To Perish in Penzance (21 page)

“Pamela hadn't said which girl she planned to stay with?”

“No. She liked to keep her arrangements flexible.”

I'll just bet she did. I almost said it aloud. And what were the odds that the girlfriend was really a boyfriend?

“I knew nothing of this,” Boleigh continued, “till Sunday morning, when Sarah rang up. I went straight to the police, which is what her parents should have done from the start, and they told me where Pamela had been seen Thursday night. I was appalled! Why would she go to such a place? And who was that man who made her so angry? Do the police know? Do
you
know, Alan?” The poor man studied Alan's face intently.

Alan shook his head helplessly. “I was hoping you might have some idea.”

“I never even imagined she'd go to a place like that. And where did she go from there? Alan, where is she? Why can't they find her? That girl they said she was with, Alexis Something—”

“Adams,” I murmured. “You met her.”

“Of course I met her! I'm not senile yet! You brought her to my party. She was very beautiful, and I suppose she was a friend of yours, but she was with Pamela, and now she's dead and Pamela is missing. Did she drag my granddaughter down with her?”

I was about to make an angry rejoinder when Boleigh put his head in his hands. “They've got to find her, Alan. She's my youngest grandchild, the last there'll ever be. They've got to
find
her!”

He broke down completely. Alan and I looked at each other over his head. There were still questions we needed to ask, but Boleigh had endured all he could. Alan murmured something sympathetic and reassuring, and we tiptoed out of the room.

A
LAN
drove, not back to the hotel, but straight down the hill to the sea. We parked on the road at a point where a footbridge crossed the railway line, and went down to the beach to talk.

“Sixteen,” I said. “That Barnet person thought she was maybe eighteen, but I suppose she tried to look older. Sixteen years old!” I sat on a handy rock. “What's happened to her, Alan? Has she been killed, too?”

He reached for his pipe, made the usual face when he found his pocket empty, and sat down beside me, hands clasped around one raised knee. “There are several lines of speculation. One, she's run away.”

“I have to say that seems quite likely to me, no matter what John Boleigh says. The girl sounds like a menace to society
and
herself.”

Alan nodded. “Overindulged, and that's throwing roses at it. If any daughter of mine, aged sixteen, had stayed out all night without my knowing exactly where she was and with whom—well, it simply wouldn't have happened. But it's a different world nowadays, and Pamela's discipline, or lack of it, is her family's problem, not ours. Our problem is to try to find her, and there are other, darker possibilities.”

I enumerated them, trying hard to stay objective. “One, she killed Lexa herself and has run from the police. Only why would she?”

“Motive is the least important consideration in any investigation. You know that. She'd been taking drugs; they both had. Who's to know what impulses might have surfaced?”

“In other words, you don't have a clue.”

“Right.”

I continued to list Pamela's possible fates. “Two, she didn't kill Lexa, but she knows who did and has run from the murderer. And three, she knows who did and—well—didn't manage to run fast enough.”

“Any of those things. Add a drug overdose that killed her or made her amnesiac, and we have a reasonably complete list.”

“The police will have made the same list,” I observed.

“Yes, and they'll be working at it methodically, according to procedural rules.”

“Will they find her?”

“Based on what I know of the force here, yes, they will, sooner or later. They'll be working hard at it, for one thing, because of John's prominence. That ought not to make a difference, but of course it does. Colin Cardinnis is only human, after all, and he knows the security of his job is in jeopardy if he doesn't do all he possibly can in this particular case.”

“Well, then, I don't see that there's much point to our looking for her, too. She was our best lead to Lexa's murderer before she disappeared, but now …” I spread my hands. “The police know she was at the rave club, and have begun tracing her from there.” I was thinking out loud. “If she and Lexa stayed together, that means they're tracing Lexa's movements, too. I really think we ought to leave that end of things to Cardinnis and crew.”

“I agree. Did you put your notebook in your handbag?”

“What do you think?” I rummaged and found it. We looked at it together. It made depressing reading.

