I told Ann she was deserving of whiskey and she gave me a decidedly unimpressed look. “I thought Inspector Henry would have found us some interesting wine,” she said, and smiled at him not me!
“It's the French suit,” he said. “Works every time”. He rose to his feet and I watched them go to the bar where no doubt she was going to enjoy some Gallic charm whilst I pondered upon his self-control. There was more to Leon Henry than he was letting on about.
They returned with a bottle of wine which I guessed was not the cheapest item on The Cary Arm's fine wine list and three glasses. I declined mine, I still had my whiskey and if Leon was on the wine I might get lucky and get his too!
I raised my eye to Ann and she put down her glass and did a ‘Leon’, looking around to make sure she wouldn't be overheard. “I found a man called the Reverend Hainsley-Sihl boss. Fit's your bill exactly. One moment!” She was too close to the fire and moved around to sit the other side of Leon. I watched his eyes follow her movement. I hid my smile; she hadn't missed his interest in her excellent figure either.
She sat back and gathered her thoughts. “Hainsley-Sihl was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church following a scandal at a church in Falmouth. Seems there was a question of unproven child abuse linked to some form of Satanic gathering which took place in October 1999, Halloween night - 31st of October 1999 to be precise.” She let that hang in the air. “Crown Prosecution service decided they didn't have enough evidence to prosecute but the Church threw him out anyway.”
There is a moment in every case when the pieces start to line up and I recognised that moment now, as did Leon Henry. He didn't speak though, just sat in silence and looked like he was planning to strangle something, or somebody! I could guess which his preference was from those cold again eyes.
“Sounds very encouraging.” I said. “But we need to find a local connection now.” I smiled encouragement at her but Henry just sat there smiling. I was tempted to take the wine away from the pair of them!
Ann was still smiling, at me this time though. “The Reverend Hainsley-Sihl is the proprietor of Rockwall Holdings, Boss.” If that was supposed to convey something to me it didn't.
“Kents Cavern, boss,” she said. “He owns Kents Cavern. Or at least his Company does.”
The penny dropped and I remembered. The famous system of caves were burgled in the summer, the ticket office broken into in the small hours. I'd become involved because when the call was acted upon the visiting Officer had found the place liberally splashed in blood. We never found a culprit and not much was missing. The blood didn't turn up anything on our database. Rockwall Holdings had just purchased the place at that time but I didn't recall any double barrelled names being involved. Probably dealt with the site Manager.
The whiskey was gone but I didn't want wine. “Let me get myself a pint while I think about that.”
If they were going to miss me at the table they hid it well. I believe I recall muttering under my breath as I walked away, something to the effect that if he got a goodnight kiss I'd send him back to bloody Belgium myself!
In the morning I left Ann to collect Leon from the grand Hotel, she'd insisted on driving him back there and ignored my half-hearted, feigned attempt to take him myself. I'd half expected her to kick my ankle on the way to the car park. She can be very Australian under the right sort of provocation. Leon pretended not to notice which I thought was good coming from a man who didn't miss anything.
I got up early and took a long walk in the fresh air whilst I thought about how we were going to approach the case given so much new information. I wasn't surprised when my footsteps led me to Kents Cavern.
The Caves are renowned and deservedly so. Archaeologically they are important. They’d been home at various times to one of eight different discontinuous populations to have inhabited Britain. Some of the fossils which had been found there have been radio carbon dated to 44,000 B.C. Their greatest claim to fame is that the earliest anatomically modern human fossil yet discovered in Northern Europe was found there.
Today it has a new visitor Centre which I could see had been a substantial investment, a gift shop and a restaurant which wasn't open so early in the morning or I would have gone in there. It looked inviting enough. A good coffee would have been welcome - too much whiskey whilst I watched the children flirt.
I might get some tips from Henry; he made it all look very simple! Not that that guaranteed it would work on Dartmoor pixies. I don't have his easy charm. Come to think of it I don't have a very expensive French suit either.
It crossed my mind standing there in the car park that Kents Cavern wasn't very far as the crow flies from Hope's Nose. Maybe less than a quarter of a mile. You'd fly over the top of Ilsham road and then with Stoodley Knowle School to the North, keep going to the East and very quickly indeed you'd be over Ilsham Marine Drive which runs along the cliff top above Hope's Nose. You'd fly over the rooftops of some of the most expensive real estate in the County. It crossed my mind to get Hainsley-Sihl’s address. Could he afford to live in a prestigious area like Ilsham Marine Drive? It would after all be very convenient to be so close to his business and if he could afford to buy Kents Cavern - a National archaeological treasure - he wasn't exactly short of the price of a cappuccino.
I didn't move for quite some time, lost in my thoughts and conscious that my local knowledge was once again a great help to my job. It was far from the first time. This was more than my patch it was also my heritage and I was determined that Hainsley-Sihl - if it was him was not going to be allowed to harm it.
My advantage was that I didn't just know these streets; I knew the trees like old friends, the short cuts and the hedgerows. He couldn't hide from me here. He didn't know it yet, but he was a fox about to meet the Hunt.
