Laura Marlin Mysteries 1: Dead Man's Cove eBook, Page 3

  A woman with crinkly black hair and a squashed button nose was crouching over Calvin Redfern’s desk with a document in her hand, like a bird of prey poised to rip into a mouse. A feather duster lay across a high-backed black leather chair.

  ‘I’m cleaning,’ declared Mrs Webb, a note of defiance in her voice.

  ‘Of course,’ said Laura.

  She closed the door quickly and returned to the kitchen, heart thudding. Either her uncle liked his documents polished or Mrs Webb was - was what? Going through his personal papers? Laura gave herself a shake. She’d only just arrived and already she was finding fault with the place. Matron would have had something to say about that.

  She was washing her coffee cup at the sink when she noticed a thick white envelope propped against the cake tin. It was addressed to her. When she opened it, a twenty-pound note fluttered out. Laura snatched it up with a barely suppressed squeal of delight and put it in her pocket before turning her attention to the other contents of the envelope: a mobile phone, a key, and a note covered in her uncle’s bold black scrawl.

  Dear Laura,

  Apologies for not being around to make you welcome on your first morning, but duty called! In any case, now that No. 28 Ocean View Terrace is your home you’ll need to get used to my peculiar schedule. Mrs Webb will sort you out with meals. I’ve enclosed a spare key, a mobile phone with a small amount of credit on it (your new number is on the back) and some pocket money. I won’t always be so generous, I’m afraid, but I figure you might need a few bits and pieces after being stuck in Sylvan Meadows all those years! Enjoy your first day in St Ives.

  Calvin

  Sensing she was being watched, Laura shoved the letter into the back pocket of her jeans. Mrs Webb was leaning against the door, arms folded and lips pursed. Her hair was scraped back with a collection of clips and pins, hardening her face, which was tanned despite the season.

  ‘You’ll be Mr Redfern’s niece?’ Her flat nose and the way she bared her bottom teeth in a smile reminded Laura of a snarling pug. Laura knew at once it would be a mistake to make an enemy of her.

  ‘That’s right,’ she responded as warmly as she could manage. ‘I’m Laura. And you must be Mrs Webb. My uncle was raving about your cooking.’

  ‘He’d be hard pressed to find anyone better to take care of him, that I can promise you,’ Mrs Webb said challengingly, as though Laura were making a bid for her job. ‘It’s not everyone who’d be putting up with him and his eccentric ways.’

  Her flat brown eyes shifted to the clock on the wall and she said without enthusiasm: ‘I suppose you’ll be wanting breakfast even though it’s nearly lunchtime.’

  Laura didn’t consider 10.30am to be ‘nearly lunchtime’, plus she was ravenous, but something about Mrs Webb made her want to do the opposite of what the housekeeper expected. ‘Thanks, but I won’t have anything this morning,’ she said with another smile. ‘I’m just on my way out.’

  Surprise showed in Mrs Webb’s eyes. ‘Well, then, I’ll leave some sandwiches for your tea. You and your uncle, I mean. In case he’s back.’ She bared her teeth again.

  Laura tried, and failed, to pluck up the courage to tell the housekeeper she was a pescatarian - a vegetarian who ate fish. She’d have to do it later. ‘Great,’ she said, edging past the housekeeper into the hallway. ‘Umm, Mrs Webb, what is it that my uncle does?’

  For some reason the question seemed to amuse Mrs Webb. ‘He’s a fisheries man. He counts fishing boat catches or some such.’

  Laura was unlocking the front door when she heard the housekeeper mutter: ‘Or so he says.’

  She paused. ‘Excuse me?’

  The housekeeper leaned around the kitchen door. ‘I said, “Enjoy St Ives.”’

  Laura stepped out into a very different St Ives from the gale-force one of the previous night. The first thing she noticed was that the air was so clean it practically fizzed in her lungs. It was like inhaling a mountain stream. The second was a curtain twitching at the top of the house next door. She stared up at it, but saw nothing more.

