The Valley of the Shadow (26 page)

“No. He spoke clearly, not like the boatman. I couldn’t understand what the boatman said, except ‘cap’n.’ And the way he said it: ‘Lenny, you’ve got matches for the lamp?’ It must be his name.”

“Why do you think no one else heard?”

“He spoke quietly, and no one else was near them. My father was on the deck, but he was talking to my uncle and my grandfather. Everyone else was still in the cabin, packing the suitcases. That is when I saw the captain’s eyes, when the light of Lenny’s torch crossed his face. And I saw something else, too,” he added.

“The name of the yacht? Or the ship? Did you see either?”

Gopal shook his head sadly. “No. It was always night when I went out. But there was a light … I heard Uncle Jay— He is not really my uncle but I have to call him uncle because he’s old—” His mother caught Eleanor’s eye. Half smiling, she was obviously thinking the same thing: Jay would not appreciate that aside. The boy went on, “I heard him tell you there was no light in the sky when we got off the big ship onto the yacht. But I went round the other side of the ship, and I saw a flashing light, a long, long way away.”

“A lighthouse!” Megan’s back straightened. “Can you describe it? I mean, how often it flashed?”

“I have no watch.” He cast an accusing glance back at his parents. “I counted a minute, but my teacher said counting is not accurate.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“It flashed four times.”

“We’ll have to find out what lighthouse has that pattern. I bet it’s St. Anthony’s. That may be very helpful, Pal.”

He beamed, bright as a lighthouse. “I, too, am going to be a policeman when I grow up,” he announced. “A detective.”

“Good for you. Have you anything else to report?”

“I cannot think of anything,” he said regretfully.

“Well, keep thinking. Thank you for your assistance.”

“Please, Sergeant…”

“Yes?”

“I saw a dog in the police car. Is it a police dog?”

“No. She’s just a little dog. She belongs to Mrs. Trewynn, and her name is Teazle.”

“Can I … Please, may I talk to it?” He turned to Eleanor. “Please, madam?”

“Yes, of course.”

Eleanor smiled at him, then caught sight of his mother’s dismayed face. She understood English quite well though she spoke only a few words. She said something in Gujarati of which Eleanor understood only “wet.” Though the hanging sheet completely covered the window, the gurgle of water in the downspouts was only too plain. It must still be raining heavily. They wouldn’t have raincoats—or much of anything else. She’d have to set Jocelyn to work finding suitable clothes for them.

But Pal was looking at her pleadingly.

“If I go and get the dog and carry her in, and she stays in the hall with all the doors closed, just for a few minutes, would that be all right, Mrs. Nayak?”

Her husband answered. “The boy has had little play for a long time. It will do no harm.”

“While you’re playing, Aunt Nell,” Megan said with a grin, “I’ll talk to the ladies.”

Teazle was delighted to be released from the car. Before Eleanor could stop her, she made a dash for a clump of grass the builders hadn’t yet ground into mud. Better there than inside, Eleanor thought philosophically, picking up the damp dog. There wasn’t much she could do about it except blot her with a handkerchief. The Indians certainly wouldn’t have a towel to spare. Perhaps Megan had an extra hankie.

When she returned to the house, Pal eagerly opened the door. He had been joined by his younger cousins, Jay’s children.

The little ones were a bit nervous until they saw how small Teazle was. Then all three were down on the floor with the dog, disregarding her dampness in the joy of petting her. She rolled over to let them have a go at her tummy.

The older boy, the one who had turfed Pal in among the women, came into the hall. He watched for a minute, then disappeared through another door, only to return with a bag of Quavers, a bright orange snack Eleanor had seen on the newsagent’s shelves but never encountered at closer quarters. Doubtless some kindly Red Cross soul considered them a nice treat for the children.

Eleanor wasn’t so sure they were actually edible, in either human or canine terms.

“May your dog have some?” the boy asked.

They probably wouldn’t do Teazle much good. She might be sick in the police car on the way back. But on the other hand, as Pal’s father had said, the children had had so little fun for so long.

They had plenty now, and so did Teazle, catching, chasing, hunting the cheesy-smelling bits of nothing much. In the small space, chaos reigned for several minutes. Eleanor stood out of the way, in a corner, and enjoyed the sight.

