Manna from Hades

by Carola Dunn

  They did seem to have done a good deal of sorting, tidying, and cleaning, and one was busy ironing clothes.

  What Jocelyn didn’t know couldn’t upset her. Eleanor decided to have a quiet word with Mrs Davies later, pointing out that as Jocelyn bore ultimate responsibility for the shop, it really wasn’t fair to bring new people in without consulting her.

  In the meantime, the irregulars were delighted with the shortbread, “so original to shape them like crazy paving,” instead of the usual rectangles or triangles. Someone went to put on the electric kettle and the one regular among them invited Eleanor to join them for a cup of tea.

  “Sorry, I can’t. I’m expecting an unexpected guest, if you see what I mean, and I have to get things ready. Just leave the plate on the table here and I’ll fetch it later.”

  She went upstairs. Teazle was in exactly the same position, staring hopefully, nose twitching, so Eleanor put some crumbs in her dish. “Not too much, or you’ll get fat, my girl.”

  Considering the debris, she ate another scrap herself. A witness, she thought, a young girl with no money, no luggage, nowhere to go, she probably wouldn’t turn up her nose at fresh shortbread just because it wasn’t beautiful. The pieces big enough to pick up went into a cake tin, and Eleanor tossed the crumbs out of the back window for the birds.

  No luggage, no toothbrush—better ring Jocelyn. Surely she must be home by now from lunch with the bishop in Truro.

  Jocelyn had just walked in the door as her phone was ringing. “A witness?” she asked, intrigued. “Witness to what?”

  “I don’t know, and I’m pretty sure Megan won’t tell me.”

  “She can’t have been in the storeroom when the boy was killed. They couldn’t be sure she didn’t do it, and Megan would never land you with a possible murderer. All the same, I’d better come over and—”

  “No, Joce. You’d never be able to resist interrogating her, and I’m sure Megan will have told her she’s not to answer any questions. It wouldn’t be fair. I just rang to ask if you happen to have a spare toothbrush you could let me have for her.”

  “A toothbrush! She really has nothing at all? Well, it all sounds very odd to me, but yes, I’ve got a toothbrush you can have. I always keep a spare because Timothy occasionally uses his to clean out the fiddly parts of the Vespa. Are you quite sure you wouldn’t like me to—”

  “Quite sure,” Eleanor said firmly. “If Megan’s bringing her here, she must be all right. I’ll be up in a couple of minutes for the toothbrush.”

  As she put on her jacket and found the dog’s lead, she reflected on the fact that her notion of an “all right” person was probably quite different from Jocelyn’s. Life was so much simpler if one took people as they came. All the same, she hoped Megan would be able to give her at least a hint as to why her guest had no possessions and no home.

  TWENTY-THREE

  However suspicious of the unknown guest, Jocelyn provided not only a pristine toothbrush still in its cellophane wrapping but a warm dressing gown. “I thought you’ve probably only got one. My sister left this last time she stayed. She said not to bother sending it on. I keep meaning to bring it down to the shop. You really don’t want me to be there when she comes?”

  “Really. In the circumstances, it would be astonishing if the poor child were not in a fragile emotional state. The fewer strangers she has to cope with the better.”

  “I daresay. But if you need me, or anything else for the girl, just ring and I’ll come straight down.”

  When Eleanor reached home, the shop had closed and Mrs Davies was locking the front door.

  “Oh, Mrs Trewynn,” she said, “I’m so glad you came home. The passage door isn’t locked and I wasn’t sure whether you had your keys. I didn’t want to lock you out.”

  Eleanor felt in her pockets. Toothbrush, no keys. “I must have left them behind. I just popped out for a moment to see Mrs Stearns.”

  “You didn’t . . . I mean, she doesn’t . . . You haven’t told her . . . ?”

  “About the ghost, if any? Of course not. Did any of your helpers see one?”

  “No,” admitted the minister’s wife, shamefaced. “I suppose I let my imagination run away with me.”

  “All too easy when such a horrible thing happens. All the same, Mrs Davies, it’s not a good idea to bring in people Mrs Stearns doesn’t know, who aren’t on her schedule. I’m grateful for their help, but please, in future, when you recruit new volunteers be sure to notify her before they start work.”

