JEREMY RHYS-JONES SAT on the edge of the plush bed in his room at the vine-covered Garrack Hotel. It was late Saturday, and the setting sun gilded the west-facing stone walls of St. Ives far below. He was so worn out from running he didn’t know whether to sleep or shower. He’d spent Friday aimlessly hill walking and had slept in a cheap boarding house in Penzance where no one knew who he was. But he was done with that. He was not meant to be a dosser. And no one knew where he’d been or what he’d done. He’d taken care of that. Staring out toward the ocean he replayed his steps. Yes, he’d taken care of all of that.
The gracious old Garrack, built of big granite blocks just after World War I, stood high on a hill on the southern edge of St. Ives. There had been a cancellation and he was lucky to get a room this night, but there were vacancies once the weekend guests left the next day. He’d registered using his false Italian passport and name and was vague about his departure date. His room, gracious but a bit cluttered in that country house sort of way, had an expansive view of the famous little fishing port and artists’ haven to the north, the shining sands of Porthmeor Beach, and the sun spangled ocean beyond. Nicola had told him, years before, that it was the way sun played off the crystals in the sand at St. Ives that created the luminous light that had attracted artists here since the late eighteen hundreds.
But he wasn’t there for the view. He needed a haven, but one close to home. Things had got out of control. He had worked so carefully, so invisibly, toward his end. His plan had been brilliantly executed, step by step, threat by threat, almost surgical in its precision. Then everything suddenly went all pear-shaped, thanks to Mary Trevean. What he did know was that she had put him at great risk. He could be discovered.
And yet all he’d ever wanted was to go home again: home to be with Caprice. She’d first taken him to her bed at Trevega House when he was barely fifteen. His father preferred London. At Trevega, he and Caprice had been inseparable, except when some other lover showed up. But she always came back to him. Always.
He worshipped her. As an adult, he’d tried to get the same adoration and passion from other women, including Nicola and that dark-haired currency trader in Milan, but they’d all disappointed. A fury rose within him when they did; it was like a fire in his head. So, he punished them. All he could see when he had been with them was his dear Caprice, riding him hard, head arched back, crying out. No one else mattered or measured up.
Home. He needed to go home, to their special place. To the gracious, high-ceilinged bedroom they’d shared.
And he’d got so close. So close.
Until Mary…Sweet, dangerous Mary.
“HE’S DONE IT again!” Morgan barked into her mobile the next day.
“Good morning, Morgan,” Calum said to his hands-free phone. Though it was Sunday, he was on his way to the Bodmin Hub, leaving his girls, once again, with their gran, Ruth.
“Who’s ‘he’ and what has he done again, if I may be so bold as to ask?”
“Penwarren, dammit. Do you want the news or not?”
“I am hanging on your every word, my dear…”
“There was indeed sputum on the cushion, as Jennifer Duncan surmised at the scene.”
“Forgive me for saying so, but wasn’t that to be expected in this case?”
“I am not done!”
Calum pulled into the oval brick drive in front of the recently-built Bodmin Hub, its glassy, three story façade fiery in the morning sun. They’d had a lovely run of mostly fine weather.
“Do go on then…”
“There’s DNA on the other side of the cushion as well, Might be spit, might be sweat. Just traces. But we’ve got it.”
Calum switched off his engine. “Yes, well, but the question is what have we got and whose?”
“Do you honestly think you can be ahead of me?”
“Never, of course. I bow to your higher rank and intelligence. But may I suggest my team reinvestigate the Trevean house and that bleached chicken coop? Maybe there’s more…”
He could almost see Morgan shaking her head. “I’ve already put in the request,” she said before ringing off.
LATER THAT AFTERNOON, West’s SOCO team found a partial print, a forefinger they reckoned, on the underside of a bin lid behind the Chicken Coop cottage, like someone had used just a thumb and finger, daintily, to lift and close it. The top of the lid had been wiped, but someone in a hurry hadn’t considered the underside. Everything else in the rental cottage, as before, was nearly antiseptic. But in the main house, in Mary Trevean’s sitting room, West’s people found another set of prints they’d missed before, curiously high on a wall, as if someone reasonably tall had suddenly lost their balance and tried to steady themselves.
