Trenouth

by Bea Green

  ‘I don’t understand. What did you see at the entrance? And where is the tunnel anyway?’

  ‘I went into one of the caves at Wine Cove. It’s not easily accessible. I had to put on my waterproof fishing gear and wade through a metre-deep rock pool inside of the cave. Right at the back of the cave, about three metres above the cave floor, there’s a square hole cut into the rock face. It’s clearly man-made. I looked into the opening and it’s definitely a tunnel, and as far as I can see the tunnel heads upwards.’ Leo started to chew his upper lip. It was a habit of his when he felt flummoxed by a difficult conundrum and it mostly happened when he was working on the Sunday Times crossword.

  ‘I didn’t go into it myself, obviously, but what surprised me most of all was that the tunnel still seems to be in use.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Who’d want to go up a disused and dirty tunnel these days?’ scoffed Elinor, refusing to believe people would want to explore what was bound to be a wet, smelly tunnel.

  ‘Well somebody clearly does,’ retorted Leo. ‘There’s a waterproof canvas bag tied to a hook next to the tunnel entrance and in it there’s five waterproof torches. Why would that be there if the tunnel wasn’t in use?’

  ‘Maybe there’s a crazy thrill-seeker that’s getting his kicks from exploring a secret tunnel.’

  ‘With five torches? Come on, Elinor. There’s also a hook clearly meant to be used to tie a dinghy or a small boat to.’

  ‘So? It’s probably a thrill-seeker with a small boat. What’s the big deal?’

  Leo shook his head stubbornly.

  ‘I don’t agree. I haven’t got a good feeling about it. It’s too well prepared and organised to be a one-time thing. Something dodgy is going on with that tunnel.’

  Elinor looked into her uncle’s eyes and saw he wasn’t about to change his mind. Those clear blue eyes were filled with resolution and determination. Leo was a man who’d built a close spiritual bond with nature over a lifetime and he wasn’t about to ignore any instinct lurking in the pit of his belly. He possessed finely tuned antennae for anything that didn’t compute with his sense of right and wrong.

  ‘So what are you planning to do about it?’ asked Elinor, resigned to the fact Leo wasn’t going to let his suspicions rest.

  ‘I’m not sure. There’s nothing illegal about having five torches tied to the entrance of an old smuggling tunnel. I need to gather more information. I’ve started wondering if Barbara’s story might not be so crazy after all.’

  ‘What story?’

  ‘Surely you remember when she told us about the neighbour at the bottom of our road? The one who was getting woken up in the middle of the night by a white van? I think I might go and have a word with her.’

  ‘Oh yes! I seem to remember you shot Barbara’s suspicions down in flames at the time. Are you saying you think it might all be true now? You owe Barbara an apology, if that’s the case, Leo. You really weren’t very nice to her about it.’

  Leo nodded in silent agreement.

  Elinor looked at him, intrigued by his sudden acceptance of Barbara’s outlandish ideas and the possibility that the tunnel he had found might have a secretive, even sinister, use.

  ‘If you’re planning on interviewing Sheila Burns, can I come with you?’ she asked suddenly, her interest kindled.

  ‘Of course you can. We can head down there in the early morning tomorrow. I don’t want to frighten her by turning up in the dark, when she’s not expecting us.’

  Elinor smiled ironically, remembering how, not so long ago, six young men had turned up in the middle of the night at Trenouth. Leo had then shown a great deal less regard to her fears than to Sheila Burns’.

  Elinor got up and headed to the kitchen to rustle up some dinner.

  Later that night she slept better than she had done for a long time. She slept deeply and no eerie dreams disturbed her sleep for once. Painting was working its magic on her and she was able to drift away pondering the alterations she wanted to make next time she was up at Barbara’s studio. Everything else in her life was fading into the background: her surfing, Leo’s tunnel and Tony Reece were all things that suddenly didn’t seem to matter so much...

