Previously…

I sat on a grassy knoll and drank in the view. I loved the peace and quiet up here and it was a nice change from my normal frantically busy lifestyle. When I first moved here, I thought that it was a nice quiet place with nothing happening, a virtual backwater in fact. I fancied that, as up to then my life had been somewhat fraught and not very happy. Olivia and her father had sort of dominated my life and it was all I could do to get up in the morning and start yet another meaningless day.

Now things were so different. I had a lover and hopefully soon we would get married. I had lots of friends and a virtual mother, though I would never tell her so, in Dotty. The rest of my family were moving into the village shortly. I was rich, successful and my gallery was going to open shortly. Then there was Heather. My daughter meant everything in the world to me. I loved her to bits and I couldn’t wait to go and pick her up and hold her. I wanted her home with Abby and me. Maybe later, I would find out when she could come home with us. The only cloud on the horizon was the idiot who kept up a hate campaign against me. Well, if only one person didn’t like me, that wasn’t too bad, but if he, or she, thought that I would be driven out by this agro, they were wrong. Eventually, I would find out who the “perp” was.

Glancing at my watch, I noticed that time was getting on and I needed to get to the pub before all the pasties were eaten.

As I got up and brushed some grass off of my skirt, I made another mental note to buy some more choccy sauce from the local shop and wondered if they sold industrial strength loofahs too as I think that I was going to need them both quite soon.

As I made my way back, I smiled, it wasn’t a bad life.

And now the story continues…

Still feeling rather bloated after my á¼ber pasty at the pub and slightly tingly after a goodbye kiss from Abby which would have put us in prison in several countries and been applauded in a few others, I made my way to the police station–a.k.a. Trevor’s house.

On the way, I noticed the old soothsayer-type woman walking by on the other side of the lane and frowned as she gave me a “knowing” look. That was a seriously weird lady!

Eventually I arrived at my destination and imagined myself drawing up in a handsome cab, my trusty Watson by my side as we alighted from the carriage and made our way–through a pea-souper of a fog naturally–into the station to interview Lestrade’s wife. I walked up to the door and knocked, bitterly regretting not having at least the female equivalent of Sherlock Holmes’s deerstalker hat to wear. Searching around me with a piercing gaze that took in everything and missed nothing, I noticed that the only thing that shouted police station was a small sign on the door and a blue light thingy on a pole by the front gate.

Shaking off my rather fanciful fancies, I rang the bell just above the sign which said, ‘Ring Please’. A few seconds later a pleasant woman about my age twenty-one–all right, thirty then–opened the door. She had a tea towel in her hand and an enquiring expression upon her face.

‘Hello, can I help you?’

‘Yes, I’m––’

‘–yes, I know, Samantha Smart…’

‘Ri—ight, err, Trevor said I should come to the police station to officially report a crime.’

‘Better come in then, the kettle’s on.’

She motioned me through and I found myself sitting in the lounge sipping some refreshing tea and dunking some Nice biscuits.

Angela was a pretty woman with short dark hair cut in a pageboy bob. She was quite thin and had delicate features. I wasn’t jealous–honest!

Taking down the “particulars” took but a moment and then, after careful and rather clever prompting on my part, she got down to the favourite occupations that locals have–gossip.

Being an amateur sleuth–as I now called myself–I ought to have turned on my concealed tape recorder so that I could recall the conversation at length during my leisure, but as I didn’t have so much as a notebook and pencil, I had to just try to remember what she said.

Very quickly I was given certain facts about half the female and a quarter of the male population of Penmarris. A lot of it is top secret and on a need to know basis which I would never divulge, but in general terms, Penmarris was evidently a hotbed of intrigue and funny goings-on. There were a couple of erm… couples who shall remain nameless, who did a regular wife/husband swapping–you know who you are.

A number of men were known to be heavy gamblers or alcoholics in all but name and on a Saturday night, the single cell–a Portacabin at the end of the garden–was full to overflowing with these transgressors. They were not normally violent and if they got excited, Trevor was quite good at tapping them gently on the head. Trevor had been trained to use a taser, but after he accidentally zapped himself once, they took it away from him.

The smuggling of Cornish pasties was rife as were the influx of pixies coming over the Cornish border, looking for a better life among the green hills of Devonshire. There were a number of incomers from Bodmin who were known criminals, having several parking and at least one TV licence avoidance fines between them. The butcher shortchanged on a regular basis, as did the baker and the candlestick maker. One of the pubs had been known to water down the beer and had what are called lock ins–which was just a fancy way of describing serving drinks after hours. Trevor was often seen in the pub at this time as he was keen to take down evidence and interview people at length.

Eventually Angela told me a few things that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Yes, it was true! I had heard the rumours, of course, but I heard it from the horse’s mouth, well not horses, because actually Angela was very pretty–damn her–but you get the drift. We were on our third cuppa and half way down the second packet of biscuits when she leant in close and told me…

‘Several garden gnomes have been abducted¹. The last one was on Tuesday night. Outsiders have been blamed and Trevor expects there to be ransom demands any day now.’

I was shocked as I felt that garden gnomes were sacrosanct. Whatever next, was anything safe? After those revelations I thought that I should bring our little chat back to more normal topics as things were getting a bit surreal and I began wondering if Angela was twelve pence in the shilling.² I wanted to pump her about certain matters in a proper sleuth-like manner.

