The Clockmaker's Secret

by Jack Benton

  Slim shrugged. ‘I’m a recovering alcoholic.’

  ‘Yet you dine in the Crown every night?’

  ‘Call it penance,’ Slim said. ‘I’m confronting my personal demons. Plus, I always sit in the family room, out of sight of the booze.’

  ‘But why here? Why Penleven? If I hadn’t noticed your inability to remember basic functions like taking your front door key when you go out, I might imagine you to be a spy in hiding.’

  Slim shrugged. ‘I couldn’t afford to go abroad. And I’ve always been attracted to Cornwall, particularly the cold, dark, featureless parts most people avoid.’

  ‘Well, there’s nowhere more like that than Penleven,’ Mrs. Greyson said with an air of slight disappointment, as though she had once had an opportunity to leave but missed her chance. ‘There are only a couple of hundred people in the village, but at least we’re not a winter ghost town like many of the coastal villages.’

  ‘Ghost town?’

  ‘Boscastle, Port Isaac, Padstow … they’re all holiday homes. Thriving in summer, deserted in winter. We might not be a bustling community, but at least there’s always a friendly face in the shop or the pub.’

  On the occasions he had ventured into the Crown’s bar to order his meal, Slim had seen few friendly faces but lots of downtrodden ones, slumped over their pints, staring into space. Perhaps it was the winter—at night the wind howled, rattling his window hard enough, he feared sometimes, to rip it out of the wall, and it was proper dark on the road up to the guesthouse, not the city-dark Slim was accustomed to. Or perhaps it was that there was little to talk about in these parts. Slim got no reception on his phone unless he walked a mile uphill toward the A39, but for someone with more to forget than look forward to, it was an ideal situation.

  As though giving up the hunt for the snippet of gossip that might briefly elevate her profile among the tongue-wagging older members of the community, Mrs. Greyson set Slim’s breakfast down and stood back, folding her arms, standing watch for a few moments before abruptly turning on her heels and marching back into the kitchen. Slim was left alone in the guesthouse’s cramped dining area: three tables pushed so tight against the walls they had marked the wallpaper, and one floating in the middle as though forgotten. Mrs. Greyson, in some act of defiance against his nerve at burdening her with his business, laid up the least desirable spot of all for Slim each morning, on a table tucked behind a door into the hall. The menu, with three of the four options crossed off, consisted only of a boiled cabbage fry-up with an occasional side helping of baked beans. Slim had so much wind he had to leave his bedroom window open at night.

  At least the toast was consistently pleasant, and the coffee, while lacking the extra something Slim might once have added, was strong and tasted like it was brewed yesterday, the way Slim liked it.

  He finished up quickly, shouted thanks to Mrs. Greyson then headed out before she could corner him again. He was greeted by a damp wind whistling off Bodmin Moor that challenged his jacket to keep him both dry and warm. Even when the moors were dry, Penleven was shrouded in the same drizzle, as though owner of its own microcosmic weather system.

  The bus was an acceptable ten minutes late, and took him on a seemingly endless meander through forested valleys along narrow, snaking lanes until finally emerging in the valley of the pretty town of Tavistock. Laid out along a stretch of the River Tavy, it was a pleasant collection of historic streets lined by surprisingly cosmopolitan shops. Enjoying the rare comfort of people, Slim took the opportunity to upgrade the old soap in Mrs. Greyson’s bathroom, buy himself a t-shirt from H&M, and then took lunch in a Wetherspoons pub. Returning to his purpose after a big screen rugby game had finished, he located the indoor market near the river and asked around for an antiques dealer. Three people recommended Geoff Bunce, the owner of a bric-a-brac store tucked into the northeastern corner beside a bustling café.

  ‘I need a clock valued,’ Slim told the white-bearded Bunce, whose girth and facial hair gave him the appearance of an out-of-season Father Christmas, a look accentuated by the suspenders that stretched over his protruding belly.

  ‘Let me take a look.’

  Bunce turned the clock over several times, humming under his breath with contented appreciation, every so often glancing up at Slim with a suspicious narrowing of his eyes.

  ‘You mind if I open up the back?’

