Death on the Lizard (20 page)

They left the horse and gig at St. Anthony-in-Meneage, a gray stone church with a square tower overlooking the little harbor of Gillan Creek. It was the oldest Christian site in Cornwall, Jenna told them.

“It's said that the tower was built,” she added, “at the time of the Conquest. A Norman boat was caught in a storm whilst crossing from France to England. The crew vowed to St. Anthony—the patron saint of sailors—that if they survived the shipwreck, they'd build a church at the point where they came ashore.” She pointed to the inlet, filled with sailboats and fishing boats. “The story must be true, you know. St. Anthony's tower is built of Norman granite—there's none of that kind here in Cornwall.”

Ten centuries!
Beryl whispered in Kate's ear.
Think of the stories that tower could tell!

Leaving the church, they walked a little distance across green fields and over stone fences to Dennis Head, a great headland jutting out into the blue waters of the Channel. The remains of an old fortification were there, erected by the Royalists during the Civil War, in an effort to command the wide entrance to the Helford River, which lay just to the east. Patsy set herself to taking photographs, while Kate used her binoculars to study birds. There was a spectacular view across the Helford, and south, across the Channel, and the breeze was brisk enough to whip their skirts and tug at their hats. The water was the color of tourmaline, shot through with iridescent blues and greens, and the clouds had become more numerous, so that the surface was now bright, now shadowed.

Kate lowered her binoculars. “Did the Romans settle in Cornwall?” she asked curiously.

“Yes, mostly in the areas where there was tin mining,” Jenna replied. “But it's possible to find evidences of Roman settlement all over Cornwall.” She pointed to the east. “They would certainly have sailed up the Helford, and used the harbor as a shelter from the Channel storms. After the Romans left, the Celts were here, of course, and King Arthur and Guinevere.” She shaded her eyes, gazing out across the Channel.

“And Tristram and Isolde,” Kate said.

Ah, Tristram and Isolde,
Beryl sighed. The tale of a passion which flamed between star-crossed lovers, a tragic romance, for Isolde was the wife of Tristram's uncle, King Marc. Standing here on this windswept headland, looking out across the vast water, Kate did not find it at all difficult to imagine Isolde herself waiting at this spot for her lover to return from the sea, full of hope and eager joy.

“Tristram and Isolde.” Jenna's face clouded. “Such a tragedy,” she murmured, turning away from the view of the sea. “Such . . . hopelessness.”

Kate turned to look at her, struck by the sadness in Jenna's voice and by the sudden and surprised notion that the romance of Tristram and Isolde must echo something deeply personal and profoundly sad in Jenna's life. But what? She had lost her child, but there was nothing of that in Isolde's story. So what was it? A broken marriage? A love affair?

But Jenna's expression was unreadable, and Kate knew it wasn't appropriate to pry into what was so clearly a private sadness. So she linked arms with Patsy and pointed out a small flotilla of ships steaming along fast, not far from shore, heading westward, and after a few minutes Jenna rejoined them with a brighter expression.

They left Dennis Head and found a tiny tea-shop beside Gillan Creek, where they sat down to enjoy a cup of tea with fresh scones and jam and clotted cream. In the little harbor, boats moved back and forth, chased by screaming flocks of gulls. On the shore, fishermen tended their nets, a pair of men sawed and pounded on a boat they were repairing, and children played a noisy game. Kate lifted her binoculars to study the boats and saw, to her surprise, the birdwatcher— John Northrup, Captain Kirk-Smythe—standing in the stern of a small sloop which was moored to a piling in the inlet. He, too, was studying the boats.

Then, sitting beside Kate, Jenna seemed to see someone she knew. She gave a little gasp, a look of incredulous joy suffused her face, and she flung up an arm in greeting. And then, forgetting all about Kate and Patsy, she was gone, running toward the beach, flying as fast as feet could take her.

“What in the world!” Patsy exclaimed, standing up and shading her eyes. “Why, Kate, it's a man! Someone she knows!”

