by Carola Dunn
“No! That’s what I thought at first, but Nick and Megan … My eyesight’s good but their eyes are much younger, and they both…” Eleanor found she was crying helplessly. “Megan—When I left to get help, she was preparing to dive in after him. What if she’s in trouble, too? You must believe me. Send someone, quickly!”
“This … er … Megan, she has lifesaving skills?”
“I don’t know! But she’s a police officer. Detective Sergeant Pencarrow, of CaRaDoC—the Constabulary of the Royal Duchy of—”
“I know what CaRaDoC is, madam. Hold the line, please.”
The man at her side handed her a box of Kleenex. She sniffed and dabbed her eyes.
“Sorry. It just suddenly struck me that Megan—my niece—is in danger.”
They both looked round as the front door opened. In came the man in the reefer, scowling. The scowl didn’t appear to be directed at Eleanor, though. He seemed hardly to notice her as he strode over to the desk and demanded his key.
“Twelve, please.”
“Here you are, Mr. Avery. Had a pleasant day, I hope? Beautiful weather. Will you be in for dinner?”
Eleanor missed the growled response as the phone said, “Hello? Hello? Could I have your name, please, madam, and where you’re ringing from.”
“Eleanor Trewynn. Mrs. I’m at the Wellington Hotel in Boscastle, inside the foyer as the public telephone outside was unavailable.”
The large man gave her an irritated glance and went off towards the stairs.
“Mrs. Trewynn, the Launceston ambulance will be on its way shortly. The police have been notified, as well as the Coast Guard. Is vehicular access available?”
“Ve … Oh, you mean can the ambulance drive to the spot?”
“Yes, madam,” said the voice patiently, “to the site of the occurrence. A farm track or—”
“No. There’s a footpath, off the coast road. The B3 something. B3623?” She looked to the hotel man for help, but he had disappeared.
“B3263. I have it on the map.”
“That’s it. The path must be about a mile? I’m not sure…”
“Will someone be present to direct the ambulance men?”
“No. Yes. I’ll drive back at once and wait for them.”
“Thank you, madam. But first, I’ll need your home address, please.”
“Port Mabyn: 21a, Harbour Street. It’s over the LonStar shop.”
“Oh, that Mrs. Trewynn?” For the first time, the voice sounded interested. “Didn’t I read about you in the paper?”
“Possibly.” Eleanor very much wanted to forget that dreadful photograph, to which some of the more sensational newspapers had added a caption suggesting, in terms barely skirting libel, that she was about to be arrested for murder. “I must go. I don’t want to be late for the ambulance. Thank you for your help. Good-bye.”
She hung up, glancing at the clock on the wall behind the counter, not taking in what it said. There wasn’t the least chance that the ambulance would reach Rocky Valley before her. She had less than three miles to drive. The Incorruptible, in spite of age and decrepitude, could make it in ten minutes, fifteen at worst, even with a hill steep enough to require a hairpin bend.
Coming from Launceston, the ambulance would take at least half an hour, probably more. The driver had to choose between a roundabout route or cutting through lanes scarcely wide enough for his vehicle. Even if he didn’t get lost, he might meet a tractor, or a herd of cows.
The road from Bodmin was more direct. “Why didn’t they send the Bodmin ambulance?” Eleanor said aloud in her frustration. A few minutes could make the difference between life and death.
“Maybe it’s out on a call already.” The little man in the bow tie was back, and with him a stout woman in a navy overall, bearing a tin box with a red cross on the lid. “This is our housekeeper, Mrs. Jellicoe. If you’ll step through to the office, she’ll … um … patch you up a bit.”
“It’s very kind of you, Mrs. Jellicoe, but I’m in rather a hurry.”
“’Twon’t take but a moment, Mrs. Trewynn.” The housekeeper’s soft voice proclaimed her a local. “You don’t want it to get infected. Ivers! You’ve made quite a mess of yourself!”
“Really, I must go. The ambulance—”
“If it’s coming from Launceston,” the man pointed out, “it won’t arrive for ages. Leave my hotel looking like that and people will think you fell in here. They’ll assume we’re to blame for having dangerous stairs. People are always ready to believe the worst.”
