Killer Mine, page 6
It is possible that the cutter came into collision with another vessel last night and was abandoned by her crew. Mr Redcliff, however, pointed out in an interview that when he found the cutter she was quite seaworthy. His opinion was that the crew would have had no justification in abandoning her. Further, he stated that the damage was not, in his opinion, the result of any collision.
The names of the missing men are Frank Riley …
I stopped reading then and looked up. Something said by one of the men in the bar had thrust itself into my mind. The landlord was speaking. ‘Ar,’ he said. ‘Reckon ‘e knaws summat.’ And then I understood why my interest had been aroused. ‘Who — Manack?’ asked the old accordion player. ‘He’s just daft, that’s all.’
‘Ar, ‘e’s daft right enough,’ put in one of the skittle players, ‘Bin queer in the ‘ead ever since his wife was killed, poor soul.’
‘An’ then there was that ‘ooman who went mad down there,’ put in another.
‘Iss,’ the landlord said to me, ‘walked over the cliff, she did.’
‘Tedn’t a place I’d go near at night, anyway,’ said the skittle player.
‘Nor me,’ agreed the old man with the accordion. ‘I’d be scared o’ seeing the death fetch o’ one o’ they women.’ And he chuckled softly to himself.
‘I don’t care what ‘ee say,’ put in the landlord, ‘I reckon ‘ee knaws summat. One way and another ‘ee’s got control of the whole mine. Bought the other adventurers out for next to nothing, ‘I’m thinking.’
‘Then why was he one of the ones that wanted to knack her?’ asked the skittle player.
The landlord shook his head. ‘Dunno,’ he said. ‘Mebbe it was so as he could get control of the mine.’
In the short silence that followed I leaned across to the landlord and asked, ‘Is it Captain Manack you’re talking about?’
He gave me a quick glance. ‘No. The old man. Captain Manack is his son. Why? Do you know’n?’
‘Mebbe,’ I said. ‘Where’s he live?’
And then I got the second surprise that evening, for the landlord turned to me and said, ‘Just down the road, at Cripples’ Ease.’
‘Cripples’ Ease,’ I echoed.
He laughed. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Queer sort o’ name, eh? Used to be a pub. That was before my time when everybody round here worked at the Botallack. Then it came into Manack’s possession and the licence was allowed to lapse.’
‘When was that?’ I asked.
‘Oh, let me see. Just after the first war it would be. There was some tale that he got it from the woman who kept house for him, the same that went mad an’ walked over the cliff. But then, ‘cos ‘e’s reck’ned a bit daft, there’s all sorts of stories about him. Can’t believe ‘alf o’ what you’re toald in a village laike this.’ He grinned. ‘Leastways, ‘e’s the one man that believes there’s tin down in Wheal Garth and tryin’ to get it. He and ‘is son — though what ‘is son knows about mining I don’t know. They employs a couple o’ men down there — furriners, they are, an’ we don’t see much o’ them. Seems they’re more like quarry men than miners. About all they do is cut granite slabs for kerb stones and things. Lorries come down from Bristol, sometimes Lunnon even, about once a week.’ He shook his head. ‘Old Manack’ll never do no good with that mine, I’m thinking.’
‘Whereabouts is Cripples’ Ease?’ I asked.
He looked at me sharply. ‘Just down the road,’ he said vaguely. ‘Why?’
I hesitated. Then I said, ‘I’ve come here to see Captain Manack.’ I had the feeling he was eyeing me closely.
‘Thee don’t want to be going down to Cripples’ Ease,’ put in the old man with the accordion. ‘Leastways not this time o’ night. T’edn’t a very friendly place.’ He smiled, showing his gums. He did it without removing the clay pipe. ‘It’s the old man. Daft, that’s what I say ‘e is. ‘E were all right until his wife had that assident.’
‘What happened?’ I asked.
‘Fell down a mine shaft, she did, poor ‘ooman,’ he told me. “Tain’t difficult. The cliffs is littered with old shafts. They found her at the bottom. Her head was stove in and she had her dog layin’ aside of ‘er. They say as ‘ow she went down after the dog. But there’s others thinks different,’ he added darkly.
‘What was her name?’ I asked.
