“So,” I said to the Flimwells, as the three of us sat in their study at the academy. “I need to be circumspect, as I’m fairly sure the police see me as interfering, but Sir John’s given me carte blanche to do whatever I can to find Angel.”
“I know,” said Velinda. “He told us that as well, and I think there may have been some political strings pulled.”
“I couldn’t possibly say,” I answered with a smile.
“Well,” Velinda continued with a nod. “DCS Pentreath said to me this morning that he’d just had another call from his superiors telling him to, and I quote, ‘pull his finger out’. Seems Sir John has been wielding his influence and it’s not appreciated by the local force.”
“As I say, couldn’t possibly comment, but if that were the case, I’d need to tread carefully with the police.”
“So how can we help you, Sangster?” Cyrus asked.
“First off, I’d like to look in Angel’s room if I may.”
“Of course. She shares with two other girls by the way.”
“Has anything been moved since she disappeared?”
“No. Room hasn’t been touched, other than the police search of course.”
“And Simon Founds, I’d like to talk to him.”
“Spider, why yes. Anyone else?”
“Jonny Waites. And any background material you have on them. Upbringing, previous schooling, that sort of thing.”
“Very well,” said Cyrus. “I’ll get the two boys down to the study and fish out their files. Vi, in the meantime could you take Sangster to Angel’s dormitory please.”
*
“Here we are,” said Velinda, as we entered Angel’s dormitory, equipped, as I saw, for three pupils, with beds, wardrobes and desks. The walls were adorned with posters that any fifteen-year-old girl might have in her bedroom, reflecting very usual teenage contradictions, such as pop stars, horses, dogs, and kittens.
“So, this would be Angel’s bed,” I said to Velinda.
“Yes, how did you guess?”
“Elementary, my dear Flimwell, the cleaners haven’t been in yet and it’s the only one that’s made.” I immediately realised the inappropriateness of my remark. “Sorry, couldn’t help that,” I then said, looking at the bed and the desk, and realising Angel’s corner was somewhat different to the others. Along with the pop and film stars and animals (the stars, all male, outnumbered the animals significantly), various drawings were pinned to the wall, with more lying loose on the desktop. Even at first glance, to me they seemed to have a theme, show a pattern, tell a story in some way linked to the locality. I then noticed that the shelves in Angel’s corner, which stretched over the bed and the desk, were empty.
“Police took all her books, study work and so on down to the incident room,” said Velinda, following my gaze. “Just left these sketches.”
“I see, so tell me what you know of Angel.”
“You’ve met her haven’t you,” Velinda replied.
“Fleetingly.”
“Then you know she’s a beauty, but that’s the least of it. She has an interest in everything and the skills and drive to back it up. That’s as much as I can say unless you want to go into detail.”
“Is she…” I remembered Sarah being obsessed with Leonardo Da Vinci some months before, so that I heard all about his insatiable curiosity, and his abilities in everything from art to anatomy. “Like Leonardo Da Vinci. Gifted at everything?”
“Hmmm… good analogy, but no.”
“Then what?”
“She’s gifted, but by no means gifted at everything. She can sketch but she’s not our best artist by any means. And she can sing but she’s not our best musician. No, Angel’s uniqueness lies in her analytical mind and her ability to absorb the information she needs to make that analysis. And an amazing ability to pick up languages. Never seen anything like it.”
“Inherited from her parents?”
“Adopted. We don’t know who her birth parents were.”
“Ah.”
“And always precocious. Comes from a stable but very humble household in rural Essex, Brightlingsea. Angel won a scholarship to Roedean when she was nine. Normal intake age for the entrance exam she took is thirteen.”
“Did she go?”
“No, her mother, rightly in my opinion, kept Angel at home. Local school in Colchester.”
“And academics aside, er… how is she with boys, that sort of thing?”
“Ah.” Velinda went silent, clearly considering her next answer. “She’s a true genius, Jack, but also a teenage girl with all the normal urges and uncertainties that go with it.” I looked at the posters on the wall and Velinda followed my eyes. “Yes Jack, I would say Angel is definitely on the cusp of womanhood.”
“Hmmm… in my line of work, with a teenage girl missing, especially a pretty one like Angel, and when there are no family issues to take into account, a boy is the first place we look.”
“No. I know some of the lads at the school were interested, but I got the idea Angel was keener on older boys.”
“Why’s that?”
