Half a Pound of Tuppenny Rice

by David Coubrough

  ‘Do you know him?’ asked Grant eagerly.

  ‘No I don’t,’ came the clipped reply. ‘But if hanging was still allowed, that man would have swung from the old gallows in Truro.’

  ‘Wow, strong stuff. What’s he done?’ Grant had overplayed his hand, sounding a bit too London toff, and the landlord interrupted the opinionated Cornishman.

  ‘Now then, Ernie. That be dangerous talk.’

  Much to Grant’s chagrin, there would be no further discussion on the subject. The barman turned up the music to such a volume that conversation became almost impossible, which was plainly his intention. As Grant had consumed four pints of bitter – in addition to buying pretty much everyone in the pub a drink while claiming he was celebrating his birthday – he ordered a taxi back to the hotel. This was a deliberate ploy. He knew taxi drivers were a rich source of local information, and he would order another in the morning to help him retrieve his car. Just as he was about to leave, the publican and a coterie of others appeared with a dessert, a small slice of Black Forest gâteau with a solitary candle burning on it, and delivered a hearty rendition of ‘Happy Birthday to You’. Startled and a little hazy as a result of his hop-fuelled evening he thanked them, saying it had all been very enjoyable. He climbed in the cab, dessert in hand.

  ‘What a prat,’ the landlord said to the assembled drinkers, as the taxi pulled away. Grant didn’t catch the words but saw their laughter all too clearly.

  ‘What a jolly bunch,’ he remarked to the driver, before asking, ‘Do you know a man by the name of Ivan Youlen?’

  Grant’s fortunes were on the rise. As luck would have it, his driver lived in the fishing village of Mevagissey, on the same street as Ivan Youlen.

  ‘Ivan the greenfingers,’ announced the cabbie in a proper West Country burr.

  ‘Why is he called that?’

  ‘Well, he works at the gardens.’

  ‘Which gardens?’

  ‘You know, the ones that were lost and are now found.’

  ‘The Lost Gardens of Heligan,’ Grant announced triumphantly. ‘Will I find him there?’

  ‘Expect so. And Julie works in the shop.’

  ‘Has Julie been there long? I mean she and Ivan have been together a long time, haven’t they?’ he bluffed.

  ‘Don’t think so. Julie’s only forty-odd, more than twenty years younger than that old rascal Ivan. He trades in his women for younger models more often than rockin’ Rod Stewart,’ the cabbie chortled.

  ‘Lucky Ivan if they look like Rod’s women.’

  ‘Well, whatever,’ said the cabbie. ‘That’ll be £6.’

  Grant gave a tip of another £2, delighted that he now knew where to find green-fingered Ivan, the ladies’ man. Heading back to his hotel room, he was sober enough to look for the old Austin with the Essex number plate. He didn’t know whether to be relieved or not that it wasn’t there. On closing his bedroom door he moved swiftly to fill a bath and then he called Brigit.

  ‘Well, hello,’ she replied. ‘I’ve been worried about you.’

  ‘Yeah, sorry. Phone got cut off last night. Don’t know why. I tried the office around six, but I guess you were on your way home.’

  ‘Anyway, no more being haunted by old biddies?’

  ‘No, but it’s creepy. There was a car at Zennor I saw in the car park here.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes, and it’s an Essex number plate. You don’t think Danny is trying to freak me out?’

  ‘Unlikely. But lock your door anyway.’

  Grant decided not to mention the second of his interrupted nights and ended the call with dutiful amorous declarations. He couldn’t wait to get back home, but he wasn’t going to quit now.

  The following day he set out to find Ivan at the Lost Gardens of Heligan. The tourist attraction was well signposted, instructing Grant to turn right off the B3273 heading to Mevagissey and following the brown signs. On arrival in the car park he surveyed all the shops and tea rooms and wondered if he had arrived at a run-of-the-mill garden centre. He was soon to be educated, however, marvelling as he read the potted history that explained how the gardens had been hidden for seventy-odd years. He noted the motto, ‘Don’t come here to sleep or slumber.’ He asked for Ivan at reception, and it so happened he had just clocked on for his shift.

