by Gwen Moffat
She directed her torch to the left, towards the back of the cave, but there the ledge ran out after only a few yards. To the right there appeared to be a break where the wall jutted forward to block the passage but she thought that the ledge was considerably longer than the few yards that were visible and that it must continue beyond the projection. From below Dawson confirmed this.
The traverse to the corner was easy. The ledge was about three feet wide and, apart from the shallow depressions which had been utilised by the nesting birds, level. She reached the corner and further easy progress was barred but, reaching up to the roof, she found a fine horizontal crack where roof and wall met and, leaning out on this, she could see footholds under the ledge which would enable her to work round the obstruction. The water looked much more than twenty feet below.
Rock climbing, particularly in gloom and unfamiliar surroundings, needs all one’s concentration even when the crux has been passed, because that is when the climber, relaxing, is most vulnerable and likely to fall. But she had been trained in a hard school and didn’t relax until she was safe on the continuation of the ledge again, squinting along it to the entrance and the sea. So, with her attention focused towards the daylight, she almost missed the dark niche which was a kind of reverse of the projecting corner. She noticed it because it was a black space on the fringe of the torchlight: space where there should be rock wall. She turned her head so that the beam shone into the shallow cavity.
The rock walls gleamed and the floor was matt, not white with bird droppings because these were covered by the matt substance: clothing, but it wasn’t clothing only, it was Mrs Wolkoff.
*
Perhaps they were in the cave for an hour and a half but it seemed like another day when they emerged and rowed towards the launch. The sea was still fairly quiet which was just as well for the snow was falling thickly and with anything more than the thin breeze which was now blowing they would have had a blizzard.
Aboard the launch, Dawson headed straight for the hotel but once they came out from the shelter of the cliffs his preoccupation with Mrs Wolkoff’s death was superseded by concern about the weather.
“Wind’s backed,” he announced, “I’ll drop you at the anchorage and you go up and phone Pryce. Then will you come and pick me up at Porth Bach? I’ll take the launch there for tonight.”
She agreed and he handed her the key of the Schooner’s front door.
“I don’t like the idea of your going back to Porth Bach in this,” she said, wiping her spectacles.
“I’m as safe on the sea as on dry land,” he responded, and then asked the question which so far he had hesitated to ask: “Who did it?”
She hesitated too, not from fear of slander but because of the incontestable right of a man who has not yet been proved guilty. But the unique circumstances: the tiny boat on the grey water, the strange, shifting world of the snowstorm like the inside of a paperweight, the body behind them in the dripping cave, these made her reveal the conclusions she’d reached.
“Mrs Wolkoff was killed because she knew something about Bett Martin’s death,” she told him, “and the only person who hasn’t an alibi for the time she was killed is Lithgow.”
He didn’t seem surprised and she reflected that, since Martin was his friend, he must have speculated on the identity of Bett’s murderer.
“Why?” he asked. “Drugs? It must have been, because it’s got to be something very valuable to be worth two murders.”
“Oh yes, he had a very strong motive; you may depend on that. He has it still.”
Dawson glanced back towards Porth Bach, frowning. “I wonder — is there any tie-up between Lithgow and Davigdor?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know anything about Lithgow, except that the Centre’s down here a lot, but I’ve always felt that there was something not quite right about Porth Bach. The people, I mean. Davigdor and his pals were always very well-behaved when they came to the Schooner but they didn’t tell you anything about themselves. You didn’t notice it at the time because they talked continuously: only about diving though . . . I know what it was. They never got drunk!”
Their eyes met and she nodded. “Young men?”
“Young twenties — except for Davigdor and his friend off the torpedo boat. They were older. But they were all — sort of — well-drilled.”
Miss Pink started.
“What was Davigdor like?”
“Ordinary. Quite good-looking, rather attractive in fact, but cool. Nothing really to distinguish him, except he’d lost a finger.”
“Which one?”
“The little finger. Let me think now.” He closed his eyes and splayed each hand in turn. “The right — yes, the right hand.”
She saw the young Army officer sketching a salute on Sunday morning, with his right hand and the stub of a little finger.
*
“Be careful.” She stepped across to the weedy stairs and grasped the handrail. He nodded and pulled away into invisibility and she realised that, in addition to everything else, now they had fog to contend with, and wondered again if he would be all right. But he’d insisted that he knew what he was doing and she could only assume that her trepidation arose from her ignorance of boats. Crossing to Porth Bach must be as simple for him as the climb to the ledge had been for her.
She went up the rock staircase slowly, finding her land legs. She felt extremely tired and wondered if Pryce would want to go out to the cave tonight. At least, she thought grimly, the discovery of Mrs Wolkoff’s body would focus his attention on the cove where it was needed, and quickly. She had searched the nesting ledge for the whole of its length but there was nothing else in Ogof Lladron. The dinghy had been used only to transport the body, and something else was hidden at Porth Bach which could be discovered only with a search warrant.
