The Valley of the Shadow (19 page)

“Exactly. We’ve been sitting here since, waiting, so you see why I’m not happy about the unreliability of your information. Not just these mysterious caves; I understand the alarm came from the chap you rescued, who’s suffering from concussion.”

“Sir, I’m convinced that when he told me he was lucid. What he didn’t say was whereabouts on the coast his family is. It’s the Coast Guard and your people who pinned it down to Bossiney Cove.”

The coxswain sighed. “Well, we’re here and we’re searching. I just—”

“Skipper,” came a shout from the deck, “the
Lucy
’s in sight.”

“The Bude boat.” The skipper acknowledged the sighting and logged it. A moment later, the
Lucy
was on the radio.

Megan gathered she was going to have to explain everything to yet another sceptical skipper. She needed a break first. “I’m just going to step out and see if I can see what the
Belinda
’s doing.”

Kulick nodded consent.

“Here.” The helmsman handed her binoculars.

“Thanks!” She went out on deck. Behind her, she heard Kulick reporting by radio to the Falmouth Coast Guard.

It took her a minute to focus the powerful glasses. Then the cliffs sprang to life. At the top, rough turf, gorse, and bracken sloped down steeply to end in a sudden vertical plunge. She saw in minute detail every crack, every seam, every crease and hollow in the rock face. She could almost count the blades of grass where thin soil, no doubt bountifully fertilised by seabirds, had collected on shelves and protuberances. A herring gull perched on one such knob seemed to stare her in the eye.

Sweeping the scene, Megan saw the beach at Bossiney Haven, difficult to get to and exposed only at low tide. All the same, anyone stranded in its well-known, thoroughly explored cave would be able to walk out next time the tide ebbed. Today the fog would have kept away beachgoers.

As she scanned along the ragged white line where sea met land, every indentation in the shoreline seemed to have a black hole at its heart, revealing a cave wherever softer rock had been worn away by pounding waves. Searching all of them would take forever. Now she realised fully the importance of Aunt Nell’s discoveries.

Larkin had spoken of trying the Lye Rock gut cave first. She turned the glasses to the southeast end of the cove, and at once the brilliant orange inflatable sprang into view.

It was hard to judge from a distance, but the
Belinda
seemed to be moving slowly, cautiously. Two of the crew—Maggie and Walter, she thought—were in the bow, leaning over to peer into the water. The skipper, at the helm, made constant small course adjustments. Dodging rocks. Here and there, whitecaps marked the presence of obstacles just beneath the surface. At least it was a bright day. With the sun’s rays penetrating the water, they should be able to see to quite a depth.

From Megan’s position, the gut itself wasn’t visible. She wondered how soon the tide would fill it with water.

A buzzing in the background turned into a roar as the Bude lifeboat approached, then dropped to a hum as she drew alongside. Megan lowered the glasses and stood back to let Coxswain Jackson board.

He swung up, nodded to Megan, and went into the wheelhouse. He was all business. Standing in the doorway, she watched and listened as Kulick showed him the map and chart and described the hidden caves. He didn’t ask for explanations, just said, “Pete Larkin is over to Lye Rock?
Lucy
’d better tackle the northernmost first, right?”

“Right. Watch out for lobster pots.”

Jackson swung back into his inflatable and it buzzed off towards the upper end of the cove.

The radio woke again. After the ritual exchange of boat numbers, Larkin’s distorted voice announced, “They’ve found the cave. No response to shouts. The mouth is dry, but Walter’s belaying Maggie’s line while she goes in. Hold on…” A moment’s pause, then, “Bingo! Tom, they hear someone in there all right. Over.”

“I’m redirecting
Lucy,
Pete. She’ll join you in five minutes or so. Over and out.” Kulick spoke to Jackson. Megan saw the Bude inflatable turn, her wake inscribing an arc behind her.

Larkin was back. “Sorry, false alarm. Just an echo. No one there. We’ll move on to the middle cave as soon as Walter and Maggie get back aboard.”

“Right. Jackson, you hear that?”

“I heard. We’re turning north again.”

Megan watched
Lucy
’s wake complete the arc. “I should have guessed it wouldn’t be the Lye Rock cave,” she said to Kulick.

“Why? How could you?”

