Detective Inspector Holmes; recently returned from a suspension, is called in to investigate when a woman falls to her death. The prime suspect in the case is her boyfriend, but when he is later found shot dead, the tranquil village where the shooting occured, is drawn into the murderous web.
There is another killing a couple of days later. Could there be a serial-killer on the loose or is the village home to three separate killers?
Excerpt:
'Extract from Nathan Brooke's diary- Saturday 28th June 2003'
She ran. She ran across the towering cliff top, framed against the sparkling azure sky in all her beauty. The sea, far below, gently lapped against the pallid rocks as if to stop and admire my Eloise, with her flowing jet black hair which reflected the early morning sun, her loose pale blue blouse that complimented her suntanned russet complexion and her short tweed mini skirt that showed off her sturdy legs with their receding tan. She was the personification of beauty.
I followed in awe, my feet bouncing off the dry stony turf that was in need of the damp streaming rain that the East coast of England had recently been deprived of. Eloise sprung majestically ahead occasionally with a glance to her Romeo, a flash of the brilliant white teeth that lit up the cliff top already awash with the subdued radiance of the early morning sun.
This thought hit me like a brick wall. How like Romeo and Juliet we were. Two young lovers disapproved of by their families. Maybe I'm exaggerating. My wonderful mother, who I can hear at this very minute clattering away in the kitchen in our out dated wooden farmhouse, isn't bothered who I date and what shenanigans I get up to with them. She is preoccupied with trying to make the vast acres of farmland surrounding us yield the sort of wealth needed to feed and clothe us. Mum is also locked in a feud with Ted Barrow over a bare, barren piece of land on the delicate border between our land and the Barrow's.
Basically, far too busy to worry about where and with whom I spend my Saturday mornings. However Eloise's family are another matter. High up on their pedestal on the winding county road that views the picturesque, traditional, postcard village of Wellston-on-Sea. They are very strongly
against the idea of their innocent Eloise being indoctrinated by my sort of hard working people. Where they can lounge about their heated swimming pool all day long without a care in the world, my mother and I are grafting ourselves to the bone trying to resurrect the dying farm. That is when I'm not running along winding, rocky cliff paths with their daughter. There'd be hell to pay if they ever found out that Eloise wasn't really helping the vicar with his flower arranging in the quaint church of Wellston-on-Sea; built 1798.
'Extract from Nathan Brooke's diary- Friday 5th September 2003'
The sun had gone in. Metaphorically as well as literally. Eloise bounced along the cliff path. I tried to keep up but I was tired. Tired of it all. Eloise was no longer the sweet girl I had started to love. She was now an obsessive mad creature, no longer desired. The solitary problem was I could never tell her. I couldn't devastate that once lovely and innocent girl.
Even then, however, there was the niggling feeling that, that wasn't the single problem. I remembered all the emotions I had felt about Eloise just over a month ago.
Now though they had transferred themselves as if by some mystic force of love to this other woman.
She was everything that Eloise had been and more. I entered a daze every time I saw her, every time she flashed her cheeky, encouraging smile. I wanted to be with her. I wanted to be in the close, sticky contact that we had only been in once. There was something about the way she spoke. Something about every little intricate thing she did.
Still Eloise bounced ahead. Now she was framed against the amethyst coloured clouds which held the threat to a long awaited thunder storm. She was oblivious to all my inner feelings. Suddenly she spun around with brisk athleticism. This no longer gave me a buzz but it was in that deadly moment that I saw my chance of freedom.
Eloise, maybe by fate, had come to a stop by part of the cliff that had slipped away in an adrenalin pumping moment some six weeks ago, smashing into the sacred, unbreakable rocks far below. Where she now stood was a dangerous place to be. The path she had come to rest on could subside whenever it felt like making that flight into the dreary, sea green rock pools surrounded by pointing rocks, as if there to protect the shallow pools some immense distance below. Maybe if I was to give her that little nudge needed to send her plummeting down the drop of flat faced shiny rock.
My thoughts were broken into by the shape of a figure coming towards us. I revolved round to see the full beauty of my other woman gently gliding towards us...