She was nearly at the top of the cliff when, through the sound of the sea, she heard a splatting crack on the rock behind her. There had been something else — a thud? She spun round, facing out, and slipped on the melting snow. She slithered down a few steps but even before she’d regained control she knew what had happened. She shouted: “Look out, Dawson!” gave a loud, choked scream, not wholly simulated and, clutching the handrail, started to run silently down the staircase.
At the poised block she stopped, put her solid back against the wall and pushed hard with her feet. The block heeled over and went crashing down the cliff. It made too much noise — but perhaps it would be thought that her falling body had started a stonefall.
She continued to the sloping platform and then went left, working round the back of the anchorage. At first her only thought was to get away from the person who had shot at her but when she stopped and listened and heard no one behind, she went more slowly and where she had acted instinctively, now her reason re-asserted itself.
Seaward, she could hear the sound of a receding engine so Dawson couldn’t have heard her cries nor the crash of the falling rock, but how would the person on top interpret her shout and the sound of that engine? She had intended him to think that even if she were dead, there was someone else on the staircase. Would he assume, as she hoped, that there had been a third person in the party who was now in the launch?
If he did think there was a second person on the cliff he wouldn’t expect that man to come up to the top to be shot so he would come down eventually and search the platforms. She had a few minutes’ grace at most; and whatever the length of time, it wouldn’t be enough if the fog cleared. She must find another way to the top and, because she was headed in that direction, at this point she remembered the syncline and its sloping strata.
It was difficult to keep her footing on the wet and weedy shelves where the snow had melted, and she was well aware that all the attention of the man on top (or coming down the steps) would be concentrated in his hearing. The shelves seemed endless and she thought she must have passed the foot of her conjectured upward traverse; it was almost impossible
to tell in the poor visibility whether a slanting break was continuous or merely a blind start that led nowhere. An easy climb she might follow silently; but if she had to retreat down rock that was above her standard she might fall and that would be an end of caution, and probably the end of her.
She tried to remember the image of the cliff as she had seen it this morning; was there nothing, no distinguishing feature that marked the start of this possible escape route? There had been some vague qualification in her mind: it was a pretty climb but . . . But what? Why should she qualify her opinion? Because the line was broken, like the ledge in Ogof Lladron, or the rock looked loose, or greasy? In none of those instances would she have thought it pretty. She was middle-aged and she could stand to lose some weight; she had excellent balance (that goes last) but she was no longer supple; gymnastic feats were beyond her, and so were overhangs. Overhangs. That was it: at the lower end of the climb the cliff was undercut.
Looking for the place she felt trapped. He has given up waiting now, she thought; he has come down the staircase and is moving along the ledges. She listened but the sea was rising and would have drowned the sound even of nailed boots. It occurred to her that if the fog didn’t clear and if he didn’t know of this escape route, if it were an escape, she might elude him yet, providing he wasn’t waiting at the top.
Suddenly she saw the start of what could be the ledge: if she could reach it. The overhang was a tall, shallow depression like a monstrous coffin with one good hold high up on the edge of its left wall.
There were incipient bulges on either side of the depression which just held her feet as she straddled upwards. There was very little for the hands until she could reach that hold on the left. Underneath it and outside on the face of the rock there were one or two small footholds. She had no guarantee that the route would continue above; that it was the start of her fine ascending line she had no doubt but there are two kinds of line in this context: the climber’s which is a passage, however hard, and the artist’s which need be only a shadow on the rock. Once committed there could be no going back; it was up with a swing and a heave, and she was twenty feet or so above the ground. A fall at her age would mean a broken leg at best.
The handhold was hard and jagged. Her hand curled over it with an old familiarity. She was leaning left and her right foot was coming off. She brought her right hand over to the crucial hold and swung sideways. In a fine surge of muscle and youthful memory she stepped up the wall, pressed down on her hands and mantelshelfed on a hold as big as a dinner plate.
Leftwards and up ran a big red crack; the snow had melted here and the rock was wet but rough and, if it was steeper than it had appeared from a distance, it was as solid as granite. Other cracks ran parallel above; there was an embarrassment of holds. In her joy at discovering a classic route she almost forgot why she was there. She started to move: gently, quietly, but as the sound of the sea receded, she listened for signs from above: something to tell her that the killer was waiting, but there was no sign.
Once as she climbed she felt an airy break in the atmosphere and, looking up, saw blue sky and, horrible in its visibility, the brown edge of the cliff about fifty feet above. The snow had stopped. She froze on her holds and one leg started to shake. At any moment the fog would roll away and, wherever he was, he would see her crucified on the wall, and there would come that sound like gas popping in a doll’s house. She wondered if he were a good marksman. She would prefer to be dead when she fell.
The break closed and the fog was thicker than ever. She went on, finding snow in the crack now, and having to clear each hold with her hands before she could use it. Suddenly she was at the top and she stepped out on snow-covered turf that was broken by rocks and drifted clumps of dead thrift. The hotel must be over on her left.
