by A. J. Armitt
“There’s the hotel up the road, or Sally Tompkin takes in lodgers. Depends on what you wanted.”
“Give me directions to Mrs Tompkin’s would you? I’ll try there first.”
He left his car in the square, only taking a bag and his camera gear. The Tompkin cottage stood alone at the end of the lane behind the pub. Standing at the gate, with his back to the cottage, he admired the view. To the south he could see over the roofs of the cottages to the green sea beyond. Lazy waves, scattered with broken lines of spray, met the sky in the hazy distance. Turning around, he saw that the moor rose behind the cottage. A ruined mine chimney, clad with ivy, dominated the horizon.
The front door opened before he unlatched the gate and a pretty young woman stepped out, smiling at him.
“Jane rang me from the pub. Are you the gent looking for a room?”
“Yes, that’s right.” He returned the smile. “Can you put me up?”
“You’d better come in first, make sure ‘tis to your liking.”
He followed her into a hall that shone with polish and smelt of flowers. A bowl of hyacinths sat on a table against one wall.
“Put your bags down while you come and look.” She led the way up steep stairs. “This is the best room,” she said, opening a door that allowed the evening sunlight to flood the little passage.
He stepped in. The double bed had a white counterpane; windows looked out towards the sea and a vase of flowers stood on the wide window ledge. The room was fresh, clean and charming.
“I’ll take it,” he said, “I’m sure I’ll be very comfortable here.”
They went down to a sitting room which was every bit as bright and attractive. He could barely believe his good fortune.
“How long will you be staying?”
“I’m not sure yet. I’m a free lance photographer and came down because of the choughs.” That was his cover story and he knew enough about photography, a hobby of his, to carry it off.
“Oh, yes, there’s been a lot of interest now they’re nesting on the cliffs here. Well, the room’s yours for as long as you want it. Out of season, there aren’t many holiday makers around. Have you come by car?” At his nod, she said, “You can park it outside, it’ll be safer here than in the square.”
He unpacked his bag and walked back to the pub for his supper. During the course of this, he learned that Sally Tompkin was the widow the locals had been discussing earlier. But he knew that already.
That night he slept well. With the bedroom window open, the distant sound of the surf pounding the cliffs lulled him to sleep.
*****
Over the next few days, he walked the cliff paths and scrambled around the rocks and managed to get some half decent photographs of the elusive choughs. And between times he learned more about his landlady.
She brought him substantial breakfasts and stayed to chat. She offered to cook him dinner and at the end of the first week, he invited her to join him. He found her intelligent, amusing and eager to hear about his successful forays.
He heard about her husband, gone missing on a solitary fishing trip some six years before. Her voice faltered as she told him and her eyes filled with tears.
“You still miss him.”
“Of course. Sometimes I think he’ll come walking up the lane again and tell me he lost his memory and has only now remembered who he is and where he lives. It’s been hard to keep going all this time.” Her voice was unsteady and she turned away and looked out of the window. “I earn what I can by doing bed and breakfast. There aren’t any jobs going down here and I can’t move away in case he comes back.”
He felt moved by her plight and had to remind himself of why he was here.
The following week, she said she was going into Truro by bus and he offered to drive her.
“I’ve taken some very good photos already, so it won’t hurt me to take a day off and have a look around.”
After he had checked out a few things in the town and Sally had finished her shopping, they met back at the car and she suggested he might like to see Malpas. The road wound along the tree lined river bank and the water was high, small boats tugging at anchor in the pull of the tide. At The Heron, they sat on the terrace in the sun, watching the gulls and chatting companionably over sandwiches and drinks.
He watched her laughing at the antics of a young puppy and again warned himself to be careful. He wasn’t here to fall in love with this attractive young woman. He had a job to do. He sighed and she looked up.
“What was that for?”
“It’s so pleasant here, it’s a shame one has to work for a living.” He changed the subject. “Sally, I know you get upset talking about your husband, but you’re too young and pretty to spend the rest of your life alone. Hasn’t there been anyone else in the six years since he disappeared?”
She shook her head and he saw her eyes glisten with incipient tears.
“I still hope he will come back. I love him, you see.” She bent her head and her dark hair fell across her face. “Although he wasn’t always kind to me... when he’d been drinking. But he always said sorry afterwards. And he was seeing a woman in the next village sometimes, when he was supposed to be out fishing.” She ran fingers under her eyes and looked up at him defiantly, her thick lashes wet. “How would I know another man wouldn’t behave just the same as he did?”
“But when they declare him dead?”
“I’ll be free then. I won’t need to take in lodgers, I won’t need to count every penny, I won’t have to do my shopping by bike or bus. I’ll start to live again.”