  The crooked pine in the corner of the cemetery was at rest today. Jackdaws pecked in its shade. Laura hesitated at the crossroads before heading downhill towards the sea. With every step, the smile on her face stretched wider. When she reached the bottom, she crossed the road and leaned against the railings on the far side. The beach - Porthmeor, according to the sign - was the most beautiful she’d ever seen. The sand was the colour of a Labrador puppy and patterned with mauve rivulets left by the departing tide. The waves spilled like milk onto the shore. Despite the sunshine it was a freezing day, yet four or five surfers bobbed beyond the breakers and a toddler was helping his dad to build a sandcastle.

  Laura was dying to take off her shoes and go racing down to the water’s edge, but her stomach was growling so she continued her search for the town centre. Midway along the beach, the road twisted inland. She tripped past picturesque white cottages with names like Three Mermaids, Seal and Surf. Fish Street led to the harbour. There she found gaily-painted ice-cream parlours and Cornish pasty vendors and several cafés advertising all-day breakfasts.

  A day ago it would have been inconceivable to Laura that she might take herself out for a meal. For a start, she’d never had any money of her own, but more importantly she’d never been anywhere without the supervision of an adult. She’d never been allowed to be alone or make her own decisions. In one night, her uncle had changed all that. He trusted her.

  Laura chose a café called the Sunny Side Up, because it had a view. She felt very self-conscious going up the stairs and taking a seat near the window, especially since the waitress kept looking around to see who was accompanying her. So did the only other people in the café, a couple with two young children. She was on the point of leaving when she spotted something called the ‘Veggie Works’ on the Specials board. It was five pounds and consisted of eggs, mushrooms, roasted tomatoes, vegetarian sausages and hash browns. Laura’s mouth watered at the thought of it.

  The waitress, a girl with blonde-and-black-streaked dreadlocks, a nose piercing, baggy jeans and a name badge describing her as Erin, slouched over. An angry-looking rock band scowled from her black T-shirt.

  ‘Hi,’ said Laura. ‘Please could I have the Veggie Works with eggs over-easy.’ She’d always wanted to say that: ‘Eggs over-easy’. She’d seen it in a film once. Matron had explained that it meant fried eggs turned over but still soft on the inside.

  Erin made no move to take the pencil from behind her ear and write down the order. She twirled a dreadlock and said: ‘Where are your parents?’

  Laura stared at her. ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Matter of fact it does. It’s against our policy to serve kids on their own.’

  ‘Why?’

  Erin put her pad back in her pocket. ‘Just is.’

  ‘Look, I have money.’ Laura put the twenty-pound note on the table. ‘I can even pay you in advance if you’re worried I might run off or something.’

  The couple at the next table stared disapprovingly at the money, as though they doubted she could have come by it honestly. Erin wore a similar expression. She said: ‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.’

  Laura pushed back her chair. ‘You want to know where my parents are? My mum is dead, and the man who might be my dad ran off to America before I was born, leaving no forwarding address.’

  Erin’s expression didn’t alter, but she took the pencil from behind her left ear. ‘Sit down and keep your wig on. It isn’t me who makes the rules, but rules are made to be broken, right? One Veggie Works coming up.’

  Whether it was because it was the first meal she’d ever paid for, or eaten overlooking the sea, or because she felt a glow of pride at having stood up for herself, Laura could not remember ever enjoying a breakfast more. She savoured every mouthful. And when it was over, Erin brought her a mug of hot chocolate with whipped cream on top.

  ‘I didn’t order — ’


  Erin grinned. ‘It’s on the house. To make up for the bad service.’

  Laura sat with both hands wrapped around the yellow mug and watched the world go by. The tide was out and little fishing boats lay stranded on the wet sand of the harbour. Shellseekers and dog walkers strolled across to the lighthouse. A fat spaniel was racing in circles, to the dismay of its portly owner.

