Hell's Mouth

by BATEMAN, A P

  Five people changed all of that. For a while, Cornwall had its very own Bodrum. The bodies of the Elmaleh family were found on beaches and rocky sections of coastline from Maenporth to The Manacles, a notoriously dangerous section of reef on The Lizard. Qasim was forty-five-years-old, a doctor and back in his home town of Aleppo, he ran a successful practice, drove a Mercedes and had coached football to under eleven year-old boys. But that was before the war broke out. During the war he had operated on and treated casualties, unpaid, in a city hospital. He moved around a lot, because Syrian government forces and Russian pilots targeted the hospitals. He was an expert in his field as a paediatrician and had studied medicine in both Britain and France. He had even been educated at Oxford for a year on an exchange program. His wife, Yara was also a doctor, who had trained in France. She was thirty-nine, but had taken a career break to bring up their three children. Girls, Amira, aged Twelve and Fatima, aged Eleven and their boy Mohammed, aged ten. She never managed to get her career back on track because of the war, but she assisted her husband in theatre when she could.

  It was a tragic story, but one the West was becoming increasingly used to. A family drowned while seeking asylum. The remains of a torn rubber dingy was found on The Manacles. No possessions had been recovered. The bodies had no identification on them, but photo-fits and artist’s impressions were made and distributed, largely on social media, and because of Qasim’s humanitarian work in Syria, he was soon identified. No arrangements were made to collect the bodies. They had no family in the UK, and no family left alive in Syria. A tragic end to a family who had lived and witnessed more than anybody should. And with the Elmaleh’s, an entire family line had ended.

  O’Bryan read the reports from a variety of newspapers. The journalism varied in both approach and quality, the local press carried the story on for a while. It was a weekly paper and O’Bryan saw five pieces in all. Nothing new appeared in any of the articles. The last story sparked mentions from the national papers. Cornwall had overwhelmingly voted out of Europe in the referendum, dubbed Brexit. It hadn’t done the Duchy much good, the entire county was seen as small-minded and racist, as much of the south of England had voted to remain. The article mentioned the excessive price of Cornish homes, the high percentage of second homes and holiday lets, the lower than average wages and general employment challenges faced by the Cornish. In truth, Brexit was a cry for help with the British government. The Cornish felt marginalised, despite good funding from the EU. O’Bryan read with interest, considering the fact that he sat in the garden of a second home, in a village that was left three-quarters empty during the winter months. The locals in Barlooe worried if their pub would last with such a drop in winter trade. A real problem for villages all over the county. Cornwall had its problems, and all the papers enjoyed a good racist story. Racial hate had come in a form nobody had foreseen.

  Good people had stepped up in time and raised both funds and awareness, that this Muslim family would suffer great indignity if they were cremated. Burial was the only method acceptable, and people from the Muslim community came forward with the finances, and arrangements were made for worshipers from a local Mosque to wash and wrap the bodies in an Islamic burial ceremony and a family burial site was secured at the council-run graveyard at Swanvale in the coastal town of Falmouth. It was to most people’s horror that the grave was vandalised. Small-minded racially-driven actions by people in a county that had voted out of Europe. Brexit had been hijacked by remain voters who pointed a racist finger at anyone who wanted to change the status quo with Europe. The people who wanted a halt to immigration, to secure the country’s borders had spoken. Cornwall never saw immigration, other than Polish workers who came to pick and harvest what would have ruined in the ground if it had been left to local workers. What Cornwall wanted was recognition from the country’s government and a halt to fishing quotas, as well as more freedoms within agriculture. Nevertheless, the county was seen as a last bastion for the small-minded and now the national papers had their racism articles written and published. From a news angle, it could not have gone better.

  O’Bryan put down a piece by The Daily Mail. It was as sensational as it had been possible to write. He rubbed his eyes gently. The bruising had come out overnight. He looked a sight. His face was swollen, his right eye puffed shut and he had a split on his top lip. He had chipped a tooth at the back and it felt sharp and rough when he probed it with his tongue. Which was all the time, now that he knew it was there. He drank more coffee, stared out across the ebbing expanse of water. The thought of that poor family, desperate enough to embark on such a dangerous journey, so close at the end. So near, yet so far. They must have been terrified. He looked back at the police and coastguard reports. He made a few notes. He had questions that needed answering. The reports were too light in his opinion. Conveniently so.

  6

  O’Bryan drove the Alfa Romeo through Barlooe, the burble of the exhaust note echoing off the houses as he briefly travelled parallel with the creek. He wondered if the noise had anything to do with the empty houses. The Creekside houses were large and constructed primarily of glass, chrome and seasoned wood. All hard surfaces and with little in the way of furnishings inside, or open windows to absorb the sound. Like when you viewed an empty house and it echoed in a way that it never did again when you came back and moved your belongings in after renting or buying it.