“Don’t have much to go on really, more a feeling. I saw her looking at men when we were out on trips, especially in London a few weeks ago, and I did overhear one of the school lads saying Angel didn’t care for the likes of him. Wanted someone more mature.”
“Who was the lad in question?”
“Spider.”
“Anything else?”
“No.”
“Can you leave me here for a while then?” I asked. “I need some time to look over all this.”
“Of course. Shall I get the two boys to come to the study a bit later?”
“Please. And Velinda, I’d like to see Spider first, then Jonny Waites afterwards, both on their own if that could be arranged.”
*
As soon as Velinda left the room, I sat down in Angel’s chair and closed my eyes, trying to imagine the girl spending time at her desk. A beauty with a rare mind and an interest in everything, on the edge of womanhood, dreaming of things to come.
And I knew I wouldn’t be able to match Angel’s academic train of thought, so decided to keep things simple. She was a teenage girl.
I looked again at the pictures on the wall. All of the photos were men not boys, so lads of her own age surely weren’t enough. Had Angel run away with an older man?
It seemed physically impossible she’d run away at all given everything I’d been told about the academy building’s security and the circumstances of the disappearance. I also had to wonder where she could have possibly met this phantom lover, given she was in a closely monitored boarding school environment. But for all that, from what I already knew of Angel’s intellect, it would have been easy enough for her to outwit the likes of Runtle, and even the Flimwells, if she set her mind to it.
The drawings pinned on the wall were mainly sketches, mostly scenes of the river, including one line drawing that I recognised as the view from my hotel across the river to the point and Pasco’s cottage.
‘Bad crossing over the River Fal at high tide, April 1970’
…was written underneath, followed by the initials ‘AB’. Looking down at the desk, I saw scattered papers that seemed to be related to Angel’s lessons, with some written in different languages, including French, German, Latin and even a paper in what looked to me like Russian Cyrillic script. One sheet, however, particularly caught my eye, entitled ‘Granville Challenge Number 1’. Below this heading were printed four lines of what looked like, as far as I could tell, Cornish language:
Me a moaz, a me a moaz, a me a moaz in goonglaze,
Me a clouaz, a clouaz, a clouaz, a troz, an pysgaz miniz.
Bez mi a trouviaz un pysg brawze naw losia,
Olla boble en Porthia ne mi nôr dho gan zingy.
Below this text, Angel had done a stylised pen and ink drawing of a fish, but her fish looked somehow wrong. I stared at its downturned mouth, exaggerated spiky fins, and curved form for a moment before realising it had multiple tails, which when I counted them up (three times as they were tangled together and hard to tally), totalled nine. The underlying handwritten English text explained why.
As I was going out on the green downs,
I heard the sound of little fishes.
But I found one big fish with nine tails,
And all the people of St Ives couldn’t catch it.
Below the translation, Angel had written in block capitals…
OCTOPUS!
… and someone, Velinda I assumed by the initials ‘VF’, had then scrawled next to the drawing.
Winner, but how did you do it?
‘How did you do what, Angel?’ I asked myself.
Then, folding the paper and placing it in my pocket I looked around the room, under Angel’s bed and finally in her wardrobe. It was full of the usual clothes, undergarments, and shoes of a teenage girl, as well as some cosmetics and hygiene products, but held little else of interest. I was about to leave when I noticed a draw underneath the desk. It clearly wasn’t intended to be secret, the desk design merely needing it be set well back from the front to make space for knees. Nevertheless, this draw could be easily overlooked, so that I only noticed it myself while moving my head back from the odd angle needed to look under the bed.
Pulling the draw open, I found a rolled-up sheet of tracing paper inside, held together with an elastic band, which when stretched out on the desktop, showed what looked like brass rubbings of either side of an ornamental dagger. The lower part of the handle was shaped to be gripped, with indents for the user’s fingers, and there was a broad knob on the top to stop the dagger slipping (the ‘tang’ and the ‘butt’ I seemed to recall these parts of a knife might be properly called). But it was the blade that really caught my eye, curved like a scimitar, and embossed all along either side with literally hundreds of tiny symbols of a type I’d never seen before. All in all, the dagger imprint was around a foot long, with handwritten notes around it (presumably Angel’s), each linked by arrows pointing to different parts of the weapon. What the notes meant, I couldn’t have said, as they were in the same incomprehensible script as the symbols on the blade, all swirls and squiggles, (the closest thing I’d ever seen to this was secretarial shorthand).