  Robbie had told her that St Ives was a legendary artists’ colony - ‘Something about the quality of the light.’ It was not hard to see why. Each cobbled street was prettier or quainter than the last, and the view from the café window could have been a scene from a famous painting. No wonder he’d said that the town was a favourite with tourists, especially in the summer.

  Laura sipped her hot chocolate and tried to guess who was a tourist and who wasn’t, but it wasn’t long before her thoughts turned to Mrs Webb. What had the housekeeper meant by muttering, ‘Or so he says,’ after she’d told Laura her uncle worked for the fisheries? For Laura was quite sure that that was what she’d said.

  Before she could ponder the subject further, a frenzy of snarling and yelping broke out on the street below the café. Laura and Erin dashed down the stairs. A Rottweiller and a golden retriever were engaged in a ferocious fight on the pavement. Saliva and specks of blood flew. The dogs’ owners, a tall, spotty youth with a broken lead in his hand, and an elderly couple in matching kagoules, yelled at them from a safe distance. So did various members of a quickly gathering crowd. But nobody had the courage to intervene.

  Laura, who adored animals, had no intention of standing by while two dogs tore each other to shreds. ‘I’ll stop them,’ she said starting forward, but Erin wrenched her back.

  ‘Oh, no you don’t. You’ll get your hand bitten off.’ Laura tried to wriggle away, but Erin tightened her grip.

  Out of the corner of her eye Laura saw an Asian boy sprinting towards them. At least, she thought he was Asian. She’d seen him earlier, walking behind what she assumed to be his mum and dad, and had been struck by the difference between parents and son. The man was almost grotesquely overweight. His clothes were fine and expertly tailored, but they failed to disguise his vast belly and multiple chins. The woman was beautiful in a hard, expensive way, and equally smartly dressed in a lime-green sari and cashmere coat. The boy, by contrast, was thin and underdressed for the winter chill in light cotton trousers and a long grey shirt.

  He ran up to the dogs, by now on their hind legs, tearing at each other’s throats, and halted in front of them. Laura, watching his back, saw a stillness come over him. He reached into the chaos of fur and gnashing teeth and calmly gripped the dogs’ collars, uttering a few soft words in a language Laura didn’t understand. Before anyone could blink, the dogs were standing quietly on either side of him, panting from the exertion but wagging their tails.

  There were gasps from the crowd. As the owners rushed up to collect their animals, neither of which was seriously hurt, the boy turned in Laura’s direction and she saw even white teeth briefly illuminate a face that was all shadows.

  The old gentleman who owned the retriever went to pat the boy on the back, but he shrank from the man’s touch. He stood looking at the ground as his father came striding up.

  ‘That’s some boy you have there, Mr Mukhtar,’ cried the retriever man. ‘Brave as a lion.’

  ‘Yeah, very cool,’ agreed the spotty youth, clinging to his rottweiller’s studded collar. ‘Thanks, dude,’ he said to the boy. The boy didn’t raise his eyes.

  ‘Quite remarkable,’ gushed the retriever man’s wife, putting a hand on Mr Mukhtar’s sleeve. ‘What an amazing gift he has with animals. My Jasper would have been mincemeat if it hadn’t been for your son.’

  Far from being proud, Mr Mukhtar seemed to be wrestling with some tortuous emotion. His face had gone the colour of an aubergine. ‘Yes, yes, indeed,’ he said, clearly anxious to get away. ‘All is well that ends well.’ He touched the brim of an imaginary hat. ‘Good day to you both.’

  Waiting for her change in the café, where Erin, a cub reporter, was agonising over whether or not the story was newsworthy enough to interest the local paper, Laura watched the family depart along the harbour front. Mr Mukhtar’s back was rigid. Suddenly, his hand shot out like a striking cobra and he caught the boy a glancing blow across the head.

  It happened so fast and the three of them continued their walk as if nothing had happened, the boy perhaps walking a fraction more proudly than before, so that afterwards Laura was never sure if it had been her imagination.