The teenager was teasing Teazle with the last scrap, held just beyond her reach as she danced on her back feet, when the doorbell rang. Pal opened the door. There on the step stood David Skan, his bush of blond hair unflattened by the rain.

“Good afternoon. Ah, there you are, Mrs. Trewynn. I’ve run you to earth.”

“Now what makes me think it wasn’t me you were looking for, Mr. Skan? It’s not my house, and I can’t invite you in.” A brainwave struck Eleanor. What was the power of the Commonwealth Relations Office compared to the power of the press? “But let me just see whether the residents are interested in talking to you.”

“You’re not going to make me stand here dripping while you…”

“Please come in, sir,” said Pal.

Eleanor looked to the teenager.

“Mr. Skan is a friend of yours, Mrs. Trewynn?” he asked.

“Mostly.” She remembered the wonderful article he had written boosting the LonStar shop.

As if reading her mind, Skan said, “Persuade them, and I’ll play it any way you want it, Mrs. T.”

“Well, yes, you could say he’s a friend.”

“Please, sir, step inside while I ask my uncle.”

Skan was already scribbling in his notebook as he stepped over the threshold. Eleanor hoped he was noting how polite the young refugees were. Pal closed the door behind him.

Abandoning the reporter to Teazle, Pal, and the little girl and boy, Eleanor followed the older boy. She had to explain to the elder Mr. Nayak—Jay’s father—that Skan, though her friend, was a reporter in search of a story.

Jay, his father and uncle, and his sister’s husband listened to Eleanor with doubt on each face. She explained that Skan had promised to write a sympathetic article, and she trusted him—within limits—but had no control over him.

“I’ll leave you to talk about it,” she said. “I’d better get back to the children and the dog.”

As she entered the hall from one side, Megan erupted from the other.

“I thought I heard— What the h … heck do you think you’re doing here, Skan?”

He gave her an insouciant smile. “My job, Sergeant. You’re lucky there aren’t hordes on the doorstep. That storm last night cut the dramatic potential for the telly crowd.”

“I can’t let you talk to—”

“You can’t stop me.”

“If you compromise our investigation—”

“Aha, so this is a criminal investigation?”

Megan glared at him.

“Look here,” he said in a more conciliatory tone, “I have no desire to mess up a police case nor to get into trouble with my editor. Nor to get you into trouble with DI Scumble, come to that. I’ve already got a nice piece with you as heroine.”

“Bribery?” said Megan dryly.

He grinned. “You could call it that, except there’s no way my editor’s not going to run with that one. I’m willing to let … no, not Scumble … Superintendent Bentinck look at what I write and I’ll pass on his remarks to my editor. If there’s anything that really would compromise your investigation, between them they’ll cut it out.”

“I suppose…”

“Besides, Mrs. T’s going to sit in on my interviews. She’ll keep me in line.”

“Aunt Nell!”

“I just said I’d ask the Nayaks whether they’re willing to talk to Mr. Skan. It’s a wonderful opportunity for the world to hear their side of the story—”

“For North Cornwall…”

“I’m thinking of the nationals,” said Skan. “The
Guardian
will pick it up like a shot if it’s drawn to their attention, and after that, well, you never know.”

Megan groaned. “Just what we need!”

“I’m thinking of what the Nayaks need, dear. A nice loud public outcry could make the difference between their being allowed to stay and their being shipped off to nowhere again.”

“Well … all right. I can’t stop them talking if they want to. But I’m finished here. I’ve got to get back to the nick and report, so you can’t stay, Aunt Nell.”

“I expect Mr. Skan will take me home.”

“Of course. Be happy to.”

“
Not
home. Your car is in Launceston, remember?”

“Oh, yes! How lucky you reminded me.”

“Even easier,” said Skan. “That’s where I’ll be heading anyway.”

“And don’t forget Teazle.”

“Oh dear, I did for a moment.” Teazle was sitting on the floor amid the three cross-legged children, all of them petting her at once. “Do you mind a dog in your car? She should be completely dry by then.”

Skan laughed. “You’ve obviously never seen my car. It’s more a matter of will she deign to honour it?”

Megan sighed. “I hope it holds together till you get back. Give me a minute before you barge in, would you.” She went to take her leave of the men.

“Barge in!” Skan said indignantly. “They haven’t even said yet that they’re willing to talk to me.”

“Reporters aren’t known for their retiring natures,” Eleanor retorted.

