The Valley of the Shadow (13 page)

“You don’t have any employees?”

“Without, we manage. In middle of Achmed, Lily, I have boy, girl. For dinnertime, they help.
After
homework,” he added firmly. “In summertime holidays, wife’s nephew come from London to work here.”

“You have family in London? How about relatives abroad who’d like to come to work in Britain?”

“They not like to leave India. Achmed call them stay-in-the-mud.” He giggled, then looked dismayed. “Is not bad word?”

“
Stick
-in-the-mud. No, not at all. It must be difficult bringing up children in a strange language and culture.”

“Culture. Please?”

Megan did her best to explain the word. “You like living here in Cornwall better than London?” she asked. She had the information she’d come for: She was pretty sure he knew nothing of a family being smuggled in—if they existed. But two pieces of potato remained on her plate. By interspersing questions and sips of chai, she had managed to down the rest; she didn’t want to insult him by leaving the remainder.

“For us, Cornwall is best. My wife’s nephew said, here we are curiosity to wonder at. In London are many people from India, Pakistan. English people think we are too many.” He shrugged. “Not so good for business here, maybe. Better for children.”

“I expect you’re right.” She washed down the last of the potato with a final gulp of chai. She pushed back her chair. “Thank you for answering my questions, sir, and for the breakfast. Please give your wife my thanks.”

Standing, he bowed. “You are welcome. I hope I help you. Please to come again when not on police business.”

“I will,” Megan promised. It hadn’t been so bad, really. By the last mouthful she’d almost got used to the fiery spuds. All the same, next time she’d make sure to order medium.

She sat in her car and wrote up a report of the interview. She hadn’t wanted to alarm Khan by taking notes, but just about every word was still clear in her memory. Then she wondered what to do next.

She hadn’t known about the Indian restaurant in Bodmin. It must be in a backstreet. Scumble would certainly have sent her there as well, if he’d been aware of it.

Should she just go there, or ring to ask first? Scumble would probably still be at home and asleep, which would mean talking to the super. She didn’t want to do that; for one thing, she wasn’t sure how up-to-date he was on the case. However, Bodmin was HQ of its own district, and Scumble had had to take over a case from the incompetent local DI, Pearce, not so long ago. The respective superintendents had not been happy about it.

Best not to trespass on Superintendent Egerton’s turf without specific permission from Superintendent Bentinck, she decided.

The situation was too complicated to explain on the car radio, and she didn’t want to use all her change on a public phone. The simplest answer led to exactly what she wanted to do anyway: go and see Aunt Nell and make sure she was all right after the travails of the previous day. Her aunt wouldn’t mind her using her telephone.

She was already quite close to Port Mabyn. Starting the car, she turned down a side street and was soon winding her way along a narrow lane.

Fog! she remembered suddenly. Aunt Nell’s cottage might well be within its perimeter. The vicarage was more likely to be above it. Mrs. Stearns would probably let her ring from there. What was more, the fog gave Megan another excuse for going out of her way. She’d find out just how dense it was so she’d be able to tell the boss whether the infuriating delay was really justified by the conditions.

At the top of the hill, she stopped. From here, the fog looked almost solid enough to walk on.

Leaving the car in the car park, occupied only by a van, a middle-aged Vauxhall, and a newish Jaguar, Megan walked down into the village. She passed the local police station, a cottage where the constable lived—PC Bob Leacock, a friend of her aunt. He was married, she was pretty sure, so even if he was out patrolling, she ought to be able to ring Launceston from there. But first to check on Aunt Nell.

From the vicarage, she could see the lighted window of the LonStar shop, wreathed in curling mist. Today’s volunteers were doubtless doing something useful in the stockroom at the back, in the absence of customers.

The sight reminded her of the skirt that had mysteriously turned up at the hospital last night. She would have to ask Aunt Nell whether it came from the shop and ought to be returned. If so, she would have to get it dry-cleaned, she supposed, another bill to pay. She had to replace the clothes lost in her lifesaving stunt—she hadn’t been on duty so she couldn’t put them on expenses. And somehow she had to return Julia’s polo-neck and pullover.

