Chapter 63

Rose set about making tea while Priest and Georgie sat at her kitchen table looking out through the patio doors to the yellow fields that disappeared into the horizon. Her farmhouse was surrounded by acres of rolling hills and golden meadows and, so she had told them when they had first arrived, on a clear day she could see the sea from her bedroom window.

Rose’s husband, Dennis, a square-shaped man in his sixties hidden inside a black turtle-neck jumper, munched loudly on a piece of toast next to them.

When the tea was ready, Rose placed cups and saucers in front of her guests and took a seat next to her husband. She busied herself pouring the tea, all the while humming softly. When she had finished, she looked up at Priest. She had a nest of silver hair and a petite face with a confident smile – Priest would have had her down as a school head teacher, even if he hadn’t known that was the case anyway.

‘I suppose you want the truth, Mr Priest,’ Rose sighed, pushing the cup towards him with a smile.

‘Oh, Rose, don’t put it like it’s a chore,’ grumbled Dennis. ‘The man told you his story, now you tell him ours.’

‘If it’s not too much trouble,’ piped up Georgie.

Priest had established before they came that the people who Elinor had called Mum and Dad – Rose and Dennis – were not her biological parents, but had adopted her. For all intents and purposes, though, they were a family.

Rose nodded, again with a smile, and took a sip of her tea. Priest watched as she placed the cup down and examined the back of her hand before she spoke.

‘It’s true that I was there the night we found Elinor on the edge of Devil’s Point, as was Dennis, although I didn’t know he would later become my husband. He was just a local busybody whom I found thoroughly irritating. How little has changed! I was a WPC at the time – God knows why. I don’t know whether you know anything about the police, Mr Priest, but it’s not easy being a woman in that environment.’

‘I can well imagine,’ Priest agreed. His ex-wife had never had that difficulty, but there was an air of masculinity about her that had seen her through a few difficult early years.