Manna from Hades (3 page)

“You never know when a millionaire art collector will walk in,” he said optimistically.

By some obscure connection of ideas, that reminded Eleanor of the jewelry in the safe upstairs. She was about to tell Jocelyn about it, when the bell over the shop door tinkled and a customer came in. The jewelry could wait. She went back into the stockroom.

In the far corner, Teazle was sniffing at some men’s shirts spilling out of a carrier bag on its side on top of a box. Her tail was between her legs and she showed none of the frantic excitement mice invariably aroused. Glancing round at Eleanor, she whined.

When Eleanor went over to her, she gave a perfunctory wag of the tail and backed off. Puzzled, Eleanor bent down to right the bag and stuff the clothes back in. Behind the box a pair of boots lay on their sides, one atop the other. The leather, once black but now of no determinate colour, was cracked and the back of the heels, turned towards her, were worn down to the uppers.

“That’s odd,” she said to Teazle. “I don’t remember anyone giving those and I never would have accepted them. No one would buy such disreputable boots.”

She set the carrier bag to one side and shifted the box. As it moved, she saw bony, sockless ankles and the frayed, faded hems of a pair of filthy blue jeans. The boots were occupied.

Had some tramp crawled in among the goods? She really must remember to lock doors! In a way, she was glad that he had found shelter from the chilly spring night, but Jocelyn would be furious. Perhaps she could send him on his way before Jocelyn found out.

He must be drunk, or very sound asleep, not to have been wakened by the fuss over the table. She nudged at his thin ankle with a fastidious toe but failed to rouse him.

As she moved boxes and bags away from the prone form, a sick certainty that something was very wrong grew in her. She uncovered the rest of the jeans, a hand in a woollen glove unravelling at the wrist, a khaki anorak ripped under the arm. The man lay motionless.

And then the head, face to the wall: long, lank darkish hair; the angle of a jaw sprouting youthful fuzz; the angle of the neck—

“Joce!” Her call emerged as a strangled squeak. Backing towards the connecting door, she tried again. “Jocelyn!”

“Coming. I’ve sold . . . Eleanor, you’re white as a sheet. What is it?”

“I’m just afraid it’s Trevor.”

“Trevor?”

“The boy who comes to help when he stays with his uncle.”

“Eleanor, dear, calm down. I know Trevor. A scruffy, feckless creature he is, and none too clean either.”

“Was.” Her voice shook. “Oh, Joce, there’s a dead body back there and he looks very like Trevor.”

THREE

Detective Sergeant Megan Pencarrow drove through the town centre with the greatest of care. Detective Inspector Scumble of the Constabulary of the Royal Duchy of Cornwall (usually known as CaRaDoC) hated being driven by a woman and was never slow to say so. Wild horses could not have dragged the admission from her, but she found his solid bulk, squeezed into the seat of the unmarked Mini Cooper beside her, just a bit intimidating.

“Close that window,” he growled.

She complied, though she had been enjoying the breeze ruffling her short, dark hair. If only Superintendent Bentinck had decided to let County HQ in Bodmin take on the case! But murders were few and far between in North Cornwall and he wanted to give Scumble a chance to take the credit for solving this one.

The inspector’s usual partner, DS Eliot, was on sick leave. Scumble had decided it was past time he took a closer look at the work of the only woman detective in his small CID, but he didn’t have to like it. Nor did she.

“I suppose it really is a murder,” he said as she drove round the new roundabout and took the A30 towards the coast. “Someone’s going to catch it if I’m being dragged out to the back of beyond for nothing.”

“The victim has a broken neck and the body was concealed, according to Aunt Nell,” she responded incautiously.

“Aunt Nell? Who the hell is Aunt Nell?” The rhyme pleased him and he listened with unusual tolerance to her explanation.

“My aunt discovered the body, sir. When the vicar’s wife, who was with her, rang Launceston to report it, she asked to speak to me. I gather Mrs Stearns felt it unwise to phone the local officer.”

“Oh yes?”

“Not because of any qualms about PC Leacock’s competence, sir,” Megan hastened to assure him. “It seems his car radio is unreliable and his wife answers the phone at the station. Mrs Stearns felt that half the village would be on their doorstep in no time once Mrs Leacock heard the news.”