  The road wound round to the left and past The Smuggler’s Rest pub. It was just past nine-thirty and a woman was sweeping cigarette butts off the steps and out into the road. The smoking ban hadn’t done much for the frontage of places like this. The last time O’Bryan had been in the pub, three-quarters of the clientele had been sheltering from rain in the lee of the porch, as a squall had come up the creek from the sea, leaving O’Bryan alone with Sarah at the bar. That’s when they had gelled and he had agreed to her suggestion of a date. It troubled O’Bryan that she had been so forward, in light of what had happened, could it have been merely a coincidence, or had there been an element of gameplay?

  He thought about Sarah, needed to know what had happened. Had the men abused her? DCI Trevithick had said that she had not wanted to press charges, but with the events that had transpired, the offences carried out, that wasn’t an option. The police would be obligated to investigate and seek criminal prosecution. O’Bryan suspected that Sarah had a complicated past. She had intimated that she had suffered enough, her reaction at him shouting for her to switch off the lights when he had spotted the man looking back at him with the binoculars from across the creek had seemed like a line drawn in the sand. She hadn’t been out as much as she had made out, the long-time closure of the nightclub had shown that, and for an attractive thirty-year-old woman, there would have to be a reason for her lack of a social life. Perhaps it was the fact her friends had moved on with partners and had children, or even careers. O’Bryan suspected she had a child herself and was a single mother. Nothing wrong in that. Pretty standard. However, O’Bryan had given thought to the possibility that one of the men had been her lover, or ex-lover and had decided to warn him off with the help of a friend. Small town stuff. In that case, perhaps she had wanted to avoid further problems with an estranged partner, perhaps even her child’s father. Maybe she had even reconciled and that was her reason for not wanting to take matters further. He was assuming a hell of a lot, but emotionally, he hadn’t been in the best place last night. Sleep had completely evaded him and thoughts always took on another dimension in the early hours.

  He slowed the car as he passed the pub. He did not recognise the woman cleaning the steps. He peered through the doorway as he slowed. Should he stop and go in? He thought not. The ex-partner scenario might make more problems for her. He needed to speak with Sarah, but he knew he would need to be discreet. He floored the accelerator and powered past. The road widened and Barlooe was left behind him as he headed towards the A39, the main Truro to Falmouth road.

  O’Bryan had done some int
ernet research on his laptop and found what he thought would be the station most likely for DCI Trevithick to be based. Cornwall’s policing was a curious affair. Devon and Cornwall Constabulary policed the largest geographical area in the entire United Kingdom. It had to cope with an influx of eleven-million people each summer season, yet the force was shrinking and severe cutbacks had been made. Nothing new there, but the force had closed its principal station in Truro, Cornwall’s capital, and another in Falmouth. The constabulary’s headquarters were ninety-miles away in Exeter. Many of the stations were faceless facilities where the public could gain no access. A non-emergency telephone number was recommended and a ‘we’ll come to you’ attitude had replaced an approachable policing presence within the community. O’Bryan couldn’t see any good from the approach, it served only to alienate people and leave them feeling cut-off from the law. From what he could ascertain, both Bodmin and Camborne stations seemed the only options from where DCI Trevithick and any CID presence could be maintained at any strength.

  He chose Camborne as it was closer. The drive took him along a series of sweeping roads. They were narrow, tree-lined or walled in by stone hedges, and extremely fast-moving. Many of the drivers seemed to possess the gift of telepathy, crowning the centre of the road as they negotiated the corners. On several occasions he put the Alfa Romeo’s paintwork into the uncut foliage sprouting from the hedges as oncoming vehicles clearly cut onto his side of the road. He was no steady driver, but he felt whisked along in places. He dropped his speed as he entered Lanner. There were digital signs flashing up the thirty-miles-per-hour speed limit, and the drivers at least slowed for these, then raced to the next one in time to hammer on their brakes. This wasn’t the Cornwall he had expected. He could see that prosperity found its way into pockets of the county, but this wasn’t one of them. There were council houses, new-builds and dilapidated cottages long since extended with block extensions far from keeping them in character. He crowned the hill and drove down into Redruth. He changed his mind about Lanner, but only just. Redruth was an experience, and this coming from a man who had policed some of the most deprived parts of London. He missed the road he needed and ended up skirting around a one-way system to enjoy the sights. There were well-supported shops and buildings turned to flats, but within minutes he was driving through a tree-lined street with grand houses on either side. Huge affairs with gardens and parking. These would have been one or two-million pound homes in parts of London. He doubted they were worth a third of that in this town. They looked old, and O’Bryan remembered reading somewhere that Redruth had been once been a prosperous town, one of the country’s leading centres of industry when copper and tin were mined throughout the nineteenth century. A right-hand turn and all this was quickly forgotten and he skirted an area of abject poverty once more. The next couple of miles were taken up with a long road of houses, industrial estates, retail parks, budget foreign supermarkets and a college. Camborne School of Mines seemed in keeping with the mining heritage, this was advertised as a centre of mining and engineering excellence. This stretch of built-up area was Pool and it connected Redruth with Camborne. When he entered Camborne, he changed his mind and re-evaluated Redruth a little more positively. The journey had become progressively more depressing. It was a far cry from Barlooe and the other places like Feock and Mylor he had driven through recently. Cornwall was a county of extremes. There appeared to be a large scale in both income and social divide. He doubted these areas were going to see some of the eleven-million extra people spending their money each summer.

