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  He grunted. ‘Grey especially, in view of his alleged threat to Baxter. He might also have an angle on Dubois. After all, he was dumped for her, so he can’t feel particularly well disposed towards the young lady and might be ready to deal some dirt on her.’

  ‘But Cate Meadows had a pretty good motive too, don’t you think? She must have felt humiliated beyond measure to be chucked for a man.’ She hesitated. ‘Of course, having said that, there is the possibility that we are complicating the whole thing unnecessarily. Maybe Lynn Giles was the target and Dubois is the one we want. Simple as that.’

  ‘And Baxter’s death in Cornwall?’

  ‘Just an unfortunate accident, as has been said up until now?’

  The lift arrived with a soft ping and Benchley ushered Angel in ahead of him. ‘That would be one hell of a coincidence,’ he said, pressing the button for the car park. ‘Three months ago someone sets off an explosive device at a club where Baxter’s holding a fashion show, scarring one of his models. Now he himself ends up as brown bread after falling off a cliff in Cornwall. More than a bit iffy, I would suggest.’ He hesitated, then added, ‘Especially as Cornwall is where Lynn Giles, our amnesiac witness, has chosen to retire to, away from public view.’

  ‘I didn’t know she’d gone to ground down there?’

  ‘Nor did anyone else. I kept her address to myself for her protection, but I suspect she must have passed it on to her former employer anyway, against my advice, which means there’s every chance Baxter was paying her a visit when he died.’

  The lift doors opened once more and Benchley followed his DI out into the basement car park, talking to her over his shoulder as he walked towards their car.

  ‘The thing to bear in mind is that, whether Baxter was the principal target or not, Lynn Giles saw something the night of the bombing which might give us all the answers we need, if and when her memory returns, so she is a key witness. That means she is very much at risk from the perp who planted that bomb and who may also have pushed Baxter off the cliff—’

  ‘A perp who could have followed Baxter to Lynn Giles’ address,’ she finished for him.

  His face was grim as he climbed into the car. ‘Exactly, which is why I intend ringing her as soon as we get back to the nick,’ he replied. ‘Let’s just hope she answers the bloody phone.’

  But Lynn Giles didn’t answer the phone, and although Benchley tried several times that morning there was no reply. He considered leaving a message, but then thought better of it. What could he say? “Sorry to bother you, Miss Giles, but I think that someone might be on their way to kill you.” That would have gone down really well, wouldn’t it? And anyway, on reflection, maybe he was jumping the gun by ringing her in the first place. Despite his own suspicions, there appeared to be no suggestion at present that Freddie Baxter’s death had been anything other than an accident. Even if it had been a case of murder, the killer had had ample time to waste Lynn Giles already, but apparently hadn’t or he would have heard about it by now. No, common sense dictated that he liaised with Devon and Cornwall Police as to their take on things before he acted on what at this point in time amounted to nothing more than a hunch.

  As for his own investigations, while Felicity Dubois certainly had questions to answer regarding the last-minute change of dressing rooms on the night of the bombing, so did Julian Grey and Cate Meadows. Until he had interviewed them all or had dug up something more substantial from another quarter, he had nothing substantial to go on and putting the fear of God into Lynn Giles by warning her she might be at imminent risk could be regarded as a mite premature, to say the least.

  He stretched in the battered swivel chair behind his desk, then glanced at his watch. The sound of the traffic in the street below his window had lessened considerably after two hours of smoking, honking congestion and he was suddenly conscious of the fact that his stomach was rumbling. Pulling out a packet of cigarettes, then changing his mind and returning them to his pocket, he called to his DI in the next office. ‘Come on, Moira, lunch – and I think it’s time you bought me that pint.’

  ****

  Detective Inspector Maureen O’Donnell had almost half a packet of extra strong peppermints in her mouth as she stood in the little mortuary just outside Helston, reflecting grimly on the fact that, as the holidaymakers flocked to Cornwall in their thousands, few realised that as well as sun, sea and sand, such gruesome tasks as post mortems were being carried out on a regular basis just yards from the holiday routes they were using.