“No doubt. Murders don’t happen every day around here.” He rubbed his hands together with unattractive satisfaction. “I take it the doctor and the Scene Of Crime people are on their way?”

“I rang Dr Prthnavi at once, sir. The super ordered out the SOC team from Bodmin and someone’s trying to get hold of Leacock. Shall I check?” She reached for the two-way radio.

“No! Kindly keep your hands on the wheel while you’re driving, wom—er, Sergeant.”

He spoke to headquarters while Megan drove over the northern edge of Bodmin Moor, with the tor of Brown Willy away to the south, and took the A39. As they turned off the main road into the narrow lane leading to Port Mabyn, he signed off and wound down the window. The sun was warm in the high-hedged lane but Megan didn’t quite dare open her own window after being instructed to close it.

“So your aunt found the body,” he commented.

“Yes, sir. It . . . He was in the LonStar shop, as you know. Aunt Nell and Uncle Peter used to work for LonStar, and when he was killed she retired . . .”

“Killed?” he repeated hopefully. “A murder involving a widow whose husband died in suspicious circumstances—”

She disillusioned him. “A riot in Djakarta. Indonesia. Aunt Nell retired and bought the shop in Port Mabyn, with the flat above. She gave the shop to LonStar and now she works as a volunteer.”

Inspector Scumble grunted, acknowledging an unlikely suspect. “She know the dead bloke?”

“I’m not sure, sir. Aunt Nell sounded a bit distraught when I spoke to her.”

“What’s her name, for Pete’s sake?” he demanded irritably. “I can’t call the woman Aunt Nell.”

“Mrs Trewynn, sir. Eleanor Trewynn.”

Rounding a bend, they met a mud-bedaubed lorry. It pulled in close to the hedge and Scumble held his breath as Megan inched past. She was inclined to take umbrage at the insult to her driving ability—until the smell reached her. The lorry’s door panel announced Bray Bros. Livestock Transporters, and porcine snouts grunted at them from the slatted sides.

“Too late to close my window,” he muttered in what might, in anyone else, have been an apology. “You’d better open yours now, air it out.”

She complied, and soon the stink was replaced by the faint seaweedy smell of the ocean.

They passed a caravan park, nearly deserted at this time of year, and then the mini-market and the sprawl of pastel bungalows of the newer part of Port Mabyn. Starting down the steep hill into the old village, Megan glanced at the inspector. His eyes were screwed shut. Being driven really made him nervous, then; she’d assumed his moaning was just part of his general grouchiness.

Just past the pub, she had to give way to a couple of pedestrians crossing the street.

“Are we there?” he asked, eyes still closed.

“Just a little farther, sir.”

She parked opposite the shop, offside wheels on the pavement, realizing too late that her massive superior would barely fit between the car and the wall. Which would annoy him more, she wondered, letting him struggle or offering to pull out, thus suggesting that he was overweight? He wasn’t, or not much—just tall and brawny.

He swung open the door and she winced as it scraped the whitewashed wall. Hurriedly she got out into the street, resisting the temptation to look back. He was breathing heavily when he joined her, his grey suit slightly more rumpled than usual, but any comment he might have wished to make was forestalled.

“Megan!” Aunt Nell burst from the blue door opposite and, to her acute embarrassment, rushed to hug her. “Oh, Megan, my dear, I’m so glad you’ve come.”

“Aunt Nell, please, I’m on duty,” she hissed.

“But you’re not in uniform.” Aunt Nell stood back and studied her niece’s discreet forest-green suit and white shirt. “Are you?”

“No, I’m a detective.” Avoiding the interested gaze of the local constable, who had followed her aunt at a more sober pace, she introduced her superior. “This is Detective Inspector Scumble. Sir, Mrs Trewynn.”

“How kind of you to come, Inspector, though I’m sorry such a nasty business is the occasion of our meeting. Won’t you come in?”

“Thank you, madam, I shall certainly do so as soon as I have had a word with the officer here.” Scumble spoke with the heavy patience of one obliged by his position to be polite. “Perhaps you will be good enough to answer a few questions after I have viewed the body.”

“Of course, but I have already told dear Bob about finding the poor boy.” Stepping back, she patted the constable’s sleeve.

