Half a Pound of Tuppenny Rice E-Book

David Coubrough

• Herausgeber: Peter Owen Publishers
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 389

Beschreibung

Each summer a group of families holiday together in St. Ives, Cornwall, but in 1972 their lives are shattered and they never meet up again. In a lane in the village of Zennor a hotel porter is found fatally poisoned. Later that week the body of another man is washed ashore. Grant Morrison, then aged seventeen, has long been troubled by the two deaths and their aftermath and, decades later, decides that the time has come to uncover the truth.

Leseprobe

Half A Pound Of Tuppenny Rice

Every summer a group of families holiday at a hotel near St Ives, Cornwall, but in 1972 their lives are shattered and they never meet up again. A hotel porter is found poisoned in a country lane, while later that week the body of a guest is washed ashore. Five holiday-makers are questioned, but no one is charged.

Grant, a teenager at the time, had long been troubled by the deaths and, forty years on, determines to uncover the truth. He heads to the West Country to resolve the mystery and has a terrifying overnight stay at an inn. Why does he feel he is being followed, and why does he keep hearing eerie voices singing ‘Half a Pound of Tuppenny Rice’? Is someone trying to put him off the scent? He discovers a number of individuals who may be able to provide answers to some of the more bizarre aspects of the mysterious deaths, such as the cryptic message in a bottle and the significance of the fabled Mermaid of Zennor. After Grant rekindles connections with childhood friends, he tracks down a home movie of their Cornish vacation that sheds considerable light on the murky past.

A showdown at Mevagissey results in a third death. When the surviving St Ives holiday-makers meet up at the inquest, the truth is uncovered and the ‘weasel’ revealed. But at the memorial service something occurs in the graveyard that leaves the mourners more troubled than ever… David Coubrough’s début novel is an absorbing mystery that grips from start to finish.

DAVID COUBROUGH founded the specialist hospitality firm Portfolio Recruitment in the 1980s and twice sold it to public companies, on the second occasion becoming chief executive of the PLC. He is on the board of governors of the Royal Academy of Culinary Arts and is a past chairman of Bespoke Hotels and the Castle Hotel at Taunton. He is a director of Maldon Sea Salt and is on the board of Bloomsbury Properties. He co-owns the Beehive pub and restaurant in Berkshire and is currently working on his second novel.

To Victoria, for all the love and support

In memory of my late father Charles Ronald Lacy Coubrough, 1921–2011, and my mother June Patricia Barbara Coubrough, 1924–2014

With love and gratitude

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author wishes to acknowledge the support and assistance of the following people: David Godwin, my literary agent, whose support and advice has played such a crucial part throughout; Richard Whitehouse; Natalie Guerin; Geoff Helliwell; Eleanor Randall; Kit Chapman; Chris Sheppardson; Richard Mitchell; Jonathan Barnes; Michael Parslew; Jackie Kane; David Wiltshire; Mike Seymour; Sarah Phillips; Philip Sisson, Barbara Gurlach and David Gabriel; my four children Olivia, Alice, Emily and Jonathan, my sister Pauline and the de Galleani family. Finally all at Peter Owen Publishers, especially Nick Kent and Antonia Owen.

MAIN CHARACTERS

The Morrison Family

Grant Morrison, solicitor

Brigit Morrison, wife of Grant and mother of their two grown-up daughters; head of an IT recruitment consultancy firm

Rose Morrison, mother of Grant

Dennis Morrison, father of Grant

Glen Morrison, brother of Grant; married to Mandy

Gina Morrison, aunt of Grant and twin sister of Rose

The Hughes-Webb Family

Richard Hughes-Webb, cardiologist

Estelle Hughes-Webb, first wife of Richard

Yvie Hughes-Webb, second wife of Richard

Suzie Hughes-Webb (married name Barber), daughter of Richard and Yvie

Tony Hughes-Webb, son of Richard and Yvie

Frank Barber, husband of Suzie

The Galvin Family

Paul Galvin, accountant and property speculator

Alison Galvin, wife of Paul

Danny Galvin, son of Paul and Alison

Sharon Galvin, daughter of Paul and Alison

The Jessops Family

Ted Jessops, factory owner

Anne Jessops, wife of Ted

Caroline Jessops, daughter of Ted and Anne (married name Howe-Jessops)

