Malice in Cornwall (11 page)

Black nodded.

When they got back to Penrick, the village was cloaked in a dense fog that blotted out the sea and everything else more than fifty feet away.

Sergeant Black pulled up at the Wrecker's Rest and got out.

Powell slid over into the driver's seat. “I'll see you later.”

“Right.” Black waved as the car bearing his superior disappeared into the mist.

Up the hill and then left at the church, according to Black's directions. Colin Wilcox lived in an isolated house located about a half mile northeast of the village but nearly a mile away by road. This was the less frequented stretch of the Sands enclosed by the small promontory that formed the northerly limit of Penrick Bay. The beach was narrower and rockier here and generally less hospitable to swimmers and boaters. The northern entrance to the bay was guarded by three black pinnacles (offshore stacks to the geomorphology types), shown officially on the sea charts as Parthenope, Ligea, and Leucosia, and known locally, if imprecisely, as the Mermaids. (They were Sirens, actually.) In any case, they had claimed many a
boat in the old days. It was said that at extremely low tides a barnacle-encrusted keel could be seen amongst the rocks. None of which, however, was evident to Powell that afternoon as his car crept through the fog along the winding clifftop road, with an ever-present sense of the drop to the rocks and sea below. The visibility was practically zero and the reflected glare of the headlamps only made matters worse. Occasionally he could hear the foghorn sounding forlornly on Godrevy Island.

After what seemed like a never-ending series of hair-raising bends and turns and morbid fantasies (“Scotland Yard Detective Plunges Off Cornish Sea Cliff”) Powell was beginning to wonder if he hadn't got himself hopelessly lost. Then suddenly the road turned sharply left and after a short, descending pitch, he found himself stopped on a flattish patch behind the dark shape of a house. A dull yellow glow from one of the windows looked promising, although he had no idea if he was even at the right house. He turned off the motor and got out of the car. He could hear the roar of the sea not far below. Shivering in the damp chill, he walked up to the house and knocked on the door.

A light came on above his head. The curtains parted and a face showed in the window. A few seconds later, the door opened. A tall young man with curly blond hair appeared. “Yes?” he said simply.

“Mr. Wilcox?” Powell asked.

The man nodded, and Powell introduced himself. “I'm sorry for dropping in unannounced, but I wanted to have a word with you about this body we've found. I have reason to believe you can assist us with our inquiries.”

The young man smiled disarmingly. “Isn't that what the police officer always says to his primary suspect?”

Powell laughed. “It's not as bad as all that, Mr. Wilcox, I promise you.”

“Do come in and have a beer then, Chief Superintendent, and please call me Colin.”

Powell followed Wilcox inside. It appeared to be a fairly modern house with an open floor plan, a quarry tile floor in the kitchen and oak parquet everywhere else, modern Danish furniture, and a large picture window facing the sea. Powell imagined that the view on a fine day would be spectacular. Today though, it was all gloom outside. There were times, Wilcox volunteered, when you couldn't see anything for days on end. Powell made some complimentary remarks about the house.

“It was my parents' place,” Wilcox explained. “I built the addition myself. The old house still exists, basically the bedrooms, a small study, and a sitting room down the hall there. I lived in California for a few years and picked up some architectural ideas. West Coast Contemporary they call it over there.”

“I'm not very handy myself,” Powell admitted.

Wilcox grinned. “How about that beer?”

“Great.”

When Wilcox returned with two bottles of ale and two glasses, Powell said, “Most people around these parts seem to have an affinity for wine. It's refreshing to run into a beer drinker.”

Wilcox winked. “I take whatever's going. Cheers.”

“Cheers. Sergeant Black tells me that you're a fisherman.”

Wilcox smiled thinly. “That, and a builder in the off-
season. My father was a fisherman and his father before him.”

“What sort of fishing do you do?”

“A bit of everything. Crabs and lobsters, sport fishing charters in the summer for mackerel, sharks, whatever. In the old days it was pilchards mainly; they used to salt them down in the cellars and export them all over the world. It's not real fishing I do, not like my grandfather, but it's where the money is these days. And the London girls who come out here on holiday seem to appreciate the genuine Cornish article,” he added roguishly.