DETECTIVE CHIEF SUPERINTENDENT Malcom Crawley was back in Penwarren’s office in Bodmin midday on Monday. As usual, he was in high dudgeon.
“May we offer you a seat, Malcolm?” Penwarren asked, smiling. Crawley hated being addressed by his given name. Penwarren knew it and did so intentionally. For him Crawley’s visits were like a circus act, one involving a toothless aging lion with mange.
“We shall stand.”
“As you wish; we shall remain seated.”
“This Trevean murder, Penwarren, what have you got? The brass want me to hold a press conference at headquarters tomorrow morning, and how the hell did this happen?” He slapped a copy of the morning’s edition of The Cornishman onto Penwarren’s conference table. “We are tired of motoring all the way down here to get answers when the press already have them, dammit!”
Penwarren had long since noted that “dammit” ended many of Crawley’s sentences like a normal punctuation mark. The DCS’s impatience was almost as legendary as his fecklessness. Penwarren figured it was fear, especially fear of being caught short in the information department by the big boys in Exeter. Crawley had to appear engaged: thus, his trip south.
“If you examine it, Malcolm, you will discover that there is absolutely nothing of substance in that story, only conjecture. That reporter has left messages here almost hourly, desperate for details. We have not responded. I am pleased to report, however, that we have some new information which may make your press conference a success…or at least buy you some time.”
Crawley rolled his eyes skyward like a vaudevillian in the footlights: “Enlighten me, then.”
“Mary Trevean was suffocated. Of that there is no question.”
“That’s old news.”
“Not to the press it isn’t, if I may remind you. And we are narrowing in on the kind of person who may have committed this murder. For example, Mary Trevean did not operate a bed and breakfast, which means she did not have random visitors from who knows where seeking overnight accommodation, right? She had three self-catering rental cottages. Her guests registered through her agency, usually for a week or more, but sometimes for just a weekend break, like the couple who found her. So, reason tells us this was not something done by some passer-through. Are you with me, sir?”
“Of course. Am I an idiot?”
Penwarren ignored the opening.
“So, whoever visited her that night wasn’t likely to have been a stranger. It was someone known, yes?”
“I am following, Penwarren, but do please get on with it.”
“And just yesterday afternoon, West’s people found new prints in two unusual places: on a wall of her home and on a rental cottage’s bin lid. They’re being analyzed. And the lab found trace DNA on both sides of the cushion used to kill Mary Trevean. They’re being analyzed as well.”
“Who are your persons of interest?”
“We’ve just got this evidence, Malcolm; investigation is the next step.”
“Well, get on with it; we can’t hold the brass off forever, dammit, and we want the press vultures off our back!”
Penwarren loved the image of vultures on Crawley’s back: Crawley as dead meat.
“I shouldn’t think just over three days since the discovery of the dead woman could be labeled ‘forever,’ Malcolm. We have procedures, as you well know. We have protocols to follow which, should we violate them, will cause problems for the Crown Prosecution Service. I’m not interested in losing a case on hurried, slipshod investigation and I can only assume you feel the same way. Our job is to get convictions, unless I’ve missed something during my long career. You might emphasize these points in your press conference. Now then, was there anything else, Malcolm?”
Penwarren was angry and struggling to control it. He’d had it with Crawley. Every time he dealt with the supercilious bastard he thought about retiring.
“We want results!” the older man sputtered. “And soon!”
“As do I Malcolm, as do I,” the DCI said with forced calmness. He smiled: “Now, if you will be kind enough to let me and my team get on with our job…?”
From his window a few moments later, he could see Crawley stomp across the car park. His car lurched backward from its space, stalled, started again, and then sped to the exit to the main road. Penwarren worried about other drivers heading north into Devon.
