Free Plotted in Cornwall by Janie Bolitho

table beside her. ‘But that still doesn’t explain Miranda’s disappearance.
    ‘Mrs Trevelyan, I apologise for the impertinence, but if, by any chance, the conversation turns to children or families whenyou’re with them, do you think you could discreetly find out anything you can?’
    ‘I’ll do my best.’ A fairly ambiguous answer but Rose knew she would not be able to resist doing so. It was a challenge, and Louisa and Wendy couldn’t possibly guess she knew the rest of their family It really was time to leave. As she stood for the second time Rose saw in her mind the faces of both Jack and Barry and knew what they would think of her for becoming involved.
    Hands were shaken again, Petra’s grip was as firm as her husband’s, then Petra showed Rose to the door. Joel remained silent but she saw by his face how grateful he was for her visit. At least some good came of it, she thought as she started the engine and pulled out into the road, wishing there was someone in whom she could confide. Not Laura, she was far from well, and certainly not Barry Rowe. Would Jack listen dispassionately or would he be in one of his stern, leave-it-alone moods? There was only one way to find out.
    She glanced at the dashboard clock. It was early, not yet seven thirty. Pulling into a lay-by she dialled his home number on the mobile phone he’d insisted she took out with her at night and was pleased when hesaid he would meet her in the Mount’s Bay Inn in twenty minutes. ‘There’s something I want to tell you,’ he ended enigmatically.
    He sounds really cheerful for once, Rose decided as she headed towards the seafront.

6
    ‘You’m pale, maid,’ Doreen Clarke said as she bustled into the kitchen through the side door, a cardboard box in her arms. She had parked at the bottom of the drive and was breathless from the exertion of hurrying up the steep incline.
    ‘There’s a lot of flu about. I hope I haven’t picked it up from Laura.’ Rose was not physically ill, her pallor was due to lack of sleep, but she didn’t want Doreen to know that.
    Outside, reflecting her mood, the sky was grey once more. There was no wind, no force behind the weather, just a dismal bank of cloud cover. The garden, which Rose tended sporadically, needed some tidying. Droplets of earlier rain clung to the spiders’webs strung between straggling plants.
    The garden looks no different from usual, Rose thought as she listened to Doreen’s chatter. There’ve always been lumps in the lawn, I don’t cut the grass often enough and I mostly forget to deadhead things. It just seems worse today somehow. The garden at the side of the house also overlooked the bay. Near the converted shed was a bench on which Rose spent many hours in the summer, as had Jack when they shared a bottle of wine. Oh, bugger the man, she thought.
    ‘No work today, dear?’ Doreen asked as she removed her shapeless coat with its odour of damp wool and the patterned headscarf she was rarely without.
    ‘No. Well, maybe later if the weather clears up. I’m now working for two ladies on Bodmin Moor, I’m doing their portraits.’
    ‘Whatever for? ’Tis real vain, that sort of thing, if you ask me.’ Doreen tucked her no-nonsense hair behind her ears and made herself comfortable at the table. Her snap-clasped handbag hung over the back of the chair. It was the sort the Queen tended to favour and probably the reason Doreen did too.
    Rose smiled wanly. Typical Doreen, nocongratulations, no interest in the clients, merely condemnation of something she did not understand. ‘They used to live in Penzance.’ If anyone knew of them it would be her friend, but Rose didn’t want to break any confidences. Not that anyone had asked her to keep quiet and, in fact, Petra Penhaligon had encouraged her to ask questions.
    ‘And what name do they go by?’ Doreen spooned sugar into her coffee.
    ‘Jordan. One of them, anyway.’
    ‘Ah, well, they always had more money than sense. A