Festival, page 12
Piet’s whole being ached at being reminded of Sally and his mother – not that they were ever out of his thoughts, but hearing about them on the radio made everything somehow seem worse. In a reflex action to take a new grip on himself, he clenched the steering wheel so that his knuckles shone white. He couldn’t go back now. There was nothing to do but carry on.
There was no news of Jo – all Victor could say was that the hunt for her was being pursued with every resource available to the police. He thanked the public for responding to the request for information about children, emphasising that although the information that had come in so far had been of incidents that led to innocent explanation, it was all valuable, and that the best hope of Jo’s recovery was through public alertness in getting in touch with the police about anything that might seem relevant. ‘Better to investigate a thousand blind alleys than leave the one right path unexplored,’ he said.
There was no news either of Jane Partridge’s death, which seemed momentarily surprising, until Piet realised that only he, Inspector Lovell and Sir John Carfax knew that Jane Partridge was dead. Even Chief Superintendent March of the Yard, who had made inquiries about her at the bank, did not necessarily know what had happened to her – Piet did not know what the commissioner had told him, although his own instinct would have been to trust March anywhere with anything. Jane had died in hospital, and as far as the hospital authorities were concerned she had not yet been identified. There would have to be an inquest, when it would emerge that she had died from an overdose of heroin, perhaps assisted by a blow on the head, but it was reasonable to delay the inquest while efforts to identify her were made.
Beyond Launceston Piet stopped at a garage to fill up with petrol, and a few miles farther on drew into a layby to consider what to do. He was approaching the main road to Camelford, a bigger place than Delabole and a couple of miles to the east of it. He might have to go to Delabole because Jane’s bank was there, but there seemed no point in going there to start with. Jane had lived in the village or hamlet of Pendenna, and he hoped to find a pub, garage or village shop somewhere in the neighbourhood where he could ask about her. He had to find somewhere to stay himself. That did not seem much of a problem. Although the Cornish coast is awash with tourists once the school holidays start, it was still early summer and too early for the main surge of summer visitors. The season, however, had started, and every second house seemed to offer bed and breakfast, with an encouraging number (from his immediate point of view) displaying boards that announced ‘Vacancies’.
On reflection, he decided against a bed and breakfast place – he would be bound to have to talk to the landlady, and would feel more secure in the anonymity of a large hotel. The AA book which he’d put in his bag offered several in the vicinity. The four-star Blue Ocean, enjoying a private cove a little to the south of Tintagel, and not more than three miles from Pendenna, seemed more or less what he wanted. He rang from a call-box on the way, remembering to give his name as Andrew Johnson. Yes, they had a room, and that was that.
It was a pleasant spot. The road down to the cove was of hair-raising steepness, but it was well-surfaced, and there was a good car park for the hotel. The cove was enchanting, a rocky cleft in the range of the great Cornish cliffs, with a little sandy beach, rapidly disappearing now under the incoming tide. There was nothing there but the hotel and a beach shop, presumably belonging to the hotel, with a window full of surfboards and some little tables on a terrace outside it. In high summer no doubt it would be thronged with people, but for the moment there seemed to be only two hardy surfboarders braving the chill of an early summer sea.
Piet left his car in the hotel car park, saw that the boot was locked and went in carrying only his bag. ‘Good evening,’ he said to the girl at the reception desk. ‘I’m Andrew Johnson. I booked a room by phone a short while ago.’
‘Good evening, Mr Johnson. Your room is all ready for you. If you’ll just sign the register I’ll call the porter to take up your bag.’
Piet gave himself a London address in Hampstead. He had no need whatever of anyone to carry his bag, but he understood the importance of summer hotel jobs to the people who did them in a region of considerable winter unemployment. Politely he let the porter carry his bag to the lift and went up with him. The hotel seemed half empty, and Piet had been given a splendid room on the first floor, with a fine view over the cove. He gave the man a good tip, and was thankful to be left alone. He felt desperately tired.