  ‘Sure.’

  As Bunce got to work with a screwdriver, Slim took a seat beside his desk and let his eyes drift over the shelves and boxes loaded with bric-a-brac. Not so much antiques as dusty junk from pasts long forgotten.

  ‘You a friend of old Birch?’ Bunce said abruptly.

  ‘What?’

  Bunce held out a water-damaged envelope.

  ‘Old Birch. Amos.’

  Slim frowned, wondering if Bunce had slipped into a Cornish dialect. Then, with a hint of frustration, the man repeated, ‘Amos Birch. The man who made this clock. Lived over in Trelee, near Bodmin Moor. Owned a farm. In his early days, used to sell his clocks right here in Tavistock market, before he got well-known. He was a friend of yours?’

  ‘Yeah, a friend.’

  ‘Then I’ll guess this belongs to you.’ The man shook the envelope as though to remind Slim of its existence.

  Slim took it, immediately feeling the aged delicacy of the paper coupled with damp. If he tried to open it, the envelope would fall apart in his hands, and any message contained within would be lost.

  ‘Ah, that’s where that got to,’ he said, giving the storekeeper an unconvincing grin. ‘I was looking for that.’

  ‘Sure you were, Mr.—?’

  ‘Hardy. John Hardy, but people call me Slim.’

  ‘I won’t ask why.’

  ‘Don’t. It’s not a story worth telling.’

  Bunce sighed again. He turned the clock one more time. ‘It’s unfinished,’ he said, confirming what Slim had already surmised. ‘I’m guessing your friend Birch gave this to you as a gift? He couldn’t have sold it in this condition, a man of his reputation.’

  ‘It sounds like you knew him well.’

  ‘School friends. Amos was two years older but there weren’t a lot of kids around. Everyone knew everyone else.’

  ‘I guess that’s small communities for you.’

  ‘You’re not from round here, are you, Mr. Hardy?’

  Slim had always felt he spoke with a neutral accent, but that by itself made him an outsider where strong Westcountry accents were expected.

  ‘Lancashire,’ he said. ‘But I spent a lot of time overseas.’

  ‘Military?’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Your eyes,’ Bunce said. ‘I see ghosts in them.’

  Slim took a step back. A reel of unwanted memories began to flicker, which he shook off, shutting it down.

  ‘You were military too?’

  ‘Falklands. Less said about that, the better.’

  Slim nodded. At least they had some common ground. ‘Well, I guess I’ve taken up too much of your time already—’

  ‘You’d get a few hundred for it,’ Bunce said, abruptly holding out the clock. ‘Maybe a little more if you put it to auction. There are collectors out there for Amos Birch clocks, rare as they are. It’s unfinished, and it’s got some cosmetic damage, but it’s still an Amos Birch original. They used to be sought after. Amos was a cottage industry before cottage industries were a thing.’

  ‘Used to be?’

  Bunce frowned, and Slim felt the man’s eyes dissecting every thread of his lie.

  ‘Interest in Amos Birch waned after he disappeared.’

  ‘After he…?’

  ‘You are aware, aren’t you, Mr. Hardy, that your friend has been missing for over twenty years?’

  5

  The Crown & Lion, the lonely pub that sat on the very edge of Penleven, a screen of trees separating it from the nearest estate of houses like a shunned neighbour, had never looked more inviting. From the village’s onl
y bus stop Slim had no choice but to walk past it to reach the guesthouse. Although he had frequently dined in its tatty family room with little craving for the booze that would erase the last three months of recovery in the blink of a local’s squinting eye, tonight he felt too much of the old tension, the nervous restlessness that had always pushed him over the edge. People said once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic, and while Slim had hopes of one day enjoying the occasional quiet beer, those demon-free days of control and contentment were a long way off. He gave the lights in the pub window a single longing glance, then quickened his step and hurried past.

  The guesthouse was quiet when he returned, but through a closed door came the muffled sound of a television with its volume turned down low. Slim cracked the door and saw Mrs. Greyson asleep in her chair in front of an electric fire. The television remote rested on the chair’s arm beside her, as though she’d had the forethought to turn down the sound before nodding off.

