To Perish in Penzance (15 page)

“Oh, so you switched to Pamela. Fickle man.”

“I had to,” he said, suddenly serious. “Barnet knows that Lexa is dead. He may not be fully functional, but he watches the telly. I do believe he had forgotten until the second or third time I made him go over the altercation and what he saw as the two girls left the club with the unknown man. He got a bit weepy then, about Lexa, and I was able to make my escape.”

“With two descriptions that are about as much use as a do-it-yourself kit without the instructions.”

“With a little more than that, actually. He did say two small things I forgot to mention. One was that Pamela seemed well known at the club. The other was that the ‘old cove' seemed, at the end, to have switched most of his furious attention from Pamela to Lexa.”

W
ELL,
I was impressed enough with that to forgive Alan for his roundabout way of getting to the heart of the matter. His new information put my piddling little scraps of fact and gossip in the shade, all right. I made a quick trip up to Eleanor's room to give her our new information about the club, the girl Pamela, and the old man. Though tired and spent, Eleanor cheered up considerably at the idea that we were making progress. I promised to keep her informed and then left so she could get some rest and Alan and I could get some dinner.

I regaled Alan with my meager information over chicken tikka masala at the tandoori place Alan had mentioned.

“So Lexa was interested in shipwrecks,” Alan commented at the end of my recitation.

“Well, maybe. Eleanor wasn't really paying attention to what Lexa said, remember. She may have been talking about something quite different and just happened to mention the wreck in passing.”

“Possibly. Would you like a bit more raita, or some of the lime pickle?”

“Both, please. I need the raita to cool down the other.” I spooned some of the yogurt and cucumber mixture over my curry, added a judicious modicum of the fiery-hot, but delicious, lime pickle, and took a large bite of the combination. Washed down with nice cold beer, good Indian food is one of my favorites.

When our food was all gone and we were soothing our overstimulated palates with another pair of beers, I pursued an idea. “I did just think at first that Lexa might have been talking about the wreck of the
Cita
. I don't remember reading about that when it first happened, but I suppose you, being Cornish by birth, read all about it.”

“Of course! It was the best thing to happen to Scilly in many a long year. Tires, clothing, trainers, computer parts—”

“And don't forget the toilet seats.”

“How could one?” Alan finished his beer and chuckled. “What made you think Lexa might be interested in the
Cita
?”

“I suppose because I just found out about it myself, and found it fascinating. But now I think I was wrong. I think she was interested in something quite different.” I drained my own glass, set it down, and looked around. We had dined at the unfashionably early hour of seven, and the restaurant had been almost empty when we entered. Now it was filling up nicely, and there was plenty of loud, cheerful conversation to mask our voices.

Still, I lowered mine before I went on. “Alan, what if Lexa went to the library to learn something about smuggling? Not in Cornwall's past, I don't mean, but now? She was interested in drugs because of her mother's history. We think she was trying to find her father, the man who probably killed her mother. What if she found out something that made her believe smuggling was still going on here, not brandy and tobacco and lace, but drugs?”

Alan looked at me sharply, and then held up his hand. A hovering waiter appeared instantly.

“Our bill, please. I think they'd like our table, love,” he said rather loudly to me. “There are people waiting.”

The bill was presented, paid with mutual compliments and a large tip on Alan's part, and he steered me out the door and down the street.

“Sorry. Was I indiscreet?”

“Not really, but the waiter was paying close attention. I imagine he simply wanted us to leave, but it pays to be careful. Given your topic of conversation, I wanted to be quite sure no one overheard. No, I think we won't talk about it just yet.”

Alan is sometimes overcautious. I've learned not to resent that. It offsets my impetuous tendencies. I walked sedately by his side all the way back to the hotel, confining my remarks to the beauty of the evening and, when we came to the seafront, the lulling sound of the waves. “I've always thought it would be lovely to have a house by the sea and fall asleep to that sound every night.”

“And wonder, every stormy night, how much of your roof would still be there in the morning.”

