Caught Out in Cornwall by Janie Bolitho

back as soon as a flight was available.’
    ‘Look, Rose, if there is something strange about Carol, you definitely ought to keep out of it. You know you’ll end up in trouble. Get Jack to take you out, he’ll soon put you right.’ Fat chance of that, Laura thought, but he might be able to warn her off.
     
    It was quiet without the children. Tamsin and Lucy were staying with John’s parents in Penzance. They had been more than willing to have them for a night or two, not only because it was fun and they loved them, they also made them feel young. They could not have guessed what would happen to Beth but it now gave their daughter-in-law a chance to be with her sister who would need her more than ever.
    That, at least, was what Carol had told them. She stood in the recess of the lounge window and watched as the increasing darkness altered the shape of the landscape. Fields and hedges merged into one and the bare branches of the trees, to which a few leaves still clung, were silhouetted against the skyline. It was not Beth of whom she was thinking, nor was it John. She did not knowhow she felt about him. It was Marcus, the man with whom she was having an affair, who held her attention.
    She turned and walked across the room, flicking on the light switch as she passed it. Twice she entered all the rooms of the ranch style bungalow and checked the surfaces for dust even though she cleaned the place thoroughly every morning. It was a home in which no one was allowed to wear the same clothes for more than a day. John’s working clothes went through two cycles in the washing machine, the sheets were changed twice a week, yet, to Carol, nothing ever seemed really clean.
    In the kitchen she noticed a small splash of something on the tiles between the worktop and the overhead cupboards. She wetted a cloth with disinfectant and wiped it away. The cloth was rinsed thoroughly before being folded and placed over the rim of the washing up bowl beneath the sink.
    She would be seeing Marcus tonight, but only briefly. It seemed a waste when John was away, but it had to be that way. However, Carol knew the affair was about to end. It could not continue any longer. What she would do afterwards she had yet to decide.
    Her eye caught the kitchen telephone extension.She must ring Sally. She didn’t really want to but knew that she had to. How callous it would seem not to make the call. It was her mother who answered.
    With a tearful voice she said, ‘Oh, Carol, I feel so helpless. Sally’s almost out of her mind. I called the doctor but she refuses to take the tablets he’s given her. I just wish they would find her. Who could possibly do such a thing to an innocent child?’
    ‘Don’t take on, Mum, it won’t help. Does Sally want me to come over?’ There was time for a quick visit.
    There was a mumbled conversation. ‘No, love, leave it until tomorrow. She’s had enough for one day.’
    ‘Well, ring me if you need me.’
    ‘We will.’
    Carol paced the bungalow once more. She had some decisions to make and she had to make them quickly.
    Outside, somewhere beneath the moon which was just beginning to wane, an owl hooted. Moonlight and owls went together. That night they seemed more eerie than romantic. They echoed her melancholy mood.
     
    Jack and his team had no idea where to turn next. The searches were still continuing and requests had gone out via the media asking people, especially farmers, to search their sheds and outhouses. On the afternoon of Beth’s disappearance roadblocks had been set up at the Tamar Bridge and the only alternative route out of the county, the small bridge at Gunnislake. The mainline station in Penzance had been alerted; the staff asked to watch out for a man with a child of Beth’s description. Her abductor would not have had time to make it as far as the roadblocks even though over an hour had elapsed by the time the police had responded to the call and questioned the people on the beach. Time