With that thought I turned for home and a quick shower before I joined Henry and Ann Taylor at the Grand Hotel for breakfast as agreed the previous night. They were sat at a table overlooking Torre Abbey beach and had already served themselves from the buffet.
Henry waved at me as I went straight to the food selection. I was hungry, I'd walked further than I had planned and been out there longer too. Something was gnawing at my unconscious mind but I couldn't grasp it as I helped myself to a good solid English breakfast. Something to do with measuring distance as the crow flies.
They were laughing as I sat down, some private joke that wasn't shared with me as we began to discuss the day ahead. “I've just walked over to Kents Cavern and looked the place over to refresh my mind. This Hainsley-Sihl character is a prime suspect as far as I am concerned. Finding someone who fits the bill so perfectly in such an unusual set of circumstances must be rare. We should start with opening a file on him and thoroughly checking him out.” I looked at Ann Taylor and enquired if her information about him contained his current address.
She didn't recall if it did or not but her pad was on the table now and I knew I could safely leave taking Hainsley-Sihl apart to her, it was her area of expertise. By lunchtime I'd know which Chinese laundry he used.
Turning to Henry I asked him if he’d mind spending some time at Torquay's small but excellent museum. He was buttering toast and didn't pause. “I'm happy for you to lead the way Mike. It's your patch. I trust you.” He smiled a warm smile. There wasn't going to be any competition between us at all. He had opted for teamwork and meant to see that decision through.
“As long as we are on the trail of this killer I am content but I need to remind you that I do not think I will be allowed to stay here long. The politicians will be working hard to shut me back inside my own office where they think they have me under their total control whilst they try to make this an exclusively English affair.” He held out the two slices of toast he had carefully buttered on a plate and offered me some, which I took gratefully. Then he offered the plate to Ann and I watched their eyes meet. She was completely twixapated I decided. But who would blame her? He didn't just have one good French suit, he had two!
Today's was even better!
“This is all very different on my side of your English Channel. Its bad news - worse than that it's very old bad news that just refuses to go away. It's what you would call a Hot potato, package to pass from person to person whilst the music plays and no one wants to be holding it when the music stops. Everybody who ever was holding it when the music stopped is retired or driving delivery vans for the local vineyard. I'd like to get on with it as fast as good Police work allows. That's my only real concern this morning. We need to hurry please.”
I was watching him as he spoke and I realised that he was producing more toast and serving us but he wasn't consuming any of it himself. He saw me looking and shrugged. “Shame to waste it huh”
Ann Taylor departed for the Police Station and her further research into Hainsley-Sihl and Henry and I stood on the marble steps of the Grand Hotel and watched her drive away. We talked briefly about how best to move the investigation forward whilst he consumed one of his appalling French cigarettes. He was interested to learn that the recreation area opposite was the home of our local Rugby team. Beyond it in the trees I pointed out Torre Abbey and told him it had been there since 1196. He was duly impressed but I think he was more interested in the Rugby.
“Your newspaper reporters get up early Inspector. They were here before breakfast.” I could hear in his voice that he wasn't happy about that although as Police officers we have to deal with the press all the time and he would be experienced at fobbing them off. “My office in Brussels put out a bulletin about my coming over here, how stupid is that?” Now I understood his anger. “It won’t help that's for certain.” I said. The locals don't need any encouragement. Who came to see you?
“A reporter from something called the 'Western Morning News’ and a photographer of course. Good job I had my new suit on!” He brushed imaginary dust from one shoulder. I grinned, he liked his suits that much was clear. “I told him we had identified the Girl and were conducting some new lines of enquiry. Nothing specific. I hope that is OK with you.” I nodded, “that's fine with me because I already gave the same line to the Herald Express, that's the local Torquay rag.”
We left the car parked by the Railway Station opposite the Hotel and in order to give us a chance to talk through the case in more detail opted to walk along the sea front in the sunshine and around the Marina and up Torwood Street to Torquay's Museum. I told him I was hoping to unearth a small piece of information that had popped into my mind as I stood in front of Kents Cavern. Something from a school trip to the Museum when I was a primary school boy at Ellacombe School. If it was still there. I was able to share my inner thoughts with him, one Copper to another very easily and was glad that he was willing to let my instinct guide us that morning. All he did was nod his head in agreement and say, “Let's check it out!”
The Museum Curator was a small, intelligent man in his late sixties and exactly what you would want to find in his interesting post. An obvious store of all sorts of local information, it didn't take long to explain what I wanted or for him to find it. A map of the underground caves at Kents Cavern that had been hanging on the Museum wall for decades. It was still in the original frame exactly as I had remembered it.
The last time I had seen it I had been around eleven years old and enjoying a day away from Ellacombe School whilst we were escorted first to the Museum and then onto Kents Cavern itself. The map I saw had been drawn in the period 1824 – 1829 by John McEnery the then Chaplain of Torre Abbey who conducted a systematic survey of the Caves at the behest of William Buckland, the first ever reader in Geology at the University of Oxford.
