There's been a murder

We had driven down to sleepy Cornwall, which had all but been tucked into bed for the winter. But within minutes of arriving we started hearing talk of the grisly murder most foul which had been committed a hundred yards from our hotel a couple of days earlier.

The first clue was a police notice planted on the pavement outside the murder house. It asked people if they had any information about "an incident" which had taken place. Honestly, "an incident". They were too coy in lovely St Ives to come out and call it a murder. Perhaps that would offend the very refined locals, or the few tourist stragglers still willing to venture down there at this time of year.

We walked into one of those bars where the locals stop in mid-drink, mid-conversation, and mid-munching of their Cornish pasties and just stare at the newcomers who dared to cross the threshold.

Once they realised we were not covered in blood and did not have "guilty" stamped across our foreheads, they resumed their chatter about the murder.

"Never been anything like it here in living memory," they said.

"Terrible, she was such a lovely little lady. Two daughters an' all. She was only a skinny little thing. There was no need to kill her."

It seems a cleaner had turned up for her duties at "the big house" while the mistress was away. She apparently disturbed burglars who - the story goes - then stabbed her to death to stop her talking.

"Hang 'em," suggested one local. "Castrate 'em," said another.

Police visited all the homes, pubs (including one appropriately called The Bucket Of Blood just up the road) and hotels in the vicinity, including ours.

All it lacked was Hercules Poirot in the lounge addressing the assembled suspects. Except he would have been a little out of place standing around the pool table in his dinner jacket among all the denims and T-shirts.

The morning after we arrived we were caught up in a police road block where we were pulled over and questioned.

In the queue, I had panicked. Are they checking cars for road tax? Are my tyres okay? Did I have too much to drink last night and will it still be in my system? Will they think my wife's my mistress? Have I changed my underwear? Did I leave the gas on?

"Good morning, sir," said the clipboard-clutching officer through my driver's window, as I slowly turned blue trying to hold my breath. "It's about the murder!" Notice he didn't say it was about "the incident".

"Where were you last Wednesday, sir?" Er, in Yorkshire officer. "Why was that, sir?" Well, er, we live there officer. "And what is the purpose of your visit - business or pleasure?"

By this time I was ready to confess to the murder, to concealing weapons of mass destruction in my shed, and stealing a pencil from my old junior school. And as he let us proceed on our way in a westerly direction, I couldn't help but think I'd got away with something. What if we'd been lying, I asked my wife. We could have been giving him a load of old codswallop. Would he check our alibi?

It was all a far cry from my usual holidays when I never fail to miss a major news event.

I was on a beach in Greece one Sunday morning when a melon seller ground to a halt beside me and said: "You English? Your queen, Diana, she dead." I was on a beach in Barbados getting married on the day of the Great Heck rail crash - only a few miles from where I live.

I was on a day off in Stockton-on-Tees in 1984 when York Minster almost burned to the ground. I only learned about it by spotting another newspaper's placards. And I was again in Greece when a crazed killer named Hobson committed four horrid murders in the York area. Now none of this is good for a newsman's reputation. So much so, my boss offered to put me on permanent leave because the biggest stories always happen when I'm away - until Cornwall.

So up yours, sir. I can still sniff out the news, even when I'm off duty.

Updated: 08:45 Tuesday, November 01, 2005