Eleanor gave in and let herself be ushered through the door behind the counter, into an obsessively tidy office. For some reason, it made her remember that she was expected for an early supper with Jocelyn and the Reverend Timothy. There was no guessing when she’d get away from this brouhaha.
“Oh, bother!” She turned to the man, who having showed her into his office was returning to the lobby. “I’m so sorry, I must make another call, I’m afraid. Just a quick one to warn a friend I may be late.”
“Would you like me to ring for you?”
“That’s very kind of you. It would save time.” And she rather dreaded trying to explain to Joce. “Mrs. Stearns, at the vicarage in Port Mabyn.” She gave the number.
“Right you are.”
The housekeeper led her through another door, leading to a lavatory. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, tear-stained face and white curls in wild disorder, before she obeyed orders to sit on the loo seat while Mrs. Jellicoe filled the basin with warm water. Teazle had followed, of course. After a puzzled yip when the door closed behind them, she watched with interest. The housekeeper cleaned up cuts, grazes, scrapes, and scratches with gentle thoroughness, then applied sticking plaster to injuries small enough to be covered and smothered the rest of the damage with Germolene, which made the dog sneeze.
When Mrs. Jellicoe started taking gauze and bandages from the first aid box, Eleanor hastily demurred. “Oh, thank you, I’ll be all right without those.”
“Are you sartin?”
“Yes, honestly.” She stood up and poked ineffectually at her hair. “You’ve been so very kind, I don’t know how to thank you. And Mr.… I didn’t gather his name.”
“Mr. Wharton. A furriner, though he can’t help that, poor soul. Some pernick, he is, but not a bad cappun, else. I’ll just sponge your skirt, then. It’ll dry in no time, het as it’s been today.”
“No, no, I can’t wait. Just let me splash some water on my face.”
This time, Eleanor managed to escape. In the foyer, Mr. Wharton was talking to a couple with a large number of suitcases, so she waved to him, mouthed “Thank you!” and hurried past.
When Eleanor reached the Rocky Valley lay-by, a stocky boy in shorts and hiking boots was half sitting, half leaning on the bank beside the drive leading down to Trevillet Mill and the footpath. He looked bored and sulky. He watched as Eleanor pulled in behind Megan’s car. She set the brake, turned off the engine, then crossed her arms on the steering wheel and rested her head on them, eyes closed.
Teazle whined.
“Shush, girl. Patience.”
She hoped the ambulance would come soon, for Megan’s sake and the stranger’s. On the other hand, if it was unavoidably dilatory, she could just sit here and …
“Wuff! Wuff!” Teazle’s gruff little voice sounded an alert and a warning. She stood up on her back legs, her front paws braced on the cart wheel rim, ready to leap out.
“Hello? Are you all right?” The young man, one hand on the roof of the car, leant down to peer at Eleanor through the open passenger window. His public-school voice managed to combine tepid concern with an undertone of irritation.
“Yes.” She blinked up at him. “Yes, thank you. Just a bit tired.”
“You wouldn’t by any chance be Megan’s Aunt Nell?”
“I am. Is she safe?”
“Cold, and a bit bashed about, but otherwise fine. And, to answer your next question, she got him
out. At least, she brought him in. That bloke and I lugged him out. Some kind of wog, or Paki, or something.”
“I beg your pardon?” Eleanor said frostily.
“Sorry, a dark-skinned person whose ancestors probably originated on the Indian subcontinent.”
Eleanor’s thoughts flew to Dr. Prthnavi. She didn’t know of any other Indians in the area. But Rajendra was kept much too busy by his GP practice to go in for sea-bathing. Furthermore, as a police surgeon, he had seen too many drowning victims to venture into the North Atlantic in September. No doubt it was a tourist, unaware of the dangerous currents and biting cold. “Is he all right?”
“He’s alive, but it’s touch-and-go, according to Megan. Is she really a police officer, or were they having me on?”
“Detective sergeant, with the Cornish police.”
“Whew, who’d have thunk it? She’s much too young and good-looking to be a copper, but she’s got that way about her, all right. She ordered me up here to direct the ambulance men, and I hopped to it pronto. They must teach them that tone of voice. I suppose there is an ambulance coming?”