  Slim went upstairs. He put the clock on his bed then went back out. Half a mile down the road, outside the village’s only shop, Slim found a payphone.

  He called a friend back in Lancashire. Kay Skelton was a linguistics and translation expert whom Slim knew from his military days, and with whom he had worked before. Slim explained about the old letter found in the back of the clock.

  ‘I need to know what’s written on it, if anything,’ Slim said.

  ‘Mail it to me special delivery,’ Kay said. ‘It’s not something I can do, but I have a friend who can help.’

  After ending the call, Slim was surprised to find the shop still open, even at nearly six-fifteen.

  ‘I’m just closing,’ came the stern greeting from the shopkeeper, an elderly woman with a face so sour Slim doubted she could smile if she tried.

  ‘I’ll only be a minute,’ Slim said.

  ‘Ah, they all say that, don’t they?’ she said with a grin and a sarcastic laugh which left Slim unsure whether she were making a joke or being rude.

  After buying an envelope Slim learned that, yes, the shop also functioned as a local post office, but while yes, it could arrange special delivery mail, a surcharge was required for out-of-hours mailing.

  ‘Is it far from here to Trelee?’ he asked, as the shopkeeper not so subtly herded him toward the door.

  ‘Why’d you want to go up there? Not much up there for tourists.’

  ‘I heard there’s something of a mystery to the place.’

  The shopkeeper rolled her eyes. ‘Ah, you mean Amos Birch, the clockmaker. I thought that was old news by now. What do you care about an old man going missing?’

  ‘I’m a private investigator. The story caught my interest.’

  ‘Why? There’s very little to tell. Did someone hire you?’

  So much disdain was placed on the word ‘hire’ that Slim wondered if the shopkeeper had had a bad experience with PIs in the past.

  ‘I’m on holiday,’ he said. ‘But you know what they say—once a cop, always a cop.’

  ‘Do they say that, do they?’

  ‘So … left or right out of the village?’

  The shopkeeper rolled her eyes again. ‘North on the old Launceston road. You might see a sign—there used to be one, but the council doesn’t cut the weeds back like it used to. About ten minutes by car.’

  ‘On foot?’

  ‘An hour. A bit more, perhaps. If you know the way you can cut across the edge of Bodmin Moor and save some time, but be careful. It used to be mining country.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘And take something to eat. This here’s the only shop from here until you reach the Shell garage on the A39 just outside Camelford.’

  Slim nodded. ‘Thanks for the information.’

  The shopkeeper shrugged. ‘If you want my advice, I’d save myself the effort. Not much to see but an old farmhouse, and not much to know. When Amos Birch disappeared, he made sure he’d never be found.’

  6

  Rain greeted Slim the next morning, but Mrs. Greyson was in as cheery a mood as he’d ever seen her when he explained he was going out.

  ‘Not the best day for the moors, is it?’ she said. When Slim shrugged, she added, ‘I mean, I do have an umbrella I could lend you, but you can hardly use it on your push bike, and in any case, the wind up there will play havoc with it.’

  Slim considered calling her bluff and requesting it anyway, but decided to take his chances with his regular jacket. Mrs. Greyson did offer him an old ordnance survey map, however, with Trelee marked as an enlarged dot a couple of grid squares northeast of where Penleven was granted rather more space than its sparse cluster of houses deserved.

  The road was as he’d come to expect of Cornwall anywhere away from the A30 or A39: an endless meandering lane barely wide enough for two vehicles to pass, a tangle of blind corners and hidden junctions dipping into and out of wooded valleys between rolling hills of farmland and moor. Claustrophobic hedgerows occasionally opened out to reveal ruggedly beautiful panoramas of misty open space, but walking through the gloom cast by overhanging trees, with his only companion the distant barking of a dog or the cry of a bird, Slim’s imagination began to taunt him with images of mangled bodies and missing persons’ advertisements in the back of Sunday newspapers.

  Trelee, at the chink in the road where the map indicated the village should be, was barely a dozen houses, spaced out along half a mile of a flatter stretch broken by gateways into open fields carrying views across to Bodmin Moor. A few farm lanes disappeared into hidden valleys, clusters of secluded barns and farmhouses revealing only rooftops through leafless trees.