Rolling up the tracing paper as carefully as I could (the soft pencil used for the rubbing had already starting to come off on my fingers), and replacing the elastic band, I bent and picked up a visiting card from the floor that had fallen from the roll of paper.
‘Prof. Josiah Polkinghorne, PhD, CEng’
Cambourne School of Metalliferous Mining
Laboris Gloria Ludi
I pocketed the card, then pushed my hand to the very back of the draw, where I felt another piece of paper. This turned out to be an envelope with Angel’s name written on the front (in what appeared to me a familiar hand, although I couldn’t recall where I’d seen it). The top edge was torn open to reveal a note inside, on which was written a single line, probably done in a hurry as the punctuation was wrong.
‘I, must see you. Boathouse at 4. Your devoted T’
There was no date or other clue to tell me more about the note (which joined Angel’s fish poem sheet in my pocket), or who this mysterious ‘T’ might be. ‘Boathouse at 4’ I said to myself out loud, remembering Angel was last seen on the front lawn around 3pm on Sunday. And the boathouse, which lay to one side of the lawn behind a screen of hairy-trunked, leafy dracaena palm trees, would have been easy enough to get to without being seen, so one of the few places inside the academy walls suitable for a clandestine tryst.
But a clandestine tryst with who?
*
“Did you find anything else in the room?” Velinda asked as I entered her study.
“Yes, a few things actually.”
“Sir John was right.”
“How so?”
“He said you’d find things the police missed.”
“Have you any idea what this is?” I said, rolling out the dagger etching.
“No idea, Jack, and what weird symbols. Angel was keen on that sort of thing though.”
“I saw this on her desk as well.” I unfolded the sheet with the translated poem about the fish with nine tails. “Recognise it?”
“Ah yes,” Velinda laughed. “We do a challenge for the pupils every week. This was the first one I think, back in April, and Angel, well, she just astounded us, especially Cyrus.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, the challenge was to translate the text, which we thought was enough on its own, but Angel, well…” Velinda then explained how Angel, having just arrived at the academy and with no prior knowledge of Cornish and precious few resources, other than an amateur and privately published English Cornish dictionary, mastered the basics of the language in a few days. Angel, she said, not only accurately translated the poem, but also realised it must be some kind of riddle.
“Even Cy hadn’t understood it was a riddle,” she said. “We were quite shocked at Angel’s perspicacity.”
“Is Cyrus interested in Cornish folklore and so on then?”
“Oh yes,” she laughed. “It’s one of the reasons he was keen to take this job. Cy would give up teaching to study folklore full-time if he could. Be like a pig in clover, don’t think he’d even notice I was there.” She laughed again.
“And the octopus?”
“The answer to the riddle. A fish with nine tails.”
“Sorry, I’m being a bit dim.”
“Oh Jack,” she sighed. “Eight legs equals eight tails, then add a body and you have nine tails. So… the big fish they couldn’t catch in St Ives that day must have been an octopus.”
“Ah, slimy,” I said wiggling my hands like tentacles, before quickly withdrawing them behind my back when Velinda didn’t react.
“And that’s what Angel worked out, in an unknown tongue, in a few days, without really trying, and without even being told there was a riddle to be solved in the first place.”
“Remarkable,” was all I could say.
“And, Jack, one other thing. Not sure it’s important though.”
“You never know.”
“Well, that fish drawing.”
“Tattoo?”
“Yes, Angel went to a backstreet tattooist in Falmouth. Had it done on her leg.”
“You let the pupils have tattoos?”
“No, of course not, it’s illegal if you’re under eighteen.
“But she got it anyway?”
“’Fraid so,” Velinda nodded. “Said something odd to me when I challenged her about it as well, now what did she say again…” Velinda scratched her head. “Yes, that she’d felt driven to draw the fish, and didn’t know why, which was even odder coming from Angel, who usually always knew why.” Velinda carried on scratching her head. “And d’you know what, Jack?”
“No.”
“All the other kids loved that tattoo. Wanted one the same. Was as if the whole school went, well… fish mad.”
“Did you let them?”
“Pardon?”
“All have these tattoos.”
“Once again, no, but several children managed to get one all the same. We informed the parents of course, but there were no complaints, so please don’t mention it to Sir John.” Velinda wagged her finger at me and winked.
“May I continue?”
“Mmmm…” She nodded.
“Alight, well lastly, at the back of a draw under her desk, I found this.” I handed the note in the envelope to Velinda.
