The Valley of the Shadow Page 2

  The stony path climbed the hillside. Here and there bedrock protruded, making natural steps, awkward however because of their odd sizes and shapes. Twice Eleanor stumbled and nearly fell, but her Aikido training helped her regain her balance.

  Ahead, the valley widened, and soon the inlet came into view. The air was so still that there were no whitecaps, just an edging of creamy froth along the base of the cliff. The dark green swells rolled in with soothing regularity.

  “The Isle of the Dead,” said Nick.

  “What?” exclaimed Megan, startled.

  “Rachmaninoff. The opening describes the sea’s present motion perfectly, restless yet monotonous. But he was writing music about a painting, so I don’t see quite how I can reverse the process…” He was momentarily silent, occupied with an inner vision. “Damn! I was hoping for waves crashing against the sheer headland over there in sheets of spray. I should have checked the tide. Or maybe it’s just that we haven’t had much wind recently. Oh well, it’ll have to do.”

  They walked on until the path petered out into terraces and steps of slate. The abrupt edge was two or three feet above the smooth tops of the swells that surged onward to meet the stream in swirls of foam. Clumps of thrift, the flowerheads brown now, clung in crevices here and there. A grey-and-white herring gull launched itself into the air and joined its fellows circling overhead, their raucous screams cutting through the constant yet ever-changing sounds of moving water. High above floated a buzzard.

  “Gorgeous,” said Megan.

  “Good enough.” Nick fiddled with his camera’s settings, peered through, and fiddled some more.

  Megan jumped down a slate step. Eleanor sat on it, the sun warm on her back.

  “What’s that?” Nick lowered the camera and pointed.

  Eleanor peered, wishing she had brought binoculars. Something dark bobbed in the water. “A seal?”

  “No.” Megan’s voice rang harsh. “It’s a man. And if he’s not already dead, he soon will be.”

  TWO

  How the hell was she to get the poor bugger out? Megan took a rapid inventory of her resources.

  “Hang on, we’re coming!” Nick bellowed through cupped hands.

  A good start. “Aunt Nell, go for help.” As she spoke, she untied the bow of her skirt. “Doctor, ambulance, rope, rugs, hot drinks, anything else you can think of.”

  Her aunt hurried away up the path, white curls bobbing, Teazle at her heels. Megan turned to find that Nick had already stripped off his shirt.

  “Good job I’m in long trousers.” He knotted Teazle’s lead together with one sleeve of the shirt.

  Megan tossed her skirt to him. “On the diagonal.”

  As he tied the other sleeve of his shirt to one corner of the skirt, she slipped out of her shoes and ripped off her blouse, buttons flying, glad she was wearing a black bra and knickers. Just like a bikini, she assured herself.

  “No need for that,” Nick protested, tightening the knots. “I’m going in.”

  Megan shook her head firmly. “I’m a certified lifeguard. I’ll need your weight and your reach to pull us out, if I manage to get him.” Without further words, she leapt down the shelves of slate and, mindful of hidden rocks underwater, did a shallow racing dive towards the floating figure.

  With a shock of cold, the sea enveloped her.

  Surfacing in a trough, she swam to meet the next swell. From the crest she couldn’t see the body. Had it been a seal after all? She glanced back at Nick, who waved and pointed.

  Thank heaven he had his wits about him. She corrected her course slightly and ploughed on.

  Down and up, and down and up … Was she actually moving forward, or was a current stalling her in one place while the swells passed beneath her, lifting, dropping, lifting? But the current was moving her target, too. Towards the rocks? She must be getting closer.

  There he was! A brown-skinned man, limp, floating on his back. Dead men float facedown after first sinking. The dark patch she had taken for hair was his face, unshaven, eyes closed. He was alive!

  “I’m coming!”

  Opening black eyes, he turned his head to look at her. As though the effort exhausted his last reserve of strength, he started to sink.

  Megan would have said she was swimming as fast as she was able, but she put on a spurt. She caught him under the arms and raised his head above the surface. He neither struggled nor made any attempt to help. He hadn’t choked on emerging. A bad sign?

