Betrayed in Cornwall

by Janie Bolitho

  Men were now deployed in Newlyn, ready to search the vessel and apprehend the crew. If necessary armed men would be brought in. When drugs were involved in large quantities, those transporting them were not averse to carrying insurance by way of firearms.

  So much seemed to be going on at once. Jack glanced at his watch. It was twenty to seven. ‘I’d better make a move,’ he said. ‘We’ll start looking for Rose right away. And I’ll be in touch the moment there’s any news.’

  Evelyn showed him out. Apart from admiring his handsome face and large, well-proportioned body, she believed he was a good, decent man and he obviously cared for Rose. It was a shame their affair had come to nothing; for the first time she wondered why it had. Perhaps Geoff Carter had replaced Jack – there was certainly interest on the part of the gallery owner. ‘What do we do now?’ she asked when they were alone again.

  ‘We wait patiently. There’s nothing else we can do. At least Jack knows. I trust that man, he’ll do his best to find her. Come and sit down and I’ll pour you another drink. We can always replenish Rose’s stocks later.’

  One man dead, two women missing and a suspicious vessel in the bay. Were all these events connected, and had Rose already worked out the way in which they might be? Did she even know he had taken her seriously and instigated the search for Sarah Chynoweth?

  He had to find Rose. Tired and ill though he was, he would help to look for her himself if necessary. Maybe both females were being held in the same place, if they were being held. Sarah might have used the opportunity of a grieving household to elope, for all they knew. But Rose? No, there was no way of guessing what she was up to but elopement wasn’t a possibility. Jack felt a sudden flash of anger. If it did turn out to be anything to do with a man he might even kill her himself.

  Sarah was trying not to cry. Life could not get any worse. On top of everything else, Mark had betrayed her. She looked at him, trying to gauge his thoughts. He seemed as scared as she was. The other, older man had hardly spoken, other than to issue instructions. He was dangerous, she knew that instinctively, although he had not hurt or threatened her in any way. Once he had left the hut but returned after an hour. Mark had not spoken to her during that time.

  They had now been shut in since the previous evening. Mark, she guessed, was as much a prisoner as she was, even though he seemed not to realise it. It was stifling and every minute dragged. Then, unexpectedly, about four o’clock, the man she had heard Mark address as Terry said he had to go out again. He handed something to Mark but Sarah could not see what it was. As he did so he whispered something. Mark nodded and they were alone.

  For the next half-hour she begged and pleaded with him to let her go, but Mark remained silent. ‘Think of my mother if not me. She’ll be worried sick, she won’t be able to take it, not now. Haven’t you got any compassion?’ There was still no response but the fear remained in his eyes. Once, but only once, she made a lunge for the door which had been bolted on the inside after Terry left. It was then she realised that Terry had given Mark a gun. Too terrified to move, Sarah sat on the floor and waited for whatever was to happen to her.

  For the first time in ages Sarah realised how much she loved her mother, and that she had been wrong about her. Etta cared for Sarah just as much as she had Joe. Now it might be too late to tell her how she felt, that she didn’t really mind about the man she was seeing if it made her happy. Etta had done so much for her and Joe that Sarah tended to forget she was entitled to a life of her own just as Roz had pointed out. At that moment Sarah hated herself more than she did Mark. She had trusted him, confided in him, and together they had discovered who it was that Etta was seeing. Sarah did not want to die, she wanted to be at home with her mother’s arms around her. The very idea caused the held-back tears to fall and now she could not stop them. But it no longer mattered what Mark or anyone else thought, all she wanted was to go home.

  The sun began to sink but darkness was hours away. The sky and sea gradually changed colour and a half moon appeared in a lilac sky. Mark made them sandwiches but Sarah could not eat. There had been a box of groceries on the back seat of the car when he had picked her up. This had been planned. And, when they had picked up Terry late in the afternoon, she had simply taken it for granted that he was a friend of Mark’s. How naïve she had been.