*
It was no use feeling tired. He had given himself three days, and one was nearly gone. Had he accomplished anything at all? He had possibly traced Jo a few miles to the hotel where she might have been taken on horseback, but the sisters with the baby at the hotel might have had nothing whatever to do with Jo. On balance, he thought it quite likely that they had. Horse riding with a baby is not a common practice, although parents who are experienced riders have always devised means of taking infants with them. But one would expect that normally to be for some purpose – to spend the night at a hotel and hire a horse simply to take a baby for a morning’s joyride seemed eccentric behaviour, to say the least. If it had been part of the scheme to take away Jo, the episode had a horribly clear purpose. He was tortured by doubts about whether he ought to have instituted an immediate inquiry into the hotel sisters. Anyway, he had not done so, and the arguments against it still seemed valid.
But he was no nearer knowing what had become of Jo on leaving the hotel. If his other reasoning held together –a big ‘if’ – he might expect Jo to have been brought somewhere to the area in which he now was, where Jane Partridge had lived, or at least where she had had an address and a bank account. But how, and where, could he begin to search for Jo? If he couldn’t look for Jo directly, he could see if he could find out anything about the other baby taken with the women to the hotel – if he was right, some other little girl around eight or nine months old must have been away from home on the night before Jo’s kidnapping, and for most of the day of the kidnapping. It did not follow that this other little girl came from North Cornwall – she might have come from anywhere. But the pursuit of Jane Partridge led to North Cornwall, and if his reasoning was right Jane had been murdered because she had diverged from the part in Jo’s kidnapping that she had been expected – or told – to play. If events from that meeting at the standing stones onwards had been some sort of private enterprise by Jane Partridge, she might have recruited local help. Anyway, he had to start somewhere, and having come to North Cornwall to go into Jane’s background he could not now go back.
It would be light for a couple of hours yet, and he decided to conduct a reconnaissance of Pendenna. As he walked through the hotel entrance, the girl at the desk asked politely, ‘Will you be in for dinner, Mr Johnson?’ He had not thought of dinner, and he realised that he was getting damnably hungry. But he couldn’t afford the time for a hotel meal. ‘Thank you, but I’m meeting a friend at Port Isaac and I’m due to have a meal with him,’ he said. With luck, he could find something in a pub.
Pendenna was in the general direction of Port Isaac, though it could scarcely be said to be on the way there. It wasn’t on the way to anywhere, being reached by a minor road that apparently ended in a cliff path. When he got to it, the minor road turned out to be a narrow chasm between banks of hedgerow ten or twelve feet high, beautiful with early summer flowers, but twisting into blind bends every few yards, and like all coast roads in that part of the world, exceptionally steep. He wondered what you did if you met another car between the infrequent places where it was wide enough to pass. Presumably you just hoped you didn’t – anyway, people seemed to manage. The reflection struck him that the very difficulties of these roads perhaps made them safer, by compelling those who used them to take care.
The first impression of anyone looking for Pendenna was that it didn’t exist: the narrow lane wandered on, and ended, as the map indicated, in a path, at the head of which was a patch of open turf, where it was possible to turn round. He left the car there, and got out to prospect on foot. The path climbed slightly for about fifty yards and then descended steeply – so steeply that the shoulder at the top of the climb cut off the view of anything but sky. From the shoulder there was a superb view out to sea – and, close at hand, there was Pendenna. It seemed to be a settlement of no more than half a dozen small, whitewashed cottages, the homes of inshore fishermen once, no doubt, but four of the group now offering the inevitable bed and breakfast. It also emerged that it was possible to bring a car along the path as far as the cottages, and there was another patch of more or less flat ground where three cars were parked. There was no sign of Pendenna House, but on consulting the map again he saw that there was a biggish house marked, a bit beyond the hamlet. As far as he could see you couldn’t reach it from Pendenna except on foot – the house seemed to have a drive turning out of the Port Isaac road half a mile or so beyond the little road leading down to Pendenna.
