‘Sandra Miller was out there having a crafty fag,’ a woman next to Kate shouted. She nudged Kate and whispered, ‘She smokes like a chimney and’ – she winked – ‘her husband’s been having it off with Fenella for years. Nothing would surprise me…’
‘I never thought I’d be leaving a building cordoned off with police tape,’ Kate said as they emerged into the dark, damp night air and headed towards her red Fiat Punto.
‘And whose bright idea exactly was it to retire down here and then join the bloody Women’s Institute?’ Angie asked as she got into the passenger seat and locked the door.
‘Well, you were all for it too, Angie. After all, we’ve been here six weeks now. I felt it’d be good for you to meet people and get involved in village affairs since you’re at home most of the time.’
‘This was some initiation! And I still haven’t a clue how to grow a carrot!’
Kate shuddered. ‘I’ll never forget that look in her eyes! It’s the stuff of nightmares.’
‘How old do you think she is? Was?’
‘Around sixty I’d guess.’
As they turned out of the car park Angie said, ‘Let’s get home quick! I’m glad we’re not walking tonight like you wanted us to! I don’t feel safe with a maniac out there.’
‘Well, I thought we needed the exercise, but I must admit I’m glad we’re driving now,’ Kate replied. She’d been thinking along much the same lines and was relieved to see so many police in the car park and here on the lane leading to the main road through the village. But her sense of unease returned as she headed down through the dark night to Lower Tinworthy and up the unlit winding lane to Lavender Cottage.
‘Park as close as you can to the door,’ ordered Angie, taking another hefty swig from her bottle, ‘in case he’s around somewhere.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Kate got out of the car and headed towards the door. ‘Why would he or she come down here?’
‘Well, why would anyone want to kill Fenella? It could be some random opportunist killer who could strike anywhere.’
‘I think you’re safe here. The dog would be barking his head off otherwise,’ Kate said as she fished out her keys.
As if on cue their springer spaniel, Barney, started barking. ‘It’s only because he’s heard my key in the door,’ Kate said. She locked the door carefully behind her, patted the dog on the head and said to Angie, ‘You go check on the locks upstairs and I’ll check down here.’ As she spoke Kate remembered that the lock on her own bedroom window was non-existent; something else that needed fixing.
The house was pleasantly warm thanks to the log burner and the oil-fired central heating they’d had installed before they moved in. That, and replacing the rotten floorboards in the kitchen, had drained what little was left in their respective bank accounts, and necessitated Kate having to work three days a week as a practice nurse at the local medical centre.
Angie, who’d been a not-very-successful actress in her day, had taken up what she fondly called abstract painting, and commandeered the pretty summerhouse at the top of the garden as her ‘studio’. Kate was not at all convinced that there was much prospect of income from Angie’s random daubs, splashes and zigzags of paint.
‘Oh God, I have to work in the morning,’ she sighed as she collapsed into an armchair, clutching a large brandy with one hand and stroking Barney with the other. She’d always wanted a dog but she’d got Barney from a rescue centre mainly for Angie’s benefit, in the hope that she would take him for walks and adopt a healthier lifestyle. In the six weeks they’d lived there, Angie had taken Barney for exactly two walks, so Kate wasn’t overly hopeful.
‘Will they expect you to work tomorrow after all this?’ Angie asked.
‘Of course they will! People aren’t going to stop needing medical attention just because there’s been a murder. I only hope I’m able to sleep.’
Kate tossed and turned and listened to her gin-sodden sister snoring away through the wall in the bedroom next door. That much-needed brandy had done little to obliterate the image of Fenella Barker-Jones lying in her own blood, her blonde coiffure still immaculate, that look of surprised horror in her eyes. She was also well aware that there was a killer out there somewhere but, hopefully, not in Lower Tinworthy. Kate couldn’t for a single moment imagine any of her nice elderly neighbours, or anyone she’d met so far at the medical centre, being murderous types. But Kate also knew, from watching her favourite crime programmes on TV, that appearances could indeed be deceptive.
One of the things she found most stimulating about her work as a nurse was the ‘detective skills’ involved in figuring out the conditions people were suffering from and the clues their symptoms provided. But most of all she was fascinated by the human mind. She had done several psychology courses, primarily because it helped in her role of counselling patients, and it was the part of her work she loved and found most satisfying. At the same time it also fed her fascination with the human psyche. What made people commit such terrible crimes? Up until now her interest in the criminal mind had been sated by books and TV crime drama. In fact, watching the likes of Morse, Midsomer Murders and Miss Marple were her main sources of relaxation after the stresses of a busy day. But now she was in the middle of a real-life murder mystery! She never could have imagined that she would find herself in such a situation in a quiet Cornish village. It seemed that Tinworthy wasn’t the gentle place she’d first thought.
The village of