Kate saw him, too. A tall, blond-haired man in yachting clothes, standing beside a white sailboat beached on the shore. He opened his arms, and for an instant, Kate thought Jenna would fling herself against him, but as she reached him, they both seemed to become conscious that they might be seen. He dropped his arms, and she stopped, and the two of them stood, just looking at one another. It was one of those moments when even the most disinterested onlooker must feel that dangerous forces were at work, like an electrical current which could shock, could kill. A hush seemed to fall over the whole scene. The noise of the saw and hammer stopped, the children's voices quieted. Even the noisy gulls stopped screaming.

Tristram and Isolde,
Beryl said ominously.
They're lovers, can't you see?

“They're lovers, Kate,” Patsy said with a note of excitement. She dropped back into her chair. “You can tell from the look of them.”

“My goodness,” Kate said, not knowing quite what to say. She felt a chill in the pit of her stomach.

Beryl sighed.
I wish we could hear what they're saying to one another.

“What do you suppose they're talking about?” Patsy asked, propping her chin on her hands. “Wouldn't you love to know, Kate?”

Yes!
Beryl exclaimed.

“No,” Kate said firmly, and poured another cup of tea. “Whatever they're saying, it's obviously personal and private. Besides,” she added, “it would probably embarrass us.”

“I don't know why.” Patsy's voice was envious. “Love isn't embarrassing. Just look at them, Kate. I wish someone felt as passionate about me as he feels about her.”

But why do I have the feeling,
Beryl mused,
that this is not a happy passion?

Patsy frowned. “I wonder whether she came here today to look for him. I wonder—” She rose and picked up her camera.

Alarmed, Kate put out her hand. “You're not going to photograph them, Patsy!”

“Not them, necessarily,” Patsy said. “Just the boats. It's a very pretty spot, don't you think? I'll be back in a minute, Kate.”

“Really, Patsy,” Kate said, “It's not considerate to intrude on such a private—”

You can't stop her,
Beryl said.
You know how she is.

Kate sat back with a sigh. Beryl was right. When Patsy Marsden decided to do something, it was full steam ahead, a locomotive down the track. So Kate took another scone, sat back in her chair, and tried to pretend that she wasn't desperately interested in the small drama playing out on the beach in front of her.

Jenna and the man were standing close together but apart, not touching, as if there were some invisible barrier between them. He was speaking to her earnestly, passionately, his fair head bent over hers. She was answering, her face lifted to his. After a moment, he raised his hand and brushed what must have been a tear from her cheek. Impulsively, she seized his hand and pressed it to her lips, then her breast. Then she pulled away. He took two steps after her, his hand raised, and Kate heard him call “Tomorrow, Jenna!” Jenna did not turn.

Kate watched the two of them, thinking that there was something profoundly tragic about their relationship. What was holding them apart?

Tristram and Isolde,
Beryl murmured.

“What do we do now?” Patsy asked, returning to the table.

“I suppose we wait,” Kate said. “We certainly can't go off and leave her here alone.” And Jenna would have been alone, for the man had pushed his boat out into the water, jumped onto the prow, and unfurled the sails. Kate eyed Patsy's camera. “Did you?” she asked.

“Yes,” Patsy said. “I couldn't resist the temptation— although you're right, I'm afraid. I'm sure they didn't know I took the picture, but even so, I'm ashamed of myself. It was an invasion of their privacy. The way they felt was written all over their faces. You could see it the way they held themselves. Anyone looking at them would know.” She smiled. “In fact, I wasn't the only photographer. A man on that boat out there.” She pointed. “He was taking their picture, too.”

Patsy was pointing in the direction of Kirk-Smythe's sloop, and Kate looked toward it. He had cast off his mooring and was pulling up his sail with a great show of casualness. Kate frowned. That he was here—was it a coincidence? It did not seem likely, but she could think of no other explanation. He couldn't have known that the three of them would be here, for they hadn't known it themselves, until breakfast. She would have to tell Charles about it. She wondered if he had got her letter, and whether he had made contact with Andrew.

Jenna returned a few moments later, her eyes red and puffy. She made no explanation, except to say that she had seen a friend and remembered something she had meant to tell him. After that, she fell into silence. In a somber mood, saying very little, the three retrieved the horse and gig. Kate half-expected that the encounter had so darkened Jenna's mood that she might suggest returning to Penhallow. But, still saying nothing, she drove north and west, the narrow road twisting and turning between stone walls and low hedges, the land rising as they passed the village of Manaccan and the smaller hamlets of Choon and Crowns, deeper into the heart of the moor, onto Goonhilly Down. And as they drove, the sky turned gray and a cooler breeze blew, laden with the scent of rain.