There being no shop or pub in the place, there was nowhere to start casual inquiries and he thought that the best thing would be to return and set up his easel in the morning. That normally brought someone along to have a look and you could then get into conversation. For that evening he decided that he might as well go on to Port Isaac and try to get something to eat.
Before getting to Port Isaac he met a road sign informing him that he was in Port Gaverne. The road wound round the cliff to a cluster of houses at the head of another cove. Clearly the place did a good holiday trade, for there were hotels and cafes, and shops selling beach gear and picture postcards, though they were shut now. He turned into the car park of one of the hotels and went into the bar.
It was not a pretentious place, but seemed comfortable and friendly. There was an old man behind the bar – well into his seventies by the look of him – and he gave Piet a kindly ‘Good evening’. Yes, dinner was still on, and there would be time for him to have a drink first.
The bar looked out over the cove. The tide seemed making fast, and some boats that had been lying on the beach when he arrived were now beginning to float. ‘How much of the cove dries out?’ he asked the old man.
‘Pretty well all of it, and at low tide there’s a good sandy beach. Boats can only get in at high water, but for all that there was once quite a big coastal trade here. You see that rock quay running alongside the road? In the old days that was one of the main loading points for the schooners and ketches that used to take Cornish slates all over the place – even as far as America. I’m a Port Gaverne man, and my dad used to sail in one of the last of the working slate boats. They worked out of Port Gaverne mainly because of the road – you probably thought it steep, but it’s not as steep as the roads down to some of the North Cornwall harbours, and we’re quite near the quarries. The slates would come down in big drays with shoes under the wheels to help to brake them, and the powerful horses straining to hold them. They’d come direct to the quay, and women would help to load the boats – paid next to nothing, of course, but a penny would go a long way in those days. I’m getting on for seventy-eight, and when I was a kid we never had more pocket money than a penny a month. Made up a bit by helping the fishermen, and doing odd jobs, of course.’
‘Well, you had a beautiful place to grow up in. Lord, that’s a big boat coming in now!’
A schooner of at least seventy feet was rounding the headland and coming into the cove.
‘Her, she’s out of Padstow, but she’s a Port Gaverne boat in a way,’ the barman said. ‘She was one of the last of the slaters, built as a slater, anyway, though I don’t know that there was ever much trade for her. Must be all of fifty years old. Belonged to old Major Partridge, up at Pendenna House. His family were in the slate trade for generations. Merchants, they were, not quarrymen, and they had a whole fleet of boats once. That was before Major Gerald’s time, but he loved the sea, and he kept up Morning Star like a yacht. Must have spent a mint of money on her – that’s why she’s still in good condition. He’s dead now. There’s a son somewhere, but he doesn’t live here, and I’ve never heard that he had much use for the boat. There’s two daughters still up at Pendenna – Jane and Harriet. Harriett’s the one for the boat, but I’ve heard say that there’s not much money left, so I don’t know how long she can keep her. I’d be sad to see her go – looks just right coming in as she is now.’
‘What do they come in here for?’
‘Pick up or land someone for Pendenna, mostly. Harriet’s the sailor, but she can’t sail without a crew. Sometimes she’ll have people staying at Pendenna, but mostly nowadays I think she charters her, to get back a bit of the cost of upkeep.’
‘How long can they stay?’
‘From about two hours before high water to the same time afterwards. The old slaters were built to take the ground, so she mightn’t come to much harm to spend a tide here, but she’d be stuck, and if there’s a charter party they wouldn’t want to be stuck here. I expect they’ve come in to put Harriet ashore. As I told you, the schooner lives at Padstow, and she’s chartered from there. But Harriet will sometimes take her out of Padstow and come on here to show the people how to handle her.’
Piet glanced at his watch. ‘I’ve been so interested in talking to you that I’ve used up the time I had for dinner,’ he said. ‘Can you do a sandwich, or anything?’
‘Can’t manage much in the evening because mostly we do a dinner trade. But I can fix you up with a pork pie and a packet of crisps, if that’s any good.’
