That night, Joan said she had some accounting to do, so sent Grace home, an unsold pasty wrapped and under her arm for tea. Rather than go back to the chalet, though, Grace decided to walk up the southern cliff path, out towards Sharker’s Rock. With the sun low in the sky, the breeze had got up, so she wrapped a light wind cheater around her shoulders and tucked the pasty inside. The path was a gentle undulation through mounds of couch grass and past blankets of impenetrable gorse and heather. The view of Blue Sands Cove opened out below her as she climbed, the path extending for a mile or so along rolling cliffs until you reached a final inaccessible lump, below which was the remote headland of Sharker’s Rock.
At the best viewing spot of the bay to the north, the council had erected a be
