The Valley of the Shadow (34 page)

Authors: Carola Dunn

BOOK: The Valley of the Shadow

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“Thank Julia!”

He managed a small smile. “She’s quite a girl, isn’t she? Good for my grandson, but they’re not interested in each other romantically, I’m afraid.”

“A good friend is worth a great deal.”

“Yes. Batuk Nayak was my friend. We met many years ago, when he was finding his feet in his family’s export-import business and I was third mate in one of our ships. My first time in Africa—I was bewitched and baffled, and Batuk introduced me to the Mombasa beyond the yacht club and the sailors’ taverns. We remained good friends even after I stopped going to sea. You can’t imagine how it pains me that my son caused his death, and his daughter’s.” He sank his head between his hands.

“No, I can’t imagine,” Eleanor said frankly.

“I want to explain to you how it came about. I hope— I know your niece is a police officer, but I hope you won’t feel obliged to report everything to her. I shan’t ask for a promise. It’s for you to decide, if you’ll hear me out.”

“I suspect the police know and guess more than you think.”

“You’ve probably guessed yourself. It was I who arranged to bring Batuk and his family to Britain. He wrote to me in great distress from one of the ports where they were denied entry. I hadn’t realised the situation had become so disastrous after our government’s disgraceful about-face on British citizenship. I didn’t, and don’t, consider breaking such a law to be wrong.”

Eleanor smiled at him. “No more do I. I would have been happy to help. The plan to smuggle them into the country was yours?”

“But I left it to Paul to implement. I found out, through my extensive contacts in the business, when our
Pendennis Point
would be in the same port as the Nayaks and I told him to go ahead and pick them up. I told him not to charge them for the passage. That was where he first went astray. The tentacles of the gambling fever reached out from England, I suppose.”

“Horse racing, Chaz told Julia.”

Avery shrugged helplessly. “I don’t understand it. He’s not in the least interested in roulette or vingt-et-un, or whatever else people bet on. It’s the horses or nothing. There seems to be a meeting somewhere in the country almost all the time. In the past, he’d return from a voyage, spend a few days at home, and then go off to the races for a couple of weeks, till it was time to ship out again. I can’t blame my former daughter-in-law for leaving him.”

“This time, you didn’t expect him when the ship came in?”

“No. I knew he had the yacht and was taking the Nayaks to the secret cave. He came back at night, left
Andromeda
at anchor, sneaked into the house without waking anyone, picked up some clothes, and left without a word or a note. That was when I started worrying. When I’d still heard nothing from him after ten days or so, I sent Rupert to try to find out who had picked them up—Paul hadn’t told me—and whether they had been spotted coming ashore in Boscastle, or Port Mabyn, or Port Isaac.”

“I saw him in Boscastle.”

“Yes, and he asked me to apologise for his rudeness. He was reporting to me, when you saw him telephoning. We were both getting a bit frantic by then.”

“He’s all right? I should have asked sooner. And Chaz?”

“A day in bed in a darkened room with his mother cooing over him was enough to send Chaz rocketing back to Exeter,” Avery said dryly. “Rupert’s back is an old problem that’s flared up. He’s lying down, taking pills, and hoping he won’t have to have an operation. Doing as well as can be expected, if not quite resting comfortably.”

“We—Julia, Nick, and I—have both of them to thank for giving us time to get away. Did Captain Paul have anything to say about his decision to rob the Nayaks and his failure to arrange for their rescue? I’m sorry to put it so bluntly…”

“How else could you put it? No. We didn’t know then about the robbery. When he came home I demanded to know about … about the other.” Avery closed his eyes. “He said he’d been in a hurry and it had slipped his mind. I’m sorry, I can’t … I don’t know what else to say.”

Eleanor had no comfort to offer. After a moment’s silence to let him pull himself together, she asked, “How much of this do the Nayaks know?”

“I haven’t contacted them. I haven’t been able to face them. But I must. That’s really the favour I wanted to ask of you: Would you be prepared to approach them on my behalf and find out if they’re willing to see me? I’ll return all the money Paul took from them, of course, and the value of the jewellery. I don’t know whether I can help them with immigration, since I’ve already blotted my copybook in that regard. What I can’t do is give them back Batuk and his daughter.”

* * *

Eleanor’s sitting room was crowded. It was just as well Julia and Chaz’s term had started and DS Ken Faraday had gone back to London. DI Scumble, though declining the invitation, had allowed Megan to borrow a police car and she came via Bodmin, picking up Jay and Mrs. Jay, and Kalith and his sister Naima. Jocelyn was present. She’d been rather peeved to have missed most of the excitement.

Though it was Eleanor’s sitting room, Nick was in a sense the host. He was feeling rich because Captain Avery had bought
Valley of the Shadow
—to which Nick had added a small patch of blue sky and a patch of vivid green sunlit foliage on the edge of the rocks, after Jocelyn told him it was too gloomy.

“The whole point,” she had told him severely, “is that there is hope even in the valley of the shadow of death.”

Captain Avery had said it perfectly expressed his feelings, and he didn’t blink at the price.