Apart from the moaning roar of the foghorn from the lighthouse, the single street was eerily quiet. On the other side, a man in a nautical jacket and yachting cap came out of the newsagent’s carrying half a dozen newspapers, and farther down, opposite LonStar, a dowdy woman with a string bag went into the bakery. The people living on the far side of the harbour, unless they were willing to feel their way over the narrow stone bridge, would have to put off their shopping until the fog lifted. In fact, three shops displayed
CLOSED
signs, the shopkeepers no doubt stuck over there, unable to open their premises.

Megan crossed the street. She tried the handle of the side door beside the LonStar shop and wasn’t at all surprised when it opened. She would have been more surprised if Aunt Nell had remembered to lock it.

A murmur of voices came from the stockroom at the far end of the passage. Megan went up the stairs and knocked on the door at the top.

No response. She frowned. Even if Aunt Nell was up on the second floor, in the bedroom or bathroom, Teazle should have heard, come running, and barked her head off at the door.

Of course, they might have just popped out to do some shopping. But what if Aunt Nell had been hurt worse yesterday than she thought? Suppose she had managed to get home and now was stuck in bed with a wrenched back, a slipped disc or something of the sort, unable to get downstairs to the telephone to ring for help?

Megan tried the door handle. Amazingly, it was locked. She knocked again, then dug in her shoulder bag for the key Aunt Nell had given her and went in.

The flat had an unoccupied feel, but she called up the stairs. That should have brought at least a yip from Teazle. Megan went to the kitchen window and looked out into the street. A few more people had appeared, but her aunt was not among them.

Aunt Nell must be all right, mustn’t she? since she had gone out.

Megan reminded herself that she was on duty. If she rang from here instead of PC Leacock’s, perhaps Aunt Nell and Teazle would return before she had to leave.

She dialled the operator and asked for a reverse-charge person-to-person call to Superintendent Bentinck. The duty sergeant said the super was on another line, adding gratuitously that Mr. Bentinck was speaking to the chief constable. That was a conversation not to be interrupted. Before the operator cut them off, Megan managed to squeak in that she’d try again in a few minutes.

If Mrs. Stearns was in charge of the shop today, she would probably know where Aunt Nell had gone. Megan went downstairs and round to the front of the shop. The bell above the door jangled as she entered. A woman she didn’t recognise darted through the open door at the back, from the stockroom.

“Can I help you?” she asked. She wore a drab shirtwaister and a cardigan, rather old-fashioned, though she didn’t look much older than Megan.

“Is Mrs. Stearns here?”

“No,” the woman said sharply, obviously offended. “It’s
my
day today.”

She must be Mrs. Davies, the Methodist minister’s wife, who alternated with Jocelyn Stearns, though Mrs. Stearns was overall manager. Aunt Nell, the most charitable of people, had been known to mutter uncharitable things about Mrs. Davies’s propensity for inserting her religion into her work for the strictly secular LonStar. Aunt Nell certainly wouldn’t have told her where she was going.

“Sorry to disturb you.”

Nick Gresham was a more likely source of information. Megan went next door.

Those few steps down the hill brought her into a heavy mist, and she could barely see the building beyond the gallery. No wonder the Lifeboat people hadn’t been able to start a search of the cliffs and coves.

No one was in the gallery itself. Megan would have liked to browse among the pictures, enjoying the local scenes and trying to understand the abstracts without interruption, but she couldn’t spare the time. She knocked on the door to the studio behind the shop.

“Just a minute!”

“It’s me, Megan. Don’t stop whatever you’re doing.”

“Oh, all right, you’d better come in.” Paintbrush in hand, he was scowling ferociously—at the canvas on the easel between them, not at her.

“Wow!” The windowed wall behind him showed impenetrable fog. It filled the room with a pale, diffused light, its eeriness enhanced by the orchestral music coming from Nick’s record player.

It came to an end. Nick said, “Would you mind putting it on again at the beginning?” He remained intent on his painting.

Megan went over to the stereo, lifted the arm, and set it gently back at the beginning. Even to her uneducated ear, the music evoked the sea, the smooth swell and ebb of endlessly rolling waves. Though she loved the sea, it was definitely spooky. It sent shivers down her spine. Though that could have been because the room was decidedly chilly.

Turning away, she caught a glimpse of his picture in progress, which was equally eerie. “What is it?”

