by Carola Dunn
“Yes, perhaps I will. But what do you think, Nick?”
“According to what I’ve heard, everything’s under control.”
“Why didn’t you say so right away?” she asked, indignant.
“I didn’t know what you were worrying about until you told me.”
“What did you hear? Who from?”
“That cub reporter of yours. What’s his name? The laddie from the North Cornwall Times.”
“David Skan? How does he know what’s happening? What is happening?”
“The press have their ways. He snoops on the police radio and has a pal at Coast Guard HQ in Falmouth, I gather. Megan and the RNLI have found the Indians.”
“Oh, thank heavens! What about Kalith’s mother?”
“I don’t know, Eleanor. He said no names were mentioned. They’ve sent a helicopter to lift someone out.”
Eleanor shivered. The day seemed darker. Not only an emotional reaction, she realised; clouds were rolling in, hiding the sun. Nick lit the gas fire.
“Megan’s all right?”
“Nothing’s been said about a police officer in difficulties. I’m sure Skan will be back, and you can interrogate him. It was you he wanted to see in the first place.”
“Me!”
“Well, you’re the one who’s getting herself talked about in Boscastle. Apparently half the inhabitants are convinced you dived into the sea and single-handed pulled this chappy out. Skan’s not so naïve as to believe it, but it does make a better story than a mere police officer—even a woman police officer—performing a daring rescue.”
“He wouldn’t dare to print that!”
“I wouldn’t put it past him. Carefully worded so as not to be downright untruth. You’ll probably have to bribe him with a few choice tidbits.”
“Oh, Nick! What did you tell him?”
“Me? Nothing!” Nick said innocently. “But when he didn’t find you at home, he didn’t come straight to me; he went to find Mrs. Stearns.”
“Who wasn’t in either.”
“So he talked to the vicar.”
“Oh, no!” Eleanor gasped in horror.
“Who seems to have given him the impression that you’d gone off to Truro to make a citizen’s arrest of the bishop—”
The telephone extension rang.
“On what charge, he didn’t seem to be certain. Quite puzzled, the poor man, and Skan, too. Though he assumed you’d get the Truro police to do the job, not attempt it yourselves. That’ll be Mrs. Stearns, no doubt. Hello? Yes, she is. We were expecting you to ring.” He handed the receiver to Eleanor.
“Jocelyn?”
“Have you talked to that newspaperman?”
“No, dear. You know I only came home a few minutes ago.”
“Home! That’s where I first tried to get hold of you.”
“Came to Nick’s, rather.”
“What has Nicholas told him?”
“Nothing, he says.”
“He didn’t tell him you and I intended to arrest the bishop?”
Nick, who was hovering close, shook his head, grinning.
“Certainly not.”
“Then where did Timothy get hold of such a ridiculous notion? The poor man is extremely worried!”
“Joce, what did you tell him—the vicar—about where we were going and what for?”
“I don’t recall exactly, but certainly not that … I suppose he might have got a little confused. But Eleanor, he says it’s going to be in the paper! He’s afraid he’ll be asked to resign his cure, if not be defrocked! What am I going to do?”
Eleanor covered the receiver and hissed at Nick, “What’s a cure?”
“A parish, sort of. If the vicar’s talking about it.”
“Jocelyn, for pity’s sake, they wouldn’t print something like that without checking. They don’t want to be sued for slander.”
“Libel,” Nick whispered.
“For libel. I have no doubt whatsoever that Mr. Skan will turn up again on your doorstep or mine to— In fact, Nick’s doorbell is ringing. I bet you anything that’s him. I’ll ring you back. After the weather forecast.” Was Megan still at sea, in a gathering storm? Perhaps David Skan would know.
“If it’s him, you’re prepared to talk to him?” Nick asked.
“Yes. I want to know what he knows—and what he thinks he knows.”
Nick went running downstairs, leaving the door at the top open. From below came the jangle of his shop bell as he opened the street door, then two pairs of footsteps ascended the stairs.
Eleanor heard him say firmly, “And you’re not to pester her, or you’ll be out on your ear!”
