Hell Bay

by Kate Rhodes

  For my mother Wendy Rhodes,

  a brilliant English teacher,

  who taught me to read and inspired

  my passion for books

  Bryher is the smallest inhabited Scilly Island. It is approximately one and a half miles long, and half a mile across at its widest point. The island has ninety-eight permanent residents, most of whom make a living from fishing, boatbuilding, or summer tourism at the island’s pub, hotel or campsite.

  Laura steals out of bed while the rest of the island sleeps. By 6 a.m. she’s in the kitchen, cramming toast into her mouth, staring out at the late winter darkness. North wind batters her face as she leaves the cottage, a whiplash of blonde hair streaming across her shoulders. All of her sixteen years have been spent here; she only has to glance at the sky to second-guess its moods. A line of pink is gathering over Gweal Hill as she climbs its sharp incline, careful not to snag her tights on the bracken and coarse grass. Her mood improves when she catches the scent of brine. A water baby, her mother called her when she was small, happier splashing in the waves than toddling on dry land. The view from the crest of the hill is endless: two thousand miles of ocean, whitecaps skimming its vast expanse. She opens her mouth to taste the salt, lungs filling with ozone while breakers pummel the beach below. Soon she’ll say goodbye to this place, just one more summer before she can spread her wings. In August, there will be parties and dancing on the beach, the drunken relief of leaving home, but for now she must focus on the task in hand.

  She collects the torch from its hiding place under a rock, but when she stares at the bay a hundred feet below, the water is too treacherous for boats to land. Huge breakers arrive and retreat, the crash of water against granite as loud as applause. It’s only when Laura spins round that a figure appears in the half-dark. That smile is so familiar, her lips curve in reply. She’s still smiling when pain sears through her chest, the torch dropping from her hand. She reaches out, even though there’s nothing to grab as she plummets backwards. The last thing she sees is not the ocean, but the black island where she was born. Its jagged outline imprints on her retinas four seconds later, when her skull smashes against the rocks with the dry crack of an eggshell fracturing. The riptide drags her away, long hair flailing as dawn arrives. Her body rolls with each wave. The killer watches from the clifftop, certain that she is more beautiful dead than alive. From this distance, she could almost be a mermaid.

  1

  I’m not at my best when the taxi drops me at Penzance quay. My headache has followed me from London to Cornwall on the overnight train. I’ve tried dunking my face in cold water, a fistful of Nurofen and a full English, but lights still flash whenever I shut my eyes. The sea air is so icy it’s hard to believe this is the first day of March, spring just weeks away. Shadow gives me a baleful look as I slump on a bench; rucksack, camera bag and holdall strewn at my feet. The dog I inherited six weeks ago is behaving himself for once, sitting on his haunches, tongue lolling. There’s a ticket for St Mary’s in my pocket, but the 9 a.m. ferry hasn’t arrived, which is no surprise. Storms often disrupted the service to the Scilly Isles when I used to travel home from school on the mainland. My family has scattered far and wide since then. Only my uncle Ray lives on Bryher now, famous for his long silences. I spent my teenage summers in his boatyard, until the lure of the mainland grew too strong to resist. It still mystifies me to be going home. There’s no reason, apart from the obvious one: to fix what’s broken. I need the island’s peace to make a decision that will change the rest of my life.

  Penzance harbour looks the same as when I was a boy, the church still lording it over the town, pale and dominating on the skyline. The quay’s limestone crescent has its arm raised, defending itself against high tides. The place is still ridiculously pretty; fishermen’s cottages in pastel shades, dories bobbing on the water as the dawn light hardens. It takes a Cornishman to know that life here is harder than it looks. In winter, when the blow-ins leave, the place dies on its feet. The only people stirring today are lobstermen, preparing their creels for the first catch of the season. In the distance, there’s a chug of smoke as the ferry arrives to carry me to St Mary’s, before the last leg of my journey home to Bryher. All I can hope is that no one familiar gets on board – the threat of conversation makes my head pound even harder. The Scillonian pulls into harbour half an hour late, and my first port of call is the bar, instead of the crowded café. A teenage brunette in a cheery red uniform is polishing the counter, but there’s no sign of a smile when I request coffee.