Steve Jessops, son of Ted and Anne

Joanna, illegitimate daughter of Ted

The Charnley Family

Arnie Charnley, entrepreneur

Lucy ‘the Duchess’ Charnley, wife of Arnie

Nick Charnley, son of Arnie and Lucy

Jenny Charnley, daughter of Arnie and Lucy

The Silver Family

Bob Silver, merchant banker

Margaret Silver, wife of Bob; GP

Fiona Silver, daughter of Bob and Margaret

Henry Silver, older son of Bob and Margaret

Justyn Silver, younger son of Bob and Margaret

The Wallace Family

Agatha Wallace, benefactor of Hector

Hector Wallace, nephew of Agatha

The Vernon Family

Mark Vernon, owner of a bank

Robert Vernon, son of Mark

The Simpkins Family

James Simpkins, hotel manager

Jean Simpkins, wife of James

The Youlen Family

Tom Youlen, hotel night porter

Ivan Youlen, nephew of Tom

Tom Youlen Junior, son of Ivan

Dickie Youlen, brother of Tom, plasterer at Sandersons

The Holford Family

Ken Holford, itinerant

Mary Holford, said to be wife of Ken

Clive Holford, son of Ken and Mary

Other Characters

Trevor Mullings, fisherman

Robin Sanderson, founder of Sandersons, Penzance

Inspector Roy Higham, senior investigating police officer

PC Gary Stobart, junior investigating police officer

1

THE RECENT PAST

‘I nearly died last night.’ Grant spoke with his head bowed. Brigit, his wife, sitting at the breakfast table a few feet away, looked across at him. Had he made a statement requiring a response, had he simply made a statement, or had he made an announcement? She held her look, observing him closely.

‘What?’ she eventually felt compelled to ask. And so he revealed his dream. He told her he thought he was back in Zennor. He didn’t know what time of night it started. It began, he said, with the same tapping on the door he had heard that night staying at the bed-and-breakfast by the Cornish coast. Next it changed to loud knocking, and the noise from the corridor outside increased substantially. Before long his door was being thumped and splintered open, wood crashing in a heap on the floor. He was petrified, unable to utter a word, even though he was trying to shout. His room was suddenly filled with shadowy figures, one of whom said, ‘We’re police officers, and we’re arresting you, Grant Morrison, for the poisoning of Tom Youlen in 1972, leading to his death in 1977, and for the murder by drowning of Hector Wallace in 1972.’

Brigit arched an eyebrow; a look he knew betrayed anxiety on her part.

He continued. ‘When I woke up I couldn’t breathe. I could see, I could move, but I thought I was in limbo between life and death. I genuinely thought for a few moments I had actually died, that I was on the other side and that this was the beginning of the afterlife; this was my fate.’

‘Then what?’ Brigit tried to play it cool.

‘It took a few seconds before my respiratory system started working again – before I could breathe normally. I’ve never experienced anything quite like it. After several minutes I’d calmed myself enough to realize it had been a horrific dream, but it was the waking from it that scared the living daylights out of me – quite literally.’

She restrained a giggle. Grant could take himself very seriously and wouldn’t see the oddness of his last remark. Only he could be more scared waking from a nightmare than having one.

‘You see,’ he continued, ‘for several minutes I just lay there taking short intakes of breath and exhaling from the pit of my stomach. Gradually my breathing returned to normal and I could feel the blood flow in my head.’ He stopped and stared ahead once more.

She was unsure of whether to cuddle and reassure him or just to let him be for a while. She was unsettled by his story, and she didn’t really want to touch him right then; he seemed different, distant. She wondered about the recent trip to Cornwall he had undertaken alone. He had said, ‘I’ve got to find out the truth, Brig. I’ve got to know what happened.’ And now he had returned home apparently scared out of his wits by the two nights of extraordinary, sinister events he had experienced during his stay in the village of Zennor.

At length Grant went on. ‘When I was in Zennor, one night at some unearthly hour, just as I was drifting off to sleep, I heard it.’

‘What?’

‘A soft voice that I thought at first was a woman’s. Singing “Half a pound of tuppenny rice, half a pound of treacle …” I heard the first line in a dreamy haze, the second wide awake. “That’s the way the money goes …” I jumped out of bed, reaching for the door. Then I stopped myself, fearing I might be walking into a trap.’

‘Who was it?’

‘I don’t know. I have no idea, Brig. But there was something else that freaked me out. It seemed to be a child’s voice. And there was an echo – as if the words were being sung by a child in a cathedral choir.’

His wife observed him. She had heard bits and pieces of his experiences as a teenager in Cornwall over the past few months, but during the previous twenty-five years she had known him he had never mentioned it at all. ‘D’you mean this is connected to what you have been banging on about for months now? And that this relates to the stuff that occurred forty years back?’

Grant didn’t appear to hear her, but he told her more about his disturbed nights in Zennor. How music from the bar below his bedroom had woken him at four in the morning, with ‘Good Morning, Starshine’ from the 1960s’ musical Hair playing at high volume. At that time of night it had given him quite a start.

‘There were other things, Brig. There was the message.’

‘What message?’

‘I was in Porthcurno and came across Trevor Mullings, the fisherman who got drunk with Hector Wallace the night Hector drowned.’

‘So there was a real Hector Wallace – not just in your dream.’

‘Yes, there was. He used to stay with us at the hotel, and he left a message for his aunt, who was his companion and benefactor. “Dear Aunt Agatha, I will love you always …” They said it was written in blood and that he had added in ink, “Tonight I am not alone.” When he returned from the sea, cold and dead to the world, no one knew he had left a message. I recently discovered it in a bottle.’