To his credit, the young man answered with aplomb, “So you have, Mrs Trewynn, but the inspector’ll want to hear it all again, I don’t doubt.” He saluted. “Constable Leacock reporting, sir.”

“I’ll go and put the kettle on,” said Aunt Nell and returned to the house.

Jocelyn met her at the foot of the stairs. “Eleanor, you really must restrain yourself,” she said severely. “I can’t believe it’s a good idea to embrace Megan publicly while she’s working. Try to think of her as a police officer, not as your niece.”

Eleanor smiled, unrepentant. The world could never have too many expressions of love, she thought, but she said, “Let’s go up and make tea and coffee. I forgot to ask which the inspector prefers.”

From the kitchen window she watched the arrival of a police van and another car. The pavement and part of the road in front of the shop were cordoned off, leaving the bare minimum of room for vehicles to pass single file. A curious crowd began to gather, housewives shopping, neighbours coming out onto their doorsteps.

Nick appeared and she heard him talking with the officer guarding the street door below.

“What’s happened?”

“Can’t say, sir.”

“Is Mrs Trewynn all right?”

“Far as I know, sir.”

“Let me go and see if she needs any help.”

“No one allowed through, sir.”

He argued for a minute, then shrugged his shoulders and gave up. Looking up, he saw her at the window, waved, and called, “Okay, Eleanor?”

“Yes, dear. Jocelyn’s here.”

“Good.” He waved again and retreated to his shop. Eleanor rather wished she had asked him over before Bob Leacock had turned up. On the other hand, it was going to be difficult enough fitting Megan’s rather large inspector into her sitting room. She hoped he wouldn’t want to question her in the stockroom, at least not until the unfortunate youth had been removed. Though she had seen death from violence, death from disease, death from hunger, she had never grown reconciled to the premature ending of life.

A maroon car pulled up behind the police vehicles and a short, slight Indian emerged. A dapper figure in a pearl-grey suit and pale blue tie, he carried a black bag. As he approached the barricade, the policeman saluted and stood aside.

“The deceased’s in the back room, sir.”

“Thank you, officer.” Like Nick, he glanced up and saw Eleanor at her kitchen window.

She leaned forward across the sink. “
Namaste,
Rajendra. You’re the police doctor?”

“
Namaste
and good morning, Eleanor. Indeed, I have that honour.”

“Do come up for a cup of tea when you’re finished.”

“Thank you. Should I be so fortunate as to have time, I shall be delighted.” He bowed courteously and continued into the passage below.

“Who was that?” Jocelyn asked from the sitting room, which she was tidying ruthlessly. To Eleanor it had looked perfectly all right before she began.

“Rajendra Prthnavi. I suppose he’s come to see how that poor boy broke his neck. Oh, Joce, I am glad it wasn’t Trevor after all. He looked so very like him.”

“That long, matted hair and the tatty jeans are a sort of uniform for a certain type of youth. They wouldn’t wear decent clothes if you paid them.”

A few minutes later, Dr. Prthnavi knocked at the door. Pouring tea, Eleanor enquired after his family. This took some time as, though born in Birmingham, he had relatives in Bombay with whom she was acquainted. After a quarter of an hour, he announced regretfully that he must go about his rounds.

“Aren’t you going to tell us how the unfortunate boy died, Doctor?” Jocelyn asked.

“I ought not, Mrs Stearns, but I am sure I can rely on the discretion of you ladies.”

“Of course,” she said, slightly offended.

“In any case, there is not a great deal to tell. I expect you saw that his neck was broken? If that had not killed him immediately, he’d probably have died slowly from subarachnoid hemorrhage—bleeding inside the cranium. He was hit on the side of the head with the proverbial blunt instrument, sometime last evening.”

Eleanor shuddered. “Oh dear, I was hoping it might somehow turn out to be an accident, but it must have been murder after all, mustn’t it?”

FOUR

A heavy tread on the narrow staircase made Eleanor glad her little house was solidly built of Cornish granite. In relative terms, DI Scumble was equally solidly built, but large. As he stepped through the front door of the flat, left open for his expected arrival, his head brushed the lintel and his shoulders brushed the doorposts.

Teazle let fly a volley of barks. Her voice was surprisingly deep for such a tiny dog. Scumble looked a trifle taken aback, and Eleanor had to suppress a quite inappropriate urge to reassure the monster that the mite would not hurt him.