Her hand lay on the table between them and he covered it with his own. She didn’t pull away, but gave him a shaky smile. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I know. I’m sorry. Shall we go? I want to try to get some sunset shots down at the cove.”
She cooked him a late supper when he returned from the cliffs and while she was busy in the kitchen, he looked idly through her visitors’ book. The names he knew about were there. It was too much of a coincidence, but all the same he couldn’t bring himself to believe it. Five men had apparently disappeared not long after staying in this village over the past two years. After staying in this very house.
And yet according to the bank records of each one, after leaving here they had moved on to another of the towns in the region: Truro, Penzance, Newquay and Falmouth. They had each made regular cash withdrawals for a month, then the trail ended. There were no hotel records he could find, no trace of their cars, no further withdrawals, no use of passports. In one or two cases, ferries and airports had been checked, too. Nothing.
He was investigating on behalf of relatives and also for the insurance companies involved. That included the company who would be paying out half a million pounds to the widow of John Tompkin in less than a year’s time.
Was Tompkin still alive? Was his wife collaborating with him? She would hardly collude with a man who had treated her as badly as she said. But women always fell for rotters, didn’t they? Even so, he saw no trace of another man about the house. It seemed unlikely he could stay hidden anywhere around these villages where everyone knew everyone else’s business.
And what then of these other men? Was John Tompkin responsible for their disappearance and lining his pockets at their expense while he waited for his wife to get the insurance payout? Tompkin could have got rid of them in a jealous rage for getting friendly with his wife. Sally might not even be aware that these men had disappeared. No official enquiries had been made. People disappeared all the time for their own reasons.
She popped her head round the sitting room door. “Supper’s ready, Derek.”
He closed the book and turned round. “Be right there.” Her usual smile was in place. If she had noticed him looking at her guest book, it didn’t seem to have bothered her.
*****
Sometimes he saw Sally on her bicycle as he strode through the village on his way to the cliffs. She always rang her bell and
waved. Sometimes she joined him for a stroll after supper. He even persuaded her to come with him to the pub one evening.
The locals greeted her cheerfully.
“How you doin’, maid?” asked the man with the grey whiskers. Derek remembered him from his first evening. He was interested to see the reaction their visit inspired. Had she been in here with any of the other men who had lodged in her cottage? The barmaid acknowledged her, but no more. The jealous reaction of one woman to another prettier than she, perhaps? He decided to return the next day with pictures of the missing men. Perhaps the girl would have something to say about them. She could certainly tell him whether they had been in here alone or with Sally. Or with anyone else for that matter.
*****
The next day was not a day for photography. A soft grey mist, not quite rain, but penetrating enough, enveloped the village and the cliffs. Derek sat in his room and completed a report on his progress. Or lack of it, he thought, ruefully. He dug out his file and removed the photographs of the missing men, ready for his next trip to the pub. He had showed them around in Truro, without success.
Sally called up to him so he shut the papers in his case and went to the top of the stairs.
“The sun’s coming out. I wondered if you would like to take a walk up to the old mine? Perhaps take some pictures. ’Twould make a change from birds.” She was smiling up at him from the hall.
“Great idea. Let me get my coat.”
“Oh, you won’t need that. It’s not cold and there’s no wind today. Just a jumper will do.”
He pulled out a sweater, picked up his camera and left everything else.
*****
She led the way, scrambling through the gorse, up the steep path that led to the ruined mine building. He had difficulty keeping up, so sure footed was she. Head down, he laboured up the path, breathing heavily, aware he needed to take more exercise, lose a bit of weight. When he raised his head again, she had disappeared.
He reached the mine chimney. “Sally? Where are you?”
“In here,” came her muffled voice. Then a shrill cry echoed round the tower.
“What’s happened? Are you all right?”
“I’ve twisted my ankle. I - I think it’s broken.”
He stepped into the building, blinded by the gloom after the sunlight.
“Where are you?” he said again.
He heard her moan. “Over here.”
He took a step towards her voice, peering into the shadows, blinking to get his eyes accustomed to the darkness of the tower. She cried out again and he could make out her shape, slumped against the far wall.
“Hold on, I’m coming,” he said. He took a stride towards her, and put his foot down on nothing, stepping into a void. He flung out his arm and screamed with agony as his wrist hit the side of the pit, snapping it in two. He scrabbled with his good arm as he fell and caught the rough bar of a ladder, even as his head smashed against the rock wall. Trying to find purchase with his feet, woozy from the blow and with blood flowing down his face, he clung desperately with his good hand.
A grating sound echoed around him and the metal bar started to pull slowly away from the side of the shaft.