“
The Isle of the Dead
. Rachmaninoff.”

“Oh yes, I remember you talking about it.”

“I’ve got to catch this light. The fog’s suddenly crept up and it may go away any minute. Don’t distract me. I hope you haven’t come to bug me with official questions?”

“No, to thank you for pulling me out yesterday. And wondering if you know where Aunt Nell is.”

“She said something about going to Boscastle to ask fishermen about caves.”

“What? Why didn’t you stop her?”

“She’s an adult, Megan. I couldn’t stop her if I wanted to.”

“She’s a little old lady! And she could be running into danger!”

“I doubt it, but why don’t you go after her, if you’re worried. Boscastle’s not very big, and everyone in the village probably knows her. Someone will tell you which house she’s visiting.”

“When did she leave?”

He shrugged. “I’ve no idea. Half an hour? An hour? Hour and a half maybe.”

“You’re hopeless! You could at least have gone with her.”

“I’ve got work to do.” Nick turned back to his canvas.

“Bloody irresponsible!” Megan stormed out.

FOURTEEN

What Eleanor hadn’t reckoned on was that news of the rescue of a drowning man had spread. She should have expected it. Mr. Wharton, the manager of the Wellington Hotel, and the housekeeper, Mrs. Jellicoe, had no reason not to talk about the unusual events of the previous day. Eleanor’s dramatic entrance into the foyer, her still more dramatic call to emergency services, and the patching up of her minor injuries were inevitable fodder for gossip.

In cottage after cottage, she was invited into the kitchen for a cup of tea, with a bowl of water provided for Teazle. As she’d hoped, the husbands and sons who were fishermen were home, unable to go to sea, hanging about waiting for opening time. If the vicar’s wife had been with her, the visitors would have been ushered into the rarely used front parlour and the men would have made themselves scarce.

Polite queries as to Eleanor’s general health and well-being led to hopes that she had recovered from yesterday’s shock and thence to wondering about what exactly had happened.

After the second house, she declined the tea, but she repeated such details as she was able. Her listeners were disappointed that she couldn’t give an eyewitness account of her niece’s dramatic plunge into the billowing wave, not having been present. She had a feeling they would have liked her to make it up.

No one was aware that the man Megan had rescued was an Indian. Scumble had apparently succeeded in suppressing the fact. Eleanor didn’t know why he wanted it kept quiet, but it suited her. When she was asked about his identity, she just said he had been unconscious and unable to talk.

“Must ’a’ bin a furriner,” was the unanimous opinion, but by “foreigner” they meant not a Cornishman.

Only foreigners went sea bathing for pleasure and none but a great “gaupus” would choose Rocky Valley for a swim. Not that any of them had ever been there—hardworking people did not walk for pleasure, either, and taking a fishing boat into so narrow an inlet would be begging for trouble.

“It’s dangerous all along the cliffs round Bossiney Cove, isn’t it?” Eleanor asked ingenuously.

Sage heads nodded, but not until she reached the Hawkers’ house did her hint lead any further.

“Them cliffs, thet wurr where the Old Squire did his bit o’ wrecking,” quavered an ancient mariner seated in a rocking chair in the corner. His eyes were filmy with age, his hands knobbed with rheumatics.

“Now, Father,” said the lady of the house, a foreigner herself to judge from her speech, “the Old Squire died afore you was born.”

“Yas.” The wobbly head nodded. “An’ didn’t me granfer work for un? The stories un told we! It warn’t just the wrecking. Seems like there warn’t a business he didn’t own. Mining, quarrying, shipbuilding, buying and selling—farm stuff and ship stuff, and stuff that hadn’t paid no duty. An’ the women! Never married but that fond o’ women un were.”

“Father! That’s enough. Your granfer hadn’t ought to’ve talked like that to children.”

Assuming she was objecting to the women rather than the avoidance of duty, Eleanor pressed on with the subject that interested her. “He was in league with the smugglers, was he?” she asked. “The squire, I mean.”

The old man cackled. “Waren’t nothing going on hereabouts wi’out his say-so.”

“The caves must have been useful for hiding contraband till it was safe to bring it ashore. From the cliff walks, you can see quite a few caves.”