by Carola Dunn
“Joce!” Her call emerged as a strangled squeak. Backing towards the connecting door, she tried again. “Jocelyn!”
“Coming. I’ve sold . . . Eleanor, you’re white as a sheet. What is it?”
“I’m just afraid it’s Trevor.”
“Trevor?”
“The boy who comes to help when he stays with his uncle.”
“Eleanor, dear, calm down. I know Trevor. A scruffy, feckless creature he is, and none too clean either.”
“Was.” Her voice shook. “Oh, Joce, there’s a dead body back there and he looks very like Trevor.”
THREE
Detective Sergeant Megan Pencarrow drove through the town centre with the greatest of care. Detective Inspector Scumble of the Constabulary of the Royal Duchy of Cornwall (usually known as CaRaDoC) hated being driven by a woman and was never slow to say so. Wild horses could not have dragged the admission from her, but she found his solid bulk, squeezed into the seat of the unmarked Mini Cooper beside her, just a bit intimidating.
“Close that window,” he growled.
She complied, though she had been enjoying the breeze ruffling her short, dark hair. If only Superintendent Bentinck had decided to let County HQ in Bodmin take on the case! But murders were few and far between in North Cornwall and he wanted to give Scumble a chance to take the credit for solving this one.
The inspector’s usual partner, DS Eliot, was on sick leave. Scumble had decided it was past time he took a closer look at the work of the only woman detective in his small CID, but he didn’t have to like it. Nor did she.
“I suppose it really is a murder,” he said as she drove round the new roundabout and took the A30 towards the coast. “Someone’s going to catch it if I’m being dragged out to the back of beyond for nothing.”
“The victim has a broken neck and the body was concealed, according to Aunt Nell,” she responded incautiously.
“Aunt Nell? Who the hell is Aunt Nell?” The rhyme pleased him and he listened with unusual tolerance to her explanation.
“My aunt discovered the body, sir. When the vicar’s wife, who was with her, rang Launceston to report it, she asked to speak to me. I gather Mrs Stearns felt it unwise to phone the local officer.”
“Oh yes?”
“Not because of any qualms about PC Leacock’s competence, sir,” Megan hastened to assure him. “It seems his car radio is unreliable and his wife answers the phone at the station. Mrs Stearns felt that half the village would be on their doorstep in no time once Mrs Leacock heard the news.”
“No doubt. Murders don’t happen every day around here.” He rubbed his hands together with unattractive satisfaction. “I take it the doctor and the Scene Of Crime people are on their way?”
“I rang Dr Prthnavi at once, sir. The super ordered out the SOC team from Bodmin and someone’s trying to get hold of Leacock. Shall I check?” She reached for the two-way radio.
“No! Kindly keep your hands on the wheel while you’re driving, wom—er, Sergeant.”
He spoke to headquarters while Megan drove over the northern edge of Bodmin Moor, with the tor of Brown Willy away to the south, and took the A39. As they turned off the main road into the narrow lane leading to Port Mabyn, he signed off and wound down the window. The sun was warm in the high-hedged lane but Megan didn’t quite dare open her own window after being instructed to close it.
“So your aunt found the body,” he commented.
“Yes, sir. It . . . He was in the LonStar shop, as you know. Aunt Nell and Uncle Peter used to work for LonStar, and when he was killed she retired . . .”
“Killed?” he repeated hopefully. “A murder involving a widow whose husband died in suspicious circumstances—”
She disillusioned him. “A riot in Djakarta. Indonesia. Aunt Nell retired and bought the shop in Port Mabyn, with the flat above. She gave the shop to LonStar and now she works as a volunteer.”
Inspector Scumble grunted, acknowledging an unlikely suspect. “She know the dead bloke?”
“I’m not sure, sir. Aunt Nell sounded a bit distraught when I spoke to her.”
“What’s her name, for Pete’s sake?” he demanded irritably. “I can’t call the woman Aunt Nell.”
“Mrs Trewynn, sir. Eleanor Trewynn.”