“Not to worry,” said the jaunty voice of the cub reporter. “It’s a good story, whichever way she wants to play it.” He appeared at the top, his bush of white-blond hair as vigorous as ever, camera slung round his neck. “Hello, Mrs. Trewynn. I hear your niece is a heroine and you’ve turned detective again!”
“You’ve got half of it right, Mr. Skan.”
“That’s what I thought. Plenty of sources for the lifesaving—though you’re the only actual witness I’ve talked to, Mr. Gresham—but I treat anything the Reverend Stearns tells me with great caution.”
“How wise of you,” said Nick mockingly. “Have a seat. Tea? Beer?”
“A beer would go down nicely, thanks. Tell me about your visit to Truro, Mrs. Trewynn.”
“It was related to church matters. You’d hardly expect Mrs. Stearns to discuss that sort of thing with me. I went along only to keep her company. She picked me up in Port Isaac on her way, you see, after Megan went off in the lifeboat.”
Skan pounced. “So DS Pencarrow did go out with the lifeboats. Cheers,” he added, as Nick handed him an opened bottle.
Bother! Eleanor thought. She must be more careful not to reveal facts he might not already have acquired. Too late to take that one back. “Yes, and I’m very worried about her. It was fine when they left, but it looks now as if a storm is blowing in. Nick, let’s listen to the weather.”
Nick turned on his transistor just in time to catch the beginning of the weather and shipping forecasts. Skan started to speak, but Eleanor put her finger to her lips and they listened in silence, Nick and the reporter swigging now and then from their bottles. Young people these days didn’t seem to bother with glasses.
At the end, Eleanor asked, “We’re Lundy, aren’t we, Nick?”
“Yes. Wind thirty-five knots with gusts to fifty, heavy seas and squalls expected.”
“Don’t let it worry you,” Skan said cheerfully. “They’ll all be on land by the time it starts really blowing. According to my Coast Guard source, the Padstow lifeboat’s expected to arrive home between half six and seven, and the other two are already in.” He glanced at his watch. “In fact, I’d better get going. I’m supposed to meet the Padstow boat. I’ll come back afterwards for a word with you, Mrs. Trewynn. Thanks for the beer, mate. Cheerio!”
He dashed off before Eleanor had a chance to say she was rather tired and would prefer to speak to him tomorrow. “Bother! I know he’s inescapable, but I’d have liked to get it over with. Did he tell you, earlier, anything else he’d heard from his Coast Guard source?”
“I refused to describe Megan’s gallant rescue until he spilled the beans. He hasn’t got on to Julia and Chaz yet, so I was his only source for that, and I didn’t give him their surnames. According to him, the lifeboats rescued about a dozen people.”
“Thank heaven! I’ve been so afraid they wouldn’t find anyone and we’d never know for sure … Or worse, the boy would wake up and confirm what he’d said, and it would be too late … What about his mother?”
“I don’t know for sure, but as I said, the rescue helicopter winched up someone, a seriously ill woman, and took her to hospital.”
“Surely that must be her. I wonder if she’s gone to the same hospital as Kalith. Did Mr. Skan tell you where they took her?”
“No. Perhaps he didn’t know, but
he was holding his cards close to his chest. He wouldn’t tell me anything at all until I swore an oath of secrecy.”
“Oh dear, then you shouldn’t have told me. Though I’m very glad you did.”
“Megan’s sure to if I don’t. Schoolboy stuff, anyway, ‘oath of secrecy,’ my foot! And idiotic. As if it won’t all be common knowledge by the time his paper comes out.”
“Writing for a weekly must cramp his style.”
“Another thing he didn’t mention: I’m not sure whether he knows they’re Indian. Or at least that our lad is. If it comes out, the inspector can’t blame me.”
“What with the ambulance men and the hospital people, not to mention the lifeboat crew, he’ll have plenty of possible leaks to blame, though they’re not supposed to talk about patients. Perhaps Jocelyn can find out which hospital Mrs. Chudasama was flown to. She’s as much a parishioner as Kalith, after all. I wonder whether Joce has thought to ring up and ask how Kalith is doing. I’d better give her a ring and remind her, and ask her to try and find out where his mother—”
“Eleanor, we don’t know that it was Kalith’s mother. I hate to be the one to break it to you, but Skan said there was a body, too.”
