In the Blood (6 page)

The driver slapped the steering wheel to the bassline of a punchy tune that was playing too loud on the cheap car-stereo.
 
He sat forward in his seat, still high - energized.
 
A sizeable grin split his face.

“I can’t believe it!” he shouted, hard against the music.
 
I can’t believe I fucking did it!”

He looked down at the Tesco bag in the passenger seat footwell, knowing what was inside.
 
He wanted to touch his ill-gotten prizes again, to prove they were real and that he really had pulled it off.
 
Bodmin was behind him now, but he was still back there in the moment, savouring the buzz of the snatch.
 
It had been far easier than he’d expected.
 
Now, at last, it felt like things were finally coming together.

By the time the driver arrived at his intended destination, the night had deepened to its darkest reaches.
 
A small row-boat had been necessary for the last leg of his clandestine journey, and now, as he sat grinning at his star prize, he was still buzzing from the thrill of his night’s work.
 
His eyes narrowed and sharpened on a silver crucifix that dangled from his left hand, swinging gently in harsh torchlight, suspended from a thick leather cord that was almost brittle with age.
 
The light from the torch bounced off the crucifix, casting bright crosses against dark and angular walls.
 
In his right hand was a tan leather-bound notebook, cracked and faded.

He knew the museum would miss them in the morning - of course they would.
 
But what did that matter to him?
 
No one would be able to connect him to the theft.
 
No one yet knew what he knew.

“Not like it’s stealing really,” he said to himself.

It had taken time to gather the truth, piece by piece.
 
It had taken a long time.
 
His elation soured.
 
It was a sudden change, like a resting alligator snapping without warning at a meal that had strayed too close.

“It’s taking too much time!” he shouted.
 
His words echoed around him then just as suddenly he was calm again.
 

A gratifying thought occurred to him, twisting his mouth.
 
His gaze dropped to the ground as he tried to focus on a sandy spot just beyond his sprawled out legs.
 
“How can you steal something that’s rightfully yours?” he asked.
 
It wasn’t everything he felt belonged to him, but it was a start.

He needed more.

“
You
know what I’m looking for,” he said, directly addressing that spot on the ground, like he was talking to some imaginary friend.
 
He dropped the notebook into a side pocket of his three-quarter length black leather jacket and sighed.
 
A half empty ale bottle rested beside him.
 
He took another slug, draining it back.
 
He gazed at the familiar label:
Cornish Knocker,
a favourite that served him well on occasions like this.

“They have to pay!” he shouted, coiling as he launched the spent ale bottle into the darkness beyond the soft up-lit glow of his torch.
 
The bottle smashed against jagged rock and the pieces fell, tinkling amongst what was left of earlier bottles and the remnants of previous visits.
 
The sound cut the still air, echoing against cold hard surfaces, shrill and piercing.

He stirred the air with the leather cord and the silver crucifix spun low circles over the ground.
 
“Call it an anniversary present too if you like!”

Damp sand shifted beneath his feet as he made his way towards a narrow slit of moonlight at the mouth of the cave - a beacon amidst dark rock barely wide enough to fit through.
 
He followed the torch beam to a foaming edge of lapping water, then went through to the row-boat that awaited him on the other side.

Chapter Seven

Wednesday.

T
ayte paid the cab driver who brought him the rest of the way from Truro train station and wondered if he’d arrived at the right address.
 
As the car pulled away, disturbing the bright morning, he found himself at the end of a short driveway looking through a cloud of roadside dust.
 
Beyond, was a double-fronted Georgian house that he figured must be on the outskirts of the village he’d just come through - Mawnan Smith.
 
That was a mile back and there were now very few other buildings around.
 
Even the road had narrowed and to Tayte, who was more used to the wide multi-lane freeways back home, it resembled little more than a track.
 
A sign stuck out towards the road at the end of the driveway that read, ‘St Maunanus House - Bed & Breakfast’, refuting his doubts.

Tayte had no idea what he was in for.
 
His hurried brief to the woman at the Cornwall Tourist Board before he left Boston was for simple accommodation: five nights, as close to Mawnan as he could get.
 
He started along the driveway, crunching loose gravel underfoot, then he stopped himself.
 
It seemed a little early.
 
Curtains were still drawn behind white sash windows in some of the upstairs rooms.
 
He checked his watch - the digital display read ‘08:11’ and he was glad he’d taken the time to freshen up at the station and get some breakfast or it would have been even earlier.
 

He looked beyond a glistening lawn of dewy, well kept grass, through pots of pink and white geraniums and large tubs containing palm trees.
 
Palm trees?
 
Not something he considered synonymous with England, but they were definitely palms.
 
The view led his eyes through a jungle of colourful abstract precision to the front door, which had panels of stained glass tulips in the top half, glowing in the early sunlight.

Nice,
he thought.
 
Peaceful.
 
But why did he feel so intimidated?
 
Too peaceful.
 
He began to wish he’d been more specific with the Tourist Board; wished he’d asked for a hotel - something indifferent.
 
He turned away, deciding to take a stroll and come back at a more sociable hour.
 
Then a bell jangled and the door behind him opened.

A cheery voice sang to him.
 
“Hello...”

He turned back to see a woman standing in the doorway.
 
