Cold Justice (Willis/Carter #4)(29)

‘Raymonds was questioned over corruption when Stokes was caught with a missing minor on his farm – turned out to be his cleaner’s child, who was reported missing from Penhaligon. It was never explained how the boy came to be in a room at Stokes’ farm. Charges were dropped and it was all glossed over.’

‘So,’ said Carter, ‘you have to ask the question, why did Raymonds tolerate Jeremy Forbes-Wright all those years if he was such a hater of all second-home owners?’

‘He would never do anything unless it was for the benefit of Penhal.’

‘Raymonds is going to have to tolerate us and a lot more besides if this investigation ends up down here. He’ll have a hard job shrugging us off when the search teams arrive in their hundreds.’

‘Well, it’s about time the old silverback got tested.’ Pascoe grinned.

‘If it does we’ll need to set up a base in the village itself,’ said Carter.

‘We can get someone down there to set you up in the old station. It’s the tourist office now but would be ideal to use. Ironically it was where Raymonds ruled,’ said Pascoe.

‘We’d better go and take a look at the residents of Penhal. Thanks for this,’ Carter said as he shook Pascoe’s hand.

‘I’ll be up in the helicopter again in a couple of hours,’ said Pascoe. ‘I’ll send you video footage directly to your tablet. Any areas you’re particularly interested in, let me know.’

‘Is the coastguard alerted?’

‘Yes. Fishermen will be helpful. They tend to find the floaters first. I’ve put all that in place.’

They said goodbye in the corridor and Willis and Carter left.

Willis read out the directions as they made their way to the coast and the road turned into winding lanes.

‘When we come to a fork in the road we can choose to go left towards the shops and the beach or right towards the hotel where we’re staying.’

‘Try the beach, shall we? You said the house is near there?’

‘Yes.’ Willis opened her window. ‘You can smell it. You can hear the sea.’ She kept her window down. ‘Can’t you?’ Carter nodded and smiled.

They followed the signs down to where the road levelled out at the entrance to the beach, pulled into a small car park and parked up to watch the waves. From there they could look across to the parade of shops on the opposite side of the road from the start of the beach. The Stokes farm shop was on the far left, and Mary-Jane Trebethin’s dress shop was towards the middle of the six shops. There was a gift shop and newsagent and a small grocer’s on the end. On the same side as the car park and the Surfshack, at the other side of the beach entrance, was a café.

‘I bet this place is really rammed in summer,’ said Carter.

Willis leaned forward and looked out through the windscreen. ‘Are those surfers out there?’

‘Yes, come hell or high water. I suppose they’re making the most of the storms on the other side of the Atlantic. It takes a day or two to reach us.’

‘It must be freezing in there. It’s February, for God’s sake!’

‘Yeah – you wouldn’t catch me in there. They’re a hardy bunch. Surfing takes over their lives. Can you get up Robbo’s map on the screen so we can see whereabouts people live in relation to here?’

‘Raymonds lives on the cliff side; there’s beach side and cliff side in this village. We go back up to the crossroads.’

‘It’s best to start with him if we don’t want to piss him off too much. We’ll come back here after. Let’s just go up and have a look at the Forbes-Wright house first. We’d better make sure we see Martin Stokes too; I want to know what the deal was with letting the house out, and see if he knows what Forbes-Wright was going to do with it long-term, considering it was his only asset. If we’re talking ransom then a kidnapper would know about it.’

They left the car park and drove past the shops. As they passed the café, the road rose steeply and twisted its way between high hedges on both sides as it climbed away from the sea. To the left above the shops was an area of scrubland with yellow gorse and gnarled trees. Halfway up the hill and around a sharp left-hand bend the top of the house came into view and Carter pulled the car over into the gateway.

The house had three storeys and was brick-built Victorian style with Cornish slate roof and granite gateposts. It was half-obscured by pine trees that grew to the right and left of the drive. There was parking space for five or six cars at the front. ‘Kellis House’ was written on the gate.

‘It’s a beautiful building but it looks sort of stern – unwelcoming,’ said Willis, staring at the austere building.

‘Exactly. Where are the welcoming signs? I tell you, if I’d paid two grand for a week’s holiday here in July, I’d be disappointed rocking up here at Kellis House.’

‘The price goes up another five hundred in August.’

‘You’re kidding me? We could go to Disneyland for that!’ He turned to her. ‘How do you know when this house isn’t advertised anywhere?’

‘I talked to a local letting agent, pretended I was interested in a house that had five bedrooms. That’s the going price for something this close to the beach. You could have somewhere like this in February for six hundred a week.’