Buried in the Country Page 7

  Gina sent a questioning glance Eleanor’s way. Eleanor shrugged slightly. It was not for her to explain the root of Gina’s guests’ dissension.

  EIGHT

  As instructed, Megan had driven round to the front of the hotel and parked the car there. Checking in at reception, she noted that the large, comfortably furnished lobby had plenty of nooks perfect for lurking. Damp and chilled, she didn’t stop to look about but went straight up to her room. It was not the draughty garret she had expected, but warm and much larger and more comfortable than anything she could have afforded for herself.

  The reason for this unwonted expenditure of the taxpayers’ money (by the CRO, not the chronically underfunded CaRaDoC) was clear when she leaned against the radiator to part the closed curtains.

  Despite the night and the still-pouring rain, she could tell that she was just to one side of the well-lit front entrance portico, facing southeast. In daylight, she would have a view over the main car park and down the drive to the village, perfect for watching comings and goings. Inside, she was right opposite the main staircase and not too high up. If anyone approaching looked worthy of investigation, she could run down to the lobby in no time.

  She was about to close the curtains, when the twin beams of headlights showed hazily through the downpour. One was yellow. A white van—the same white van?—pulled up to the portico and stopped.

  Megan managed to pull off her damp socks and shoes while watching the van. A man got out on the driver’s side. At least she assumed it was a man, because he wore a trilby. As he circled the vehicle and disappeared under the portico, she dashed across the room to her bag to retrieve dry shoes, tights, a skirt, and a pocket torch. She turned off the overhead light and returned to the window. She could see out better now, and in the unlikely event of anyone looking up, they wouldn’t see her.

  Still peering down, she put on dry clothes, draping the wet ones over the radiator and shoving the toes of her shoes under it. Not good for the leather, but otherwise they’d take forever to dry.

  The man came out again. He stooped to the van’s window, shouting or just nodding to someone inside. Then he went round to the back, opened one door, and took out a couple of suitcases. Meanwhile, a man in headgear reminiscent of Andy Capp’s climbed out on the passenger side and darted for shelter.

  The first man went after him with the cases, then emerged a minute later without them. He got back in and drove off to park, backing into a space as if ready for a quick departure. The mismatched headlights went off.

  Megan let the curtains fall together, crossed by torchlight to the door, and turned the light back on. Hastily, she dug her sponge bag out of her holdall. At the mirror over the washbasin, she ran a comb through her hair and applied peachy lipstick.

  Nothing to do with the possibility of Ken’s turning up, she told herself as she hurried downstairs. Her role as a holidaying visitor called for lipstick.

  When she was far enough down to see the reception desk, two men were standing in front of it. Both wore fawn raincoats. The shoulders of the tall, thin one were dark with rain. Trilby in one hand, he kept shifting his weight from foot to foot, impatient or nervous. His sleeked-back hair was unnaturally black, thinning. His companion had kept his cap on, as well as a green muffler, hiding his hair. He was shorter, burly. His hands stayed in his pockets while the other signed the register.

  There was something furtive in their stance.

  All this Megan observed as she came down the last few steps, treading lightly. She was sure these were the pair she had seen sitting in the van at Launceston station, but their arrival puzzled her.

  She was as good as certain they hadn’t followed her in the lanes; apart from the near impossibility, they would have arrived much sooner. Yet here they were. If they had known already where she was going, why draw attention to themselves by waiting in the station car park and driving out immediately behind her?

  More likely, it had just been a convenient place to stop and consult the map to work out how to get here.

  The receptionist, a middle-aged woman, handed over two keys, the tall man taking possession of both. Not wanting to be caught snooping, Megan took the last two steps more heavily. She still made very little sound, but both men swung round instantly.

  At the same moment, the front door opened, letting in a blast of cold, damp air. The men continued turning till they faced it. Megan and the receptionist also looked that way.

  “Ken!”

  “Hello, darling.”