‘Er name? What was ‘er name, Garge?’ he asked the landlord.
‘Harriet, if I remember rightly.’
‘Ar, that were it - Harriet Manack. She was a widow woman from Penzance. They say it was she brought ‘im ‘is interest in Wheal Garth.’
‘When did this happen?’ I asked.
‘It’d be nine or ten years ago,’ he replied.
‘Was he married before?’
The old man shook his head. ‘Not to my recollection.’ I felt relieved. I didn’t want to go digging up the past.
I finished my beer. ‘Which road do I take for Manack’s place?’ I asked the landlord.
‘Turn right outside here,’ he said. ‘About fifty yards on, the road bends sharp right. That’s where ‘ee turns off to the left. Thee’ll find a track. That’ll take ee’ down to Botallack. Cripples’ Ease is by the mine workings. Thee’ll not mistake it - ‘edn’t nothing else down there, ‘cept ruins.’
Outside thick darkness shut in the village and thrust back the light that stole out through the open doorway of the inn. The wind had risen and the roar of it swallowed the sound of my footsteps on the roadway. A fork of lightning ripped open the under-belly of the clouds that hung above the coast. In the flash of it the drab stone of the cottages that edged the roadway stood cut sharp and black, as in a woodcut. The thunder cracked, heavy and close, like a giant whip slashed across the heavens, and then died away in a grumbling murmur over the sea.
I found the track without difficulty. It ran west towards the sea and the great streaks of forked lightning were reflected in the tumbled waters. The roar of the waves beating against the cliffs grew louder as I walked on and soon the flickering light showed me the surf boiling at the foot of Kenidjack Castle. The thunder rolled round the heavens in an almost unbroken orchestra of sound. Tumbled, broken heaps that had once been mine buildings loomed up out of the night, the stone almost white in the dazzle of the lightning. A fine mist of sea spray drove against my face, salting my lips. Old engine houses stood like dilapidated keeps along the clifftop and, between them, were piled broken heaps of crushed stone, tier on tier, like terraces. It was a devil’s mockery of the hanging gardens of Babylon where not even thistle and chickweed would grow.
Then, black against a flash of lightning, I saw a building that was whole and intact. It was a gaunt, ugly building standing foursquare to the winds that roared across the top of the cliffs. It was there for an instant, outlined against luminous clouds and still more luminous sea. Then it was gone, swallowed up in the inky blackness that followed each flash. I saw the house next against a crackle of lightning far off along the horizon. It was nearer and seemed to crouch like some animal bunched to withstand the impact of the storm. Then suddenly a great flare of lightning split the sky right over my head. The jagged rent of crackling light sizzling in a single streak to stab the hills inland. The thunder was instantaneous. The clouds seemed to split with light and sound at one and the same time. And in that vivid flash I saw the windows of the building shine, cold and dead, like a blind man’s eyes. The face of the house was black with a weather coating of pitch. Beside it was the remains of a garden, a poor broken thing of hydrangeas and foxgloves all choked with thistles. There were several little fruit trees, too - gaunt, wasted things whose branches flared away from the wind as though in mad flight for shelter.
With that splitting crash of thunder, the heavens seemed ripped open. The rain swept down in a solid, sodden curtain, driven in flurries by the wind, which now blew in heavy gusts. I ran, stumbling, to the door of the building and beat upon it. A flash of lightning showed me two lines of writing above the lintel. Several coats of more recent paint had flaked away to reveal the old lettering. In the next flash I was able to read it, ‘James Nearne, licensed to sell wines, spirits and tobacco.’
Nearne. James Nearne. It was a strange coincidence. Nearne wasn’t such a common name. Nor, for that matter, was Cripples’ Ease. A gust of wind blew a chilling sheet of rain against me. I lifted the latch and threw myself against the door. It was locked. There was no knocker so I beat upon it with my fists. But the sound of my knocking must have been lost in the roar of the storm for nobody came. The water was pouring off the slates on to my neck in a steady stream. I flattened myself against the door, rattling at the latch. The rain was seeping through to my underclothes. I felt damp arid chilled. In the incessant flicker of the lightning the rain showed like a dull tin-plate curtain. Violent gusts drove it across the broken mine workings and beat it into the sodden ground.
