‘Hello, Grant. Danny here. Can you please phone or text me with Ivan Youlen’s number? Thanks.’ Grant stared at the message on his mobile phone as he lay in bed at his brother’s house wondering whether it was too early to get up. It was five in the morning. He had woken with a start, his mind instantly alert. He knew himself well enough to know he had no chance of returning to sleep, and he decided to text back the number. He had been quite shaken by Danny’s behaviour at his home a few days before, and he could summon neither the inclination nor the resolve to speak to him now.
Danny received Grant’s reply but waited about three hours before contacting Youlen, until the world was more properly going about its business. Danny guessed, from the speed of Grant’s texted response, that he must be getting right under his old friend’s skin, a thought that didn’t make him feel any better. He felt the whole matter was getting murkier by the day, bringing out the worst in people. How he wished it would all just go away.
‘Ivan Youlen speaking.’
‘Hi, Ivan, Danny Galvin here, Paul’s son.’
‘I’ve been expecting you,’ replied Ivan, in a more sombre and less detached tone than he had afforded Grant.
‘Er, yes. I mean why?’
‘Well, let’s be blunt here. Your old man ruined mine. If you care to remember, he never paid Sandersons in Penzance properly, and also I knows your mother got hold of some of my uncle’s poison. Now that pompous arse Morrison has been down here digging the dirt.’ Ivan stopped at this point, wondering what reaction he was getting. ‘Are you still there?’
‘Yes,’ said Danny, who had been content to allow Ivan to make the running in the conversation he had initiated.
‘Why are you calling me?’
‘I think we need to meet.’ Danny realized he had to take the initiative.
‘Well, get down to Cornwall then. I work at the Lost Gardens of Heligan these days and live in Mevagissey.’ Ivan had been very direct, while avoiding the bad language to which he had subjected Grant. Danny had hoped for a halfway meeting point and suggested Cerne Abbas. However, Ivan was never a man to compromise, and Danny soon conceded, agreeing to meet at Ivan’s cottage in Mevagissey.
‘Yeah, OK. Um, I’ll come down soon. So what did Morrison want?’
‘He threatened me a bit and said he would get the truth out of Ken Holford until I told him Ken was brown bread.’
Danny was surprised by this. ‘How did he die?’
‘You had better ask Trevor Mullings that.’
Danny knew who Mullings was and was anxious to learn more. ‘You know someone hounded Morrison when he was at Zennor, knocking on his door at night and other stuff. Were you behind that?’
‘No, but you should ask Trevor Mullings about that as well,’ replied Ivan knowingly.
‘I see.’ Danny tried to sound casual to keep him talking but to no avail; Ivan hung up without any niceties. Danny assumed that Mullings was behind Grant’s Zennor misadventure, which both pleased and perplexed him.
He decided to take a risk and phoned Grant. He got straight to the point. ‘I know who hounded you in Zennor.’
‘Who?’
‘Trevor Mullings.’
‘What? Why?’ But Grant’s queries were answered by a dial tone, as Danny had hung up, much to Grant’s exasperation. What was Mullings’s motive? And why was Danny telling him this when it seemed he had so much to hide? Perhaps Danny had experienced a twinge of conscience after his performance in Mill Hill. Or perhaps he thought the information might cause Grant to back off. The latter, decided Grant as he paced around his borrowed bedroom. Not for the first time he started questioning himself. Am I particularly stupid? Am I missing some massive clue here? Mullings knew that someone had left the pub with Hector Wallace but was apparently too inebriated to say who, and he had deliberately tried to put Grant off the scent in Cornwall. Furthermore, Mullings knew that Ken Holford, ‘the Tyrant of Tintagel’, had died. Had he killed him? Could there be a motive for Mullings, the easygoing heavy-drinking fisherman, to do something like this?
Grant stopped pacing, his reflection in the mirror above a chest of drawers revealing a drawn and haggard face he barely recognized. He studied his eyes. He had never felt sorry for himself over their condition, but he was concerned now that one looked very bloodshot. It was still a week before Suzie would land with the DVD. The wait was excruciating. He realized that he needed to calm down. However, he didn’t see what he could do for the next week apart from kick his heels, which he found very frustrating. His slow progress was wearing him down. He found himself humming ‘Half a pound of tuppenny rice, half a pound of treacle …’
He was stopped in his tracks when Glen knocked on the door. ‘Are you all right? Are you going to join us for breakfast?’
Grant was keen to patch things up with Brigit, who he knew was on his side, but he was concerned about the outcome of viewing the fourth film. He would no doubt become further distracted and that could cause further damage to their relationship. And he couldn’t mull things over with Justyn, who was still in Morocco.
He thought of meeting up with Caroline but decided that could set hares running, particularly as she seemed less than enthralled with her marriage. He still planned to fly to Majorca to see Danny’s mother, but he knew doing so would significantly raise the stakes with her son, and he wondered whether it was really such a good idea. He resolved to contact Henry Wilson, the film-maker upon whose evidence he was now pinning his hopes. Justyn had given him his brother’s mobile number some time back, and it didn’t take long to get Henry to return a call.
‘Hello, Henry. This is Grant Morrison. I don’t know if you remember me.’
‘Yes, of course. Hello, Grant. I know exactly who you are. I remember you well – and Justyn has told me about your investigation. How’s it going?’
‘Wheels stuck in the mud at this moment, but I have made some progress, thanks, and I have seen some of your films, which are an unbelievable record. Well done.’
‘Seen some? Which haven’t you seen?’
‘The last one, which I am led to believe is the most revealing.’
‘So where is it now?’ asked Henry, his voice betraying anxiety.
‘Suzie Hughes-Webb, er, I mean, Barber has it. She’s bringing it from South Africa on Wednesday.’
