Malice in Cornwall (2 page)

It was early yet for the dinner crowd, and only two of the other tables were occupied. Powell preferred to come when it was quiet and his old friend Rashid Jamal, the proprietor, wouldn't be too busy for a chat. Powell placed a high value on his friendship with the dapper Pakistani—on more than one occasion a sensible word or a sympathetic ear from Rashid had set him on the right course—not to mention the fact that Rashid served the best curry in London, a considerable accomplishment in a city with more than two thousand Indian restaurants. Powell's wife,
Marion, accompanied him occasionally, although not as often as in the old days when Rashid's wife, Nindi, had presided over the kitchen. Usually he came alone on evenings when he had to work late. Tomorrow he was off to Cornwall to start a new case, and Marion was away for a fortnight in Canada with the boys, so a meal at the K2 had seemed like just the thing.

The K2 Tandoori was for Powell an oasis of tranquillity and sensory delight, as effectively isolated from the outside world and its concerns as if by the eternal snows of the high Karakoram. A couple of hours in the care of Rashid and he generally felt like a new man. Along these lines, he had recently read an article in the
New Scientist
about the addictive qualities of curry. It seems that the active ingredient of hot chilies, capsaicin, triggers the release of endorphins, the body's natural painkillers, creating a sense of pleasure and well-being. The food seems more highly flavored and the experience of eating is intensified. Now with a legitimate excuse for indulging his weakness, Powell was happy to admit that he was basically on the same plane as your garden-variety drug addict. Returning to his newspaper, he munched contentedly on a peppery
pappadam.

A familiar voice roused him from his reverie. “Erskine, my dear chap, did you get through to your colleague?” Rashid bore a fresh pint of lager for Powell and a lemon squash for himself.

“I managed to catch him in, thanks.” Powell cleared away his paper to make room.

Rashid sat down and sighed heavily. “Things are difficult, my friend. I lost my best waiter last week and you
cannot imagine how difficult it is to get help that you can rely upon these days.”

“I was wondering where Ali was. What happened?” The portly server had been a fixture at the restaurant for several years.

“He took a job at a hotel in Oxford Street. He said he wanted to make a career for himself in the hospitality industry.” Rashid looked around sadly. “What does he think this place is—a bloody ironmongers' shop?”

“I read somewhere that the average young person starting out today will change careers four or five times during his or her lifetime,” Powell observed neutrally.

But Rashid was not to be so easily distracted. “It is very sad, Erskine. How can one perfect one's craft, one's art, if one is all the time hopping willy-nilly from one frying pan to another? Never trust a tiger who changes his spots, my friend.”

Powell bit his tongue and nodded sympathetically. Carried away by righteous indignity, Rashid seemed to have conveniently forgotten his own varied background; he'd been a pilot in the Pakistani air force, a professional cricketer, and a medical student before emigrating to England and becoming a successful restauranteur.

“Well, I suppose it's the economy,” Powell ventured. “It must be hard for a small business to offer its employees much security these days.”

Rashid's eyes flashed angrily. “If the bloody louts show up on time and do their bloody work without complaining. I will give them all the security they want and half their bloody tips besides.”

Powell suppressed a smile only with some difficulty. “How will you manage?”

Rashid shrugged philosophically. “Nindi has agreed to come in when it gets busy, but I am hoping to have somebody new by next week. Now, enough of my small problems, how does it go with you?”

“Never a dull moment. Have I told you that Peter and David will be taking jobs in Canada this summer, working for Marion's brother in Vancouver? Peter's thinking of staying on and going to university there next year. David still has another year of school left and hasn't decided what he wants to do. They're all over there now on a reconnaissance mission, as a matter of fact. Marion was able to swing a conference in Vancouver, so she took the boys out of school for a couple of weeks.”

Rashid nodded knowingly. “It is that time of life when the little birds are leaving the nest.”

“Soon enough, I suppose,” Powell said.

“And what about you and dear Marion? Have you decided what you will do when the time comes, my friend?”

“When the boys are gone? I don't know; travel a bit, perhaps. We haven't really talked about it.”