Brigit was becoming disoriented. ‘Are you sure you want to pursue this? I mean, why does it matter forty years on, for goodness’ sake?’

‘Oh, it does matter. It matters very much indeed.’

2

20 AUGUST 1972

‘It was him.’

‘Who?’ the doctor whispered urgently, kneeling beside the stricken man who was lying on the grassy verge of the narrow lane. His face was shadowed by the hedge above, as she raised his right arm, feeling for his pulse.

‘Him from the hotel,’ he gasped, barely audibly. ‘He said he would … if I spoke.’ The words died on the man’s lips as his head fell back on to the ground; he was exhausted by the effort of forming the last words he would ever speak. The doctor lifted the man’s head, supporting the back of his neck. She examined his dull, lifeless eyes and without a backward glance said, ‘Call an ambulance. He’s suffered a stroke or heart attack.’ Margaret Silver’s voice held steadier than her thoughts.

Aware that the man was close to death, the doctor was extremely concerned. She had recognized him as the night porter from the hotel near by where her family and a group of others returned every year in August for a fortnight’s holiday. His name was Tom Youlen. A short, squat local from Zennor, his face looked as if it had been chiselled from the craggy rocks that edged the nearby Cornish shoreline; his voice was so deep it could have challenged the foghorns of merchant ships plying their trade on the inhospitable waves below.

That Sunday morning she had been on her way back from church with three fellow hotel guests. They had been driving down a tiny lane the width of a single car; their windows were open partly so they could listen out for oncoming vehicles. The passengers were silent, anxious that the driver should maintain full concentration, particularly as the road was growing increasingly narrow. However, their attention was arrested not by a vehicle but by a cry of ‘Puffin, shag, herring gull, gannet and chough’ from beyond the next sharp bend. Despite the driver, Mark Vernon, braking, their car only just avoided knocking down the unanticipated pedestrian. Had they not heard him first they probably would have hit him. The four watched in horror as the man staggered within a few inches of the bonnet before collapsing backwards into a hedgerow of thick thorn. Margaret was the first to reach him, and she helped him lie down on the grass, with Mark close behind her.

At her command to summon an ambulance, Mark set off to make an emergency call from the nearest house. He wheezed with asthma as he rushed back to the car as fast as his spindly frame would permit. He drove off erratically, nearly sending the vehicle off the road when he hit a large pothole on his way. He thumped on the door of the first building he came across. Seagulls squalled, and a cool gust of fresh air swept in from the coast, causing him to shiver as he waited impatiently. Slowly the oak-panelled door opened and an elderly man peered out suspiciously.

‘So sorry. Someone … Someone’s collapsed in the lane. I urgently need to use your phone to call an ambulance. Please, this is an emergency.’ He struggled to articulate, but the old man led him straight to the telephone in the hallway, and his 999 call was answered speedily.

The ambulance raced from Penzance, shuddering to a halt and blocking the entire lane, its siren still blaring. The collapsed night porter stared vacantly at the senior paramedic, his eyes resembling green marbles. He tried desperately to lift his head to speak, but his lips would not part, and no sound could be heard.

Margaret addressed the paramedic. ‘I’m a doctor, and we found the man in the lane in a terribly confused state. He collapsed into the hedge after we braked to avoid hitting him. His name is Tom, I think. He works at our hotel. He said a few words just before you arrived.’ She told him the words the man had uttered.

‘What?’ The ambulance man, a rotund individual with over grown white sideburns, had hitherto appeared rather indifferent to the drama unfolding but now looked somewhat intrigued despite himself.

One of the other passengers chipped in. ‘We know him. Tom’s the night porter at our hotel.’ The man’s jaunty Home Counties accent jarred with the Cornish paramedic.

‘I’m calling the police. Thanks for all your help,’ he said to the assembled group in the manner of a head teacher dismissing his pupils. ‘They may wish to take statements from you, so stick around, if you will, until they arrive.’

As for Tom, he never said anything again. Margaret was right. He had suffered a stroke, and he died five years later with out regaining his ability to speak.

These events, some ten days into the families’ two-week holiday, were to have repercussions for the next forty years and disturbed seventeen-year-old Grant Morrison in particular. Grant had also discovered around this time that his mother, Rose, had been having an affair with the father of one of the other families. He was Richard Hughes-Webb, a heart surgeon who returned each year to the hotel and who owned a cottage in Zennor. He used his holiday cottage for storing toxic materials that he used in experiments on animals and also, Grant was to discover to his dismay, for extramarital assignations.

As the years had gone by, Grant’s preoccupation with these events, far from diminishing, had become more prominent, to the point where the business of Tom’s accident came to haunt him profoundly. He couldn’t disconnect it from his mother’s involvement with Hughes-Webb, who had used the porter Tom as his caretaker and made him a complicit pawn. Tom, who minded the cottage for Hughes-Webb, never betrayed his boss and had been known to remark, ‘No one needs to know what goes on behind closed doors.’ Tom was paid handsomely for both his caretaking and his discretion, but he was to die prematurely some five years later.

