Hell's Mouth

by BATEMAN, A P

  “We’re here to look at the boat,” she chided, nudging past him and standing in front of the yellow inflatable. “Not kayaks.”

  The boat was fitted with a three-horsepower petrol outboard and slotted into the straps on the sides were a set of oars. Four lifejackets lay in the hull.

  “Beauty, isn’t she?” a middle aged man wearing a sweatshirt with the store’s logo on it said, walking up to them. He banged a fist on the boat and smiled. He didn’t have many teeth in his smile, but it hadn’t put him off trying. “I bought one of these beauties myself. All this for four-hundred quid. We change the sizes of the lifejackets to fit your crew, they have to fit just right if you have kids going out.”

  “It looks good,” O’Bryan said. He pointed to the fuel tank, which looked like a squashed plastic petrol can, only a little larger. “How many miles can the tank take you.”

  “It’s hours with boats,” he smirked. “That will run this engine for about three hours.”

  “And how fast will it go?” DS Hosking asked.

  “About six knots, which is about seven miles per hour, but you have to watch the tides. If you put in at Falmouth and head for some dinner at The Pandora, and the tide’s running a four knot drop, then you’ll get there in time for tea,” he said with a largely toothless grin.

  “The Pandora?” O’Bryan frowned, but he realised it must have been a restaurant on the river. He’d been thrown about dinner and tea. He’d never heard it used as a replacement for lunch and dinner before. In London if you booked for dinner you’d get the evening slot and told that tea came in a pot with some cakes.

  “It’s a pub on the river,” DS Hosking said. “The Pandora Inn.”

  “You two aren’t together then?” the man asked.

  “We’re colleagues,” O’Bryan said quickly.

  “I see…” the man smirked. He had a vision of what these colleagues would be doing in the boat. “Anyway, the boat’s a good laugh, but it pays to check the conditions out first and not to overload it. The engine’s alright, but what you have to remember is we sell five-horsepower Honda and Mariner outboards for between six and seven hundred pounds. This deal is an absolute bargain.”

  “Could it take four adults?”

  The man shrugged. “We’ve done it, but it would be best for two or three. Or a couple of adults and a couple of nippers.”

  “So six knots and a favourable tide, and the boat would get you about twenty-one miles?” O’Bryan queried.

  The man thought for a moment, but he was looking directly at DS Hosking’s breasts under the close-fitting blouse as he did the sums, so O’Bryan figured it would take a while.

  “I suppose,” he said eventually. “But if you’re running with a good tide, you could get that up to thirty. I wouldn’t do it though. I explore the creeks in ours, or go out half a mile and drop a fishing line or two. It’s a good boat because of the chambers. Stick a hook in one, and you’ve got nine more full of air. But like I said, great for dinner at The Pandora, but you’d better know what you’re doing there.”

  “Why is that?” O’Bryan asked.

  The man took his eyes off DS Hosking’s breasts for long enough to look at her face. “You know that, don’t he?” he laughed. “Because thirty people supping wine and pints of Rattler will be wanting you to fail mooring to the pontoon and take a swim with your clothes on! I’d sit there all bloody day if the wife would let me, just to watch a posh prick in his hundred-grand rib smack into the pontoon! You’d be alright in this though. These are cheap as chips and people know it, so aren’t bothered with you. I watched someone take ten attempts to moor up once in a Bayliner, then his wife drops down to her fanny in the water, just the one leg mind, she gets it back up before the rest of the boat hits and cracks on the pontoon. We all had a good laugh at that one!”

  “Sounds delightful,” O’Bryan commented. “So how many of these have you sold?”

  “Hundreds.”

  “Wow. Just from this store?”

  “No. We’re all online now. We’ve sold loads on the internet.” O’Bryan tried hard to hide his disappointment. The trail was almost impossible, but the internet sales closed the gap from almost to completely. “That’s the only one left, so if you want it today, I’ll deflate it and pack it up for you and we’ll call it three-fifty.”