‘Is she?’
‘So this one is the hot ticket, Henry.’
Henry hung up after saying a hurried goodbye. This threw Grant. He couldn’t fathom why the conversation should have been curtailed so suddenly. He tried Henry’s mobile number again, but this time there was no response.
The reason that Henry had cut short their discussion was that he had seen Danny Galvin park his car in the road, and he was now approaching his front door. Being a person of nervous disposition, Henry hesitated before opening it and greeting his uninvited guest as calmly as he could.
‘Danny Galvin, isn’t it? I haven’t seen you for …’
‘Yeah, years, decades probably, whatever. May I come in?’ Before Henry could consider the request Danny had moved over the threshold and was heading to a living-room chair. ‘This used to be your folks’ place, didn’t it?’ Danny asked, making an attempt at small talk.
‘Yes, I bought out the other two after Mum died.’
‘Yeah, thought so. I remember Justyn’s twenty-first party here. Quite a night, if I remember correctly. I got lucky with Jenny Charnley.’
‘Didn’t everyone,’ countered Henry, recalling one of his brother’s former conquests and trying to lighten the atmosphere. Henry was feeling distinctly uncomfortable, and his feelings were exacerbated by the fact that it was his own territory that had been invaded. An awkward silence enveloped them, prompting Danny to reveal his agenda.
‘Look, I know you shot film footage of our holidays in Cornwall, and I want to see it.’
‘Why?’ Henry feigned ignorance.
‘Because I used to have copies. Well, Dad did, and he gave them to me.’ He paused. ‘I mean, Morrison is muck-raking, and those films should be destroyed.’ Warming to his theme he continued, ‘They won’t do anyone any good. They’re nothing but trouble.’
Henry had to think quickly. The films had been stolen when his home had been burgled – although he later found out that the Galvins had gained possession of them. His own family had told him to leave matters alone, not to involve the police. The Silvers and the Galvins hadn’t been close in the intervening years. Bob regarded Paul as a charlatan, and Alison Galvin had never really felt she had been on the same wavelength as the GP Margaret Silver.
‘So how did you lose them?’ inquired Henry.
‘They were stolen from my flat in Fulham years ago,’ Danny replied.
Well, what goes around … thought Henry; yet something made him suspicious. He felt that Danny’s bluster was just that and that he didn’t really believe that Henry had the films at all. No, he was sure this little bit of theatre was really for someone else, someone Danny wanted Henry to warn off the whole business. He assumed that person was Grant.
Danny wanted to know whether he had made any copies, but Henry was able to dismiss that idea with a nonchalant wave of his hand. Danny continued, ‘You know that madman Grant Morrison has taken it upon himself to try to dig up all that crap from 1972. I expect Justyn has told you all about it, and it won’t be long before Morrison gets hold of the films, which I gather have been converted to DVD.’
‘So you’re in a race against time?’
‘I’m not in a race against anything’ replied Danny tersely. ‘I simply want to keep the doors to the past firmly shut – bolted and chained, in fact. Why does Morrison have to do all this now? What’s he on?’
‘I’ve no idea. Why’ve you come to see me?’
‘I thought you might know something – you might know if there are any unwanted copies lurking around.’ Danny looked accusingly at his host.
Henry considered his response, but he shared his family’s general distaste for the Galvin family, particularly as he knew they had stolen the films in the first place. By contrast, of all his brother’s friends he had always rather liked Grant, and he resolved to do all in his power to help him. He began to doubt whether the films were even stolen from Danny at all and suspected that his approach was to determine whether any copies had been made.
‘Look, I lost possession of that footage a long time ago, which I was very angry about at the time. After all, I shot the film in the first place. Anyway, I don’t see how I can help you now. Frankly, I think we should all let bygones be bygones.’
‘I couldn’t agree more, but that lunatic Morrison is going on as if he’s tracking a lost NASA satellite, as if this is the Holy Grail, the discovery of Tutankhamen and all that bollocks.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. I really don’t know. He’s even been down to Cornwall to see Ivan Youlen and Trevor the fisherman. I mean, what is he on? He tried to find Ken Holford and was seen visiting the grave of Ken’s old lady.’
‘You seem to know an awful lot about what he’s been doing,’ Henry challenged, deciding it was time he stood up to this bully who seemed totally changed from the teenager he had once known.
‘Yeah, well. I want him to stop. He’s making it personal. If he calls you, can you tell him you never filmed anything controversial, that you never saw anything that would be remotely significant for him to watch some forty years on.’
Henry considered this request and was half tempted to let rip, to tell Danny that he had total recall of everything on those DVDs and that Danny was in big trouble; but he knew discretion was the better part of valour, so he limited himself to ‘Yes, of course. Let’s all move on.’
‘Yeah, right,’ said Danny as he got up to leave. ‘Thanks for your time. A cup of tea would have been nice,’ he teased with a half-smile, and Henry was relieved at this attempt at humour.
‘Oh, sorry. It’s just that I have an appointment with my chiropractor and …’
‘Don’t be,’ said Danny. ‘I was only joking. Good to see you, old son. Give my best to Justyn, and don’t forget to tell Morrison he can stick his head where the sun don’t shine!’
‘Yes, of course. Quite so. See you again some time. Bye,’ replied Henry as he shut the door firmly. He waited until Danny’s Audi had departed and then called Grant.
‘Hello, good to hear from you,’ said the voice at the end of the phone.
‘Danny’s on to you. He doesn’t know that you already have some of the DVDs, but he’s pretty paranoid about them – and you.’
‘Good, good,’ Grant announced playfully. ‘This is getting to the business end of things. Thanks, Henry – and lock your doors.’
‘I think it’s you who’d better lock yours.’