Devon holiday home tragedy – holiday cottage murder mystery of woman with rose tattoo found slain and naked the headline screamed.
Lurid details followed about how the woman with a rose shaped tattoo staying at her Devon holiday home had been found dead in the grounds of her West Country holiday cottage.
Alice scooped up the national newspaper from the mat behind the front door, turned, smiled brightly, looped her hands behind her husband’s neck and pulled him down to her for a goodbye kiss.
There wasn’t much space in their tiny suburban semi-detached hall and although John avoided her lips, as was his custom when off to work in the London headquarters of a national travel business, he couldn’t avoid the bodily contact she engineered as he squeezed past her and out of the door.
It was a daily tease that Alice enjoyed.
Alice stood at the door and watched him disappear down the road past the neat red brick houses towards the railway station where he would catch the same train he caught every working day to the same office with the same people where he devised yet more variations of cheap holidays, holiday deals and holiday packages to entice the public to spend more on their holiday travel plans.
Alice waved cheerfully, knowing he wouldn’t be looking – because he never did.
The front door clicked closed behind her and she walked into the kitchen with quick tiny steps. Deftly, she clicked on the kettle, pulled out a chair from behind the kitchen table, patted her to light curly fair hair, pursed her lips and read on.
‘Police have no leads in holiday cottage murder and fear now stalks the pretty valley where this attractive woman lost her life.’
Alice usually avoided sensational stories about murders in holiday cottages or otherwise. In her opinion, they were profiting from other people’s grief. These murder mystery articles offered little for the reader. They were usually repetitive and almost always lacked meaningful detail. But this one was different. The tattoo and the victim’s name reminded her of a friend she had known at school.
‘Estelle’ was also an unusual name. It suited the gay, vivacious young woman who had started life in an orphanage, grabbed every opportunity that came her way and wore her name with panache.
During their long sunny days in the sixth form before going up to College, Estelle and Alice had often escaped from school for a secretive Danish pastry and cappuccino coffee in the local Italian Cafe. Although Alice was unadventurous, prim and proper as a teenager, she loved to listen to the exciting plans her friend dreamed up for herself and the world.
Now, with the passing of the years, Alice wondered if Estelle had achieved her dreams. How terrible it would be if they had ended so soon in a small holiday cottage in a tiny inconsequential country village.
Alice noted the surname in the newspaper article was different to when she had known Estelle but a change of name through marriage would explain that detail.
Ultimately, it was the tattoo of a tiny red rose on her left shoulder that persuaded Alice that the murdered woman was her friend and she still vividly remembered the day she had spent arguing with Estelle trying to persuade her not to have it done.
The article left Alice with a strong feeling of sadness. But soon, typically, her sadness resolved into curiosity and then determination and she decided that it would do John, her husband, a lot of good to be alone for a few days. He had not been very attentive recently and a little bit of mystery in his life worrying about what she was doing might just spice up their relationship.
At the same time, Alice would find out more about the sad demise of her friend. It would tidy up her friends memory and Alice liked everything to be tidy and in its place.
Normally, Alice preferred to make her holiday bookings well in advance but, on this occasional, the Internet listed no holiday packages, holiday apartments, holiday cottages or holiday homes or other cheap holiday deals for her to buy a short Devon holiday online in the village named by the article.
It seemed that the village where her friend had died was well off the holiday map. Yet her friend had died at a holiday home. Curiouser and curiouser, thought Alice.
Eventually, flicking the switch to her laptop off dismissively, Alice wrote a short note to John, her husband, promising she would call him when she had found holiday accommodation down in Devon, packed a few clothes into an overnight bag and headed for the M3 motorway in her small Ford saloon car to the sound of classical music on the radio and a feeling of determination that, in addition to a period of grieving, she would crack the murder mystery at Estelle’s holiday home.