Hawke's Tor (2 page)

R
IDING THEIR HORSES carefully along the narrow and steep lane which led down to the equally narrow bridge spanning the Lynher river, the two policemen were passing a small cottage built inside a niche cut into the rocky hillside when they saw a tall elderly woman on her knees in the garden, weeding a colourful flowerbed. She looked up at the sound of the horses and, rising to her feet, watched the riders approaching, at the same time kneading her aching back with the knuckles of one hand.

Smiling in her direction, Amos said, ‘Good afternoon, ma'am, gardening on such a steep slope must be hard work, but you have a wonderful display of flowers to show for it.'

‘There have been better years,' came the reply, ‘but then, I've also had worse. Who are you?'

Both men brought their horses to a halt and Amos said, ‘I'm Police Superintendent Amos Hawke from Bodmin and this is Sergeant Tom Churchyard, ma'am.'

‘What have you come all this way from Bodmin for? We already have a policeman in Trelyn … he's a sergeant too.'

‘We're here because Mrs Morgan and her baby have gone missing and everyone's worried about them.'

‘Mrs Morgan … are you talking of Kerensa Tonks, as was? I saw her only last evening taking that baby of hers up towards the place
that has a name the same as yours,
Hawk's
Tor and although the baby was wrapped in a shawl it was far too late to have it out. I'm not surprised she got herself lost; it would have been nigh on dark by the time she got to wherever it was she was going. Not that it would have stopped her from doing what it was she wanted, Kerensa Tonks got up to more than most in the dark and having a baby hasn't put a stop to her ways, nor has having a husband, much as he might have hoped it would. It's in the blood, her mother was no better … and they used to say
her
mother looked more like the master up at the hall than any of his own children.'

The two policemen exchanged glances, aware that the woman to whom they were talking probably knew more about Kerensa Morgan and everything that went on in the hamlet than anyone else they were likely to meet up with.

Dismounting from his horse, and signalling for Tom to do the same, Amos said, ‘I'd like Sergeant Churchyard to make a few notes about what you've just told me, ma'am. It's quite likely you're the last person to have seen Mrs Morgan and it could prove a great help in finding her.'

‘You'll only find Kerensa Tonks – or Morgan, as she's called now – if she wants to be found, though you're both presentable young men, so you might stand more chance than most.'

Choosing for the moment to ignore the woman's implication, Amos said, ‘Do you mind if I ask your name, and whether you know more or less what time it was when you saw Mrs Morgan and the baby?'

‘I'm Jemima Rowe,
Miss
Rowe, although everybody calls me Jemima. Until I retired nigh on twenty years ago I was housekeeper up at the Hall, though it was a different place in my young days. The master up there then was a colonel too, same as the one who's there now, but he'd no more think of taking on a
“foreigner” as his estate steward than he would of allowing any of his servants to marry one.'

‘Can you give me an idea of what time it was when you saw Mrs Morgan?' Amos persisted.

‘I wasn't watching the clock, but it must have been half an hour or so before dark. Immediately after she passed by I went out to fetch in my washing and saw her take the track that leads up to the moor.'

‘Are you quite certain of that? She wouldn't have been going into the woods? That's where her husband seems to think she might have gone, to meet him.'

‘She was heading up towards the moor, whatever her husband thought. He'd be the last one to know where she was going off to, whatever time of day or night it was.'

‘What makes you say that?' Tom stopped writing and looked searchingly at her.

‘Because I've seen him coming past here looking for her more than once,' Jemima said, scornfully, ‘
and
heard them arguing about it when he found her and they were on their way home together. Him demanding to know where she'd been when she should have been at home preparing a meal for him when he finished work, and Kerensa telling him she was fed up with being tied to the house all day and had gone out for a walk and forgotten what time it was.'

‘When was the last time you heard such an argument?'

‘Some time last week, Thursday, I think. It was getting dark then too. But if she's gone missing she'll come back in her own time, baby or no baby, but she'll do it once too often, you mark my words. She has that man of hers under her thumb now because she's young and pretty, but she'll get old like the rest of us and find she has nothing else to keep him.'

‘You didn't see her husband going up that way looking for her?'

‘No one else came past the cottage before dark, although I have no idea what might have happened after that, I had my curtains drawn and the bolt on the door.'

Tom had been taking notes in his pocket-book while she was talking, now, at a signal from Amos, he closed the book and slipped it into an inside pocket of his frock coat, as Amos said, ‘Thank you very much, Jemima. The next time I'm around this way I'll call in to say “Hello” and admire this lovely garden of yours once more.'

Secretly pleased with his praise for her garden, Jemima said, ‘I don't doubt you have better things to do than waste time on an old lady, but if you need to know anything about Trelyn, or the folk who live here then you're very welcome to call in and ask me about them. I've lived hereabouts for close to ninety years and I know more than anyone else you're likely to talk to about what goes on, or
has
gone on here.'

Leaving the old woman lowering herself gingerly to her knees, Amos said to Tom, ‘In view of what Miss Rowe said, you'd better go up on the moor and have a look around, Tom. I'll join you when I've spoken to Morgan … but be careful, I've heard a lot about the marshland up there. If Kerensa Morgan wandered into it in the dark she and her baby may never be found.'

 

Once over the narrow, single arch bridge spanning the river the two policemen parted company and Amos found Horace Morgan about half a mile along the side of the wooded slope of the moor. He had formed the estate workers into a spaced-out line, and they were making their way through the woods as though beating for a shooting party. It was easy to locate them
because of the noise they were making, calling out either ‘Kerensa', or ‘Mrs Morgan' as they went.

Horace Morgan was a big, heavily-built man and Amos was surprised to find he was in his forties, or perhaps even early fifties. Knowing him to be the father of a young baby Amos had imagined he would be a younger man.