  She decided hopefully that his buoyancy meant his lungs must be full of air, not water. With one arm under his and across his chest, she swam backstroke, straining to hear Nick’s shouted directions as single-armed swimming made her veer from her course.

  “You’re getting close!”

  Megan changed tactics. One hand holding up the victim’s chin, she twisted sideways and started a scissors kick. At the top of each swell she glanced backwards. As she neared the sheer rock face, she slowed, unsure what to do next.

  Nick knelt down. “I’m throwing a loop of rope,” he called. “Try to hook it under his arms.”

  Teazle’s lead flew towards her. The weight of the leather and the metal clip carried the makeshift rope within reach, and the leather floated. Megan grabbed it with her free hand.

  Hooking it under the arms of the flaccid body, while staying afloat and keeping his face out of the water, was easier said than done. She was growing tired by the time she accomplished it, but now Nick took the strain. He drew them slowly nearer. Megan was able to put out a hand to fend them off from the rock.

  Unlike the smooth concrete edge of the swimming bath she’d trained in, this edge was sharp. The sea’s action flaked the slate rather than smoothing it. Getting out—and especially getting the helpless man out—without nasty grazes was not going to be easy.

  Nick was lying full length now, awkwardly, on the shelving rock, his shoulders and arms over the edge. “Can you lift him at all?”

  “Don’t think so. Can’t feel anything to stand on.”

  “Never mind.” He reached down. “I’ll hold him. Can you get yourself up?”

  “I’ll manage.” She moved over a couple of feet and waited for a swell to lift her, then grabbed the edge above her head. There were plenty of toe-holds. Somehow, with the loss of some skin, she hauled herself over. For a brief moment she let herself flop, all muscles relaxed.

  “Let’s get him out. Is he breathing? I don’t like the look of him.”

  “Hypothermic.” She pulled herself together and shuffled crabwise to Nick’s side.

  He had draped his shorts over the edge as some protection against scrapes. What a pair, she thought, her in sodden black bra and knickers, him in white Y-fronts and string vest!

  Turning his head, he caught her eye and gave her a crooked grin. “Needs must when the devil drives. Come on, we can do it. On three.”

  She leant down. He shifted his grip and she hooked her hands beneath the brown man’s armpit. As another swell raised him towards them, Nick counted, “One. Two—”

  “Hey, hang on!”

  Heavy footsteps hurried across the rock. Megan glanced back to see a young couple in hiking boots and shorts, shrugging off rucksacks as they came.

  “We saw from the cliff path,” the girl explained breathlessly. “Sorry it took us so long to get here. We were way up at the top.”

  “I’ll take over,” the shaggy-haired youth said to Megan, kneeling down. “Super job, but you must be done in.”

  She was happy to relinquish her place. Her arms were beginning to feel like jelly.

  As she sat up, Nick said, “Megan, be ready to support his head. All right, mate, at the top of the swell … One, two, heave!”

  Megan managed to field his head before it struck the rock. She laid it down gently and brushed the straggling black hair from his face.

  “A wog, eh?” said the stranger. “Indian, looks like. Stupid git, swimming in there. Starkers, too.”

  “Don’t talk like tha
t, Chaz,” his companion remonstrated. “You don’t know what happened. Is he breathing?”

  Her hand on his chest, Megan put her ear to his mouth, which had fallen slightly open. “Can’t feel any movement, but there’s a faint wheeze. We’d better get him into rescue position so any water drains. Here, where it’s flat. On his stomach—Careful, for heaven’s sake! That’s it. Head to one side. Arms stretched out and bent. Leg bent, like this.”

  A little water dribbled from his mouth. Nick leant over him. “Still breathing.”

  “Unless it stops, I think the most urgent thing is to warm him up.”

  The girl tossed over a towel. She had already untied a sleeping bag from one of the packs and unrolled it. “Dry him off and get him in here. His arms and leg will have to be straightened out, though.”

  “He’s so c-cold … B-body to body contact would be b-best…”

  “You’re shivering like mad yourself,” the girl said matter-of-factly. “I knew we should have brought a thermos. Put this on. I’ll do it.” She tossed Megan a scarlet polo-neck shirt.

  “Th-thanks.”

