Exposure (3 page)

At the end of the churchyard, an unmade road fell away below her, leading down to the coast path. Instead of turning left and heading towards the inviting stretch of sandy tourist beach, she turned right and picked her way across a stony trail, heading for the tiny cove of Trenow, where she was less likely to have to speak to anyone. It was harder here to walk in London silence and keep your eyes on the path or fixed to a spot directly above someone’s head. Down here people still said ‘Good morning’ and ‘Good evening’ with a smile, expecting, demanding a friendly response. It was one of the things she liked about the place, unwilling to despise it as her younger self might once have done.

She needed to think, and the deep peace that the horizon gave her was renewing.

A low, smooth boulder offered her an acceptable perch. She sat carefully, hugging her knees to her thin chest, burying her face in bony kneecaps, only her eyes peering out. Thinking, thinking. Choosing. Deciding.

When she finally stood up she was cold and stiff and age had definitely caught up with her. There was just the faintest nudge of arthritic pain in her left hip.

Her stomach rumbled uncomfortably, reminding her that unless she wanted to dine on dry pasta and soy sauce, she’d better put some effort into hunter-gathering at the local supermarket.

She yomped back to the cottage and retrieved her car keys from the hook inside the larder.

The garage door was stiff but operable. It was one of the reasons that she’d bought this cottage. Careful foresight had ensured that she invested in a cottage with space to garage a car, and not the one with a better view.

The car was a small but newish Renault. It started first time and Helene made a mental note to thank the loyal Mr Jenkin who mowed her minute lawn and turned over the engine once a week.

She wondered what
he
was doing now. Not Mr Jenkin but the nameless man. The train man.

She put the car into gear and reversed carefully between the granite gate posts.

A tap on the windscreen made her jump.

“You’re back then?”

The white haired woman smiled and waved a dog lead at her. The dog on the other end looked deeply unimpressed at being yanked by the throat.

Helene wound down the window.

“Hello, Mrs Jenkin. How nice to see you.”

“And you, dear. Staying long, are you?”

“I really couldn’t say.”

“Oh, I don’t know! Always coming and going – you career girls! You don’t want to leave it too late, you know.”

Helene smiled thinly. She was quite aware of the ‘it’ the older woman was referring to and she was of an age when being called a ‘girl’, even by an octogenarian, was an irritant.

“Do thank your husband for me, Mrs Jenkin. He’s been most attentive to my poor, neglected garden – and to my car.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t let him hear you say your garden is neglected, dear,” said Mrs Jenkin. “He fair dotes on those roses of yours – to the detriment of our own, I might add. Bless him.”

Helene wondered if Mr Jenkin felt blessed. It seemed unlikely.

“Well, do thank him for me. You’re both so kind, looking after the place while I’m away. I’m so lucky to have such good neighbours.”

It was said with such an air of sweetness and sincerity that Helene almost believed herself.

Mrs Jenkin smiled again, the very picture of a lovely old biddy, instead of the steely old battleaxe she really was.

Despite herself, Helene rather admired her. Nothing got past Mrs J.

Helene threaded the car through the tangle of narrow lanes and enjoyed the sensation of being behind the wheel of a car and the illusion it gave of being in control of one’s destiny.

Out on the main road she accelerated briskly and the little car seemed keen to shake some village dust from its tyres.

The supermarket car park was depressingly full. Helene had forgotten that it was changeover day and that tens of thousands of visitors were, like her, stocking up for their self-catering apartments.

The deli had been picked clean and the fruit and vegetable selection was similarly barren. Helene chose the best from the runt of the litter left-overs. Milk, butter and cheese were thankfully in plentiful supply. It wouldn’t do her bone density any harm to up the calcium intake.

At the check-out she spied a rack of OS maps and helped herself to a selection of 1:25,000 Explorer maps from Land’s End to Padstow.

“Planning on doing some walking, are you?” said the cashier.

“Mmm,” said Helene, “possibly.”

“Got a dog, have you?”

“No, no dog.”

“By yourself, are you?”

“Apparently,” said Helene, ending the conversation.

Back home she stowed the shopping briskly and spread out the map that covered the Newquay area.