  27

  Leo woke Elinor up at what she considered to be an utterly hideous time of the morning. Elinor had a tendency to be a night owl so she did not appreciate Leo opening her door and yelling ‘Good morning!’ at the top of his voice when it had just turned eight o’clock.

  Leo, as was his habit, had been up at six, and after two hours he was like a caged animal, ready to go out adventuring. He was giving up his daily constitutional walk along the cliffs this morning, all for the sake of some investigative research into the smuggler’s tunnel, and his impatience to get going was palpable.

  Elinor, cursing her stupidity in asking to accompany Leo on his visit to Sheila Burns’ house, sat up and stared blearily at him.

  ‘You’re not planning to visit her now, are you?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Strike while the iron’s hot is what I say.’

  ‘OK, OK. Can you give me half an hour?’

  Elinor watched with amusement as Leo strived to conceal the impatience he was feeling.

  ‘Yes, that’s fine. There’ll be a coffee waiting for you in the kitchen.’

  ‘Thanks, Leo.’

  Once Leo had left, Elinor threw herself back onto the soft pillows of her bed. All she wanted to do was fall asleep again but her curiosity was nagging away at her. She wanted to see how Sheila Burns would react to Leo’s questions. She had no idea what assumptions Leo was making about the tunnel, but he was clearly following the scent like a dog in search of a bone.

  With a sigh she threw off her covers and made her way to the bathroom.

  After a cold shower she felt her mind sharpen and start to engage with the day, the sleepy mists of her deep slumber grudgingly giving way to alertness once more.

  She managed to make it to the kitchen within twenty minutes.

  She knew all she needed was a coffee and she’d then be able to keep up with Leo’s energetic search for answers. Leo was waiting for her and silently handed her a hot mug of coffee when she made an appearance, which was gratefully received. As she sipped it she looked out of the window at the gentle cows, which were all gathered calmly in a small group right next to the barbed wire adjoining Trenouth’s garden. Their large brown eyes stared right back at her.

  What did cows think about, she wondered? They were certainly curious enough, but did they ever yearn to roam free as their ancestors must have done at some point in time?

  Elinor’s uncle Rory, on her Scottish father’s side, had been a sheep farmer in Aberdeenshire and they’d spent many weekends visiting his farm. To her surprise, her uncle told her that sheep were actually not stupid at all, contradicting the well-known myth that they are helpless and clueless bundles of wool.

  Apparently sheep were capable of a whole range of complex emotions and had impressive memory and recognition skills, as proven by a study in 2001 that suggested sheep could remember up to fifty faces for two years. More than most people could do...

  Elinor wondered if these cows had similar unknown talents. If she stayed here much longer, she thought, she was going to end up a vegetarian.

  Leo cleared his throat.

  ‘Eh, Elinor? Are you ready to go yet?’

  Elinor jumped back into the present and quickly dropped her mug into the sink that was full of soapy washing-up water.

  ‘Yes, sorry, I was daydreaming. I’ll just grab a cereal bar and eat it on the way.’

  She quickly picked up a couple of cereal bars from the kitchen cupboard and followed Leo out of the house, stuffing the bars into the pockets of her tracksuit top. She couldn’t cope without breakfast. She’d tried numerous dieting techniques in the days of her drastic yo-yo dieting but the one thing she found she cou
ldn’t go without was breakfast. She’d been quite happy to starve for the rest of the day, but only as long as she had some breakfast in her.

  She followed Leo’s quick pace as he strode down the road ahead of her, surreptitiously stuffing her mouth full of moist muesli and raisin cereal bar as she walked.

  At the end of the road encircling the field outside Trenouth there was a junction. Leo turned left, following the road down towards Treyarnon Bay. As they walked down the road there was a Cornish hedge on their left hand side. Behind the hedge was a large wheat field. It was fully sown now it was winter, full of delicate grass like green stems, stems that would turn golden yellow by early spring.

  At the bottom of the road Leo turned right down a short dead-end road, full of potholes and broken tarmac, that had four houses on either side. He started searching the house names on the right hand side. He soon spotted a small cottage called ‘Chi An Treth’.

