Chapter 30

The Echo archive produces multiple short bulletins about the abduction of Alex Loxton, starting from when he first went missing and the alarm went out, believing that the three-year-old had wandered off with a group of Halloween revellers who hadn’t noticed an extra werewolf, through each stage as the search widened and became more desperate.

The only new information is that Alex disappeared from the front courtyard of Number 24 at 4.30pm. Helena was looking after him and his half-sister Electra who was eleven at the time. Alex’s mother was away visiting family in Australia and Ambrose was at his Exeter office. Alex was already playing in his werewolf suit ahead of the evening’s celebrations but Electra was on the balcony complaining about her witch’s outfit, causing Helena to leave Alex playing and go upstairs to help her. I look at the photo that Lou-Lou included in her ‘loose ends’ links on the flash drive and recognise the brick paving and the bottom of the balcony rail at the top of the photo.

There’s so much repetition in the reports that my eyes begin to water. The fact that I don’t know what I’m looking for hampers progress. The words, a trace of DNA and a typo, swirl around in my head, going nowhere. Returning to talk to Lou-Lou will only help if she feels she can speak freely and that’s not going to happen. Even if I suggest she involves Hayden she’s likely to be extra wary and the whole exercise could just create a delay. Then there’s the time I’m spending away from my book with the deadline looming.

It’s time to interview the retired crime reporter – the P. Windermere on the stories I’ve scrolled though – and see if he noticed anything odd about the Alex Loxton case that could be described as a trace of DNA and a typo. If Perry Windermere’s mind is still sharp, he probably won’t have any qualms about sharing his impressions after all this time. He might enjoy it.

Exmouth is a large seaside town and summer resort on the mouth of the Exe Estuary, only a few kilometres south of the Lympstone cottage. I follow the tree-lined two-lane road until we get a glimpse of the water from the outskirts of the town. I head up into the hills to a distinctive Tudor-style building set back in extensive grounds.

Perry Windermere is sitting in an armchair in the orangery where I’ve been allowed to bring Raider. He’s been a big man, now shrunken by the years with remnant tufts of hair above his ears. But he’s still radiating a presence. Raider goes straight up and puts his front paws on Perry’s knees.

“Hello, fella. You’re friendly.” He shakes hands with the pooch and looks up at me. “And you must be Tiggy. Don’t tell Anita I told you but she’s a big fan of yours. Not that she’ll ever let on.”

I pull up a chair and Raider climbs onto Perry’s lap, the way Sugar the fluffy white dog might.

“He’s not too heavy,” Perry assures me when I frown. “I like the physical contact. Now, Anita said you’re digging into old crimes to get some real-life details for your book.”

“Yes, but I didn’t tell her everything.”

His laugh is hearty. “Very wise. I’ve seen Echo Chamber. Every day she manages to make nothing at all sound like something important. She’s a better reporter than that.”

We’re off to a frank start and I tell him the whole story about Lou-Lou, not only out of respect for his senior status but also as an invitation to exchange information. He listens to Lou-Lou’s assertion that she didn’t kill her adopted father, that her name is linked to Alex Loxton’s werewolf suit and that something about Alex’s death involved a trace of DNA and a typo.

When I’m finished I say, “I wonder if there was anything about the case that struck you as odd at the time.”

In response, I sense a change in his demeanour. Guarded. Raider twitches.

“The first word that comes to mind is unhinged,” Perry says. “These days they call it mental illness. Louise is a beautiful French name. Are all girls called Louise or Lou-Lou named after wolves? It doesn’t make sense, Tiggy. Perhaps because they didn’t tell her she was adopted, she’s finding a problem with everything about her upbringing. I think you’ve been snared by a fanciful story.”

Not the auspicious start I was hoping for. Does his seniority influence his opinions of young women? Including me?

“Thanks for voicing these concerns,” I say, “but Lou-Lou hasn’t talked about herself to me. Attention-seekers are very self-focused. She’s told me she came across some documents in her father’s desk and now she’s looking into the death of Alex. If you were involved in reporting the case, I wonder if you’d put your reservations about her aside for a minute and tell me if the words a trace of DNA and a typo mean anything to you.”

He doesn’t answer for a long time and I think the visit is going to be a bust. “This Louise has been adopted into the Loxtons,” he says at last, “but Alex was family. The precious nephew of Helena Loxton who was forensic royalty even back then. She’s had to live with the guilt of taking her eye off the child for a few minutes. And when remains were found in the woods, she was excluded from participating in the autopsy.”

“To avoid a conflict of interest,” I say.

“But there was confusion about the DNA and in the end DCI Kisner had to call her in.”

He’s just given me something and he doesn’t realise it. Was the DNA corrupted? Or contaminated? Was there something that interfered with the identification of the remains? Is that what Lou-Lou has discovered? But with Alex gone for so long, I wonder how it could matter.

“And her accusation of a typo?” Perry says. “I assume she’s referring to one of the newspaper reports. I don’t think you realise how insulting that is. But if you’re any kind of author, you should.”

I brace myself for a lecture.

“In crime reporting, everything is checked and double-checked before it goes to print – or these days, uploaded to the internet. We’re talking about real people, real families, horrific crimes. Accuracy is crucial. It’s called ‘respect for the victim’. We don’t put junior sub-editors who can’t spell in charge of the details.”

Raider has vacated Perry’s lap for a nearby rug. Something about the retired reporter bothers him. Me too. As soon as I mentioned this particular case, he shut down his original openness, became careful with his words and fired off this tirade for even asking a question.

“I’ll appreciate this when I’m reviewing the archived crime reports, Perry. Thank you so much for your time.”

He grunts and we take our leave, expecting this to be our last visit.

As we’re about to make our way back to Lympstone, I remember Impulse Cove isn’t far from here. It’s the beach where Helena did her ‘bikini experiment’ thirty years ago and proved Liberty Ford hadn’t taken her own life on that jetty in Scotland but was murdered by her boyfriend. I’ve thought about visiting it as ‘ground-truthing’, then rejected it as a distraction. But Raider would love a run on the beach after being cramped inside with the grumpy old man. Me too.

“Let’s go!” I say and he responds with an enthusiastic woof.

We head down from the interior hills and residential areas of Exmouth towards the south coast and Sandy Bay. The vista gradually becomes more rural, with hedgerows and trees lining the road and fields beyond. Near the coast, I stop and find a guide to the track that leads to Impulse Cove. It’s not signposted – to keep it as private as possible in our tourism-obsessed world – but if you know it exists, the directions indicate a track between two isolated cottages. We take the turnoff and bump along the unpaved surface until the narrow bay appears below us in all its splendour, nestling under soaring chalky-white cliffs.

Midweek during October we have the view and the bay to ourselves. The informal parking area is high above the cove and a rough walking track takes us down to a beach that’s surprisingly sandy. I didn’t check if it’s dog-friendly but we’re alone and I show Raider one of the doo-doo bags I keep in my tote. He knows the routine and woofs an acknowledgement.

While he runs wild and free, I ‘research’ the jetty where Helena tested her theory that Liberty didn’t kill herself. It looks little used, perhaps because the opening to the cove is narrow and only navigable for short periods, depending on the tide. But when I walk to the end and look down, the deep water explains why the jetty was built.

Within the privacy afforded by the cliffs on three sides, I visualise Helena and her team re-enacting a young woman’s death and shudder at the power of this secluded cove to hold its history. Then I re-join the pooch who’s bounded up behind me and follow him to where I deploy the doo-doo bag.

It’s a steep climb to the car and a short drive to Lympstone.