by Carola Dunn
“Tom?”
“Coxswain Kulick, the skipper.”
“Kulick? That doesn’t sound English.”
“He’s Polish, or was. He got out of Poland as the Nazis and the Commies moved in, in ’39, and joined the Wavy Navy, the RNVR. After the war he went into the Coast Guard. Then, when he retired, he came over to the RNLI. He can explain your map to Jackson, skipper of the Lucy, the Bude boat. It has farther to come than we do. You all right, Megan?”
“I think so,” Megan said uncertainly. She had been perfectly all right until the boat started skipping across the crests of the waves.
“Watch the horizon,” Maggie suggested, pointing westward.
Megan looked, but the sight of the clouds, already a band rather than a line, was not encouraging, so she turned her gaze to the east. The dark band in that direction was cliffs. Unfortunately, they jigged up and down to the motion of the boat. She closed her eyes, but the uneasiness in her middle immediately became queasiness. She’d just have to put up with the sight of the advancing front. It was definitely an improvement on watching the waves go up and down.
By the time they rounded Tintagel Head, some twenty minutes later, Megan was beginning to adjust to the motion. The Belinda’s course curved eastward, standing clear of a group of offshore islets Maggie told her were the Sisters.
“And that’s Lye Rock,” the skipper pointed out. “You can see the cleft separating it from the headland. That’s where one of your aunt’s caves is supposed to be.”
Megan glanced at the narrow “gut,” as Aunt Nell’s smuggler had called it, but she was more interested in the view ahead, where a black-and-orange ship stood out like a hornet against the speedwell-blue sea.
“The Daisy D. Maggie, signal her and tell her we’re coming alongside.”
Maggie announced their imminent arrival and asked for permission to board, which was duly granted.
To Megan’s relief, as they approached the Daisy D. it shrunk from a distant monster to quite a small ship. She had envisioned making a fool of herself trying to climb the side of a vessel towering over the tiny inflatable. It turned out to be only about three times the length of the Belinda, though much more solid, with a wooden hull and a considerable superstructure, painted orange. Aerials sprouted here and there.
Larkin handed over the controls to Walter, who manoeuvred Belinda alongside the all-weather boat. Magically, he held her in position about a foot from the larger boat’s side as both rose and fell with the swell. A crewman stood by on the Daisy D.—to help with the crossing, Megan hoped. He wore a life jacket like those of Belinda’s crew but with yellow waterproof trousers instead of a dry suit and without a helmet.
“Think you can make it, Megan?” Larkin asked.
“Yes,” said Megan with confidence. She had forgotten her borrowed garb. It hampered her movements, she lost her balance, and in spite of a boost from the skipper and the crewman on the Daisy D. grabbing her arm, she landed on hands and knees on the deck. Not the dignified appearance she would have liked to present.
She hoped Coxswain Kulick wasn’t watching. If he was sceptical about what Kalith had said to her and didn’t really believe there was a family in danger, or if he scoffed at Aunt Nell’s map, she needed to present a competent appearance, cool, calm, and collected, to persuade him.
“All right, miss?” The sailor helped her up and released her arm.
“Yes, thank you. I’m not really RNLI. I was lent these clothes and they don’t fit. I’m a copper—Detective Sergeant Pencarrow.”
He grinned. “A landlubber, eh? The coxswain’s expecting you, Sergeant. And you, Coxswain Larkin,” he added, as the Belinda’s skipper swung himself aboard. He waved them towards the wheelhouse at the rear. Stern? Aft?
Larkin led the way, one hand on the safety rail, the other ripping open the Velcroed breast pocket of his jacket and taking out the map and his chart.
“Afternoon, Tom.” He handed them over to the Daisy D.’s skipper, a grizzled man who looked tired. “This is DS Pencarrow. She’ll explain the map to you. I won’t stop. We must get going before the tide starts to rise.” To Megan, he said, “No sense you coming till we find them.”
“I’d only get in your way,” she agreed. She stepped into the wheelhouse out of his way, and he went back to the Belinda. A moment later, she heard the roar of the outboard.
