“Where was it?”
“Under the bed. I think it must have been her husbands, I suppose I should hand it in to the police.”
“If they don't want it, I could do with a laptop for college,” Tamsyn said, with a light tone of voice, trying to show just a little interest.
“There might be some clues to what was going through his mind. I'll call that policeman.”
Chapter Five
Detective Constable Ray Brown wasn’t Cornish. To the Cornish, anyone not Cornish was a foreigner. He came from just over the Tamar Bridge in Devon. Actually, his father had been a policeman in Torquay, so as the two constabularies had amalgamated to become Devon & Cornwall Constabulary, it was only natural that Ray followed his father's footsteps.
He'd started out as a uniform officer in Exeter but progressed to the CID and found himself transferred to Falmouth. His fiancée was a police officer as well, hailing from St. Austell, so she was quite pleased when they both were posted close to each other.
Ray listened to the young constable's story with half an ear. He was in the middle of a complex fraud case so wasn't that worried about some stupid suicidal American tourist and his couch potato of a wife.
“Let's see if I've got this right,” he said to John. “The man was in good spirits when he arrived. He then goes off into town, leaving his wife watching TV. Some witnesses recall seeing him heading off towards the castle, but no one sees a huge, sweating American tourist at the cash point or when he lunges himself off the cliff stark naked.
“He leaves all his clothes, wallet and cash, as well as a note in his handwriting saying that he’s had enough and wants to end it all.
“Then, there's the mysterious female caller who thinks she might have seen a body, but isn't around when we turn up and don't find one. Now, I hear that the wife has buggered off back to America as fast as her fat legs can carry her. If she's not bothered about her husband, why the hell should we?”
John shrugged.
Ray sighed.
“Okay, leave the file on my desk; I'll take a look at it later.”
A much relieved PC Lindsay placed the file on the desk and turned to leave.
“Oh, how much money was found with his effects?” Ray asked.
“Just over eighty quid, but his card was used shortly before the call came in to remove four hundred quid.”
“So where did he spend the difference?”
John shrugged again. Ray picked up the file. Maybe there was something here after all. He thought.
“Can you get the bank's CCTV tape of the cash point?” he asked.
“I already tried, but it isn't working.”
“Typical! Okay, how about the serial numbers of the cash in the machine?”
“I asked about that too, but as it's the tourist season, they claim not to have had time.”
“Either this is a deep rooted conspiracy, or we are just fucking unlucky.”
“Oh, the guesthouse called, it seems the wife forgot the American's laptop. They found it under the bed this morning.”
“Where is it now?”
“Still there, as far as I know. They wanted to know what they should do with it, so I said I'd drop in and collect it later.”
“Okay, that'd be useful. Maybe there's something on it that will give us an idea as to what was going through his mind.”
“Is there anything else I can do?" John asked.
Ray shook his head. “No, I don't think so. Are you sure there were no witnesses?”
“None have come forward yet. Oh, there was this one girl; she was at the cliff side when we recovered his clothes, and I saw her again later at the Americans' guesthouse.”
“What about her?”
“Apart from being a stunning looker, I thought it a coincidence she turned up there as well.”
“Who is she?”
“She sounded local. I think she said her name was Tamsyn.”
“Didn't you write it down?”
“I didn't have any reason to at the time, but she's not someone that one could ever forget.”
“Good, then you can get back out there and find out who she is and where she comes from, okay?”
John grinned, nodding happily, as finding her would be a pleasure, particularly as he was being paid to do something he intended doing in his own time.
Tamsyn brought the last lot of dirty dishes out to the kitchen.
“That Mr Richardson is a dirty old man!” she exclaimed, as she stacked the dishes in the dishwasher.
“Why?” Mary asked in surprise.
The younger girl grinned impishly, “Well, for starters he asked me whether I'd like to tuck him into bed later, and then, kept dropping his napkin so he could look up my skirt when I bent down to pick it up.”
“So what did you do?”
"I told him that I wasn't born yesterday, and that if he was too old to bend over himself, I'd tie a bib around his neck.”
Mary chuckled, never regretting for a moment that she’d asked Tamsyn to help. The girl was just such a joy.
The bell from the reception rang.
“I’ll go,” said Tamsyn.
She was still drying her hands as she approached the reception and was surprised to see the young policeman.
“Hi, did you find him?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
“No, not yet. But I just wanted to collect that laptop and to take some details from you,” he said, taking out his note book.
“Me? Whatever for?”
“Well, you were near the scene, and you’re also here; the detectives want details of anyone who may be a witness.”
“I never saw anything,” Tamsyn said, feeling worried.
“I know you already told me that, but we need to find who made the phone call and whether we can trace the missing man’s movements.”
“Well, I didn’t see him. If you want, you can put my address down as here.”
“What’s your name?”
“Tamsyn Morrghan.”
“Date of birth?”
“I was nineteen on the first of April. So, who’s the fool?” she replied with an impish grin.
The policeman couldn’t resist the grin, so smiled as he wrote the answers.
“Do you know a Maria Maynard?”
“Who?”
“She’s the woman who called in having seen a body in the water.”
“No, I don’t think so. I was at school with a girl called Amanda Maynard, is she a relative?”
John Lindsay smiled again.
“What does she look like?” Tamsyn asked.
“No one knows; she used the local public phone.”
“Okay, what does she sound like?” Tamsyn asked, wanting to know how good her voice changing ability was.
“Not sure, but we think she’s in her sixties or seventies.”
She smiled.
“Not like me, then?” she asked.
“No. But you were up by the scene and again here. What are you doing here?”
“I work here, just while I decide whether to go back to college or not.”
“What were you doing up on the cliff?”
“Just taking a walk, why?”
“And you never saw a big man in a checked shirt and jeans?”
“You mean the American who was staying here?”
“Yes, there’s a possibility he went off the cliff.”
“I never saw him up there.”
“How about here, did you see him here?”
“Sorry. I got here after he’d left. I met her, though.”
“Oh, and how was she?”
“I’m not sure,” she answered truthfully. “I think she was upset, but I believe that was because she was alone and didn’t have him sorting her out.”
“Did she say anything about her husband?”
“A little. I think she felt a bit guilty.”
“Why?”
“I think she believed that he could have taken his own life and that she’d been partially responsible, at least.”
“She never admitted anything else?”
“You mean like killing him?”
“I don’t know, anything?”
“No. I was surprised she left quite so quickly.”
“That’s probably because we told her that he might have been insured,” John said, slightly cynically.