‘That’ll be fine. And thank you for taking the trouble. A lot of hotels nowadays won’t do bar food at all if they’ve got other meals on.’
‘Well, I like to help when I can. I’m getting on, and people on the whole have been pretty good to me.’
VII
The Schooner
PIET WAS NOW ravenously hungry, but he was so anxious to get out to the cove to see who came off the schooner that he just stuffed the pork pie and packet of crisps into his pocket and went out. He need not have been quite so hurried – bringing a vessel as big as the schooner to the quayside in the rather narrow cove was a tricky job, and whoever was in command was not taking chances. Piet had time to wonder about his car. At that time of year and evening no one was likely to bother about it in the hotel car park, but he might want to get at it quickly. He decided to leave the car park and drive round the head of the cove – a matter only of a couple of hundred yards – to a slight widening of the verge of the road above the quay. The road made almost a U-bend on coming down to the village, following a contour of the cliff that ran directly above the little harbour. He had time to get his car into position before the schooner nosed up to the quay, and a man jumped ashore with a line.
Piet was remarkably well placed to hear and see without being himself obviously visible. Not only was the road some twenty feet above the quay, but there were some biggish boulders on the verge. It was not yet dark, but twilight was coming on, and in the lee of one of the big boulders he felt fairly safe from view.
There were still some of the bollards used by the old slaters on the quay, and the schooner was made fast bow and stern to lie close alongside. A woman stepped ashore, and as soon as she was standing firmly on the quay, turned round. Piet’s heart leaped to see that over the schooner’s side she was handed a baby. For a moment he thought that it was Jo, then realised that it wasn’t. This baby was about the same age as Jo, and being wrapped up in a sort of sleeping bag it was impossible to tell whether it was a boy or a girl. However, the cowl of the sleeping bag fell back as the baby was handed ashore, and he got a good view of its face. Alas, it was not Jo.
In concentrating on the baby Piet’s attention was diverted momentarily from what else was taking place on the quay below him. As soon as he had decided that the baby was not Jo he took in the rest of what was happening, and realised that the woman who had come off the schooner was being met by another woman on the quayside.
It was light enough to make out the features of the women. Both were youngish, late twenties or early thirties. The woman who had come off the boat was wearing trousers and a sailing smock. The smock had a hood which she had thrown back, to frame an attractive, intelligent-looking face, and a mass of dark hair. The other woman was also wearing trousers, but an ordinary jumper top. She also seemed quite attractive, with long fair hair falling to her shoulders.
‘How did it go?’ the fair-haired woman asked.
‘Marvellously. Victoria was as good as gold all the time – and ate like a hungry lioness cub! No seasickness for her!’
‘Let me take her now. I knew she would be all right with you, but I couldn’t help missing her. It was wonderful of you to help out the way you did.’
‘It was no trouble at all. And I like your Victoria, and I think she likes me.’
‘I’m sure she does. I’ve got the car, so I can take you back when you’re ready to go.’
‘I’ll be ready in a minute.’ A man slung a kitbag on to the quay, and the dark girl spoke to him. ‘Thanks, Angus, I think that’s the lot. You don’t want to hang around here, so I’d get out now, and with this wind I’d go out on the engine until you’re well clear of the cove and the off-lying rocks. Don’t forget tomorrow’s tide. It will be later than tonight, but it should be the highest tide of the month, which will be a help. We’ll have everything ready when you come in.’
‘Shouldn’t be any problem. See you tomorrow, then, Harriet. Good luck.’
‘Good luck, Angus. The lines are just belayed, so you don’t need me to cast off. I want to get back, and Margaret’s got a car.’
*
The schooner had wheel-steering, and the man called Angus went to the wheel. A moment later there was the noise of a diesel being started. Another man went forrard to cast off the bow-line, and pushed the schooner’s head from the quay with a boathook. Angus had paid out the stern-line, so that the schooner was a couple of yards clear of the quay. The other man took the end of the stern-line, and Angus went back to the wheel.