The continued silence was uncanny. Perhaps he had gone away, but she had heard no sound of a vehicle. She had been attended by such good luck so far that she daren’t push it farther. She decided to avoid the hotel and her car and, keeping parallel with the track but well away from it, she would hope the fog remained long enough for her to reach the main road. At least now she had the benefit of the gorse if she needed concealment.
To avoid the road she had to find it first and was startled to come on it after only a few steps. There were the tracks of one vehicle. She couldn’t tell which way they were going so if the driver had come to the Schooner after the snow fell, he was still there. They were broader than car tracks. She started to walk quickly inland and almost immediately she heard an engine behind her.
There was a long low rock a few yards from the road. She ran and threw herself behind it and tore off her red balaclava.
It passed slowly, without lights. It was a strange Land Rover with a Merioneth registration: FFF. The Centre’s vehicle was LJC.
Chapter Fourteen
The snow was dangerous; not that it had started to fall again but she left tracks. It would be too easy to find her if someone were still searching. Even the driver of the Land Rover must have seen her prints if he’d glanced away from the road. She returned to the hotel warily, looking for signs that might show it was occupied.
The building loomed through the fog. There were no lights so far as she could see and her car stood by the front door where she had left it. There was no other vehicle on the forecourt and the only tracks were those of the Land Rover. It had been parked beside her car.
She opened the front door with Dawson’s key and turned right at the end of the main passage where he had said she would find his sitting room.
It was a bright chintzy place but she didn’t spend time studying it for the focus of attention was an open window with a broken pane.
The telephone stood on an occasional table. She lifted the receiver and dialled 999, her glance travelling round the room and coming back to the doorway. Then she realised that the line was dead. The severed ends of the flex dangled against the skirting board.
She shut the front door behind her and went to her car. The door wasn’t locked — but she had locked it. She switched on the ignition and the starter whirred hopelessly.
Certain now that there was no need for caution she hurried round to the outbuildings where she found an old van in an open shed and, beyond, a garage with double doors which should have been bolted and padlocked, but now the padlock was forced and the doors hung open. The Sunbeam inside was unlocked. There were no keys in either the van or the car.
She let herself into the house again, searched quickly and superficially through an upstairs bedroom and the sitting room, then left for the main road on foot, comforting herself with the thought that although a car would have provided speed and a spurious sense of safety, she would be less conspicuous walking.
She hadn’t reckoned with the weather, for after she had been on the slushy road for about twenty minutes, the fog started to clear.
She looked round quickly to get her bearings and saw cloud banks in all directions but these were evaporating like smoke before the rising wind. She was only about a hundred yards from the point where the Porth Bach track came in, and about two miles from the main road.
The track from the Schooner lay along the crest of the moor and she felt very vulnerable. No Land Rover nor any other vehicle was visible and for all she could see of people she might have been the only person between the main road and the cliffs, but she didn’t know that both Land Rover and driver might not be concealed behind a clump of gorse waiting for her to come within range.
She looked along the line of the Porth Bach track but saw no vehicle although there could have been one in a dip. The Adams’ whitewashed cottage showed up well and she thought she caught a glimpse of Dawson’s launch beyond the jetty but otherwise the sea, like the road, was empty.
In order to get off the sky-line she dropped down to the left where the moorland sloped to the western cliffs of the headland. The ground changed here from turf and gorse to thick snow-covered heather. There were no paths and no houses
, and the absence of life gave such an eerie aspect to this desolate tract that she was grateful to see the grey backs of sheep; they represented a return to normality.
The light was fading by the time she reached the main road and started walking west. She wouldn’t go east; for all she knew the man with the gun would be waiting for her at the end of the Schooner track.
She stopped the first vehicle that came along. It was a laundry van and, telling the driver that her car had broken down, she asked him to take her to the nearest telephone kiosk. This turned out to be in the village of Glanaber and when the van driver had put her down, she saw a police house across the road with a green Mini in the drive.
The officer was fat and ponderous and it was obvious that the last thing he wanted was business just as he was looking forward to his tea and the evening’s television. Miss Pink felt sorry for him because he didn’t look like a man who would enjoy anything other than vicarious excitement even when he was committed.
No, he said, she could not use his telephone to speak to Superintendent Pryce but if she would tell him, Constable Edwards, what the trouble was, he would see that the superintendent received the message. There was an implicit suggestion that P.C. Edwards would be the judge of its importance and perhaps even of its being sent at all.
She hesitated, calculating, then she asked for pencil and paper and as she talked she wrote a list of numbered items. 1. (she wrote) Mrs Wolkoff. The superintendent was to be told that her body was in Ogof Lladron and that she had been stabbed. 2. The Murderer? An armed man had driven an old Land Rover with the registration FFF away from the Schooner, after failing to shoot Miss Pink. 3. Schooner. The telephone line had been cut and Mr Dawson was somewhere between Porth Bach and the main road on foot.
She gave him the paper and he started to read, his lips moving. She went out, crossed to the telephone kiosk and got through to police headquarters. Pryce was not available, she was told; she should try the police station at Bontddu.