CHAPTER TWENTY

 
 
 
 
Affecting a casual nonchalance, Andrew Kirk-Smyth cast off the mooring line on the sloop he had hired in Helford and pulled in the mainsheet. Wolf had pushed off the beach, clambered onto the prow of the
Mistral II,
and run up his jib. Now, he was tacking for the mouth of the little inlet. Kirk-Smythe did not want to let him get too far ahead, but he did not want to be seen as following tack-for-tack, either—and anyway, he couldn't. The hired sloop hadn't near the speed of the larger yacht; it was built for weather, not for speed. So he luffed along until the
Mistral
rounded Dennis Head, sailing east toward the Helford River, then he tightened up on the jib and the main, put the helm down, and sailed as close to the wind as he could.

As Andrew sailed under Dennis's high cliff, the faster, heavier yacht was well ahead of him. But a few moments later, it began to fall off, running downwind with the main and jib out, making for the mouth of the Helford. Andrew relaxed a little and began to enjoy himself. He didn't have to sail hard now, for he knew where Wolf was bound, where he aimed to moor the
Mistral.
Frenchman's Creek.

The early morning—it had just gone seven when they put out of Mullion Cove on the tail of the ebb and began the swing round Lizard Point—had been beautiful: a sharp blue sky over an aquamarine ocean, the water heaving in long, slow rolls, the surf beating against the rocks, the seabirds swooping overhead. As they passed Lizard light, which had stood stalwart against all gales for nearly three hundred years, the southerly breeze was fresh against Andrew's right cheek, and the tiller of the little boat—sturdy, seaworthy, for all its small size—shivered and shuddered like a live thing under his hand. It was a moment of unrestrained, uncompromised, unmitigated pleasure. Whatever his reason for being there, Andrew was glad to be messing about in boats, as his father, a man with a deep love of the sea, had always put it.

But as they beat around Black Head and past the Manacles and then around Nare Point into Gillan Harbor, the clouds had begun to thicken and take on the color of lead. And now, having left the refuge of Gillan, Andrew was glad to be making the turn for Helford and a safer harbor, for the following wind was gaining strength, the waves were higher, and it looked like being rather dirty weather in a few hours. But the run downwind was easy, so he let out the sail, sat far back in the stern, and kept a firm hand on the helm, the prow riding high as the wind hard aft pushed the little sloop forward. This was her favorite point of sail, and she leapt into it with a joyful abandon, planing across the water, skimming the tops of the curling waves like a gull. Andrew felt a thrill strike through him and he gave a wild war whoop.

But Andrew had other things to think about. He had surmised that Wolf put in at Gillan only to take a quick breather and refasten the jib sheet, which had come loose from the clew, leaving the jib flapping. But to Andrew's surprise, Jenna Loveday had appeared, and there had followed that intimate, intriguing exchange between the two of them, a rather unsettling exchange, from Andrew's point of view, although he could not have said why. The scene had been photographed, interestingly, by Patsy Marsden. And by himself, of course, as surreptitiously as possible. While he had other photos, he hadn't one of Wolf and Jenna Loveday together. Although he didn't yet know whether she was an active participant in this business, one never knew when such a photograph might prove useful.

But now there was a further complication, and he didn't like it, didn't like it at all. He had seen Kate Sheridan twice in the company of Jenna Loveday, and it was clear that they were friends, which put him in a devil of an awkward position. The encounter in the churchyard yesterday morning, for instance—it had taken him by such surprise that he'd lost his head and made a major blunder. That foolish remark about Frenchman's Creek had called attention to himself in an entirely unnecessary and amateurish way, when he'd only meant to see Jenna's reaction. Worse, it must have put her on her guard. What had she said to Wolf, just now, about that remark? And had he been noticed, there in the harbor? He'd ducked down behind the sail when he saw the three ladies on the shore, but he was fairly certain that Kate had seen and recognized him.