“Yes,” she said as she opened it. “Those desk draws are very awkward, set well under the desktops, always jamming, I—”
She stopped talking and stared at the note for a moment, then continued. “Yes, looks like Angel was meeting someone at the boathouse. One of the, er… other pupils I suppose.”
“Maybe, but would a teenage boy use the word ‘devoted’?”
“Perhaps, Jack.” She coughed. “Ahem… the, um, youngsters here don’t always speak like their less gifted contemporaries.”
“Okay, well let’s see how they do speak. Did you manage to round up Spider and Jonny?”
“They’re waiting in the hall. It was Spider you wanted to see first, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. Can you ask him to come in five minutes, and wait with Jonny while I speak with him, please?”
“Of course.”
“And these are the boys’ files?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure you don’t mind me stealing your desk?”
“Yes,” she laughed, and left the office.
I opened the first of the files, to see Jonny’s photograph staring out at me. There seemed nothing remarkable, the notes telling of a gifted boy from a poor background in Newcastle upon Tyne, recommended to the institute by his local teachers mainly due to his exceptional skills in Greek and Latin. The file on Spider described a boy, highly gifted in a number of areas, especially modern and classical language, as well as biblical history, and educated by Christian Brothers. Besides a tendency to suffer occasional fits, again the profile showed nothing else out of the ordinary.
*
“Spider?”
“Eight limbed animal, surprisingly close relative to the little-known horseshoe crab,” answered the gangling youth in front of me, standing well over six foot, with greasy, black shoulder-length hair and disproportionally long limbs that had no doubt given him his nickname. “Phylum Arthropoda, order – Araneae, class – Arachnida, okay?”
“Simon, then,” I said, in no mood for cheek, the precious morning hours already racing on.
“Simon Founds.”
“Sit down then, Mr Founds.” I gestured to the chair opposite. “I’m—”
“Jack Sangster, I know.”
“Yes, you did the same trick on my wife.”
“She wore that Hebrew bracelet.”
“A gift from me, bought in Jerusalem. Now then, I’m looking for help anywhere I can, anything at all that might shed light on the whereabouts of Angel Blackwood.”
“I’m sure you are,” smirked the boy.
Trying to ignore the dislike I was beginning to take to this ‘Spider’, I decided to treat him as I would have done an errant seaman hauled up before me on board ship.
“I’ve read your file, and I’ll be taking notes,” I said, bringing out a pad and pen. “And these may be passed to the police, so try and answer concisely and clearly.”
“I’m sure you’ll tell me if I don’t, sir,” he retorted, in a voice that said with every inflection, especially the way he said ‘sir’, that he didn’t acknowledge my authority. “Like you would have done in the navy, sir,” he then added to my complete surprise, although I managed (I think), not to give him the satisfaction of showing it.
“So, when did you last see Angel?”
“Sunday. We were sitting on the lawn after lunch, talking.”
“Just you and her?”
“No, Jonny Waites as well.”
“Talking about what?”
“You really want to know?”
“Yes, lad,” I said slapping my palm onto the desk with a thwack that made him jump. “Take this seriously, Angel’s missing.”
“Koine Greek influences on Judean Aramaic script,” he said, with a look that implied he expected me to ask what that meant. I decided to note it down and ask Sarah rather than give him any satisfaction.
“Did Angel bring that subject up?”
“I think so, but maybe not.” I watched him look sideways for a moment, a sure-fire sign of discomfort.
“I thought you were certain about everything, Mr Founds. So did she or didn’t she bring it up?”
“Yes, she did,” he sighed. “She’s been talking about it a lot lately, that particular dialect.”
“I see. Now I’d like to ask you an important question.”
“I thought they were all important,” he smirked. “But please, go ahead.”
“Did you have a relationship with Angel?”
“Ah, what’s the definition of ‘relationship’,” he answered, feigning exaggerated concentration by touching the top of his head along the (rather greasy) centre parting. “Now let me see. ‘The way in which two or more people or things are connected, or the state of being connected.’ So, I suppose, as we were both at this school, yes I did.”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
“Then no.” He looked at me flatly. “Sir.”
“And did you want to?”
“Yes, I did,” he answered quietly. “But she was interested in older boys, ‘real men’ as she called them.” Looking at this awkward, know-it-all, insolent and (to my eye), somewhat unwashed specimen, I couldn’t help admiring Angel’s taste.
“And was she seeing anyone?”
“No, I don’t think so. I’d have known.”
