A Killing at Smugglers Cove

Michelle Salter

Description

Wartime secrets, smugglers’ caves, skeletal remains...

And the holiday’s only just begun…

July 1923 - Iris Woodmore travels to Devon with her friends Percy Baverstock and Millicent Nightingale for her father’s wedding to Katherine Keats.

But when Millicent uncovers skeletal remains hidden on the private beach of Katherine’s former home, Iris begins to suspect her future stepmother is not what she seems.

The police reveal the dead man is a smuggler who went missing in 1918, and when a new murder occurs, they realise a killer is in their midst. The link between both murders is Katherine. Could Iris’s own father be in danger?

'The Iris Woodmore mysteries are fast becoming some of my favourites.' M J Porter

'Compulsive reading at its best. Iris Woodmore's fourth mystery has a mix of love, jealousy, and betrayal of the kind that can only lead to murder.' netgalley reviewer, five stars

'The Iris Woodmore Mysteries are a firm favourite of mine – rich with period detail but with a damn fine mystery as well. Highly recommended.' netgalley reviewer, five stars

'What an utterly delightful story! ... I am sure Dame Christie would have been delighted by this novel.' netgalley reviewer, five stars

Sujets

• Policier & Thriller
• Policier
• Thriller
• Sea Stories
• Mashups
• Women Sleuths
• 20th Century
• Historical
• Reino Unido
• Cozy
• SpongeBob SquarePants
• General officer
• Historical fiction
• United Kingdom
• Great Britain
• General
• Crime
• Fiction
• Royaume-Uni

Informations

• Publié par: Boldwood Books
• Date de parution: 10 juillet 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781837510702
• Langue: English

Extrait

A KILLING AT SMUGGLERS COVE
AN IRIS WOODMORE MYSTERY


MICHELLE SALTER
For my Devonshire ancestors
CONTENTS



Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34


Author’s Note

More From Michelle Salter

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by Michelle Salter

Poison & Pens

About Boldwood Books
1
1923



Walden

‘Millicent’s coming to the wedding.’
‘That should stop you from getting into trouble.’ My boss, Elijah Whittle, lit a cigarette and tossed the match into an ashtray.
‘And Percy.’
He took a long drag. ‘I take that back.’
‘Katherine invited them to please me.’ I knew I sounded far from pleased.
‘What does the woman have to do to make you happy?’
‘She doesn’t have to do anything.’
‘Just not marry your father?’ He sank back and stretched out his legs, resigned to the interruption.
I’d decided it was time for a break, and after placing a cup of coffee on his desk, I flopped into the nearest chair. Since Miss Vale, his assistant, had moved downstairs to the more spacious offices of Laffaye Printworks, it was just the two of us upstairs. I was the only permanent reporter working for The Walden Herald , and Elijah kept an eye on me from his smoke-filled den. He’d strategically placed his chair so that he had a clear view of the main office. From this position, he could see my desk, the large railway clock on the wall and anyone coming or going.
‘Iris,’ he said in exasperation, ‘talk to your father. About your mother.’
I shook my head. ‘He’s the one that doesn’t talk about her.’
‘He doesn’t know what to say because he doesn’t know how you feel.’
The problem was I didn’t know how I felt. In principle, I didn’t mind my father marrying again. I wanted him to be happy. And I liked Katherine. Sort of. I couldn’t deny it had been kind of her to invite my friends, Millicent Nightingale and Percy Baverstock, to the wedding.
Elijah scrutinised me through a haze of smoke. ‘You’re angry.’
‘No, I’m not.’
It was true. Most of the anger I’d felt after my mother’s death had burnt itself out. But I had to admit, a flicker of resentment remained over the fatal suffragette protest that had robbed me of her shortly before my fifteenth birthday. That had been nine years ago. And it certainly hadn’t been my future stepmother’s fault. It was just that memories were starting to fade. With my father about to embark on a new life with another woman, I felt like I was losing the remaining precious ties I had to my mother.
‘I know this is hard. But…’ He eyed me cautiously. ‘You need to make more of an effort towards Katherine for your father’s sake. He’s upset you’re planning to move out.’
I changed the subject. ‘When are you driving to Devon? Millicent and I are going down by train on Friday the sixth of July.’
The wedding was being held on Saturday, 28 July in the seaside resort of Dawlish. As it was generally a quiet month for the newspaper, Elijah and I had decided to close the office for a few weeks and make a holiday of it.
‘A few days later. I need to sort out the July editions with Miss Vale.’ The redoubtable Miss Vale and the rest of the newspaper’s staff would be taking care of things in our absence – directed by Elijah from a distance. ‘Horace has booked us into the Rougemont Hotel in Exeter.’
It was an expensive hotel with every modern convenience. But then, Horace Laffaye, owner of The Walden Herald , was a wealthy man. He’d been in banking. Of a kind. Not your run-of-the mill retired bank manager, as the people of Walden had first thought when he’d moved to the town. Horace had traded on Wall Street. And he was extremely well travelled. If you named a country, he’d have a story to tell about his time there.
‘Percy has a room in a boarding house in Dawlish, and Millicent and I are staying with my grandparents in Exeter. Father will join us there later, and Katherine plans to stay with her brother in Dawlish.’ My grandparents were unaware that Katherine often stayed in Walden under the same roof as my father. The social proprieties that the happy couple had so far ignored would be observed once we were in Devon.
‘Horace wants us to spend a few days in Dawlish. He thinks the sea air will do me good.’ Elijah puffed on his cigarette. ‘If that wasn’t bad enough, he thinks we should swim in the sea.’ He shuddered.
I choked on my coffee at the thought of Elijah in a bathing suit. Could you swim with a cigarette in your mouth, I wondered?
‘I’m sure Percy would love to join you for a dip.’
He groaned in response.
‘Have you written your speech yet?’ I asked.
This prompted an even louder groan. ‘What possessed me? I don’t like speeches and I don’t like holidays.’
Although Elijah had been touched when my father had asked him to be his best man, I knew he didn’t want the role but had been too polite to say so. I was counting my blessings that Katherine had decided against having bridesmaids.
To make matters worse for Elijah, Horace, his partner in more than just business, had leapt at the opportunity for them to take a holiday together. Elijah wasn’t good at leisurely pursuits. He didn’t know what to do with himself if he wasn’t working.
Besides, they had to be careful. Theirs was a relationship that could never be made public. It would be strictly two gentlemen friends enjoying a short break while they attended the wedding of a dear friend.



