To Perish in Penzance (24 page)

“Yes, well, exactly what are the police doing about this?”

He detailed procedures, detailed them until I was sick of the whole subject.

“And if they'd done all that a lot sooner,” I said when he'd finished, “Pamela Boleigh might still be alive!”

“What makes you think so?”

“It's obvious, isn't it? If they'd found her—”

“If you must blame someone, blame Pamela's incredibly casual parents! By the time anyone knew she was missing, she'd already been dead for hours. Colin could tell me that much even before the autopsy. She died sometime between Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. Tell me what the police could have done about that.”

He was as nearly angry with me as I had ever known him to be, and I realized, finally, that the anger wasn't all on account of my misguided ranting. He, too, was wishing that things were different, that Pamela was still alive.

“Okay. I was wrong and I admit it, and I'm sorry. I get carried away, I guess. But do you mind if I ask a sensible sort of question?”

“You're quite sure it's sensible?”

“I think so. It's just that I don't understand why it took them so long to find Pamela'a car. I know there's a lot of countryside out there, but surely a strange car would stick out a mile if this Sheffield is as tiny as you say. Wouldn't somebody have reported it?”

He relaxed a little. “They would, and they did, or rather he did, as soon as he saw it. There's a disused quarry about a quarter-mile outside Sheffield, with a road to it that's little more than a track now. The quarry itself has filled with water, and is sometimes used by the locals as a bathing pool. None of the fine evangelical folk of Sheffield would use it on a Sunday, of course, but this afternoon a farmer found himself hot and tired after working in the sun and decided to cool off with a dip in the quarry. He saw Pamela's car parked just off the track, thought it was odd, and went to investigate.”

“Poor man.”

“Yes, he probably found it unpleasant. The weather's been quite hot.”

I sighed. “So okay, I suppose nobody's to blame, but the fact still remains that our best source of information can't tell us anything now.”

“Except what the forensics team can come up with. You keep forgetting them.”

“They're not very exciting, and they take so long. All those tests and everything. Oh, I know they're important, but I'm impatient.”

“I never,” said my long-suffering husband, “would have noticed.”

“What's the weather supposed to do tomorrow?”

Alan raised his eyebrows at the change of subject. “More of the same, I believe.”

“No thunderstorms? No hurricanes from America, or typhoons, or monsoons?”

“None of the above is predicted.”

“Then let's go back out to the cave. We've never done that; other things kept getting in the way.”

“Why do you keep harping on that cave? The police will have searched it thoroughly, and you hate the place.”

“I don't hate it. I think it's fascinating. I'm just scared to go inside, that's all, and I wouldn't admit that much to anyone but you. I'm ashamed.”

“Phobias are nothing to be ashamed of, Dorothy.”

“That's easy for you to say. You don't have any.”

Alan smiled a small, secret smile. Aha, I thought. There's something he hasn't told me.

I wouldn't ask. If he ever wanted to tell me, he would. But somehow the thought that my strong, bulky, fearless cop had an intimate knowledge of irrational fear made me feel better. If Alan, of all people, was phobic, then anybody might be, without shame.

“Anyway, I'm going to the cave, period. Now for heaven's sake let's go down and have a drink. We've earned it after a day like today.”

“I thought you'd gone off alcohol.”

“A momentary aberration. Anyone's entitled to a few of them.”

“And to a civilized libation or two. After you, my dear.”

T
UESDAY
morning was another day of perfect weather, sunny, not too hot, not too windy, puffy little clouds in a picture-postcard sky. We'd had only one bad day, really, and that had been sent to us from America. I was being forced to abandon my clichéd ideas about England's weather.

“A great day for the cave,” I said cheerily to Alan over our first cups of tea, brewed in the room.

Alan looked at me with a suspicion that was entirely justified. Any morning that I'm cheerful before I have two cups of coffee in me, something's up.

“You don't want to go, do you?”

“We've been over that. No, I don't, not much. Yes, I'm going. Are you just about ready for breakfast?”