Was there any cove, bay or village that sounded like ‘Tianamen’?

After searching for some time she came across the name Trevarrian. It was a small bay located midway between Watergate and Mawgan Porth. And it had a pub. A good place to start. Keen-eyed locals, chatty staff, used to tourists: perfect.

She squinted at the map. Damn. There was also Tregurrian, just a mile up the coastal path. She imagined a centuries’ old antipathy between two feuding hamlets that would be utterly incomprehensible to any 21
st
century visitors.

Half-heartedly she prepared some food. Some people loved to cook but she had always found cooking for one to be a disturbing and ultimately pointless task. She couldn’t imagine how people found pleasure in exploring recipes, hunting down rare and peculiar ingredients, then spending hours cutting, chopping, mincing, filleting, or macerating raw ingredients until they resembled soup. Rebelliously, she layered a piece of salmon steak in rock salt and shoved it unceremoniously under the grill until it was pleasantly wilted and undefiant.

There had still been some Cornish Earlys in the supermarket and these she boiled, smothering them with butter, black pepper and more salt. Half a dozen broccoli florets were her sole concession to healthy eating.

After she had washed up, leaving the dishes draining, she wandered around the cottage, reacquainting herself with its nooks and crannies. She stroked the lovely cedar dining table that had been a wedding present from her parents and had survived one divorce and several moves. A studded sea chest on the bedroom landing was a memento of a long forgotten ancestor. It added a jauntily battered air to the otherwise modern fittings. And it seemed appropriate in a cottage where the rhythm of waves rolling onto the beach carried up the lane.

Her bed was luxurious, dominating the room and slightly at odds with the smallness of the deep-set windows. It was the largest bed she had been able to get into the cottage. It had caused the delivery men some furious head scratching and a few tense moments, until someone suggested they hoist it up through the coffin hatch: an opening at the top of the cottage that Mr Jenkin had told her about. It was where, in a previous century, they removed a body when the occupant died, instead of trying to carry it down the narrow stairs... abracadaver... or, more likely, dropping it down the stairs. She wasn’t sure if she believed him, but the Cornish were an oxymoron of practicality and romanticism. On the other hand, the church was just up the road, so it really was a case of hatch, match and dispatch – with equal rapidity.

She’d left the bed made up. It bothered her to leave it uncovered; it had seemed too naked as well as sterile and unwelcoming. A made up bed promised occupation or at least regular visits: a statement of unwarranted intent. But now the sheets had the slight mustiness of disuse. She tore them off, feeling satisfaction in replacing them with fresh linen from her seaman’s chest. The small room was soon suffused with the smell of lavender from the sea chest, a pomander having been an amusingly anachronistic but useful gift from her aunt.

As she wafted the duvet over the bed the house breathed softly, settling around her like snow. She longed to fall into the bed and cocoon herself forever, listening to the wind in the eaves and the seagulls’ cries echoing down the chimney stack. They could find her shrivelled body and, leaving her wrapped in her duvet, post her out through the coffin hole.

Instead she continued to prowl around the cottage, taking stock of her possessions until the midsummer sky had turned a purple-blue and stars began to appear in the east.

It was confounding how one never really got used to living alone, she mused. The cottage rested easily on its aged beams and granite walls. Although she had never shared this place, this sanctuary, with anyone, she still found herself straining for the sound of footsteps, of occupation, or life. Maybe she should get a cat. In a few years she could be the mad old biddy with a cottage that smelt of cat wee and used teabags. Yes, it would be good to come home to a living creature, to have that small, furry body winding itself around her ankles in greeting. Of course it would have to be a latchkey cat.

She padded barefoot through the galley kitchen, wrapped in an oversized Arran sweater, hugging a mug of hot chocolate. The door was bolted, the downstairs windows closed. She didn’t bother to pull the curtains, not in high summer. It was far more pleasant to come down in the morning to find the curtains open and light streaming in.

Tired at last, she climbed the stairs to bed, making a nest of the duvet and a defensive wall of the pillows.

She stretched out, relaxing her body bone by bone and allowed her breathing to deepen. Breath by slow breath she drifted into sleep.