‘It was him. Him from the hotel. He said he would … if I spoke.’

For over forty years Tom’s words had been hard-wired into Grant’s brain. How had Hughes-Webb got away with it? Forensic reports had confirmed the cause of Tom’s death as ascariasis, a life-threatening infection caused by contaminated parasitic roundworm eggs, presumably ingested at Hughes-Webb’s cottage, but how the hotel porter came to ingest the eggs was never explained. Grant feared there had been either a botched, inadequate investigation or a cover-up. Either way, he could never banish the unsettling and unpleasant thoughts from his mind, particularly as his parents’ marriage had deteriorated so significantly after that holiday in 1972. Despite knowing that his father, Dennis, was dying of cancer, his mother had heartlessly continued her relationship with Hughes-Webb. Although his father died in 1974 and his mother twenty years later, it wasn’t until his mother’s twin sister, Gina, died in 2012 that Grant felt free to investigate.

3

PRESENT DAY

‘That’s the place. That’s the hotel where it happened.’ Brigit followed Grant’s gaze across the bay to an imposing white building on the horizon, slowly emerging from the cold January morning fog. Sitting upstairs at a window table in a warm harbourside brasserie on the west coast of Cornwall, he fell silent, lost in troubled reflection. So much had happened since that time he thought he would never be able to recollect those distressing events; but his mind had taken a trip in a time machine. He was back in 1972, recalling it all with absolute clarity.

Every year the families had travelled to the hotel from across the length and breadth of Britain. Some arrived early in the morning, fresh and raring to go, having put their cars on the overnight sleeper to Penzance; others turned up hot and exhausted after having driven up to ten hours in their vehicles from Leeds, Manchester and elsewhere in the days before air-conditioning. Even the London contingent would emerge from their cars aching and complaining about the narrow winding lanes in Devon and Cornwall in this era before dual carriage-ways. Thrown together for a two-week reunion in August every year, the families had come to resemble a club, a group of friends bonded together by successive summer holidays.

‘It was such a different time.’ Grant’s face gazed into the distance as he started to reminisce. ‘The 1960s changed things. There was this great feeling of freedom …’

‘Yeah, whatever,’ Brigit interrupted. ‘Calling Planet Earth!’

‘I’m sorry. I can’t stop thinking about it all – the hotel and the events that took place. It was strange. We were in a bubble where so much seemed perfect until the incident.’

‘What incident?’ Brigit asked, despite herself. A petite, forceful-looking woman in her late forties, she was casually dressed in designer jeans and a warm woollen cardigan beneath a Barbour jacket and a bright checked scarf. Sitting there, she looked up at the hotel. She thought it resembled a castle, perched above sweeping lawns that stretched down to the sea way below. As it emerged from the morning fog she could discern a sharp precipice at the edge of the lawn, which gave way to red rock dropping steeply down to an expanse of sand washed by energetic waves.

‘That would be telling,’ Grant teased abruptly. He left the table, paid the bill and suggested it was time they visited the art gallery they had come to see. Brigit gave him a quizzical look.

Grant, tall and wiry, was a few years older than Brigit and was not usually noted for his reticence in telling yarns and stories of his past. The recipients of his tales could find themselves somewhat disconcerted when he got into his stride, as his eyes moved in separate directions. He maintained that this was great in meetings, where he could make two individuals feel they were the focus of his attention at the same time. It was a peculiarity that didn’t cause him a moment’s trouble or embarrassment; it was merely a party piece when the occasion demanded.

It was later that day that Grant became more forthcoming. ‘Tom Youlen was an eccentric porter at the hotel and something of a fixture there. On film nights he would interrupt the movie, even a James Bond, to announce, “Telephone call for Mr Hegarty” or whoever. He wasn’t particularly friendly, regarding us as “grockles” – as necessary but rather decadent evils. We were to be tolerated. He used to mutter to himself, “Puffin, shag, herring gull, gannet and chough.” It was a bit like a mantra to him. As teenagers we were intrigued and amused by this. It was pointed out by one of the grown-ups that they were Cornish coastland birds. On the day of the incident a few of our parents had gone to church in Zennor, where Tom lived, and on the way back in the car they encountered him staggering into a hedgerow by the road. Alarmed, they rushed to his aid. He was in a terrible way. All he could mutter was “It was him. Him from the hotel. He said he would … if I spoke.”’

Brigit considered Grant’s words in silence, allowing the impact of this to sink in. ‘How dreadful. What effect did this have on everyone?’

‘Our parents never went back. None of us did.’

Brigit was astounded. Grant had previously referred to his childhood holidays in Cornwall only in fleeting, superficial terms that had given the impression they were of little consequence. She turned to face him. Moving a strand of hair that had fallen across her forehead, she inquired, ‘So did they catch the person Tom referred to as “him from the hotel”? Was it a member of staff or a guest?’

