Manna from Hades

by Carola Dunn

  “I don’t know. Maybe. Do you really think he’s in danger?”

  “How can I be sure? What I do know is that if I wait until I’m sure, it might be too late for him.”

  “Oh.”

  “Do you think you could do that, for Trevor’s sake?”

  “I . . . Would I have to go into the police station?”

  “I may be able to arrange for the expert to meet you here—or their artist if they don’t use IdentiKit.” The Met did, or had the facilities at least, but CaRaDoC didn’t. Bristol was an unknown quantity. “The trouble is, I’m not local—I’m from the Cornish police—and I’m only a detective sergeant, so I haven’t got much pull. Besides, if I leave you here while I go and ask, could I trust you to wait?”

  “I don’t think she’d let me.” Camilla jerked her head towards the waitress, who was starting towards them with a purposeful air.

  “She’ll have to if I order coffee and a selection of cakes for you and pay in advance.”

  “I don’t much like coffee.”

  “Tea? Never mind, you don’t have to drink it.” Megan turned to the waitress, now bearing down upon them bill in hand. “A pot of tea and some cakes for my friend. I have an errand to run, but I’ll pay for everything before I go.”

  “I’ll have to write up a separate bill,” the waitress grumbled.

  “All right, just tell me the total.”

  “Depends how many she eats.”

  “Bring four. If she doesn’t eat them all, she can take them with her. I’m sure you’ll be able provide a pastry box, won’t you?”

  Wondering how much she’d be able to claim on expenses, she paid what seemed an exorbitant amount. The waitress stalked off to fetch the tea and cakes.

  “I’ll wait for you,” said Cam. “I promise. You won’t be long, will you?”

  “I’ll be as quick as I can. Eat slowly, but for pity’s sake don’t eat so many cakes you make yourself sick!”

  Hurrying towards the Bristol nick, Megan knew she was taking a big risk in trusting the girl. If she was wrong, she would be in a lot of trouble, perhaps even demoted to uniform. She didn’t even know Camilla’s surname, having been afraid of scaring her off. But she couldn’t see what else she could have done. The mysterious Trevor was either the murderer or conceivably in deadly danger. They had to find him.

  She could have forced Camilla to come with her, but producing a portrait with an uncooperative witness was as good as impossible.

  Halfway up the steps, she heard a voice behind her call, “Wait! Please wait!”

  She turned as Camilla panted up, a square white cardboard box swinging from her hand.

  “What’s up?”

  “That bitch! The waitress. She didn’t bring me a pot of tea and plate of cakes, she brought this, already packed up, and gave me the money for the tea, and told me, ‘We don’t serve the likes of you.’ So I nearly told her what she could do with her stupid cakes, but I thought you wouldn’t like that, so I told her ever so sweetly, ‘Thanks for making the scrambled eggs for me,’ even though they were rotten. Then I just walked out.”

  “Good for you.”

  “And I thought, the fuzz can’t be any worse than her. So here I am.”

  “Thank you for coming, Cam. You’ve saved my bacon.”

  “Really?” said Camilla, looking pleased.

  “Really. Come on.”

  The desk sergeant showed no surprise at Megan arriving with a tatty young girl in tow after leaving with a sleek male colleague. “Your guv’nor phoned again,” he told her, with a commiserating glance. “Inspector Everett’s office.” He jerked a thumb towards the right-hand corridor.

  “Thanks. Have you got an IdentiKit, here, or an artist? This young lady can provide a description of a chap we’re going to be looking for.”

  “I’ll deal with it. You run.” He gave Camilla a fatherly smile and said, “Good of you to come in, miss.”

  “Just do your best, Cam,” Megan said, and ran. Scumble at best was not a patient man. Scumble kept waiting for a couple of hours didn’t bear thinking of.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Megan found a door with Inspector Everett’s name on it and knocked. In response to his “Come in,” she entered. He was seated behind a desk covered with paperwork, reading a report. Looking up, he said nothing but gestured at the telephone on his desk.

  He returned to his work as she dialled the Launceston nick, but she had a feeling he was listening.

  She was put through to DI Scumble.

  “Pencarrow here, sir.”