  All the innuendoes she had picked up from Amy and Roz came back to her: Mark was using her, he was selfish, she’d be better off without him. How foolish she was not to have seen it before. But there was a glimmer of hope. She had told Rose Trevelyan, had, in fact, confided in her far more than she had intended. Rose would know what to do, who to contact, she always did. Even now the police would be looking for her. But would they find her before it was too late?

  Mark had told her she would be able to go home on Tuesday morning but she did not believe him. Mark seemed not to believe it himself. What could they gain by keeping her here then releasing her, knowing she would go straight to the police?

  Not wishing to startle Mark, Sarah got up slowly. She sank into the musty, battered armchair and prepared to sit it out through another night.

  ‘Oh, God!’ Rose glanced at her watch. It was a few minutes to seven. Where had the time gone? And her parents, they would be worried sick. She had been so engrossed in what she was doing she had not even thought of them.

  There was no question of walking home now. She ran to the phone box across the road, cursing herself for not having her mobile with her. She hated the thing but accepted that Jack had been right, it was useful, especially when she was out alone at night. First she ordered a taxi then she dialled her own number.

  ‘Dear God, Rose, where have you been?’ were her father’s first words. ‘Your mother’s been worried sick, and so have I.’

  ‘I’m so sorry. I really am. Look, I’m on my way back, a taxi’s on its way. I’ll explain when I get there.’

  Stepping from one foot to the other she waited impatiently until the taxi arrived. Within fifteen minutes she was at home, unaware that Jack had passed her in his own car heading in the opposite direction. Rose saw by her parents’ faces that they were trying to disguise their anger and she felt ashamed for having made them feel that way.

  ‘So?’ Evelyn said sharply as she handed her daughter a glass of wine. Beneath the tan Rose was pale and there was gooseflesh on her arms below the the hems of the short sleeves of her T-shirt.

  ‘I really am dreadfully sorry. I just lost all track of time and now I’ve ruined your holiday. Will you let me explain?’

  ‘While we’re eating,’ Evelyn decided. ‘The meal’s ready, there’re only the steaks to grill.’

  ‘Oh, Mum.’ Rose got up and hugged her. ‘I don’t deserve you.’

  ‘And we often wonder what we did to deserve you,’ Arthur added as they went to the kitchen. But his tone spoke more of relief than anger.

  Over the meal which Evelyn had prepared, thus making Rose feel more ashamed, she told them where she had been and what she had learned.

  8

  ‘Well, we’re home, Melly,’ Roger Hammond stated unnecessarily, as he carried their bags from the garage towards the house where they had lived for the past four years.

  His wife sighed. Her name was Melanie. Mel, she could live with, just, but Melly irritated her. The abbreviation conjured up a picture of a plump, cheerful country girl. She was none of those things. Roger had only started calling her that since they had moved down to the West Country. Whatever’s wrong with me? she wondered. I was so close to Roger when we were away. The minute we’re back from Greece I feel everything closing in on me again. They had got on so well for the past few weeks and now, more than ever, she ought to have felt happy.

  Four and a half years ago each of her objections against leaving the Midlands had been squashed by reason and the disadvantages she had pointed out had been overcome by practical manoeuvres on the part of her husband until finally Melanie had agreed to the move. When Roger had suggested it she had gu
essed his motives for wanting it, but she had imagined he meant somewhere like Bath, not too far from London and at least with a veneer of sophistication, not, as it turned out, the ends of the earth.

  ‘It’s so far from everywhere,’ she had protested after they had driven down from their home in the Midlands to view the property for which an agent had sent details. When they arrived she had been aware of Roger watching her closely and knew that he had seen through her, that this last feeble stand was no more than that because she had loved the building, its grounds and the swimming-pool on sight. She had always fought him every inch of the way. It was in her nature to do so, hard as she tried to compromise.

  Roger fingered his bunch of keys, automatically finding the two for the front door. ‘It was a good holiday. I’ve always liked Greece. And I’m glad you enjoyed yourself so much.’

