Malice in Cornwall by Graham Thomas Page A

said about the murder of that girl in the Sixties.”
    Powell nodded. A detective-sergeant on the samewavelength as his super is a gift from heaven. “I'll have to ask Buttie about it. He's lived around here all his life; he should be familiar with the case. The murdered girl's father, Roger Trevenney, still lives near Penrick. According to Dr. Harris he's not very well, so I'm reluctant to bother him unless it's absolutely necessary.” He sighed. “And there's no reason to suppose there's any connection at this point.”
    Black nodded.
    When they got back to Penrick, the village was cloaked in a dense fog that blotted out the sea and everything else more than fifty feet away.
    Sergeant Black pulled up at the Wrecker's Rest and got out.
    Powell slid over into the driver's seat. “I'll see you later.”
    “Right.” Black waved as the car bearing his superior disappeared into the mist.
    Up the hill and then left at the church, according to Black's directions. Colin Wilcox lived in an isolated house located about a half mile northeast of the village but nearly a mile away by road. This was the less frequented stretch of the Sands enclosed by the small promontory that formed the northerly limit of Penrick Bay. The beach was narrower and rockier here and generally less hospitable to swimmers and boaters. The northern entrance to the bay was guarded by three black pinnacles (offshore stacks to the geomorphology types), shown officially on the sea charts as Parthenope, Ligea, and Leucosia, and known locally, if imprecisely, as the Mermaids. (They were Sirens, actually.) In any case, they had claimed many aboat in the old days. It was said that at extremely low tides a barnacle-encrusted keel could be seen amongst the rocks. None of which, however, was evident to Powell that afternoon as his car crept through the fog along the winding clifftop road, with an ever-present sense of the drop to the rocks and sea below. The visibility was practically zero and the reflected glare of the headlamps only made matters worse. Occasionally he could hear the foghorn sounding forlornly on Godrevy Island.
    After what seemed like a never-ending series of hair-raising bends and turns and morbid fantasies (“Scotland Yard Detective Plunges Off Cornish Sea Cliff”) Powell was beginning to wonder if he hadn't got himself hopelessly lost. Then suddenly the road turned sharply left and after a short, descending pitch, he found himself stopped on a flattish patch behind the dark shape of a house. A dull yellow glow from one of the windows looked promising, although he had no idea if he was even at the right house. He turned off the motor and got out of the car. He could hear the roar of the sea not far below. Shivering in the damp chill, he walked up to the house and knocked on the door.
    A light came on above his head. The curtains parted and a face showed in the window. A few seconds later, the door opened. A tall young man with curly blond hair appeared. “Yes?” he said simply.
    “Mr. Wilcox?” Powell asked.
    The man nodded, and Powell introduced himself. “I'm sorry for dropping in unannounced, but I wanted to have a word with you about this body we've found. I have reason to believe you can assist us with our inquiries.”
    The young man smiled disarmingly. “Isn't that what the police officer always says to his primary suspect?”
    Powell laughed. “It's not as bad as all that, Mr. Wilcox, I promise you.”
    “Do come in and have a beer then, Chief Superintendent, and please call me Colin.”
    Powell followed Wilcox inside. It appeared to be a fairly modern house with an open floor plan, a quarry tile floor in the kitchen and oak parquet everywhere else, modern Danish furniture, and a large picture window facing the sea. Powell imagined that the view on a fine day would be spectacular. Today though, it was all gloom outside. There were times, Wilcox volunteered, when you couldn't see anything for days on end. Powell made some