As it came away under his weight, he dropped, bouncing from one side to the other as he fell, his flesh splitting open against the rough hewn walls. Before losing consciousness and long before he reached the bottom, he knew he’d found the answers to his questions.
*****
Sally pulled the metal grating back across the shaft and dusted off her hands. Snooping bastard. He’d wanted to find the others. Well, now he had. Including her philandering, drunken bully of a husband. She trod lightly down the path, humming as she went.
She’d enticed her husband up there after he’d been drinking. Then later, she’d gone down to the cove, started the outboard engine on his boat and sent it out to sea empty.
The others, well, they provided extra income while she waited for the insurance pay-out. She would get rid of that guest book, though. Just in case some other nosey parker came around.
After dark, she stowed her bike in his car. Men with their big status symbol cars, she thought, part in disgust and part with glee for convenience of the roomy boot. She went back in and had supper. There was no hurry. The longer she left it, the fewer people would be around. His bag was packed and in the car already. His debit card was in her pocket.
She was continually amazed at the ease with which she discovered their pin numbers. Either they withdrew cash when they accompanied her shopping (while she waited by their side) or their numbers were on file on their computer or it was some part of their birth date. Only on one of the early ones had she been caught out, but he’d had plenty of money in his wallet, so that wasn’t so bad. Oh, and then there was that annoying one who hadn’t left his wallet behind in his coat. Must have had it with him when he fell. That was a lot of effort for nothing. She made sure that didn’t happen again.
It would be St Agnes Head this time. She chose a different headland for getting rid of each car. Surprisingly, not a single one had been washed up yet, although she always removed the registration plates, as a precaution. They too, would go down the shaft later.
At three in the morning, she drove across the peninsular. It would be a long cycle ride back but a pleasant one. The sky was clear and there was a full moon. She’d stop at the supermarket cash-point in Redruth. No CCTV there and so convenient they were open for twenty-four hours a day. Then home in time for breakfast and with money in her pocket.
***
Shirley Blane is the author of The Widow's Revenge, now published as an e-book with Amazon. She has also written several prize winning short stories and is currently working on a sequel to her novel. Find her on Twitter @BlanethePain333
Homecoming
By Alex MacKenzie
On the tree outside, the leaves were starting to turn.
Netty placed another log on the hearth before returning to her seat by the latticed window that her husband had bought for her. She listened to the soft spit and bubble of the stew over the fire and drew a blanket tightly around her shoulders. The others could make do with oil-soaked linen for windows, but she could see the outside world - a cluster of thatched, timber-framed cottages at the foot of the hill which led up to the citadel. Every morning for a month she had watched the rising sun silhouette the great grey citadel before it, alone. Waiting, and seeing nothing.
But today the leaves were starting to turn and her husband was coming back.
The day before, Julia’s husband had cantered into the village on a new horse. The news: every man that had left the village a month before was returning. Each and every man. The battle was won, the raiders were beaten, and her husband was coming back.
Netty had spent the past month without Manetur wallowing in boredom, sadness and anxiety. She had no livestock to tend to - her husband was a farmhand, not a farmer. While he was gone she found that she had little to do. She could have stayed in bed all month if she’d wanted. But instead she had collected water, swept the floorboards, dusted the surfaces, cooked soup, collected wood, chopped wood, burnt wood and collected wood again and again. She would sit on her chair by the window and fight to keep her eyes dry. But today she would hold her husband and he would kiss her on the tip of her nose like he always did. They would walk in the woods together, kicking at the falling, amber leaves; go to the market at the citadel and fantasize about things they could not afford; maybe even find some hidden corner of a field to lay down together.
A collection of weary, muddy and bloody men traipsed into the village. They had detached from the long line of men that was creeping its way towards the citadel. One by one the men of the smaller group peeled off leaving muffled farewells and thanks behind them before disappearing through the doorways of their white, timber-framed houses.
One man, caked in mud from head to toe, parted from the rest and began to move over towards her. She could hardly recognise him. She st
ood, folded the blanket she had been wearing, brushed down her skirts and waited for a few more agonising moments.
The door opened and Manetur, exhausted and filthy, stepped into view. She resisted the urge to run to him, but instead walked slowly and clamped her arms tightly around him.
“Hello, Netty,” he said.
*****
She swept the clumps of earth and rotting leaves into a pile by the door and collected them up in a dustpan. She was barefoot, so she stood at the threshold and threw the contents of the pan out into the soft, slushy muck that was the road beyond. She shut the door against the cold and moved over to the hearth where a pot of water was starting to steam. She poured the water into a bucket and dropped a cloth into it.
