…but if she hasn’t…well, it might suggest that Nathan is on the premises somewhere.”
“If he is, he must be pretty well hidden. Don’t forget that the police searched the place.”
“Yes, but if Mopsa was warned they were coming, there’d have been plenty of time to get Nathan out for the duration. There must be lots of places to hide along the coast round here.”
“Maybe…” Carole didn’t sound convinced.
“Oh, come on, at lunchtime you were getting at me for talking about a wild-goose chase. Now you’re the one who’s going all wet blanket. I think those two steaks are going to be very significant. They’re the closest we’ve got so far to confirmation that Nathan Locke is down here.”
“Hardly confirmation. There could be a lot of other explanations. Mopsa might just have an exceptionally healthy appetite.”
“She’s very thin.”
“But very tall. Must need a lot of fuel for all that length.”
Jude’s conviction was not to be shifted. “No, I’m sure she was cooking for two.”
“We shouldn’t really have come here then. Should be at Treboddick, watching out to see if a boyfriend has arrived.”
“Too late now. And, looking at what’s just coming out of the kitchen, I think by being here we made the right choice.”
Carole also looked up to see the chubby landlord’s wife bearing two plates, each swamped by a huge Cornish
