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She thought a second, trusting in Vernon Wiles’ discretion to keep his mouth shut about the real reason for their visit. ‘Yesterday morning. He came here to see me and went back to finalise the contract details.’

  ‘Went back where?’

  ‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’

  ‘And you haven’t spoken to him since.

  Lynn thought of the telephone call and took a chance. ‘No,’ she lied.

  The policeman looked a little perplexed. ‘See, ma’am,’ he said, ‘Mr Wiles – his friend – says they were here looking at film locations. That’s why they were both up on the headland when the accident happened.’

  Inwardly, Lynn tensed and she felt a spurt of acid in her stomach. ‘That was probably part of it,’ she agreed, compounding her lie. ‘You know, girl on a beach, showing off ankle jewellery or toe-nail polish.’

  He seemed far from convinced and she cut in before he could come up with any other difficult questions. ‘Look, officer, as you’ve already observed, I’ve had a heavy night and unless you have anything else to ask me, I would very much like to get back to bed.’

  He straightened up, nodding apologetically. ‘Yes, ma’am, of course. If I could just confirm your name for our records.’

  The acid was back, but she had no choice but to level with him. ‘My professional name is Lynn Giles,’ she said wearily, ‘but locally I go by the name Mary Tresco. I would like it kept that way too, if you don’t mind – publicity reasons.’

  Another firm nod. ‘No problem, Miss Gi—, Miss Tresco. Thanks for your help.’

  She breathed a sigh of relief as he walked back to his car in the lane. But closing the door, she was faced with another problem. Alan Murray was standing in the hallway, wearing just his dark glasses and a tight grimace, and it was obvious he had heard enough to make things difficult.

  ‘Lynn Giles?’ he echoed slowly. ‘So why would you call yourself Mary Tresco, eh? I think you owe me an explanation.’

  ****

  Vernon Wiles was scared. Not just nervous in the way he had been when parked up on the headland, waiting for fat Freddie, but scared almost to the point of being terrified.

  To be fair, the little porn film producer was someone whose daily fears bordered on the paranoid anyway. He was scared of the dark, lonely places, deep water, heights, spiders – even visiting the dentist or the doctor. In particular, he was frightened of the well-heeled punters who patronised his unsavoury business and their likely reaction should he fail to meet their perverse expectations or was less than discreet about their identities. And he was frightened of being targeted by the Met Vice Squad, who were always looking for an excuse to drag people like him before the courts, whether it was to do with the explicit nature of the films produced or the ages of some of the so-called actors and actresses starring in them.

  In short, Vernon Wiles was scared of his own shadow and he took the pills to prove it, but he reckoned he had reason to be really scared now.

  Although at the moment the local police seemed to be treating Freddie Baxter’s death as an accident, he was pretty sure that that would change once a link was established between the agency boss and the bomb blast at The Philanderer’s Night Club in London. They were bound to suspect foul play then, maybe launch a full-blown murder inquiry, with all the in-depth probing such an inquiry would entail. As Freddie’s friend and the last person to see him alive, he would be at the centre of all the resultant heat and it wouldn’t take long for them to discover what he did for a living. Once that particular cat was out of the bag, he would really be in the cart. In a place like this gossip would spread with the speed of an Australian bush fire and because of his shady background he would soon find himself vilified and treated as some sort of pariah by all and sundry. Perhaps even attract the attention of the dreaded Met Vice Squad and be subjected to an investigation into illegal snuff movies, which he had always denied knowing anything about.

  And there was something else too, something he hadn’t told anyone about yet – the hooded man he had seen on the clifftop. Who was he and what had he been doing there? Had the man seen him walking back to the car after he had gone in search of Freddie? If he had, was he likely to come forward to tell the police, raising even more difficult questions? Questions like: where had Freddie’s so-called business associate been before returning to the car on his own, and why hadn’t he admitted to going to look for his partner when they had questioned him before? Alternatively, had the hoodie been up to something in that lonely spot, which precluded him from coming forward, and if that was the case, did that mean Vernon Wiles was at risk as a potential witness?