  ‘Sorry, I’m not allowed to serve for another hour.’

  I pull out my warrant card. ‘That’s okay, I won’t arrest you.’

  Her jaw drops. ‘There’s no way you’re a cop.’

  ‘Trust me, I am.’

  I can see why she doesn’t believe me. I’ve worked undercover so long, anonymity has become second nature. The mirror behind the bar shows a shambling giant with a blue-black beard, mud-green eyes sunk deep in their hollows. The girl studies the details on the back of my card in amazement.

  ‘Detective Inspector Benesek Kitto, thirty-four years old, Metropolitan police. That’s an island name, isn’t it?’

  ‘Born and raised.’

  ‘What kind of dog is that?’

  ‘He’s a Czechoslovakian wolfdog.’

  ‘Lovely coat on him. What’s his name?’

  ‘Shadow.’

  The girl gives me a considering look. ‘Promise you won’t tell anyone I opened early?’

  ‘Cross my heart and hope to die.’

  When she emerges from behind the bar with a bowl of water, Shadow wags his tail shamelessly, hungry for female affection. I retreat to a window seat and knock back strong black coffee, hoping to annihilate my migraine. Once the mug’s empty, I walk on deck with the dog slinking at my heels. The sea’s surface shifts and turns as we pass Land’s End, a restless sleeper, eager to shrug the night’s weight from its shoulders. I’m already missing my London existence: a cool flat in Hammersmith, my vintage motorbike gathering dust in a lock-up, mates I drink with every weekend, who never ask questions.

  I alternate between the deck and the bar as the ferry chugs towards its destination. The journey feels endless. Trying to read the Steinbeck novel that’s stuffed in my pocket only worsens my headache, so I stare out of the window as the waves grow taller. The Scillonian docks in St Mary’s harbour at midday. The island is a smaller version of Penzance: fishing smacks bellied on the low-tide mud, houses running in grey terraces, connecting the hills to the sea. Already the scale feels stifling, despite miles of clean air overhead. St Mary’s is a throwback to the fifties, cars travelling along the coast road at a sedate pace, but this place is a metropolis compared to where I’m going. It used to amuse me that the islands are owned by royalty. Charles and Camilla would never deign to visit Bryher, even though their ancestors bought it for loose change. Shadow’s whining for food, so I haul my bags to the waiting room and go in search of dog biscuits. He looks unimpressed when I hold out my palm.

  ‘Take it or leave it,’ I say.

  He gives me a killing look before claiming the pellets with a single lick. No doubt he’d hop on the first train back to Hammersmith, given the chance. He accepts another handful, then turns his head away in disgust.

  The young bloke in the ticket office is reluctant to sell me a fare. Apparently the Tresco passage is so rough, the boat may not arrive; none have sailed from the outlying islands in twenty-four hours. I hunker beside the harbour wall, my headache lifting around 2 p.m., the vice around my skull gradually loosening. By the time the Bryher Maid appears, the sea is churning, waves coming to a rapid boil. I don’t know whether to be relieved or afraid when the boat finally docks. The crossing doesn’t bother me. After so many hours on
the Atlantic, my gut’s immune to motion sickness. It’s the idea of arrival that brings a cold sweat to the back of my neck.

  The skipper greets me with a single nod of acknowledgement. Arthur Penwithick is always sceptical about people who desert the island. He’s still captaining the clinker jet boat my uncle built for him twenty years ago, licensed for fifteen passengers. His appearance hasn’t changed since I was a kid. He must be close to sixty now, dressed in yellow oilskins, a frizz of brown hair under the cap he never removes, buck teeth protruding from his upper lip. After we set sail, Arthur offers a low grumble of conversation. It’s been a tough winter on the island, only a handful of tourists at the hotel, some blow-in renting a holiday cottage. He looks more relaxed when Bryher rises into view. It’s a speck of rock, less than two miles long, exposed to everything the Atlantic chucks at it. Slowly it transforms into a black row of boulders. From here it’s easy to see why its name means ‘the place of hills’; the high incline of Shipman Head Down overshadows its only village. When I look back towards the mainland, one of the passengers is bent over the rail, studying the wake’s jet stream or trying to retain her lunch. The dog is struggling too, the boat’s heaving motion making him shiver.