  “Thanks for your help,” O’Bryan said, turning his back on the man. The man got the message and didn’t linger. He walked somewhat dejectedly back down the aisle.

  “So?” DS Hosking looked at him. “The internet sales make it difficult.”

  O’Bryan nodded. “There’s CCTV on the doors, but none I can see throughout the store.”

  “They might have hidden cameras?”

  “No point. CCTV is a deterrent. They don’t want to catch people, merely stop them stealing. I doubt they get much of that anyway. Most of the stuff here is big and bulky. Perhaps the other shop with packets of screws or tools or lightbulbs, but here it’s all rope and buoys and rubber fenders. And the cash registers are literally in the doorway.”

  DS Hosking nodded. “Okay. So we’ve ascertained that the boat isn’t all that sturdy for four adults, but would probably be alright for two adults and two children. The Elmaleh family were a party of five…”

  “But the children were young and small. They had been on the move across Europe for a year. They weren’t pushing obesity and eating Happy Meals and playing on an Xbox,” O’Bryan interrupted. “But no outboard was found, no fuel tank either, although that tank wouldn’t be enough to cross from Calais to Dover, let alone anywhere else.”

  “Those oars look a bit flimsy as well,” she added.

  “What else?”

  She frowned, walked around the boat, then looked at O’Bryan and shrugged. “The chambers!” she blurted. “It has ten individual chambers, so a rip might not necessarily sink it.”

  O’Bryan nodded. “What else?” She thought for a moment, then shrugged again. O’Bryan patted the side of the boat. “It’s yellow. It’s as bright as the sun. If I were in France, knowing that all that stood between my family and a new life in a country I knew and felt we had a future in, was a hundred or two hundred miles of ocean, I would find something more suitable. More substantial. It wouldn’t be a budget rubber boat and it most certainly wouldn’t be yellow.”

  She nodded. “Fair point,” she said. “But beggars can’t be choosers.”

  “Exactly,” O’Bryan said. “And despite war in their country, and despite the terrible humanitarian crisis, I have dug a little further. Done DCI Trevithick’s job for him, so to speak. The Elmaleh family were not beggars. Far from it. Qasim Elmaleh withdrew the Syrian pound equivalent to two-hundred and sixty-eight thousand pounds Stirling from various accounts, as the war in Syria took hold and it started to look like it would not be a short-term uprising, like others had been during much of the Arab Spring. He sold off assets for cash as well. The Elmaleh family were extremely middle-class and well educated. They came from money. They had more than I’ll ever earn or could dream of putting aside. This entire refugee crisis has dehumanised people, objectified them. Pricks like DCI Trevithick see people as illegal immigrant scum. But what if the tables were turned? What if the British government waged all-out war on its people because we were unhappy with the way they ran things. What if the army, the RAF and the Royal Navy bombed us all? Imagine the SAS going in house to house to kill dissidents. Now we can’t leave, we can’t work, we can’t buy food…” He shook his head. “Unthinkable, isn’t it?” She looked thoughtful and he could tell she hadn’t given it much thought until now. O’Bryan hit the side of the boat with his fist and shook his head. “No. The Elmaleh family did not set out in that boat,” O’Bryan said. “And I don’t think they set out on their own from France at all.”

  10

  O’Bryan unfolded a map and spread it out between them in the front seats of the car. He found the approximate area with Falmouth at the bottom left corner. “Go on then, DS Hosking,
show me where the Pandora Inn is.”

  “What has it got to do with the case?”

  “Nothing. But I’m bloody starving and haven’t eaten since my three bites on a barbecued rib last night.”

  “I don’t know if I should…”

  “Oh bloody hell, Hosking! It’s a bit of lunch,” he said and started the car. “I’ve got it covered.”

  “Okay,” she relented. “Just lunch?”

  “What else?”

  “Of course, lunch,” she said and opened out the map further. She looked a little flustered, as she ran her finger across the map. “It’s here. But we don’t need the map, I can direct you.”

  O’Bryan studied the map for a moment. “So Point Geddon and Barlooe Creek are over the next two headlands?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Malforth Manor backs down onto Barlooe Creek.”

