“Pastors. Vicars. Priests. Whatever you call them, they would have been right in the middle of it all. Probably spreading all those stories about ghosts. That would’ve kept the villagers away at night when they were moving the contraband.”
“Then from the church, through the tunnel and up into the woods,” Issie concluded. “That way, everything could be carried away quietly, day or night, and nobody would be any wiser. Black Jack could have made use of that same route to move his spoils from the wreck.” Her hand stole to Granny Alice’s necklace. “That could explain how the coins appeared in the family cottage. Some of his loot was siphoned off straight away – just a handful, before he went back again for the rest later with something to carry it all in.”
“But he never made it from the beach back to the well, because somewhere along the way the tunnel collapsed and he was trapped,” Luke finished.
They stared at one another.
“Which means he’s still in there,” Issie whispered.
It was a grisly thought and she shuddered, recalling how the story went that the treasure was cursed. Granny Alice always said that some things were best forgotten. Was this one of them?
Luke’s eyes were bright with excitement. “Somewhere here there has to be an entrance to that tunnel. It’d be sealed off and overgrown, but it’ll be here somewhere. I just know it.” He reached out and took her hand, tugging her after him. “Come on. Let’s see what we can find.”
In the early morning sunlight, Issie and Luke scoured the churchyard. They examined gravestones, paced out the distance from the gate to the church porch, got scratched by hedges and yew trees, and even found themselves hiding from Jules when she left St Wenn’s after matins and returned to the vicarage. Issie felt bad for keeping things from the vicar, who was a friend as well as Danny’s girlfriend, but for now what they were up to was Luke and Issie’s delicious secret. Every glance from him and every brush of his fingers against hers promised wicked delights to come.
Finally, after over an hour of fruitless searching, Issie and Luke paused for a breather on the churchyard wall.
“I can’t believe we didn’t see anything,” Luke said.
Issie glanced around. “It’s here somewhere. It’s just a question of where.”
They sat in thoughtful silence for a while, listening to the gulls and the trickle of water flowing from an old horse trough on the lane.
“What is that thing?” Luke asked eventually.
“A watering trough for the horses in the village. It was donated by some long-forgotten benefactor.” To be honest, Issie had never paid much attention to the trough. It was something she’d seen most days since she was born, and was as much a part of the village’s background as the seagulls and weathered Celtic crosses.
“Here?” He jumped up to look more closely. “Were there that many horses at the church? The land doesn’t go anywhere else, does it?”
She shrugged. “Maybe the horses got thirsty while people were in church? I don’t know. You’re asking the wrong sister. Horses are Mo’s thing, not mine.”
“And across the lane from the trough is a drain, supposedly for any overflowing water. But is it actually a normal drain?”
Luke shot out of the churchyard gate and crouched beside it. The drain was choked with weeds and leaves, and covered with a corroded grille.
“I’ve never noticed that before,” Issie admitted, joining him.
“That’s the point. Nobody would.” Luke rattled the grille, but it wouldn’t budge. “There’s water flowing under there and I don’t think it’s anything to do with that horse trough. My guess is that’s just a diversion. Your benefactor, whoever he was, was covering his tracks.”
“He did a good job. Polwenna’s full of drains and gullies; it’s a pretty wet village. I don’t think anyone’s looked at these for years.” Issie could hardly keep the excitement out of her voice. “The Pollards are supposed to keep it all clear but they don’t really bother too much. That’s why we had all the flooding.” She peered closer at the grille. “This looks really old. I bet Old Rog put that down years ago just to stop people falling in and nobody’s touched it since. Big Rog and Little Rog would’ve just left it, I expect.”
Luke grinned. “Well, there’s warm beer to drink and pasties to eat, so why bother?”
“And the war was probably on when Old Rog stuck this on it. I guess anyone would just assume that the water down there feeds into the Wenn,” Issie replied.