  At Tresco everyone disembarks, leaving just me and Arthur to cross the sound to Bryher. I’ve dreamed of this place for months, longed to breathe its salted air, but my childhood empire looks smaller than my memory painted it. Straight ahead I can see my uncle’s boatyard, the doors of his workshop hanging open, the ferryman’s narrow house beside it. A hundred metres north along the shore stands the island’s shop, which doubles as a Post Office. It’s a detached stone cottage freshly painted white; the words ‘Moorcroft Stores’ inscribed in red above the porch. Behind the buildings, the land is a rich, unbroken green, with Gweal Hill looming in the distance. The ferry docks on a quay designed for small craft and fishing vessels. If a millionaire’s yacht ever tried to land here, they’d be out of luck. The jetty would be metres too short. Bryher’s familiar odour hits me before I’ve set foot on dry land: boat diesel, fish guts and woodsmoke drifting on the breeze.

  My uncle is waiting on the beach, straight-backed and watchful. Ray is thinner than last time, thick hair whiter than before, face so hard-boned it looks cast from metal. Sun and salt air have turned his skin to sandpaper, his cheek grazing mine when he offers an awkward one-armed hug. Ray’s smile arrives slowly as I dump my bags, the dog leaping across the shingle. If he’s concerned about my ragged state, or the huge grey wolf trailing behind me, he’s too poker-faced to admit it. I glance around to orientate myself; the island’s east coast is sinking long granite fingers into the sea, as the quiet between us deepens. I could tell him why I’m here, but I don’t want sympathy today. All I need is help carrying my bags to my parents’ cottage and a quick goodbye. It’s my uncle who breaks the silence first.

  ‘Back for long, Ben?’

  I shrug. ‘A month, maybe two.’

  ‘Work can spare you that long?’

  ‘I’m using up leftover holiday.’

  He gives me a sceptical look but doesn’t reply, setting off down the path with my rucksack slung easily over his shoulders, even though it must weigh thirty kilos. My father used to greet me and my brother in the same way, pleased but wordless, carting our kitbags home every Friday night. The silence allows the landscape to fill my senses, my feet sliding on the rain-soaked ground, gulls sailing over Shipman Head as we cut a line through the centre of the island to my childhood home. Even at ambling pace, the journey doesn’t take long. Bryher is half a mile across at its widest point, but nothing moves fast here; no cars or motorbikes, just a network of paths riddled with rabbit holes.

  ‘Bad weather,’ he comments. ‘A girl’s been missing all day.’

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘The Trescothicks’ older daughter.’

  Jenna and Matt Trescothick were two years above me at school. He captained the five islands football team and she was the May queen. I watched them surfing with their friends each summer, gripped by hero worship. They were tanned, good-looking and impossibly cool; the island’s golden couple. When they married at eighteen, everyone turned out to throw confetti and watch them start their charmed lives. I saw their oldest girl at a bonfire last summer, a pretty blonde teenager with an infectious smile; but even in a place this small, kids drive their parents crazy. One time, my mum’s nagging pissed me off so badly I hid in a friend’s barn for a whole weekend, until everyone believed I’d drowned on a midnight swim.

  We’re passing through the hamlet at the island’s centre now; two dozen small, slate-roofed cottages built from local stone, resting in a hollow. Beyond them the community hall is painted a virulent yellow. The old schoolhouse stands on the outskirts of the village, still named for its educational past even though its last pupil graduated forty years ago. Most of the island’s buildings are clustered in the valley, sheltered from the wind by the surrounding hills. My grandfather should have built here too, but he preferred solitude. We skirt round Gweal Hill until a different kind of sea greets us, waves strong enough to toss boulders around like marbles. The house where I grew up stands on Hell Bay. It’s a simple stone box under a sagging roof, windows filmed with brine. The only other building in sight is the island’s hotel, ten minutes’ walk away, its white outline resembling a row of sugar cubes scattered along the horizon. I’m grateful when Ray dumps my bag at my feet, refusing to come inside.

  ‘Maggie cleaned the place and put food in your fridge,’ he mumbles. ‘I’d better get back to work. Come by the yard whenever you like.’