  ‘This is it. “Chi An Treth”. That’s basically Cornish for “Beach House”. Not a very original name,’ grumbled Leo, with all the arrogance of someone who considered his own home the most desirable property within ten square miles.

  He walked up a paved garden path towards Chi An Treth. The garden was well tended and it was obvious it would be full of beautiful blossoms when spring came. This house was sheltered from the worst of the wind, unlike the cliff-edge homes, and so could afford to grow a large variety of flowers that would not survive in the more exposed parts of the coast.

  The house itself was slightly unusual in that the walls were coloured a cornflower blue and the windows were painted brilliant white. Elinor smiled to see the colours of the Scottish flag plastered over the house, although in truth the cottage had more of a Scandinavian air. Elinor could picture in her mind the pine wood floors and furniture inside it.

  Leo pushed the bell button by the front door. It didn’t take long for the door to open, and an old lady holding a mug of tea peered out at them, looking very surprised.

  ‘Oh! I thought you were the milkman. He’s always saying I don’t leave the right change for the milk. How can I help you?’

  Leo had positioned himself behind Elinor, clearly thinking she should do the introductions.

  ‘Hi, I’m Elinor Campbell and this is my uncle Leo Jago. We live just up the road, in the house opposite Warren Cove, and we’re friends of Barbara Bligh. We wondered if we could have a chat with you. She told us you’d seen some strange goings-on late at night? We’re interested to hear what you have to say about it.’

  ‘You’re nothing to do with the police, are you?’ asked the old lady suspiciously.

  ‘No, not at all. My uncle’s just trying to find some answers to some questions he’s got. He saw something unusual when he was down at Wine Cove and wondered if it was in any way connected to what you’ve seen.’

  The old lady beamed at Leo, obviously delighted to find a fellow conspirator, and she quickly waved them into her tiny hallway.

  ‘Come through to the kitchen and I’ll make you a cup of tea,’ she said, as she walked to the back of the house.

  Elinor noted the back wall of the cottage had been extended at some point and the kitchen was now a large room with a wide glass window overlooking an ample garden. No doubt an avaricious developer would look to make use of all the garden space and would have built a larger house, or even flats, but there was something uniquely quaint and fetching about this dainty little cottage.

  The decor wasn’t remotely Scandinavian; it was all walnut and oak furniture that looked to be at least two hundred years old. The floral wallpaper in the kitchen looked like a Laura Ashley product from a decade ago.

  ‘Take a seat,’ said the old lady, indicating the dining table.

  Leo and Elinor sat down on a couple of chairs, with their backs to the garden so they could watch Sheila pottering about in the kitchen.

  ‘I’m Sheila Burns, as Barbara must’ve told you already. I see Barbara when I go to the day care centre at Truro. She volunteers there on Thursdays and does some art with us. She’s a special lady, that one. She has a heart of gold. She’s organising an art exhibition with our work at the end of January. Her classes really keep me going, so they do,’ said Sheila, talking rapidly and without pause as she filled a teapot with tea and boiling water.

  She took an old-fashioned glass bottle of milk from the fridge and put it on the table, along with three mugs. She then began pouring the tea, talking all the while. For someone who’d been worried they might be the police she suddenly seemed remarkably outspoken. Maybe their connection to Barbara Bligh was the magic talisman to gaining Sheila’s instant trust.

  Leo and Elinor listened politely while Sheila talked incessantly about the local guild and then went on to moan about cost of food shopping. Eventually, once she’d sat down at the table with them, she petered out and looked at them expectantly.

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘I just wondered if you could tell us what you saw when the van woke you up late at night. Was the van on this street?’ asked Leo.

  Sheila shook her head.

  ‘No, it wasn’t on our street or others would have noticed it, I’m sure. It was out on the main road running next to the wheat field.’

  ‘Can you see the main road from here?’ asked Leo, twisting round to look out of the window.

  ‘Yes, I can see it from my upstairs bedroom. Do you want to have a look?’