  “You didn’t tell her . . . ?”

  “I didn’t. But if it happens again—”

  “It won’t, I promise. I did go in there, last thing, to make sure everything was as it should be. I didn’t see anything.” She lowered her voice. “Or even feel any horrid—”

  “Eleanor!” It was Nick.

  Mrs Davies said a hurried goodbye to Eleanor, gave Nick a distant nod in passing, and hurried off.

  “Even in this modern age,” he said mournfully, “art equates with sin in the nonconformist imagination.”

  “Don’t talk to me about imagination!”

  “All right, I won’t. I’ve just had a telephone call from . . . er . . . Detective Sergeant Pencarrow, with an extremely confused, not to say confusing, message for you. She seemed to think you’d know what she was talking about. What it boils down to, as far as I can see, is that she can’t get away till much later than planned so could you please ring her back at the Launceston police station to let her know if it’s all right if she arrives late. When I asked how late, she could only say, ‘it depends.’ ”

  “On Mr Scumble, I expect. Oh dear, that poor girl! I know, I’ll drive over to Launceston and fetch her.”

  “Who? I mean, whom?”

  “I’d better not tell you what little I know, dear. Megan was a bit mysterious about her. But she’s coming to stay with me, just for a couple of days. It’s bad timing, I’m afraid. I’m going to the Scillies on Tuesday.”

  “You’re taking a holiday at last! The Scillies in April are wonderful.”

  “Not a holiday,” Eleanor said gravely. “It’s a last-ditch effort to prevent a civil war—”

  “Between the Scillonians and the mainland?”

  “It’s not funny, Nick. Somewhere in Africa. I ought not to be more precise. A person in authority thinks I may be able to help, so of course that takes absolute priority. I must go and ring Megan. Did you happen to notice yesterday how much petrol there is in the car?”

  “The needle swung wildly between empty and three quarters on the way down the hill, so, going by precedent, you have about half a tank. Enough to get you to Launceston and back. But Eleanor, most schools broke up yesterday for the holidays. The roads will be aswarm with Easter emmets, holiday-makers who left London or Birmingham this morning to invade us. It’ll be a hell of a drive.”

  “I’ll be going in the opposite direction.”

  “Not coming home.”

  “Then I’ll take the back lanes. I’ve learnt every twist and turn on my scavenging expeditions.”

  “By then it’ll be getting dark. And there may be fog on the moor. I’m coming with you. Go and ring Megan, and for heaven’s sake bring a warm coat. The Incorruptible has more draughts than my attic. Don’t forget the car keys. I’ll just get my anorak.”

  Eleanor didn’t protest as he disappeared into his shop. She disliked driving at night even without fog and traffic to contend with. No doubt Nick was actuated by curiosity as well as kindness, but he was bound to meet the girl anyway in the couple of days she’d be staying. Eleanor must impress on him that he wasn’t to ask questions.

  Nick was waiting for her when she came down, his jacket slung over his shoulder. She had brought an extra woolly for the girl, who now had a name.

  “Camilla,” she said as they walked down the hill, “but Megan says she prefers Cam. I don’t know why, it’s a very pretty name.”

  “Old-fashioned,” Nick suggested.

 
; “No more so than Nicholas! Think of St Nicholas. Wasn’t he an ancient Greek?”

  “Something of the sort. And then there’s Old Nick.”

  “True. Odd, isn’t it? Megan’s very grateful to you for accompanying her aged aunt, by the way.”

  “Is that what she said?”

  “Not exactly. She’s grateful to me for offering to pick Cam up, but she wouldn’t have let me if it meant driving on my own.”

  “That sounds much more likely!”

  Nick drove. He stuck to the main road once they reached it. As he had foreseen there was quite a bit of tourist traffic coming towards them on this first day of the Easter holidays, though nothing like the swarms that would clog the roads in the summer. At least the road works were closed down for the weekend. Whatever one’s opinion of the devastation caused by ubiquitous widening and straightening of the roads, it had become necessary since Dr Beeching slashed so many branch railways to such devastating effect.

  On the way, Eleanor told Nick what little she knew about Camilla. Megan had said even less on their second phone call, presumably because Scumble was present. Eleanor could hear him giving orders in the background.