“Yes, it shouldn’t be long now. The emergency operator told me to wait here for them, to show them where to go.”
“They won’t need both of us. I could go back. My girlfriend’s down there, you see, not to mention all our stuff. On the other hand, you look pretty beat up, if you don’t mind my mentioning it, Aunt … Mrs.… I don’t know your name, I’m afraid.”
“Trewynn. But Aunt Nell will do. You’re…?”
“Chaz. You could buzz along home, or wherever you’re staying, and put your feet up, and leave the ambulance men to me.”
“Thank you, Chaz, it’s tempting, but I think I’d better stay. I had the impression that the police would want to speak to me, because I was the one who called in.”
“The police! Isn’t one enough?” Something about his protest drew Eleanor’s attention to a faintly herbal smell hanging about the boy, one she had come across in many parts of the world.
None of her business. “They called out the lifeboat as well,” she said, “though, since Megan pulled the man out, it’s not needed after all. I expect the police will be able to get in touch and tell them not to bother. Radar … or do I mean radio?”
“Radio.”
“Unless—oh dear!—he didn’t say whether he went out alone?”
“He wasn’t capable of speech. He was hardly breathing.”
“That doesn’t sound good. I hope the ambulance gets here soon. But what if he didn’t go swimming on his own? What if there’s someone else out there caught in a current and drowning?”
FOUR
The sound of a vehicle approaching from the south made Eleanor and Chaz glance back. As it appeared, Teazle started wagging her stump of a tail.
A black-and-white panda Mini drew up beside them. Chaz took a couple of steps backwards between the cars, as if he’d prefer to fade away.
“All right, Mrs. Trewynn?” PC Leacock called, leaning across his passenger seat to look through the open window.
“Yes, fine, thank you, Bob. Or rather, not so fine. We’re waiting for an ambulance.”
“You’re hurt? Hold on a mo.” Reversing, he parked beyond Megan’s car and trudged back, his helmet now in place. “What’s up? Anything I can do? This laddie bothering you?” He scrutinised Chaz.
“Hey, I’m trying to help!”
“He is,” Eleanor affirmed, though she knew only what Chaz had told her. “He helped Nick pull him out.” As Bob Leacock scratched his head in a puzzled way, she explained, “After Megan—DS Pencarrow—rescued him. While I went to telephone for an ambulance, and they’re sending a lifeboat as well. Police, too. More police, I mean.”
“Oh? I didn’t hear anything about it. Must have been in a valley, no radio reception. Well, in that case…” The local constable still looked confused. “If DS Pencarrow’s on the job, I don’t s’pose I’m needed. Unless there’s something I can do for you, Mrs. Trewynn?”
“Mrs. Jellicoe cleaned me up thoroughly, thanks.” She aimed a pink-plastered elbow out of the window at him. He blinked. “I’m just feeling a little shaken.”
“Constable, have you by any chance got a thermos in your car?” Chaz demanded suddenly.
“A thermos? Fancy a spot of tea, do you, laddie? And that’s ‘Officer,’ to you.”
“As a matter of fact, I wasn’t asking for myself.”
Bob Leacock eyed him more kindly. “That’s a thought. Let me get a cuppa for you, Mrs. Trewynn.”
“I meant for the drowned chappie, actually. Megan—the DS or whatever she is—said the most important thing is to warm him up. Though I don’t know if he’s in a fit state to drink. Or even still in the land of the living.”
An irritable squawk came from the panda car.
“My radio! Hold on.” Bob hurried back to the car, got in, and rolled up the windows. Eleanor could still hear the radio faintly squawking, but his responses were inaudible.
She and Chaz waited without speaking. With a resigned sigh, Teazle curled up in her cart wheel, nose resting on a spoke.
After a few minutes, Bob came back carrying a large thermos. “Here.” He handed it to Chaz. “I only drank one cup. It’s still hot. You’d better get it to the victim right away.”
“Okay.” Chaz was only too glad to get away. His hiking boots thudded on the tarmac as he loped across the road.
Bob took off his helmet again. “I’ve got orders to stick around, Mrs. Trewynn. To keep the traffic moving in case we get rubberneckers, unless the ambulance men need help—though with him and Mr. Gresham, I reckon they’ll manage all right.”