The ringing phone was sudden and demanding.

Swearing, her eyes already used to the dark, Helene flung herself upright and reached for her phone. But it wasn’t her mobile that had awoken her, it was the landline. Furious, but alarmed at the same time, she rushed headlong downstairs and tackled the phone like a full-back.

“Yes? Who’s this?”

A man’s voice spoke.

“Hi. Could I speak to Claude, please?”

“What? No. There’s no Claude here.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes! I’m quite sure. Who is this?”

“Sorry to bother you. I must have misdialled.”

The man rang off.

Helene was left with the dial tone buzzing in her ear.

She replaced the receiver thoughtfully. That voice had sounded very familiar. But how could it be?

She shook her head. Her frazzled brain was playing tricks on her. It couldn’t possibly be…

She went back to bed, her body tingling and her mind alert and restless. She forced herself to lie in bed, her eyes staring drily at the ceiling until dawn filtered through the curtains. Then, beaten, she slept.

Chapter 3

When her mobile chirruped gently at 7.30am, the short sleep had been enough to leave her feeling tolerably refreshed. Years of training, she reasoned. Or possibly just years of years.

Having no cat to let out, she poured some muesli and dried fruit into a bowl. But before she could soak the mixture in milk, she changed her mind, put the unappealing rabbit food back in the cardboard packet and rebelliously grilled some streaky bacon.

When the meat was comfortably wedged between two pieces of toast and drenched with ketchup, Helene dragged one of her precious dining room chairs outside and enjoyed the warmth of the morning sun that streamed into her tiny courtyard garden. The scent of dog roses, so carefully tended by Mr Jenkin, began to have a somnolent effect.

She tried to imagine what it would be like to do this every day. What would it be like to feel the infinite peace that the cottage brought to her? Why had she spent so many years running away from it, chasing the next big story, driven, ambitious? What was so appealing about a life lived on aeroplanes and in second-rate hotels, when she could have this? She sensed that the cottage could give her contentment without obligation, pleasure without complacency.

Her phone trilled softly: You have messages.

It was from Frank: “Contract on your email. Sign by return. Exclusive, Mac’s orders. F.”

Her shoulders hunched irritably.

Ok, so one last blast. Better make it a good one.

She dressed carefully: good jeans, walking shoes (not boots), checked-shirt over a white Tee, day pack with raincoat, water, and Chanel sunglasses. In an overnight bag, she put spare clothes, a dress with heels and her phone charger. Be prepared.

The Explorer map, still spread over the dining table, was last.

Almost last.

She was just about to leave the cottage when she remembered the contract. She hesitated for a second, hand hovering over the door latch. Then she went back inside, fired up the computer, grateful her village had at last been blessed with broadband, and printed out the contract. She signed it, stuffed it in an envelope and took it with her. There was no point hunting for stamps: the maid hadn’t been around lately.

Although it was still early, the dog walkers and old folks were already up and about. Probably church-goers, too. Helene was glad she’d got away early: the locals were so used to her cottage being unused that they felt no compunction in parking across her drive, blocking her in. Then with smiles and apologies they’d release her after the service, on the rare occasions their paths crossed.

She left the small, dusty village with mixed feelings. Nevertheless, it was pleasant driving along the main road and letting the little car rattle up the dual carriageway: she was in no particular hurry. The pub she was heading for wouldn’t open much before 11.30am and she had only a small amount of walking to do beforehand. She decided to check out Tregurrian first, then freewheel into the slightly less small hamlet of Trevarrian.

It was a warm day but with a cooling breeziness typical of coastal areas – and one of the things that she cherished after too many searing summers reporting on desert despots, living with salt tablets and sunstroke.

After an hour’s driving, she stopped the car at the top of a dirt track, and parked on a dry, yellowing verge. She climbed out of the car and simply stood. The view was breathtaking. She gazed at the horizon, half hypnotised, soaking it up, drinking it in thirstily. Why would anyone want to live anywhere else? The pale, sandy beach wrapped around an arc of velvety blue granite cliffs, punctuating and enclosing the scene.