So Nick had ordered Chin’s Chinese takeaway for everyone. He and Jay fetched it, as Kalith was still a bit pale and limp. Kalith was settled in one armchair, the other three being occupied by Jocelyn, Mrs. Jay, and Eleanor. Megan and Naima sat at the kitchen table, upon which the feast was spread, and Nick and Jay made do on the floor, where they had to fend off Teazle as they ate.

When the plates and most of the little boxes were empty, Mrs. Jay and Naima insisted on doing the washing up. Megan moved to Mrs. Jay’s chair.

“Police report first,” said Nick. “Please, Megan. Bring us up to date, as much as you’re allowed to tell us.”

Megan looked at Eleanor, who said, “Yes, do, dear.”

“Well, then, Paul Avery was arrested, as I expect you all know. We’ve come up with more than enough hard evidence to prosecute, but they haven’t decided yet exactly what the charge will be. The boatman who crewed the Averys’ yacht and rowed the dinghy to the cave is a family employee. He’s not quite an idiot, but pretty dim. We have no evidence that he knew what Paul was up to. I doubt he’ll be charged.”

“And Captain Avery?” Jay asked.

“That’s out of local hands. It’s up to the Home Office so I can’t say for sure, but I gather he’s unlikely to go to prison. They’re finding it hard to believe that none of your family knew he was responsible for bringing you here.”

“None but my grandfather,” said Jay. “He told my father he knew who had set up the whole business. The more people who knew, he said, the more danger our benefactor would run. Even at the end, when he knew he was dying, he refused to tell my father. It is as well. We can’t be called to give evidence against Captain Avery. He has paid back every penny Captain Paul took from us, you know. He wouldn’t accept any payment for our passage.”

“And we have our jewellery!” Naima exclaimed, her dark eyes as bright as the multifaceted gold studs in her ears. “Most of it. Sergeant Megan found it for us.”

“Not personally,” Megan said hastily. “We circulated descriptions. The stuff was picked up at jewellers and pawnshops in every city between here and Ayr, or just about, wherever Paul had disposed of it. Apparently he bet every penny he had in his pockets at Ayr and won a bit, then went and blew the lot at the Doncaster races. Nothing we can do about that.”

“It has always surprised me,” said Jocelyn, “that the good Lord didn’t give Moses a commandment against gambling.”

“I expect he thought ten was as many as most mortals could cope with,” Eleanor suggested. “In fact, rather more. Now,
I
have some news. My friend at the Commonwealth Relations Office, Sir Edward Bellowe, tells me that the government is being forced to increase the number of special residency vouchers available to Asians from Kenya and Uganda. He’s going to make sure you and all your family are able to stay in Britain.”

Naima and Mrs. Jay started crying, their arms around each other. Kalith was speechless. Jay, beaming hugely, shook hands with Eleanor, Nick, Megan, and even Jocelyn, and then shook hands again, venting his feelings in a mixture of English and Gujarati.

Nick, warned in advance by Eleanor that emotions might get out of hand, unfolded his long length from the floor and produced a bottle of cognac. He poured a little into each of the mismatched collection of glasses Eleanor had gathered and handed them round.

“I’m driving,” Megan objected in a low voice.

“Come on, it’s just a drop. You can’t miss this. A toast to Kalith,” he said.

Kalith’s thin cheeks flushed as they all raised their glasses to him. Slightly unsteady, he rose to his feet. “To Megan,” he proposed, and added, displaying an unexpected sense of humour, “because if she hadn’t jumped in after me, I’d still be swimming.”

“And Nick,” said Megan, grinning. “Because if he hadn’t pulled us both out, we’d both still be swimming.”

“And Eleanor,” said Nick. “Because if she hadn’t— Well, for any number of reasons, so let’s just say because.”

ALSO BY CAROLA DUNN

Cornish Mysteries

Manna From Hades

A Colourful Death

The Daisy Dalrymple Mysteries

Death at Wentwater Court

The Winter Garden Mystery

Requiem for a Mezzo

Murder on the Flying Scotsman

Damsel in Distress

Dead in the Water

Styx and Stones

Rattle His Bones

To Davy Jones Below

The Case of the Murdered Muckraker

Mistletoe and Murder

Die Laughing

A Mourning Wedding

Fall of a Philanderer

Gunpowder Plot

The Bloody Tower

Black Ship

Sheer Folly

Anthem for Doomed Youth

Gone West

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Carola Dunn is the author of numerous books, including two previous mysteries featuring Eleanor Trewynn. Born and raised in England, she lives in Eugene, Oregon. Please visit the author on her Web site at
http://caroladunn.weebly.com/cornish-mysteries.xhtml
or on Facebook at
http://www.facebook.com/CornishMysteries
.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

www.minotaurbooks.com

Cover design by Danielle Fiorella

Cover illustration by Deborah Chabrian

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Dunn, Carola.

The valley of the shadow: a Cornish mystery / Carola Dunn. — 1st ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-312-60067-9 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-250-01588-4 (e-book)

1. Cornwall (England: County)—Fiction. 2. Mystery fiction. I. Title.

PR6054.U537V35 2012

823'.914—dc23