“Doc Martens,” Evie added.
“And don’t forget denim jackets,” Taya said.
“Only one problem,” Bea said miserably. “I haven’t been able to think of anything for the scavenger hunt. I need help with ideas.”
“Let’s get together and come up with a plan,” Evie replied. “It’ll be great.”
Fourteen
Beatrice didn’t often doher grocery shopping in Kellyville these days since she lived over in Point Prospect now with Aidan, but she’d come to Kellyville because the butcher there had the best corned beef on the island, and she wanted to cook corned beef with mashed potatoes and cauliflower with cheese sauce for dinner.
Penny and Rowan were coming over, and she needed everything to be perfect. She wasn’t sure exactly why she felt that need, but she did. It was almost as though she wanted to impress Rowan so he’d stay on the island and be nice to her friend. But of course, she couldn’t control that, and certainly not with a delicious dinner menu. There were a lot of things she couldn’t control in life—she’d learned that well enough over the years. But one thing she could control was the corned beef she chose for dinner, and so she intended to buy the best one and cook it as perfectly and precisely as she could manage.
She manoeuvred her cart full of groceries down the street towards her car. For some reason, she’d managed to find the only cart available with a bum wheel, and it kept veering off to the right. It was laden down with groceries, since she could never manage to pass a grocery store without stocking up on much needed items, and it took all her core strength to keep it on track and away from the gutter.
That was when she spotted Sean. Or at least, she thought she did. Charmaine’s brother wasn’t someone she knew well. She’d only seen him a couple of times while he lived on the island. But she spied a man from a distance as he ducked around a corner up ahead, and she could’ve sworn it was him.
As soon as the thought flitted through her mind, she convinced herself that no, it wasn’t Sean—it was someone else. Surely Sean wouldn’t return to Coral Island while he was wanted by the Coral Island police. But even as she continued driving the trolley towards the car, straining to keep it on the footpath, she couldn’t get the idea out of her mind. She decided she would go to the police station and tell them what she thought she’d witnessed. At least then it wouldn’t be on her shoulders anymore. It’d be their problem to deal with.
It was a humid day, and sweat trickled down the sides of her face as she loaded the groceries into her car. Then she locked it up, noting that she couldn’t be long since the cold storage bag would only keep the meat cool for a limited amount of time in that heat, even with the frozen bricks she’d brought with her, and headed for the police station.
Inside the station, the air-conditioning cooled her overheated body down gradually as she waited in the reception area. She was ushered through the building to a small office, where a rotund man with a comb-over was eating a sandwich, a drop of mayonnaise on his tie. He glanced up at her in surprise, then beckoned her into the office to take a seat opposite him at his desk.
“Come in,” he said as soon as he’d managed to swallow his last bite. “Take a seat. What can I do for you, Mrs…?”
“Whitlock. I’m Beatrice Whitlock. We’ve met before. I gave a statement a while ago about some evidence I found in the Buck Clements case in that cave hidden in the cliff-face. Also, I was the owner of the cafe that burned down.”
“Oh, yes, of course. Ms Whitlock, it’s nice to see you again. What can I do for you today?”
He wiped his mouth and his tie with a napkin, then his gaze rested on Bea’s.
“I thought you might like to know that I saw Sean Billings on Main Street. At least, I think I did. I’m not sure—he wasn’t very close to me, but not too far either. Anyway, it was only a few minutes ago. If you hurry, you might see him…”
“You might or might not have seen who now?”
“Sean Billings,” she offered, confused. “Aren’t you looking for him — to question him about the fire at the café and bookshop?”
“Yeah, that’s right. I didn’t recognise the name right away. You saw him, you say?”
“I think so. Anyway, I thought you might like to know. I have a roast in my car, so I must get going.”
He stood to his feet and moved to open the office door for her. Then he cocked his head to one side. “Do you know Sean well?”
“No. I’ve met him twice, I believe.”
“But you think you’d recognise him if you saw him?”
“I would. His face isn’t easily forgotten, given it was probably him who burned my business to the ground.”
“Well, we don’t know that,” the detective crooned with a patronising tone. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves now.”
His attitude bothered Bea. “I’m curious to know why that’s getting ahead of ourselves, Detective. Don’t you have any leads in this case or any idea who did it? It’s been a while now. I would’ve expected you to make some progress.”
He cleared his throat. “We’ve got some ideas and some evidence. As you know, the official finding was that the fire was accidental. But I would certainly like to speak with Sean about the incident if you see him again.”
“I thought you might like to look for him. You know, do some investigating.” She knew her tone was too sarcastic, that she would likely do nothing more than put the man offside, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. The police had done almost nothing to try to find the person who’d burned down both the café and the bookshop. The crime had been devastating to her and to Evie. They’d lost so much in such a short space of time, and here was the lead detective, unable to recognise the chief suspect’s name and showing no interest whatsoever in the fact that she might’ve seen him in the street outside the station only a few moments earlier.
He leaned back on his heels. “I see.”
