A Cornish Revenge (The Loveday Ross Cornish Mysteries Book 1) by Rena George Read Free Book Online Page A

recovered by the St Ives Lifeboat. The results of a post mortem are expected later today. A spokesman for Devon and Cornwall Constabulary said no further comment could be made at this stage.’
    For a moment neither of them spoke, then Cassie said, ‘It’s a weird way to kill anybody…I mean, staking him out, like you told me, to drown like that. The poor man must have gone through agony.’
    Loveday shivered. ‘Thanks, Cassie, I’ve been trying not to think about that.’
    ‘It’s how the Cornish used to deal with folk who betrayed them, you know…in the old days.’
    ‘Come again?’
    ‘You know…when all the little fishing communities around the coast were involved in smuggling. If one of their own shopped them to the authorities they would take that person down to a deserted beach and tie them down to drown.’ She glanced up. ‘Just like that poor man.’
    ‘You don’t believe that?’
    But Cassie nodded. ‘Oh, I think it’s true. There’s a pub along the coast from here where they say a former landlady met that very fate.’ She gave a shudder. ‘Gives you the creeps just thinking about it.’
    She glanced at Loveday. ‘Why don’t you come over to us this evening? Adam and the kids will keep you too busy to brood on all this.’
    ‘Thanks, Cassie, that’s kind of you, but I’ve already made arrangements with a long scented soak in the bath.’
     
      At five o’clock Magdalene Carruthers’ red sports car swept up the wide gravel drive, coming to a halt at the point where the house came into view. She sat staring at the fluted columns flanking the front door, imagined climbing that short flight of steps, sliding her key into the lock – and shuddered. She still couldn’t believe what she and Martin had done. Her hands shook and she steadied them on the steering wheel as she moved the car forward to park at the rear of the building.
    Trenmere, the impressive Georgian villa, had been her reward for agreeing to move to Cornwall with Paul eighteen months before. It had been a mistake, of course. Not even the Blue Lady could make up for having to leave her old life behind. The pungent, sickening smell of the lilies hit her as soon as she opened the front door. She hated the austere white blooms. He knew it, which was why he insisted on having them.
      ‘Lilies might not suit you, my love.’ She could still hear the sneer in his voice. ‘…But they suit me just fine. So you’ll have to put up with them.’
      Magdalene was suddenly back in that church, walking behind her father’s coffin, eyes fixed on its mass of creamy white lilies.
    She was in the house now and the suffocating fragrance was everywhere. She felt a wave of nausea rise in her throat. Grabbing Paul’s flowers, she hurled them through the open front door. The porcelain vase shattered on impact, sending feather-light petals cascading in all directions. She stood back and surveyed the mess – a futile gesture, which she immediately regretted. But everything had changed now. There was no going back.
     
     

CHAPTER FOUR
    Detective Constable Amanda Fox extricated the pen she had absent-mindedly pushed into her tangle of ginger curls and used it as a pointer to run down the list in front of her. She and Sam had been going through the reports in the tiny room that the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary economically described as his office. The crime scene had yielded nothing apart from the metal tent pegs and twine used to pin down the body. He looked across the desk at her. He liked Amanda’s brusque, no nonsense approach to the job. You knew where you stood with people like that, although she did have a tendency to antagonize some witnesses.
    An involuntary smile flickered across his face as a picture of her on the cliff top taking Loveday’s statement came into his mind. He could see the journalist, a determined tilt to her chin, no doubt giving as good as she got. Maybe, he conceded, Amanda didn’t intimidate everybody