The body in Penlee Park had been identified: Scott Masters, twenty-two, in the final year of a BA honours course in photography at the University of Falmouth. The rucksack he had been carrying was found, discarded, in one of the gardens on Trewithen Road, some sixty metres from the park gates. His notebooks, together with a small book of photographs by Saul Leiter, were still inside; his Nikon D5600 digital SLR camera was missing.
‘Expensive?’ Elder enquired.
‘Quick check on the Internet,’ Cordon said, ‘a few quid short of a thousand.’
Elder let out a slow whistle.
‘I’ve sent out a description to all the camera shops in the area, pawnshops, anywhere whoever did this might be looking for a quick sale. His mobile the same.’
‘And Masters, do we know if he was over from Falmouth on his own?’
‘Apparently so. There was an exhibition at the Exchange he was interested in seeing. I spoke to one of his friends at the university. Until more or less the last minute, he’d been going to come with him. Feeling like shit now, of course, that he didn’t.’
‘What about family, they’ve …’
‘They’ve all been informed.’
‘And the murder weapon? No sign?’
Cordon shook his head. ‘Still searching. What we can tell, long blade, seven or eight inches, inch and a half wide. Kitchen knife, that kind of thing. If he’s got rid, a good chance we’ll find it. Unless he’s chucked it out to sea of course. Then we’ll have to wait on the tide. Meantime, we’re talking to the staff at the Exchange, checking their CCTV, see if anyone remembers Masters being there. If he was seen talking to anyone in particular. Taking his photograph round to other places he might have visited, stopped for a drink, coffee, whatever.’
‘You think he might have struck up a conversation with someone? Whoever it was attacked him later?’
‘It’s possible.’
‘What doesn’t make sense to me,’ Elder said, ‘if whoever did this didn’t know his victim, which is what, for the moment, we seem to be assuming – if it was a matter of sheer chance, opportunity – all right, threaten him, overpower him, attack him from behind, but why kill him? And why in such an extreme way?’
‘Maybe he panicked,’ Cordon said. ‘Either that or the adrenalin kicked in and he couldn’t stop.’
Or maybe, Elder was thinking, he just enjoys it for what it is. Not the first time and possibly not the last.
After leaving the police station, and enjoying what was, for him, the relative luxury of a good phone signal, Elder called first Katherine and then Vicki.
‘What is this, Dad?’ Katherine said. ‘Twice in two days. Anyone’d think you were stalking me.’ But she said it with a smile. And after ten minutes or so of small talk and having assured him she was absolutely fine, no one lurking in the shadows, no weird phone calls – his aside – said she had to go.
‘Take care,’ Elder said.
‘You take care yourself.’
Vicki didn’t want to talk very much at all. With two gigs coming up later in the week, she was worried about getting a sore throat and was keeping out of draughts and gargling every couple of hours with salt water.
‘I might call round later, Frank. We could have a drink at the Tinner’s. But I’m not promising, okay? I’ll see how I feel.’
Back at the cottage, Elder realised he’d scarcely eaten all day and hastily made himself beans on toast, stirring a good dollop of Worcester sauce into the beans as they were heating, then grating cheese on top once it was on the plate.
It was that time of the day, no longer afternoon and not yet evening, when he always felt most restless, unable to settle. He picked up a book he’d bought at the charity shop in Newlyn and set it down again less than ten minutes later, realising he’d read the last few pages without taking in a single word.
Nothing else for it, he pulled on his boots, lifted a coat down from the peg and, remembering to put the key under the stone by the door in case Vicki decided to risk her throat and arrived before he got back, set off down the path. Instead of going to the headland, he took a left turn through the village and crossed into the lane that would take him alongside the stream and up the rocky path towards Zennor Quoit.
By the time he arrived at the top, calves beginning to ache, the first lights of the village were beginning to show. Beyond the cluster of houses, beyond the fields, the sea was a faint greeny-grey, wrinkled and still.
He breathed in the air and turned for home.
When he arrived, the key was gone.
Smile on his face, he called Vicki’s name as he pushed open the door.
The first blow hit him on the top of the right shoulder, jarring his whole body, splintering the bone. The second, delivered as he turned, struck him high to the side of the head, sending him, stumbling, back against the wall.
In the half-light he saw his attacker step back, raise what looked like a pickaxe handle above his head, and, instinctively, he thrust up an arm to ward off the blow. When it smashed against his elbow at the end of its swing, he yelled with pain and fell to the floor.
A boot drove into his ribs as he tried to crawl away.
Hands grabbed at his clothes and hauled him to his knees, dragging him into the centre of the room, then forcing him down on to his back.
‘So, Frank, how d’you like it so far?’
Elder blinked upwards, left eye all but closed, to see Keach standing over him, straddling his body, tapping the pickaxe handle against the palm of his hand.
‘Not quite, I’d guess, what you had in mind.’
Elder kicked out as best he could and was struck, several times more, in return. Then, tossing the pickaxe handle aside, Keach drew a long-bladed knife from inside his coat.
‘Time to talk about Katherine,’ Keach said, and resting the point of the knife against Elder’s Adam’s apple, drew a bead of blood. ‘Unfinished business there, like I said. You did get my card? Nice touch that, I thought. But what I didn’t say, this time I’m going to be dealing with you first.’
‘Bastard,’ Elder spat out and, in response, the tip of the knife slipped a little deeper beneath the skin.
‘No last-minute rescue this time, Frank. No prince, no knight in shining armour. No daddy, saving his little darling …’
Summoning every last vestige of strength, Elder struggled to lever him away and Keach simply laughed and increased the pressure. ‘One last thing, Frank, it was you who got me sent me to prison, remember? All those years locked away, I owe you for those.’
He leaned down on the blade, twisting it across Elder’s throat before, with a suck of air, pulling it free.
‘Say goodbye, Frank …’
Crouching over him, he drove the knife between Elder’s ribs.