Page 16 of Christmas at Sturcombe Bay
Alex yawned and stretched his back. There was nothing to read but a few peeling posters, and he had been required to leave his phone in reception. He had closed his eyes, beginning to doze in spite of the uncomfortable seat, when the door of the interview room opened and Shelley came out.
She was looking pale and nervous, as if she had been the accused. “All done?” he asked.
She nodded, managing some kind of smile. “Yes.” She glanced up at the police officer who had followed her from the room. “Can I go now?”
“Of course. We’ll be in touch.”
“Thank you.”
“Come on then,” Alex urged. “Let’s go home, eh?”
They didn’t speak as they walked across the car park. He opened the car door for her, then walked round and slid in behind the wheel. As he pulled out of the car park and turned towards Sturcombe, he glanced across at her.
“How did it go?”
She hesitated. “Not too bad.”
Her hands were in her lap — small, neat hands with well-trimmed, unvarnished fingernails. In spite of her casual words, he could sense her tension. “You’re not too keen on the police, are you?”
She laughed without humour. “Who is?”
He arched a questioning eyebrow.
“Just . . . I haven’t always been the type of public they’re supposed to protect and serve.” She turned her attention out of the window for a moment, then turned back. “We don’t get many Americans in the hotel.”
He accepted her change of subject without argument. “I’m not American, I’m Canadian. Well, Canadian-British — I have dual citizenship.”
“How come?”
“I was born here, and my father’s British, but my mother’s Canadian. We moved to Canada when I was nine, when my dad got a job there.”
She was looking up at him, those pretty blue eyes bright with interest. “Whereabouts in Canada do you live?”
“Toronto.” At her puzzled frown he realised he had pronounced it the Canadian way, and repeated it more clearly.
“Oh. Is it nice there?”
“Very nice. It’s on the shore of Lake Ontario. It’s got loads of parks and loads of skyscrapers. And the CN Tower is amazing. It’s got an observation deck fifteen hundred feet up. You can actually feel the tower swaying in the wind from up there.”
He was talking trivia to try to help her relax a bit. There was something in her manner that intrigued him. It wasn’t shyness — it was more a wariness, as if she was constantly alert for any sign of trouble.
She reminded him of a fox that had often come into their garden when he was a kid. It would creep in under a hole in the fence, and peer out cautiously from among the bushes. At the slightest sound, the slightest movement, it would vanish.
He had put out food for it regularly every night, and had often sat on the back deck, very still, watching for it. It had taken almost a year for it to creep closer to the house. It had been curious, but there had always been a suspicious glint in its eyes, constantly alert to the slightest hint of danger.
The girl was a little older than he had first thought — when she had given her date of birth at the police station he had realised that she was in her middle twenties.
She appeared so delicate, but he guessed that she was tougher than she looked. She’d certainly given that guy who’d attacked her a very sharp lesson.
She smiled up at him. “So why did you choose to come here for a holiday?”
“To England?”
“Yes. Well, to Sturcombe. It’s a bit out of the way, especially now the holiday season’s over. You haven’t come to play golf.”
He laughed. “How did you know that?”
“I clean your room,” she reminded him with a touch of dry humour. “No golf clubs.”
