Malice in Cornwall Page 8

  Powell bit his tongue. Unlike you and your coterie of boffins, he felt like saying, we poor working sods don't have the luxury of living in an ivory tower. But he was satisfied so far. Sir Reggie had taken the bait and seemed securely hooked. And if anyone could get to the bottom of this business, he could.

  A few minutes later, they dropped Sir Reggie off at the hospital and then proceeded to the police station in Tre-golls Road. There was a message from Butts waiting for them. Powell rang up the Coastguard Regional Rescue Coordination Centre in Falmouth and was put through to the Operations Centre. He spoke to the watch officer to whom his earlier inquiry had been referred. Apparently a young woman had gone overboard from a motor launch off Torquay a little over three weeks ago. She was still missing and presumed drowned. Though clearly the most promising lead so far, the timing didn't quite seem to fit. He spent the next half hour interviewing the coastguard officer on the subject of ocean temperatures, tides, and currents in the English Channel and along the north coast of Cornwall. When he was done, there was still an hour or so to kill, so Powell had Black drop him off at Truro Cathedral, while the sergeant went off in search of a bookstore. At twelve-thirty Black returned to pick him up and they drove to the hospital to collect Sir Reggie.

  “I must have my lunch!” Sir Reggie roared as he piled into the car. “And none of your damn curry, Powell! A goodly wedge of Melton Mowbray is what I need!”

  Sergeant Black smiled happily and looked for the nearest pub. Here was a man after his own heart.

  Sir Reggie wiped his thick lips with the back of his hand. “That was bloody marvelous and if you're not going to have that pasty, I will.”

  Powell pushed the local variety of meat and vegetable pie over and watched as Sir Reggie made short work of it, washing it down with a half-pint of bitter. Sir Reggie leaned back in his chair and belched.

  “Now, then, what can you tell us?” Powell said. With Sir Reggie, the direct approach was usually best. Unlike many scientific types who perceived themselves as being superior to lesser mortals, Sir Reggie tended not to pontificate or obfuscate, and he was generally happy to share his knowledge with anyone he considered in possession of the wit to appreciate it.

  “As you said, an interesting case,” he began. “First off, I can tell you that dental records won't help us very much. Ha. Ha.”

  Powell and Black laughed politely.

  “We're dealing with a female, approximately five feet four inches, in her early to midthirties,” he continued, serious now. “There's not much to go on by way of an ID. No distinguishing features. Fingerprints are going to be a bit ticklish given the state of decomposition. The flesh of the right hand is more or less intact, but the skin has loosened considerably from exposure to the elements.” He selected a soggy chip from his plate and chewed on it thoughtfully. “And adipocere has set in.”

  “Adipocere?” Powell and Black said in unison.

  “A waxy deposit that sometimes appears subcuta-neously in bodies that have been immersed in water. It causes the ridges that form fingerprints to disappear. One can, however, peel the skin from the fingertips and occasionally get a good print or two. I've had a go with this one, so we'll see what the chaps in Fingerprint Section can do with it. But the exercise will only yield a useful result if her prints are on record somewhere, which, from a statistical point of view, is highly unlikely.”

  Powell nodded. “Any indication of the cause of death?”

  The pathologist shrugged. “No obvious signs of foul play. My instincts tell me that we're dealing with a drowning, but then there's your little sample to consider. Occasionally you chaps do contribute something useful to these investigations.”

  Powell smiled. “We aim to please.”

  Sir Reggie rummaged around in the pocket of his tatty tweed jacket and eventually extracted Powell's vial. He next produced a well-used handkerchief and spread it out on the table. He removed the cap from the vial and tapped the contents onto the handkerchief. Before Powell could protest, he said, “Don't worry, I've kept a portion aside for a legal sample. Here, have a look at this.”

  Powell examined the tiny heap of material: a mixture of sand, unidentifiable debris, and several clumps of black fiber or hair, as far as he could tell. He hadn't paid much attention to it previously, content to leave such matters to the lab analysts. Sergeant Black leaned over to have a closer look.

