Exposure Read Free Page B

retrieved her car keys from the hook inside the larder.
    The garage door was stiff but operable. It was one of the reasons that she’d bought this cottage. Careful foresight had ensured that she invested in a cottage with space to garage a car, and not the one with a better view.
    The car was a small but newish Renault. It started first time and Helene made a mental note to thank the loyal Mr Jenkin who mowed her minute lawn and turned over the engine once a week.
    She wondered what he was doing now. Not Mr Jenkin but the nameless man. The train man.
    She put the car into gear and reversed carefully between the granite gate posts.
    A tap on the windscreen made her jump.
    “You’re back then?”
    The white haired woman smiled and waved a dog lead at her. The dog on the other end looked deeply unimpressed at being yanked by the throat.
    Helene wound down the window.
    “Hello, Mrs Jenkin. How nice to see you.”
    “And you, dear. Staying long, are you?”
    “I really couldn’t say.”
    “Oh, I don’t know! Always coming and going – you career girls! You don’t want to leave it too late, you know.”
    Helene smiled thinly. She was quite aware of the ‘it’ the older woman was referring to and she was of an age when being called a ‘girl’, even by an octogenarian, was an irritant.
    “Do thank your husband for me, Mrs Jenkin. He’s been most attentive to my poor, neglected garden – and to my car.”
    “Oh, I wouldn’t let him hear you say your garden is neglected, dear,” said Mrs Jenkin. “He fair dotes on those roses of yours – to the detriment of our own, I might add. Bless him.”
    Helene wondered if Mr Jenkin felt blessed. It seemed unlikely.
    “Well, do thank him for me. You’re both so kind, looking after the place while I’m away. I’m so lucky to have such good neighbours.”
    It was said with such an air of sweetness and sincerity that Helene almost believed herself.
    Mrs Jenkin smiled again, the very picture of a lovely old biddy, instead of the steely old battleaxe she really was.
    Despite herself, Helene rather admired her. Nothing got past Mrs J.
    Helene threaded the car through the tangle of narrow lanes and enjoyed the sensation of being behind the wheel of a car and the illusion it gave of being in control of one’s destiny.
    Out on the main road she accelerated briskly and the little car seemed keen to shake some village dust from its tyres.
    The supermarket car park was depressingly full. Helene had forgotten that it was changeover day and that tens of thousands of visitors were, like her, stocking up for their self-catering apartments.
    The deli had been picked clean and the fruit and vegetable selection was similarly barren. Helene chose the best from the runt of the litter left-overs. Milk, butter and cheese were thankfully in plentiful supply. It wouldn’t do her bone density any harm to up the calcium intake.
    At the check-out she spied a rack of OS maps and helped herself to a selection of 1:25,000 Explorer maps from Land’s End to Padstow.
    “Planning on doing some walking, are you?” said the cashier.
    “Mmm,” said Helene, “possibly.”
    “Got a dog, have you?”
    “No, no dog.”
    “By yourself, are you?”
    “Apparently,” said Helene, ending the conversation.
    Back home she stowed the shopping briskly and spread out the map that covered the Newquay area.
    Was there any cove, bay or village that sounded like ‘Tianamen’?
    After searching for some time she came across the name Trevarrian. It was a small bay located midway between Watergate and Mawgan Porth. And it had a pub. A good place to start. Keen-eyed locals, chatty staff, used to tourists: perfect.
    She squinted at the map. Damn. There was also Tregurrian, just a mile up the coastal path. She imagined a centuries’ old antipathy between two feuding hamlets that would be utterly incomprehensible to any 21 st century visitors.
    Half-heartedly she prepared some food. Some people loved to cook but she