A YOUNG WOMAN, dark hair, business suit, a civilian administrative assistant, approached Morgan’s desk at the Bodmin Hub the same Monday morning and stood quietly.
“Yes?” Morgan demanded, not even looking up.
“Sorry to interrupt, ma’am.”
“It’s not ‘ma’am,’ dammit! It’s ‘Inspector.’ Got that?”
“Um…yes…Inspector.”
“What do you want? I’m busy.”
“You asked our research department for banking information on Mary Trevean and Eldridge Biggins. As it happens, they both bank at Lloyds, 13 High Street, St. Ives. I contacted the branch. I have their account numbers. That was all I could obtain from the bank without further authority…Inspector.”
Morgan took a breath, looked up, and managed a smile. “Thank you…Ms.?”
“Best. Jackie Best.”
“Well named, it seems. And well done, Ms. Best. Unless you haven’t already heard, though I doubt that possible in this building, I can be a bit short when I’m on a murder case with all of Exeter HQ breathing down my neck. But I am grateful for your work and this information.”
Jackie nearly curtsied and left.
There were several national bank branches in St. Ives: Barclays, Nat West, and HSBC, as well as Lloyd’s. Morgan wondered at the coincidence that Biggins and Trevean used the same one. She checked the database and found the number Best had given her matched the account the SOCO boys had noted when they collected Mary Trevean’s personal papers. She made a note to ask West if those papers had been checked for prints. Then she called the bank branch.
“Lloyds St. Ives,” a cool-voiced receptionist answered. “How may we help you?”
“This is Detective Inspector Morgan Davies, Devon and Cornwall Police. Please connect me with your bank manager.”
After a pause, the voice said: “Of course. I’ll just check to see if he is available. Please hold the line…”
“Holding the line” was about the last thing Morgan was capable of tolerating, but almost immediately she heard another, deeper voice: “This is Roderick Nelson. How may I be of assistance, Inspector?”
“That’s entirely up to you, Mr. Nelson. A woman, Mary Trevean, was murdered just south of St. Ives a few days ago. I’m sure you’ve heard. It’s in The Cornishman this morning.”
“Yes, yes I saw it. But the story had no details. Is it true? We knew her here. She was a client.”
“I know that or I wouldn’t be calling, would I? We need access to her recent bank records and also those of another significant person of interest in this investigation, a Mr. Eldridge Biggins who, like Mrs. Trevean, also banks with you. And if Mary Trevean had a safety deposit box containing anything else of possible significance, we will need that evidence as well. I am hoping, as she was your client, and has been killed, you will help us in this enquiry and not force me get a formal warrant. That takes time and we are under pressure to solve this case. Lack of cooperation, if I may be blunt, would be considered obstructing the course of justice in a capital murder case. Do you follow me?” Morgan was working way beyond her remit, as usual, but she hoped the bank manager would respond.
After a pause, Nelson said, “I am new with this particular bank branch, Inspector, but not new to Lloyds. Your request is highly irregular, as I am sure you know. But ours is a small community and we aim to care for our customers. They give us their trust. We owe them ours as well, even after death. Maybe especially after death. So, what I am saying is that, yes, I will try to help, within the limits of my authority.”
“Thank you, Mr. Nelson. And I mean that,” she said, while silently pumping her fist in the air. “I am at the police operations hub up in Bodmin. Do I need to come down there to obtain this information or can we do this electronically?”
“I shouldn’t think a special trip would be necessary in a case such as this. I am less certain of what we can divulge should she also have a safe deposit box here. But give me your contact information and I shall get on this immediately.”
“I am most grateful, Mr. Nelson.” She wanted to hug the poor man. He sounded young. It might be nice.
“I’m glad you are, Inspector, because you may have to come to my defense if this confidence is ever revealed.”
“You’ll have the full faith and support of Devon and Cornwall Police. I guarantee it. But may I say, sir: banking is one thing, murder quite another.”
“Yes. Yes, I agree.”
Morgan rang off and smiled. At least there were still some bankers you could count on. She would send him a thank you note on official stationery.