She looked to be in her early fifties, slim, with blonde hair styled high off her forehead.
 
She wore beige jeans and a sage-green sweatshirt beneath an apron on which she was hurriedly wiping her hands.

“Saw you on the drive there,” she said.
 
“I wasn’t expecting you so early.
 
You must be my American.”

Tayte wondered if his appearance was really that transparent.
 
He eyed his comfy beige loafers and the white shirt that was pushing out through the jacket of his travel-creased suit and realised it probably was.
 
He reached the door and the woman stepped back into the porch, inviting him through.

“Good morning,” Tayte offered, stepping inside.
 
“I was about to take a walk down the lane ... seemed a little early.”

“Oh, that’s okay.
 
People turn up at all sorts of times.
 
Expect the unexpected, that’s what I say.
 
Mr Tayte, isn’t it?”
 
She led Tayte through into the hallway.
 
“You’re my third American this month and it’s barely started,” she added.
 
“Always busy early September.
 
Especially when the weather’s nice like this.
 
Drops off in a week or two though.”

If Tayte hadn’t already eaten, the aroma that confronted him as he walked through into the hallway would have been too much to bear: bacon, eggs, sausage and mushrooms.
 
He passed an open doorway and saw a middle-aged couple sitting at a large table tucking into their breakfast.
 
Their tanned skin was testament to the fine weather.
 
Another two places were set, but as yet empty.

“Good morning,” they said together.

“Morning,” Tayte replied, offering a polite smile.

“That’s John and Barbara,” his host said.
 
She lowered her voice to a whisper, which grew louder again by the time she’d finished speaking.
 
“Lovely couple.
 
Two of my regulars.
 
Always come this time every year.”

They passed another doorway on the left and his stomach audibly groaned as he peered into the command centre and caught the bacon smell full on.

“Your room won’t be ready for a few hours yet I’m afraid,” the woman continued.
 
“But you can leave your things.
 
You don’t want to be lugging those about.”

She stopped at the foot of a full-turn stairway of stripped and waxed pine.
 
“Where are my manners - I’m Judith, by the way.
 
You can drop your bags just there.”
 
She indicated a space beside the stairs where a few coats were hanging.
 
“I’d say you could leave them in your room, only the couple that have it haven’t left yet.”

“That’s fine.”
 
Tayte put his bags down.
 
“I don’t want to keep you from your guests.
 
How about I come back around midday.”

“Midday would be super.
 
Just give the bell a good pull and I’ll be there.”

“Thanks.”

They made their way back to the front door and Tayte gave a nod and another smile to the guests in the breakfast room as he passed.
 
Ahead, the porch was lit with colour from the stained glass in the door and higher up in the frieze on the windows.

“There
was
just one thing,” Tayte said, one foot into the porch.
 
“Which way is the church?”

“Well that depends.
 
There’s St Michael’s up in the village, and there’s a Methodist church near that.
 
Then the other way there’s the parish church
and
a Catholic church.
 
We’re well catered for spiritually.”

Four churches.
 
Tayte wasn’t sure.
 
“Which is the oldest?”

“That would be the Parish church of St Mawnan.”
 
She turned to a narrow table by the front door and picked up a pile of pamphlets.
 
She riffled through them and pulled one out.
 
“Here you are, take this,” she said.
 
“It’s a walking guide of the area.
 
Save you getting lost.
 
Oh, and this is a good one.
 
Cornish Smugglers.
 
It’ll tell you all about our shady past.”

“Thanks.”
 
Tayte smiled and slipped the pamphlets into his jacket.

Judith stood in the porch and pointed down the driveway.
 
“Turn right as you leave the drive - left takes you up to Mawnan Smith, that’s the main village - then just follow the road.
 
You can’t miss it.”

“So this
is
Mawnan?”

“Yes, that’s right.
 
It’s a hamlet really.
 
We’re part way between the two I suppose.
 
Neither here, nor there.
 
It’s all Mawnan as far as the postman’s concerned.”

“Is it far to the church?”

“No, only about ten minutes.
 
If you want to go a bit further, there’s a lovely walk down to Helford Passage.
 
Just pick up the coast path.
 
It’s well sign-posted.
 
That should take you about forty minutes from the church.”

Tayte held onto the smile he’d been wearing a little too long.
 
“Well, thanks again,” he said.

Beyond the drive, to the right as directed, the road continued straight for a few hundred metres where it became lost to a copse of trees.
 
The sun was already warm on Tayte’s face as he made his way there, observed from a distance by several horses on the other side of a post-and-rail fence.
 
To the other, cows grazed nonchalantly in a field behind a Cornish hedge of rock and earth, hidden beneath a barrier of lichen and the subtly fading late summer purples of leggy foxgloves and wild scabious, glistening with dewy gossamer in the morning sun.
 
It could still have been mid-summer; no sign of autumn’s onset.

As he arrived at the copse, beneath the shade of its tangled treetops, Tayte began to wonder what he might find at the church.
 
Would there be a headstone in the graveyard for each of the missing death records?
 
One each for Eleanor and her children, another for Clara and Jacob Daniels?
 
The recurring question began to circle in his mind again.
 
Round and round it went like a starving buzzard looking for an elusive prey.