“Oh! Oh no!”
“Whisky,” said Nick, jumping up and going to the cupboard whence had appeared the beer. “I’ve got a half-bottle for emergencies.”
“I’m perfectly all right.”
“No soda, though. But I seem to remember you prefer water?”
“Yes,” Eleanor admitted. Whisky was a rare indulgence and she really had felt quite faint for a moment. She pulled herself together, accepting the coffee mug Nick handed her.
“Sorry. I really must buy a few glasses now that I can afford such frivolities.”
“There are always some going for practically nothing in the shop.” She took a sip. It tasted just the same from a mug. “I’ll ask Jocelyn to pick you out a nice matching half dozen. Oh, Nick, I don’t think I can cope with Joce again today. Fond of her as I am, she can be quite exhausting. But I said I’d ring her, so I’d better go home and get it over with.”
“Be my guest.” Nick waved at his phone.
“I don’t want to run up your bill.”
“There’s your excuse for not talking too long.”
“All right. Thanks. Do you mind if I tell her what David Skan told you?”
“If a vicar’s wife can’t be trusted not to spread gossip, who can?” he asked rhetorically.
The vicarage phone rang several times before Timothy Stearns answered, his hesitant voice as always sounding as if he wasn’t at all sure that the number he was giving actually corresponded with the one printed on the dial.
“Hello, Vicar. Sorry to bother you. It’s Eleanor—Eleanor Trewynn.” One could never be too specific with the Reverend Stearns. “May I speak to Jocelyn, please?” She almost added Joce’s surname.
“I’m so sorry, she’s not here. She just went out. In fact, I thought—Could I be mistaken?—I was under the impression that she said she was coming to see you.”
“I expect you’re right,” Eleanor said, resigned. “No doubt she’ll be here in a couple of minutes. Thank you, Vicar. Good-bye.” She was always punctilious about saying good-bye to him when she hung up. Otherwise, his devoted spouse had informed her, he was liable to clutch the receiver saying, “Hello? Hello?” in increasingly despondent tones for some time.
“I’ll tell her you left,” Nick offered.
“You must be mad! She’d go next door and ring my doorbell—and probably go upstairs as I wouldn’t be surprised if I forgot to lock up—and when she found I wasn’t there, she’d call out the police to search for me. She’d be convinced the smugglers had got me.”
He laughed.
“No, seriously,” Eleanor assured him. “She was very upset when I went to look for smugglers in Boscastle. She warned me it was dangerous. And now it turns out there really are smugglers prepared to leave all those people to die, she’ll be quite sure they’re after me.”
TWENTY-ONE
The cabin of the Daisy D. was not the ideal place for police interviews. However, Coxswain Kulick had told Megan the lifeboat was to be met in Padstow by an ambulance or two and a minibus to bundle everyone off to hospital. After their ordeal, some if not all would need medical attention.
A hospital was a still less hospitable environment for questioning witnesses than a crowded cabin, even though the cabin was pitching and rolling. At least the motion was regular now. Megan was pleased to find it didn’t bother her, and most of the Indians seemed able to cope. A lifeboat man was dealing kindly and efficiently with the three who couldn’t.
The taciturn Charles had distributed blankets. He and Gavin handed round hot drinks. Megan was glad to warm her hands on a mug of bouillon.
The obvious person to begin with was Mr. Nayak. For a start, he spoke English. Also, he appeared to have some authority, perhaps as the eldest, as well as having been the one to stay behind to make sure his ailing sister was cared for and to keep watch over the body of his father.
He was between a middle-aged woman and a man of about Megan’s own age, perhaps a couple of years younger. The older pair both sat slumped on the bench, scarcely aware of her approach. The young man stood up and came towards her.