As well as sketching the layout of the huge cave system, McEnery had also sketched the topology locally and it was possible to see where the caves underlay the coastal area between Wellswood and Hope's Nose, a limestone formation like a crest that rose from the Wellswood Valley and protected the valley from the sea to the East.
There were a number of different caves, all linked into one large system and connected by passageways through the limestone rock and I pointed out to Henry that the caves lay under Ilsham drive and ran back beneath the rise that formed Ilsham ridge almost reaching the cliffs above Hope's Nose. He bent and studied the old print with care. I could see he was committing the detail to memory, getting a clear image in his mind, no doubt to match to my own.
“What is your interest in Kents Cavern?” The Curator asked me. “We have all sorts of information about the things that have been found there, it's a very important archaeological site you know. Some of the things that have been found are here in the Museum if you'd like to see them.”
“Oh there was a burglary there back in the summer and I remembered whilst investigating it something we were talking about this morning.” I said. “We were passing and I thought it would be interesting for my friend here to see that drawing, he's interested in old maps and I told him I knew where there was one from 1824. To be honest I'm amazed I even remembered it in the first place and even more amazed it's still here.” Henry was giving me a strange look and I thought he was just surprised by my lame excuse, but then I realised he was trying to make me look at something.
The Curator was rubbing a duster along the edge of the frame before returning the print to the wall and I looked at his hand as Henry silently insisted I look again. It was a moment before I saw the ring on the Curator’s finger. It was an unusual piece of jewellery, antique obviously and somewhat large and ostentatious for so small a man. A thick, heavy gold band supporting a flat gold plate that had a picture inscribed upon it in some sort of black and red stone. There were two figures entwined upon it of which one was recognisable as a depiction of Poseidon exactly as that deity had been drawn upon the body of Madeline Fortune and the other was unmistakably Lucifer.
“Well this is a Museum Inspector, not much leaves after we have collected it.” He looked at me, “no modern mysteries at the Caverns then. I thought I might be helping to solve a crime - something to liven up my dull routine Inspector.”
“Sorry to disappoint you Mr Joplin I don't think there's anything worth stealing in there anymore, looks to me as though you've found all the good bits.” I pointed at the rows of cabinets around the room to illustrate my point. “Anyway I'm on holiday showing my friend here the sights.”
“Well do enjoy the rest of the Museum Inspector - we've an outstanding collection of stuffed birds of prey you know, mostly local species at one time or another.”
“Is that your area of special interest then?” I asked. I didn't want Henry to speak and give away his Belgian origin. Suddenly it was important to keep that knowledge from the Curator.
“Oh no I don't really like them myself to be honest - not really what I call interesting. I am interested in religious history personally Inspector. My private research is all about Torre Abbey - there's eight hundred years to study there you know. The building of it was commenced in the twelfth century by Premonstratensian Canons. It's particularly interesting at the moment as the recent refurbishment and repairs have brought a lot of new insights to those of us who are dedicated to it.”
We both gave him a suitably impressed look and I thanked him for his time and apologised that he had thought my visit was official. We shook hands and he departed into the vaults or wherever he hid from the light of modern times - but not before I got another good look at that ring.
Outside on Torwood Street another dreadful French cigarette was subjected to the flames it deserved for smelling like that and we had to decide between walking back to the car or carrying on up the road and walking to Kents Cavern itself. “It's a quarter of an hour’s stroll and we can always have someone pick us up,” I said as we both elected to walk.
“To those of us who are dedicated to it- a strange choice of words don't' you think Mike?” Henry hadn't missed it. “Your miniature Curator with the odd choice in jewellery is a friend of your excommunicated Priest and he was worried about our having an interest in his Cavern.”
“Perhaps we ought to postpone our visit then?” I said, but I was still thinking about it and in the end we decided to go on. If they knew we were interested there was no point now in hiding it.
Slowly but surely some of the case was unravelling but we still had not a shred of real evidence. We discussed our options as Torwood Street became the Babbacombe Road and then Ilsham Road and the gentle slope down to Kents Cavern. On our left as we walked down the hill was the start of the ridge that formed Ilsham Rise. Mostly tree covered it extended all the way down to Meadfoot Beach. It was cut by several roads of expensive addresses and bordered upon our side of the road first by a row of retail premises and further down below the Cavern by a large open space of grass, a favoured place for locals to walk their dogs.
My thoughts of earlier in the day crystallised and I realised what there had been about 'as the crow flies' that had been bugging me. I stopped Henry at the foot of the drive to the Cavern and pointed up across the road to the tree-line opposite on top of the ridge. “When I was here earlier I tried to visualise this as a crow would fly it, get some idea of the distance between here and Hope's Nose.” He nodded and waited for me to continue. “The tree-line up there is on the edge of the cliffs above the Nose, that's how close we are. I was thinking of crows flying but what was really in my mind was how far beneath that ridge these caves run. In the museum we saw that they go more than half way, do you agree?”
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