  4

  ‘MORE A GHOST than a boy, I sometimes think,’ Mrs Crabtree told Laura a little over a week later. ‘Hardly surprising the way Mr Mukhtar has him working all the hours the Lord sends in that shop. Free labour is what he is. Should be in school or throwing a frisbee on the beach, in my opinion, but Mr Mukhtar says he’s being home-schooled by Mrs Mukhtar. Goodness knows how she finds the time. Whenever I pass Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow, she’s in there getting a coconut oil treatment, or extensions, or whatever the trendy people do these days.’

  Mrs Crabtree lived at number 30 Ocean View Terrace. It was her curtains that twitched whenever Laura left the house. Though in her sixties, she was as fashion conscious as the shopkeeper’s wife, bleaching her hair blonde and dressing exclusively in shades of pink, purple and orange. ‘No point in growing old gracefully when you can do it disgracefully,’ she liked to tell people.

  She’d cornered Laura on her way home from St Ives Primary School, which Laura had been attending for nearly a fortnight, with the words: ‘Back from the dead, so I hear.’

  Laura stifled a giggle. ‘No, just from school.’

  Mrs Crabtree found this hilarious. ‘You mustn’t mind my turn of phrase,’ she said when she’d recovered. ‘I only mean that your uncle was unaware that you existed all these years and yet here you are, pretty as a picture. Not every enigma at number 28 is so easily solved, let me tell you.’

  Laura put her school bag on the ground and wrapped her scarf more tightly around her neck to shut out the cold wind. ‘What do you mean?’

  Mrs Crabtree laughed again. ‘Oh dear, there’s my mouth running away with me again. What marvellous colouring you have. Such wonderfully creamy skin and hair like sun-bleached wheat. You’ll tan up a treat in the summer. How are you settling in with your uncle? I’ve been away on holiday or I’d have stopped in to welcome you to St Ives sooner. I don’t mind telling you we were all agog when we found Calvin Redfern had an eleven-year-old niece living with him. What with him being practically a recluse. And as for that housekeeper . . .’

  She made a dismissive gesture with her purple mittens. ‘But what do I know. Anyway, how are you finding it?’

  ‘I love it,’ Laura said loyally. ‘School is okay. I’m still getting used to it. There is one very annoying boy in my class, but I just ignore him. As for my uncle, he and I have a great time together and Mrs Webb is a fantastic cook. She bakes the world’s best Victoria sponge cake.’ She didn’t mention that Mrs Webb had not improved on acquaintance and alternated between fake friendliness and a sullen silence. Laura kept out of her way as much as possible.

  Mrs Crabtree’s golden curls quivered with disappointment at this news. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’m pleased to hear it. No doubt it’s nice for your uncle to have a bit of company after all this time.’

  ‘All what time?’

  A giant seagull landed on the stone wall surrounding Mrs Crabtree’s garden and she ran at it like a crazed flamingo, arms flapping. ‘These wretched gulls get bigger, noisier and greedier every year,’ she complained. ‘It won’t be Olga Crabtree who’s surprised the day one carries off a small child. Now where was I?’

  ‘You were saying that it’s nice for my uncle to have a bit of company. Has he been alone long?’

  ‘Well,’ said Mrs Crabtree, ‘I don’t know about that. All I know is he arrived here in the dead of night nearly a year ago. Wild-eyed and dishevelled he was. By chance, I was looking o
ut of the window at the time. He’d driven down from some place in the north. Aberdeen, Scotland, people say, but then he doesn’t have the accent.’ She winked. ‘You’ll have to ask him and pass it on.’

  Laura, who felt a bit uncomfortable discussing her uncle with a perfect stranger, was about to retort that under no circumstances would she be doing anything of the kind when she remembered that Matt Walker often found village gossips to be extremely useful in his investigations. For every ten pieces of misinformation they passed on, there was the occasional gem.