Darkness Falls (Kate Marshall, #3)(74)

Kate nodded.

“I don’t know if he would rather the police take over the investigation.” They were now driving up the winding roads toward the motorway at the top of the hill. “Let’s pay another visit to Jesper’s. I want to try and meet with Nick Lacey.”





41


Tristan parked the car opposite the pavement terrace outside Jesper’s. It was busy with the lunchtime rush, and the tables were full. There were even two groups of people waiting on the street with menus, which was something Kate had never seen in Exeter.

They got out of the car and ran into Bishop at the main entrance. He was carrying a tray of drinks.

“Hey, Tristan,” he said. “Do you want lunch? Cos I might be able to squeeze you in just after one . . .”

“No. Thank you. We wanted to talk to Max,” said Tristan.

“He’s not here—he’s on holiday. Gone to visit his sister in Spain,” said Bishop.

“Do you know how long he’ll be away?”

“He’s back next Thursday, the fourth.”

“Is Nick Lacey here?” asked Kate.

Bishop pulled a face.

“No. Nick’s never here . . .” A gray-haired man in glasses was raising his hand. Bishop smiled and indicated the tray of drinks. “I’d better go. Are you sure you don’t want lunch? It’s my last shift.”

“No, thank you,” said Tristan. They came back to the car, and he felt deflated. Max Jesper’s timing wasn’t great. “What do you want to do?” he asked Kate.

“A week is too long to wait. We’ve got Max Jesper’s home address from the Companies House records, haven’t we? What about we drive up and have a look. Perhaps Nick Lacey is there,” said Kate.

“Okay. Let’s put it in my GPS,” said Tristan, tapping it into his phone. “Burnham-on-Sea is an hour away, not too bad.”



They drove up on the M5 motorway for most of the journey north. Neither of them had been to Somerset before. When they came off the motorway, it was a short journey into Burnham-on-Sea, which had a long stretch of coastline. They passed through the touristy area, where the beaches and promenade were busy with people sunbathing and eating ice creams. A warm burst of song from a Salvation Army brass band floated on the air, and the smell of fish and chips and candy floss mingled in the sunny breeze. Farther along the seafront, a crowd of children and parents sat in front of a Punch-and-Judy show close to an amusement arcade.

Then the crowds started to thin out as the promenade turned into an ordinary road, and the beach grew wilder. They came to a fork, and Tristan’s GPS instructed them to take the road on the right. This led away from the seafront; the pavement disappeared, and a row of detached houses sprang up between them and the beach. They passed the houses, which were big, with huge plots of land. The road seemed very quiet, and then they saw why. It came to a dead end with a tall metal gate and a high wall. A sign on the gate said LANDSCOMBE GATED COMMUNITY.

“In five hundred meters, you’ll reach your destination,” said the GPS in the clipped, slightly surprised-sounding female voice.

There was an intercom next to the gate, and beyond, they could see a row of luxurious-looking houses on the seafront.

“Shall I ring the intercom?” asked Tristan. Kate looked around and turned to look back through the rearview mirror.

“Let’s go back to that fork in the road. It looks like that road leads to the beach. See if we can get closer to their house on foot,” said Kate.

Tristan put the car in reverse and turned round in front of the gate.

The GPS voice started telling them to turn around, and Tristan muted it. When they got back to the fork, he took the left turn.

The road ran alongside a wild, rugged beach lined with sand dunes and marram grass. They now passed the row of houses from the beach side, and they were all perched elegantly on a hill and set back from the beach.

“It should be just up here,” said Tristan, peering at the map on the GPS as they passed a large, crumbling gray house with a pillared entrance. It was the only house with an overgrown front lawn.

Just after this house, the tarmac road ended, and Tristan’s car bounced along an unmade road of sand and grass. It ended at a small parking area for three or four cars and a low metal barrier where a footpath led onto the beach.

“Those houses there must be in the gated community,” said Tristan, indicating the footpath. A group of four houses spaced far apart sat up on a hill a hundred meters from the beach.

As Kate and Tristan got out of the car, the sun disappeared behind a thick layer of silvery clouds, and it was colder than it had been in Exeter. Directly in front of the car were the dunes and a vast, empty expanse of burnt-orange-colored sand. The wind was blowing this fine sand into undulating ridges. The sand beyond the dunes was darker and looked wet, but it seemed to stretch out for a mile or more. Kate couldn’t judge the exact distance, but she couldn’t see the water’s edge. The wet expanse of sand was flat and dotted with pools of seawater. A group of gulls hovered above a large pool of water and were cawing as they dove down to pick at shells. A thin mist was rolling off the water, and it suddenly felt more like autumn than early summer.

It was an eerie, deserted spot, thought Kate. The patch of beach in Thurlow Bay was cut off from Ashdean, but it never felt lonely. She thought back to Jake’s visits when he was small and how he used to love wading and exploring the rock pools at low tide. This patch of beach, in comparison, felt hostile.