Miss Pink Investigates Part One

by Gwen Moffat

  ‘Climbers leave it alone,’ Hendry repeated. ‘Do you have to be a climber to get inside?’

  ‘You need a rope,’ Bright said. ‘A layman couldn’t do it on his own.’

  ‘I’ve got no men to spare; even if I had a climber on the strength, which I haven’t.’ Hendry looked at Miss Pink.

  ‘I’ll go,’ she said, thinking it was a cue.

  ‘Are you leaving immediately?’ Bright asked. ‘I’d like to come with you, but Hendry’s going to see Harper and I ought to be present; he’s not in good shape.’

  ‘Now, Doctor, you said he can take it; he’s got to take it in the circumstances. Rumney might go with Miss Pink.’

  ‘How long will you be with Harper?’

  Hendry spread his hands and the doctor turned back to Miss Pink. ‘I’ll come up to the crag afterwards, if you haven’t returned.’

  *

  The sun had gone behind a bank of cloud when they left the hamlet and took the path past Coneygarth. The front door of the cottage was open but the opening looked sinister rather than welcoming.

  ‘More rain coming,’ Rumney said gloomily. He was wearing old climbing boots and a stained anorak, and he carried a rope.

  ‘Does Shivery Knott flood?’

  ‘I wouldn’t think so. The system’s on the slant, d’you see; the water can’t lie in there.’

  They left the packhorse track and struck up through the trees. There was no path but here and there the undergrowth looked as if it had been flattened although that could have been the result of the torrential rain. No marks showed in the pockets of washed soil between the scree.

  They came to the foot of the crag which was really nothing more than a pile of gigantic blocks separated by cracks and chimneys. The entrance to the system was by way of a chasm where the walls converged to a roof above their heads, and at the end they climbed up broken steps to an enclosed space where they had to start using their headlamps. They didn’t put the rope on. Rumney had brought it for emergencies. He told her that he had been through the system once, looking for a dog, and he’d had no difficulty unroped and alone.

  They left the enclosed space by crawling through a slit at floor level. This was horizontal for a few yards and then it widened so that one could stand. Miss Pink felt her age. The strenuous activity was tiring her and she thought how ridiculous it was to imagine that Jackson Wren could have brought Caroline here. Caroline demanded romance and heroic exploits but in this place the most virile man must lose his dignity. When she joined Rumney, after twenty feet or so of the most racking contortions, for the underground crack was narrow and the walls held her like a vice as she tried to force her way upwards, she suggested they retreat.

  ‘Not likely,’ Rumney said stoutly. ‘With our figures we could get stuck in that crack.’

  ‘But there’s no one here. They would have heard us by now, and shouted.’

  ‘Gagged?’ he suggested. ‘Forced to keep silent?’

  ‘What! You think Wren’s here as well?’

  ‘No, there’s no one here.’ He was reassuring. ‘But we’re not going back. I certainly didn’t when I was looking for that dog. I went on, and there’s a way out somewhere. Are you ready?’

  Their torch beams showed a broken cavern; they were in the bowels of the crag. Beyond Rumney was what appeared to be a bottomless hole but as he climbed down and she shone her torch beyond and below him she could see ledges and bulging walls and he was descending easily, telling her where the holds were. She played the light on the ground at her feet, thinking that she should have done this before, looking for traces of other people. There was nothing but the bedrock, and small stones in the crevices.

  ‘You can follow now,’ he called from the depths.

  She lowered herself over the edge, concentrating on the mental pattern of pockets and ledges which she’d seen from the top. Rumney was standing on a wide ledge above another big drop partly choked with fallen blocks. At its right-hand end it must be very deep or very long or both; the torches couldn’t penetrate the darkness. Leftwards the ledge ran into a slab which sloped steeply down to a glimmer of daylight.

  ‘That must be the other entrance,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘Let’s see.’

  They descended the slab which was about thirty feet high and scored with horizontal cracks, the lower section pallid in the natural light. They stepped off the bottom and walked through another chasm to the open air; they were halfway up the crag and a broken gully dropped to the scree at an easy angle.