  “So?”

  “No reason,” he said casually. He folded the map and dropped it into her foot well. “Right. Out of here and right towards Redruth, yes?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  She sat back in her seat and seemed to relax. Her window was open a little and the wind came through and pressed the blouse closer to her skin. If that was possible. O’Bryan glanced at her, but he needed to remain professional. Although he had only recently met her, with the exception of last night’s farcical interview with DCI Trevithick, he liked what he saw. DS Becky Hosking was sharp, intelligent and attractive. The full package. He glanced at his face in the rear view mirror. What would she think of him? Ten years older, greying ever-so-slightly at the temples, his eyes lifeless and grey? Arrogant and bullish? Now covered in bruises with a swollen eye. He mentally shrugged it off. He wasn’t twenty anymore and he was fine with that. He had felt stagnant and rutted of late, but he’d had two dates this week already and was falling for another woman, so it wasn’t all bad. The thought made him question Sarah and her well-being after last night. He had been told that the woman was alright, but he made a note to find her tonight and hear her side of events. Whether it was a past or present lover, whether she could talk more about it, whether he could convince her to be willing to press charges if the two men were ever found. But he wouldn’t hold his breath.

  Once they left Redruth and then Lanner behind them, the road was clear and swept through wooded areas and small fields and paddocks. It was hilly terrain, and they dipped low in a valley before DS Hosking told him to take a left, a ‘shortcut’ she knew. The road was narrow and two cars would never pass, but there were a few passing places cut into the tall hedges. They crossed over the busy A39, the main road between Truro and Falmouth, and took a steep hill through woods, which meandered through the countryside passing single, and rather expensive looking houses set back from the road with large gardens and wooded entrances. Hosking had commented about living here when the lottery numbers came up. O’Bryan would have to agree. His DCI wages were not going to cut it here.

  The hill down to Restronguet Creek greeted them with a wonderful view across the water to Restronguet Point. The tide was in and the sun glistened upon the surface of the water. Boats were moored in the middle of the river and swans glided peacefully between them.

  O’Bryan swung into the carpark and was lucky enough to see a car reversing out of a space. He gave the driver room, then drove in and parked. As he opened the door and got out, he noticed that the car park was full.

  “It gets busy here,” DS Hosking said, as if reading his thoughts. “Lots of people park and walk down to Mylor. They won’t all be eating.”

  The pub itself was eighteenth century and dark. O’Bryan skimmed his head on the roof and flinched, thankful it had padded cushion fixed in place. He hovered at the bar, DS Hosking catching him up. “Soda water and lime, please,” he asked.

  The barman looked expectantly at Hosking. “Make that two,” she said, then turned to O’Bryan. “I’d have a wine, but on duty and all…”

  He nodded in agreement. Duty was always his favourite excuse. Duty and driving. And the gym.

  Sixty-days…

  The waiting staff bustled through with plates of food. O’Bryan eyed a huge sandwich which looked to be crab. It looked good. He pulled a menu out from a rack in front of the till and opened it up. The drinks were placed on the bar and the barman asked if they wanted anything else. O’Bryan ordered the vast crab sandwich and DS Hosking hurried with her choice, feeling the pressure to pay. Despite needing a table number outside, O’Bryan pointed to a table through the window and paid with cash.

  They walked out with their drinks and were about to sit, when a couple moved from a table on the pontoon.

  “That’ll do,” he said.

  “You’ll play havoc with their ordering system.”

  “Well, they’ll have to use their initiative,” he commented flatly and led the way down the steep wooden walkway and onto the pontoon. As he sat down at the picnic style table, he watched a boat slow its revs and steer a course straight for them.

  “This is what the bloke at the marine supplies outlet was talking about,” DS Hosking said and sipped some of her drink.

  O’Bryan watched, as did forty other people. Some put down their cutlery to watch. Another took out their phone and started to film. O’Bryan shook his head. “Voyeuristic bastards,” he said, but continued to watch all the same.