Restlessly distraught at the disappearance of his wife and baby, the estate steward seemed convinced his wife would be found somewhere in the woods, even when he was informed that Jemima Rowe claimed to have seen her taking the path to the moor.

‘Jemima Rowe is getting old,' he said, ‘These days she is seeing less and imagining more. She probably
thought
that was where Kerensa was going with the baby because just recently she's sometimes met me when I was on my way home from checking on work at Trewortha, a farm way out on the moor. But I told Kerensa I wouldn't be out there yesterday because I was supervising replanting at the far edge of this strip of woodland. If she had decided to meet me she'd have expected me to come back through the woods. That's why I'm concentrating my search here, although I sent someone out to Trewortha earlier this morning, because she doesn't always remember what I tell her. The moor isn't a good place to be at night, especially with a baby and
had
she gone there she'd have no doubt stayed the night and not tried to get home.'

‘That would have been the sensible thing to do,' Amos agreed, ‘I've heard there are some particularly deep bogs to be found up there.'

Horace Morgan shook his head, ‘That's true enough, but Kerensa knows where they all are. She wouldn't be likely to wander into any of them, not even in the dark – but if you listened
to the tales the older folk hereabouts tell about the moor you'd think there was far more to worry about than the odd marsh, or two. If you believed some of them you'd find more dragons up there than we've ever had in Wales … or something every bit as fierce. They are convinced there's a mysterious animal that roams the moor at night killing sheep and foals – and humans too, if they're foolish enough to be up there after dark!'

After maintaining a thoughtful silence for some moments, Amos asked, ‘When did the stories begin about this mysterious beast? Was there something particular that happened to give credence to such a belief?'

‘As far as I can tell there have always been such stories around the moor. Every so often we come across a half-eaten sheep, or the bones of a foal might be found picked clean, but it's only to be expected. Animals die of natural causes, same as humans and you've always got foxes, buzzards, ravens – and even dogs – scavenging around up there. The moorland bogs are far more dangerous. I wouldn't fancy the chances of anyone, or anything, wandering into one of them, day or night but, as I said, Kerensa knows the moor as well as anyone and she wouldn't put Albert's life at risk…. No, if she's hurt herself somewhere it'll be here, in the woods.'

‘When was it you first became anxious about her, Mr Morgan?

‘When I got home after dark and found she wasn't home. She often goes wandering around, even though she has a baby now, but she would rarely keep him out after dark.'

‘You said you thought she might have come to meet you from work. If she
had
remembered where you were working and come to find you wouldn't you have been likely to run into each other somewhere along the way?' Amos posed the question mindful
that the ex-Trelyn Hall housekeeper had seen Kerensa heading for the high moor and not taking the path through the woods.

‘Yes – had I been coming back the usual way, but I wanted to check that the tenant in Treveniel Farm had repaired a fence his cattle had knocked down, so I took a short cut there instead of coming back through the woods.'

‘What time would that have been?'

‘I don't know, about four o'clock, I suppose. Then I went back to my office in the Hall and caught up with some paperwork.'

‘And you stayed working in the office until dark?'

‘Yes, I'm used to doing that, although not so often since I've been married. It wasn't until the butler came to the office and asked when I'd be leaving because he wanted to lock up the Hall that I realized how late it was!'

‘How late was it?'

‘Gone ten o'clock. I knew Kerensa would be worrying – and getting cross too if she'd cooked something for me.'

‘What did you do when you found she wasn't at home?'

‘To be honest with you I didn't know
what
to do. I left the house and went down past the mill towards the path that goes through the woods. I would have called in to ask Jemima if she'd seen anything of her, but just before I reached the woods I met up with Ivan Bartlett, the estate's head gamekeeper. He'd just come along the path through the woods and said he'd neither seen nor heard anyone. I knew that if he'd seen no sign of her I would have no chance, so believing she must have gone to Trewortha and decided to stay there, I walked home and went to bed, 'though I didn't sleep much, I can tell you. But I'm not going to find her while I'm standing here talking to you. If you really want to help you can join the line of beaters – although you'll need to leave your horse behind, there are places along here where it wouldn't get through.'

‘I think we need to follow up every possible lead,' Amos replied, ‘Even one given by an old lady who might or might not have seen her. I've sent my sergeant up to the moor and I'll go up there to join him … but I'd appreciate having someone with us who knows the moor really well. Is there anyone here you can spare?'

‘I could do with
more
men to help me search the wood, not send them off with you on a wild goose chase….'

Even as he was speaking, Horace Morgan caught sight of two young boys at the end of his line of estate employees. The line had stopped, waiting for the search to recommence and the boys, aged about ten and eight had become bored and were having a battle, throwing acorns and oak apples at each other.

‘You can take the Coumbe boys. They're young but since they lost their father some years ago they've been allowed to run wild on the moor and know it as well as any man on the estate.'

 

The two boys accompanied Amos back through the woods and, after he had refused requests from them to ride on his horse, they began finding small items to throw at each other again. He urged his horse to a faster pace, forcing them to cease their sibling battle in order to keep up and when they reached the steep track that needed to be negotiated in order to reach the moor they ceased their game altogether.

Once on the moor the path narrowed to pass by the granite height that was Hawk's Tor. From here Amos could see Tom leading his horse and picking his way around a patch of marshland that was easily discernible now but would have been far less visible in bad light.

Waving to Tom, Amos set the two boys searching among the scattering of large boulders around the tor. He intended riding
out on the other side of the path, beyond Tom, in order to cover as much ground as was possible.

Before he could set off, Jenken Coumbe, the older of the two brothers, asked, ‘What exactly are we looking for? Mrs Morgan will hardly have been hiding all night and most of today among the rocks up here.'