  Wiles shivered. He didn’t like the direction in which his thoughts were heading.

  Sitting on the edge of the bed in his room at the local inn, he shivered uncontrollably, despite the heat of the day, jumping at every sound in the corridor outside and periodically going to the window to study the street below. Looking for he knew not what. He desperately wanted to get back to London, but the police had asked him to stay on for a while, if only until after Freddie’s post mortem – just in case they needed to speak to him again, they’d said. Of course, they had no power to force him to stay. He had done nothing wrong as far as they were concerned. But he’d agreed anyway. It would have looked mighty suspicious if he’d refused and something dodgy had then been discovered at the PM after he had bolted back to the Smoke. He just prayed he would be gone before they found out about The Philanderer’s Club bombing and he vowed to keep a low profile until he was able to make a safe departure. Maybe even skip meals or invent some excuse so that they could be brought up to his room. Yes, shock, that was it. He’d had a terrible loss, hadn’t he – his good friend, after all? It was reasonable for him to want to be left alone to grieve. And he treated the mirror to a shaky smile. ‘Poor old Freddie,’ he muttered, then gave a cracked laugh. ‘Couldn’t have happened to a nicer arsehole.’

  CHAPTER 10

  Alan Murray’s face was grim, his sunglasses adding to the severity of his expression, and now fully dressed, he sat sipping his cup of coffee on the settee for several minutes without speaking. A shower had not improved his mood. And also fully dressed, this time in a skirt and blouse, Lynn gnawed at her lip in the armchair opposite, waiting for him to break his silence.

  It had not been easy telling him the truth about herself. Who she really was. The bomb at the fashion show. What it had done to her. In mentioning Freddie Baxter, though, she had omitted any reference to the real nature of the contract he had offered her or her pre-model life as a pole-dancer, and she sensed a burning resentment in Murray’s demeanour over her failure to level with him before. What was he thinking, she wondered? What sort of scars had she got? Whereabouts were they? Was her face badly disfigured? Had she come on to him because she couldn’t attract a sighted man? Even in death, Freddie Baxter had won, wrecking another part of her life as effectively as he’d threatened to do when he was alive.

  ‘Alan, I’m so sorry,’ she finally blurted, unable to stand the silence any longer, ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’

  He gave a thin smile and shook his head. ‘It isn’t about being upset,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s just that you seem to have thought so little of my integrity that you couldn’t bring yourself to trust me.’

  She stared at the floor, embarrassed and ashamed. ‘I … I thought,’ she stammered, ‘I thought if … if you knew I had been scarred by a bomb, you would lose interest in me. I … I didn’t know what to do.’

  ‘People who trust each other don’t keep secrets like that,’ he said simply.

  She met his sightless gaze, angered by the self-righteous censure in his tone. ‘We all have our secrets, Alan,’ she snapped back, thinking of what Freddie Baxter had intimated and also now beginning to feel more than a little uneasy about the way he himself had turned up in such a dishevelled state the previous evening. Had Archie really run off or was there more to it all than that, she wondered, feeling a sudden chill?


  ‘I bet you’re not so lily white either,’ she said aloud, without thinking.

  He started, his tone hardening. ‘Oh? What makes you say that?’

  She almost bit her tongue. To have repeated what Freddie Baxter had said about him would have meant opening up a whole can of worms, revealing not only that Baxter had broken into his house, but that she had actually had a phone call from him just before he’d met his death, even though she’d already told the police she had not spoken to her odious former manager since the morning before. ‘Big mouth,’ a voice sneered inside her head.

  ‘Just one or two secret mutterings I picked up,’ she replied lamely. ‘Gossip is what keeps places like this going, and you are an Emmet after all, same as me.’

  He ignored her attempt to make light of things. ‘Gossip about what?’

  ‘Oh, nothing specific, only that one or two of the more inquisitive souls don’t reckon you are all you pretend to be,’ and she forced what became a hollow laugh, adding, ‘Nudge, nudge.’

  He considered her reply for a moment and although it was obvious that he was not entirely satisfied with her explanation, he abruptly relaxed and treated her to a rueful smile. ‘Well, maybe I can hazard a guess as to what they could have been implying and since this now seems to be the moment for baring souls, let me add my own confession to yours.’