I turned the collar of my jacket up and splashed my way round the walls of the house. At the back a chink of light glimmered from a curtained window. I sloshed through more puddles and grasped the sill. The rain beat against the window, washing in solid water down the panes. Through the chink I looked in upon a small, low-ceilinged room lit by lamplight. The walls were of a brown, glossy paint and that had peeled away in places to show a gay powder-blue underneath, or had disintegrated so completely with age and neglect to reveal the mouldering white of old plaster. A cheerful fire blazed in a cheap Victorian grate.
It was not the room that attracted my attention but the man seated behind a big desk near the fire. He was broad in the shoulders and powerfully built. His head was small and rather square, the skin dark and lined with little wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and he had a moustache. Above a rather high, lined forehead his short hair stood up almost straight. This and his high cheek bones gave him the appearance of a character from Grimm. He was talking to somebody I could not see and at the same time counting notes from a thick wad oft the desk. At his elbow was a bottle and a glass full of some yellowish liquor. Beside the desk, against the wall, stood a big safe. The door of the safe was open.
Had I known who the other occupant of the room was I should not have tapped on that window. I should have stepped back into the deluging blackness and tried to find my way back to the inn. One glimpse of the other occupant of that room would have told me the sort of set-up I was getting mixed up with. That would have been enough for me. I’d have cleared out.
But I could only see the one man. I could see he was talking to someone. But I couldn’t see who. And because I was wet through and cold and this was the place Dave had told me to come to, I tapped on the window. The man at the desk looked up. His eyes had narrowed and his head was cocked a little on one side. He had stopped talking and was staring straight at the window. I tapped again with the tips of my nails.
The effect was instantaneous. The man jumped to his feet, swept the bundle of notes into the safe, whisked the bottle in as well and closed the door. He said something to the person I could not see, at the same time throwing the contents of his glass into the fire which blazed violently. Then he stepped across to the window and pulled back the curtain. Our faces were about a foot apart with the streaming glass of the window panes between us. His eyes were excited, almost wild-looking. ‘Who are you? What do you want?’ His voice was faint.
‘I want to speak to Captain Manack,’ I shouted back.
‘I’m Captain Manack. What do you want?’ he sounded suspicious.
‘Dave Tanner sent me,’ I said.
I saw him start. The man seemed strung up. Or was it that he had been drinking?
‘Can you let me in?’ I shouted. ‘It’s wet out here.’
He hesitated. I fished in the pocket of my jacket and produced Dave’s lighter, holding it up for him to see. ‘Dave told me to give you this,’ I called.
He peered at it with a quick, bird-like glance. Then he nodded. ‘Go round the back and I’ll let you in,’ he said and dropped the curtain.
After staring into that lamplit room, the sudden darkness was indescribably black. As I turned from the window a gust of rain lashed my face. It seemed to beat upon my bare body, so sodden had my clothes become. I shivered and stood still, for it was too dark for me to move. Then a blinding sheet of lightning showed me a line of outbuildings jutting from the house. As I made for them a door opened and Manack stood there with a lamp in his hand.
He shut the door behind me. I was in a stone-flagged scullery, and though it was cold, I felt the instant relief from the fury of the wind and rain outside. He held the lamp higher and peered at me. He was quite a short man. His size accentuated the breadth of his powerful shoulders. His eyes glittered in the uncertain light. ‘You’re not one of the crew of the Isle of Mull are you?’ he said.
I shook my head.
‘I thought not.’ And then: ‘Why did Dave send you? And how is it you know his real name?’ His voice was sharp, almost a bark. It expressed nervousness and excitement, and the habit off command.
‘He said you had a job for me,’ I explained. ‘I’m a miner. He said it was a mining job.’
‘Oh,’ He nodded as though that explained everything. ‘You’re from Italy. A deserter. Yes, he told me about you.’ He said it quite matter-of-factly as though being a deserter were a profession. ‘Just arrived, have you?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Got in yesterday.’
‘Who brought you over — Mulligan?’
I nodded, too surprised to speak.