“How do you do,” he said formally. He sounded more like an English colonial expat than an Indian. “May I introduce myself? I’m Ajay Nayak. You’re Miss Pencarrow, I think?”
“Yes,” Megan admitted, not sure whether being Miss Pencarrow was a good thing in his eyes or a bad. Had someone told him she was a police officer? She shook hands. “How do you do.”
“I’m told you saved my cousin Kalith’s life, and so, all of us.”
“I got him out of the sea, with a lot of help. Whether I saved his life … I haven’t heard the latest news. He was pretty ill when I last saw him.”
“But thanks to you and to him, the rest of us have been rescued. Except for my grandfather. He chose to stop eating as soon as the shortage of food became obvious, so that the children and my sister could have more.”
“He and Kalith are responsible for your survival.”
“Kalith is the only one of us able to swim. He used to go swimming with the black children, much to the family’s horror, though secretly I envied his boldness.”
This was all very well, but it wasn’t getting Megan any further. The Daisy D. was ploughing steadily towards Padstow. She glanced at the elder Nayak. He had closed his eyes. His son, on the other hand, was alert and seemed cooperative.
“Sir—”
“Please call me Jay.”
“I should tell you that I’m a police officer.”
“So was I.” He grinned sourly. “But they’re all African now, except the top brass—white, of course. And I don’t suppose they’ll be there long, but at least they’ll be able to come to Britain when they’re kicked out.”
“I’m sorry.” Megan paused. “But you’ll understand why I’ve got to ask questions, and the sooner the better.”
“Yes.” He looked around the cabin, where his family were variously talking, brooding, dozing, or being sick. “Not here.”
“Let’s see if Coxswain Kulick will let us have a corner of the wheelhouse. I don’t fancy out on deck.”
“Nor do I.” He followed her up the winding stair.
At her request, the skipper waved them over to the chart board. She took out her notebook. “I’m Megan. Also known as DS Pencarrow.”
“I was a sergeant. Not detective, but still … Do you suppose—No, it’s no good trying to guess what will happen to us. At least most of us are alive. You want to know how we came to be in such a mess. I take it you know about the situation in Kenya and Uganda?”
“Roughly.”
“My grandfather chose British citizenship for the family, but we didn’t come here soon enough and they changed the rules. We didn’t have any choice about leaving Africa. I was sacked from the police and we
were forced to sell our family business. At a huge loss, of course. Africanisation. We came to Britain, with British passports in our hands. I can show them to you.”
“That’s all right, I believe you. Though you’ll have to produce them sometime, of course.”
“For all the use they are,” he commented bitterly. “After we were turned away, we tried other places, without success. We were back in Mombasa … well, not exactly in Mombasa.”
“How do you mean?”
“In the harbour, on board a tramp steamer. They wouldn’t let us land. A sailor came to us, a lascar, as they call Indian sailors, and told us he’d met a man on shore who had offered to get us into Britain. For a price, naturally. I should say, my grandfather had the foresight to move much of the family’s assets abroad before it was too late. We had to leave most of our belongings behind when we were taken, at dead of night, by water to a larger ship. A freighter.”
“Its name?” asked Megan, pencil poised.
Jay shook his head. “Everything that might have given it away was covered.”
“Damn. An elementary precaution, I suppose. But you must have been on board for some time. Surely—”
“We were taken down to a hold. In one corner, they’d built three rooms out of plywood. Easily dismantled. Electric light. No plumbing, but a cubicle with what you’d call basic facilities. Very decent, really. We managed quite well. That’s why I didn’t expect and can’t understand—Why go to all that trouble?”
“We’ll find out,” Megan said grimly. “Go on.”
“They fed us well enough. We had the same food as the lascar seamen. They told us the purser provided rations for us.”
“That suggests everyone aboard knew about your presence.”
“Such was my impression, though I never heard anyone say so outright.”
“Maybe one of your family did. Did you talk with the lascars in English, or in your own language?”
“They spoke what you might call sailors’ English and sailors’ Hindi. Our native language is Gujarati. Among us, we have varying abilities in English, Hindi, and Swahili. I myself have little Hindi.”