Free Snapped in Cornwall by Janie Bolitho Page A

Milton was not sure of his motives for asking Rose Trevelyan to dinner but at least it was a way of getting through another night. Paul remained uncommunicative. Dennis had taken Rose’s advice and tried to get him to talk, admitting his own faults. Paul had ignored his efforts.
    The house seemed larger than ever yet there was no peace. Two men were upstairs now, going through things belonging to Gabrielle that they had not taken away with them. The invasion of her privacy was sickening. Even her handbag was not sacrosanct. Were there, he wondered, secrets she had hidden from him? It was ridiculous feeling the way he did when he had been seeing Maggie, but he was unable to bear the thought that Gabrielle might have met someone else. It could, of course, explain who had killed her. The front door had been left open on the night of the party. It would have been easy for someone to enter the house and wait. If whoever it was was seen – no, Dennis realised that if it was someone local other guests would have known him. Unless it was someone Gabrielle had met in London, in which case everyone would assume it was one of his friends.
    He held his head between his hands in despair. It was not his job to find the murderer.
     
    Rose finally made it to Sennen but she was not in the mood to work. Instead she watched the sea. Long, rolling waves gathered momentum and crashed in plumes of white spray over jagged rocks, beyond which water and sky were an identical blue where they met on the horizon. The sight calmed her, made her forget Gabrielle’s broken body. The sounds calmed her further: the hiss as the sea sucked at sand the texture of castor sugar, the thud as it hit the rocks. Overhead, gulls screamed like raucous schoolgirls and a black-backed, larger and noisier than the others, made its presence known from the top of the cliff. The wind, coming off the sea, flung her hair wildly round her head and minute grains of sand into her face.Rose breathed deeply, enjoying the salty tang, and felt cleansed. For a few short minutes there was only the present. Then she remembered she was having dinner with Dennis Milton.
    She walked back to where she had parked the car, arms folded across her chest, aware that she was chilled. In the driver’s seat she poured coffee from the flask, a perfect circle of mist forming on the windscreen from steam from the cup resting on the dashboard. Why, she thought, did Dennis seek her company? Did he suspect she had seen more than she really had, or was he simply lonely?
    Rose finished the coffee, tucked her hair, sticky with spray, behind her ears and drove home.
     
    Doreen Clarke had, without consulting Dennis, rearranged her working day. Instead of starting at nine and finishing at one, she was up at the house at eight to cook breakfast and clean, then she went home until it was time to prepare an evening meal. The hours were roughly the same so she did not bother Dennis with discussions about financial alterations. Her motives were not entirely altruistic. She felt sorry for the Miltons and was upset herself but she was looking to her own future. If she made herself indispensable Dennis would want to keep her on. She could take care of the place whilst he was in London, an easy enough task, leaving her time to find other employment as well. She had been surprised when he told her he was expecting Mrs Trevelyan for dinner but had not expressed it. Rose, she was sure, would not mention their earlier conversation.
    ‘Anything in particular you’d like to eat?’ Doreen inquired.
    ‘No.’ Dennis did not seem to care and most of what she cooked he left.
    ‘You won’t say anything, will you?’ Doreen whispered to Rose when she let her in at seven thirty.
    ‘Of course not.’ And before she could ask if she had spoken to the police yet, Rose opened the door to the lounge.
    ‘I’m glad you could come,’ Dennis said, stretching out a hand. It was cold and dry compared to Rose’s. ‘You remember