‘Give me the lighter, will you,’ he said. I handed it to him and then he said, ‘Better come into my office. There’s somebody there who can check your identity.’ He smiled to himself and led the way through into a big stone-flagged kitchen where iron pots simmered on a glowing range. Copper glinted warmly from the walls and a collie sheep dog lay stretched before the fire. A girl looked up from her ironing as we entered. She was big and strong looking and her face was flushed with the heat of the fire. ‘Kitty - there’ll be one extra for dinner,’ he told the girl. ‘And he’ll be staying the night, so get a room for him.’
She gave me a quick glance. It was intended to be casual, I’m certain of that. But when she saw me, her eyes widened and a puzzled expression crossed her face. She stared at me as she said in a low voice, ‘There’s only the attic room.’
‘Well, get that fixed up for him,’ Manack said.
Her gaze was still fixed on me. I felt embarrassed. I don’t know why. Girls often stare at me. I suppose it’s because I’m more than usually big. That seems to attract them. It had caused me a lot of trouble in Italy. But somehow this was different. It was as though she couldn’t believe her eyes.
Almost reluctantly it seemed she turned to my companion.
‘You know what your father said - I mean about the attic room not being used.’
‘I don’t care what he said,’ Manack snapped. ‘If it’s the only room, use it.’
I was conscious of the girl’s gaze as I followed Captain Manack out into a damp-chilled corridor. Our footsteps sounded loud on the stone floor. Manack set the lamp down on a table and opened a door. I followed him into the room I had looked into from the window.
And then I stopped. Standing by the fire, a drink in his hand, was Mulligan. Our eyes met at the same moment and he stiffened suddenly with his drink halfway to his lips and his mouth slightly open. Then his hand slid to his hip pocket. He held it there, his body tensed.
Manack went straight over to the desk. This the man you brought over from Italy?’ he asked Mulligan.
‘Yes.’ Mulligan’s eyes never left my face.
Without looking round Captain Manack sat down in his chair and began unscrewing the lighter. I remained standing by the door. Two thoughts were chasing themselves through my mind. The first was that I didn’t want to be mixed up with anything that Mulligan was mixed up in. The second was that I wanted to get back the money he had stolen from me. Between the desire to beat it and the desire to get my money back, I stood like a dummy. ‘This fellow’s joining us,’ Manack said. ‘He’s a miner.’ He had the base of the lighter unscrewed now and was fishing inside it with a pin. Beside him lay a copy of the evening paper. It was folded so that the story of the abandoned revenue cutter was uppermost. I could read the headlines from where I stood. He extracted a screw of paper from the lighter and smoothed it out on the desk.
I suddenly decided that I didn’t want anything to do with this set-up. Manack was mixed up with Dave and the death of the revenue men. And Mulligan was in his employ. Hadn’t I seen him paying out money to the man? And Mulligan was a crook - a liquor-running French bastard. But, by God, before I left I’d have my money back. He wouldn’t get away with that. With a hundred and fifty quid I’d be all right. I’d get myself a passage to Canada.
I glanced at Mulligan. He still had his hand on his hip pocket. But he was looking at Manack. His mind was on the note that Manack was reading. In two quick strides I had him. I caught him by the arms, twisting them back and at the same time lifting him clear off the ground. The hare-lip bared his blackened teeth in pain. ‘Now Mulligan,’ I said. ‘Hand over that money you stole from me.’
I heard the scrape of Manack’s chair as he rose. I backed away, still holding Mulligan off the ground and twisting his arms back so that he uttered a wild cry of pain. Then he kicked me — kicked me right in the crutch. The blinding pain of it bent me double. I heard Mulligan’s body hit the floor. When I had eased myself sufficiently to look up, he had scrambled to- his feet and was backing to the window, a little black Beretta in his hand.
‘Put that gun up, Mulligan. What the hell’s the matter with you two?’ Manack’s voice was sharp, authoritative. Then I doubled up with pain again, cursing Mulligan through gritted teeth. Hands gripped me by the shoulder and pushed me gently into the armchair by the fire. A hand at the back of my neck kept me bent right down. The pain gradually eased and I stopped cursing. I wanted to straighten up, but that hand held me down. It was very strong. ‘Why did you go for Mulligan like that?’ Manack’s voice was soft, almost gentle. But the ring of command was still there.
