Page 16 of The Path to the Last House Before the Sea

‘I did, thank you,’ said Alyssa. ‘I didn’t realise there were old smugglers’ tunnels underneath Heaven’s Cove.’

‘There were, but they’re all gone now, of course. Filled in or fallen in over the years. Though Ernie, God rest his erotic-fiction-loving soul, claimed one or two remained. There apparently used to be one leading from the Smugglers Haunt. Fred, the landlord, reckons his cellar was once a smugglers’ storeroom.’ She sniffed. ‘Now, is there anything else I can help you with?’

‘No, thank you’ – Alyssa pushed her notebook into her bag – ‘though… I read that Charity Hawkins, the local woman who disappeared in 1753, lived at Driftwood House.’

‘Really? I didn’t know that was the case, but Rosie might because her mother was interested in the house’s history.’ Belinda folded her arms across her large bosom. ‘Now, Driftwood House… all sorts have gone on there. Far more than we know about. Rosie, who now owns the house and runs her B and B up there, can be very secretive and—’ She stopped abruptly and bit her lip. ‘But I mustn’t gossip, or my sister will have my guts for garters. Why don’t you ask Rosie about that poor murdered woman?’

‘She’ll be too busy focusing on her upcoming wedding to answer my questions.’

Belinda beamed. ‘I’m so looking forward to her wedding! Do you know that she and Liam first met at school and didn’t get on at all? Let me tell you all about it.’

Five minutes later, by which time Belinda had recounted everything about Rosie and Liam’s romance, Alyssa mumbled something about a dental appointment and beat a hasty retreat.

The village’s main promenade was thronging with tourists dressed optimistically in shorts, in spite of the glowering sky. So Alyssa made her way home via narrow back streets, imagining smugglers in the shadows and Charity slipping unseen through Heaven’s Cove on the day that she disappeared.

High above the village, Driftwood House stood on the clifftop, looking sinister thanks to a black storm cloud behind it. What secrets did that house hold? Alyssa wondered, as the first spots of rain began to fall.

Its secrets might be impossible to uncover, but Alyssa knew she had to try to find out what had really happened to Charity and Josiah. In her heart of hearts, she hoped that she might clear Josiah’s name – not just to prove Jack wrong, though that might be satisfying, but because she felt a kinship with the maligned labourer. She’d been on the receiving end of supposition herself and it wasn’t pleasant. Josiah Gathergill deserved better.

TEN

JACK

Jack stared out of the shop window at the cottages opposite, with their white-washed walls and thatched roofs. He liked the antiquity of Heaven’s Cove: the sense of history co-existing with the present day. Whereas Miri, his wife – his soon-to-be ex-wife, he corrected himself – hated it.

‘This place is stuck in a time warp,’ she’d told Jack the first time he’d brought her home to meet his parents. ‘There’s no way I could ever live anywhere like this.’

Regularly visiting his parents had been a no-no – she was usually ‘too busy at work’ to accompany him to Devon. So why she was going out of her way to see Jack on his home turf was a complete mystery.

He pulled out his phone and read her text again: I’m in Devon in a fortnight’s time and will come to see you in Heaven’s Cove if that’s acceptable.

No clues there and he didn’t want to ask, worried it might make him sound anxious or needy. He’d been trying to cultivate an air of detached insouciance recently, although it was killing him. Especially when it came to Archie.

If Jack had his way, he would talk to his son every day. But Miri had claimed that was too unsettling for a child in the midst of divorce, so his calls were currently rationed to three per week.

Jack clicked onto a photo of Archie and stared at the brown-haired youngster smiling back at him. Breaking up with Miri had taken his breath away. But not seeing his child was breaking his heart.

Three point one four one five nine…

‘Is everything all right?’ asked Alyssa, behind him. ‘Is that your stepson? He looks sweet. How old is he?’

‘Archie’s eight,’ said Jack, turning off his phone and putting it down.

‘Nice age,’ said Alyssa, plugging a gap on the dried goods shelf with half a dozen packets of brown rice. ‘I remember being obsessed with Steps and Britney Spears when I was eight. Happy days!’

When she sighed, Jack’s irritation dissipated. There was something about Alyssa that he glimpsed occasionally: a sadness that bled through when she wasn’t spouting rubbish about demons and sea dragons; a sorrow and vulnerability that swept across her face.

The woman was still a pain, though. She’d come into work talking about smuggling tunnels and missing jewels, as if she were in an adventure movie – Alyssa Jones and the Caravan of Doom. And she was planning a visit to Driftwood House, apparently, to see if Rosie knew anything about Charity Hawkins. Obsessed with pop stars at eight and, a couple of decades later, obsessed with people who’d been dead for centuries.

However, she had just asked if he was all right. And she’d also shown an interest in Archie.

‘Um, do you have kids?’ he said, doing his best to be amenable.

‘Me?’ She turned from her shelf-stacking. ‘No, though it’s not that I don’t want kids. It’s just that my life hasn’t turned out the way I thought it would.’

‘Tell me about it,’ Jack muttered, picking up a packet of noodles that had fallen to the floor and handing it back to her.

‘I’m assuming that’s a rhetorical “Tell me about it”, rather than a genuine wish to know more about my life?’ said Alyssa, twisting her mouth into a wry smile.

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