‘Erm, Angela, Trevor mentioned that there has been a spate of vandalism in the village–’

‘Yes, a few things have been happening and I suppose your car is the latest.’

‘Anything similar to my car or the poison pen letters?’

‘I shouldn’t really be telling you…’

She got up and looked out of the window, taking care not to move the curtains. Evidently, the coast was clear, so she sat down again after smoothing her skirt under her and gazed at me carefully.

‘This doesn’t go any further––’

‘–Of course–’

‘–well, there’s something fishy going on and Trevor is very worried that he might have to call in the CID.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, there have been a number of more horrible things happening lately, like pets being stolen and a few of the shops have had nasty things painted on the windows during the night.’

‘What sort of things?’

‘Stuff like, “pay up or else.” “We are watching you,” and one that was rather nasty said, “your house is next”.’

‘All in paint?’

‘Yes, the same colour that you had on your car.’

‘I don’t understand why, with the village grapevine, somebody hasn’t said anything?’

‘Well luckily these have all been spotted early in the morning and Trevor who has worked loads of hours on this, has been going out all hours to try to catch whoever has done it. Once, he must have missed whoever it was by seconds as the paint was still dripping on one window. He has managed to ensure that all traces are removed before people have been about, but that won’t last. He can’t be everywhere and, around here, secrets don’t stay secret long and the bosses are moaning now about his overtime and––’

‘–Has he interviewed the people who have been hit with this vandalism?’ I interrupted.

‘Yes, but no one is grassing anybody up. Trev thinks that they’re too scared to say very much. He reckons that it’s probably some sort of protection racket, but until someone talks, he can’t do much except do double shifts and see if he can catch them red-handed.’

Eventually, I left Angela to her chores and strolled down the lane towards the quay, I wondered what the hell was going on. Abducting gnomes was one thing, but scaring people witless like this was a whole new ball-game. I ambled aimlessly along the quay, nodding to passersby and stopping for a few moments as I watched a fishing boat come in with its attendant flock of seagulls. In due course I made my way down some steps and sauntered across the sand to the sea’s edge. It was fairly quiet on the beach, just a few couples in deck chairs and a man walking his dog and throwing a ball into the water. I stopped for a minute as the dog raced into the water, retrieved the ball and ran back for a repeat of the exercise. I thought that it was a rather pointless exercise but then, I’m not a dog.

Smoothing my skirt under me, I sat on the still warm sand. I brushed the hair out of my eyes, opened my bag, pulled out my hairbrush, took the scrunchie off the handle and put my hair up in a ponytail.

I had smiled a bit at the Angela’s description of the petty goings on in and around Penmarris but I wasn’t smiling when I heard what other, more sinister things, were going on. So, there was a protection racket and maybe even blackmail in sleepy Penmarris. On top of that, someone was trying to run me out of town–well, the village anyway. Was it all connected?

You expect to see things like this happen in London and other urban areas, but in Penmarris? No I didn’t expect that. To tell you the truth, it made me angry. I hated the idea that this sweet place could be tainted by things like this and I was determined to help, if I could, to try to get to the bottom of things.

My phone chirped, it was Abby.

‘Hi, honey!’

‘Hello, sweety-pie. Look, I’ve just had a phone call from the computer guy. The laptop is ready but I can’t go and collect it. I’m stuck with a load of pots in the kiln and I need to stay here for a while. Can you go and pick it up?’

‘Sure, where does our computer nerd hang out?’

‘Is that you trying to be hip and with it?’

‘Like yeah, ya know?’

‘Don’t bother honey. Anyway, he works from his house, number 17 Rookery Cottages, up the top of the hill turning left and then it’s at the end. I’ll ring him back to let him know that you’re coming.’

‘Okay, hon, consider it done.’

I got up and brushed the fine golden sand off my skirt and walked back up the beach and then after losing my way only twice, found my way to Rookery Cottages. It was nice here, with lots of little whitewashed buildings with gaily painted doors. It was all neat and rather pretty.

Number 17 had a bright red painted door and a small sign outside that announced ‘Dean Clump ~ Computer Doctor,’ on a small brass plate on the wall.

I knocked on the door and Dean opened it. ‘Hi, Dean, I’ve come for Abby’s laptop.’

‘Okay, erm, come in.’

‘You’re sweating, Dean, been out for a run?’

‘No, I’m just hot,’ he replied nervously, letting me go past him.

I heard the door close behind me, but my attention was somewhat grabbed by the person now standing in front of me with a gun in his hand. It was the same smoothie I met on the quay, seemingly a long time ago but in fact only a few weeks. Nigel Manning's ‘associate’ was looking rather smug and as he smiled at me, I noticed that the smile didn’t reach his steely grey eyes.

‘Hello Tom; you didn’t take my warnings seriously then. You really should have left the village, you know–when you had a chance.

______________________________

¹      See: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/how-murphy...
     

²      “Twelve pence in the shilling” is an expression used in the UK sometimes, meaning “all there”, “totally sane”, or “in possession of all their faculties”.

Please leave comments…thanks! ~Sue

My thanks go to the brilliant and lovely Gabi for editing, help with the plot-lines and pulling the story into shape.