  ‘Is that all of it?’ she asked.

  ‘There’s that space at the top of the slab: the chasm with the big blocks.’

  ‘I suppose we’d better—?’ She was cross with herself for having suggested this silly caper. ‘We ought to be able to tell Hendry we’ve examined the whole system.’

  They turned and climbed the slab, then moved along the ledge to a point where they could step down on to the tumbled blocks. ‘Watch these,’ she warned, ‘they’re none too stable.’ A big one rocked under her feet with a muffled crack of stone on stone.

  They descended carefully, kicking each block before trusting their weight on it. They reached the bed of the chasm, or so they thought. Rumney directed his torch to the left where the ground slanted down between great red walls that gleamed wet in the light. At the end was a tall and tapering slit, too narrow for the passage of anything fatter than a fox. Cold air came through it. Miss Pink shone her torch rightwards.

  ‘What on earth—? It’s a rope!’

  ‘That’s not rope.’ They moved forward. It was rope: dark in colour, and it was strained horizontally across the rock.

  ‘Mind,’ he warned, ‘there’s a great hole here: a chasm on a lower level.’

  ‘Here’s a peg,’ Miss Pink said.

  The rock receded inwards to form a large oval hollow, the walls of which were coated with some deposit that sparkled silver in their lights. An alloy peg had been driven into a crack and from it the rope ran taut across the ledge and disappeared. It was under tremendous strain and immovable.

  They felt their way carefully to the edge of the pit. They didn’t see the bottom, not because it was invisible but because their lights were arrested by what was on the end of the rope. Caroline was found.

  They moved back to the recess.

  ‘We can’t tell it’s her,’ Miss Pink said sadly.

  ‘It’s like her hair—reddish.’

  ‘Can we get down?’

  ‘We’d better see if we can.’

  ‘Give me the rope; I’ll uncoil it.’

  ‘Of course we can get down!’ he exclaimed. ‘It’s a matter of getting back.’ He moved away from her, prospecting along the ledge.

  ‘We can climb down easily,’ he called back, ‘and up again. We don’t really need the rope.’

  ‘We ought to get close to her: to identify her. There’s Harper, you see; there should be no doubt.’

  ‘I’d forgotten Harper.’

  Miss Pink fastened the middle of the rope to the peg. ‘Will it reach the bottom?’ she asked. ‘It can’t be sixty feet.’ The rope was a hundred and twenty feet long. She coiled it and, stepping to the edge, threw the coils expertly into the abyss. They heard the dry rattle as the rope settled on the ground.

  ‘By the sound of that, it’s only about twenty feet,’ she observed. ‘I’ll make sure it hasn’t snagged.’

  She peered over. The doubled rope descended straight and even beside the body. She glanced at the slack on the floor of the chasm, went to turn away, then checked.

  ‘That’s odd.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Come here. What’s that in the bottom?’

  ‘Why, it looks like— It is! What—?’ He turned to her. ‘Could that be Wren?’

  They stared at the second body and now they could make out the twisted legs, a hand—but no face.

  ‘What an incredible accident,’ he breathed, ‘both of them!’

  She passed the rope round herself. R
umney directed the beam of his torch on the anchorage. She walked backwards to the edge, the rope tight to the peg. She teetered for a moment, spreading her feet, getting her weight balanced, then she started walking down the wall, leaning out on the rope which, round one thigh and the opposite shoulder, ran out slowly as she descended.

  She came to the body which hung heavily against the rock but moved when she touched it. She drew level with the face, held herself in position with one hand and lifted the chestnut hair. The wide eyes of Caroline stared back at her.

  There was a lot of rope festooned about the body, and a loop round the neck. It was from the neck that the rope ran taut to the peg above. The girl’s arms were strained backwards, the hands behind her. Miss Pink felt down the arms to the cold wrists. They were tightly bound together by something which felt like hemp line. The fingers were quite limp.

  There was also a rope round the waist but this descended to the chasm as did another emerging from the looped confusion about the body. Miss Pink moved lower. Caroline was wearing dark slacks and bright blue canvas boots. The ankles were also bound with hemp. She got one arm behind the straight legs and lifted. The knees bent easily.