  Camborne Police Station was on his left, and he parked easily enough. He followed the signs to the main entrance. The building was constructed from granite with concrete and render extensions. There were traffic police vehicles parked in the lined bays and smaller community policing cars curbing an area of grass. Two uniformed officers exited and walked past him without looking at him. He thought his swollen eye and bruises warranted a second glance, but that was probably one of the reasons why he had made detective at twenty-two.

  The man running the desk was a standard-issue community support officer. He was late fifties, growing thickly around his middle and did not look up as O’Bryan entered. O’Bryan coughed. The man continued to tidy some paper and check his computer monitor. He started to type slowly.

  “Ross O’Bryan,” he said. “I’m here to see DCI Trevithick.”

  The man did not look up. “He’s in a meeting.”

  “Go fetch him. Tell him to hurry.”

  The man looked up this time. “Who are you?”

  “Today, I’m your boss. Now go fetch him, or your best bet would be to start typing up a new CV.”

  “Who the hell are you?” The man said, but he had flushed red. His voice was wavering.

  “Acting Detective Superintendent Ross O’Bryan, Special Branch,” O’Bryan said, then added, “Are you still here?”

  The desk officer got up without further word and opened the glass door behind him. He was away from his desk for a few minutes, then came back in and nodded. “He’s on his way,” he said, his attitude doing a one-eighty. “Can I get you a coffee?”

  “No, thanks,” O’Bryan said, then turned and looked at the walls. They were mainly of drug-related posters and domestic abuse. There was an anti-terrorism check list, but it was four years old. O’Bryan had helped design the current poster.

  Trevithick opened the door and stared at him. “Problem?” he asked incredulously.

  “That depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On whether you’re in a better frame of mind,” O’Bryan said. “Find us an office where we can talk.”

  “For what?” Trevithick was fuming. “I said all I needed to last night.”

  O’Bryan reached into his pocket and retrieved two well folded envelopes. He took one and handed it to him. Trevithick pulled out the letter and read. The duty officer was watching from behind the desk. O’Bryan couldn’t resist. In ten minutes the whole of the station, and more likely the whole of the Cornish designation of officers would know. “To whom it may concern… After his recent promotion to Detective Chief Inspector, following recent events in the fight against terrorism and subsequent award and commendation for bravery… that was The George Cross, by the way…” O’Bryan added. “The rank of Acting Detective Superintendent has been given to DCI Ross O’Bryan, transcending all of Her Majesty’s Police Forces on the United Kingdom mainland and Commonwealth Territories…” O’Bryan smiled as Trevithick lowered the letter. “To surmise, it goes on to say that every courtesy will be extended and co-operation given… signed, the Home Secretary and The Chief Commissioner…”

  Trevithick handed back the letter. “What is it you want?”

  “Just your undivided time and co-operation. Are we A1 fucking clear on that?”

  7

  DCI Trevithick led O’Bryan into the CID offices. There were two detectives, both male and late forties drinking coffee by a whiteboard. One was pushing the scales towards overweight a bit too much to run after criminals and the other had had a good go at growing a hipster beard, only it was grey in too many places, at odds with the rest of the ginger, and he had a lot of crumbs in it as well. He held half a Danish pastry in one hand and a cup of something hot in the other. There were photographs pinned to the edges of the whiteboard, a mind-map in the centre. A timeline had been jotted in the bottom right corner. They seemed to be sharing a joke rather than theories.

  DS Hosking came out of a side door studying a sheaf of papers. She looked up when she saw O’Bryan and did a double-take. She walked around the row of desks and stood by the two male detectives.

  “Is this it?” O’Bryan asked.

  “What do you mean?” DCI Trevithick asked somewhat defensively.

  “Your CID. Are there more officers?”

  “Of course,” he nodded. “We have six more out on enquiries into ongoing investigations. There are a dozen detectives stationed at Bodmin, they’re all worki
ng on cases. And three are on annual leave.”

  “Who worked on the Elmaleh deaths?”

  “The what?”

  “The Syrian family who were found drowned near Falmouth.”

  Trevithick frowned, then nodded. Realisation finally hitting home. “Why?”

  “Because I asked you.”

  “Why are Special Branch concerned with this?” Trevithick scoffed. “And why have they sent down a tainted officer to poke about?”

  “Tainted?” O’Bryan felt himself flush. His heart raced. It usually did that before he punched someone in the face. Instead, he said, “Explain yourself, DCI Trevithick.”

  “You’re a DCI, not a regular inspector, I get it. Big deal.”