‘That was the strange thing. The staff were all cleared of any wrong-doing. It was suggested that Tom had been poisoned. Five guests were questioned, but all had alibis. I later heard that one of them had confessed something to one of his children on his deathbed, but that’s never been confirmed.’ Grant sighed and wondered how much he should divulge to his wife. Should he tell her the truth as far as he knew it? And, more significantly, should he own up to what was really driving him, the fear that had been eating away at him for more than forty years? On that last holiday he had learnt of his mother’s affair with the cardiologist Richard Hughes-Webb; he also knew that Tom’s stroke had been induced by ingesting some poisonous substance with which Richard was experimenting at his cottage in Zennor where Tom was caretaker. Grant had never been able to forget Hughes-Webb’s alibi – his own mother. What had she concealed, and how much had she known?

‘Why would anyone want to harm the porter?’

Grant hesitated. ‘Well, he had obviously seen or heard something, and someone had very real fears of being exposed for some reason. Don’t forget, this was the early 1970s, and even homosexuality was barely legal then.’ An inner voice was yelling at him, ‘Leave all this alone!’ But he knew he was now ready to examine the past; in fact, he needed to examine the past.

Later that night, as they lay in bed in their rented cottage further up the coast, Brigit’s mind returned to the subject of the porter. The howling wind and the sound of crashing waves didn’t exactly soothe the discomfort she had felt on hearing Grant’s tale. ‘Did anyone discover how Tom came to be in such a state in the lane?’

‘Yes, he seems to have been poisoned – and this caused a stroke.’

‘And did he live long after that?’

‘About five years, I was told. But I’d like to confirm that by visiting the graveyard tomorrow, if that’s OK with you.’

‘Yes, fine, but can we do a rain check in the morning? I don’t really fancy exploring a graveyard in weather like this.’

They listened to the pounding waves. The little cottage creaked and groaned under the strain of the gale-force wind. A loud thump startled them, but Grant reassured Brigit that it was likely only a piece of driftwood blown on to the roof.

She cuddled closer. ‘So who do you think it was?’

Grant paused before replying. The storm raging outside seemed to reach a crescendo, rattling windows and doors as if some giant invisible hand was shaking the foundations of the cottage.

‘The five suspects were all guests at the hotel and were each interviewed twice. Ted Jessops, a factory owner from the Midlands; Bob Silver, a merchant banker from the City of London; Richard Hughes-Webb, a heart specialist from Croydon; Paul Galvin, an accountant from London; and Arnie Charnley from Manchester, who claimed to be in print and publishing but whose son told us he distributed porn magazines.’

‘Hardly the dirty dozen.’

‘True, but it turned out they all could have had a motive.’ Grant fell silent.

For a moment Brigit thought he was asleep, but she knew his breathing patterns and realized he was wide awake. ‘Don’t you feel it was all wrong’, she whispered, ‘that no one has ever been arrested and prosecuted? And why haven’t you told me any of this before?’

‘Of course, someone should have been brought to book, but at the time we were just teenage kids, carefree adolescents enjoying new experiences. To be frank, it ended in such an unfortunate and inconclusive way that for a long time I pretended to myself that it didn’t really happen at all. Funnily enough, I remember the night one of our group, Jenny Charnley, came rushing down to the disco – near where we had lunch today in fact.’

‘And?’

‘She was hysterical. I remember Hawkwind’s track “Silver Machine” was blasting out, and she tried to shout above it.’

‘And?’

‘She was screaming about the police having taken her father to the local station for questioning. We all felt for her, of course, but we had no experience of that kind of situation, had no idea what to say. It was only the following day, when Paul Galvin’s son Danny drove four of us in his Mini to the beach at Sennen Cove, that the reality of it all hit us. I was in the car with Caroline Jessops, Suzie Hughes-Webb and Justyn Silver.’

‘So what happened?’

‘It was a glorious summer’s afternoon, the sun was glistening off the sea and Danny was looking for a parking space, when he said, “Hey, all this stuff kicking off is way too heavy. What if it’s one of our fathers?” I asked, “How do you know it isn’t one of our mothers?” “Tom said it was a man,” he replied. Danny’s outburst made us pause for thought, and finally Caroline said, “Well, they shouldn’t visit the sins of the fathers on the children.” And, to be honest, that became our attitude. At our age, life was full of possibilities, great music and, at that moment, a fantastic beach on a sunny August afternoon. It was actually the next day, at the Office, when our mood really changed.’

‘The Office?’

‘Yes, that was the nickname of the local pub, the Cornish Arms. It was given by one of the odder guests, a bachelor of around fifty called Hector Wallace, who went there every morning at twelve midday and every evening after dinner. Hector’s life ended tragically as well.’ Grant’s voice faltered.

‘So what happened at the Office?’