  Sir Reggie peered at the sample. “See this black stuff? I've had a look at it under a microscope. Know what it is?” He stared critically at Powell as if the chief superintendent were a fresh-faced medical student.

  “I don't have a microscope, and I prefer not to speculate.”

  Sir Reggie snorted. “Well done, Powell; there's hope for you yet. But don't pass it off too lightly—it's the key to your mystery, or at least part of it. Those black strands are the rhizomorphs of a fungus, Armillaria mellea. It causes wood rot, but that's not its most interesting quality. Armillaria mellea exhibits a curious property known as bioluminescence.” He paused for effect. “In other words, the bloody stuff glows in the dark!”

  Powell felt a surge of energy pass through him. “I don't understand—it couldn't grow in the sea, could it?”

  “Of course not. Its natural habitats are woodlots and lumberyards. Luminous wood has been known since Pliny's time,” Sir Reggie continued. “We now know that it's the fungus growing in the decaying wood that actually gives off the light. As long as it's kept moist and is actively growing, it will give off a fairly strong light, which in the case of Armillaria has a slight bluish green quality. During the war, pieces of infected wood along roads where timber was hauled, or in lumberyards, were occasionally reported to the authorities at night by people who suspected they might be signaling beacons or incendiary devices planted by the enemy. Fascinating, don't you think?”

  “Fascinating. But how does a corpse washed up on a beach in north Cornwall get contaminated with a luminous wood-rotting fungus?”

  “Don't ask me. You're the detective.”

  “Would the stuff survive in salt water?”

  “I'm not a bloody mycologist,” Sir Reggie said gruffly, “but my guess would be no, at least not for long.”

  “You mentioned that the fungus gives off a fairly strong light; the body was glowing quite faintly when I saw it—I thought I was imagining it at first.”

  Sir Reggie frowned. “The conditions would have to be just right—it would have to be pitch-black, for one thing. And didn't you say it was raining on the night in question? Some of it may have washed off.”

  “Is it possible that someone deliberately doctored the body with the fungus? Sprinkled it with the stuff, or something like that?”

  “Anything's possible.”

  Powell shook his head skeptically. “Someone running around Cornwall scattering luminous fungus like bloody fairy dust. It doesn't make any sense. The Riddle was reported independently by several different people; they can't all be in on it. So whoever is responsible would have to get to the body first, tart it up with the fungus, and then bugger off, leaving it for the next passerby to stumble on. And this would presumably have to be repeated, as the stuff would wash off when the body drifted out with the tide again. Unless …”

  “Yes?”

  “When I know for certain, I'll tell you.”

  Sir Reggie smiled carnivorously. “I suppose I deserved that. In any case, it is a bit of a puzzler, and it gets even more interesting.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Fixing the time of death is not an exact science at the best of times; I sometimes think that black magic is a better description of the process involved. Nonetheless, it's my opinion that your Riddle has been dead for longer than it might appear at first glance. Corpses basically decompose in two ways,” he went on to explain, “from the autolytic action of the body's own enzymes and from putrefaction caused by bacteria escaping the digestive tract. Immersion in cold seawater and limited exposure to sunlight has evidently slowed
the rate of decomposition in this case. A superficial examination of the body would suggest a period of perhaps seven or eight days since the time of death. However, if one confined one's attention to the condition of the internal organs, which are pretty far gone, one would be persuaded to place the time of death considerably earlier, fourteen to sixteen days ago, perhaps.”

  “I'm given to understand that the mean ocean temperature off Cornwall at this time of year is about forty-five degrees,” Powell observed.

  “The rate of decomposition slows considerably below fifty degrees, still …” Sir Reggie frowned. “It's almost as if the bloody thing has been partially embalmed in some fashion. And from the outside in, which is not the usual way of doing things.”

  Curiouser and curiouser. Then Powell remembered how he'd been struck by the absence of a strong odor when he'd first examined the body. He mentioned the fact to Sir Reggie.

