‘What do you want?’ He spoke slowly, as though I was hard of hearing.
I made my decision on the spot. ‘Thought I’d lost my phone,’ I said. ‘But I was wrong. Sorry.’
Feeling his amused eyes on my back, I spun on my heel and walked quickly out of the police station. I emerged into the sunshine, and blinked as my eyes got used to the light. I took a deep breath, and thought again about the techniques Sandra the counsellor had taught me to stop a panic attack in its tracks. ‘Think of one thing you can feel, one thing you can hear, one you can see, one you can taste and one you can smell,’ she’d said. I breathed in again. I could hear a van’s diesel engine, making me think of black cabs in London. I could smell the fumes from its exhaust. I could see … I looked round and, there, across the street, I thought I saw Jed, leaning against a wall, watching the police station, his tall frame standing out among the people who drifted past.
My stomach lurched. I blinked again and when I looked up, there was no one there. I shook my head. This technique wasn’t working; it was making me see things that weren’t there. Things – people – I wanted to see or ones I didn’t? I wasn’t sure. I shook my head and checked the spot across the road once more – it was deserted. Then longing for calm, I headed to the library.
Inside, the library was quiet and the Wi-Fi signal was strong. Thankfully, I sank down into one of the squishy chairs with my laptop on my knee and browsed social media for a while, marvelling at how quickly it loaded compared to the clunkiness of the feeds on my phone, had a nosy at what everyone from work was doing by logging into my emails and soon logging off again when it seemed there was nothing very interesting happening, and browsed through some summer dresses on ASOS knowing that with the weather the way it was, I’d never get to wear them.
And then I thought about poor Emily Moon. The other Moon Girl, who’d vanished and whose mystery I still hadn’t solved. So I googled smuggling in Cornwall, chose a nice site with lots of pictures and started to read. It was pretty interesting but there was nothing specific to Kirrinporth, nor Emily herself, and I couldn’t concentrate. Everything I read made me think of Ewan, Jed and Mark. Smugglers moving their contraband through tunnels and hiding it in pub cellars? Bingo. Telling ghost stories to make people stay away? So far, so familiar.
Casually, as if I was pretending to myself that I wasn’t doing it, I pulled up the work crime system. I wasn’t sure it would work on public Wi-Fi, and sure enough it wouldn’t load. So instead, I linked my laptop to my phone, and bingo. Then, knowing I shouldn’t really be doing what I was doing, and feeling mildly guilty, I put in my password. I wasn’t sure if it would work given that I was off sick, but it did. I couldn’t access everything but there was enough there to give me more info. I wasn’t expecting to find loads of information on smuggling in the Met’s records but I typed in smuggling and pressed return and my screen filled with links to reports. I took a deep breath, clicked on the first one and started to read.
I spent an hour or more reading every detail I could about organised-crime gangs and how they trafficked drugs, firearms and even people. I did neighbourhood policing really and my part of London was all about the street crime. We spent a lot of time trying to stop local kids getting involved in county lines operations. I’d never really thought about where the drugs came from in the first place – that was a job for my colleagues in serious and organised crime. But this was gripping. And, more importantly, it all added up. I read about how they often used small boats or yachts to bring goods – or people – ashore. How they had contacts in various places to help smooth the way – I remembered Liv’s regional manager who seemed oddly relaxed about the pub making no money.
A thought occurred to me and I opened a new window and typed in Cornwall council planning department. Once I’d found the right page I went to put in the pub’s postcode and paused. I didn’t know it. I sent a message to Liv asking her, and wondering if she’d be suspicious about why I needed to know, and she replied straightaway. ‘What are you buying?’ she asked and I breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Just checking out ASOS,’ I wrote. She sent back a smiley face and I typed the postcode into the search bar.
There was nothing. I searched for Kirrinporth and found planning applications for extensions and conversions and refurbishments and all sorts going back several years but nothing for The Moon Girl. No plans had been submitted. But perhaps Liv had just misunderstood what the regional manager told her. I shut the council webpage and looked again at the trafficking reports on my screen, deciding which one to read next.