“One cannot allow these things to happen haphazardly, my dear Erskine,” Rashid said, a flicker of concern in his face. “Living one's life is like cooking a curry. One must have a plan of action. All the ingredients must be prepared beforehand, so as to be instantly available at precisely the moment when they are needed. The onions, garlic, and ginger must be browned just so, to prepare the foundation of the dish, then the spices added in the proper amounts and sequence. And finally the
masala
must be cooked
slowly.
The proper maturing of the flavors is the critical thing. You simply cannot rush it—to
do so would be fatal to the intended result. And when the curry is ready, all will be in vain if the rice is not cooked to perfection and the
chapatis
are not piping hot. You yourself are a fine curry cook, Erskine, so you should know these things!” he concluded sternly.

Powell found the situation rather amusing. From anyone else such unsolicited, albeit cryptic, advice about his personal affairs would be highly unwelcome. However, Rashid seemed to know him better than he knew himself at times, and Powell had to admit that his friend had a point. All too often he put off important decisions until he was overtaken by events. He smiled and raised his glass. “Here's to planning.”

Rashid beamed happily. “Now. then, I will go and personally prepare your dinner.”

Powell demolished another
pappadam
and spent the next few minutes happily anticipating the gastronomic delights to come. Vegetable
samosas
to start: triangular pastries stuffed with mixed vegetables and lentils, deep-fried crisp and served with coconut chutney. And then the main course:
karai gosht
, tender pieces of lamb cooked quickly in an Indian wok with slivers of onions, fresh garlic and ginger, dried red chilies and green pepper; a side dish of
bhindi:
okra sauteed with onions and tomato, and flavored with cumin and coriander; basmati rice fragrant with aromatic spices and golden saffron; a small dish of spicy lime pickle; and last but not least a fluffy
naan
as big as an elephant's ear baked in the cylindrical clay tandoor. And then, to complete this veritable orgasm of the taste buds, a dessert created by Rashid in Powell's honor—Murder by Mango—a slab of mango ice cream splattered with raspberry
coulis
, the lot washed down
with several cups of strong coffee. Then stagger home, burping richly. All things considered, Powell thought expansively, life didn't seem so bad from the cloistered perspective of the K2 Tandoori.

At nine-thirty the next morning Powell was at Paddington Station waiting for Detective-Sergeant Black to put in an appearance. He had arrived early and sat at a tiny coffee bar near the edge of the throng under the great curved roof of glass and wrought iron. The InterCity to Penzance, the train being rather ambitiously christened “The Cornish Riviera,” didn't depart until ten thirty-five, and he was content to smoke and sip his coffee and watch the world pass by. The world that morning seemed to consist mostly of cheerful young women, casual in jumpers and skirts, with calf muscles knotting determinedly as they hurried to and from their trains. He tried to remember what it was like at that age, young hearts full of hope and tenderness. Little did they know. Not that he was completely immune to such romantic afflictions himself. It was rather like a glimpse through the rearview mirror of some half-forgotten landmark on the winding road that descends to the cemetery. He smiled faintly. It could be worse, he supposed.

He thought about the day last week when Marion and the boys left for Canada. A rare sunny morning of spring and she woke him early to make love. It had been like that lately, after not having done it for weeks. Never rains but it pours. It was always better between them afterward, and he wondered idly if sex wasn't a bit like electro-convulsive therapy. Soothes the savage breast. Grrr.

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“Er, yes, miss. Another coffee, please, and, oh, yes, you'd better bring another cup. I'm expecting someone.”

The waitress returned with the coffee, watching Powell from the side of her eye as she poured. They got all kinds in here, but not many like him. With his posh accent and just that hint of something in his eyes, she wondered if he was an artist of some sort, or perhaps an actor. Tall and dark with just a bit of gray to make him look distinguished, like. Now that she thought about it, he did look a bit like Alan Bates. She wondered if he was expecting a man or a woman. A woman probably, someone cool and sexy—being something of a film buff, she pondered for a moment—someone like Sharon Stone. If she was disappointed a few minutes later when a stocky, balding man walked in and squeezed onto the stool beside Alan Bates, she gave no sign of it.

“Morning, Mr. Powell.”

“Good morning, Bill. Raring to go?”