  “Where the bloody hell have you been, Pencarrow? Your aunt . . .” He took an audible breath and let it out in a bellow: “Your aunt has remembered yet another fact she forgot to tell us!”

  Megan wondered what the bloody hell she was supposed to say or do about it. Cautiously returning the receiver to her ear, whence she had removed it to preserve her eardrums, she ventured to ask, “What has she remembered, sir?”

  Having blown off steam, he achieved a more normal voice. “First tell me, did you ever mention the jeweller’s name to her? Or to her side-kicks?”

  “Side-kicks, sir?”

  “The artist and the vicar’s wife. Well?”

  “No, sir, I’m sure I didn’t.”

  “Then, if you didn’t put it into her head, I suppose she really is remembering. She says there was a monogram on the case the jewelry was in. D A W, she thinks, but the letters were superimposed and it could equally well be W A D.”

  “Wilfred Donaldson!”

  “It’s not absolute proof, but it’s another link. We’re not going to get a positive identification of the jewels from the jeweller for a while. Did the boy wonder tell you he’s disappeared?”

  “Yes, sir. DS Faraday’s gone back to town to look for him.”

  “Good. We’ll leave the Yard to handle that end of things.” The satisfaction in his voice made Megan relax, so she was un-prepared when the bellow came again. “So where the bloody hell have you been, Pencarrow? I’ve been waiting for your report for hours. On a Saturday! I hope you have an excuse for the delay, and something to show for your jaunt to Bristol?”

  Thank heaven she did have something to show. “The victim’s name, sir. Norman Wilmot.” She explained about the squatters and Camilla’s unexpected approach. “That’s why I was late phoning, sir. I had to talk to her right away or I’d have lost her.”

  He grunted a grudging approval. “Norman Wilmot, eh? Just his name?”

  Megan passed on what little more she had learnt about him. “There must be a society of entomologists, don’t you think, sir? Dr Wilmot would surely be a member, and they’d know where he went.”

  “Which jungle? Very helpful!”

  “How to contact him, perhaps?”

  “I suppose we’ll have to try. You’ve not done too badly, Pencarrow.”

  Would it hurt the sod to say she’d done well?

  On second thoughts, yes, it probably would hurt him. Still, he had yet to hear the rest of Camilla’s revelations. “I have another name, sir. Just a Christian name, but it may be useful. Apparently a friend of Wilmot’s was coming and going with him last weekend, a youth by the name of Trevor—”

  “Trevor! Bloody hell, Pencarrow, your aunt . . .” His voice died away in a gobbling noise.

  Megan hoped she wouldn’t be blamed if he was having a fit. She saw that Inspector Everett was all ears, no longer pretending not to listen. “My aunt, sir?” she asked cautiously.

  “Your aunt, apparently, when she first saw the body of the wretched Wilmot, before she saw the face, jumped to the conclusion that it was a youth known to her by the name of Trevor.”

  “Good heavens!”

  “Good heavens indeed. It will not surprise you that neither she nor Mrs Stearns saw fit to mention it to us.”

  “But sir,” Megan dared to argue, “when they discovered it wasn’t him, why should—”

  “It’s for us, Pencarrow—and that ‘us’ presently in
cludes you—to decide what information is relevant. The sooner you learn that any and all details a witness can provide may prove vital, the more likely you are to remain one of ‘us.’ ”

  “Yes, sir.” She was seething, on her aunt’s behalf as well as her own. She was ninety-nine percent sure that if Aunt Nell had told the insufferable Scumble about her mistaken first impression, he’d have informed her in no uncertain terms that he had no interest whatsoever in her erroneous guesses.

  “I have here a sketch that artist chappie drew from the ladies’ description of Trevor.”

  “The girl who told me about him, sir, assuming it’s the same Trevor, is helping a police artist here to produce a sketch.” Megan crossed her fingers for luck, praying that Camilla was still cooperative and able to provide a good enough description for the artist or IdentiKit man to work with.

  If the inspector managed to force himself to utter a word of appreciation, she missed it. “The sooner we can compare the two the better,” he said. “Bring it back here as soon as it’s done. This girl, could she have killed Wilmot?”

