Page 1 of Death on the Rocks

Chapter One

SATURDAY

There was a small,but undeniable chance that Lily Larkin was going crazy. For the last six months she’d been on a mission to track down an ice cream shop.

An ice cream shop, for goodness’ sake.

Not just any old ice cream shop, of course. A specific one. The last time she’d visited it she’d been a small child so she didn’t know its exact location. According to the back of the photograph it was in Cornwall. And while Cornwall wasn’t a particularly large county, it was still an extensive search area for one person to cover – with a lot of ice cream shops. She’d flashed that photo around every town and village in the county as though she were searching for a missing person.

Finally, she’d got a promising lead. The fisherman she’d spoken to in Torquay swore he’d been to the shop as a child too and provided her with its exact location. It was just Lily’s luck that the shop was in the remotest part of Cornwall. The island ofSt. Mary’s was stuck all the way out in the Atlantic – twenty-four miles off the UK’s southwest coast.

So that’s where she currently was. With any luck, today would be the day she’d return to the place which held her only memories of her parents.

A loud crash made her set aside the photograph she’d been staring at and move to the window of her room in the cosy bed and breakfast.

It hadn’t been Lily's first choice of accommodation. Hotels were more her vibe. Somewhere big and impersonal where she could go unnoticed. Given her last-minute plans, she hadn't had much choice, especially given the limited accommodation options on the Isles of Scilly.

At least the accommodation was on St. Mary’s – the largest of the five inhabited islands in the archipelago. The B&B had been the only accommodation with availability. It boasted a mere three bedrooms and a shared bathroom. Definitely not ideal, but the owners, Mr and Mrs Miller, had been very welcoming when she'd arrived the previous evening. The friendly couple lived in the converted garage at the side of the house with direct access to the house via the kitchen, off the breakfast room, where Lily had just eaten.

During a disappointingly mediocre breakfast, Mrs Miller had eagerly introduced Lily to the other guests, which really left her longing for the anonymity of a hotel chain.

Being dragged into the breakfast room conversation did, however, mean that Lily knew what was currently going on outside, making the sight of people moving furniture from the living room out into the garden less perplexing than it would otherwise be.

The striking blonde woman in the centre of the garden was some kind of social media influencer. At breakfast, she’d seemeda little offended that Lily hadn’t heard of her, and had handed over her business card with a dismissive flick of her hand.

Lily pulled it from her pocket now and went into her phone. The first image which came up when she searched for Alanna Harding showed her tall, toned body draped across an imposing leather wingback armchair in the middle of a deserted white sand beach. It gave a little more context to the living room furniture in the garden.

A website link took Lily to a travel and lifestyle blog which she had zero interest in. Apparently these days it was possible to make a living pouting on random furniture in exotic places. The text that accompanied the pictures was neither insightful nor grammatically correct, but it seemed Alanna’s followers were happy to overlook those details. The comment section was filled with questions about the shade of her lip gloss and where to buy the boots she was wearing.

Returning her gaze to the bustle in the garden, Lily watched Alanna’s boyfriend, Marc, sidle over and slip his arms around her waist before almost immediately being given the brush off and directed to reposition furniture.

Mr Miller – a tall, wiry man – carried a cumbersome coffee table outside with a young guy who apparently helped around the house and with some gardening. Oscar looked to be in his late teens and appeared thoroughly unimpressed with the current situation.

At the side of the garden, leaning on a wall and inhaling deeply on a cigarette was the photographer for Alanna’s blog. Vinny had looked Lily up and down when they’d been introduced, making her feel exposed. If she was feeling generous she might have thought it was his artistic eye that had him looking at her so intensely, but it didn’t feel like that.

Now, he looked bored as Alanna called out to him and beckoned him over. Stubbing out his cigarette, he retrieved his bulky camera from its perch on the wall and ambled over to her.

With a small shake of her head, Lily moved away from the window and plucked the photograph from the bed, to stare once again at the faces of her parents, smiling happily into the camera alongside a younger version of herself. Not for the first time, she went into her phone to check her route from the bed and breakfast to the promenade by Porthcressa Beach.

From there, she shouldn’t have a problem finding the ice cream shop. Or at least the building it used to reside in. There was no mention online of it still being an ice cream shop, but the location also didn’t bring up anything else in any of her searches so there was a chance it was still there with no online presence.

What she’d do when she found the place wasn’t clear to her yet, but she’d figure that out later. She told herself it wasn’t nerves that made her move slowly. The long shower she took wasn’t a way to put off concluding the search for the ice cream shop. Nor was the slow pace at which she packed her backpack and put on her hiking boots. There was no rush, that was all. No reason to hurry.

Finally, she pulled a faded grey hoodie over her plain V neck T-shirt and headed for the door with her backpack slung over one shoulder.

Halfway down the stairs, she paused at the sound of hushed voices drifting from the breakfast room. Lily’s ears pricked up and she stayed absolutely still.

“She has a huge social media following,” Rodney Miller hissed at his wife. “One of these influencers. If she writes a bad review, it’ll be the end of us.”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” his wife, Flora, replied. “One critical review wouldn’t be the end of the world. Especially if she rates us badly on something as stupid as whether we let her moveevery piece of furniture we own to the garden.” She huffed out a breathy sigh. “I can’t believe you agreed to this nonsense. And then carted it all out there for her. If your back starts playing up you’ll get no sympathy from me.”

“My back is fine. And you’re underestimating the power of reviews. We’ve had a spate of less than stellar ones recently. I’ll bet that’s why we’ve been getting cancellations.”

“It was only a few cancellations,” Flora said flatly. “And maybe the bad reviews are a sign that we should think about retiring…”

“We are retired. This is our retirement plan, remember?”

“I remember all right,” she snapped, her voice increasing in volume. “I just wonder whether it might be time for a rethink. Shouldn’t retirement involve less work? And if I am going to work, couldn’t it be taking care of my grandchildren?”

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