  ‘Yes. I did. Thank you.’ Roger deserved that much, he had tried hard to make it good for her. And, in fairness to herself, she had done her best too. But she felt a bit odd, and very tired, and hoped these signs were normal and that she had not picked up some foreign bug. She glanced around, refamiliarising herself with the place while he inserted the first of the keys in the lock. He was a silent partner in something to do with steel, his actual role unclear to Melanie, but she was aware he could afford this house and the trappings.

  The garden, which she loved tending, had turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. There were none of the colourful flowers she had grown at their previous house and had imagined would grow even better here. And the grass was rather parched, although it would recover. Annual bedding plants did not survive on the cliffside where they were unprotected from the salty winds and the elements. However, there were interesting shrubs and sub-tropical plants which grew to eight feet or more. Tiny pink flowers clustered tightly to their thick, woody stems from which spiky leaves also grew. There were tall Cornish palms and huge succulent-looking plants which thrived in the sandy soil, none of which she could yet name.

  At the back of the house was the pool, surrounded by paving stones and earthenware pots of geraniums. This had been one of the deciding factors when Melanie agreed to buy.

  A verandah ran along the front and both sides of the property which was built of stone, but not the local granite which she found unattractive. The top half of the house was timbered and painted a dazzling white; the main bedroom opened on to a small balcony from where they could look down over St Ives and out across the bay and, weather permitting, where they sometimes ate their breakfast.

  ‘Roger?’ Melanie touched his arm. She was frowning. To her right, one of the french windows was ajar; no more than an inch or so and motionless in the heat of the afternoon, but as she had turned she caught the reflection of her movement in the glass when normally she could not have done.

  ‘Oh, hell.’ Roger pushed open the front door and listened. There were no sounds, only the muffled silence of a house that had been left empty in the heat. Even the clock in the cool, square, tiled hall had run down.

  ‘Shall I call the police?’ Melanie’s face had paled beneath the Mediterranean tan. She knew how much Roger’s collections were worth. But another fleeting thought had crossed her mind.

  ‘No, I’ll take a look around first. Perhaps we just forgot to close it. Stay there, Melly.’ It had been very hot the day they left, possibly they’d overlooked one lock. I’m pissing in the wind, he thought. Of course we locked up properly. We both double-checked. No one went away for a month without doing so, even if they had little of value in the house.

  The stairs were dappled in rainbow colours where the sun shone through the stained-glass of the porthole window on the half-landing. Roger decided to leave the upstairs until last.

  The large room to the right of the hall where the window had stood open initially seemed untouched. There was no chaos, no upturned furniture or the scattered contents of drawers on the floor. If someone had broken in they had been extremely careful. Roger held his breath. Only when his eyes had adjusted to the relative dimness of the interior did he gasp. ‘Oh, bloody hell!’ There were blank spaces on the walls where paintings had once hung and empty surfaces where bronzes and porcelain had stood.

  It was the same in each of the other downstairs rooms. My coins, he thought as sweat broke out across his forehead and beneath his armpits. The coins were in the safe in the kitchen, hidden in a box-like structure which ostensibly held the electricity meter. But the false meter on its hardboard mount swung out and to one side to reveal a wall safe with a combination known only to Roger. The real meter was under the staircase.

  ‘Thank God.’ It had not been touched.

  ‘Roger?’ Melanie had ignored his instructions and entered the house. She saw by his face what had happened and walked swiftly to the phone on the wall by the freezer. The line was dead. So was the one in the hall. Fumbling in her handbag she pulled out her mobile and rang the police. ‘No,’ she replied after she had explained what had happened, ‘we won’t touch anything.’

  They waited outside in their holiday clothes in the shade of a clump of trees. They knew it could have been worse, that things might have been destroyed wantonly and that the thieves could have left a filthy mess, defecating on the carpets or urinating over the beds. It made no difference, their home had been violated and would never feel the same again.