“It’s echoey.” Luke straightened up. “I think that could have been the entrance once. It’s blocked now, for sure, and there’s no way anyone could fit through. But my guess is it courses through the village and down to the beach. If we follow the pattern of drains that were made to divert water into that channel, I think we may have the path that the tunnel used to take.”
It was so simple that Issie couldn’t believe it hadn’t occurred to her before. Maybe it had taken the fresh eyes of a stranger to see what had been in front of her all along. Polwenna was a village that ran with water all year round, and over the centuries its residents had worked hard to find methods to divert the flow out of the houses and into the river. Except that there were two rivers, the River Wenn and the hidden stream that ran from the well and trickled through the cave, before slipping secretly into the sand.
Sure enough, as they walked down Church Lane and into the village, a series of grates and small holes at the side of the road funnelled away the rainwater and run-off from the valley sides. Many of these were choked with leaf litter and mud, causing miniature rivers to flow overland, but nevertheless they seemed to follow a straight line. It was only once they reached the final houses in the village, the last of which was Luke’s cottage, that the drains stopped. Nothing seemed to go any further.
“That’s it. There aren’t any more. The trail stops here,” said Luke.
But Issie wasn’t so sure. The drains had certainly stopped, that much was true, but there would still be water below. Water was everything here. People fished it, drank it, brewed beer from it, used it to wash in, used it for their sewerage… Their sewerage… Surely not? For a moment she could hardly breathe. The answer seemed obvious to her now. If she was right, then it was somewhere nobody in their right mind would ever want to look.
“I think I know where an entrance to the tunnel might be,” she said slowly.
“Seriously?”
“There’s a shed behind your cottage, isn’t there?” Her heart was starting to race as she said it.
“Sure, there’s a woodshed. I told you, remember? That night we…” He gave her a wicked grin and her pulse skittered all the more. “Well, you know what I’m thinking about. I’d lit the stove after dragging a load of damp logs out of it.”
“It’s not really a woodshed,” Issie told him as together they walked to the back of the cottage to examine the ramshackle building. “It was the outdoor privy.”
Luke’s brow crinkled. “It’s an outdoor what?”
“A privy. Loo? Bathroom? John? Khazi? Bog?”
He held up his hands. “Jeez! You Brits and your toilet obsession. I get the gist, OK? And just in case you’re wondering? It’s called the restroom where I come from.”
“I don’t think anyone would want to rest long in here.” Issie pushed open the door and they peered in, their eyes adjusting to the dark and their noses wrinkling with the smell of rot and mouse. Something scuttled deep beneath the mouldering woodpile, and fat black spiders lurked in corners. Old scallop dredges rusted silently in the shadows, neglected furniture was piled up like an abandoned game of Jenga, a bicycle with flat tyres listed drunkenly against one of the slimy walls, and bin liners bulged like putrefying corpses.
Luke whistled. “No way! This is seriously the restroom?”
“It was once. Long before indoor plumbing. Even the old man who lived here used the indoor loo. He was a recluse though and a bit of a hoarder.”
“You figure? Hey, Sherlock Holmes should be
real scared!”
“Yeah, CSI Polwenna, that’s me.” Taking a breath and doing her best not to gag, Issie stepped into the gloom. Oh God. She didn’t even want to think what that might be crunching beneath her feet. Luke, just behind her, put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it.
“You’re doing great, because this is totally gross,” he said.
It certainly was gross, but Issie knew that she’d have to ignore the urge to spin around and get back into the daylight, if she wanted to find out whether her hunch was right.
“Personally I wouldn’t choose to visit an outdoor privy either, unless I really needed to go,” she said. “To be honest, most were either knocked down when people got decent plumbing, or turned into sheds, like this.”
“Honey,” Luke drawled, “I have never in my life seen a shed like this. Thank the Lord!”
“Anyway, historically I don’t think it was uncommon for people to have privies that were little more than holes in the floor, positioned over a stream. The stream would have carried the waste away out to sea. Basic but effective.”