‘You look engrossed,’ a voice said. I looked up to see the librarian smiling at me.
‘I’m reading about local history,’ I told her and she looked pleased.
‘Then you’ll like this.’ She held up a large book. ‘Are you Phoebe?’
I was surprised. ‘Yes?’
‘Someone just rang the library and asked us to give you this book when you came in. My colleague Sue recognised you from the description.’
‘Who?’ I said, feeling like I was on some sort of weird reality TV show. ‘Who phoned?’
She shrugged. ‘It was a man. He didn’t leave his name, just said to tell you this was the book he mentioned.’
‘And he knew I was here?’
‘Apparently.’
Jed. It had to be. Perhaps I had seen him by the police station after all. But why would he leave a book for me? Was it some kind of weird code?
‘Do you want it?’ The librarian was waiting for me to respond.
‘What?’
‘The book.’
‘I guess so.’
She handed me a battered A4-sized hardback with a shiny cover showing a painting of a pub perched above a harbour wall.
‘Thank you,’ I said uncertainly. She grinned at me and wandered off.
I studied the cover. The book was called Historic Pubs of Cornwall and I assumed it was one of the ones Jed had mentioned that his dad had read. Feeling faintly ridiculous, I looked around me, half expecting to see him standing there. But he was nowhere to be seen. This was very strange. I supposed it was sweet of him to make sure I had the right book to help with my research, but I would have preferred him to just send me a message.
Still, I had it now. I opened the book, hearing the spine crackle as though no one had read it for a long time, and I turned to the index. There was a reference to Emily Moon. I smiled to myself. Jed may have been ghosting me after our kiss, but this was a nice thing to do. So, getting myself comfy, I sat and read the story of Emily Moon and her sad, untimely death.
Emily Moon, the book said, had been a bit of an odd one. The writer said she’d been called simple because she couldn’t speak. People called her the Moon Girl and felt sorry for her. So she really was another Moon Girl, I thought, playing with my necklace. Emily lived in the pub, which had been called The Ship Inn back then, and drew pictures. On the page was a reproduction of a sketch of a dark-haired woman with amused eyes. The caption told me it was Emily’s mother, Janey Moon, drawn by her daughter. The sketch was in the museum at Barnmouth, it said. Maybe I should visit? I looked at Janey’s face and wondered if Emily had looked like her mother and what had happened to the other pictures she drew. Had anyone had kept them safe over the years?
Emily, the book went on, had plummeted to her death from the cliffs. At least, that’s what all the evidence suggested, though her body was never found. Her sweetheart, Arthur Pascoe, left Kirrinporth shortly after her death. Perhaps he was heartbroken, I thought. I turned the page, hoping for more, but the book moved on to a story about a shipwreck near a pub in Barnmouth. That was all there was to say about poor Emily Moon.
So I was still none the wiser about what had happened to her, and I had a knot in my stomach that was making me feel unsettled. Perhaps Emily had been murdered by the smugglers I thought. The stories I’d read about what they did back then had told me they were pretty brutal and wouldn’t think twice about killing anyone who got in their way
. And that made me think about Liv and what she might have got mixed up in.
My heart was thumping, partly through sadness for Emily, but mostly because I suddenly realised that if my suspicions were correct, if Ewan and his crew were involved in organised crime, then this was really, really dangerous.
With shaky hands, I shoved my computer and the book into my bag. I needed to go. Without looking back, I hurried out of the library.
Chapter 32
Emily
1799
I tossed and turned all night, falling into a fitful sleep full of nightmares about Morgan just as the sun came up. When I eventually woke, with an aching head, I got dressed quickly and gathered together all my drawings. I took the ones of Morgan on the beach, and my sketches of Arthur and me in my dream world, travelling across the wilderness on our cart to build a life together. I found some pictures I’d drawn of Da before he died, and Mam, and added them, too. Then with some difficulty because I hadn’t written anything since Da died, I wrote along the top of the pages. On the smuggling drawing I wrote Cal Morgan, and on the one of Da I wrote Amos Moon. And at the bottom of each one I wrote EM.