  O’Donnell was not Cornish, which was pretty obvious when she opened her mouth to voice her thoughts or criticisms in her soft West of Ireland brogue, and she often asked herself what the hell she was doing working in a British police force when she could have been idling her time away with the Garda in Connemara or Galway. The trouble was, if she had stayed in the land of her birth, she wouldn’t be a detective inspector, but still a uniformed constable waiting for a dead man’s shoes, whereas now she was not only a senior CID officer serving in a major British force, but a rising star with an enviable future to look forward to if she played her cards right. So maybe that answered her own question.

  The call for someone to attend the mortuary had originally come from the coroner’s officer. ‘The Emmet who fell off the cliffs,’ he’d told the local detective sergeant who’d first attended. ‘Pathologist isn’t happy about cause of death. Suggests it could be sus.’ The result had been a swift buck-passing job, which O’Donnell had ended up with.

  Now studying the gutted carcass of Freddie Baxter lying on its back on the dissecting table, she waited as the police photographer took some close ups of the dead man’s skull while pathologist, Hector Morey, washed his hands in the stainless steel sink opposite. The last thing O’Donnell needed was for this to be a dodgy death. She was due to go on leave to Corsica in two days’ time and she knew only too well that once involved in a crime investigation, it was almost impossible to pass the job on to someone else.

  ‘Finished then?’ the pathologist snapped at the photographer, turning back towards the corpse and drying his hands on some paper towelling. The other nodded, grinned briefly at O’Donnell, then headed for the exit, whistling loudly. Cheerful sod, she thought grimly,

  ‘Take a look, Inspector,’ Morey invited, beckoning her over.

  O’Donnell grimaced and joined him at the head of the corpse. ‘Some nasty damage,’ Morey went on. ‘Death would have been instantaneous.’

  ‘Sure, but he fell off a cliff, did he not?’ the DI commented in her distinctive Irish brogue. ‘Probably about 40ft.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Morey agreed, but correct me if I am wrong, wasn’t he found lying on his back?’

  O’Donnell nodded. ‘Aye, that’s true enough.’

  The pathologist nodded. ‘And the multiple injuries he sustained are certainly consistent with such a fall, but look at this.’ He pointed to a distinctive narrow indentation within an oval of what looked like heavy bruising at the right side and towards the front of the skull. ‘This is something quite different – an injury which is very unlikely to have been caused by impact with a rock, especially as the rest of his head injuries are to the back of the skull.’

  O’Donnell’s spirits sank and she sighed heavily. ‘So you’re saying someone gave him a quare crack on the head before he went over the edge?’

  The pathologist gave an icy smile. ‘No, I’m not saying that at all. I cannot confirm absolutely that he was attacked, but he certainly got a “quare crack on the head” from something at some stage before his death,’ he said, gently mocking her colloquialism. ‘And even if he was suicidal, unless he was both a masochist and a contortionist able to inflict the injury on himself, yes, I think that could be one conclusion you could reach, Detective Inspector. Though whether this injury has anything to do with his fall is unclear.’

  ‘So a more detailed check of the scene would be in order?’

  He shrugged. ‘Well, that’s your call, but it might be a
good next step.’

  ‘And what should I be looking for?’

  Morey pursed his lips for a second. ‘Something long and thin,’ he said, ‘like a length of metal pipe.’

  Holy Mary, O’Donnell thought, goodbye to that beach in Corsica.

  CHAPTER 12

  Lynn saw the flashing blue lights on the headland above the cove when she was pulling the curtains in The Beach House as dusk was closing in. Going out on to her patio, she shaded her eyes with one hand against the dying rays of the sun and frowned. What the hell was going on? Surely not another body on the rocks?

  Grabbing an anorak, she closed and locked the door and headed along the shingle towards the track leading up on to the cliffs. She could hear the voices as she emerged on the green swathe at the top, but came to an abrupt halt, blinking in the pulsing, eye-twisting glare of a parked police car’s flashing light bar just yards before the scrub and the old engine-house. A white Ford Transit was parked on the heath a few feet to one side of the police car with its rear doors wide open, and a blue and white “Police” tape had been drawn across the track between the car and the Transit, barring her passage. Lynn could just see a knot of uniformed and plainclothes figures on the path in front of the derelict building.

