Chapter Nine
JEN WAS PLEASED TO FIND THE American tourists, Karen and Geoff, still on the campsite and still relaxed, not resentful that Venn had asked them to stay put.
They were on holiday after all. Wouldn’t they want to explore the area?
See the sights? Eat pasties and cream teas?
Why be happy to remain here, sitting on rickety chairs outside this strange shack that looked as if a bunch of kids in an adventure playground had thrown it together?
They must have hired a car, because there was a bulky SUV.
Automatic, of course. It squatted beside them like a giant toad.
She wondered why she’d taken against the pair without even talking to them.
Probably because she’d been forced to walk in the sun again, across the long meadow, Ross ambling effortlessly by her side.
She’d put on sun block that morning, but she could feel the burn on her nose and forehead.
Having red hair and pale skin was a nightmare.
‘Hello!’ It was Karen. ‘Who are you? We’ve had a lot of visitors today.’ The words were pitched like a tune, rising notes, melodious, as if they were part of a performance. Her voice was clear and rich. She could be a singer.
‘We’re police officers,’ Jen said. ‘There’s been an incident in a house by the shore. Sorry to have kept you hanging around. Could we ask you some questions?’
Geoff seemed not to have noticed their arrival. He had a book on the table in front of him and hadn’t looked up from it until Jen spoke. Now he raised his eyes and stared at her. ‘What sort of incident?’ He was a big, paunchy man with a sagging face. ‘The other guy wasn’t very specific.’
Jen thought the whole thing would be on the early evening news in a couple of hours. No point trying to cover the facts. ‘Two young girls have died. Hannah Armstrong and her friend Lottie.’
‘How?’ He was suddenly alert.
‘They’re unexplained deaths. We’re investigating.’
‘So,’ he said. ‘You think they were murdered.’
She saw that there was no point in replying. It had been a statement, and no response was required.
‘Oh my goodness!’ Karen’s voice had risen at least an octave. ‘Here? In this wonderful place of peace and tranquillity?’
It seemed an odd thing to say. Murder was terrible anywhere. Especially that of two young women with their lives ahead of them. The response seemed strangely rehearsed. Jen wondered if they’d already heard the news from Jake or his parents.
‘You’d better sit down,’ Geoff said. ‘Ask your questions.’
The idea came to Jen then that he was a man more used to asking questions than answering them. It was his confidence, his sense of authority.
‘You’re here on holiday?’ Ross hadn’t picked up the same vibe or wasn’t intimidated by it. But then, Jen thought, he wasn’t the most perceptive of souls.
‘Sure!’ Karen said. ‘We love this part of England. Geoff’s family come from here. We’re tracing his roots.’
‘Why here in Millscombe?’
‘Oh, that was a spur-of-the-moment decision,’ Karen went on. ‘We were staying in a hotel in Torr. All very lovely of course, but not the real Britain. We saw this place advertised and thought why not give it a go? A real working farm. Geoff grew up on a farm in New England and it appealed to him.’
‘Are you a farmer now, sir?’ Jen thought that unlikely.
The man gave a deep laugh, as though the idea was ridiculous. It was his wife who answered.
‘Oh no, Geoff’s a writer. A reporter.’
‘I was,’ he said. ‘Retired.’
‘But you’ve been working on a book,’ Karen cut in. ‘He was a very famous journalist in his time, Detective.’
Jen decided it was time to move on to the matter in hand. None of this was relevant to the death of two young women who must have been strangers to the couple. ‘You were here for the festival over the weekend?’
‘We were,’ Karen said. ‘We couldn’t miss that. What an opportunity! I took so many pictures. Real British colour.’
‘And afterwards you were invited into the farmhouse for a party?’
‘Not really a party,’ Geoff said. ‘A few drinks with Bob and Tessa and their friends.’
Karen jumped in. ‘It was so kind and hospitable of them to ask us.’
‘Who was there?’ It would be good, Jen thought, to confirm the story, though it seemed straight in her mind already.
‘The owners of this place, Bob and Tessa, their friends who run the pub, Mag and Jim Hooper, John, one of the musicians, and the kids were there for a while too.’
‘The kids?’
‘Jake, the Brennans’ son, who does most of the work around this place. And poor Hannah. Apparently, her father is a famous British politician.’ Karen sounded starstruck, but there was something about the woman that didn’t quite ring true. It was as if this was a performance, overly dramatic.
Jen shot a look at Ross. So, even these American visitors knew who was living in Tide House. ‘Oh?’ she replied, her voice innocent.
‘Sure! Geoff interviewed her father once, when he was working for the Post, and he makes an appearance in the new book. We were based for a number of years in London. Our girls went to high school there. We fell in love with your country. We’ve kept on our apartment in the city.’
There was a moment’s silence. Geoff seemed to be looking down at his book again, but Jen sensed a tension. Anger even that his wife had given away this information. ‘That’s a coincidence,’ she said.
‘Not really.’ He looked up and stared directly at her. ‘I was a political journalist. I interviewed a lot of powerful men and women.’
Karen must at last have sensed her husband’s reluctance to engage with this side of the story and she moved on.
‘The kids didn’t stay long last night, though.
They wanted to be alone. There was this chemistry between them.
You could almost smell the lust. It made me feel very, very old.
’ She gave a little laugh, then smothered it immediately.
‘And now the girl is dead. And last night, they both seemed so wonderfully alive.’
Ross took over the questioning. ‘What time did you wake up this morning?’
‘Not as early as we usually do,’ Karen said.
‘We were very late to bed on Saturday night. The music, of course, kept us awake. It was lovely, but we were quite glad when it stopped. And then it was midnight when everything wrapped up yesterday. We were still having coffee and breakfast when young Jake stopped by to check if we needed anything. That would have been about eight o’clock. ’
‘You didn’t hear anything in the night or early this morning? A car or voices?’
Karen shook her head. ‘But then we wouldn’t. There’s hardly any traffic through the village even if we were close enough to hear it.’ She smiled across the driftwood table at them. ‘That’s why we love this place. It’s so quiet.’
Ross thanked the couple and got to his feet to walk away.
Jen followed but a little reluctantly. Although she couldn’t come up with any more questions, she felt there was more to know about them.
She found them slippery, and while the story of their stay in North Devon was plausible, she didn’t quite believe it.
She followed Ross across the arid meadow, with its steel-hard soil and brown grass, and felt their eyes following her all the way.