  The pathologist nodded. “That fits, although it's getting bloody ripe now. I can tell you. In any case, I've ordered some tests. I'll let you know if I come up with anything earthshaking.”

  “What about the legs? Dr. Harris thought that they'd been amputated with a saw.”

  Sir Reggie laughed uproariously, as if this were the funniest thing he'd ever heard. “Your Dr. Harris is a very astute chap,” he said, wiping his eyes with his handkerchief and sending the flotsam and jetsam that had comprised Powell's sample flying in all directions. “The majority of his conclusions were substantially correct, but on that particular point he was dead wrong. Sharks probably chewed ‘em off first, then the abrasive action of the sand finished the job. smoothing off the ends of the femurs as the body moved up and down the beach with the changing tides. So the culprit is not a hacksaw, but rather a piece of sandpaper. Ha ha!”

  Powell and Black looked at each other.

  Sir Reggie consulted his watch. “Now, then, my train leaves at three twenty-four. If you drop me off at the station now, I'll have time for a quick snooze. And I'd advise you chaps to hop to it; you've got your work cut out for you.”

  Powell was on the verge of mentioning the woman reported drowned off Torquay, but decided he'd better wait until he'd seen the official coastguard report. For the time being, he preferred to let Sir Reggie work things out for himself.

  As they sped along the A30 past prosperous-looking farms, it occurred to Powell that they had more on their plates than they'd originally bargained for. Not murder, perhaps, but something very peculiar nonetheless. And nothing they had learned so far was inconsistent with the conclusion that it was in fact the Riddle of Penrick lying on a slab in the Treliske Hospital morgue. He turned to Sergeant Black. “As soon as we get back, I'm going to have a word with that fisherman of yours, Colin what's-his-name?”

  “Wilcox, sir.”

  “Right. Tell me, what do make of Sir Reggie's revelations?”

  Black frowned. “I think if we can figure out the why, the how will fall into place, sir. I keep thinking about what Wilcox said about the murder of that girl in the Sixties.”

  Powell nodded. A detective-sergeant on the same wavelength as his super is a gift from heaven. “I'll have to ask Buttie about it. He's lived around here all his life; he should be familiar with the case. The murdered girl's father, Roger Trevenney, still lives near Penrick. According to Dr. Harris he's not very well, so I'm reluctant to bother him unless it's absolutely necessary.” He sighed. “And there's no reason to suppose there's any connection at this point.”

  Black nodded.

  When they got back to Penrick, the village was cloaked in a dense fog that blotted out the sea and everything else more than fifty feet away.

  Sergeant Black pulled up at the Wrecker's Rest and got out.

  Powell slid over into the driver's seat. “I'll see you later.”

  “Right.” Black waved as the car bearing his superior disappeared into the mist.

  Up the hill and then left at the church, according to Black's directions. Colin Wilcox lived in an isolated house located about a half mile northeast of the village but nearly a mile away by road. This was the less frequented stretch of the Sands enclosed by the small promontory that formed the northerly limit of Penrick Bay. The beach was narrower and rockier here and generally less hospitable to swimmers and boaters. The northern entrance to the bay was guarded by three black pinnacles (offshore stacks to the geomorphology types), shown officially on the sea charts as Parthenope, Ligea, and Leucosia, and known locally, if imprecisely, as the Mermaids. (They were Sirens, actually.) In any case, they had claimed many a boat in the old days. It was said that at extremely low tides a barnacle-encrusted keel could be seen amongst the rocks. None of which, however, was evident to Powell that afternoon as his car crept through the fog along the winding clifftop road, with an ever-present sense of the drop to the rocks and sea below. The visibility was practically zero and the reflected glare of the headlamps only made matters worse. Occasionally he could hear the foghorn sounding forlornly on Godrevy Island.