  “She did say the inspector would be glad to have her safely out of the way. Perhaps gratitude will make him more friendly next time I see him.”

  “I wouldn’t count on it.”

  “No. But very likely I shan’t be there anyway.”

  “Does he know you’re going to Scilly?”

  “I asked Megan not to tell him.”

  “Brave woman!”

  “If you had ever seen the consequences of civil war, you’d know there’s no question of my not going.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound flippant.”

  “And I didn’t mean to snap. Dear me, Mr Scumble’s attitude must be rubbing off. I do hope Megan doesn’t end up with the same manners.”

  “Or lack thereof. Why on earth did she join the police?”

  “You’ll have to ask her sometime.”

  “I will. Quite apart from his manner, do you think Scumble is any good at his job? It’s nearly a week since the boy was killed and we don’t even know his name yet.”

  “We don’t, but they may. And it’s only five days. Four, really. Give the man a chance. In any case, his name doesn’t matter so much as who he was, how he got mixed up in the robbery in the first place. That’s what puzzles me. The news says the police are looking for two tall, well-built men, and no one could describe the dead boy as tall and brawny.”

  “No, you said he was a scrawny pipsqueak.”

  “I never called him a pipsqueak! Though I rather like the word.”

  “That’s what he sounded like.”

  “Well, I couldn’t really tell how tall he was. He certainly wasn’t brawny, but that doesn’t mean he was a weakling, necessarily. Everything goes slack when . . .” Eleanor decided not to pursue that line of thought. “I wonder whether the jeweller is a scrawny pipsqueak, so that his assailants looked bigger to him than they actually were.”

  “Surely the police would have taken that into account. It wasn’t up to the Scumble, was it. That was Scotland Yard’s end of things. They wouldn’t miss something like that.”

  “Perhaps he exaggerated their size because he felt silly for giving in to a couple of pipsqueaks.”

  “Unlikely. It was two against one, remember, and it sounds as if he put up a fight. He was pretty bashed about, they said. Besides, he’d want to give the most accurate description possible to give the cops every chance of recovering his jewels.”

  “In fact, it sounds as if the boy in the stockroom wasn’t one of the robbers.”

  “I doubt he was one of the two who attacked the jeweller,” Nick agreed. “He might have driven their getaway car. Somehow he got hold of the loot and scarpered with it. He got nervous when he saw Bob Leacock’s car and stashed the stuff in your car. The actual robbers caught up with him when he broke into the shop to retrieve the jewelry and bonked him on the head because he’d double-crossed them.”

  “That’s an excellent theory as far as it goes, Nick.”

  “But?”

  “It doesn’t explain how he recognised my car, how he knew who I was, and where I’d take the stuff. He can’t have been familiar with Port Mabyn, or someone local would have recognised him from the photo. I mean, really recognised him, not that nonsense about having seen him helping me.”

  “That’s a point,” he conceded.

  “And it doesn’t explain why these ruthless robbers didn’t proceed to ransack the shop and my flat. They just tamely picked up the empty attaché-case—which wasn’t locked, so it wouldn’t take more than a moment to find out it was empty—and disappeared into the night. It doesn’t sound to me like a pair of bold, brawny, brutal villains.”

  “Hmm. Let me think.”

  It took them a good hour to get to Launceston as the Incorruptible objected to doing over thirty-five miles an hour except downhill. When they reached the police station, Nick still hadn’t come up with a convincing scenario to fill in the gaps. Eleanor remembered the DI’s remark about “birds of a feather” and his request for Nick to draw a portrait of Trevor. It seemed to her that the only viable explanation involved the boy as a thief and probably a murderer. She didn’t want to believe it.

  “We won’t talk about the murder on the way home,” she said as Nick parked in the square. “If she’s spent the day being bullied about it by Mr Scumble, the poor child won’t want to—”

  “Child! How old is this waif we’re rescuing?”

  “Megan said a ‘young girl,’ which translates to ‘child’ from the heights of my great age.”

  “Teenager, I should think. I hope she’s not one of these impossible modern adolescents whose motto is ‘never trust anyone over thirty,’ ” he said from the heights of his great age. “We’ll see. Do you think I should wait in the car? The Scumble may not be pleased to see me.”