It sounded like a carefree sort of life to Powell. “You have your own boat, I take it.”

Wilcox nodded. “I keep it moored in St. Ives.”

“I suppose you would get to be quite familiar with the local tides and currents.”

“Enough to get by.”

“I'll get right to the point, Colin. Something about this business has been bothering me from the start. I understand that this part of the coast is swept by strong currents; assuming that the Riddle and our body are one and the same, I don't understand how something drifting passively in the sea could get caught in Penrick Bay for so long.”

Wilcox shook his head in amazement. “You know, you're the first person around here who's even asked the question. It's obvious, isn't it? The whole thing's a put-up job.”

“Go on.”

“First off, you're right about the currents. We're influenced by the Gulf Stream here and, ignoring local tidal effects, the set is generally to the northeast. I remember
once as a kid finding a drift bottle on the beach that had been dumped in the middle of the English Channel by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries as part of a study of tides and currents. There was a little card inside, and if you filled it out saying where and when the bottle was found and sent it in, you got a small reward—five shillings, I think. Over half of the bottles dropped in the Channel drifted round Land's End and came ashore on the north coast, right the way up to Trevose Head. That's about twenty-five miles up the coast from here. So it's not surprising that your body would drift into Penrick Bay with the tides, but it's highly unlikely that it would stay around for more than a day or two.”

Assuming of course that it came from somewhere else, Powell thought. “You used the words ‘put-up job.’What did you mean?”

Wilcox studied Powell's face carefully before replying. “I mean that someone must have taken an active part in it, dragging the thing onto the beach at night when the tides were right, leaving it where it would likely be found, and then removing it before anyone could get a good look at it. It wouldn't be easy.”

The same idea had been running round the back of Powell's brain as an admittedly far-fetched possibility, but hearing someone else articulate it caused a familiar thrill to surge through his body. It was the sensation he experienced when all of his faculties were humming along in tune. “And they'd have to keep it hidden somewhere between times,” he mused.

Wilcox pulled a face. “Not a pleasant thought, is it?”

“But why would anybody go to all the trouble?”

“It does seem pretty bizarre.”

Wilcox's description of the local currents was consistent with what Powell had been told by the coastguard officer in Falmouth. Time now to get to the real reason for his visit. “You mentioned to Sergeant Black that some people in Penrick were making a connection between the Riddle and the murder of Ruth Trevenney.”

Wilcox appeared to hesitate, then he shrugged. “There's been some talk going around. It's no secret.”

“What do
you
think, Colin?”

He met Powell's steady gaze. “I can tell you what I know about it, if that would help.”

Powell nodded.

“My father told me the story,” Wilcox began in a quiet voice. “I was still in nappies when it happened. Ruth Trevenney lived with her father in a cottage up along Mawgawan Beach. He still lives there. He's quite a well-known artist, used to be a leading light in St. Ives before it got too trendy,” he added parenthetically. “Anyway, one day Ruth just disappeared. It was in ‘sixty-seven, I think—she was sixteen or seventeen at the time. A massive search was undertaken, involving local volunteers, the police, and the coastguard, but to no avail. A few days later, her body washed up on the Sands with its throat slit. The girl who discovered it was high on acid at the time, and it created quite a stir in the media. The police later discovered that Ruth's body had been thrown down an old mine adit that drains to the sea. You can see the opening in the cliff between the Old Fish Cellar and Mawgawan Beach. There was a heavy rain and the body ended up in Penrick Bay. Even today after a good rain, contaminated drainage from the mine workings discharges
from the tunnel and stains the sea red. There's some around here that say it's the blood of Ruth Trevenney.”

“You mentioned the Old Fish Cellar.”

“It's where they used to salt the pilchards down, just past Towey Head.”

“Go on.”

“The murderer was never found. There were lots of rumors flying around at the time: drug smugglers, the hippies who used to hang out around Mawgawan Beach, you name it. Everyone had their own pet theory, apparently.”

“And your father?”

Wilcox did not look up. “I don't remember him voicing an opinion on the subject, and I never asked. I do know that Ruth and her father were well liked around here.”