Rounding a bend, they met a mud-bedaubed lorry. It pulled in close to the hedge and Scumble held his breath as Megan inched past. She was inclined to take umbrage at the insult to her driving ability—until the smell reached her. The lorry’s door panel announced Bray Bros. Livestock Transporters, and porcine snouts grunted at them from the slatted sides.
“Too late to close my window,” he muttered in what might, in anyone else, have been an apology. “You’d better open yours now, air it out.”
She complied, and soon the stink was replaced by the faint seaweedy smell of the ocean.
They passed a caravan park, nearly deserted at this time of year, and then the mini-market and the sprawl of pastel bungalows of the newer part of Port Mabyn. Starting down the steep hill into the old village, Megan glanced at the inspector. His eyes were screwed shut. Being driven really made him nervous, then; she’d assumed his moaning was just part of his general grouchiness.
Just past the pub, she had to give way to a couple of pedestrians crossing the street.
“Are we there?” he asked, eyes still closed.
“Just a little farther, sir.”
She parked opposite the shop, offside wheels on the pavement, realizing too late that her massive superior would barely fit between the car and the wall. Which would annoy him more, she wondered, letting him struggle or offering to pull out, thus suggesting that he was overweight? He wasn’t, or not much—just tall and brawny.
He swung open the door and she winced as it scraped the whitewashed wall. Hurriedly she got out into the street, resisting the temptation to look back. He was breathing heavily when he joined her, his grey suit slightly more rumpled than usual, but any comment he might have wished to make was forestalled.
“Megan!” Aunt Nell burst from the blue door opposite and, to her acute embarrassment, rushed to hug her. “Oh, Megan, my dear, I’m so glad you’ve come.”
“Aunt Nell, please, I’m on duty,” she hissed.
“But you’re not in uniform.” Aunt Nell stood back and studied her niece’s discreet forest-green suit and white shirt. “Are you?”
“No, I’m a detective.” Avoiding the interested gaze of the local constable, who had followed her aunt at a more sober pace, she introduced her superior. “This is Detective Inspector Scumble. Sir, Mrs Trewynn.”
“How kind of you to come, Inspector, though I’m sorry such a nasty business is the occasion of our meeting. Won’t you come in?”
“Thank you, madam, I shall certainly do so as soon as I have had a word with the officer here.” Scumble spoke with the heavy patience of one obliged by his position to be polite. “Perhaps you will be good enough to answer a few questions after I have viewed the body.”
“Of course, but I have already told dear Bob about finding the poor boy.” Stepping back, she patted the constable’s sleeve.
To his credit, the young man answered with aplomb, “So you have, Mrs Trewynn, but the inspector’ll want to hear it all again, I don’t doubt.” He saluted. “Constable Leacock reporting, sir.”
“I’ll go and put the kettle on,” said Aunt Nell and returned to the house.
Jocelyn met her at the foot of the stairs. “Eleanor, you really must restrain yourself,” she said severely. “I can’t believe it’s a good idea to embrace Megan publicly while she’s working. Try to think of her as a police officer, not as your niece.”
Eleanor smiled, unrepentant. The world could never have too many expressions of love, she thought, but she said, “Let’s go up and make tea and coffee. I forgot to ask which the inspector prefers.”
From the kitchen window she watched the arrival of a police van and another car. The pavement and part of the road in front of the shop
were cordoned off, leaving the bare minimum of room for vehicles to pass single file. A curious crowd began to gather, housewives shopping, neighbours coming out onto their doorsteps.
Nick appeared and she heard him talking with the officer guarding the street door below.
“What’s happened?”
“Can’t say, sir.”
“Is Mrs Trewynn all right?”
“Far as I know, sir.”
“Let me go and see if she needs any help.”
“No one allowed through, sir.”
He argued for a minute, then shrugged his shoulders and gave up. Looking up, he saw her at the window, waved, and called, “Okay, Eleanor?”
“Yes, dear. Jocelyn’s here.”
“Good.” He waved again and retreated to his shop. Eleanor rather wished she had asked him over before Bob Leacock had turned up. On the other hand, it was going to be difficult enough fitting Megan’s rather large inspector into her sitting room. She hoped he wouldn’t want to question her in the stockroom, at least not until the unfortunate youth had been removed. Though she had seen death from violence, death from disease, death from hunger, she had never grown reconciled to the premature ending of life.
