Movement along the road caught his attention. A vehicle was approaching at speed from the direction of Carrenporth. As it drew nearer he recognised Gareth’s Mercedes SUV. It turned into the forecourt, coming to a stop alongside him.
There was a hum as the window lowered and his uncle leaned out, resting his elbow on the sill.
‘Morning,’ he said gruffly. ‘Glad I caught you. Bad news I’m afraid. They found a woman’s body among the rocks down in the cove this morning. The police have arrived. They’re pulling everyone from last night’s barbeque in for interview. Nathan’s set up a room for them in the hotel. You need to come in as soon as you can.’
‘Sure.’ Luke nodded, shocked that something so brutal could happen in a quiet Cornish village like theirs. ‘Do they know who it is?’
‘Yes, Marika Stefanski, one of the Polish waitresses from the hotel,’ came the reply. Luke stilled, feeling the blood drain from his face.
‘Marika? Jesus …’ He took a deep breath and scrubbed a hand through his hair. ‘How was she—?’
‘The police haven’t made anything public yet … drowning, possibly,’ Gareth interrupted, ‘but there’s a rumour she’d been badly beaten. You okay, Luke? You look a bit pale.’
‘A bit shaken that’s all.’ Luke shrugged off his uncle’s curiosity determined not to draw any more attention to himself. ‘I mean murder in a place like Carrenporth? It’s hard to take in, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah, it is,’ Gareth agreed as he fired up the engine and prepared to leave. ‘Oh, and one more thing, don’t bother going back to the cottage to collect Cat. I dropped her at the hotel on my way here.’
‘Okay, I’ll head straight there now.’
‘See you later.’ In the wake of Gareth’s parting words the window skimmed upwards and the SUV swung around behind the pickup and left. Watching the vehicle make its way back towards the village, Luke clamped a hand over his mouth, fighting back the nausea rising in his throat. Marika was dead his DNA was under her fingernails and somehow he had to convince the police he wasn’t the killer.
‘And what time did Luke Carrack receive this call?’
Cat sat, trying to stay calm. Being interviewed by the police had seemed fairly straightforward.A bit naïve of you, Cat, she scolded. Hadn’t she seen enough TV crime dramas to know that even innocent interviews in order to eliminate people from enquiries were full of traps and elephant pits? It was when the senior officer, DI Phillips, with his grey suit and pale reptilian eyes had asked whether they had been together all evening sherealised telling the truth had taken this interview in a whole new direction.
‘The call, Miss Trevelyan …’ Phillips prompted, rousing her from her thoughts.
‘Um, just after ten past ten, I think.’
‘Do you know who it was from?’
‘No idea. It could have been to do with work.’
‘After ten on a Saturday evening?’ His colleague, DS Cousins, short and swarthy with dark assessing eyes, looked at her disbelievingly.
‘The garage is always busy.’
‘And in the time you’ve been together,’ Phillips consulted his pad, ‘three months I believe … ’ He raised his eyes to her for confirmation.
‘Yes, three months,’ she supplied with a nod.
‘During that time did he ever receive any other out of hours calls?’
‘Yes, several.’
‘Right. So getting back to last evening. He received the message and left.’
‘Yes.’
‘But he didn’t say exactly where he was going?’
Cat shook her head.
‘And how long was he absent?’
‘Not long. About ten minutes.’
‘Was there anything strange about his behaviour when he returned?’