‘There was another incident late that night. It made my blood run cold,’ replied Grant, quietly in a sombre voice that disconcerted Brigit. He was never this quiet. He didn’t do quiet. She sought to reassure him, feeling she had pressed him too hard. Perhaps it was better to leave the past as a place of reference, not of residence, as her father liked to say. But it disturbed her that until relatively recently he had never once mentioned the strange events that had not only caused the curtailment of his cherished Cornish holidays but which would appear to have cast a cloud over him. She was also a little confused by the mention of so many people from Grant’s past. What could be their relevance now, and would their past threaten the couple’s future?

‘I think we should leave off for tonight,’ she said. ‘Let’s visit Tom’s grave tomorrow if this wretched storm abates and try to make better sense of it all. It was a long, long time ago, and it wasn’t your fault.’ She kissed him softly on the cheek, and he half smiled.

Her words reverberated in the air as the waves continued to crash against the battered shoreline. She thought about those coastal birds: the puffin, shag, herring gull, gannet and chough. Were they out there tonight, she wondered, as she drifted into a fitful sleep. For several hours Grant thought he wouldn’t sleep at all.

4

PRESENT DAY

The car crawled up the tree-lined drive towards the sprawling castle; an expanse of turrets silhouetted against a dark but beautifully clear Cornish sky, windows aglow with light as the night drew in around them. It was late. They had arrived off the last train from London, their eyes slow-dancing with tiredness. As their car crunched across the gravel, the trees receded behind them, and ahead a wide lawn of cut grass ran away from them towards the sea. As they followed the winding drive the castle cast shadows in the moonlight, its turrets stretching skywards. The moon hung low in the sky, illuminating its crystal rays on to the vast expanse of restless ocean below. They pulled up outside the entrance. A thick layer of ivy covered the stone walls looming overhead. The great oak door opened, and there was Tom welcoming them in, while moths hovered around him, attracted by the glow from the cast-iron lantern above his head. They opened their car doors, stiff and weary from the journey, to be arrested by the smell of pine trees and fresh sea air. They could hear the sounds of voices and laughter from their friends in the dining-room filtering out through open windows, into the still night air. David Bowie’s ‘Starman’ could be heard crackling from a transistor radio somewhere below, where busy catering staff were preparing meals for the guests upstairs.

Grant awoke from this happy dream of idyllic childhood holidays and was saddened to recall Tom’s last years following his stroke. After a largely sleepless night Grant felt disturbed by the dream, which was a constantly recurring one. The setting was always Cornwall and the year always 1972; the porter was always present; and usually there was a cameo role for Richard Hughes-Webb. What really bothered Grant was the increasing frequency of the dreams, which more often than not turned into nightmares.

The next morning the storm was still raging, so the couple decided to postpone their visit to Tom’s grave and instead to take a walk. They parked their car near Gurnard’s Head and, wrapped in waterproofs and floppy hats, spent the day hiking westwards on the breathtaking cliff top, taking the south-west coastal path towards Cape Cornwall. They walked alone for around two hours, although Brigit was aware of a man some three hundred yards behind them who stopped every time she looked round. She dismissed him from her thoughts and refrained from telling her husband.

‘So, who do you think it was?’ she asked loudly, battling the wind.

‘Ted Jessops was strange,’ Grant shouted back, his eyes fixed on the rising and crashing Atlantic waves below. ‘On the last holiday he had become a rather pathetic figure. Previously he had been an imposing presence, an engaging character who could enliven any company. He wasn’t particularly tall, but he had a large face, a large stomach and a thick mop of grey-black hair with Elvis Presley sideburns. By the last holiday he had become a shell of the man he once was, and his hair – what was left of it – had turned ashen-white.

‘There were rumours that he had fathered an illegitimate child who had pursued him to Cornwall to claim paternity. Some four years before this business with Tom he and his wife had been holidaying on the north coast at Constantine Bay. Apparently his unacknowledged daughter named Joanna confronted him on the beach, causing him to panic. Ted was a strong swimmer, and he just turned round, ran into the sea and started swimming away as fast as he could. He hadn’t even acknowledged her existence, let alone responded to her pleas for recognition within his family. The poor girl apparently got into severe distress in the currents as she swam after Ted, and she had to be rescued by coastguards. By the time she was brought ashore, scarcely breathing, Ted had packed his wife and young daughter Caroline into his brown Rover and had started the drive back to the family home in Bromsgrove.’

‘So how did the story get out?’

‘One of the coastguards was Tom’s nephew Ivan. He recognized Ted as the strong swimmer who had exited the scene so swiftly while the girl struggled for her life. Although this incident had occurred four years before, it had stuck in Ivan’s mind as the most harrowing rescue in which he’d been involved. As Joanna was being dragged out to sea by the currents, he and the other coastguard genuinely feared a fatality. The waves were huge, and they really had to race to rescue the girl.’

‘Still, it was remarkable for him to have identified Ted after four years.’