  ‘Ivan,’ he announced when they came face to face, ‘I’m Grant Morrison. I left a message on your answerphone last night.’

  Ivan studied him carefully but made no reply.

  ‘Can we talk?’ He followed Ivan outside.

  ‘What the fuck about?’ Ivan marched away to start his work, with Grant following hurriedly in his wake, noticing that Ivan walked with a pronounced limp. As he rushed to catch up, he wondered whether Ivan had acquired the infirmity by being battered by waves in his coastguard days or, more likely, by getting involved in a skirmish or two over the years. In other respects the man appeared much as he would have anticipated. His ambling gait seemed to diminish his height to around six feet; Grant was sure he used to be taller. His jet-black hair, now silver grey, was still worn long. The only other notable change was a couple of rather grainy chipped teeth.

  ‘Look, I know it was a long time ago, but there was never any justice for your Uncle Tom and neither, it would seem, for Hector Wallace.’

  Ivan studied Grant again, disapprovingly. ‘And who are you? Inspector fucking Morse?’

  Grant became bolder. ‘Look, you can swear at me as much as you like, but I’m not going away, and I would much rather we had a cordial conversation.’

  ‘What about?’ Ivan repeated again, this time without the expletive.

  Grant felt this was progress of sorts. ‘Someone has got away with these events, these crimes, for a long, long time, and there is some evidence as to who the killer might be.’

  ‘And who might he be?’

  Grant pursued Ivan around the Italian section of the gardens, figuring that as long as Ivan didn’t make a citizen’s arrest he would continue, as it was his only hope of speaking to Ivan the Irascible.

  ‘Three questions. First, were you in the pub that night with Trevor Mullings and Hector Wallace when messages were written in bottles and Hector was found washed up dead the next day? Second, did you go to the beach with Hector? And, third, did Ken Holford go?’

  For one glorious moment Grant hoped his direct approach had paid off, as Ivan studied him again before instructing him to ‘Go play with yourself’, at which point he disappeared into a shed and slammed the door.

  ‘And what happened to the cash Uncle Tom was looking after, Ivan? The truth will come out. You can’t ignore it, and you can’t ignore me,’ shouted Grant, getting angrier than he could ever remember being before.

  ‘Oh, can’t I?’ shouted Ivan through the closed glass window.

  ‘No. I will find Ken Holford next, and I’ll find out from him.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ countered Ivan, breaking into a deep spine-chilling laugh.

  ‘And why’s that?’

  ‘Because he’s – as you Cockneys would have it – brown bread! Yes. Would you Adam and Eve it? Ken’s brown bread. ’E don’t go down the rub-a-dub-dub no more. ’E don’t even go up the apples and pears no more. ’E’s brown bread!’ Ivan’s belly laugh from inside the hut seemed to rock the wooden foundations and rendered Grant speechless. As he walked away disconsolately he looked back and could just about make out Ivan mouthing every expletive invented in his direction; he was minded to report him to his employers but thought better of it.

  Grant suddenly felt a fool. Hadn’t the man in the pub, Ernie, said about Ken Holford, ‘That man should have swung from the old gallows in Truro’? And he had completely missed the comment being in the past tense. As he turned to make his way back through the gardens, he couldn’t help but be struck by the incongruity of such a wondrously beautiful place bearing witness to such an ill-natured conversation. Grant lingered just long enough to turn and witness Ivan on his mobil
e phone. Recovering his equilibrium, Grant couldn’t help smiling as he read a notice board saying, ‘Enjoyed today? For the same price you can become a Friend of Heligan for a year.’

  Great, he thought. I could be abused by Ivan every day of the year for no extra charge.

  24

  PRESENT DAY

  The file on Ken Holford presented to Bob Silver and his adopted son, Clive, and subsequently emailed to Grant, did not make for pretty reading. Holford’s story was littered with references to drunkenness and cruelty to women. One of them, an Irene Clements, had lived in a small village called Tregorrick. Grant couldn’t help but suspect that Ernie, the character in the pub who maintained that Holford should have swung, was either known or related to her, as the village was in the watering hole’s vicinity. There was clearly personal bitterness in the tirade at the bar. However, there was no escaping the unsettling fact that Ken had evaded prosecution for any serious criminality. Grant personally believed that wife-beating should receive automatic custodial sentencing, but each of the women questioned had been more concerned about escaping the monster’s clutches than testifying against him in court – all but one, a Carol Todd who appeared to be with him at the time of the investigation in 2003.