  Chaz muttered something irritable, but by the time Megan’s head emerged from the shirt, which was a size too small, he and Nick were zipping up the sleeping bag with the Indian inside. Luckily he was very slight, not to say skinny. The girl was also slender. Stripped of her shirt and boots but retaining her short shorts—not much more than hot pants—she wriggled in beside him.

  “Ugh! It’s a bit like hugging a cold hot-water bottle! Don’t look so uptight, Chaz. I can just barely feel him breathing. He’s not about to try anything.”

  “‘Barely’ is the word,” said Nick with a grin.

  He was trying to untie his shirt from the makeshift rope but the strain put on it had tightened the knot. Megan realised his shorts had slipped off the rock into the water and disappeared. He dug in his satchel and brought out an anorak. It wasn’t quite long enough to cover him decently, but then she wasn’t exactly decently dressed herself. Imagining what DI Scumble would say if he saw her made her hot all over—no bad thing, considering.

  “Megan? Are you all right?”

  “Yes. I think so.” She sat down rather suddenly on the nearest step. “Sorry, just a bit woozy for a second. Did you say something?”

  He regarded her with a worried frown. “I wondered whether we ought, Chaz and I, to try to carry Julia and the Indian bloke up to the road to meet the ambulance. But I’m not sure you’re in a fit state to—”

  “I’m perfectly all right. The sooner he can get to a hospital, the better. There’s something about not jostling hypothermics, though. Better not, perhaps, if it’s risky.”

  “We’ll take ’em with Julia underneath,” said Chaz, “so that if we drop them he’s well cushioned.”

  “Hey!”

  “No,” Megan said decidedly. “We can’t risk it. But someone should go to explain the situation to the ambulance men when they arrive and make sure they don’t go astray on the way down. Aunt Nell may be there—she went for help—but I can’t be sure. Chaz, it’ll have to be you.”

  Chaz looked at his seminaked girlfriend snuggling in the sleeping bag with a completely naked male stranger. “Not me.”

  Megan drew herself up and stared him in the eye. “You’re the only one who’s decently dressed. I may not look like it right now, but I’m a police officer, and I’m requesting your cooperation.”

  “Police? Right!” he said sceptically.

  Nick grinned. “Detective Sergeant Pencarrow of the Constabulary of the Royal Duchy of Cornwall,” he confirmed.

  Chaz’s challenging gaze dropped. “Oh, all right. I don’t know the way, though. We were heading for the youth hostel in Boscastle.”

  “Follow the stream. Thank you.” Megan turned away, hearing the thud of his hiking boots recede across the rock. “Miss…?”

  “Julia. You don’t need to come the copper over me.”

  “Julia, you will tell me at once if he stops breathing, won’t you.”

  “Of course. I’m not doing this for fun, though I must say it’ll make a good story! He doesn’t feel quite so cold. That may be because I’m getting colder, though.”

  “Seriously colder? Chilled?”

  “Don’t think so. I’m warm inside, if you know what I mean. But there’s a bloody great rock sticking into my hip.”

  “I’ll get the other sleeping bag,” Nick offered. “We’ll work it underneath you.” He went over to the rucksacks and started unstrapping Chaz’s sleeping bag. “How about you, Megan? I expect Julia has something else you can wear.”

  “Help yourself. I didn’t bring a skirt, though, and I doubt you’ll be able to get into my jeans. There’s a long pully. You’d be halfway decent in that. And an anorak and a woolly hat, too.”

  “The victim had better have the hat,” Megan decided.

  Nick unrolled the second sleeping bag. Megan helped him ease it under the girl and the Indian. Julia assisted as best she could considering her swaddled condition and her inert companion.

  “Thanks, that’s better. But I hope your aunt brings help quickly.”

  “I just hope she hasn’t broken her ankle running along that path,” said Nick. “It’s rough going and she’s not as young as she was.”

  “For heaven’s sake,” Megan snapped, “don’t go envisaging extra disasters. Haven’t we got trouble enough?”

  THREE

  Breathless, a stitch in her side, Eleanor hammered on the front door of Trevillet Mill House. No response. Only a blackbird’s song disturbed the stillness.