“So what you’re telling me is that the entrance to the tunnel is through the toilet?”
“Don’t I take you to all the best places?” Issie said.
Together, they began the unpleasant task of moving piles of rotting junk aside. Before long they were almost accustomed to the smells and strange scurrying sounds; their growing excitement had lessened their revulsion, and the closer they came to exposing the floor the more likely Issie’s idea seemed. Finally all that was left was a crude paving slab at the furthest end of the shed. When Luke heaved it aside, they saw that there was nothing underneath except for a hole. Below that, there was gaping darkness. From the marks on the floor it looked as though there had been some kind of toilet over the hole once upon a time, but this had been ripped out long ago and lazily sealed with a slab. How long it had been like this was anyone’s guess.
“That’s our entrance,” said Luke. His expression was hard to read but there was determination there and a harder emotion Issie couldn’t quite identify. Her stomach clenched with sudden nerves. Did she really want to do this?
Luke was certainly right that they’d found a way into the smugglers’ passage. Whether it was one she fancied exploring, Issie wasn’t quite so sure.
But before Issie had time to consider the matter, Luke had switched on his iPhone torch and was lowering himself down. Toilet or not, he wasn’t worried. Nothing, it appeared, was going to stop Luke Dawson’s hunt for Black Jack’s mythical loot.
“It’s a narrow tunnel with a small stream,” he called up, his voice echoing and seeming far away. “There’s only just room for me to stand up, but you might find it a bit easier. Come on, I’ll catch you.”
The dark and the damp were one thing at ground level. The thought of lowering herself into somewhere narrow and unknown made Issie hesitate. What if she got stuck? Or the tunnel collapsed on them and they suffocated? Or…
Come on, she scolded herself, you’ve wanted to prove this story’s true for years! Now’s your chance!
She swung her legs over the edge, took a deep breath and lowered herself into the blackness. Luke’s hands caught her waist and she felt the warmth of his body as he slid her gently against him until her feet touched the rocky floor. As her eyes adjusted, Issie made out a narrow passage little more than three feet wide. Its green walls ran with moisture, and to the left of them rocks had fallen and blocked the way. But, just as Luke had told her, a little stream trickled merrily over the rocky floor.
“It exists!” Issie gasped. “Oh my God, Luke! I can’t believe it really exists!”
He kissed her fiercely and held her close. “Of course it does. You always knew it. You even said so on—”
He stopped and Issie waited for the sentence to finish, but instead he just shook his head. “Anyway, never mind all that. It looks like there’s only one way we can go, so how about we explore?”
With the torch casting eerie shadows that leered and leapt at them, Issie and Luke walked northwards, away from the blocked cave and towards the well in the footsteps of Black Jack. The only sounds were their ragged breathing and the burble of the stream. The narrow streets of the village were above their heads, but although now and then a finger of daylight prodded at the darkness through a distant grille, Polwenna felt like another world. Issie could hardly believe that she was really in the same tunnel that Black Jack Jago and his henchmen had used all those years ago. The tunnel really existed!
Granny Alice would be stunned if she could see Issie right at this moment – and not just because her granddaughter was creeping through a secret tunnel, but because Jonny St Milton had been telling the truth all along. Yes, Issie thought, that was what would really throw her grandmother. To think that for all these years she’d been calling him a fibber!
They made their way along the tunnel a few inches at a time. In some places Luke had to crawl on his hands and knees because the roof was so low. Eventually Issie had to do the same, and soon her jeans were sodden and her hands aching with cold.
“Dammit!” Abruptly, Luke stopped. He was shining his torch up and down what looked like a sheer wall. The tunnel was inky dark here, except for the torchlight, but as Issie shuffled forward she saw that they’d reached another rockfall. It was blocking almost the entire diameter, from the wet floor to the dripping roof of the tunnel. The stream trickled its way between the crevices and cracks, but for anything bigger than a mouse there was no hope of accessing the tunnel beyond.