  Two cars arrived, one bearing two uniformed officers, the other a detective constable and his sergeant. In view of what Mrs Hammond had told them, that amount of manpower had been deemed necessary.

  The details of how the Hammonds had found the house and an inventory of what was missing were recorded. Roger said he had a complete list of his collections in his desk and that he would double-check nothing else had been taken.

  ‘Are you insured, sir?’ the DS inquired.

  ‘Yes, of course. Only a fool would not be.’ Roger paced the sticky sweep of the tarmacked drive. Someone was on their way to take fingerprints, after which they could return to the house. He thought the officer seemed suspicious, as if Roger had arranged for the job to be done in his absence in order that he might make a claim.

  ‘Who knew you were away?’

  ‘I didn’t tell anyone locally.’ It was Melanie who answered. Her friends were in the Midlands, she had not made any new ones, only a few acquaintances.

  ‘Nor I. My business partners knew, of course, but they wouldn’t…’ He did not complete the sentence. There was one person he had told. He cursed himself for his foolishness until he realised that what he was thinking was impossible.

  ‘And the alarm?’

  ‘It was deactivated, as were both telephone lines.’

  It was obvious to them all that this was the work of professionals who had known exactly what to take and what to leave. They had not, like mindless vandals, left their calling card in any shape or form, and it was doubtful there would be any fingerprints other than those which could be matched to a name known to the Hammonds. At least they had not discovered the safe. But had they known it was there? Had they been disturbed? There were neighbours, albeit hidden behind high hedges. Entry had been via the front because one villa, higher up, looked down over the back. The house could not be seen from the road because the drive curved sharply.

  ‘Who knew of your art collection, sir?’ The DS was sweating profusely. The sun was at its strongest and heat seemed to have pooled within the L-shaped angle of the house and garage. He wiped his face with a dark blue handkerchief.

  Roger shrugged. ‘Close friends. Although I’ve never been foolish enough to discuss its value.’

  The detective sergeant had noted more than the victims’ words. Mr Hammond was probably in his fifties, his wife about ten years younger. They were attractive and wealthy, but used to money. Their clothes and the property were tasteful rather than ostentatious. Mr Hammond had a slight paunch but appeared otherwise fit and healthy and his wife was naturally good-looking without having resorted to dyeing her hair back to its original b
londe in order to maintain the illusion of youth. But there were undercurrents and they seemed, in their distress, more like two strangers than a long-married couple.

  ‘Any children?’

  Roger had wondered when they would ask. It was perhaps a natural assumption that if they had teenage offspring they might have been staying at the house or one of them might have boasted about their father’s possessions or mentioned to someone that their parents were away. He glanced at Melanie. She was whiter still but said nothing. ‘No, Sergeant. No children.’ Not any more, he added silently. ‘Look, we’ve just returned from holiday.’ He indicated their bags which still stood on the verandah. ‘This could’ve occurred at any time during the past three weeks.’

  ‘I don’t think so. I think it was quite recently.’ The sergeant had already inspected the frame of the french window. Where it had been forced the wood was splintered and sharp and still pink and raw where the paint had flaked. In the heatwave it would have darkened in colour within a day or two. ‘When were you expected back?’

  ‘Not for another week, actually. We’d booked three weeks in Greece and intended visting old friends in Hagley on our way back. That’s why we chose to fly from Birmingham.’ He paused. ‘But we just couldn’t face it in this weather.’ Roger took a few steps backwards and lowered himself on to the sawn-off trunk of a tree. It had been cut down many years previously and made an ideal seat now that the ringed surface had worn smooth. He felt weak, ready for another holiday, as if his trip to Greece had not taken place at all. What a waste. All those years of hard work, all his efforts to please Melanie. Everything he touched seemed to go wrong. Even the burglary was probably down to him.

  How ironical it was. Here, where there would be less temptation for his wife, where life was slower and safer, was where they had been robbed and where he had been the one to err. Their haven had become contaminated and he began to wish they had not moved.