“It sounds interesting enough, sir.”

“Oh, I don't know. A creature resembling the hound of the Baskervilles running amok in a quaint Cornish fishing village. Should be a piece of cake.”

Black grinned. “How did we get pulled into it?”

Powell drew on his cigarette. “Evidently the local chief constable is under a bit of a cloud at the moment. Something about unnatural couplings with farm animals.”

Detective-Sergeant Black frowned disapprovingly.

“The superintendent in Camborne is an old chum of mine,” Powell continued. “Things are rather in disarray out there, as you can imagine, and they are tending to view this Riddle of Penrick business as more of a distraction than anything else. They've been taking a lot of flack
from the press and are anxious to have the matter cleared up before the tourist season gets into full swing. One of the tabloids even had the cheek to suggest that the chief constable, being a dab hand with beasts, ought to take the case up himself. All things considered, they thought it best to bring in someone from outside, although it's not at all clear any crime's been committed.”

Black grunted neutrally, seemingly lost in thought. Suddenly he brightened.
“A hound it was, an enormous coal-black hound, but not such a hound as mortal eyes have ever seen. Fire burst from its open mouth, its eyes glowed with a smouldering glare, its muzzle and hackles and dewlap were outlined in flickering flame.”

Powell looked up, startled. “What did you say?”

“‘The Hound of the Baskervilles,’ sir.”

Powell eyed his companion closely. “Very apt.” Black was renowned at the Yard for his phenomenal memory, but impromptu literary quotations were rather out of character. Nonetheless, Powell was impressed.

Black looked pleased with himself.

Powell checked his watch. “Is that the time? We'd better take our seats.”

Roger Trevenney stared out the window of his cottage. There was a red crabber off Towey Head, making for St. Ives like a spot of blood on the blue-green swell. A luminous mist had settled over the Head, whose dark shape seemed to float insubstantially between sea and sky in a hazy continuum of light. He had been sick again that morning and the headaches were getting worse, almost unbearable at times. He longed only to see the heavenly
hosts praising the loving God and to be with Ruth and Millie at last. It wouldn't be long now, he knew. Only one more thing to do. the culmination of the lonely years, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, his holy mantra. And yet, as he neared the end there had been moments when his bitter resolve faltered, when the world around him seemed illuminated with a significance that he was only now beginning to grasp. When even the air itself was suffused with a pearly light, like a translucent curtain hanging between him and the final revelation. It had been the light that first inspired his modest efforts as a watercolorist, and while he needed to paint now more than ever to give life to his vision, his body had betrayed him.

Trevenney closed his eyes. He could see Ruth again, white spring frock dazzling in the sunlight, picking bluebells in the meadow above the sea cliffs. He remembered the picnic lunches by the secret tilted stones they had discovered together, blue sea below and yellow explosions of gorse all around them. He busy at his easel and Ruth writing in her diary.

Then he remembered the time she had been searching for shells on the sliver of beach below the cottage and found a
Clathrus
, its shell intricately carved into exquisite whorls and ridges, a larger, more colorful specimen than he had ever seen before. She had run up breathless to the cottage to show him, and then, fancying it a visitor from some tropical shore, had put it back into the sea. And the good-humored sparkle in her eyes when she had critiqued her father's paintings those many years ago. He wiped away a burning tear. God, how he missed her! So much like her mother and yet so different. The miracle of creation incarnate, her whole life ahead of her like a
silver path of moonlight on the water… He slammed his fist down on the table.

Now it was starting all over again. He searched the window glass as if it were a mirror. The mist had thickened, obscuring Towey Head from view. He cradled his head in his hands and wept soundlessly.

Detective-Sergeant Black turned right off the B3300 just before Portreath onto the minor road that led to Penrick and to Porthtowan beyond. Powell interrupted his travelogue momentarily to lower the passenger-side window. He took a deep breath. The air was bracing with the faint but unmistakable astringency of the sea. He lit a cigarette. The road undulated over scrubby fields punctuated by occasional roofless engine houses with crumbling chimneys, abandoned mines with names like Wheal Faith and Wheal Bounty. Stark reminders of the Duchy's past riches.