Three Little Maids(11)
It owed its success mainly because it held a good position on the sea front and Mrs Frost provided good value for money in meals, personal service and rooms. Like the swallows, most of her summer guests came back year after year and she relied on permanent boarders, like the Wilberforce sisters during the winter.
A change of view further along the sea front gave Viviane a different aspect. She could see the minuscule figures of the fishermen sitting patiently with their rods on the tail end of the long, white painted Harcombe Pier behind the Victorian ballroom and the theatre. Even at that distance, she could hear the distorted blaring music and announcements from the various callers on the rival bingo stalls, rifle ranges and hoopla stalls. The noise of this entertainment blended in naturally with the squeals of laughter and conversation coming up from the beach below.
She listened with closed eyes behind her sun glasses to the scrunch of hot pebbles shifting underfoot, and the gentle, soporific swish and flow of the tide pulling and sucking up the wet shingle and sand in its haste to retreat further out.
Everything seemed as normal as it should be on a bright summer day. But it wasn’t, was it? She frowned, stirred uneasily and opened her eyes. There was someone evil in this seaside town that had taken the life of a young girl and it was frightening to think about.
A chink of falling coins on the ground beside her interrupted her thoughts. A pound coin rolled along the stone tiles to rest by her sandaled foot. She leant forward and picked it up. A girl, hardly more than a child in her skimpy blue cotton blouse and denim skirt, her light brown hair styled in a jagged urchin hair hut, leant round the glass partition Her clear grey eyes met Viviane’s as she took the coin from her and put it into her leather purse she carried on her shoulder.
‘Thanks.’
Viviane smiled. ‘Have you got it all?’
‘Okay - thanks.’ The girl left the shelter abruptly and ran lightly down the stone steps on side leading to the underground car park. Just for a second or so, Viviane thought that she’d seen her before somewhere but the memory eluded her.
Then, as she got up to leave, she saw the canvas tote bag stuffed underneath the seat that the girl had just vacated. It had a newspaper left in it and a women’s magazine; it had either been forgotten by its rightful owner or picked up by the girl. Viviane decided to drop it into the police station on her way back to the library. She gave the girl the benefit of the doubt; the purse, and its contents, might have belonged to her.
There was no sign of DI. Jon Kent in the station and she handed over the bag to the Desk Sergeant who recognized her with a smile when she gave her name. She noticed a reporter and cameraman for the local Observer newspaper waiting outside and knew that it wouldn’t be long before Maureen Carey’s death crime was reported on TV and the other papers would soon be sniffing it out for their headlines.
6
The girl hesitated a minute or so in the open doorway of the colourful Tarot booth on the Pier, casting a slender dark shadow into the booth. Esmeralda looked up from the cards she was studying carefully on the green baize topped table in front of her. So she had come then. Esmeralda had pictured the girl clearly in her mind more than once that morning. And she had worried about her ever since.
‘Come in and sit down. Is it a reading from the Tarot cards you require?’
‘Mais oui - yes - please.’
The accent settled it. She was the young French girl Yvette, she had seen briefly for a minute or so talking to Cliff Jones, the hotel chef in the White Rock Hotel foyer, that morning. She studied the girl carefully as she took her place at the table. Yvette was attractive, her shining raven black hair was accompanied by a glowing honey coloured skin, and large golden brown doe shaped eyes. Her perfume was both tempting, subtle French and expensive, the black, brown and tan cotton dress simple but also expensive like the slender gold anklet round her slim left ankle.
She could be a student at the language college in town, but was certainly not living on a small income. She settled in the chair, gazing around curiously at first, and then she focused her full attention on the clairvoyant.
Esmeralda collected up the Tarot cards, wiped them carefully with a green silk scarf and handed them over to her young client. ‘Think well, my dear, on what you wish to know. Shuffle and select fifteen cards and give them to me, please.’
Yvette obeyed, dropped a couple on the floor, and picked them up, before choosing the others from the colourful pack. The fallen cards were the Tower and the Emperor. Esmeralda laid them out on the table. What falls to the ground sure to come sound. Her keen eyes noted the girl’s choice with a wry twist of her wide, expressive mouth. And studied them carefully for a minute or so.