  Unwillingly following his cue, Megan went to meet him and accepted a kiss on the cheek. “I was beginning to wonder whether you’d decided to wait out the storm somewhere and I’d have to dine alone.”

  “Whatever happened to the blue skies and sunny beaches in the posters?” DS Kenneth Faraday, always referred to by DCI Scumble as the Boy Wonder, was as tall and broad-shouldered as Megan’s boss, considerably less bulky, twenty years younger, and much better looking. In black jeans and a damp down jacket, his hair dripping, he didn’t look at all like a policeman. At that moment, his expression was not the usual cocksure arrogance, but an unaccountable mixture of smugness and sheepishness, to which was added curiosity as he stared at the backs of the two raincoated men now hurrying to the stairs. “Trouble?” he asked softly.

  “I’ll tell you. You’d better check in first.”

  “Right. Give me ten minutes and I’ll meet you in the bar.”

  Playing up to the image he had chosen to project, Megan tucked her hand into his arm and went with him to the desk.

  “I’m afraid both rooms adjacent to Miss Pencarrow’s are already occupied,” the receptionist said, her accent Cornish, her tone chilly.

  “I believe you have a room reserved for me. The name’s Faraday.”

  “Oh yes, Mr. Faraday. Let’s see now. Yes, your room is on the first floor, southwest side. When the storm passes, you’ll enjoy the view over the Haven to the castle ruins. If you’d just sign the register, please, and I’ll get your key.” She pushed the ledger across the counter and turned to the key board.

  Megan read the names scrawled on the two lines above Ken’s: Victor Jones and Adrian Arbuthnot, both of London.

  Ken signed, took his key, refused help with his baggage, and thanked the receptionist. She disappeared through a door behind the desk as he and Megan turned away.

  “Victor Jones, Adrian Arbuthnot,” said Ken.

  “‘Victor,’ probably his real name, or one he often uses,” said Megan. “‘Jones,’ one step above Smith. ‘Adrian Arbuthnot,’ pure fiction.”

  “You’re pretty certain they’re villains, then?”

  “Pretty certain. Though they may have nothing to do with our job here. I’ll explain when you come down.”

  “See you in the bar. I’ll have a pint of bitter, local draught if they have it.”

  “All right. Hold on, here’s the key Sir Edward gave me for you.”

  “To…?”

  “When you come down.”

  He nodded and, pigskin suitcase in one hand, he took the stairs two at a time.

  Showing off as usual, Megan thought. That moment of sheepishness, though—what had brought the expression to his face? In the past, it had generally signified the arrival in his life of yet another long-legged blonde, but he couldn’t have picked one up yet, nor brought one with him.

  Megan strolled round the lobby, noting in particular a couple of cosy nooks with a good view of both the entrance and the stairs. Then she went through to the bar. In the far corner was a door to the exterior, making the bar accessible to nonresidents—while also providing an escape route for anyone hoping to evade surveillance. On her right were curtained windows that in daylight would have the same view as her bedroom just above.

  The room was thinly populated. A group of eight or nine Americans were complaining about the weather to a harassed English guide. Another joined them as Megan watched, saying, “Aw, come on, folks, give the guy a break. It’s prob’ly te
n degrees and snowing in Minneapolis.”

  A few middle-aged couples were scattered about the large room, talking quietly or silent and glum. The only person who looked content was a man of about sixty sitting at the bar with a bleached blonde thirty-five years his junior. The bar stool pose and her miniskirt contrived to display the girl’s long, shapely legs.

  Megan asked the barman for Ken’s pint and a half of cider for herself. “Quiet tonight,” she remarked as she paid, boggling at the total, adding a tip, and wondering whether she could put it on expenses. “The storm must have kept a lot of people away.”

  “We don’t aim for the pub trade, miss. There’s not many local people come in, though we do get a few tourists that’s staying in the village, and them with summer cottages.”

  “I nearly didn’t make it myself this evening. It was a beastly drive.”