“Hush, Teazle,” she said instead. “Do sit down, Mr Scumble. Would you like coffee or tea?”

“Not for me, thank you, ma’am,” he said severely, looking round the room for a chair fit to contain his bulk and uphold his weight. The only possibility was one of the old wooden dining chairs, genuine hand-turned beech, a donation from a farmhouse kitchen that had moved “up” to steel and vinyl. Foreseeing the difficulty, Eleanor had tactfully turned one with its back to the table.

As he moved towards it, the floor creaking beneath him, Megan came into view behind him. She looked rather apprehensive. Remembering Jocelyn’s reprimand, Eleanor didn’t jump up to embrace her niece. She didn’t even venture to offer her a cup of tea after Scumble’s adamant rejection of refreshment. A warm but silent smile seemed to be the best choice.

She was rewarded as Megan’s apprehension lightened. Squeezing past her boss, the detective sergeant sat down at the table and took out her notebook and ball-point pen.

“Did the poor boy have any identification on him, Inspector?” Eleanor asked. “Do you know who he is?”

“I’m here to ask the questions, madam. You’ve already told me you didn’t know him. I must ask again, for the official record: Were you acquainted with the victim or do you remember ever having seen him before?”

“No, though for a moment I did wonder—”

“But you’re quite sure now?” he interrupted.

“Yes.”

“Right, tell me about yesterday evening.” It was an order, not a request.

From the corner of her eye, Eleanor saw Jocelyn’s lips tighten. “I came home just before it began to get dark,” she said hastily.

“Where from?”

Eleanor waved her hands. “Oh, all over the place. I was driving, collecting donations, you see. For the shop. And then I walked the dog on the cliffs, not far north of Port Mabyn. There’s a footpath sign and a stile but I’m not sure if that particular bit of cliff has a name,” she added dubiously. “Oh, but I saw Constable Leacock drive past just after I stopped, and he waved, so he knows where I was and he can tell you, if you need to know. But it was earlier, really still afternoon at that point.”

“And then,” said Scumble with an air of dogged patience, “you came home.”

“Yes, and I parked right outside the shop. I know it’s no parking and a double yellow line but it was just for unloading. I had some heavy boxes of books in the boot. Dear Nick came to carry them in for me. Nicholas Gresham, the artist next door. Some of the children helped with the lighter stuff, too.”

“Which children?”

“Ummmm . . .” The only face that appeared to her mind’s eye was the dead boy’s. But the inspector was waiting. “. . . you see, the village children are all very sweet about helping, most of them at least. They understand that it’s all for a good cause. Now, who was it who turned up last night?”

“That’s what I’m asking you, madam.”

“Nick is sure to remember . . . Oh!” The memory of that narrowly averted pinch returned. She mustn’t become a dithery old lady just because that was what he obviously considered her to be. “Of course, it was Donna from the Trelawney Arms. And she was organising the two little ones from the Chinese restaurant, Lionel and Ivy.”

“So you, Gresham, and these three children all carried stuff in. Where did you put it?”

“In the stockroom, where I found the . . . the body this morning. We put everything at the back there to be sorted. He—the boy—was hidden by some of the clothes I’d brought in.” To her dismay, she felt her lips quiver and tears collect in her eyes.

With a defiant glance at Scumble, Jocelyn got up, took Eleanor’s empty mug, and went into the kitchen. A moment later she returned with a full mug of steaming tea which she put into Eleanor’s hands. “Drink,” she said.

A revivifying gulp steadied her, and she went on, “You see, the clothes were spilled and tumbled. I was tidying—”

“We’ll get to that shortly. Go on with last night.”

“Well, he certainly wasn’t there when we unloaded the Incorruptible.”

“The
what?
”

“Sorry, the car. It’s pea-green, and you know what Carlyle said about Robespierre . . .”

Scumble’s scowl suggested he not only didn’t, he had never heard of either gentleman.

Eleanor hastened to explain. “He called him ‘the sea-green incorruptible.’ It’s Nick’s pun, not mine.”

“Could we please get on with the events of yesterday evening?”

“Of course. Where were we?”

The inspector gave her an old-fashioned look and addressed Jocelyn. “If it’s not too much trouble, Mrs Stearns, a cup of coffee would not come amiss. Or tea, whichever is easier. Black. And as strong as possible.”

