Then the strange figure stood stock-still by the seat, looking out over the sea, with his black cape billowing out behind in the wind. Such dramatic personae did not, as a rule, go swanning along the Cornish coastal path and Kate was not only fascinated but also a little afraid. As she neared he turned and stared at her with those unforgettable dark eyes.
Cornelius Crow!
What on earth was he doing up here, poised like an enormous black bat (or, indeed, a crow)? Kate would not have been entirely surprised if he’d stretched his arms out and taken off, over the cliffs, out to sea.
He continued to stare as she got closer and, feeling somewhat disconcerted, Kate looked around to see if there was anyone else nearby. There wasn’t. Even the dog had ceased romping around and was walking slowly behind her, his tail perfectly still.
‘Good afternoon,’ Cornelius said sonorously, his eyes never leaving hers.
‘Good afternoon,’ Kate replied, hoping her voice didn’t sound shaky.
‘We’ve met somewhere before,’ he droned.
‘I’m a nurse,’ Kate began, ‘I—’
‘I remember you,’ he interrupted. ‘You arrived the day Madame Martinelli was removed from Seaview Grange. And you came back to see Edgar.’
‘Yes, that was me.’ Kate sat down on the seat, half hoping he’d go away and half hoping he wouldn’t. This was surely a golden opportunity to do a little detective work.
At this point he wrapped his cape around him and sat down at the far end of the seat, staring out to sea again.
Kate cleared her throat. ‘I wondered if things had got back to normal up at the Grange yet?’
‘Normal!’ he bellowed, and turned to stare at her some more. ‘Nothing is normal in Seaview. There are bad vibrations in that house, and people are not what they seem.’
Kate gulped. ‘In what way?’
‘In every way!’ This man was wasted in Tinworthy; he should have been strutting across the stage of the Old Vic. There was silence for a moment and then he said, ‘They are all potential killers! We all are! I am, you are! I spend my life studying crime, madam. We kill not only for self-preservation but also for jealousy, anger, love, and money, of course.’
‘So why do you think Edina Martinelli was poisoned?’ Kate asked.
He scowled. ‘For all the reasons I’ve just given you.’ He spoke slowly and distinctly, as if talking to an imbecile. ‘For anger, love, jealousy, money.’
‘Well, that’s pretty general,’ Kate remarked, feeling disappointed at his reaction.
There was silence for a minute and then he said, ‘I could have killed her myself on many occasions, purely out of anger. Pent-up rage at her utter lack of consideration for the other residents, particularly me. If you wish to make a noise all day you should live somewhere remote, like the middle of a field. Don’t you agree?’
‘That would seem a considerate thing to do,’ Kate concurred.
‘But she was not considerate; all she wanted was an audience. She didn’t give a damn if her caterwauling disturbed us or not. I didn’t kill her, but I was tempted to on many an occasion. After all, I spend my life writing about the various methods for disposing of people.’
What a bizarre man, Kate thought. She shivered and glanced down at Barney, who was sitting quietly at her feet, occasionally giving her a beseeching look.
‘I’ve never yet pushed any of my victims over a cliff,’ he continued chattily, ‘so I thought I’d come up here and do some research. I might use this method in future.’ He stood up and strode over to the very edge of the three-hundred-foot drop. Kate could hardly bear to look at this strange figure, his cloak billowing dramatically behind him again, with only a few centimetres from a certain death. For sure he didn’t suffer from vertigo.
‘Very satisfactory,’ he said after a minute staring straight down. ‘Lots of ledges and sharp rocks on which a body might bounce on and off. But you would know about that, wouldn’t you? You’re the nurse who was involved in our famous crimes, aren’t you? Of course, being a writer of murder fiction I took a very close interest in the case.’
Kate was haunted by the memory of her own narrow escape at this very spot last April. But somehow this man seemed, for the moment anyway, even more disturbing than that. She shivered again. She wanted to move away; he was giving her the creeps.
Cornelius Crow did not sit down again. ‘We are all murderers, all of us. We all wished Edina dead. We are all guilty.’ He jammed his hat more securely on his head. ‘Good day.’ With that he strode away in the direction from which he’d come, his cape flowing behind him.
Kate sat very still for a few minutes, dazed by this somewhat surreal encounter. Had he actually admitted to having killed Edina? Not exactly; but the police had already interviewed all the residents of Seaview Grange anyway, so what on earth had they made of him? Kate didn’t think she’d ever met such a weird character.
Woody was not particularly bowled over with Kate’s impression of Cornelius Crow when they met for a drink that evening at The Greedy Gull.
‘Yes, he’s a weirdo, but that doesn’t make him a killer,’ he said.
‘He admitted to having been driven mad by Edina’s warbling,’ Kate said, ‘and he openly admitted that, at times, he’d have liked to kill her.’
‘I gather most of the residents felt the same way,’ Woody said. He tapped his nose. ‘It’s the quiet ones you have to watch.’ He sighed. ‘I certainly shouldn’t encourage you to go nosing around, but it’s the caretaker and his wife who interest me.’
‘Really?’ Kate put down her drink and leaned forward. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘Well, Stan Starkey’s a bit of a rough diamond, and his wife has access to everyone’s apartment so she’d have plenty of opportunities to doctor Edina’s