“Don’t let people go down the path. It’s so narrow, it’d be chaos.”
“I won’t. The operator said DI Scumble’s on his way, and he’s not someone you want to get on the wrong side of.”
“As I know from experience. Why is he coming? I wouldn’t have thought a high-up detective was needed at this sort of thing.”
“I dunno. I can’t say I’m that clear about what’s going on. Would you mind explaining again?”
“I’m not altogether clear myself. You’d have done better to ask Chaz.”
“That young scoggan, wi’ his la-di-da accent,” Bob said scornfully.
“You can’t call him a good-for-nothing if he helped Nick pull the Indian out.”
“Indian! Where does this Indian come into it? I’d be obliged if you’d start from the beginning, Mrs. Trewynn.”
“It doesn’t really matter whether he came from India or the Islington.” Eleanor told him about the discovery of the floating body and Megan’s telling her to go for help. Leaving out her trials and tribulations on that errand, she added what little she had learned from Chaz about subsequent events.
If Mr. Scumble turned up, no doubt he’d extract every last detail, relevant or not. But why should he come? Detective inspectors didn’t usually waste their time on an accident. A drowning or near drowning on the rugged North Cornish coast was, if not an everyday affair, unfortunately not abnormal.
Perhaps someone had told him Megan was involved. Eleanor remembered mentioning her niece’s name and rank to the 999 operator, who didn’t seem to want to believe her report of an emergency. Had she sounded hysterical and unreliable? Really, that dreadful man in the telephone box had been the last straw!
She hoped she hadn’t got Megan into trouble. Even Scumble could hardly blame his sergeant for being on the spot when a rescue was needed, let alone for accomplishing the rescue, whatever the outcome.
“D’you hear an ambulance horn?” said Bob Leacock, perking up as the hee-haw blast approached. He put his helmet on again. “That was quick. Lucky there aren’t too many emmets on the roads this time of year.”
Eleanor agreed about the fortunate dearth of tourists, but hours seemed to her to have passed since she left Megan and Nick. Late afternoon was merging into early evening. The air was growing chilly.
“
If only they’ve arrived in time!” she said, putting on her jacket and getting out of the car.
Bob grunted assent. “That’d be a pretty dido, a furriner dying on my patch! Ambassadors and such nosing in, I daresay.”
“High commissioner, if he’s Indian. Stay, Teazle.”
The dog, gathering herself for a leap from among the spokes, subsided with a whine of disgust.
As the ambulance, blue light flashing, came round the bend, Bob stepped forward to flag it down. He went round to speak to the driver, gesturing at the drive down to Trevillet Mill. “You can take it down there, mate. Hundred yards or so. Make it a bit easier. Mrs. Trewynn here’ll show you the way from there.”
Eleanor had just about decided to leave Teazle in the car, out of the way, but Teazle had other ideas. She sprang from the back to the front seat and was about to launch herself through the open window when Eleanor grabbed her.
“All right, you’d better come along. I haven’t time to make sure you can’t get out. We don’t want to hold them up.” The dog under one arm, she waved to Bob and trotted after the ambulance, which was taking the steep slope at a cautious pace.
It stopped at the mill house, engine still running.
The burly man beside the driver jumped out. “No room to turn,” he called to the driver.
Hands on hips, he surveyed the narrow wooden bridge crossing the Trevillet. At the near end, steps led up to it from the right. At the far end, another flight led down on the left. Two sharp corners to negotiate.
Eleanor arrived and set Teazle down. “Is the bridge going to be a problem?” she asked, following him back to the rear of the ambulance, where the driver was opening the door from inside.
“Nah, we negotiate much worse with some of the cottage staircases.” He took a folding stretcher passed out by the man inside and leant it against the side of the vehicle. “You’re Mrs. Trewynn? I’m Dave, and this here’s Jim. What’s the rest of the way like?”
“Oh dear, not very good, I’m afraid.” She felt as guilty as if it were her fault. “It’s very irregular and narrow, and overgrown in some spots. And then there’s the ruins of Trethevy Mill. That might be awkward. And beyond, some quite steep slopes, with loose pebbles.”