  Despite a bruised face, explained by the usual ‘walking into doors’ story, she was hard to interview and would say only that he was ‘basically a good man and misunderstood by folk’. Grant, who did not know how or where Holford had died, resolved to find Carol Todd. Before doing so, he continued reading the private investigator’s report that had tried to piece together the subject’s working life. Holford had moved to the village of St Buryan in the summer of 1972, which Grant surmised was shortly before Clive and Bob would have seen him in the pub, after attending the Minack Theatre. At this time he appeared to be holding down two jobs, the other being an assistant in a National Trust café on the nearby north coast. He recalled Suzie Hughes-Webb relating the story of the four fathers’ run on the beach at the end of the holiday, as told to her by her father and recorded on tape at his suggestion.

  Tracking down Carol Todd was Grant’s next task, and he extended his stay in the sanctuary he had found near St Austell. The usual internet searches proved useless, as did the Yellow Pages. Grant delved into the report and saw that, at the time of writing, Holford had been living in the small village of Trelill on the north coast near Pendogett. He noted in an index to the report that there were some addresses and phone listings of relevant people, but, remarkably, there was no data on Holford. He inquired at the local pub as to whether anyone knew a Carol Todd, bluffing that he was related to her by marriage. He was greeted by stony faces until one local piped up, ‘Yea, she be over there’, pointing out of the window.

  Grant felt a sense of impending gloom and turned to see his fears confirmed; the man’s finger indicated the graveyard next to the church. He thanked the informant and tried without much success to engage him in conversation. There were the usual grumbles about grockles invading their county every summer, together with more general moans about the government and how many foreigners it would let in before the people shouted ‘Stop!’ but Grant didn’t find out anything more about Carol Todd. And no further light was shed on the infamous Ken Holford, with his well-known predilection for alcohol. As much as he loved Cornish pubs, Grant felt deflated and was even beginning to wish they could move on from jukeboxes stuck in a fifty-year time warp, particularly when the only hit by Zager and Evans, ‘In the Year 2525’, struck up.

  He left the pub, pretending to go to his car, and crossed the road to look for a gravestone or some other form of memorial to Carol Todd. He didn’t have to go far. A relatively recent headstone set against the wall of the churchyard stated ‘Here lies Carol Ann Todd, beloved daughter of Jack and Marion Todd, 1955–2005.’ Someone other than her parents had been responsible for the tombstone, as the graves of Jack and Marion Todd lay adjacent to Carol’s; they had evidently passed away years earlier. As with Tom’s memorial stone, there was evidence of someone attending the flowers there. Grant silently seethed. Someone must know something, he said to himself. He crossed the road to head back to the pub, blood rising in his head and throbbing from ear to ear. He threw open the door to the saloon bar and felt giddy as the music boomed out even louder. He took a few steps forward, staggered towards the bar, saw the lights go on and then off before crashing to the floor.

  He regained consciousness in the ambulance on the way to the Royal County Hospital in Truro. He came round throwing up all over the paramedic deputed to sit in the back with him. His new companion told him what had happened and said that they needed to keep talking to ensure that he didn’t lose consciousness again. In fact, Grant slipped in and out of consciousness several times, each time awakening to unleash projectile vomit in the direction of the paramedic, who found himself ducking for cover. Grant asked what he thought was wrong with him.

  ‘Well, I’m no doctor, sir, but I would hazard that you’ve suffered some form of poisoning, which has caused you to have a vasovagal attack. But please don’t take that as gospel. Maybe you’ve been under undue stress lately, perhaps much more than you would normally be.’