  “I did hear some people that booked for tonight rang up to say they’d stop the night somewhere else and come on in the morning. But we got a few the other way round, wasn’t planning to stay here but didn’t want to drive any farther. Six of one and half a dozen of the other, if you take my meaning, miss, and it all comes out in the wash. Excuse me, miss.” He went to refill the glass of the smug man at the bar.

  Feeling she had made a good start at establishing a gossipy relationship with the barman, Megan settled in a corner with a clear view of both doors. If Jones and Arbuthnot came in, she couldn’t miss them, but she had to allow for their villainy being of a different stamp.

  A Rhodesian spy might stay in the village, drive up to the hotel, and enter through the exterior door. In fact, since the village had several perfectly good pubs, any nonresident who braved the storm to get to the hotel bar was more than likely up to no good.

  Ken came in. His gaze took in the entire bar and those in it, without lingering for even a moment on those long legs. Megan wondered whether his self-restraint presaged yet another attempt to persuade her to return to London, now that women were at last to be allowed the rank of Detective.

  He wound his way between the tables to join her. As he sat down, he reached for his beer and took a big gulp. “Ah, that’s better. Thanks.”

  “Tough drive?”

  “Not bad till the last twenty miles. But my passenger was determined to do some sightseeing en route. Stonehenge, Winchester Cathedral—thanks to the Beatles, Salisbury Cathedral, Dartmoor.”

  “I’m surprised you ever got here. You weren’t followed?”

  “No, I’m sure of that. You were? By those two in the lobby?”

  “By them if by anyone.” Megan frowned. “I just don’t know.” She described the van as she had seen it in the station car park and how the mismatched lights had followed along the main roads. “Up to that point, I was wondering why anyone would have chosen such a distinctive vehicle for the purpose.”

  “Assuming they stole it, they might simply not have noticed.”

  “True. Presumably, they’d have been in a hurry to get away. Do you think I ought to check whether it’s been reported stolen?”

  “Not if it means going out into the storm in the dark to get the licence number! You didn’t note it down at the station?”

  “I couldn’t read it. The light was rotten. Besides, I had no reason to suspect anything then. What makes you think it was stolen, anyway? Surely the Rhodesian white settlers aren’t the sort to drive small stolen vans. Don’t they all live on huge estates with dozens of servants and hundreds of workers?”

  Ken grinned. “That’s certainly the impression you get from the press. Perhaps sanctions are beginning to bite? More likely, Smith’s government employed a couple of crooks to do the dirty work for them.”

  “Could be. Or could be hired by a sympathiser over here who wants to keep his nose clean. But whoever they are, I don’t believe they could have followed me through the lanes.”

  “I must admit I had a hard time just finding my way here tonight, without trying to follow taillights.”

  “And you were following the signs, weren’t you? The lanes I took are half as wide and have no fingerposts except to farms. Besides, they arrived fifteen or twenty minutes after I did. Either they already knew where my passengers were going or they’re nothing to do with us and just happened to be coming here.”

  “Bit of a coincidence!”

  “Coincidences happen. On the other hand, if they are spying on this Zimbabwe business, they already knew quite a lot, or they wouldn’t have been waiting at the station at the right time. But why wait at all if they knew we were coming here?”

  “My brain’s spinning.” Ken groaned. “Let’s go and get something to eat.”

  “Hang on, I’ve got a two-way hand-held for you.” She glanced round. No one was paying them the slightest attention, so she took the small radio from her shoulder bag and handed it to him under the table.

  “Thanks.”

  “And here’s the key Sir Edward gave me for you, for the connecting door to the northwest tower, where he is staying.”

  Pocketing it with a nod, he gulped the last of his beer, and they headed for the dining room.

  The menu was pricy, like the bar drinks, but Sir Edward’s department was paying the bill for their meals. Ken still had the irritating—though useful—ability to summon a waiter without raising a finger. They ordered scallops, landed that morning before the storm blew in, with local spring lamb jardinière to follow.

  The waiter was a washout as a source of information. He was Spanish and his command of English seemed to be strictly reserved for food. He took their orders; then Ken asked whether they often had nonresidents coming to dine. “Not in this weather, of course,” he added.