  ‘Well?’ Rumney’s voice came from above.

  ‘It’s her; she must have hanged. The rope’s round the neck. She’s been here a long time.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Stone-cold and no rigor; it passes off in two days.’

  ‘But that takes us back to Saturday afternoon!’

  ‘I’ll go on; I’m not very comfortable here.’

  She continued to the ground while Rumney climbed down the rocks at the side. She regarded the other body which lay as it had fallen, with twisted limbs. It was Wren. His head was slightly to one side so that the right profile was exposed and about one inch above the eyebrow was a small circular wound which had bled. Rumney approached.

  ‘It’s him,’ she said, ‘I think he’s been shot.’

  ‘Shot? You mean it isn’t an accident?’ He stooped and shone his torch on the head. ‘You’re right. Killed himself, d’you think—after Caroline died?’

  ‘Her ankles and wrists are tied with hemp line.’

  ‘Good God!’

  ‘Let’s see if we can find a gun.’

  It was quite close to the body: a Walther PPK ·22, fallen between two rocks which was why they hadn’t seen the metal gleam.

  ‘There will be fingerprints on that jacket,’ Miss Pink said. ‘We’ll leave it for Hendry. I wonder where it came from? How are the police going to get here, and all the forensic people?’

  ‘That’s their problem; they’ll probably get the Mountain Rescue chaps to lower—’

  ‘Listen!’ Above their heads a rock had moved. ‘Put your torch out,’ she hissed.

  They stood in the dark, listening, staring upwards. There was not so much as a pin-point of light. Miss Pink knew the meaning of pitch black. Then slowly, as her eyes became accustomed to the totality of this new sensation she realised that it wasn’t total; at some point way up and out to the right, there was movement. It grew and became a glow which increased until it stretched their nerves to snapping point and the rock walls of these modest caves loomed and bulged with an illusion of bulk that rivalled a great show-cavern. Then, in the centre of the glow a bright speck appeared like an anti-climax, vanished and reappeared as someone swung a torch.

  ‘Zeke!’ It was a shriek. ‘Rumney!’ That was better; they breathed again.

  ‘We’re down here, Quentin,’ Rumney called. ‘But watch out: there’s an enormous chasm at the end of the ledge.’

  ‘Where? Oh, I see; what are you doing down there? Found anything?’

  ‘Indeed we have: both of them.’

  ‘Well? In what shape?’

  ‘They’re both dead.’

  ‘Good Lord!’ There was a pause while he digested this. ‘Can I get down?’

  Rumney showed him the easy descent and he joined them at the bottom, talking quietly and intimately now that they were all together. They directed their torches on the suspended body and Miss Pink gave him the details.

  ‘Tied?’ he repeated. ‘Tied and hanged? Unbelievable!’

  ‘And Wren’s been shot,’ Rumney said.

  The doctor stooped and peered at the wound. He held the wrist and raised it gently; it was quite limp.

  ‘I’ve got no thermometer,’ he muttered. ‘I didn’t expect to find this. But rigor’s passed off; I’d say he’s been here the better part of two days. Is the girl stiff?’

  ‘She’s quite limp,’ Miss Pink said.

  ‘Tied up by Wren?’ The doctor was questioning himself. ‘And then he went away and came back to find her dead—and shot himself? Where’s the gun?’

  They showed him the Walther. ‘I wonder where that came from?’ he mused. ‘It’s not the kind of thing I associate with Wren.’ Then, briskly: ‘We must get back to Hendry—and there’s Harper. I was there when they questioned him. I think he’s halfway prepared for this.’

  ‘Really?’ Miss Pink said drily, but they didn’t hear; they were already on their way to the outside world.

  It seemed to her that they had been underground for hours, and to be in daylight again was a blessed relief. The cloud had dropped and there was moisture in the air, but the open country, the gnarled oaks, grass, Sandale’s hamlet clustering round the packhorse bridge, all these were homely and familiar after the starkness of those awful rock walls impending in the light of their lamps.