The sense of disappointment was overwhelming.
“This must be the rockfall Jonny St Milton was talking about,” Issie said, trying to come to terms with the fact.
Luke nodded. “This is as far as we get today.”
“Today?” Issie was confused. “How can we go any further?”
“We bring down diggers and specialist equipment, of course. Hey, the hardest bit is done. We’ve proved the tunnel exists. With that and your grandma’s necklace too, there’s enough evidence to explore even further. No one’s gonna doubt that there’s something pretty special buried down here.”
“I’m not sure about that, Luke. Won’t it cause havoc?” Issie was alarmed. Diggers and excavation? What would that do to the village? Suddenly Alice’s warnings, which until now Issie had dismissed as an old lady’s paranoia, seemed all too real.
“Hey, it’ll be cool. Don’t worry, honey, I’ve handled loads of things like this before. The main thing is to find what’s really buried down here and then figure out how to get it out.”
Issie was confused. “What do you mean? How have you handled stuff like this before? I thought you were just doing some academic research?”
But Luke wasn’t listening. He was busy trying to squeeze his hand through a small gap between the rocks. Swearwords echoed around them as his knuckles rasped against the granite.
It was clear that Luke’s hand wasn’t going to fit. He turned to Issie and passed her his phone. “Issie, honey, see if you can squeeze your hand through and take a picture. I’ve put the flash on. It’s a long shot, but you never know.”
Issie glanced down at the water. It was flowing towards them as well as downhill, and judging by the way it was rising and then falling, this was more than just the stream. The tide was starting to rise; it was seeping in through the cracks at the back of the cave, and at the moment Luke and Issie were squeezed into the narrowest part of the tunnel.
Shit. This could be bad. Wasn’t the treasure cursed? And wasn’t Black Jack supposed to have drowned in the tunnel when he was trapped?
Her mouth dry with fear, she tugged his arm. “Luke, I think the tide’s coming in. We need to go.”
“Take the picture, Issie, and then we’re out of here.” He turned to face her and Issie was taken aback by the determination in his eyes. Where was the happy-go-lucky guy with the honey-warm drawl and laid-back attitude she’d fallen in love with?
Hang on. What was that thou
ght? Had she just entertained the idea that she was in love with Luke Dawson?
“Issie! Hurry up!” Luke was urging, glancing down at the water swirling around them. “The phone’s all set up. Take it! Take as many as you can, but quickly!”
This was no time to be pondering her emotions. Stepping forward, her thumb positioned over the side of the phone, she forced her hand through the small gap, wincing as the rough stone scraped her skin. Her wrist was slender and, unlike Luke, she was able to wiggle her hand right through and press the button several times. Pictures of nothing, obviously. Were they really risking their lives for that?
“It’s done,” she gasped, drawing her hand back through and passing the mobile to him. “I’ve taken some. Now let’s go.”
But Luke didn’t move. He was staring at the phone.
“Luke!” Issie gave him a shove. The water was definitely rising. “Come on!”
“We’re going, honey, I promise. But just look at this quickly and tell me what you see. Tell me it isn’t my imagination.”
He held the phone out. The screen glowed brightly in the darkness and for a moment Issie was dazzled before her eyes adjusted. When they did she rubbed them once, twice and then three times, just to make sure that she really was seeing what she thought she was.
“I’m not imagining things, am I?” Luke said quietly. His eyes slipped to the rockfall and her own gaze followed.
It was as though the rising tide and the darkness had receded.
“No,” she whispered. “It’s not your imagination. Unless I’m imagining it too?”
She looked again at the phone’s screen, but this time there was no doubting what it showed. The shot Issie had taken, although blurred and dark, had revealed the top of a human skull.
She and Luke had found the last resting place of Black Jack Jago. And what was more, there appeared to be something else. Something that had caught the camera light and glinted.
Treasure of the Heart Page 20