“Steady as she goes, Gavin,” Kulick told the helmsman. Unfolding the map and Larkin’s chart, he pinned them up on his chart board and beckoned Megan to join him. “Right, Sergeant, let’s hear it.” He rolled his rrr’s like a Scot, or, Megan supposed, like a Pole.
Megan explained that the arrows on the map showed the locations of the secret caves once used by smugglers. “I gather they can’t be seen from offshore, except the middle one, which looks as if it’s full of water whatever the tide level.” She described the secrets of the three.
“And just how did you happen to find out?”
“My aunt was told by a descendant of a family with a tradition of smuggling in the old days.”
“It all sounds pretty unlikely, you must admit. And this story about people being stuck in one of them? The Coast Guard didn’t mention hidden caves when we were called out in the middle of the night.”
“In the middle of the night? What did they expect you to do in the dark?”
“We have searchlights. We might have found survivors in a small boat. But mostly to be on hand when the inshore boats arrived at dawn. We’re considerably slower and had farther to come. We got out of Padstow just before the fog closed down.”
“Then they couldn’t come out and you couldn’t go back.”
“Exactly. We’ve been sitting here since, waiting, so you see why I’m not happy about the unreliability of your information. Not just these mysterious caves; I understand the alarm came from the chap you rescued, who’s suffering from concussion.”
“Sir, I’m convinced that when he told me he was lucid. What he didn’t say was whereabouts on the coast his family is. It’s the Coast Guard and your people who pinned it down to Bossiney Cove.”
The coxswain sighed. “Well, we’re here and we’re searching. I just—”
“Skipper,” came a shout from the deck, “the Lucy’s in sight.”
“The Bude boat.” The skipper acknowledged the sighting and logged it. A moment later, the Lucy was on the radio.
Megan gathered she was going to have to explain everything to yet another sceptical skipper. She needed a break first. “I’m just going to step out and see if I can see what the Belinda’s doing.”
Kulick nodded consent.
“Here.” The helmsman handed her binoculars.
“Thanks!” She went out on deck. Behind her, she heard Kulick reporting by radio to the Falmouth Coast Guard.
It took her a minute to focus the powerful glasses. Then the cliffs sprang to life. At the top, rough turf, gorse, and bracken sloped down steeply to end in a sudden vertical plunge. She saw in minute detail every crack, every seam, every crease and hollow in the rock face. She could almost count the blades of grass where thin soil, no doubt bountifully fertilised by seabirds, had collected on shelves and protuberances. A herring gull perched on one such knob seemed to stare her in the eye.
Sweeping the scene, Megan saw the beach at Bossiney Haven, difficult to get to and exposed only at low tide. All the same, anyone stranded in its well-known, thoroughly explored cave would be able to walk out next time the tide ebbed. Today the fog would have kept away beachgoers.
As she scanned along the ragged white line where sea met land, every indentation in the shoreline seemed to have a black hole at its heart, revealing a cave wherever softer rock had been worn away by pounding waves. Searching all of them would take forever. Now she realised fully the importance of Aunt Nell’s discoveries.
Larkin had spoken of trying the Lye Rock gut cave first. She turned the glasses to the southeast end of the cove, and at once the brilliant orange inflatable sprang i
nto view.
It was hard to judge from a distance, but the Belinda seemed to be moving slowly, cautiously. Two of the crew—Maggie and Walter, she thought—were in the bow, leaning over to peer into the water. The skipper, at the helm, made constant small course adjustments. Dodging rocks. Here and there, whitecaps marked the presence of obstacles just beneath the surface. At least it was a bright day. With the sun’s rays penetrating the water, they should be able to see to quite a depth.
From Megan’s position, the gut itself wasn’t visible. She wondered how soon the tide would fill it with water.
A buzzing in the background turned into a roar as the Bude lifeboat approached, then dropped to a hum as she drew alongside. Megan lowered the glasses and stood back to let Coxswain Jackson board.
He swung up, nodded to Megan, and went into the wheelhouse. He was all business. Standing in the doorway, she watched and listened as Kulick showed him the map and chart and described the hidden caves. He didn’t ask for explanations, just said, “Pete Larkin is over to Lye Rock? Lucy’d better tackle the northernmost first, right?”