  The man looked baffled. Uncertainly he said, “Huether better mañana, sir,” and went off with a puzzled face.

  “Bad luck.” Megan sat back. “Of course, our pair could even be quite innocent tourists. Only, the tall one looked to me like a con man. The sort who preys on lonely, well-off widows. And the other looked like a thug.”

  “He did indeed. Prison pallor, I shouldn’t be surprised. Not long out. I could swear I’ve seen a photo of his ugly mug.”

  “Along with ‘Wanted for…,’ or his fingerprints?”

  “Undoubtedly. But not under the name of Jones. Not a case I was on, or I’d remember. I can’t pin him down.”

  “Victor something?”

  Ken shook his head. “Doesn’t help.”

  “We could be wrong. It doesn’t do to judge by looks.”

  “‘There is no art to find the mind’s construction in the face.’”

  “What?”

  “Macbeth.”

  “Oh. We did Romeo and Juliet.”

  “There’s no way to tell a man’s character by his face.”

  After a moment’s thought, Megan said, “It could be the opposite. ‘There is no art,’ meaning it’s simple.”

  “But it’s not simple, or con men wouldn’t exist.”

  “And Lombroso’s head bumps have been thoroughly debunked, too. Besides, I was judging by their furtive behaviour as much or more than by their faces. Do you think they might have recognised you?”

  “If they’re London crooks, it’s always possible they’ve seen me before, at the Yard, or in court, or perhaps investigating their mates. And some petty criminals develop a nose for a copper, though I must have looked more like a drowned rat than a policeman.”

  “You did,” said Megan, laughing.

  “Oh well, if they did guess, maybe they’ll give up whatever their little scheme is.”

  “They must have some sort of scheme, don’t you think? They’re Londoners, or so they wrote in the hotel register. What are they doing here buried in the country on the North Coast in early March? A holiday seems highly unlikely.”

  “I might believe in a holiday if they’d brought the missus and the kiddies! I’d say they must have a specific target in mind, not just a vague hope of a good haul at a comparatively pricy hotel, especially in the off-season
.”

  “One way or the other, we’ll just have to keep tabs on them. The barman seems to be a bit of a gossip.”

  “He does, does he? Have you been chatting him up?”

  “Just chatting. Cultivating a promising source.”

  “Sounds much better that way. It’ll impress Sir Edward.”

  “I wasn’t going to bother him with it. Surely he’ll only want to know if we find out something definite.”

  “I was told to report this evening.”

  “He never said anything to me.”

  “No?” Ken sighed. “A gentleman of the old school, I daresay.”

  “You mean he believes a woman’s only use as a detective is that she doesn’t look like one?”

  “I was trying to put it tactfully.”

  “Bloody cheek! Who’s done all the detecting that’s been done so far, I’d like to know?”

  “You have, and I’ll make sure you get the credit, so don’t blame me. Come to think of it, the instructions may well have come from my guv’nor, not Sir Edward, so don’t blame him. After all, he did leave it to you to brief me, though I’ve pretty well got the picture. We’re to watch out for nosy strangers, right? Here’s our food,” he added with obvious relief. “Calm down, Megan. Could we possibly have a truce while we eat?”

  NINE

  Whatever Gina’s cook’s difficulties, Eleanor found nothing amiss with the dinner she provided. The company was pleasant, too. Gina carefully steered the conversation to uncontroversial topics, allowing everyone to enjoy the meal in peace, barring a few missteps.

  The name of the hotel and King Arthur’s mythical connection to Tintagel interested both the students. Eleanor described the ruins on the island.

  “It was probably a monastery,” she explained, “with a possible lookout fort going back to Roman times.”

  “I’d love to see it,” said Nontando eagerly.

  “Sorry.” Sir Edward was firm. “Even if the storm abates, showing yourself outdoors would completely breach security.”

  Nontando didn’t protest, but she looked defiant.