  The door is unlocked, even though my last visit was six months ago, for my mother’s funeral. I only spent a couple of nights here then and the place looks shabby; the air in the hallway smells of mildew, dust motes hanging on the cold light that spills through the door. The kitchen cupboards are crammed with boxes of Cornflakes and packets of rice, as if my godmother is afraid I’ll starve without her assistance. I scoop food into a bowl for the dog then lie on the rough woollen blanket that covers the settee, poleaxed by my long journey, but it’s impossible to sleep. Water drips too loudly from the tap, storm petrels arguing outside. Who would think a one-storey building could hold so much of the past? Ghosts arrive as I stand by the sink. I can smell my mother’s lavender scent, the salt that clung to my father’s skin until his fishing boat capsized on the Atlantic Strait. Today, even the living seem like spirits. My brother is two thousand miles west in New York, yet I picture him sprawled beside me in his favourite chair. Evidence of my half-finished attempts to modernise the place for my mother are everywhere I look: new tiles on the kitchen floor, sage-green paint peeling from the walls. The bathroom is no better. I installed a sleek shower cubicle, but never got around to fitting a decent bath and sink.

  If I stay here I’ll end up climbing the walls, so I grab my coat again when evening comes. I try to leave without waking the dog, but he noses out of the door, determined not to be abandoned.

  ‘You’ll get trodden on,’ I warn him.

  He vanishes down the path, confident as a native islander. I stand in the porch to tuck my scarf deeper inside my collar, torch in my pocket. When I was a kid I knew every bump and crater, fleet-footed in the dark. No one gets hurt here, unless they make a stupid mistake. Every few years someone breaks an ankle, tripping over a molehill or rabbit hole; then it’s a short but agonising boat ride to the field hospital on Tresco to get it cast. But tonight it’s stars that catch my eye, not the pockmarked ground. Without street lights, they’re free to dazzle. There’s a 180-degree view of the northern hemisphere, pinholes of silver light piercing the sky’s surface. The beauty is almost enough to drop me to my knees, and it takes me several minutes to drag my eyes back to the ground. Once I’ve returned to the quay I follow the island’s eastern coast towards the pub, until an ugly man-made glare rises from the beach below.

  Voices drift up as the tide rolls closer. Judging by the flare of torch beams, half the
island’s population is braving the cold. It doesn’t take a high IQ to know that Laura Trescothick is still missing. It’s tempting to revert to type and jog down to lead the search, giving orders in a loud, no-bullshit voice. I remind myself that I’m taking a break from being a cop, but feel a twinge of guilt as the Rock looms from the dark. The pub is a wide two-storey building, facing New Grimsby Sound. I pass the island’s only phone box and head indoors. The place reeks of the past: woodsmoke from the inglenook fire, brandy, home-cooked food. A few punters are relaxing on sofas by the hearth. Luckily, they’re too busy chatting to turn round. Dean Miller sits at a corner table, immersed in his newspaper. The island’s only professional artist looks more eccentric than ever, grey hair shaved close to his skull, a yellow cravat knotted around his throat, jeans so paint-spattered there’s no clear denim. He’s been producing ugly abstract seascapes ever since he came over from America thirty years ago.

  My godmother, Maggie Nancarrow, is behind the bar, the sight of her making me feel like I’m ten years old again, buying cider for my dad. She doesn’t spot me at first, too busy opening a bottle of wine, tortoiseshell glasses perched on the tip of her nose. Her bird-like form is wrapped in a scarlet jumper and faded jeans, wild grey curls surrounding a face as round and polished as an apple. The welcoming grin she produces soon fades into concern.

  ‘I’ve been expecting you all day.’ She dashes round for a hug, the crown of her head level with my chest. She tilts her face back to inspect me more closely. ‘You’re still ridiculously handsome, Ben, despite the beard.’

  ‘You say that to all the boys. Thanks for looking after the house.’

  ‘Only you inspire me to scrub floors.’ She looks down at Shadow. ‘What’s this? I thought you hated dogs.’

  ‘I inherited him.’

  Maggie’s eyes brim with questions she’s too wise to ask. ‘You’re too skinny. Stay there, I’ll bring you some food.’