  ‘Can I help you, madam?’ a voice queried, and she started as a uniformed policewoman emerged from beside the police car, one side of her face tinged blue in the light of the flashing strobe.

  ‘Er … no,’ Lynn replied quickly, feeling nosy and rather silly. ‘I … I just wondered what was going on.’

  ‘Nothing to worry about,’ the policewoman replied curtly. ‘We’re simply checking the cliffs after the death of a man on Saturday. Local, are you?’

  Lynn nodded and waved a hand vaguely in the direction of The Beach House, suddenly wishing she had kept her nose out of things. ‘I live down there in Bootleg Cove.’

  Immediately the policewoman’s attitude changed. ‘Do you, now? Well, it’s possible our DI might like a word with you, if you don’t mind.’

  Before Lynn could say anything else, the policewoman had lifted the tape. ‘Come on through.’

  Now cursing her stupidity, Lynn ducked her head under the tape and followed the officer along the track to where an auburn-haired woman in a trouser suit was standing a few feet in front of the Transit. Instinctively hanging back while the uniformed officer had a few words with her senior colleague, she noted that there appeared to be spotlights of some sort set up in and around the old engine-house. Then she jerked her gaze away and forced a smile as the trouser-suited woman approached her, with her hand extended.

  ‘Detective Inspector Maureen O’Donnell,’ the woman said in a strong Irish brogue, her voice warm and friendly. ‘And you are?’

  ‘Lynn … I mean Mary Tresco.’ As soon as she’d spoken, Lynn regretted it. She should have given her real name. What if this DI happened to check with the officer who had called on her about Baxter’s death earlier and found out that she had given him the name Lynn Giles? Hells bells, why was she so stupid?

  ‘You live around here, do you now?’ O’Donnell went on.

  Lynn nodded, but couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  ‘You’ll have heard about the tourist who was killed near here then?’ O’Donnell queried.

  ‘Yes, I did hear about it.’

  The DI thought for a moment, then went on. ‘Ever seen anyone up here, have you? Sleeping rough in the engine-house maybe?’

  Lynn thought of the hooded man, but shook her head. ‘No, never. Not many people get up here – bit out of the way.’ She hesitated, then blurted. ‘Do the police think … I mean,

  suspect—?’

  ‘Sure, it’s early days yet, so it is, but we’re considering all possibilities and we have a lot more inquiries to make to establish what actually happened here.’

  Lynn swallowed hard. ‘Oh, I … I see.’

  ‘Perhaps we could talk again – maybe tomorrow? You are one of the closest people to the spot after all. Could be helpful, so it could.’

  ‘Yes, only too pleased.’

  ‘That’s grand. I’ll be letting you get off home then.’

  Inwardly, Lynn breathed a sigh of relief, turning back towards the crime scene tape, anxious to be on her way. But her relief was premature. A familiar gruff voice stopped her in her tracks before she had gone more than a few feet: ‘Just a minute, Miss Giles.’

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw the DI stiffen and cast a swift glance in her direction as the Traffic cop who had stopped her outside Mullion village strode over to her. ‘Well, if it isn’t Miss Speedy,’ he chuckled. ‘And how’s that lovely car of yours, me’dear?’

  She winced. ‘Fine, thank you. Look, I have to be getting back—’

  ‘Giles?’ the DI queried, now at her elbow. ‘And there’s me thinking you said your name was Tresco … Mary Tresco?’

  Lynn took a deep breath. ‘It is, but—’

  ‘Done some homework on you,’ the Traffic policeman butted in again. ‘Used to be a top model, didn’t you? Saw your pic in one of our old mags at the nick and it all clicked.’

  ‘Giles?’ O’Donnell murmured thoughtfully, then snapped her fingers. ‘I remember … Lynn Giles. Sure, you were the wee lady who was badly injured in that bomb blast in London?’