“So many questions and so few answers,” I moaned. “A number of people we can ask, though. Eleanor, people at the library, Pendeen, Polwhistle, and Lexa's conquests. Where should we start?”

Alan considered. “We can postpone the Reverend Mr. Polwhistle. We'll see him this afternoon at the funeral, so that line of inquiry might as well wait until then. That leaves five young men about whom we know very little, and Mr. Pendeen. He”—Alan looked at his watch—“ought to be easily found at this hour at his shop. Shall we go and see?”

I got up reluctantly. “Just as long as you don't leave me alone with him. He reminds me of Bela Lugosi.”

We found Mr. Pendeen's antique store without difficulty in a pleasant little side street off the main shopping area. The store did, as Alan had suggested, remind me of the one in Mousehole, only on a larger scale. Pendeen's place carried no jewelry and only a little ornamental bric-a-brac. The bulk of his stock ran to exquisite furniture, from massive Baroque wardrobes down to spindly Victorian occasional tables. I didn't even bother to guess at prices. There were few things in the store I didn't covet, even though most of them wouldn't fit in our house and certainly not in our budget. Some of them, the more restrained Georgian pieces, would have looked gorgeous in John Boleigh's villa, though. I wondered if this was where he did his shopping.

The clerk was a woman. “Was there something you wished to see?” Her bored tone indicated clearly that she had sized us up expertly when we came in, dismissed us as not wealthy enough to buy anything in the place, and now wanted to get rid of us as quickly as possible. I let Alan deal with her.

“Please don't bother,” he said with one of his most charming smiles. “We're here to see Mr. Pendeen, a business matter.” He whisked me away toward the back of the store before the clerk could protest.

“How do you know where his office is?” I said under my breath.

“Where else could it be?”

Good point. I sent Alan on back by himself. “This stuff is gorgeous. Even if I can't buy, I can look. I'll join you eventually.”

I did spend a little time wistfully looking at magnificent, museum-quality furniture I could never hope to own, but the exercise soon lost its appeal. I wondered what tack my husband was taking with Mr. Pendeen. I had no ideas, myself, about a productive approach. Why, after all, should he tell us anything? Particularly if he
was
involved in illegal activities.

Alan had been trained to deal with just that sort of situation, of course. It would be instructive to listen to him. I drifted toward the office door and was startled to hear Alan say, in quite a menacing tone, “Drugs.”

“What about them?” said Mr. Pendeen. He sounded startled.

“How widespread are they in Penzance? How do they get in? What's being done to stop them?”

“I presume,” he said dryly, “you are not referring to aspirin and antibiotics.”

Alan apparently decided the question didn't require an answer. I stepped inside the door, very quietly.

Mr. Pendeen's back was to me. He made no indication that he had heard me enter. His sleek black head remained still. Alan saw me, but made no sign.

“May I ask,” said Mr. Pendeen, “what your interest is in the matter? Have you by chance turned to journalism in your retirement?”

“My interest is in Alexis Adams. She became a friend to my wife and me in the few days we were at the hotel together. I have been told that she was at a rave club the night she died. I believe that she took drugs, probably without knowing it, and that her tragic accident was a direct result of her drugged state.”

“Can you prove any of this?”

“The police know that there were dangerous drugs in her body.”

Oh, was it wise to reveal so much? My hands, held behind my back, clenched into tight fists. I deliberately relaxed them. Tension in a room can be as palpable as the sensation of someone's eyes on the back of one's neck. As that thought arose in my mind, I quickly averted my eyes from Mr. Pendeen's head.

His voice showed no sign that he knew I was there. “It is true,” he said slowly, “that there is a drugs problem in Penzance. It has been growing for the past several years. It is also true that we suspect the raves to be a major center of distribution. We have not, however, been able to close down the club. We believe there is only one, though it changes location frequently. I have requested police raids, but on the appointed nights, either no rave has been found, or no drugs have been in evidence. It is not against the law to dance all night to loud music.”

“Unfortunately, considering the music.”