“I don't care. It's a sound to dream to.”

I was very wide awake, however, when we had attained the privacy of our room. I refused Alan's offer of a drink and sat down in one of the easy chairs.

“Okay, so you believe there might be something in my theory?”

“Just possibly. While I was waiting for you to come back this afternoon, I rang up Colin and asked him to fill me in, in a general sort of way, on the sources of drugs in this part of the world.”

“Ecstasy in particular.”

“And the others. Most of them come from the same places. Colombia, some from Mexico, Holland, Belgium. Of course, they seldom come directly. A shipment of illegal drugs has often been to many ports of call before it finally reaches these shores.”

“You said the other day that most of it comes in by air.”

“And so it does, by air or by cargo ship. Innocent tourists are used as couriers sometimes, asked to take a package back to a friend or a relative. More often the transport's handled professionally, either in the air luggage of paid couriers or packed in the center of containers full of quite innocuous cargo. The Colombians used to ship cocaine in containers of roasted coffee beans, quite sure that the drug-sniffing dogs wouldn't be able to scent the drug over the powerful coffee aroma. They were wrong, so they took to burning the coffee that would be used to mask the drug. That didn't work, either; even the human handlers could tell burnt coffee when they smelt it, and they learned very quickly that drugs would be in the middle.”

“But still it comes in.”

“Oh, yes, we try our best, but everyone's understaffed, the police and Her Majesty's Customs alike. Far more slips through than we are able to intercept. But I learned something quite interesting today.”

“Oh, yes, Cornwall and drugs.”

“Yes. It seems rumors have been circulating for some time that there's more in the way of drug traffic in this quiet corner of England than might be expected. There are no major airports here, for one thing.”

“Plymouth is a major seaport, though.”

“Yes, and closely watched, for that reason. There's always been an efficient Customs operation at Plymouth—which is officially in Devon, by the way, not Cornwall. My sources say there's a good trickle coming in there, but something approaching a steady stream a bit farther west.”

“Around Penzance, for example.”

“Perhaps.”

I waited for him to say it, and when he didn't, I said it for him. “The old smugglers' caves.”

“It would be a natural, wouldn't it? Drugs are the perfect cargo for your professional smuggler. Lightweight, easily rendered waterproof with plastic, extremely valuable.”

“But everyone knows about the caves! Surely the authorities—”

“—are spread too thin, as I said. Dorothy, you've seen a small part of this coast, how rocky and steep it is. It's like that for most of the way from Plymouth right 'round the peninsula to Bude, at the northeast corner of the county, and it's all dotted with sea caves. A small force of men can't hope to patrol that length of promising territory. A smart man with a few high-speed, flat-bottomed boats and a crew who knew the area could run circles around a Customs force, especially considering the payoff. There's a great deal of money in this, a very great deal of money, indeed.”

“And one young woman who got in the way …”

Alan didn't finish my sentence this time. He didn't have to. We both knew that if our scenario had any reality and Lexa had stumbled upon even a part of it, her fate had been sealed from the moment she set foot in Penzance.

“What do we do next?” I said after an unhappy little pause.

Alan stood and began to pace. “I go to Colin in the morning with what I've learned: the location of the club, and Pamela and the hot-tempered chap, one or both of whom may have been the last people to see Lexa alive. I'll tell them what we surmise, as well, what we've hypothesized just now. And I'll give them the new tape, of course.”

“What will they do with all that?”

“Treat it like any other report. Summarize it, feed it into HOLMES. Send someone to the rave club, try to find out who might have witnessed the encounter, preferably someone sufficiently in his or her right mind to give a better description than Mr. Barnet. They'll interrogate him, too, see if they can get any more out of him than I did. They'll be thorough, Dorothy, as thorough as they can be, given the fact that there are never enough staff, never enough hours in a day.”

“And we, meanwhile, will—what, Alan?”

“We'll do the same thing. Set about trying to find Pamela and the chap who just may have abducted both her and Lexa.”