  So the cat really was out of the bag now and Lynn closed her eyes in resignation. But she was thrown an unexpected lifeline. O’Donnell was a lot more perceptive than most.

  ‘Using another name to escape the press, are you, love?’ the DI said quietly, and there was more than a hint of sympathy in her tone.

  Lynn nodded again. ‘They … they will hound me if they find out where I’ve gone to ground,’ she said. ‘I just want to be left alone.’

  The Traffic cop shuffled his jack-booted feet, his embarrassment obvious, and the DI flicked her head at him, her unspoken instruction unmistakable. As he lumbered away, O’Donnell put her hand on Lynn’s wrist. ‘Now, you be getting off home,’ she said. ‘Sorry to have put you on the spot.’

  With a renewed sense of relief, Lynn thanked her and headed back the way she had come, conscious of her legs shaking as she walked. She had got out of that one by the skin of her teeth, but she knew it was only a temporary thing. When the DI eventually made the connection between her and Freddie Baxter, as she surely must sooner or later, there would be a lot more difficult questions to answer. And with the loose-mouthed Traffic cop now also aware of who she was, it wouldn’t be long before the press got to hear about it and descended on the place in their droves. Not only the press either, she thought, remembering Detective Chief Inspector Benchley’s warning about the terrorists who had planted the bomb.

  Suddenly she needed Alan Murray more than she had ever needed anyone and crossing the car park where Vernon Wiles had sat in Freddie Baxter’s BMW the night of his death, she headed along the main road towards The Old Customs House.

  ****

  Felicity Dubois waited until she saw Carol Amis’ blue Mazda MX5 leave the underground car park of the New Light Modelling Agency building late in the evening before she drove in herself, blatantly parking her BMW in Freddie Baxter’s own bay, next to the lift. So what, she thought callously as she got out and locked the car doors with her remote? The fat man wouldn’t be needing a parking space again, would he? Not this side of hell anyway.

  Dressed in skin-tight black trousers and a matching leather jacket, she grinned as she pressed the lift button, feeling a bit like a female James Bond when she thought about what she had come here to do. Well, she couldn’t have done it when Freddie was alive, could she? No way, José! No one crossed the fat man – he knew too many people – and being caught in the act by her vindictive boss would have been tantamount to career suicide.

  Doing nothing up until now had been a real bitch though. Not naturally blessed with an equable, patient disposition – and despite her privileged upbringing in a ladies’ finishing school – the tall black model had a fiery, s
trong-willed temperament and was prone to a degree of volatility, which made her a formidable adversary when she lost control. But for months on end she’d had to keep a really tight rein on her natural inclinations, forcing herself to sit on her hands and wait for the right moment instead of rushing in. But now the waiting was over – and she could hardly contain herself.

  The place was alarmed – Freddie had always been careful about security – but Dubois was hoping that it would not present any problems tonight. After Baxter had found out about her less-than-respectable past – forcing her to dump Lynn Giles’ pathetic boyfriend and give herself to him instead or face ruin when he released certain photographs and documents to the media – she had put a lot of effort into pleasing her boss in any way she could. Baxter had always been bi-sexual and Felicity Dubois had had a lot to offer a man of his deviant tastes. It had all paid off too. In less than two months her sexual favours had won her privileged status and though this still hadn’t persuaded the fat man to give up the dirt he had on her, it had enabled her to gain unrestricted access, not only to the building itself, but to Baxter’s inner sanctum as well. It was this that she was counting on netting her the prize she sought most of all – provided there were no unforeseen hiccups with the alarm.

  Unlocking the heavy glass door, she gritted her teeth as the system activated, producing its familiar high-pitched whine, and quickly tapped the four-digit code into the keypad just inside. Nothing happened and in sudden a panic she jerked the door back open, ready to take to her heels. If the thing went off and she was caught on the premises by one of the security officers patrolling the business complex, she knew she would have one hell of a job explaining what she was doing there. But then abruptly the alarm’s warning note cut off and the keypad registered the deactivation message. Shutting and locking the door again, she took a deep breath and gave a shaky laugh. Close, she mused – too damned close!