“Right. Watch out for lobster pots.”
Jackson swung back into his inflatable and it buzzed off towards the upper end of the cove.
The radio woke again. After the ritual exchange of boat numbers, Larkin’s distorted voice announced, “They’ve found the cave. No response to shouts. The mouth is dry, but Walter’s belaying Maggie’s line while she goes in. Hold on…” A moment’s pause, then, “Bingo! Tom, they hear someone in there all right. Over.”
“I’m redirecting Lucy, Pete. She’ll join you in five minutes or so. Over and out.” Kulick spoke to Jackson. Megan saw the Bude inflatable turn, her wake inscribing an arc behind her.
Larkin was back. “Sorry, false alarm. Just an echo. No one there. We’ll move on to the middle cave as soon as Walter and Maggie get back aboard.”
“Right. Jackson, you hear that?”
“I heard. We’re turning north again.”
Megan watched Lucy’s wake complete the arc. “I should have guessed it wouldn’t be the Lye Rock cave,” she said to Kulick.
“Why? How could you?”
“It’s perfect for smugglers, who can—could—choose when to go there. Access from both the open sea and the cove, isn’t there? But the cove end of the gut is dry at low tide, I gather. The refugees, once they realised no one was coming for them, could have walked out to the end and conceivably attracted attention. A lobster fisherman, or someone on the cliffs with binoculars.”
“A pretty slim chance, with just a couple of hours once a day.”
“But a chance the bastards who marooned them couldn’t take.”
“You really believe that’s what happened?”
“It’s the simplest explanation, sir. And we haven’t found any other that fits what little we know.”
“I was a refugee myself.” Kulick was silent for a moment. “I, for one, will keep searching till there’s nowhere left to look.”
“Believe me, my boss is not going to give up on catching those responsible!”
Stepping outside, Megan focussed the glasses on the Lucy. She was approaching with caution an area of ruffled water between the cliff and the offshore Saddle Rocks. There, even at slack tide, the ever-restless sea swirled and broke in white spray.
Presumably Jackson knew what he was doing. She watched apprehensively for a few minutes. The Lucy slowed to a crawl and her course zigzagged wildly.
Megan couldn’t bear to watch. If they came to grief, she could do nothing to help. She looked for the Belinda.
Pete Larkin’s boat was also moving slowly, approaching a small cove notched in the cliffs, between two sloping headlands. Though the cove was shadowed, Megan made out within these sheltering arms one of the black holes she had noticed earlier. Not so sheltering arms, she thought. They hadn’t stopped the sea battering the less resistant rock in the middle, digging it out, undermining it.
Undermining—was that the explanation of the northern cave, the one concealed behind a barricade of solid stone? Perhaps, long ago, a slab of rock deprived of support had slid down the face of the cliff, leaving a space between but effectively hiding the entrance to the cave. Other boulders might have fallen at the same time, creating the turbulent area that further blocked access.
Megan swung the glasses back to Lucy. She seemed to have stopped moving forward, but it was hard to tell. Amid the white foam, a wake was impossible to detect.
Belinda also was surrounded by whitecaps now. So, come to that, was the Daisy D. The tentative breeze that had cleared the fog was blowing in earnest, though still no more than a stiff breeze. The sea was choppy. The motion of the all-weather boat became irregular enough to disturb Megan’s insides.
Damn it all, she was not going to give way to seasickness just when she’d attained her sea legs. Mind over matter, she told herself sternly. She concentrated on the now difficult task of finding Belinda again through the jerking binoculars.
There she was, framed by the black mouth of the cave.
The radio squawked. “Tom, underwater to the back, as far as we can see. Hope the sergeant’s right. We’re going in. May lose reception.”
“Get it done before the big rollers start coming in.”
“We’ll try.”
As Megan watched, the cave swallowed the inflatable.
“Jackson?”
“Not smooth sailing here, old man. We’re considering our options.”
“Your decision. Pete?”
Larkin’s voice was more distorted than ever, and fainter. “Can just hear you. Nearly … By Jerry, it looks … sergeant … right … sort of buttress…” He faded out.