A maroon car pulled up behind the police vehicles and a short, slight Indian emerged. A dapper figure in a pearl-grey suit and pale blue tie, he carried a black bag. As he approached the barricade, the policeman saluted and stood aside.
“The deceased’s in the back room, sir.”
“Thank you, officer.” Like Nick, he glanced up and saw Eleanor at her kitchen window.
She leaned forward across the sink. “Namaste, Rajendra. You’re the police doctor?”
“Namaste and good morning, Eleanor. Indeed, I have that honour.”
“Do come up for a cup of tea when you’re finished.”
“Thank you. Should I be so fortunate as to have time, I shall be delighted.” He bowed courteously and continued into the passage below.
“Who was that?” Jocelyn asked from the sitting room, which she was tidying ruthlessly. To Eleanor it had looked perfectly all right before she began.
“Rajendra Prthnavi. I suppose he’s come to see how that poor boy broke his neck. Oh, Joce, I am glad it wasn’t Trevor after all. He looked so very like him.”
“That long, matted hair and the tatty jeans are a sort of uniform for a certain type of youth. They wouldn’t wear decent clothes if you paid them.”
A few minutes later, Dr. Prthnavi knocked at the door. Pouring tea, Eleanor enquired after his family. This took some time as, though born in Birmingham, he had relatives in Bombay with whom she was acquainted. After a quarter of an hour, he announced regretfully that he must go about his rounds.
“Aren’t you going to tell us how the unfortunate boy died, Doctor?” Jocelyn asked.
“I ought not, Mrs Stearns, but I am sure I can rely on the discretion of you ladies.”
“Of course,” she said, slightly offended.
“In any case, there is not a great deal to tell. I expect you saw that his neck was broken? If that had not killed him immediately, he’d probably have died slowly from subarachnoid hemorrhage—bleeding inside the cranium. He was hit on the side of the head with the proverbial blunt instrument, sometime last evening.”
Eleanor shuddered. “Oh dear, I was hoping it might somehow turn out to be an accident, but it must have been murder after all, mustn’t it?”
FOUR
A heavy tread on the narrow staircase made Eleanor glad her little house was solidly built of Cornish granite. In relative terms, DI Scumble was equally solidly built, but large. As he stepped through the front door of the flat, left open for his expected arrival, his head brushed the lintel and his shoulders brushed the doorposts.
Teazle let fly a volley of barks. Her voice was surprisingly deep for such a tiny dog. Scumble looked a trifle taken aback, and Eleanor had to suppress a quite inappropriate urge to reassure the monster that the mite would not hurt him.
“Hush, Teazle,” she said instead. “Do sit down, Mr Scumble. Would you like coffee or tea?”
“Not for me, thank you, ma’am,” he said severely, looking round the room for a chair fit to contain his bulk and uphold his weight. The only possibility was one of the old wooden dining chairs, genuine hand-turned beech, a donation from a farmhouse kitchen that had moved “up” to steel and vinyl. Foreseeing the difficulty, Eleanor had tactfully turned one with its back to the table.
As he moved towards it, the floor creaking beneath him, Megan came into view behind him. She looked rather apprehensive. Remembering Jocelyn’s reprimand, Eleanor didn’t jump up to embrace her niece. She didn’t even venture to offer her a cup of tea after Scumble’s adamant rejection of refreshment. A warm but silent smile seemed to be the best choice.
She was rewarded as Megan’s apprehension lightened. Squeezing past her boss, the detective sergeant sat down at the table and took out her notebook and ball-point pen.
“Did the poor boy have any identification on him, Inspector?” Eleanor asked. “Do you know who he is?”
“I’m here to ask the questions, madam. You’ve already told me you didn’t know him. I must ask again, for the official record: Were you acquainted with the victim or do you remember ever having seen him before?”
“No, though for a moment I did wonder—”
“But you’re quite sure now?” he interrupted.
“Yes.”
“Right, tell me about yesterday evening.” It was an order, not a request.