“Certainly, Inspector,” Jocelyn said graciously. She went back to the kitchen.

“You put all the stuff you had collected in the back room, Mrs Trewynn. At that time there was no body in the room. What happened next?”

“The children went home. Nick told me he’d sold a painting and invited me out to supper to celebrate.”

“What time was this?”

“Time? I don’t . . . Oh, I remember, Nick asked me the time, and I couldn’t tell him because my watch had stopped.”

“Didn’t you come up here then? You have a clock.” He gestured at the pretty flowered-china timepiece on the mantel. Eleanor had agonised over whether she could afford it, at last rationalising that the purchase price would benefit LonStar.

“I didn’t look at it. I just had to feed Teazle and change into something respectable before Nick came to pick me up. And comb my hair,” she added conscientiously as Jocelyn returned with mugs for Scumble and Megan. Eleanor considered her natural curls could survive most things looking reasonably neat. Jocelyn disagreed.

“The clock’s slow anyway,” Scumble muttered, checking his wristwatch.

“It runs slow. Anyway, I was ready when Nick came back from parking the Incorr—the car for me. And he had changed, too. We walked up to the Wreckers—that’s the other pub,” Eleanor explained, as Scumble looked blank.

“Other?”

“Other than the Trelawney Arms, which is where Donna lives. Which is why—But you don’t want to know that.”

“What don’t I want to know?” the inspector asked suspiciously.

“Just that we went to the Wreckers, which is up the other hill and slightly more expensive, because Donna . . . er . . . she’s taken a bit of a fancy to Nick, I’m afraid.”

“She’s a little hussy,” said Jocelyn in her forthright way, “and blatantly pursues him.”

“You’re right,” Scumble admitted. “I didn’t want to know.”

Eleanor beamed at him, seeing Megan, safe behind his back, smother a giggle. “We had a drink at the Wreckers,” she said, “then walked back down and up this side to Chin’s, the Chinese restaurant, where Ivy and Lionel live. We had a very nice dinner. Much nicer than practically anything I ever ate in China.” She was torn between launching into her speech on poverty in China, followed by a plea for a donation, and teasing the detective by starting to list what she and Nick had eaten, followed by an assertion that he didn’t want to know that. Megan’s agonised expression deterred her. “Then we came home.”

Unaware of his narrow escape, Scumble said gloomily, “I suppose you don’t know what time any of this took place.”

“My dear Inspector!” Jocelyn was shocked. “It’s terribly rude for a woman being taken out for the evening to keep her eye on the time. Unless,” she added, to be fair, “she has an urgent appointment.”

“I didn’t,” Eleanor put in quickly, before Scumble could explode. “I came up here—”

“You didn’t notice anything unusual on the way up? The door was still locked?”

“Oh dear! I’m afraid I’m not sure. In fact, I’m not at all sure I locked it when I left. I know, Megan, Joce, I promised, and I do try, but the trouble is, I’ve spent so many years in places without doors, let alone locks—”

“Am I to understand,” asked Scumble in despair, “that both the street door and the door to this flat may or may not have been locked when you left and when you returned.”

“Exactly,” said Eleanor.

“And the stockroom?”

“I’m sure I locked that.” She gave a guilty glance at Jocelyn. “Fairly sure. I distinctly remember locking something.” The car?

“None of the doors shows any sign of being forced. I shall be asking you, Mrs Stearns, who has keys to the shop and storeroom. Now, Mrs Trewynn, did you go out again for any reason?”

“No. Well, yes. Not really. I let Teazle out of the back door, at the end of the passage, by the stockroom door, and I stood at the door watching her. The light was on up here, and she being white, I could see her though it was dark out. She came at once when I called her—she’s very good about that—but when she came in she started to snuffle at the stockroom door. I thought perhaps we had mice again. I called her away and we came up and went to bed.” She bit her lip. “If I’d investigated, could I have helped—?”

“No. He appears to have died more or less instantly. The dog’s behaviour would seem to indicate he was killed while you were out for the evening. You’re sure you didn’t hear anything out of the ordinary while you stood at the back door, or after you came upstairs?”