“It’s perfect for smugglers, who can—could—choose when to go there. Access from both the open sea and the cove, isn’t there? But the cove end of the gut is dry at low tide, I gather. The refugees, once they realised no one was coming for them, could have walked out to the end and conceivably attracted attention. A lobster fisherman, or someone on the cliffs with binoculars.”

“A pretty slim chance, with just a couple of hours once a day.”

“But a chance the bastards who marooned them couldn’t take.”

“You really believe that’s what happened?”

“It’s the simplest explanation, sir. And we haven’t found any other that fits what little we know.”

“I was a refugee myself.” Kulick was silent for a moment. “I, for one, will keep searching till there’s nowhere left to look.”

“Believe me, my boss is not going to give up on catching those responsible!”

Stepping outside, Megan focussed the glasses on the
Lucy.
She was approaching with caution an area of ruffled water between the cliff and the offshore Saddle Rocks. There, even at slack tide, the ever-restless sea swirled and broke in white spray.

Presumably Jackson knew what he was doing. She watched apprehensively for a few minutes. The
Lucy
slowed to a crawl and her course zigzagged wildly.

Megan couldn’t bear to watch. If they came to grief, she could do nothing to help. She looked for the
Belinda.

Pete Larkin’s boat was also moving slowly, approaching a small cove notched in the cliffs, between two sloping headlands. Though the cove was shadowed, Megan made out within these sheltering arms one of the black holes she had noticed earlier. Not so sheltering arms, she thought. They hadn’t stopped the sea battering the less resistant rock in the middle, digging it out, undermining it.

Undermining—was that the explanation of the northern cave, the one concealed behind a barricade of solid stone? Perhaps, long ago, a slab of rock deprived of support had slid down the face of the cliff, leaving a space between but effectively hiding the entrance to the cave. Other boulders might have fallen at the same time, creating the turbulent area that further blocked access.

Megan swung the glasses back to
Lucy.
She seemed to have stopped moving forward, but it was hard to tell. Amid the white foam, a wake was impossible to detect.

Belinda
also was surrounded by whitecaps now. So, come to that, was the
Daisy D.
The tentative breeze that had cleared the fog was blowing in earnest, though still no more than a stiff breeze. The sea was choppy. The motion of the all-weather boat became irregular enough to disturb Megan’s insides.

Damn it all, she was not going to give way to seasickness just when she’d attained her sea legs. Mind over matter, she told herself sternly. She concentrated on the now difficult task of finding
Belinda
again through the jerking binoculars.

There she was, framed by the black mouth of the cave.

The radio squawked. “Tom, underwater to the back, as far as we can see. Hope the sergeant’s right. We’re going in. May lose reception.”

“Get it done before the big rollers start coming in.”

“We’ll try.”

As Megan watched, the cave swallowed the inflatable.

“Jackson?”

“Not smooth sailing here, old man. We’re considering our options.”

“Your decision. Pete?”

Larkin’s voice was more distorted than ever, and fainter. “Can just hear you. Nearly … By Jerry, it looks … sergeant … right … sort of buttress…” He faded out.

“Pete, come in. Pete, can you hear me?” They listened to the hiss of the static. “Lost him. Well, Sergeant, it sounds as if your aunt got a straight story from her smuggler.”

“Two out of three.”

“So far. But whether—”

“Tom!” Very faintly, then stronger: “Tom, are you there?”

“Here. What’s up?”

“… ten or more, Maggie says. My God! Hold on half a mo … One dead, one too ill to walk. Oh, dear God! We need a chopper.”

“Understood. I’ll tell Falmouth, Pete, and send the
Lucy.
”

Ten. Mother, father, uncles, aunts, and cousins, children … Megan hadn’t really believed it. In spite of her insistence on Kalith Chudasama’s lucidity, in spite of her trust in Aunt Nell, the whole thing had seemed too far-fetched for credibility. How she had persuaded her boss and how he had persuaded the Coast Guard and the RNLI, she couldn’t imagine.

But apparently it was true. And now she had to put her money where her mouth was. To collect evidence for what might end up as a murder trial, she was going to have to venture into that cave.

NINETEEN

The news that his long vigil had not been for nothing erased the lines of tiredness from Kulick’s face and straightened his back. He talked via radio to the Coast Guard and the
Lucy,
then turned to Megan. “So you’ll be wanting to look round the scene of the crime, Sergeant?”