From the corner of her eye, Eleanor saw Jocelyn’s lips tighten. “I came home just before it began to get dark,” she said hastily.
“Where from?”
Eleanor waved her hands. “Oh, all over the place. I was driving, collecting donations, you see. For the shop. And then I walked the dog on the cliffs, not far north of Port Mabyn. There’s a footpath sign and a stile but I’m not sure if that particular bit of cliff has a name,” she added dubiously. “Oh, but I saw Constable Leacock drive past just after I stopped, and he waved, so he knows where I was and he can tell you, if you need to know. But it was earlier, really still afternoon at that point.”
“And then,” said Scumble with an air of dogged patience, “you came home.”
“Yes, and I parked right outside the shop. I know it’s no parking and a double yellow line but it was just for unloading. I had some heavy boxes of books in the boot. Dear Nick came to carry them in for me. Nicholas Gresham, the artist next door. Some of the children helped with the lighter stuff, too.”
“Which children?”
“Ummmm . . .” The only face that appeared to her mind’s eye was the dead boy’s. But the inspector was waiting. “. . . you see, the village children are all very sweet about helping, most of them at least. They understand that it’s all for a good cause. Now, who was it who turned up last night?”
“That’s what I’m asking you, madam.”
“Nick is sure to remember . . . Oh!” The memory of that narrowly averted pinch returned. She mustn’t become a dithery old lady just because that was what he obviously considered her to be. “Of course, it was Donna from the Trelawney Arms. And she was organising the two little ones from the Chinese restaurant, Lionel and Ivy.”
“So you, Gresham, and these three children all carried stuff in. Where did you put it?”
“In the stockroom, where I found the . . . the body this morning. We put everything at the back there to be sorted. He—the boy—was hidden by some of the clothes I’d brought in.” To her dismay, she felt her lips quiver and tears collect in her eyes.
With a defiant glance at Scumble, Jocelyn got up, took Eleanor’s empty mug, and went into the kitchen. A moment later she returned with a full mug of steaming tea which she put into Eleanor’s hands. “Drink,” she said.
A revivifying gulp steadied her, and she went on, “You see, the clothes were spilled and tumbled. I was tidying—”
“We’ll get to that shortly. Go on with
last night.”
“Well, he certainly wasn’t there when we unloaded the Incorruptible.”
“The what?”
“Sorry, the car. It’s pea-green, and you know what Carlyle said about Robespierre . . .”
Scumble’s scowl suggested he not only didn’t, he had never heard of either gentleman.
Eleanor hastened to explain. “He called him ‘the sea-green incorruptible.’ It’s Nick’s pun, not mine.”
“Could we please get on with the events of yesterday evening?”
“Of course. Where were we?”
The inspector gave her an old-fashioned look and addressed Jocelyn. “If it’s not too much trouble, Mrs Stearns, a cup of coffee would not come amiss. Or tea, whichever is easier. Black. And as strong as possible.”
“Certainly, Inspector,” Jocelyn said graciously. She went back to the kitchen.
“You put all the stuff you had collected in the back room, Mrs Trewynn. At that time there was no body in the room. What happened next?”
“The children went home. Nick told me he’d sold a painting and invited me out to supper to celebrate.”
“What time was this?”
“Time? I don’t . . . Oh, I remember, Nick asked me the time, and I couldn’t tell him because my watch had stopped.”
“Didn’t you come up here then? You have a clock.” He gestured at the pretty flowered-china timepiece on the mantel. Eleanor had agonised over whether she could afford it, at last rationalising that the purchase price would benefit LonStar.
“I didn’t look at it. I just had to feed Teazle and change into something respectable before Nick came to pick me up. And comb my hair,” she added conscientiously as Jocelyn returned with mugs for Scumble and Megan. Eleanor considered her natural curls could survive most things looking reasonably neat. Jocelyn disagreed.
“The clock’s slow anyway,” Scumble muttered, checking his wristwatch.
“It runs slow. Anyway, I was ready when Nick came back from parking the Incorr—the car for me. And he had changed, too. We walked up to the Wreckers—that’s the other pub,” Eleanor explained, as Scumble looked blank.
