Darkness Falls (Kate Marshall, #3)(16)

Tristan’s flat was on the ground floor of the esplanade on Ashdean seafront. He loved the location and being able to cross the road and walk on the beach, but he was still trying to adjust to having a roommate.

Glenn was already in the kitchen stirring a steaming stir-fry in a wok on the stove. Glenn was a tall, beefy bloke with a Desperate Dan face; thick, bushy eyebrows; and a permanent five-o’clock shadow. In repose, his face was menacing, but he broke into a grin when he saw Tristan and suddenly looked like a big cuddly teddy bear.

“Yerite, mate? I’m almost done here,” he said.

“What are you having?” asked Tristan. The smell of spices and meat made his mouth water.

“It’s Delia Smith.”

“You’ve managed to chop her up very small.”

“No, it’s her hung shao pork with stir-fry greens,” said Glenn, not getting the joke. “I think I could make it stretch to two.”

“No. Thank you. I’m heading back out and meeting a friend for a drink.”

Glenn had moved in a month ago but worked shifts as a prison warden, and with Tristan juggling his two jobs with the agency and the university, he hadn’t had time to get to know him.

Tristan went for a shower, and when he came back downstairs ten minutes later, the kitchen was empty, the dishwasher running, and the counters were wiped down. Glenn was the fastest eater Tristan had ever seen. He almost swallowed his food whole.

Checking he had his phone and wallet, Tristan called out, “Bye,” up the stairs as he left but didn’t hear a response.

Ashdean was a student town, and even though it was the students’ end-of-year exams, the seafront was busy with people. It wouldn’t get dark for a couple of hours, but there was already a group of students building a fire on the beach from driftwood.

There were bars and pubs along the seafront nestled among the terraced flats and houses, and occasional hotels that still had the aura of a 1950s boardinghouse. Tristan lived at the top end of the seafront, close to the university building, where the esplanade curved sharply away from the beach and then doubled back on itself and became the high street.

He walked in the opposite direction, down toward the end of the esplanade, past a couple of pubs where groups of people sat outside on the pavement eating dinner.

The Boar’s Head was at the very end, and it backed onto the steep hill that led up onto the cliffs.

It was a small pub with a raised stage next to a DJ booth, where Pete the DJ was playing Atomic Kitten’s Spanish cover of “The Tide Is High.” It was still early when Tristan entered, and there was a mix of guys and girls, old and young, standing by the bar.

He noticed his friend Ade playing on an ancient Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? slot machine. He was a large man in his early fifties, wearing baggy jeans, a white T-shirt, and an orange down vest. His black hair was long and lustrously styled, flowing down over his shoulders, and a thick, dark beard.

“Well hello, Miss Marple,” said Ade, looking up from the machine. He leaned over and gave Tristan a hug. Miss Marple was the nickname Ade had coined when he heard Tristan worked as a private detective. “Haven’t seen you for a few days. Has it been busy in Saint Mary Mead?”

“We’ve just started working on a new missing persons case. Very complex. What are you drinking?” asked Tristan.

“Alcohol, Miss Marple!” said Ade, holding up his empty pint glass. “Get me a lager top.”

Tristan ordered a pint of Guinness and another lager for Ade, and they went to sit in one of the booths to the side of the bar.

Their friendship was easy. Ade went drinking most evenings at the Boar’s Head, and they never arranged to meet, but it had become a regular thing for them to meet for drinks a couple of times a week.

Ade had been a police officer for twenty-five years, but then an attack when he was on duty left him with PTSD. At fifty, Ade had taken early retirement, and he was trying to write a science fiction novel. He’d taken Tristan under his wing after Tristan had come out as gay almost three years earlier.

“Did you ever work on the Joanna Duncan missing persons case?” asked Tristan.

Ade took a long pull on his lager. “No. Who was she?”

Tristan had known it was a long shot that Ade might have worked on the case.

“She was a journalist at the West Country News. She went missing in September 2002.”

“Oh yes, I remember. I was working with the Devon and Cornwall vice squad at the time. Which I know probably sounds like a contradiction in terms, but I’m telling you, it’s a hotbed of sex and scandal just like the rest of the country.”

“I wanted to know if you ever heard any gossip about a guy called Noah Huntley? He was the local MP round here. He won his seat in the ’92 election and then lost it in a bribery scandal . . .”

Ade raised an eyebrow and took another sip of his lager. “I know that he’s been ‘happily married’ for twenty years but prefers to spend his nights with handsome young men. Why? Has he given you his number, Miss Marple?”

“No, nothing like that.”

Tristan went on to explain that Joanna Duncan had also been investigating Noah Huntley’s use of rent boys, but that part of the story hadn’t been published.

“I caught him cruising once, years back,” said Ade. “It was August, a few weeks before Princess Diana died, 1997. It was a hot night, and we were doing a big round of two housing estates and some nicer residential areas, and we’d go past a gay pub on the outskirts of Exeter called Peppermintz. It was a bit rough and ready. It was actually my local, and an ex-boyfriend of mine used to do some gigs there. He was a Lorna Luft impersonator . . .”