“Yes, sir. Though ‘wanting’ isn’t the word I’d choose. I ought to ask a few questions first, though, when they bring them out. Assuming they speak English.”

The
Daisy D.
’s skipper shook his head. “That’ll have to wait till after. The sooner we get you in and out, the safer.”

“Because of the tide?”

“It’s turned. And the wind’s rising. Once the swells start rolling into the cave, it’ll be too dangerous. It’s bad enough already for trained personnel. If it wasn’t a matter of life and death … We’re too late for one of the poor devils. You heard?”

“Yes. That’s why it’s urgent that I see the place. The sooner we get to work, the better chance we’ll have of collecting evidence. As far as we’re concerned, finding the people is only the first step. Hell, I haven’t got a camera, let alone a fingerprint kit!”

“Can’t manage the kit, but a camera we can do. Go down and ask one of the chaps in the cabin.” He waved to a narrow staircase—companionway—in one corner of the wheelhouse.

“Thanks.” Megan had seen two or three crewmen pop up out of nowhere and as many disappear downward but she hadn’t paid much attention.

“Gavin, it’s time you were spelled. Take the sergeant down, would you? And find the camera for her. You can send Charlie up to take the wheel.” Kulick took it over himself in the interim.

“Okay, Skipper.” Gavin was a rather weedy young man, with pimples and limp, longish hair, but he couldn’t be all bad if he volunteered with the RNLI, and he’d lent her his binoculars, too. “Watch your feet, Sergeant. The steps shouldn’t be wet and slippery in these seas, but you never can tell.”

The calm sea was definitely becoming agitated. The
Daisy D.
now moved in unpredictable twitches. Megan took an uncertain step towards the companionway.

“Maybe I’d better go first,” Gavin said hurriedly, tactful enough not to add that he’d be able to catch her if she fell.

Megan slid her hand along the metal stair rail as she descended, and clung to it for a moment when she reached the bottom, steadying herself. Gavin hadn’t touched it on his way down.

The cabin was surprisingly spacious, though gloomy. It even had a tiny galley. A kettle steamed on the gimballed Calor gas stove. A bald, burly man, made burlier by his life jacket, was unwrapping Oxo and chicken soup cubes, popping them into a varying array of mugs. He looked round as Gavin, followed by Megan, arrived below.

“How many are we expecting?”

“Better be ready for a dozen or so. Right, Sergeant?”

“That’s what it sounds like. DS Pencarrow,” she introduced herself. “Megan.”

“I’m Charlie, and that’s Charles.” He waved at another crewman, who gave a silent nod and went on taking multicoloured blankets out of a locker, piling them on the waterproof-cushioned bench. “Better take a seat, Megan, while you can. Coffee?”

“I’d love some, thanks.”

“Charlie, the skipper wants you at the wheel.”

“I’ll take him up a coffee. Gavin, you take charge here. Rout out a few more mugs. Better not pour till they start coming aboard, though.”

Megan warmed her hands on her mug of coffee. She hadn’t realised how chilled they were. Charles had closed the locker and replaced its cushion. On top he put the cushion from the next section of bench/locker, which he opened to retrieve more blankets. Megan saw that each cushion had straps on the bottom, so that they could be used as floats in an emergency, if there weren’t enough life jackets to go round.

“Okay if I sit here?” she asked him, indicating the lockers on the opposite side of the cabin.

“Be my guest.”

She sat down, only to have to move a few minutes later when one of the men whom she’d noticed earlier on deck came down.

“Sorry,” he said, opening her seat. “Skipper says they may not be capable of climbing the scramble net and we’ll likely need the sling to help ’em up from the inshore.”

“Have you got two? The Bude boat…”

“Good point.
Lucy
may arrive before we’ve emptied the
Belinda.
” He went off loaded with tackle, balancing easily as he crossed the tilting floor.

Megan quickly finished her coffee. The smell of Oxo in the enclosed space wasn’t helping her nausea. With care, she negotiated the way to the stairs, handing her mug to Gavin as she passed.

He grinned. “You’re looking a bit green about the gills. You’ll be better in the fresh air.”

“I hope so.”

“Oops, forgot the camera. There’s one in here somewhere. Here you go, and an extra roll of film.”

“Terrific, thanks.” It was in a waterproof case with a long strap. She looped it over her head and put her arm through, so that it was safe against her side.