I don't always know when to be tactful and keep my mouth shut, but Alan almost always does. He smiled and said, “Quite ready.”

We ordered a large breakfast. I was hungry, and determined this time to keep my food decently in my stomach where it belonged. I did not, after all, have to enter the cave, and just standing at the entrance surrounded by fresh air couldn't possibly bother me.

Right.

We got ready as soon as we'd finished eating. I dressed in layers in case the sun became too warm later, and brought along the sunscreen in case I had to remove the layers. I had already slathered some all over my face and chosen my widest-brimmed hat. “Okay, Captain Kidd, lead on.”

“Captain Kidd? Aren't you getting pirates mixed up with smugglers?”

“Whatever. Let's go.”

Alan took us by different roads than the ones we had used before. It seemed years ago that I had first seen Prussia Cove, but it had really been only four days. “We haven't been here quite a week,” I said in the middle of Alan's explanation about some aspect of the landscape.

“I know. It seems much longer, doesn't it?”

“A lifetime.”

“That's why I brought you this way. I wanted you to see a little more of the area than just the seaside. Cornwall has a lot to offer. It's a pity we'll have to go home soon.”

“Oh, but not before we see the end of this business!”

“I hope not, but we can't neglect our other responsibilities forever.”

No. A house, two cats, a volunteer job, Alan's consulting jobs—no, Alan was right. We'd have to go home soon. I said a silent prayer that we, or the police, would solve Lexa's murder before that, and tried to pay attention to the features Alan was pointing out.

“I'm sorry, what did you say?”

“One of the old mines,” he repeated patiently. “There are a number of them hereabouts. And those fields, over there, are known as Carter's Downs.”

That grabbed me, as he'd known it would. “Not really! The same Carters, the smugglers, do you think?”

“No one seems to know, but it would be logical, wouldn't it? This is very much their part of the world, the old rogues. We're only a little over a mile from their old haunts.”

“Prussia Cove? I thought it was much farther. Confused by the different route, I suppose.”

We got to the top of the cliff in just a few minutes, and the small parking area near Bessie's Cove was deserted. We would have privacy for our search of the cave that I was beginning to think of as “Lexa's Cave.”

“I don't want to seem a doubting Thomas,” said Alan when we had reached our resting place halfway down the cliff path, “but what exactly is it you want me to look for here?”

I shook my head. “I wish I knew. And you know how much I wish I could help with the search.”

Alan dismissed that with a wave of his hand.

“It's just this nagging feeling at the back of my head. There has to be a reason why both Betty and Lexa came here, or were brought here. There has to be a connection, and I've had this notion that there has to be a clue here somewhere.”

“I'm sure I can't imagine what.”

“Neither can I, and the whole idea is probably as irrational as my claustrophobia.”

“Well, never mind.” He patted my knee. “It's a lovely day for the seaside. It's a pity we didn't bring our bathing suits and a picnic lunch. We are, after all, on what was meant to be a holiday.”

I swallowed my temper. He didn't mean to sound patronizing, and I'd admitted, myself, that the whole outing was probably futile. I stood. “Yes, well, let's get it over with, and then, if we can't think of anything useful to do, we'll try to have some fun.”

“I was joking, my dear,” he said mildly. “Neither of us is likely to have much fun until this is over. Nor was I poking fun at you. You've been right too often, and what is popularly known as intuition is always based on something rational. Who knows what we might find?”

That was better, and I smiled my appreciation, but he couldn't quite keep the skepticism out of his voice.

The sea, today, was far out. A great expanse of rock was exposed to view. “When is high tide, do you know?” I asked Alan as we went on down. “I didn't think to ask anybody.”

“Ah, that shows you up for the inland woman that you are. I checked the tide tables at the front desk. They don't list Prussia Cove, but one can extrapolate from Penzance and Marazion—”

“You're showing off. Just tell me.”

“Merciless woman. About three this afternoon.”

