Free To Perish in Penzance by Jeanne M. Dams

help.”
    â€œCould you stay in the bathroom, then, with the door open? I promise I’ll be careful.”
    The policewoman shrugged. “I’m not here as a police spy or anything of that sort, you know. We simply try to stay with bereaved families as long as we’re needed. Please don’t upset her, if you can help it.” She removed herself, and I pulled a chair up to Mrs. Crosby’s bedside.
    â€œNow. What do you want to know? I promise I’ll tell you the truth, but you must stop me if you begin to feel worse.”
    â€œI’ll never feel anything but worse. It doesn’t matter. Do you know what happened to Lexa?”
    I took a deep breath. “I only know that we found her, my husband and I, in a sea cave at a place called Prussia Cove, not far from Penzance.”
    â€œNo! Not that!” Her hands clenched; tears rolled down the waxen cheeks. She made no effort to stem the flow, or to control her sobs. I hadn’t expected quite this reaction. She had already been told of Lexa’s death. Maybe she hadn’t fully taken it in, since apparently no one had given her any details. I waited for her to regain control of herself. This was no time for meaningless consolation. When she began to sniffle, I handed her a tissue.
    â€œBut I don’t understand,” she said when she could speak, and there was a peculiar intensity in her voice. She raised herself on one elbow and stared at me out of those pitiful eyes. “Why was she there? It’s miles from anywhere, isn’t it? Why was she there, of all places?”
    â€œI don’t know, Mrs. Crosby. No one knows, yet. But—you sound as if you know the place. I thought you were a stranger to Penzance.”
    She sank back to her pillow. “I am, but yes, I know the place. I’ve never been there, but I know about it.” Her hands clenched again. “I’m not Lexa’s real mother, you know. Her real mother died in that cave over thirty years ago.”
    Her mother!
    No wonder Alan had been seeing ghosts. That unknown girl in the cave so many years ago …
    â€œBut—but I thought Lexa was in her twenties.”
    â€œShe looks—she looked much younger than she was. She was thirty-three. She was only a few months old when her mother died. In 1968, that was.”
    I took a deep breath. “If you’re up to it, Mrs. Crosby, I’d like to hear the story. It may be very important.”
    Mrs. Crosby settled herself. A little color came to her face. “It’s a sad story, but it brought me Lexa, and that’s been nothing but good. Until now.”
    She wiped her eyes, blew her nose, and began.
    â€œHer name really is Alexis Adams. I mean, it’s not an assumed name. Her mother, Elizabeth Adams, was my best friend. I was older than she was, but when she first moved to London in 1966 I was advertising for a flatmate. She answered the advert, moved in, and we hit it off from the first.
    â€œShe was young, and always wilder than I had ever been. I was almost thirty then, and she was only just twenty I had a steady job, nothing glamorous, just working as a secretary, but I was independent and living in London, happy enough to do my job and have a little fun at weekends, go to the cinema, go dancing with friends, that sort of thing. I never had any real boyfriends, just couldn’t seem to find someone who really appealed to me. It was a silly sort of time, the sixties, and I was always serious-minded. I never much cared for rock music and I thought drugs were a waste of money.
    â€œBetty Adams—she was always called Betty—she was different. She was quite bright, but she never could seem to stick to a job. Both her parents had died, and she had no other family. I don’t know if they’d been strict, her parents, I mean, and she was off the leash for the first time, or what, but she couldn’t seem to settle down. She flitted about from one