‘It was, and it was an odd thing. It was partly a song that gave Ted away – as well as the presence of his brown Rover at the hotel.’

‘Go on.’

‘Apparently Ivan’s radio was blaring out the Beach Boys’ song “Do It Again” when Joanna got into difficulty in the sea. The song was still blasting out across the beach as Ted rushed his family to the Rover. Four years later, when Ivan went to the hotel to see his uncle about a private matter, he was whistling “Do It Again” when he bumped into Ted and spotted his car. Ted immediately recognized Ivan as the coastguard who had saved Joanna from drowning in 1968 while he so disgracefully fled the scene. Can you imagine the sense of guilt, shame and panic Ted must have experienced?’

‘Did they talk to one another?’

‘Apparently so. Ivan said, “I know you from somewhere.” Ted said, “No you don’t”, and barged straight past him as Tom remarked, “Mr Jessops can be a very rude man.” When Tom had his stroke Ivan was asked by the police if he knew whether Tom had any enemies; having been present at this exchange at the hotel just two days before, Ivan mentioned Ted Jessops. Don’t forget that Ted’s actions could have caused Ivan to lose his life.’

‘Did anyone know why Ivan had gone to talk to Tom while he was on duty? Wasn’t that odd? I mean, he could have seen Tom at his cottage, couldn’t he?’

‘Well, the story goes that Tom had been bailing Ivan out financially for years. When the boy was sixteen he got a local girl pregnant, and he lived with her and the child in a tiny bedsit near the coast at Newquay. He worked intermittently as a coastguard in the summertime across the north coast, but he was always short of a bob or two. His uncle, Tom, was his protector, as Ivan’s parents thought their son had brought shame on the family and had rather ostracized him.’

‘I don’t suppose anyone suspected …’

‘I know what you’re thinking, but Ivan wasn’t “him from the hotel”.’

‘Well, he was there two days earlier.’

‘Now then, Miss Marple, there was no one more upset than Ivan after Tom’s stroke. He visited him every day in his nursing home until he died, and he arranged the funeral.’

‘How do you know all this?’

Grant didn’t reply, thinking carefully about how much he wanted to reveal before deciding to ignore the query.

Brigit persisted. ‘Bit of a coincidence, don’t you think? Both Ted Jessops and Ivan had children out of wedlock, even though they handled their paternity in totally different ways.’

‘I take your point, but it’s not for us to judge.’

‘I still don’t see why Ivan couldn’t have visited his uncle when he was off duty.’

‘The story goes that he caught Tom fifteen minutes before his night shift was due to start. Bill, the other porter, warned Tom that he had seen Ivan’s battered Escort in the car park. Tom didn’t seem too perturbed, but Ivan was heard to say, “You never return my phone calls, and you’re never at the pub when I call, Uncle T.” Apparently Tom replied along the lines of “You’ve bled me enough. Summer season’s ending soon, and I need to hang on to some dough.” In those days the hotel would close for the winter, not reopening till spring, and money would have been a major preoccupation. Meanwhile it seems that Ivan had become distracted by the sight of Ted Jessops heading for his car, the brown Rover, and recalled the day that he and the other coastguard had saved the seventeen-year-old girl.’

‘Unlucky for Ted that he hadn’t changed his car,’ Brigit smiled.

‘Unlucky for Ted – or lucky for the inquiry, one might say. When he was interviewed about the girl he was swimming away from he refused to acknowledge that he even knew her. Even though the sea rescue had occurred four years earlier, it didn’t take the police long to spot the connection, and Joanna gave a full statement.’

‘So what happened to Ted after that?’

‘He died.’

Brigit and Grant had stopped for lunch at a coastal pub. As they walked in ‘My Cherie Amour’ was playing on the jukebox. The place seemed frozen in time.

‘Stevie Wonder, 1968!’ he exclaimed. ‘The year of the swimming incident. So many of these pubs are in a time warp.’ Far from being disappointed, he was delighted to scan the surroundings, table skittles in one corner, a shove-ha’penny board in another, signed photographs of lesser-known celebrities behind a copper-topped bar. It had all the paraphernalia of a 1960s’ pub with a bonus – a stunning view of Cornwall’s dramatic coastline.

‘So how did he die, and when?’ Brigit was becoming increasingly interested in Ted.

Her query snapped Grant out of his reverie. ‘Later that year, in 1972. It seems that Big Deal Ted was not doing as well as he would have had everyone believe. His factory had burnt down, there was a problem with the insurance, and he was being treated for depression.’

‘And how does Maigret know all this?’