  The boat slowed and came in on a large arc. The man at the helm was in his late-fifties and the woman O’Bryan assumed to be his wife stood on the prow with a rope at the ready. The boat glided right up to the pontoon and the man throttled back and engaged reverse. The engine changed pitch and the boat stopped dead in the water. The man switched off the engine and the woman threw the rope to a man who had stood up from his table and offered a hand. She stepped off the boat and thanked the man as he wound the rope tightly around a cleat. The man at the helm leapt down and nodded thanks. The onlookers turned back to their drinks and meals and paused conversations, but there was an air of disappointment. Professionalism was not rewarded with this crowd.

  “Didn’t go as well as that for me and John,” DS Hosking said dryly.

  “Your ex?”

  She smiled. “He has a large boat. Half as big again as that one.” She nodded towards the Bayliner. “He was a bit throttle-happy at the best of times. He came in too fast. Shouted at me, but I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, didn’t know a thing about boats, and I got in a mess with the ropes. He hit the pontoon so hard people’s meals ended up on the deck. He smashed the front of the boat in…”

  “Prow,” O’Bryan smiled. “You’re not kidding you know nothing about boats!”

  “Shut up!” she laughed. She looked up as a waiter drew near. “That’s us!” she called out. “Two crab sandwiches and a bowl of chips… sorry, we moved table…”

  The waiter put down the round plastic tray and off-loaded the meals, along with a bucket full of cutlery, napkins and some condiments. When he left they both picked up their doorstop sandwiches and ate quietly.

  “So, Sarah Penhaligan…” DS Hosking ventured. “You’re an item?”

  O’Bryan shook his head, a little too adamantly. “We got chatting at The Smuggler’s Rest, the pub in Barlooe. We had a date afterwards in Truro. She popped round with Chinese food last night. But it was a misunderstanding. She thought I had invited her, but I had said I wanted a quiet night in with a takeaway.”

  “Jesus. I was just asking, Casanova…” she smiled.

  “Well, I…” he stopped. He simply bit into more of the sandwich. If he filled his mouth with food, he wouldn’t make more of an idiot of himself. He underestimated the amount of crème fraiche and a good dollop went onto his shirt. He scraped the excess with the clean blade of his unused knife and tutted loudly. “Sorry about that…”

  DS Hosking dipped the edge of her paper napkin into her lime and soda and reached over and dabbed at it. She looked up at him and then said, “Sorry, I don’t know why I did that…” She looked away, sipped som
e of her drink.

  “Thanks,” he said light heartedly. “I’m such a boy sometimes, women just end up mothering me…”

  “Sarah Penhaligan,” she said. “Did she try to mother you?”

  O’Bryan shook his head. “I don’t think so. Do you know her?”

  “Why?”

  “You seem to have an opinion on her.”

  “I do?”

  He shrugged. “Just sounded like that.”

  “Sorry, unprofessional.”

  “You’re not a doctor, you’re a copper,” he said. “If you have an opinion, get it out there.”

  “No, I…”

  “Spit it out. Shit, one date and a misunderstanding. Two kisses.”

  “There were kisses?”

  “I’m irresistible, what can I say?” he smiled.

  “I knew her from holidaying down here. She’s the same age, give or take.”

  “And she got about? Shit, I’m divorced with a child I don’t see. We all have a past.”

  “You have a child?”

  “Yes. Is that a problem for you?”

  “No. Why would it be?”

  “Because you’re acting like you’re interested, and it’s only been a morning, but I’m as interested in you as it’s possible to be,” he said, glancing at his watch. “After three hours and twenty-seven minutes…”

  She laughed. “Well, we could see how this pans out and take it from there.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” He smiled. “Of course, if you feel pressured by a senior officer, feel free to call your federation rep.”

  “I’ll be okay,” she said, then chuckled. “Well, you can make your own judgements on Ms Penhaligan.”

  “Perhaps,” he said non-committedly. “But I want to find her and see if she knows anything about last night, or if she’s okay, despite DCI Trevithick’s word on the matter.”