claret. As I started along the headland, in the direction of a Second World War pillbox on the left, a series of gusts ripped in, making it hard to maintain a straight line along the path. It made me wonder what this place had been like the morning Korin had come here. Colder, the wind probably even worse. It had been the end of October then.
The pillbox was just a shell: a circular concrete shelter half consumed by the long grass of the headland, with a window that looked out over the water. Its flat roof – slabs of moss-dotted concrete – sat unevenly on top, its walls yellowed by age, pockmarked and coarse. If I’d had any thoughts about it being part of Korin’s escape plan – or someone else’s escape plan for Korin – I soon let it go. Once, this had been the last line of defence between Hitler and the shores of Britain; now it was just a decaying ring of stone that kids used for hide-and-seek.
I continued my way along the path. The further I went, the harder it got to hear anything above the wind. The squawk of seagulls faded out, the soft wash of the sea too. Either side of me, the grass slanted away to the gravel and rocks that I’d seen on my approach, a grey stone beach that traced the circumference of the entire peninsula. Every time a gust jagged in, it almost knocked me off balance and I could feel the hardness of the ground beneath my feet. With the wind so brisk, with it still being so early, it was easy to forget that everywhere had been baked by the sun for months.
Within moments, the end of Stoke Point came into view, the tip of the headland marked by a signpost with writing on it. There was nothing else between me and it, just an ocean of undulating grass, jagged pockets of gorse, and knotted, ragged brambles. It was wild and bleak, but empty and featureless. There was no case-breaking piece of evidence on this finger of land. No smoking gun. The only thing this journey had reinforced was how untamed and isolated it all was out here; how, once you got on to the headland, the only way you got back off again was the way you’d come in. That made it the perfect place to disappear from if you were able to disguise your exit.
I headed back, windburn in my cheeks, sweat at the arc of my hairline, and climbed the steps up to the car park. Behind me, out in the Channel, the sun continued its ascent, changing the light on the peninsula again. There was an almost sepia quality to it, the headland bathed in its glow, the grass burnt orange like every blade had caught fire. In the car park, though – as I made my way back into the ring of trees – it was different. Shadows had formed and grown.
On the far side, the man who’d greeted me forty-five minutes ago was wearing a pair of gardening gloves and sweeping dead leaves into a pile next to the cabin. As he did, the wind picked up again, funnelling into the car park from the entrances at either end. Branches swayed around me. Foliage snapped. Shadows seemed to shift and twist as sunlight flickered through gaps in the canopy.
I got back to the car and grabbed some printouts I’d made of Lynda Korin’s file. I flicked through to the official police investigation, to descriptions of how her purse and mobile phone had been found in the glove compartment, and her keys in the scrub beyond the vehicle. Looking out again at the lonely spaces around me, I watched trees lurch and roll in the breeze, and the shadows adjust again.
Gradually, everything settled.
Refocusing my attention on the paperwork, I zeroed in on a photograph of Korin’s keys in situ, discarded in the grass. A computer illustration showed their exact position in relation to the car park.
It was off to my left, beyond a bank of long grass.
It was time to take a closer look.
9
With the file still in my hands, I passed through grass and into a tight nest of windswept alders, their branches crooked and gnarled. Sunlight dappled the dried mud at my feet, flickering into life and then
The pillbox was just a shell: a circular concrete shelter half consumed by the long grass of the headland, with a window that looked out over the water. Its flat roof – slabs of moss-dotted concrete – sat unevenly on top, its walls yellowed by age, pockmarked and coarse. If I’d had any thoughts about it being part of Korin’s escape plan – or someone else’s escape plan for Korin – I soon let it go. Once, this had been the last line of defence between Hitler and the shores of Britain; now it was just a decaying ring of stone that kids used for hide-and-seek.
I continued my way along the path. The further I went, the harder it got to hear anything above the wind. The squawk of seagulls faded out, the soft wash of the sea too. Either side of me, the grass slanted away to the gravel and rocks that I’d seen on my approach, a grey stone beach that traced the circumference of the entire peninsula. Every time a gust jagged in, it almost knocked me off balance and I could feel the hardness of the ground beneath my feet. With the wind so brisk, with it still being so early, it was easy to forget that everywhere had been baked by the sun for months.
Within moments, the end of Stoke Point came into view, the tip of the headland marked by a signpost with writing on it. There was nothing else between me and it, just an ocean of undulating grass, jagged pockets of gorse, and knotted, ragged brambles. It was wild and bleak, but empty and featureless. There was no case-breaking piece of evidence on this finger of land. No smoking gun. The only thing this journey had reinforced was how untamed and isolated it all was out here; how, once you got on to the headland, the only way you got back off again was the way you’d come in. That made it the perfect place to disappear from if you were able to disguise your exit.
I headed back, windburn in my cheeks, sweat at the arc of my hairline, and climbed the steps up to the car park. Behind me, out in the Channel, the sun continued its ascent, changing the light on the peninsula again. There was an almost sepia quality to it, the headland bathed in its glow, the grass burnt orange like every blade had caught fire. In the car park, though – as I made my way back into the ring of trees – it was different. Shadows had formed and grown.
On the far side, the man who’d greeted me forty-five minutes ago was wearing a pair of gardening gloves and sweeping dead leaves into a pile next to the cabin. As he did, the wind picked up again, funnelling into the car park from the entrances at either end. Branches swayed around me. Foliage snapped. Shadows seemed to shift and twist as sunlight flickered through gaps in the canopy.
I got back to the car and grabbed some printouts I’d made of Lynda Korin’s file. I flicked through to the official police investigation, to descriptions of how her purse and mobile phone had been found in the glove compartment, and her keys in the scrub beyond the vehicle. Looking out again at the lonely spaces around me, I watched trees lurch and roll in the breeze, and the shadows adjust again.
Gradually, everything settled.
Refocusing my attention on the paperwork, I zeroed in on a photograph of Korin’s keys in situ, discarded in the grass. A computer illustration showed their exact position in relation to the car park.
It was off to my left, beyond a bank of long grass.
It was time to take a closer look.
9
With the file still in my hands, I passed through grass and into a tight nest of windswept alders, their branches crooked and gnarled. Sunlight dappled the dried mud at my feet, flickering into life and then
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