I
GRIMACED
and asked, “How?”

Alan sighed, stopped pacing, and sat down. “That, of course, is the question. It's very much easier to do that sort of thing backed by authority and a large staff. We have very little to work with.”

“We have a club where Pamela is known.”

“And where we would stick out like a sore thumb.”

“Then we go at opening time, before the crowds get there, and we talk to the owner.”

“The owner is running an operation that is only marginally legal. Be sensible, Dorothy. What makes you think he'd be willing to tell us anything? The police, yes. Not a couple of old crocks who have no business there, and no authority to make him tell us anything. A pub, a tearoom, yes. There we might hope to make some progress. A rave club, no.”

“I suppose you're right.” I kicked off my shoes, perhaps a little harder than was strictly necessary, and sat on the bed with a vehement bounce. “I
hate
feeling old.”

“Well,” said my husband, sitting next to me on the bed and beginning to unbutton my shirt, “I have a cure in mind.”

Sunday dawned clear, warm, and beautiful. We woke early. “A fine day,” said Alan, sitting up and looking out the window.

I stretched, yawned, and passed my hand idly along his back. “Lovely. I feel marvelous. Your cure was very effective.” I sat up, too, swung my legs over the side, and ran both hands through my hair. It was a disheveled mess. “I need to wash my hair. Golly, you're right, it's a perfect day. Except—oh, Alan, I wish—”

“Yes. We both wish Lexa could enjoy it, too.” He got up, came around to my side of the bed, and sat beside me, one arm around my shoulders. “Dorothy, if I learned anything in over forty years as a policeman, it is that one can't allow a nasty case to dominate one's life. There is sadness and evil in the world, yes. There is also goodness and beauty and justice. The one is as real as the other, and we must keep that fact firmly in mind or lose all sense of proportion.”

“I know,” I said a little drearily. “It just seems heartless, somehow, to revel in a glorious day with Lexa lying on a slab in the morgue.”

Alan put his hand on my chin and turned my head so that I was looking directly at him. “Lexa is not lying on a slab in a morgue,” he said very deliberately. “Her body may be, but the beauty and vitality that is Lexa is being well looked after, somewhere. You believe that as firmly as I do, and you mustn't forget it.” He pulled me to my feet and gave me a little slap on the fanny. “Now into that shower, woman, and then come for a brisk walk on the beach. You need the cobwebs cleared out.”

The walk did help. There was a fresh breeze coming off the sea, smelling of salt and fish. The waves, subdued and orderly today, rolled in, creamed onto the sand and pebbles, and retreated, leaving bits of seaweed behind. Their music today was the merest whisper, a classic, Mozartian sort of noise. The Sturm und Drang of the past few days, worthy of Beethoven at his frenzied best, was a mere memory.

“It's behaving itself today,” I commented idly as we crunched along.

Alan nodded. “It has its moods, just like people. I've always found it hard not to think of the sea as a living, conscious creature.”

“There's something eternal about it, too.” I watched the waves, hypnotized by their relentless motion. “I wonder if primitive people ever worshiped the sea.”

“The sea gods, at least, they did. Neptune and that lot. The sea provided the ancients with sustenance, but those old chaps knew what it could do when it was in a fury. It was wise to keep its gods placated.”

“Good and evil. Beauty and ugliness. We can't get away from it, can we?”

“No, only learn to be grateful for the good and try to fight the evil.”

Alan took my hand and we turned back to the hotel in a thoughtful mood.

He decided to go to the police station before breakfast to deliver my tape and make a report. He made a few notes to make sure he remembered everything, stuck them in his pocket, and rose. “I shouldn't be gone long at all, but go down if you're starving.”

“No, I'll wait. I'd like to write up some of our ideas myself, try to get them in some sort of order.”

“Paperwork, just like a policewoman. Hah! I knew you'd come 'round to it sooner or later.”

I had barely begun to make sense of our lists, conversations, and random thoughts when he returned. The moment he opened the door, I knew he had bad news.