  She looked about. An open window caught her eye, and she contemplated burglary. What deterred her was not the thought of Megan’s horror if she were caught but the apparent lack of a telephone line leading to the house.

  Calves and thighs aching now, she tackled the last steep hill up to the road. Teazle scampered ahead, her short legs making light work of the slope.

  A car swished past. Eleanor realised she had left the lead behind.

  “Teazle, heel!”

  At the top, she picked up the little dog, still sodden from the dip in the stream, and tucked her under one arm. Crossing to the car, she felt in her pocket for the keys. For a heart-stopping moment, she thought Megan hadn’t handed them back. She’d have to try to hitch a lift to a phone, dog and all … No, here they were in the other pocket. Now, which way to the nearest phone?

  She couldn’t recall ever noticing a phone box in Bossiney or Trevalga, nor even outside the Old Post Office in Tintagel, but she was sure there was one in front of the Wellington Hotel in Boscastle. A few minutes later, she was knocking on the glass of the kiosk, mouthing “Emergency!” at a tall, broad-shouldered man in grey trousers, a reefer jacket over a white shirt and blue-striped tie, and a yachtsman’s peaked cap.

  He glared at her and turned his back. He must be much too hot in that jacket, enough to put anyone in a bad mood.

  Eleanor stepped round to the front and opened the door. “Please let me use the phone. It’s an emergency!”

  Again the wide back turned to her.

  Detaching a large man from a phone in a phone box was not a manoeuvre Eleanor had learnt from her sensei. She chose the better part of valour and made for the hotel. Surely it must have a public phone.

  The lobby was deserted. Eleanor couldn’t see a pay-phone in its dim depths, so she hurried over to the reception desk and pinged the brass bell.

  No one came. Desperate by now, Eleanor leant over the counter. Behind the raised shelf in front lurked a telephone with an alarming number of buttons below the dial. It appeared to be labelled with instructions, though. With any luck at all, she’d be able to work out how to dial 999.

  She started round the counter. A door behind it opened and a skinny, balding man in a bow tie appeared.

  He looked her up and down, aghast. “Here, you can’t—”

  “It’s an emergency,” Eleanor said impatiently.

  “A few scrapes and bruises
. Unless you’ve booked a room—”

  “What?” She glanced down at herself. Besides a large damp patch on her blouse from carrying Teazle and a smear of mud on her beige skirt, her hands, arms, knees, and shins were badly grazed, with a few trickles of blood drying on her skin. She had tripped and fallen on the path but in the urgency of her errand she hadn’t realised the extent of the damage. Awareness made every scratch begin to smart. No time to deal with it now. She reached for the phone. “I must ring for an ambulance.”

  “I hardly think they’ll appreciate being called out for—”

  “There’s a man drowning! How do I get 999?”

  “Here.” He seized the receiver from her, pushed a button, and dialled. “You want a lifeboat.”

  “Ambulance,” Eleanor insisted. A vision of that limp, floating body rose before her. A hearse might be more appropriate, she feared.

  The man thrust the receiver at her. “You’d better explain.” With one foot, he hooked a tall stool and pushed it behind her.

  She sank onto it as a disembodied voice spoke in her ear: “Emergency. Which service do you require?”

  Which service. Eleanor’s mind went blank.

  “Fire? Police? Ambulance?”

  “Ambulance. Lifeboat? And, oh dear, I think you’d better send the police.”

  “Please explain, madam. What is the emergency?”

  “A man—a person—drowning. Or drowned. I’m not sure…”

  “Shouting or waving for help?”

  “No. Just floating. In the sea.”

  “Are you certain this person isn’t just enjoying a relaxing swim, madam?” the voice asked sceptically.

  “Quite certain. Not there. No one would choose to swim there.”

  “I see. Location, madam?”

  “Rocky Valley. It’s a narrow inlet, with no beach. Just sheer cliffs. North of Tintagel, between Bossiney and Tre … Tre…” The hamlet’s name escaped her.

  “Trevalga,” prompted the hotel man, now engrossed.

  “Trevalga.”

  “Mightn’t you have seen a seal, madam? They’re quite often mistaken for—”