  “What, and miss the chance to wallow in Megan’s gratitude?”

  “That’s a point. Here I come.”

  “Bring the cardigan from the backseat, would you, Nick?”

  The desk sergeant directed them to a small room, painted institutional cream and dark green, furnished with a battered table and a few hard chairs. Here they found a spruce WPC and a crumpled, drooping, disconsolate slip of a girl.

  The policewoman stood up, looking relieved. “Mrs Trewynn?”

  “Yes, and this is Mr Gresham. We’ve come to fetch Cam.”

  Eleanor smiled at the girl, who managed a faint smile in return and started to rise.

  “If you wouldn’t mind waiting a moment, ma’am, DS Pencarrow should be on her way. She’d like a word before you go.”

  Cam subsided wearily. Nick went and sat down beside her. He eyed with disgust the two thick white china mugs half filled with scummy tea.

  “Revolting!” he said.

  “Isn’t it? They keep plying me with tea and sandwiches. I’m not hungry.”

  “If the sandwiches are anything like the tea, I’m not surprised. But I bet you would be, faced with decent food. I know I am. We’ll stop for something on the way home.”

  “Who are you?” she blurted out.

  “Nick. Mrs Trewynn’s next-door neighbour. It’s no fun driving over the moors at night alone, especially in an old rattler like her car, so I came with her. I’m an artist.”

  “Really? I don’t think I’ve ever met an artist before. Not a real one.”

  “I’m as real as they get. Ah, here’s Miss Pencarrow.”

  The WPC exchanged a word with Megan as she entered, then took herself off. Camilla jumped up eagerly. “Megan, can’t I stay with you? Please?”

  Megan looked almost as worn as her pet witness. “Sorry, Cam. I’d love to have you, but it’s just not on. We’re running about back there like chickens with our heads cut off, though with more purpose, I hope. I don’t know what time I’ll get away, and I’ll be working tomorrow. Aunt Nell
will take good care of you, I promise.”

  “Oh, all right. But I’ll see you again, won’t I?”

  “Yes, of course. Monday, if not sooner.”

  “Fab!”

  “Aunt Nell, Cam’s been an enormous help to us. You absolutely mustn’t ask her anything about that, though. Nor you, Nick—Mr Gresham. I wish I could tell you more, but DI Scumble won’t hear of it. Cam, for heaven’s sake remember, don’t you dare breathe a word about what Mr Scumble told you not to talk about.”

  “I won’t, honestly.”

  “Good. Otherwise, you won’t see me on Monday because he’ll have cut off my head or sent me to Siberia or something. You know how reluctant he is to let you out of our clutches.”

  Camilla giggled, but she took a firm grip on Eleanor’s sleeve. “I won’t forget, Megan. And I won’t be any trouble, Mrs Trewynn, honestly,” she added anxiously.

  “I’m sure you won’t, my dear. Nick has a warm cardy for you, if he hasn’t put it down somewhere.” She retrieved it from over the back of a chair. “Here you go. You’ll probably think it’s terribly old-ladyish, but it’s quite chilly out. Oh dear, I’m afraid it’s rather dog-hairy.” She brushed at the blue cable-knit, but in the miraculous manner of dog-hair, it had woven itself into the wool.

  “I don’t mind. I love dogs. Did you bring yours with you? What kind of dog is it?”

  “She’s a Westie, a West Highland terrier. Teazle. Yes, she came with us, and it rather looks as if she slept on this in the backseat.”

  “That’s all right. She can sleep on it again on the way home, on my lap. If she likes me.”

  Nick turned away from his conversation with Megan to assure Camilla, “Teazle’s a friendly little thing. There’s nothing she likes better than a lap to sit on.” In an unexpected fit of gallantry, he held the cardigan up to help her to insert her arms.

  Eleanor glanced at Megan and read a certain degree of cynicism in the gaze she fixed on Nick. Could Nick possibly be displaying his plumage, demonstrating to Megan what an attentive mate—boyfriend—he could be? With a touch of “there are other fish in the sea,” of course. And if so, was he doing it consciously or unconsciously?