* * *
‘Have you invited any of your Dutch relatives?’ my father asked Katherine, who seemed to have become a permanent fixture at our dinner table. He thought that with Lizzy, our housekeeper, and me at home, it was entirely respectable for Katherine to stay overnight. Judging by the twitching curtains, the other residents of Chestnut Avenue thought differently.
‘It’s too far for them to come. And I’d have to help arrange accommodation,’ Katherine replied. ‘I want to keep things simple.’
Simple? The wedding arrangements seemed to become more complicated by the day and the guest list longer. This was the first I’d heard of a Dutch side of the family.
My surprise must have shown. ‘My mother was Dutch,’ Katherine explained.
I realised how little I knew about her and that it was probably my fault. I was aware her first husband, Major Laurence Keats, had died during the war. He’d been in the intelligence corps with Father and Elijah. When they were given leave to see Katherine to offer their condolences, my father had discovered she was the younger sister of an old school friend of his, Stephen Damerell.
‘Has Elijah prepared his speech?’ Father asked.
‘He’s working on it,’ I replied untruthfully.
‘I’d like to buy you a new dress,’ Katherine said. ‘Let’s go shopping in Exeter. I know you probably haven’t had time to look yet.’
Her innocent smile didn’t fool me. She knew I’d given no thought to what I was going to wear for the occasion and wanted to make sure I didn’t let the side down.
I took a sip of water and tried to think of some way out of this. ‘You don’t have to do that. You’ll be far too busy with preparations.’ It was the best I could come up with.
‘It will be fun to spend the day together.’
Thank goodness she refrained from saying ‘like mother and daughter’. She had more sense than that.
Aware of my father’s anxious eyes on me, I forced a smile. ‘Thank you. It’s very kind of you.’
Feeling I’d fulfilled Elijah’s plea to ‘make more of an effort’ towards Katherine, I let my thoughts drift, only listening with half an ear to the conversation.
But when Katherine mentioned she’d invited some friends to the reception whom she hadn’t seen since her first husband’s funeral in January 1919, my attention was drawn back.
‘I thought Major Keats died during the war?’
‘Shortly after,’ Katherine replied.
My father shot me a strange look which I couldn’t quite decipher, then went back to discussing the guest list.
I tried to recall exactly what he’d told me when I’d asked him where, and when, he’d met Katherine. I was sure he’d said Major Keats had been killed during the war and that calling on Katherine to offer his condolences had put him back in touch with Stephen Damerell.
Yet we’d lived in London until October 1919, and whenever Father visited Devon, he’d taken me with him to see my grandparents. Or so I’d thought.
I could hardly probe Katherine about her first husband’s death. But something didn’t add up about my father’s account of when he and Katherine had met.
2

If Katherine wondered what her future husband would be like in twenty-five years’ time, she need look no further than my grandfather, Bartholomew Woodmore. In his seventy-fourth year, he was as upright and commanding as he’d been when he was a master at Ladysmith Boys School in Exeter.
My grandmother, Clementina, barely came up to his shoulder. At that moment, she was hugging Millicent.
‘Bartholomew can’t wait to hear about your school. And I want to hear all about your great aunt. She sounds quite a character.’
Millicent’s Great Aunt Ursula was indeed a character. She’d travelled widely, never married, but had more than her share of lovers – if her wilder tales were to be believed. I wasn’t sure these stories were suitable for my grandmother’s ears, though I knew I could count on Millicent’s discretion. As a teacher at Walden’s Elementary School, she had a reputation to uphold.
Nan and Gramps didn’t know I planned to take lodgings with Millicent and Ursula. To appease my father, I’d agreed we’d discuss it again after the wedding. But my mind was made up.
Father had been absent for much of the war