  ‘If you don’t mind, that would be helpful,’ said Leo.

  Sheila nodded and without any more preamble led them to the top floor.

  They went into the main bedroom, and pushing the chintz curtains aside they all peered out through the window. Sure enough, they had clear sight of the road Leo and Elinor had just walked down, as well as a good view of the field, with its neat, green rows of swaying wheat heads stretching into the distance.

  ‘That’s where I saw it,’ said Sheila, pointing to the bit of the road that connected with the corner of the wheat field.

  ‘Was it in the same place every time you saw it?’

  ‘Funny you should ask that. Yes, it was, actually.’

  ‘That’s interesting. Why would it always stop there, I wonder? Did you see anyone with the van?’

  ‘Most of the time it seemed the van was parked there for a good hour or two, as if waiting for something or someone... I don’t know. I didn’t always stay up for very long. I’m getting old. The driver was a young man, didn’t look much older than you,’ Sheila said pointing to Elinor.

  ‘Would you be able to identify him?’

  ‘It wouldn’t be easy. It was dark and he had a hooded jacket on. But I did take the number plate of the van. Here it is.’

  Sheila went to her bedside table and opened a drawer. She pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to Leo. Leo took out his mobile phone from his trouser pocket and photographed the piece of paper before handing it back to Sheila.

  ‘Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.’

  Sheila looked intently at Leo, holding tightly to the paper with the number plate on it, her bird-like head turned to one side as she observed him.

  ‘So what do you think’s going on? Have you any idea?’ she asked impatiently.

  ‘Not really, Sheila,’ said Leo ruefully. ‘I’m afraid I’m stumbling around in the dark. I’m as confused as you are. However, I’m not going to let this go because my instinct’s telling me something’s going on that’s not right. Whatever it is that’s happening, I’m determined to get to the bottom of it. We’ll stay in touch. Would you like my phone number in case anything else suspicious grabs your attention?’

  Sheila nodded eagerly and passed Leo a piece of paper and pen. While Leo wrote down his mobile number, Elinor stared out of the window, looking up at the road beside the wheat field.

  It all looked thoroughly mundane and peaceful, a million miles from
any illicit activity. However, looks could be deceiving and even here, in such a quiet part of Cornwall, the most extraordinary things could happen, as had been proven the last few weeks.

  28

  The next day, at around three in the afternoon, Elinor was walking down to Treyarnon Bay with her camera when she saw Leo climbing over the Cornish hedge next to the wheat field. Greeting Elinor sheepishly, he clambered laboriously down onto the road.

  ‘Leo, for goodness’ sake, what are you up to now?’

  ‘I was just having a closer look at the wheat field.’

  ‘But why wouldn’t you go in by the gate, as usual?’ asked Elinor, genuinely astonished to see her uncle appearing so furtive.

  ‘Well, I saw Richard Glynn approaching with a tractor and I thought the sooner I removed myself, the better.’

  Elinor chuckled.

  ‘It’s not like you to run scared, Leo.’

  Leo grinned at her.

  ‘I’m not scared of that tosser. I just don’t want to make him suspicious of me. I’m not entirely sure that he isn’t involved with what’s going on down here.’

  ‘That’s a bit fanciful, I would’ve thought. After all, he’s been a farmer here for years and his family for decades before him. I would’ve thought he wouldn’t want to put all he has at risk for something dodgy or illegal.’

  Leo shrugged.

  ‘We’ll see,’ he said non-committally. He eyed Elinor’s camera. ‘Are you heading off to take some more snapshots of the surfers?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve nearly finished my first painting and I want to get another photograph lined up for a second painting. After that, who knows? I might need new subject matter... By the way, Leo, are you heading to The Farmer’s Arms tonight?’

  ‘Yes, I am. Why? Are you thinking you might join me for once?’

  ‘Well, yes I was, actually. A couple of days ago Tony Reece invited me to join his group of friends, who seem to be all surfers, for a drink. Apparently they meet around 8.30 on Friday nights.’