No point in beating about the bush. “So is someone actually suggesting that the Riddle of Penrick is Ruth Trevenney's ghost, or something to that effect?”

Wilcox smiled wanly. “Not in those words exactly, but you have to admit there's an eerie similarity. And we Cornish are a superstitious lot.”

“Hmm. Could you draw me a rough sketch showing the relative location of Mawgawan Beach, the Trevenneys' cottage, the Old Fish Cellar, and the mine drainage tunnel, so I can get my bearings?”

“No problem.” He went off to search for a pen and paper.

Powell was beginning to weave together in his mind a number of hitherto unrelated threads. A body that glows in the dark like an hallucination, the sensitivity of the local police to an incident that bears a disturbing resemblance to a previous unsolved murder, and the outrage of
Dr. Harris, the friend of Roger Trevenney. Still, a connection with something that happened thirty years ago seemed improbable. More likely it was somebody pulling a prank, as others had suggested. An unfortunate accident somewhere along the coast, the body washes up on the Sands, and some yob takes advantage of the situation. A tasteless joke at best, a misdemeanor at worst. But why couldn't he convince himself? He emptied his glass.

Wilcox returned and drew a map of Penrick Bay and the section of coastline immediately to the southwest. In a neat hand he made various notations on the map. When he was satisfied, he handed it over to Powell.

Powell examined the sketch. “That helps considerably. Thanks.” He folded the paper and placed it in his pocket.

“Not at all.”

“I won't take any more of your time, Colin, but I may need to talk to you again.”

Wilcox smiled. “You know where to find me, Chief Superintendent.”

A real charmer, Powell thought as he got into his car. As he turned around in the driveway, he had the feeling that Wilcox was watching him.

The boom swung around and Powell felt the sea surge under the plywood hull as the little Enterprise heeled over and began to pick up speed, the mainsail thrumming in the wind, spray flying from the bow.

“Take in the sheet!” Powell called out to Jane Goode, who had her hands full wrestling with the jib.

“What sheet?” she shouted, her voice edged with panic.

“That line in your hand, the bloody rope, woman!”

“Then why didn't you say so!” she retorted, pulling it through the cleat like he had shown her during their test run in front of Dr. Harris's cottage. But now they were nearly half a mile offshore with nothing between them and North America but water, and the rocks of Towey Head were coming up quickly on their left—er, port side, she corrected herself. And she'd already forgotten what a spinnaker was, or was it a luff?

Powell grinned at her. Hair flying in the wind, her face flushed, she looked wonderful. The last of the morning fog was burning off. and it promised to be a fine day. A
fresh westerly was blowing and lines of white horses advanced across a vast blue meadow of sea. What better way to use Colin Wilcox's map to familiarize himself with the local coastline and get the juices flowing besides?

Jane Goode, however, viewed the situation rather differently. A rash acceptance of Powell's proposal in the Head last night, induced by a surfeit of wine, she supposed ruefully; a mighty struggle with Powell to launch Dr. Harris's thirteen-foot sailboat that morning; and now she found herself drenched with spray and hanging on for dear life as the tiny dinghy, leaning over at an alarming angle, sliced through the choppy waves. More than anything else, she was angry at herself, at her own sense of incompetence. She had always considered herself fairly athletic—she had excelled in a number of sports at school and still tried to keep fit biking and jogging. But she was cautious by nature and didn't like to jump into anything new without first doing her homework. If she had wanted to try sailing, for instance, she would have enrolled in a course of sailing lessons, not agreed to go out in a gale in a minuscule boat with a suicidal maniac who seemed intent only on showing off. Men, they were all the same! But she'd be damned if she'd let him get the better of her. Clenching her teeth, she checked that her feet were hooked securely under the toe strap and then hung her rear end out even farther over the gunwale.

Gannets plunged offshore, a pair of gray seals frolicked in their wake, and Powell's spirits soared. He loved the wind and spray in his face. Every faculty finely tuned to the elements and the lively response of the dinghy. If he had been alone he would have whooped for joy. He
had almost forgotten what it was like, but he supposed it was like riding a bicycle—one never lost the knack.