“Perhaps.” There was a hint of a smile in the sound of his reply, but it faded with his next words. “Now you have had my response as mayor. You have, I believe, suggested that I might also have some information related to my expertise as an importer. I hope you did not imply by that what I fear you might have implied.”

My hands were clenched again. Again I stretched out my fingers. Alan answered calmly. “I was afraid you might take it that way. No, I meant that you have some familiarity with shipments to Penzance, the way they're handled, dealings with Customs officials, and the like. How would someone wanting to smuggle drugs into England along this coast go about it?”

This time Pendeen laughed out loud. “That, Nesbitt, is the sort of question no Cornishman would ever answer directly, as you ought to know. We have a reputation, do we not, for being closemouthed, for keeping our secrets. So I will say only that I, being a law-abiding citizen, have no idea how such things are done nowadays, or even if they are done. I do, of course, know a good deal about the smuggling methods of centuries past.”

And with that he turned to me, nodded politely, and said, “I'm sure you'd be more comfortable sitting, Mrs. Martin, if you would like to join this fascinating conversation. As a stranger to the area, what strikes you as a promising method for modem smuggling?”

Well, if he'd intended to disconcert me, he'd succeeded, but I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of admitting it. I smiled. “I'm sure I wouldn't know, Mr. Pendeen. Like you, I've read up about the old days, but floating brandy casks ashore sounds a little archaic for the twenty-first century. To tell the truth, I'm more interested in something entirely different that I've observed, if my husband will forgive me for changing the subject.” I smiled again, showing as many teeth as possible and hoping Alan would read my expression. “I couldn't help but notice that you have some very fine, and very expensive, antiques for sale. I've noticed other prices in town running on the high side, too. I admit that I'm just a little surprised.”

Alan frowned. I hurried on before he could interrupt me. “From the reading I've been doing, I've gathered that most of Cornwall's industry died out quite some time ago, so that tourism is the major source of income now. And I've wondered how it is that Penzance seems so prosperous. One might almost imagine a rebirth of some sort. As mayor, do you have an explanation?”

“You're quite perceptive, Mrs. Martin. Ah, Nesbitt, you do indeed have your work cut out to keep up with your estimable wife. As for our fair city's prosperity, I hope I may say without undue immodesty that the council's policies under my leadership have been beneficial to the economic climate here. If there is any other explanation, I feel no need to seek it. I am simply grateful. Business is very good, indeed. And may I interest you, Mrs. Martin, in one of the pieces you have been good enough to admire?”

“Oh, I'm interested in them all, Mr. Pendeen. Unfortunately the budget of a retired schoolmarm and a retired policeman won't quite cover Louis the Sixteenth desks or Hepplewhite chairs.”

“Worse luck,” Alan agreed, rising. “Come, my dear. We really must leave this busy man to his work. Good of you to talk to us, Pendeen.”

“And what,” I demanded as we drove to the hotel for lunch, “did you make of that? Villain, or merely poseur?”

“Poseur, I think, but I'm not sure. He was playing with us, of course.”

“He knew I was there all the time, didn't he?”

Alan nodded. “I saw his eyes twitch when you first came to the door.”

“But why the game? Is he up to something?”

Alan sighed as he slid the car into a parking space and pocketed the keys. “I think he's fully aware of his resemblance to Dracula, and uses it simply because it amuses him. It's probably good for business. ‘Oh, my dear, simply the scariest man, I was afraid to leave the store without buying something, but really charming when I made up my mind, even took twenty percent off the price.'”

Alan's American accent is terrible, but his rendition of the socialite made me giggle anyway. “I wouldn't think, though, that the vampire routine would do much for his political ambitions.”

“You as an American should know better than most people that politics is about nine-tenths show business.”

With the usual accompaniment of creaks and groans, I extricated myself from the car. “Well,
as
an American, I also know that the other tenth is apt to be corruption. And I'm not convinced that the esteemed mayor isn't into something crooked right up to the chain of office he wears around his neck.”