Then, leaving out two sketches of Da and two of Mam, I carefully put the drawings into my hiding place on the window seat. I had an uneasy feeling that I wouldn’t be coming back here and I wanted to leave evidence of what had happened.
I put the pictures of my parents into my bag, and went to find my mother. I’d been fretting about her going to the gallows with Morgan and I knew I couldn’t rest until I’d warned her that – if everything went to plan – his time was up.
I found her in the cellar, counting barrels of ale. I averted my eyes from the contraband, though I couldn’t help noticing there was much less there than there had been. Clearly most of it had been sold or moved on.
‘You’ve surfaced, have you?’ Mam said, not looking up. ‘Can you take two bottles of brandy upstairs for me?’ Her annoyance with me had eased as her bruises had faded. She heaved one of the barrels across a bit and groaned. ‘This is a man’s work.’
I gave her a small smile. Mam had never complained about heavy lifting when my father was alive. She wasn’t tall but she was wiry and strong with arms that felt as hard as rock when she tensed her muscles.
She smiled back, reading my mind. ‘I know,’ she said, almost to herself. ‘I can do it. Would be nice to have someone around to help though.’
That was the perfect opening for me to bring up Morgan. But after everything that had happened the last time I’d tried to speak to her, could I speak? I hoped desperately that my throat wouldn’t tighten and concentrated on my breathing as I held my hands out for the two bottles.
Mam handed them over, looking at me with mild concern. ‘Are you feeling unwell?’
I shook my head, breathing in and out, in and out. ‘Mam …’ I managed. She looked at me in surprise and I tried again. ‘Mam?’
‘What?’
In and out, in and out. ‘Morgan.’
Mam let out an exasperated gasp of breath but before she could start on me, I held my hand out, trying to calm her. To my relief, she sat down on the table, her skirt billowing around her, and crossed her legs. ‘Go on then,’ she said defiantly. ‘What about him?’
I breathed in again, and out, planning my words carefully. ‘Morgan is smuggling.’
Mam leaned back on her elbows and looked at me. I met her stare, trying to communicate with more than words.
‘I know,’ she said.
There was a pause as I tried again, but Mam jumped off the table and wiped her hands together to get rid of the dust.
‘Is that it?’
I put down the bottles of brandy, thinking that I could use my hands to show her what I wanted to say, instead of speaking.
‘Morgan,’ I said again. I mimed a rope being slung round my neck and pulled up sharply with my hand to indicate being hanged, tipping my head to one side and closing my eyes as if I was dead.
‘Morgan’s not in trouble,’ Mam said.
I shook my head vigorously and pointed at my mother instead. ‘You,’ I said. ‘You.’ I made the same action again, pulling the invisible rope around my neck.
Mam’s expression softened.
‘Oh, Emily,’ she said. She came to me and put her arm round my shoulders. ‘You worry too much.’
‘Da,’ I began, but she was still talking.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I miss him too.’
She sat down on the table again and this time gestured for me to sit with her. I moved the bottles aside and perched beside her and she took my hand.
‘I loved your father,’ she said. ‘And when he went, I thought I should die because it was just too hard.’
I felt a wave of sorrow at the thought of how my mother had missed Da as much as me. More, perhaps.
‘I thought my heart was breaking. And the inn was empty. All I had was you. My daughter, who didn’t say much before and who said nothing now.’
My eyes filled with tears. I’d never meant to make things worse for her. If I could have made myself more like other people, I would have.
‘Sorry,’ I whispered, but Mam patted my hand as if to say it didn’t matter.
She carried on talking. ‘We had no money, Emily. None at all. Your father was good at many things, but he spent every penny he ever earned. And when he was gone, there was nothing left in the pot.’
She took my chin in her fingers and turned my face this way and that, examining me. ‘You are skin and bone, my girl. Skin and bone. And that’s on me. It’s my fault.’ She sighed. ‘I have been no mother to you since your da went.’ I noticed she was still avoiding saying that Da was dead. I thought she had decided to ignore everything I had told her and I couldn’t blame her. How else would she get through the days?