  Grant panicked at the implications of this. In his heightened state of insecurity he suspected foul play. He wasn’t too concerned about stress, as he felt that would soon pass, but he was concerned about the possibility of being poisoned. On his arrival in hospital he was left lying on a trolley awaiting medical attention, like holiday luggage abandoned at an airport, for some two hours. He recalled Mr Simpkins, the hotel manager who was rushed to the same hospital after blacking out and chipping his two front teeth when he collapsed at the reception desk some forty years earlier.

  Eventually, after undergoing various tests, he was informed that it was almost certainly a severe case of salmonella poisoning and that there was no evidence of other noxious substances. In his mind he had become obsessed with the idea of poisonous worm eggs entering his system somehow. He thought of poor Tom Youlen and how, hours after ingestion, he suffered the terrible stroke that destroyed his life. In his half-conscious state Grant thought that perhaps he was receiving his comeuppance, that he had been singled out by the Almighty to level the score as far as Tom was concerned; he was taking the hit on behalf of all the holidaying families for the crime committed in 1972. After a further four hours of observation he asked if he could be discharged. Following some negotiation about this he took a taxi back to his hotel.

  After a brief conversation with Brigit, during which he made no mention of his recent hospitalization, he retired early to bed without food. He knew she was annoyed with him for prolonging his stay in Cornwall, and she seemed rather weary of his investigation, but he was becoming so obsessed that he had become increasingly insensitive to her feelings. He sent an email to Justyn updating him but was dismayed to receive an ‘out of office’ reply, advising all callers that he would be away until the following Monday, some four days hence.

  The following morning Grant awoke to a gloriously blue Cornish sky and decided to visit the beautiful coastal village of Fowey. He walked to clear his head and to allow his stomach a period of recovery before eating again. He crossed the beautiful harbour on the ferry and reflected further on events. Daphne du Maurier’s house was pointed out to him, and for a moment he felt he might be in one of her novels. His mind took him back to 1972 and the incidents that had lodged in his memory as being odd: Paul Galvin spotted in heated conversation with Ivan Youlen that Sunday; the scene that included Arnie Charnley being witnessed by Ted Jessops who made an anonymous phone call to the police. Then there was the issue of Ivan Youlen conversing with Ken Holford at the National Trust café, as witnessed by the four joggers. Grant had been advised by Suzie that this had occurred on Wednesday 23 August, as she had taped the events of that morning on her father’s instruction. He also reflected on Ted Jessops drawing a mermaid, ‘the Mermaid of Zennor’, according to Caroline’s mother. But what really stumped him was the
message in the bottle. Why did Hector add the line ‘Tonight I am not alone’ in different ink? And with whom did he leave the pub to go to the beach?

  Grant mused on how all the prime suspects, as well as the victims, were now part of a world that had gone for ever, and momentarily he wondered why he had become so obsessed by it all. For the first time he asked himself whether it really mattered. Then he remembered what was really driving him on; he wanted to discover whether his mother had been an accomplice to murder. He felt frustrated at his results so far, but one person kept coming to mind as central: Ivan Youlen, whose behaviour had been so hostile when he caught up with him at the Lost Gardens. Grant felt he couldn’t really trust Trevor Mullings, but he had at least given him some idea of where to find Ivan. But then why had both Trevor and Ivan gone straight on to their phones as soon as they thought Grant had departed? Was he missing something? Had they been working together all the time? Ken Holford was reportedly dead, but no one seemed to know where he was buried or even when he died. The unfortunate Carol Todd was bruised and still with Ken at the time of the private investigation in 2003 but died two years later at the age of fifty. Several locals in the two pubs had hinted at further knowledge but had closed ranks when pressed. Grant began to think he was wasting his time in Cornwall. He had his reasons for trying to unearth the truth, but he was not prepared to admit them to anyone, and that included his peer group and even Brigit.

  Now was the time to see Suzie. A journey to Cape Town was both inevitable and essential, as he was merely spinning tyres in the sand at present. Hadn’t Caroline given a pretty big steer that Suzie might know something? And Justyn had let slip about the relationship that was to develop between Suzie and Danny in their twenties, involving a broken engagement, possibly suggesting dark forces at work in the Galvin family emanating from Danny’s financially stressed and criminally prosecuted father, Paul.