  They slithered down the gully and stopped at the foot of the crag. The splash of the waterfall came to them and Miss Pink said calmly: ‘I heard him: at four o’clock on Saturday afternoon. There was someone blundering about just at this spot. I was on the packhorse track and it was nearly dark. Perhaps he’d just found her.’

  ‘But surely,’ the doctor said, ‘he’d have killed himself when he found her, not gone away and come back?’

  ‘He had to go down to Coneygarth for the gun,’ Rumney put in.

  The doctor turned to him. ‘Then he’d have shot himself in Coneygarth surely? You don’t pick up a gun, determined to kill yourself, and climb back through this wood and enter the caves and go up that slab and along the ledge to kill yourself at a certain spot. It’s too devious.’

  ‘That’s irrelevant,’ Miss Pink said.

  The men were astonished. ‘Irrelevant?’ Rumney exclaimed.

  ‘Because if he died on Saturday, who did I speak to last night? Who told me where to take the money?’

  Chapter Fifteen

  She did not return to the hamlet with them but made no secret of her intentions: she would walk to the scenic car park beyond Mart Howe, the place where Caroline’s car might be. Rumney objected but she pointed out that he and the doctor could come back to the crag with the police; she wasn’t needed. ‘Besides,’ she added, ‘I want to think, and Hendry’s questions at the moment would only muddle me. It’s a peculiar situation.’ As she said it, she realised that this was a considerable understatement.

  They couldn’t detain or dissuade her and they parted, Miss Pink scrambling up the side of the crag to a small cairn that marked its summit. From here a narrow path ran off in a north-easterly direction through heather and scrub, rising gently towards a crest of grey rocks which must be Mart Howe.

  She walked quickly, skirting the rocky knoll and coming, in about twenty minutes, to a fringe of woodland. The path led her through silver birches and the ubiquitous oaks to a clearing on the lip of an escarpment. Tree trunks had been placed in position along the edge and below her the main valley was revealed with its lake grey and tranquil under the cloud ceiling. It was a magnificent view-point but she wasn’t interested in scenery. There had been prints of gumboots on the path, going towards Shivery Knott, but only in the one direction, and she wasn’t surprised to find Cole’s Aston Martin in the otherwise empty car park. She wondered how she’d missed him.

  For a while she roamed about the woods, but with the leaves stripped from the trees
she could see for a considerable distance, and if Caroline’s Lotus had been concealed here, there was no trace of it now, and the rain had washed out any tyre tracks. She came back to the car park and tried the doors of the Aston Martin. They were locked. She started home by the way she had come.

  As she approached Mart Howe she saw a figure ahead and mentally prepared herself, recognising the perky walk, the olive green cagoule of Daniel Cole. As they drew nearer she had the feeling that he too was prepared, but then any walkers, approaching over a distance in lonely country, have an air of self-consciousness.

  Cole had a pair of binoculars slung round his neck. They greeted each other with studied casualness and he evinced no surprise to find her in this place. His eyes were hard and she noticed again how aquiline his features were, not in the least blurred by good living. At a tangent, her mind worried at his origins. Suddenly she realised that they were both waiting: herself for his questions—and he? For her explanation of her presence here? She had a most unusual feeling of intimidation and she was uneasy.

  ‘How did he die?’ Cole asked.

  ‘Who?’ She fought for time, her face blank.

  ‘Wren.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘You found Wren inside that cliff.’ He gestured impatiently. ‘I saw you come out and I heard what you said.’

  ‘What did I say?’

  ‘You said, “If he died on Saturday, who did I speak to last night? Who told me where to leave the money?”’

  ‘I have to go down, Mr Cole; the police are waiting.’

  ‘Rumney and Bright will have told the police. I’m the Press.’

  ‘That’s exactly why I’m going down. You came here because of Peta Mossop’s murder; your assignment has nothing to do with conservation.’ He said nothing, watching her. ‘The police will issue a statement,’ she said.

  ‘I doubt it. I went a little way inside myself, but I haven’t got a torch with me. It looks a dangerous place. Do you think the police will want sightseers up here? They’re not going to tell the Press until they get the body out, perhaps not then.’