  ‘Confession?’

  He shrugged. ‘’Fraid so. In short, as I said before, I’m a bit of a fraud – and not only with regard to cooking either.’

  Lynn felt her heartbeat quicken, wondering what was coming next, but she said nothing and waited for him to continue.

  ‘Fact is, I am not the professional novelist I’ve claimed to be and maybe someone in the village has checked and found that out.’

  She thought better than to enlighten him on the internet inquiries she had made at Helston Library and said instead, ‘So, if not a professional novelist, what are you then?’

  ‘Well may you ask. A dismal failure would probably be a good description. You see, when I told you I’d had three books published, that was a total fib. I am not even close to being mid-list – more likely lurking at the bottom of the slush pile. I’m another Walter Mitty, you see, a total wuzzit.’

  She stared at him in astonishment. ‘And that’s your confession?’

  ‘Well, it’s a pretty big thing for someone like me to admit.’

  She gave a short laugh, more relieved than she cared to admit to herself that Freddie’s insinuations must have been about nothing more than this. ‘Not to me, it isn’t. I thought you might be a paedophile or a wife-beater.’

  He also laughed. ‘Heaven forbid. Nothing so exotic.’

  Then, with a weary sigh, he climbed to his feet, Archie jumping up expectantly beside him. ‘Anyway, I must be off. Things to do and all that.’

  She stood up too, smoothing her skirt in a nervous gesture. ‘Will I be seeing you again?’ she queried, expecting the worst.

  He smiled again, this time with something that seemed more akin to genuine humour, although it was difficult to tell what was going on behind those dark glasses. ‘After the hospitality I received last night, how could I keep away?’ he replied, adding mischievously, ‘The meal wasn’t that bad either.’

  And he was still laughing as Archie led him up the lane towards the main road, seemingly unaware of the worried gaze she directed after him as she thought again about his alleged encounter with the jogger the very night Freddie Baxter had died, and finding herself wondering whether there could be any connection.

  ****

  Lynn Giles sat for a long time in her armchair after Alan Murray had left, the gin and tonic she had poured herself still on the arm of the chair and hardly touched. Alan was something of an enigma and she was still unsure as to whether he had told her everything about himself. Maybe there were other skeletons in his cupboard that he had decided to keep quiet about and maybe, just maybe, Freddie Baxter had unearthed them during his visit to The Old Customs House.

  She picked up her gin and tonic and took a thoughtful sip before returning it to the arm of the chair. She was probably being stupid, but she had to be sure Alan was not hiding something even more important from her. After all, she had been open with him – to a point anyway. But as burglary was not one of her skills, she baulked at the idea of doing a Freddie on his home. No, there was an easier way. The thought of making further contact with Vernon Wiles didn’t exactly fill her with relish, but there was a possibility that Freddie had told the little turd something before he’d taken his dive off the cliff, so it was worth a try.

  She didn’t bother with her car, but decided to walk the couple of miles to the village, anxious to clear her aching head in the Cornish sunshine, and she was relieved to see Baxter’s BMW parked outside The Blue Ketch Inn when she arrived. At least that meant Wiles was still there and not on route back to the Smoke.

  The bar was almost empty when she pushed through the door and the snake-eyed barman behind the counter gave her the usual once-over as she approached.

  ‘Vernon Wiles,’ she said. ‘I gather he’s staying here.’

  The barman nodded, pushed himself off the barstool where he had been reading the local newspaper and picked up a telephone. ‘Not answering,’ he said, setting the receiver down again. ‘You might as well go up. Room is called Coverack, after one of the Cornish coves.’

  She knocked several times on Wiles’ door without any response and it wasn’t until she actually called out to him that he opened up, peering at her myopically around the door as if to satisfy himself it was really her before throwing it wide.

  ‘And what do you want?’ he queried as she followed him inside.

  ‘Now that’s not a very nice welcome, Vernon,’ she replied. ‘And I’ve come all this way, just to see you.’