“And it's—what—ten or so?”

“Closer to nine-thirty. Only just past dead water.”

“That has an ominous sound, I must say. No, I was kidding, I know what it means.” At least I thought I did. In the Ngaio Marsh book of the same name, which, incidentally, had been set in Cornwall, it had seemed to be a rather macabre synonym for low tide. Maybe, I thought, determined to look on the bright side, it was standard Cornish usage, and that's why Alan had thought of it now.

We had reached the gently sloping rocks of the shore. I stood and peered out to sea, squinting against the brilliantly sparkling waves. “That boat out there had better stay well offshore for the next few hours, then. It's pretty big. I wouldn't think there'd be enough water to float it anywhere close to the coast for quite a while.”

“Her,” said Alan. “A boat is a her or a she, not an it. But you're quite right. Not only dead water, but spring tide as well.”

I sighed ostentatiously. “All right, you're dying to expound. Very well, I'll listen.”

“I won't go into a long lecture about the sun and the moon and gravitational pull and all that. Suffice it to say that at springs, the high tides are higher and the low tides lower than at any other time. So the sea is extraordinarily far out just now, and this afternoon the tide will be extra high.”

“Got it. Bad for the boat, good for us, at least until the tide starts coming in. Hadn't we better get moving?”

“Your wish is my command.”

We rounded the little point. The rocks were not only bare of water, but quite dry in the sun. I peered into the cave, wondering if I could muster up the courage to go in, at least a little way. I really did want to see.

I nearly shrieked. “Alan, not again!” I pointed.

“No, love.” He grasped me around the shoulders in his most reassuring hug. “Just seaweed. The tide was extra high last night, remember.”

I got my breathing back in order. “Right. Stupid of me. But I don't think I'll come any farther. That stuff looks slippery, and—oh, darn it, I hate to say so, but my legs are rubbery already. I'll sit here and watch, if I won't block your light too much.”

“I brought a torch. I'll report if I find anything of interest.”

I'll say one thing for training as a policeman—Alan was nothing if not thorough. Starting at the entrance to the cave, he examined every crevice in the floor, every protruding ridge of the rocky walls, even the crannies of the ceiling. He picked up stones and shells and fragments of seaweed and pored over them with his flashlight like a jeweler appraising a diamond.

I grew a little bored with the process. There was quite obviously nothing to find. Alan was right; this was a wild-goose chase. I turned my gaze out to sea.

“Alan, that boat's coming in closer! Very close! I sure hope whoever's in charge of it—I mean her—knows what he's doing!”

“Let's have a look—damn!”

There was a slither and a loud, thumping crash. I jumped and looked back into the cave, just in time to see my husband disappearing into a hole at the back of the cave.

I
WAS
off that rock and into the cave in what seemed like microseconds. “Alan! Alan! Where are you? Are you all right?
Alan!
”

Then he was there in front of me, a trifle disheveled, more than a little dirty, and oozing blood from several small cuts on his hands and face.

“I'm not hurt. Took a tumble, that's all. I must say I feel a fool.”

“You scared me to death. What
happened
?”

“What happened,” he said, brushing himself off and getting blood on his clothes in the process, “is that I discovered, quite by accident, what's remarkable about this particular cave. The light's none too good, and I'm afraid I broke the torch, but come and see. That is, if—Dorothy, whatever are you doing in here?”

I hadn't thought about it till that moment. I was in a cave, actually at the very back, or what had seemed the back until a moment ago. I didn't stop to analyze how I'd managed to get there. “I don't know. I think you scared the claustrophobia out of me. But where were you? And how did that hole, or passage, or whatever it is just suddenly appear? I swear I didn't hear anybody say ‘Open, Sesame.'”

“No, there's a far more prosaic explanation. You called to me and startled me. I slipped on that blasted seaweed and grabbed at anything I could grab to try to save myself. I can't say I succeeded very well at that.” He looked ruefully at his hands. I was glad he couldn't see his face.