By Matt Bromley.
“The village of Seacove clings to the Yorkshire coast like a limpet to rock and much like a limpet its grip is tested by both time and tide. From the clifftops, it seems impossible that such a place exists. It looks like rocks that have slipped down the hill and in storms continue to slide towards the sea. The streets – narrow, twisting alleys where two people can’t pass without brushing shoulders – are like tendrils, the thread-like twines of an insidious weed, or the unruly ringlets of a siren’s hair flowing underwater. Small sandstone cottages lean close as if conspiring, their walls thick, their red pan-tile roofs layered like the scales of a fish. Nothing is straight, nothing is simple; and nothing is as it seems.”
Thus begins my new novel, The Cove – Haunted by Murder.
Here’s the story: Podcaster Sam Spectre agrees to stay the night at The Seacove Inn to investigate claims it’s the most haunted pub in England. But what starts as a ghost-hunt soon becomes a murder mystery when someone’s found dead in the cellar. With the inn sandbagged and cut off by a storm, no one can get in or out… which means the murderer is still there. Two hundred years earlier, newly orphaned Beth Brodie arrives at the Inn to stay with her Uncle Bert, a shadowy figure who controls the local smuggling trade. Corrupted by contraband, he’ll stop at nothing to protect himself.
With chapters alternating between 1825 and 2025, the events of the past send ripples across time, forming a tidal wave, as we pivot from an MR James ghost story to an Agatha Christie locked-room mystery.
Readers familiar with the Yorkshire coast may recognise towns like Robin’s Hood Bay and Staithes in my description because, like Seacove, they are as complex below ground as they are above: cellars are dug into the bedrock and connecting tunnels link land to sea. Seacove is not built on the land but rather carved into it; it’s a place where geography dictates architecture, and where struggle, secrecy, and – above all – the sea, have shaped every wall and walkway, much as they’ve shaped the lives – and deaths – of its inhabitants.
When I was growing up, my family holidays were spent in a touring caravan in Bridlington. Though, at the time, I’d have gladly swapped the chemical toilet and chill tide for an all-inclusive on the Costa Brava, in adulthood I’ve come to look back fondly on these annual adventures. So much so that my wife and I are now frequent visitors to the Yorkshire coast. We love the sense of history there, as if every stone and timber could tell a story. We also love a traditional pub – you know the sort: horse brasses on the walls, exposed beams on the ceiling, a roaring fire in the grate – of which there are many in this part of God’s Own Country.
We were in one such pub in Beverley last week – Nellie’s, to be precise – sat by the fire, pints in hand, when a man opposite got talking. What started as an anecdote about the fireplace soon became an academic lecture about the Anglo-American physicist Benjamin Thompson who served as a British spy (he later designed the Rumford fireplace, hence the segue). I suspect this man, whose wife said she was grateful we’d given her respite, travels the country to sit by fireplaces and await a willing audience. Not that I minded; I found his story fascinating. It’s one of the things I love about Yorkshire pubs. You get to meet lots of interesting people with tales to tell.
About two years ago, in another Beverley pub, (yes, I spend a lot of time in pubs) I saw an old man sitting alone, his chest strung with medals. The table was reserved for ‘George and Mabel’ but the only company the man kept was a photo on the tabletop in front of him. On occasion, he spoke to the snap, a hand placed reverently on it. It broke my heart. But, as a writer, it also ignited a spark.
“Perhaps there’s something about living in Yorkshire that inspires this dark exploration of the psyche. The Brontes did it, too”.
Matt Bromley
It’s a curse, being a writer. You can’t switch off. Everything is material. That man and his photo make it into The Cove. And so do the tales I’ve heard tell across Yorkshire, not least stories of smuggling.
Whenever I pop into another Beverley pub, the Monk’s Walk, I doff my cap at the house opposite, the provenance of which is marked by a plaque beside the front door: Mary Wollstonecraft, the feminist philosopher and author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, once lived there.
Whilst in Beverley, denied the more rigorous schooling afforded to boys, Wollstonecraft fashioned her own curriculum from conversation, observation, and a fierce autodidactic appetite. The experience did not embitter her; it emboldened her. And Wollstonecraft’s legacy is not confined to her polemic. In giving birth to Mary Shelley, she bequeathed to literature another formidable female intellect — one who would bring the politics of power to life in Frankenstein.
The Cove – Haunted by Murder follows in this gothic tradition. Perhaps there’s something about living in Yorkshire that inspires this dark exploration of the psyche. The Brontes did it, too.
So now, dear reader, I urge you to enter The Seacove Inn, a pub with a troubled past, its eastern façade built into the seawall, it appears to reach out of the sea, a hand searching for land, a sailor hoping for rescue. The waves lash at it — angry, rising, half-mad — as though trying to reclaim what had once belonged to them. Find a quiet corner by the fire. Because a storm is coming.
The Cove – Haunted by Murder by Matt Bromley is available now in paperback and ebook.
Find out more and read a free sample at https://bee-online.uk/the-cove/
It is available from bookshops and Amazon in paperback https://amzn.to/4liMZzG and Kindle https://amzn.to/4dcG7St and from Apple Books https://books.apple.com/gb/book/the-cove-haunted-by-murder/id6759401539
About Matt Bromley
Matt Bromley is a newspaper columnist, education journalist, and author of numerous bestselling books on education, as well as two novels. He writes a monthly op-ed column for The Yorkshire Post newspaper, is SecEd Magazine’s most prolific and popular writer, and has written more than fifteen books on teaching and educational leadership. He co-hosts an award-winning podcast.
He is CEO of bee and Chair of the Building Equity in Education Campaign. He has over twenty-five years’ experience in teaching and leadership including as a secondary school headteacher and academy principal, further education college vice principal, and multi-academy trust director.
Having started as a local newspaper journalist then worked at senior levels in the telecoms industry, he has spent most of his career in education as an English teacher and school leader, and is now a public speaker, teacher trainer, and school improvement advisor.