  ‘You know about Freddie?’ he said quickly.

  ‘Who doesn’t?’ she retorted, pulling up a chair and dropping into it. ‘You didn’t push him off the cliff by any chance, did you? He certainly wasn’t a candidate for suicide. Too much of a coward.’

  He looked horrified. ‘’Course I didn’t,’ he exclaimed. ‘He … he slipped and fell. Police said so.’

  ‘They were there at the time then, were they?’

  He shook his head irritably and propped himself on the corner of the bed.

  ‘Look, why are you here?’ he said. ‘It’s too late if you’ve decided to accept the contract. That’s all out the window, now Freddie’s dead.’

  She emitted a short laugh. ‘Oh, I haven’t come about your porno film, Vernon, you can be rest assured on that point, and I hope that now Freddie’s snuffed it, we can forget he ever broached the subject, eh?’

  ‘Not my idea anyway,’ he said sullenly, ‘so I’m not likely to tell the police about it, if that’s what’s worrying you.’

  ‘Oh, it’s all right telling them he had come down here to offer me a contract,’ she replied. ‘I told them he wanted me to do body-part modelling – though not the sort of body parts your mucky little business is into, of course. That rather surprised them, because you had evidently said you were both here looking at film locations. Still, hopefully, we can tie the two things together if their curiosity starts getting the better of them. You know the sort of thing – girl on a rock in her bare feet showing off an ankle chain.’ She gave a bitter smile. ‘No scars on my feet.’

  He nodded. ‘Okay by me. I don’t want any heat from Old Bill, and that’s a fact.’

  She studied him intently for a moment. ‘Noble sentiments, Vernon, noble sentiments indeed. But tell me, what was it you and Freddie were really doing on the headland when he had his accident?’

  Wiles squirmed. ‘Looking at locations – as I told the Old Bill,’ he said.

  She smiled sweetly. ‘Balls, Vernon. You see, Freddie rang me after he had broken into Alan Murray’s house and told me what he had done.’

  Wiles gaped at her. ‘He broke in?’ he gasped. ‘I didn’t know that. He said he wa
s just going to watch the place.’

  Lynn sighed. ‘Oh come on, Vernon, don’t treat me like an idiot. Just tell me what Freddie found out about Alan, will you? I need to know.’

  Wiles shook his head several times. ‘Honest, he didn’t tell me anything. I didn’t even know he had broken in. I just waited in the car when he went off. It’s the truth. I never saw him again after that.’

  Lynn frowned, not convinced. ‘So you saw and heard nothing?’

  Wiles licked dry lips, glancing at the window. ‘Keep your voice down, will you?’ he said. ‘Someone might hear us talking.’

  Her frown deepened as she noted the shadow of something in his restless brown eyes. Guilt or fear, she wondered? ‘Why would that be a problem, Vernon? You say you don’t know anything?’ She shot forward in her chair. ‘You do know something don’t you, you little shit? What is it?’

  He lurched to his feet, still shaking his head furiously. ‘No, no, I don’t,’ he protested, the tone of his voice rising a couple of octaves. ‘I … I just sat in the car. No one said anything to me. Didn’t see a soul.’

  ‘Which means you saw someone,’ she snapped back. ‘Who did you see, Vernon? Where did you see them?’

  More head shaking. ‘You have to go,’ he said. ‘I had nothing to do with it.’

  ‘Nothing to do with what?’ she echoed. ‘Are you saying Freddie’s death was not an accident?’

  He seemed to be having difficulty swallowing. ‘No, no. I know nothing about it,’ he whispered. ‘Please, just go.’

  She shook her head firmly and sat back in her chair. ‘Not until you tell me what you saw.’

  He was really trembling now, like someone in the grip of flu spasms. ‘I didn’t see a thing, honestly – just someone in a hooded coat, going into the old engine-house.’

  She felt her mouth start to dry up as her mind flashed back to her own encounter with the hooded man on the headland. ‘Hooded coat, you say?’ she breathed. ‘Did you see his face?’

  He shook his head several times, as if trying to shake an image loose. ‘It … it was just a hooded figure.’