Pal stood up. “I will talk to you, sir,” he said eagerly.

“Sorry, mate. I’m not supposed to talk to kids without their parents’ permission.”

The dog also stood up. She retched, her stomach heaving. The children drew back in alarm. As Teazle stumbled stiff-legged towards the front door, Eleanor sprang to open it. Teazle made a staggering dash for the patch of green and was thoroughly sick.

Skan looked aghast.

“Don’t worry,” said Eleanor, “just something she ate. Be glad she didn’t wait to get rid of it till we’d set off in your car.”

The rain had slackened and in the southwestern sky was a patch of blue big enough to make a sailor a pair of trousers. Did sailors wear blue trousers these days?

The lifeboat crew hadn’t. Their black tights would have made a traditional blue bell-bottomed sailor blush. The man in the telephone box hadn’t, in spite of his nautical cap and pea-jacket. His grey trousers had looked more like the lower half of a business suit, and he’d been wearing a white shirt and tie to go with them.

A sunbeam broke through and gilded the puddle from which Teazle was thirstily lapping.

Gold, like the gold braid Pal had described on the freighter captain’s cap. Had the man in the telephone box been gold-braided? Eleanor couldn’t remember, nor the colour of his hair when he strode into the hotel, surely removing his headgear in gentlemanly fashion. It was odd that his image had otherwise remained so clear in her mind, and odder that it kept recurring to her.

Surely the two men couldn’t be one and the same? But suppose they were, what would it mean?

Eleanor frowned.

TWENTY-FIVE

“She did
what
?” Scumble howled. “And you let her?”

“How could I stop her, sir? It was the boy who asked him in, not my aunt. And she’d already persuaded them to talk to him before I realised he was there. I really don’t see that there was much I could do about it.”

“There must have been something!”

“I did get him to promise the super could see his article before it’s published.”

“That’s better than nothing, I suppose, though we can’t hold him to it. We’ll have to get cracking, though, and work out what we want Mr. Bentinck to ask them to hold back.”

“Shall I type my report?”

“No, it can wait. I don’t want the whole story at this point. We’ll do that when the team gets back from Boscastle. Tell me the bits that are going to help us collar the villain of the piece.”

Megan had thought about nothing else on her drive back from Bodmin. “Well, first of all, one of them saw the captain of the freighter. He swears he would recognise him, and he identified the same man as captain of the yacht. The trouble is, he’s a ten-year-old.”

“You believe him?”

“Oh yes, sir. He’s bright and observant. His account was very credible, confident and precise, with no contradictions and nothing impossible for an active and ingenious boy. In excellent English, too. I took down exactly what he said, so I can write up a verbatim statement. His father was present and is willing to sign it, as well as the boy, of course.”

“But the courts are funny about children as witnesses,” Scumble said flatly. “Let’s hope he won’t have to be called. Not to mention that we have to find this captain first. No name, I assume.”

“No, sir. Not his, nor either ship’s.”

“What else, then?”

“The freighter picked them up in Mombasa, and I have the date. The harbourmaster there should be able to tell us what ships called on that date.”

“And the names of their masters, I shouldn’t wonder. But it may take a while. Better get on to it right away.” He picked up the phone. “Overseas cable,” he said. “To the harbourmaster at Mombasa…” He looked at Megan.

“Kenya, sir.”

“Mombasa, Kenya.” He dictated the telegram, including the date Megan supplied, and adding the word “urgent” to his request. “Sign Superintendent Bentinck’s name and rank, and Constabulary of the Royal Duchy of Cornwall, in full. Read it back to me … Right … Thank you.” He hung up.

“Taking the super’s name in vain, sir?”

“He had to go to a meeting in Truro. He told me to do whatever was necessary. And with luck the Royal bit will impress someone at the other end.”

“But can we do that—request information from other countries, I mean—without going through channels? Protocol,” Megan added vaguely.

“I don’t give an effing tinker’s curse for protocol. They can’t hang me. Go on.”

“The boy again: When they transferred from the freighter to the yacht, he slipped away from the group and went exploring round the other side of the ship. He saw what must have been the beam of a lighthouse. He couldn’t time it precisely, but he counted and he thinks it flashed four times in a minute. Every fifteen seconds, that is. Judging by how long it took the yacht to get to Bossiney Cove, it may have been St. Anthony’s light, at Falmouth.”