Under a Watchful Eye(48)
‘Thank you.’
‘Might be a bit of material too, eh, for the next book?’
This was the detective’s first acknowledgement of what Seb was known for locally. He didn’t know how to react, or even if he should. Levity seemed inappropriate.
DCI Leon remained unapologetic. ‘My wife’s read some of your books. She always liked that one about the moors.’
‘Oh, well, do thank her from me. That’s nice to know.’
‘Though she had a few problems with the last one about the ship. Can’t remember what it was called, or what she didn’t like about it.’
12
Second Death
So this is where Ewan died: 15 Beach Road.
The street was lined with two-storey townhouses, each building painted a different colour, from coral pink to duck-egg blue, with picnic benches on tiled forecourts and tall palms clattering their fronds behind low front walls overrun by an easterly wind.
Permanent signage the length of the street advertised Sky TV, room rates, AA star ratings and Rosette restaurant awards. Perhaps the road looked a little tired between seasons, but under a blue sky at any time of year, it effortlessly conjured impressions of family holidays, cosy rooms, carveries and suntanned granddads holding pints of Bays Topsail in the lounge bars.
Seb had always been fond of Paignton, particularly the seafront and the streets that led to the Esplanade. To him the little hotels were a living installation of English comforts, veritable Larkin poems twinned with facets of a living social history; places where the working class, and mostly the retired and those with young families, still came and stayed for their annual holidays and long weekends.
The area hadn’t been gentrified like Dartmouth or Totnes, so the town remained more affordable and retained a post-war echo. Moving with the times where necessary, but retaining the seafront for ordinary people. Those had always been his impressions whenever he walked inland from the long promenade. But Seb knew he’d never look at Paignton in the same way now.
To the east, gulls shrieked over the pier and the shoreline. Beyond the cinema, the pirate-themed mini-golf course and the Shoreline restaurant, where he liked to eat crispy squid, the sea stretched into a vast, euphorically blue distance. The near-empty fairground on the green flashed and blared.
A man passed on a mobility scooter, his Jack Russell trotting alongside the whirring carriage. Seb moved aside, then returned his attention to the Beach Haven Hotel. This shouldn’t have happened here. Ewan had no right bringing that here.
A retractable green awning covered the front windows on the ground floor and the rooms above were concealed by nets. The hotel’s rates were stencilled in white type on a staircase window. It looked all right. Neat and clean, the trees in good condition, the paintwork freshly mint green on the masonry and a bright white on the sills and around the doorframe. Seb bent over to open the tiny gate and entered. The front door was locked but the hotel was still advertising vacancies. He rang the bell and waited.
Three uneventful days and three tense nights had passed since Ewan had died. Seb had spent much of that time on walks in the nature reserve, around Torquay’s marina, and out to the lighthouse at the end of the slipway in Brixham. But whatever he’d been doing, he’d found himself incapable of thinking about much besides Ewan.
He’d also spoken with his agent and answered the most pressing emails from his publisher and the three film production companies adapting his books, but hurriedly. His ties to a life preceding the reunion with Ewan had failed to reform in his mind as important. As unpleasant as his reacquaintance with his old housemate had been, he’d been taken to the edge of the truly remarkable. The experience left him wondering if he’d be able to write about anything else. His perception of the world, and himself in it, had been fundamentally altered. Seeing the world through new eyes made him ponder if the sensation was similar to being devout.
An elderly man came to the guest house door. He was portly enough to fill the doorway and protrude out of it. Muscled arms emerged like hairy logs from a short-sleeved shirt, and as the morning brightness struck his face, his tinted glasses blurred the definition of his deep-set eyes.
Seb introduced himself, before stumbling through an explanation of his association with the guest house’s recently deceased guest. A connection that instantly made the man tense and too bemused to react. But Seb’s earnest offer to cover the missing payment on Ewan’s room did elicit a delayed response. The man’s accent was thick West Midlands. ‘You say he was a friend of yours?’
‘Once, but not for many years. I hadn’t seen him for a long time, until recently. All the same, I was still shocked, and I still am, when the police told me that he’d died.’ Seb looked up at the building. ‘Here. But he’d been staying with me for the two days before he passed away. He wasn’t very well.’
The man continued to weigh Seb up from the threshold.
Seb reiterated his desire to cover the unpaid bill. ‘It’s the least I can do, for some kind of closure. It’s very odd, but I feel some kind of obligation to him. I’d also like to ask you a couple of questions . . . about how he died. I mean, that night . . . It was so sudden and the police didn’t tell me much.’
The man finally relaxed and introduced himself as Ray, though Seb could appreciate how any mention of Ewan would cause reactions ranging from caution to outright horror. ‘You better come inside and talk to the wife. She’s better at this sort of thing.’