‘I know I have been drinking too much,’ Mam went on. ‘I know things aren’t perfect, still, but they are getting better. We have food on the table, and a fire burning in the hearth. And do you know why, Emily Moon?’
I shook my head, even though I knew what she was going to say.
‘It’s because of Morgan.’
‘No,’ I said miserably but Mam shushed me. ‘He is the reason we had mutton yesterday, Emily. He is the reason I have this new dress and there is bread upstairs waiting for you to eat. He is the reason the drinkers have come back to the inn and the reason your cheeks are getting plumper.’
He was also the reason for the bruises on her face, and the marks on her legs, the tears she cried at night when she thought I was asleep, and the dullness in her eyes, but I couldn’t say that.
‘I know he’s involved in free trade,’ Mam went on. ‘And there’s some that don’t approve. But he’s the only reason we still have a roof over her heads.’
I looked at her. Her face was close to mine and I could see the remains of the bruises around her eye and hear the tremor in her voice.
‘You will hang,’ I said, slowly and carefully, but more loudly than I’d managed to speak for months.
Mam took my hands and I let her. ‘No, I won’t,’ she said. ‘Trust me.’ She looked straight at me, but I couldn’t read her odd expression. ‘Trust me,’ she said again. Her voice sounded urgent. I nodded and, impulsively, I threw my arms around her and pulled her to me. She relaxed into my embrace for a second, then she pulled away.
‘Leave it, Emily,’ she said. ‘Just leave it.’
I wasn’t sure if she meant the show of affection or my feelings about Morgan, but either way it seemed the conversation was over. Mam slid from the table again and turned her attention to the barrels once more.
‘There’s bread for you upstairs,’ she said.
I watched her back for a second, hoping she might turn around and carry on talking, but she didn’t.
Later that evening, I sat by the window of the inn, watching the moon rise up over the sea. It wasn’t full – that was still a few nights away – so I was fairly sure Morgan wouldn’t be planning to bring an
y goods in yet. In fact, he was here with his friend, sitting at a table and grabbing my mother whenever she passed by. Claiming ownership, I thought. He was calling out to customers as they entered, greeting them and saying his Janey would get a drink for them. It made me feel sick. I glowered at him, but he gave me no more attention than he’d give a worm in the mud. Mam had shot me a warning glance once or twice, telling me to stay quiet. She seemed different since our chat in the cellar. Stronger, I thought. I half wondered if she had something planned but then dismissed the idea. She’d have told me, I thought.
I went back to gazing out over the sea and only looked up as a shadow fell over me. It was Arthur.
Pleased to see him, I smiled and he gave my arm a small, affectionate squeeze. I liked the way his touch made me feel.
‘Shall we go for a walk?’
I nodded.
‘There’s a chill in the air this evening,’ he said. ‘Take your cloak. I’ll meet you on the cliff.’
He went out the front door of the inn, while I went into the hall to find my shawl and then out of the back door and round the stables. When I got to the clifftop, Arthur was standing with his hands in his pockets, staring at the moon.
‘Three more nights, I think?’ he said. ‘We should watch from tomorrow, just in case.’
I nodded. He was right. We didn’t want to miss it.
He put his arms round me and kissed me. I shivered with pleasure.
‘Your father?’ I asked when we broke apart. Arthur’s face clouded over.
‘I did. I was right about it all.’
I widened my eyes in surprise. Even though the evidence had all pointed to Reverend Pascoe being involved, I’d never really believed it. Was Morgan really using his coach?
‘He denied it at first,’ Arthur went on. ‘He claimed he had no idea what I meant. But there on the shelf was the same type of bottle we saw in the cellar.’
I rolled my eyes, though it was getting properly dark and I knew Arthur couldn’t see.
‘I told him some of what we know.’ Arthur ran his fingers through his hair in exasperation. ‘He is weak, Emily. So weak. He is clearly scared of Morgan …’
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