  “I don’t think so, sir. She’s a skinny little thing. If it was a matter of hitting him over the head with a weapon, perhaps, but bashing his head on that table would take much more strength.”

  “I had worked that out for myself, Pencarrow. Well, if that’s all you’ve got to report, put me through to Inspector Everett.”

  “Yes, sir.” Megan covered the receiver with her hand and turned to Everett. “DI Scumble would appreciate a word with you, sir. I’ll just go and—”

  “No, stay. I want to hear all about your aunt.” He was grinning. “And I’ll need to talk to you about finding these squatters.”

  “I’ll come back, sir.” With any luck he’d have lost interest in Aunt Nell by then and want to talk only business. She handed over the phone. “I’ve got a rather nervous witness, you see. I think I’d better go and hold her hand a bit.”

  He nodded and waved her away. As she closed the door behind her, she heard him say, “Everett here, Mr Scumble. Tell me about DS Pencarrow’s aunt.”

  Talk about red flags to a raging bull! Whether Scumble complied or not, Megan didn’t want to hear. She went to find Camilla.

  The artist was a uniformed sergeant, a policewoman. Megan was annoyed with herself for having assumed it would be a man. If women had such low expectations for each other, how could they demand anything better from mere men?

  Camilla and Sergeant Winston were getting on like a house on fire. Megan recalled thinking that an unwilling witness would be totally useless in producing a likeness. It followed that a police artist must have the skills to make people want to cooperate, along with the artistic ability.

  All the same, Camilla looked relieved to see Megan.

  Megan introduced herself to the sergeant. “How’s it going?” she asked.

  “I think people might recognise Trevor from the picture,” Camilla said doubtfully.

  “But it’s not quite right yet,” said Sergeant Winston. “Eyes, nose, chin?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “May I?” Megan requested, reaching for the sketch. She knew at once one aspect that was wrong. The question was how to phrase it without sounding rude or upsetting the girl. “I wonder, Cam, could it be that you’re used to seeing him somewhat less . . . tidy?”

  Camilla at once raised her hand to stroke her chin. “Could be.”

  The sergeant took back her work. With a touch of shading and a few squiggles, she produced a faint stubble and tangled locks. “How’s this?”

  “Oh yes! That’s much better. It looks quite like Trevor.”

  Sergeant Winston looked at Megan and shrugged. “Good enough? All right, I’ll get it duplicated for you.”

  “Many thanks. Inspector Everett will want copies, I expect. I’ve got to go back to see him. Could you leave my copies with the desk sergeant?”

  “Will do. Goodbye, Camilla. You were a great help.”

  They parted in the passage, Megan and Cam turning back towards the lobby.

  “Megan . . . Miss Pencarrow—”

  “Megan will do fine.”

  “Megan, do I have to talk to Inspector Everett, too?”

  “I haven’t had a chance to discuss with him what you’ve told me.” But what little time she’d had to think had convinced her that in spite of Camilla’s help they still needed to question her friends, if they could be found. Their testimony could confirm or refute the girl’s recollections of Trevor’s and Norman Wilmot’s movements. “I think he’ll want to talk to you.”

  Camilla sighed. “In for a penny, in for a pound, I suppose. All right. But you promised my friends’d be in less trouble because I told you about Norm and Trev.”

  “I said they wouldn’t have such a hard time. You see, with the information you’ve given us, they can’t deny knowing those two, so instead of having to bring them in and keep at them till they admit that much, we can get straight on with asking them what they know about them.”

  “I see,” Camilla said doubtfully, then clutched Megan’s arm. “Only, they’ll know I split on them. I can’t go back to the squat. Everything’s so awful!” She started to cry.

  Megan put an arm around her shoulders and felt for a hankie. “That’s one of the terrible things about murder. It messes up the lives of a lot of people who don’t really have anything much to do with it. Here, blow your nose. Look, there’s a ladies’ room. Go and wash your face and comb your hair—”

  “I haven’t g-got a comb!”

  “Here’s mine. I need it, so please don’t run away with it. I want you to go to the desk sergeant—the man in the lobby?—and wait for me there. Will you do that? I promise I’ll sort things out for you somehow. I won’t desert you.”