  After what seemed like a never-ending series of hair-raising bends and turns and morbid fantasies (“Scotland Yard Detective Plunges Off Cornish Sea Cliff”) Powell was beginning to wonder if he hadn't got himself hopelessly lost. Then suddenly the road turned sharply left and after a short, descending pitch, he found himself stopped on a flattish patch behind the dark shape of a house. A dull yellow glow from one of the windows looked promising, although he had no idea if he was even at the right house. He turned off the motor and got out of the car. He could hear the roar of the sea not far below. Shivering in the damp chill, he walked up to the house and knocked on the door.

  A light came on above his head. The curtains parted and a face showed in the window. A few seconds later, the door opened. A tall young man with curly blond hair appeared. “Yes?” he said simply.

  “Mr. Wilcox?” Powell asked.

  The man nodded, and Powell introduced himself. “I'm sorry for dropping in unannounced, but I wanted to have a word with you about this body we've found. I have reason to believe you can assist us with our inquiries.”

  The young man smiled disarmingly. “Isn't that what the police officer always says to his primary suspect?”

  Powell laughed. “It's not as bad as all that, Mr. Wilcox, I promise you.”

  “Do come in and have a beer then, Chief Superintendent, and please call me Colin.”

  Powell followed Wilcox inside. It appeared to be a fairly modern house with an open floor plan, a quarry tile floor in the kitchen and oak parquet everywhere else, modern Danish furniture, and a large picture window facing the sea. Powell imagined that the view on a fine day would be spectacular. Today though, it was all gloom outside. There were times, Wilcox volunteered, when you couldn't see anything for days on end. Powell made some complimentary remarks about the house.

  “It was my parents' place,” Wilcox explained. “I built the addition myself. The old house still exists, basically the bedrooms, a small study, and a sitting room down the hall there. I lived in California for a few years and picked up some architectural ideas. West Coast Contemporary they call it over there.”

  “I'm not very handy myself,” Powell admitted.

  Wilcox grinned. “How about that beer?”

  “Great.”

  When Wilcox returned with two bottles of ale and two glasses, Powell said, “Most people around these parts seem to have an affinity for wine. It's refreshing to run into a beer drinker.”

  Wilcox winked. “I take whatever's going. Cheers.”

  “Cheers. Sergeant Black tells me that you're a fisherman.”

  Wilcox smiled thinly. “That, and a builder in the off-season. My father was a fisherman and his father before him.”

  “What sort of fishing do you do?”

  “A bit of everything. Crabs and lobsters, sport fishing charters in the summer for mackerel, sharks, whatever. In the old days it was pilchards mainly; they used to salt them down in the cellars and export them all over the world. It's not real
fishing I do, not like my grandfather, but it's where the money is these days. And the London girls who come out here on holiday seem to appreciate the genuine Cornish article,” he added roguishly.

  It sounded like a carefree sort of life to Powell. “You have your own boat, I take it.”

  Wilcox nodded. “I keep it moored in St. Ives.”

  “I suppose you would get to be quite familiar with the local tides and currents.”

  “Enough to get by.”

  “I'll get right to the point, Colin. Something about this business has been bothering me from the start. I understand that this part of the coast is swept by strong currents; assuming that the Riddle and our body are one and the same, I don't understand how something drifting passively in the sea could get caught in Penrick Bay for so long.”

  Wilcox shook his head in amazement. “You know, you're the first person around here who's even asked the question. It's obvious, isn't it? The whole thing's a put-up job.”

  “Go on.”

  “First off, you're right about the currents. We're influenced by the Gulf Stream here and, ignoring local tidal effects, the set is generally to the northeast. I remember once as a kid finding a drift bottle on the beach that had been dumped in the middle of the English Channel by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries as part of a study of tides and currents. There was a little card inside, and if you filled it out saying where and when the bottle was found and sent it in, you got a small reward—five shillings, I think. Over half of the bottles dropped in the Channel drifted round Land's End and came ashore on the north coast, right the way up to Trevose Head. That's about twenty-five miles up the coast from here. So it's not surprising that your body would drift into Penrick Bay with the tides, but it's highly unlikely that it would stay around for more than a day or two.”

  Assuming of course that it came from somewhere else, Powell thought. “You used the words ‘put-up job.’What did you mean?”