“Quite sure. I wouldn’t hear anything downstairs after I went to bed, though. My bedroom is upstairs, under the roof, with a dormer window. And Nick had his record-player on. Or perhaps his wireless. He was listening to a piano concerto last night, Shostakovich, I think. He knows I don’t mind being able to hear his music.”

“I’m delighted to hear it. What about this morning?”

“When I took Teazle down to let her out first thing, she was even more interested in the stockroom door. It was difficult to get her to come away. I was sure there must be mice, and so I told Jocelyn—Mrs Stearns—later. I said not to let her in there without me or she’d create chaos. When I went to start sorting the new stuff, she came with me—”

“Mrs Stearns?”

“Teazle. Mrs Stearns was busy in the shop by then. Teazle came with me. She started sniffing around at the back, and then she began to whine. I called her away and made her lie down by the door. I started tidying a pile of clothes, and that’s when I saw him.” All too clearly, Eleanor recalled those pathetically bony ankles. She reached for Jocelyn’s hand. “I don’t think . . . I can’t remember if I touched him. I didn’t move him. I called Joce—”

“And I rang the police,” said Jocelyn decisively. “I was not acquainted with the victim nor did I recognise him. I arrived here at approximately quarter to ten. The vicarage is just two minutes walk. I came in through the street door, which I found locked and unlocked myself. All our more responsible volunteers have keys to that door, so that they can come in to work in the stock-room without going through the shop. I have a list of names and addresses in the shop.”

“Excellent.”

“I went up the stairs and knocked on Mrs Trewynn’s door. When she called out ‘Come in,’ I entered. I have a key—as a friend, nothing to do with the shop—but the door was not locked at that time.”

“That was after I’d taken Teazle down for her morning run,” Eleanor explained.

Scumble gave a nod. “Apparently you had locked the street door when you came in last night. Did you lock this door, the door to your flat?”

Eleanor tried to think. She could picture herself putting the key in the lock and turning it, but was that last night? Or the night before? Or when she went out yesterday? “I have no idea,” she said a bit crossly, “and the more you ask, the more I can’t remember.”

Raising his eyes to heaven, Scumble turned back to Jocelyn. “Please continue, Mrs Stearns.”

“I exchanged a few words with Eleanor—Mrs Trewynn—and then went down to the shop. I entered through the door from the passage. It was locked. Only I and Mrs Davies have keys to that door. Mrs Trewynn does not.”

“Why is that?”

“I don’t need one. I never work in the shop because I have only to look at the cash register for it to malfunction.”

Scumble looked as if he wasn’t in the least surprised.

“I dusted a bit and checked the change Mrs Davies had left in the cash register yesterday at closing time. I should explain that as there’s no bank in the village, whichever of us is in charge takes home the greater part of the day’s takings. In any case, it’s rarely enough to tempt a thief.”

“You’d be surprised.”

“I put up the blinds and opened the shop at ten precisely,” Jocelyn went on. Scumble again looked as if he wasn’t in the least surprised. “I served one customer—I can give you her name if necessary—and then I heard Eleanor calling from the stockroom. I had unlocked the connecting door earlier. Again, only I and Mrs Davies have that key. One or the other of us is always here when the shop is open. I went through. Eleanor had found the body. I immediately put up the CLOSED sign, locked the door of the shop, and telephoned the police in Launceston. I wish to make it clear that I rang Launceston not because of any lack of faith in PC Leacock’s competence, but Mrs Leacock frequently answers the phone and she is quite incapable of keeping a still tongue in her head.”

“Understood.”

“Eleanor was in a state of shock. I brought her up here and made tea, which I consider a far more efficacious remedy than brandy.”

“I don’t have any brandy anyway,” said Eleanor, “but I did drink several cups of tea, so if you will please excuse me for a moment . . .” Gathering what little dignity was left to her, she went up the stairs to her bedroom and, more important just now, her bathroom. Teazle, who had been sitting subdued at her feet, naturally followed her.

Behind her she heard Scumble ask whether anything was missing or disarranged in the shop, and Jocelyn telling him all was as it should be, down to the last penny in the cash register. Eleanor reflected on the curious fact that she, who had seen much unnatural death, was so much more shocked than the vicar’s wife. Perhaps Jocelyn was shielded by her religion, though in Eleanor’s experience, most Christians were as reluctant as those of any other faith—or none—to depart this world for the next.