“Pete, come in. Pete, can you hear me?” They listened to the hiss of the static. “Lost him. Well, Sergeant, it sounds as if your aunt got a straight story from her smuggler.”
“Two out of three.”
“So far. But whether—”
“Tom!” Very faintly, then stronger: “Tom, are you there?”
“Here. What’s up?”
“… ten or more, Maggie says. My God! Hold on half a mo … One dead, one too ill to walk. Oh, dear God! We need a chopper.”
“Understood. I’ll tell Falmouth, Pete, and send the Lucy.”
Ten. Mother, father, uncles, aunts, and cousins, children … Megan hadn’t really believed it. In spite of her insistence on Kalith Chudasama’s lucidity, in spite of her trust in Aunt Nell, the whole thing had seemed too far-fetched for credibility. How she had persuaded her boss and how he had persuaded the Coast Guard and the RNLI, she couldn’t imagine.
But apparently it was true. And now she had to put her money where her mouth was. To collect evidence for what might end up as a murder trial, she was going to have to venture into that cave.
NINETEEN
The news that his long vigil had not been for nothing erased the lines of tiredness from Kulick’s face and straightened his back. He talked via radio to the Coast Guard and the Lucy, then turned to Megan. “So you’ll be wanting to look round the scene of the crime, Sergeant?”
“Yes, sir. Though ‘wanting’ isn’t the word I’d choose. I ought to ask a few questions first, though, when they bring them out. Assuming they speak English.”
The Daisy D.’s skipper shook his head. “That’ll have to wait till after. The sooner we get you in and out, the safer.”
“Because of the tide?”
“It’s turned. And the wind’s rising. Once the swells start rolling into the cave, it’ll be too dangerous. It’s bad enough already for trained personnel. If it wasn’t a matter of life and death … We’re too late for one of the poor devils. You heard?”
“Yes. That’s why it’s urgent that I see the place. The sooner we get to work, the better chance we’ll have of collecting evidence. As far as we’re concerned, finding the people is only the first step. Hell, I haven’t got a camera, let alone a fingerprint kit!”
“Can’t manage the kit, bu
t a camera we can do. Go down and ask one of the chaps in the cabin.” He waved to a narrow staircase—companionway—in one corner of the wheelhouse.
“Thanks.” Megan had seen two or three crewmen pop up out of nowhere and as many disappear downward but she hadn’t paid much attention.
“Gavin, it’s time you were spelled. Take the sergeant down, would you? And find the camera for her. You can send Charlie up to take the wheel.” Kulick took it over himself in the interim.
“Okay, Skipper.” Gavin was a rather weedy young man, with pimples and limp, longish hair, but he couldn’t be all bad if he volunteered with the RNLI, and he’d lent her his binoculars, too. “Watch your feet, Sergeant. The steps shouldn’t be wet and slippery in these seas, but you never can tell.”
The calm sea was definitely becoming agitated. The Daisy D. now moved in unpredictable twitches. Megan took an uncertain step towards the companionway.
“Maybe I’d better go first,” Gavin said hurriedly, tactful enough not to add that he’d be able to catch her if she fell.
Megan slid her hand along the metal stair rail as she descended, and clung to it for a moment when she reached the bottom, steadying herself. Gavin hadn’t touched it on his way down.
The cabin was surprisingly spacious, though gloomy. It even had a tiny galley. A kettle steamed on the gimballed Calor gas stove. A bald, burly man, made burlier by his life jacket, was unwrapping Oxo and chicken soup cubes, popping them into a varying array of mugs. He looked round as Gavin, followed by Megan, arrived below.
“How many are we expecting?”
“Better be ready for a dozen or so. Right, Sergeant?”
“That’s what it sounds like. DS Pencarrow,” she introduced herself. “Megan.”
“I’m Charlie, and that’s Charles.” He waved at another crewman, who gave a silent nod and went on taking multicoloured blankets out of a locker, piling them on the waterproof-cushioned bench. “Better take a seat, Megan, while you can. Coffee?”
“I’d love some, thanks.”
“Charlie, the skipper wants you at the wheel.”
“I’ll take him up a coffee. Gavin, you take charge here. Rout out a few more mugs. Better not pour till they start coming aboard, though.”