The Cornish Guest House by Emma Burstall Read Free Book Online

investigation but she’d been in a rush to meet friends. The phone buzzed again, two more rings, giving the old woman a jolt. She’d better answer quick or they’d hang up.
    ‘Hello?’ she said, clearing her throat and putting on her best phone voice. ‘I’m sorry for the delay, may I help you?’
    But it wasn’t Detective Constable Pritchard, it was Jackie, on her way to work. The journey took about half an hour, Hazel knew, and she settled happily into her armchair.
    ‘You’ll never guess what happened!’ she said, thinking that for once Jackie might pay attention. Normally she had the radio on in the background and didn’t seem that interested.
    This morning she was all ears, for sure, but to Hazel’s surprise she didn’t ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’. Instead, she switched off the radio and listened in silence to her mum’s account and when she’d finished Jackie said, ‘You gave them how much?’
    Hazel repeated the figure and there was a sharp intake of breath. ‘I’m going to pull in, don’t go away.’
    Once parked, she told Hazel to repeat the story all over again, every last detail. Hazel worried that it would make her late for work, but she said it didn’t matter.
    ‘Oh, Mum,’ she sighed at last. ‘I can’t believe what you’ve done.’
    The words dropped like stones into a well and Hazel felt herself shrink, her hands start to tremble.
    ‘There’s no way the police would ever ask you to do that,’ Jackie added, exasperated. Hazel’s bottom lip quivered, just as it used to when she was a little girl. ‘You’ve been tricked, don’t you see? You’ll never set eyes on that money again.’
    *
    At the local police headquarters, Sgt Kent replaced the phone and sighed.
    ‘Bad business,’ he said, leaning back in his chair and scratching his bald head. ‘Seems an old lady in Brixham’s been scammed. Handed over ten thousand pounds yesterday to some fella claiming to be investigating a bank fraud.’
    His colleague, PCSO Smith, frowned. She’d heard of cases like this in London. Elderly people were targeted because they were more trusting and the trouble was, the fraudsters were clever and left no trace.
    ‘Poor old thing,’ she said with feeling. ‘Must have given her a right shock when she realised. Did she sound all right?’
    Sgt Kent shrugged. ‘It was the daughter who rang and she was beside herself. Kept saying she couldn’t believe her own mum had been that stupid.’
    ‘They’re very convincing, by all accounts,’ PCSO Smith replied. She’d listened to a report about it on the radio. ‘All sorts of people have been taken in. Doctors, teachers…’ She peeped at her colleague out of the corner of an eye. ‘Even retired detective inspectors, I heard.’
    Sgt Kent tugged at the collar of his shirt as if it was throttling him. He’d been in the force a long time and still had the greatest respect for his superiors, not like some of the youngsters that came in now, thinking they knew it all when they’d only just set foot in the door.
    ‘I wouldn’t know anything about that,’ he growled, taking a slurp of the now cold coffee sitting on his desk and wiping his mouth with the back of a hand.
    He watched as PCSO Smith removed a piece of chewing gum from her mouth and wrapped it in tissue paper before dropping it in the bin. He wished she wouldn’t do that. When he was a lad, he hadn’t been allowed chewing gum. His mum had said it was common.
    ‘Well, come on, then,’ he said, rising suddenly, grabbing his jacket from the back of the chair and tucking a pen behind his ear. PCSO Smith held out a hand to take his bag and he grunted in approval. She’d learned something since she’d started, then.
    ‘We can’t sit around here, watching the paint dry,’ he carried on, more to himself now than her. ‘Let’s go and catch some criminals.’
    *
    It didn’t take Liz long to compile a list of everyone she could think of who’d enjoy a party and drop it at The Stables.