  Slim chained his bike to a gate near to a council sign announcing TRELEE in confident lettering, the grass around it hacked down as though beaten by a stick, then continued on foot, wondering if he’d wasted a journey. The three nearest houses were modern bungalows set back from the road. None had vehicles outside, suggesting the occupants were off at work in some faraway metropolis. He spotted a few other signs of life: a scattering of children’s toys on the driveway of one, an elegant cat sitting in the window of another.

  Past the bungalows were three older cottages, stonewalled and thatch-roofed, a slice of travel documentary transported into Cornwall’s nowhere. The first two looked empty, gates bolted and postboxes taped over, but an old man pottered in the garden of the third, emptying the skeletal remnants of dead plants onto a compost heap before stacking the old trays into a pile.

  Slim lifted a hand in response to a polite greeting.

  ‘I wondered if you could spare a minute?’ he called.

  The man wandered over. ‘Sure. Are you new round here?’

  ‘Just visiting. Holiday.’

  The man gave a thoughtful nod. ‘Nice. I would have picked somewhere a little closer to the coast, but each to their own.’

  Slim shrugged. ‘It was cheap.’

  ‘No surprise there.’

  ‘I’m looking for someone who might have known Amos Birch,’ Slim said, the words out before he really knew what he was saying. ‘I’m aware that he’s passed, but I wondered if he perhaps had a wife or a son. I found something that might belong to him.’

  The man visibly tensed at Amos’s name. ‘Whether he’s passed or not is a matter of debate. Who wants to know?’

  ‘My name’s Slim Hardy. I’m staying at the Lakeview Guesthouse in Penleven.’

  ‘And what did you find?’

  Slim figured there was no point holding anything back. ‘A clock. I heard he was a bit of a hobbyist.’

  The man laughed. ‘A hobbyist? Who told you that?’

  ‘Just what I heard.’

  ‘Well, my friend, if you happened to find an Amos Birch clock I’d keep it to myself, or at least under lock and key.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘Those things are highly sought after. Amos Birch was no hobbyist. He was a nationally renowned artisan. His clocks are worth thousands.’

  7

  As Slim sat across a rickety
table from the old man who had introduced himself as Lester ‘but call me Les’ Coates, he found himself constantly thinking about the clock he had casually left on his bed in the guesthouse. It might be worth a small fortune, something that, in the absence of any upcoming work, would be handy right now.

  ‘The stories, they went on and on,’ Les said over tea that Slim found frustratingly weak. ‘It was literally a case of here today, gone tomorrow. Everything from falling down a mine shaft on Bodmin Moor to a kidnapping by an international terrorist group. Quite fanciful, you might say.’

  ‘He lived near here?’

  ‘At Worth Farm. Head north from mine, the second entrance on the left. He had hands who worked the farm for him, but it was a minimal operation. People always claimed he ran it at a loss as a tax break.’

  ‘For his clocks?’

  ‘Later on. He started out as a farmer, took the farm over from his father, I believe. Then, when interest in his side work grew, he cut back on one to expand on the other.’

  ‘Were you friends?’

  Les shook his head. ‘Neighbours. Weren’t no one really Old Birch’s friend. Wasn’t the most sociable of people but he was friendly enough if you saw him in the street.’

  ‘Family?’

  ‘Wife and a daughter. Mary survived him for a few years, but after she passed Celia sold the place and moved away. New couple in there is the Tintons. Nice enough people, keep themselves to themselves. Maggie’s a bit posh, but she’s all right.’

  ‘Did they know the history of the place when they bought it?’

  Les shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t know. I didn’t even know Celia had it up for sale until removal vans started showing up. Certainly weren’t no sale signs up until the sold one appeared. Would have been nice to see a local buy it, but you can’t help these things. No one was sad to see Celia go, though. Good riddance.’

  Slim frowned at the abrupt change in Les’s tone. It reminded him of the reaction he had first received on mentioning Amos. ‘Why do you say that?’