  “All r-right,” sobbed Camilla, and once again Megan just had to hope she meant it.

  Eleanor had been baking. She enjoyed the process, but the results were rarely what she hoped for. Her life had provided little opportunity to exercise the domestic skills until very recently. But every now and again she tried.

  She liked to provide some sort of treat for the volunteers who gave up their Saturday afternoons for LonStar. Usually they had to make do with shop biscuits or cake, from the bakery opposite if she was feeling extravagant—which wasn’t really “making do,” she reflected, as the bakery’s products were excellent and her home-made often were not—otherwise ordinary packaged stuff. However, Mr Scumble and Nick had between them demolished the entire packet of chocolate digestives, and Eleanor had been too busy this morning to get to the shops before they closed.

  Only tourist-oriented shops, such as Nick’s gallery and Brian and Mavis’s Ye Olde Cornysh Piskie Curio Shoppe, stayed open on Saturday afternoons. Jocelyn had decided LonStar qualified, though many of their customers were local people.

  Hence, Eleanor had been baking for the volunteers.

  Shortbread sounded easy enough. Only four ingredients, and Jocelyn had said she didn’t really need to use rice flour, which she didn’t have. She had just increased the amount of ordinary flour instead. Not self-raising, Jocelyn had stressed, and it must be butter; marge wouldn’t do. Castor sugar, not ordinary gran, she’d done that. So why was her table covered with broken bits that couldn’t possibly be offered to the volunteers? Something to do with the way she had turned it out of the pans onto the racks, perhaps, or perhaps she had kneaded too little. Or too much.

  With a sigh she put one of the smaller fragments into her mouth. It was delicious! Suppose she took the large bits and cut them into neater shapes—

  The phone rang. Her fingers sticky, Eleanor grabbed a tea-towel to pick up the receiver and gave her number, a bit indistinctly through the crumbs. The phone beeped and she heard the clink of coins.

  “Aunt Nell?”

  “Megan, dear. Don’t tell me Mr Scumble has thought up a whole new lot of questions for me!”

  “No, this is nothing to do with . . . At least, it is, sort of. I’v
e sort of landed myself with a witness—”

  “Megan, so far I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about. Am I being very dense?”

  “Not at all, Aunt Nell. It’s sort of hard to explain because Mr Scumble’ll kill me if I tell you too much, but the end result is that I have a young girl on my hands who has no money and not even a toothbrush. I’m hoping to persuade the inspector to give her funds from petty cash for that and a nightie at least, but the shops are shut. And she has nowhere to stay. I’d take her home, even though I’ve only got the bedsitter, but I’m going to be working tomorrow and I simply can’t leave her on her own.”

  “Of course she must come here, dear, at least till Tuesday. I probably have an extra toothbrush somewhere, or Jocelyn will, and I certainly have a clean nightdress. I hope it fits. Or we can always get one from downstairs.”

  “I can really bring her to you?”

  “But only till Tuesday. I must go to the Scilly Islands on Tuesday, come what may. I do hope you won’t feel obliged to tell Mr Scumble, because he’d have to arrest me to stop me.”

  “This is a very bad line. I’m ringing from a public box. The only thing I heard is that I can bring Camilla to stay with you. The rest we’ll have to sort out when I see you. Thanks, Aunt Nell, you’re an angel. We’ll be there about six, I hope.”

  Thoughtfully, Eleanor popped another broken bit into her mouth. She tidied up the larger pieces, arranged them on a plate, and went downstairs, leaving Teazle staring up hopefully at the counter.

  In the stockroom, she found four women and one elderly gentleman. Only one was a regular volunteer. The others she knew only to say “Good morning” to in the street. She was fairly certain they didn’t appear on Jocelyn’s roster. Mrs Davies must have recruited a troop of irregulars to make quite sure she didn’t have to enter the haunted stockroom herself.

  Jocelyn would be furious if she found out. Ought Eleanor to tell her? Though, obviously, it was important that only trustworthy people work in the shop, these were surely all members of the faithful flock at the chapel—which wouldn’t endear them to the vicar’s wife but guaranteed their respectability as far as the minister’s wife was concerned.