‘That summer I went out with his daughter Caroline, if you must know. Shortly after we left Cornwall I stayed with the family for a few days. Ted seemed withdrawn, saying little at mealtimes and retreating to his study as soon as he could. What I didn’t know was that he was being treated for manic depression, what’s now called bipolar disorder. He was rumoured to be having electroshock therapy during that last holiday, according to gossip in the hotel. He was a complex man. The approbation of his peer group was very important to him. He felt he had arrived at a type of top table by being able to afford the hotel each year. It gave him a sense of status that reflected, in his estimation, his business success. He particularly cherished acceptance by people from the professions – doctors, accountants and so on – and he used to say, “And me, a humble man from trade.” To lose status with his peer group would have been devastating, and no doubt that was a factor in his disgraceful treatment of Joanna. When I stayed with the Jessops, Caroline and I spent most of the time at the nearby country club, hanging around the bar and playing table tennis with her friends. The relationship fizzled out that autumn, but she wrote to me in November 1972 saying her father had died.’

‘What was the cause?’

‘He was quite overweight, had high blood pressure and was prone to sudden bouts of temper. These days, of course, he would have been treated with pills.’

‘It doesn’t seem as if he would have been mourned very much. What a sad end, even if he sounds rather disagreeable.’

‘Actually there were over two hundred people at his funeral. They came from far and wide. Some were dodgy-looking individuals whom Caroline referred to as “the hoods”, while a number of local friends and acquaintances turned up. Many of them had known Ted since childhood. I suppose at fifty-four he died before most of his contemporaries.’

‘So he wasn’t all bad.’

‘Definitely not. He could be the life and soul of a party. He was a great raconteur and when he was on a roll he could entertain people for hours.’

‘So what do you think went wrong?’ ‘He became tortured by the sins of his past. Clearly he was never able to acknowledge Joanna properly, and her pursuing him to Cornwall on his family’s annual jaunt must have shocked him to the core.’

‘So it should.’

‘Well, whatever, he was apparently never the same after August 1972, and it was only three months later that he had a massive heart attack and died. Of course his decline may have started earlier, but running into Ivan that day at the hotel must have scared the hell out of him. When Ivan saw him again he evidently gave Ted a stare that said “I know what you’ve done, you bastard.” Seeing Ivan that day might have tipped the balance of his health.’

‘How did the police react to the news of his death?’

‘No one really knew. There was a police constable called Stobart who attended the funeral. In fact, he had to take action as the coffin was lowered into the ground.’

‘Why?’

‘Joanna turned up, and while most people were paying their respects she came forward, tossed some earth on the grave and shouted, “Go to hell!” PC Stobart leapt forward and restrained her. He knew who she was, as he had taken a statement from her concerning her biological father a few months earlier.’

Brigit’s thoughts were elsewhere. She was brooding on the man she thought had been following them on the coastal path. Uneasily she recalled seeing a man sitting in his car, deliberately feigning distraction as they drove away.

5

15 AUGUST 1972

Bob Silver rarely stayed the full fortnight. A sharp, dapper and very fit man, he was always on the go, seemingly unable to relax or switch into holiday mode. He would arrive after his family, invariably disappear for a few days during the vacation and then leave early. It was never explained why, other than that he led people to believe he was involved in high-powered meetings and deals back in London. His younger son Justyn was fond of remarking cryptically, ‘He’s important for being important.’

His wife, Margaret, a GP, was agreeable and long-suffering, and their three offspring seemed well adjusted. Henry, the eldest, in his mid-twenties, was a writer of sorts and was pursuing a career as a journalist. He had got a first in English at Oxford, an achievement that didn’t attract the slightest bit of attention among the holiday fraternity. It was seen as insignificant compared with the fact that Justyn was in a rock band; that was really considered something. However, Henry’s left-wing views could start an argument in an empty room – which it certainly became when he hit his political stride. His sister, Fiona, had followed in her mother’s footsteps and qualified as a doctor. Justyn was expected to follow his father into the City but had got involved in a fledgling rock band in his last year at school and was planning to go on tour that autumn. He and his three fellow band members had deferred university places for a year to give their musical career a go. Bob was furious. Justyn nearly didn’t join his family on the holiday that year, but, faced with the prospect of an autumn of piling into a van and playing gigs in unglamorous locations across the length and breadth of Britain, he had decided on some last-minute vacation therapy in Cornwall.

Justyn would appear at odd times in the night and practise yoga – either in the downstairs lounge or else outside, if the dawn was breaking and the weather was reasonable. Tom and Bill used to tolerate him; they liked him and were irritated by him in equal measure, as he often woke them up. Some nights he didn’t go to bed at all. On one occasion he saw his father pull up the drive in his white Jensen at one-thirty in the morning and, distracted from his yoga, went to ask him why he was coming in at that late hour. His father brushed past him, telling him to mind his own business.

Tom, who had been lurking within earshot, went to console the teenager, but Justyn said that was the way his father was. He confided in Tom that Bob wasn’t much of a father, believing that money controlled everything, and he was unable to understand his youngest son not following him into the City. It was probably fair to say that the father–son relationship was at rock bottom. Justyn used to play Leonard Cohen’s song ‘Suzanne’ while he practised yoga. His father had remarked it was the most depressing music he had ever heard, which became the trigger for his son to play the track incessantly.