“No doubt you would,” I said, imagining he would be the last person Angel would confide in. “Does she, or do you for that matter, know anyone whose first name begins with a ‘T’.”
“Well, we all do don’t we, know someone whose name starts with T, for example I—” He stopped himself, now realising (I hoped) that sarcasm wouldn’t help. “Someone special I guess you mean,” he then said, sounding for the first time reasonably genuine. “No, I don’t think so. There really aren’t too many opportunities to meet people for any of us cooped up here. Place is like a fortress.” He thought for a moment. “Doesn’t mean she couldn’t have met someone elsewhere though I s’pose. She was allowed out more than most.”
“Okay,” I said, passing him my card and scribbling the hotel number on the back. “Any other ideas let me know or pass a message via the Flimwells.” Again, he looked defiant, this time at the sound of the principal’s surname, and I decided our talk should end. “Thank you for your, er… cooperation, you can go now, Mr Founds. And ask Jonny Waites to come in would you please?”
With that, Spider lifted his long limbs and left the office. As he did so, I looked at his left ankle, which was exposed, his trousers pulling up well above his socks.
There it was, the nine-tailed fish tattoo.
*
Waiting for Jonny, I sifted through Spider’s answers for clues, but found none. Even his comment that Angel was allowed out more (why?) and might have met someone outside the school seemed insignificant. After all, whoever the mysteriously devoted ‘T’ of the note was, he (or she) was to meet her inside the school grounds.
“Mr Sangster?” came a voice from around the door.
“Come in. Jonny Waites, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir,” Jonny replied.
“You can drop the ‘sir’ Jonny. Just Jack or Mr Sangster will do nicely.”
“Er, thanks Mr Sangster.” Jonny, whose Geordie twang matched the back story in his file, was easier on the eye than Spider, shorter and more normally proportioned, with a mop of black curly hair and an altogether friendlier countenance.
“So, I’m trying to find out more about Angel, Jonny.”
“Spider said you were.”
“Yes, well he’s told me what he knows, so just try and tell me anything you think he might not know.” Jonny looked awkward and stared at his feet. “Nothing you say need go beyond this room, unless I have to tell the police of course.”
“Well, you know Spider fancied her, Mr Sangster.”
“Yes, he told me. Said she didn’t fancy him though.”
“That’s right. She’s always dreaming of film stars, pop singers and so on. Seems like real boys of her own age don’t interest Angel.” He paused for a moment, then looked up and spoke more brightly. “But Angel is my friend. We talk about all sorts of things, go canoeing together.” This confirmed to me that Jonny was the other kayaker Sarah and I had seen from the ferry.
“Anywhere interesting?”
“We’ve been up most of the creeks on the Fal now.”
“Anywhere special on this creek?”
“Near here, not particularly. There’s some ruined jetties, old mine workings and things, but nothing much. Far more interesting further upriver, towards Truro, where those ships are moored.”
“Yes, I’ve seen them. Huge.” He nodded. “And did Angel go out of the school on her own much, at weekends say?”
“No, I don’t think so. We had an exeat weekend recently, but she didn’t use it. Parents live in Essex she said, so too far to go.”
“Any idea what she did do that weekend?”
“I think she said Prin took her out sketching, but maybe she went into Truro on the bus or something.”
“Yes Jonny?”
“Um… I remember Angel mentioning she went up to Camborne one Saturday as well, and she’d have had to change buses in Truro to do that. She could, er… do that because Prin had given her permission to go out more than the rest of us.”
So, I thought, plenty of opportunities for a determined girl to meet someone.
“Was there anything she would ask you about, any subject where she wanted to know more?”
“No,” he laughed. “Angel could do most things better than anyone.”
“You all seem to be really good at something here. What is your speciality, Jonny?”
“I like old myths, and the languages that go with them. Latin, Greek and so on.”
“Aramaic?”
“Yeah, a bit,” he said, nodding slowly. “But that’s more Spider’s thing. I think it annoyed him Angel knew more about it than he did though, and Aramaic wasn’t even her special thing.”
“What was her special thing, Jonny?”
“Nothing.” He paused for a moment. “No, I mean, practically everything.”
“I understand.” I handed him a card with my number on, as I had Spider. “Thank you and call me or let the Flimwells know if you remember anything else.” He stood up to leave.
“Oh, and Jonny?”
“Yes?”
“What does Laboris Gloria Ludi mean?”
“Ooh, er…” His eyes suddenly lit up. “It’s not exactly the same in Latin, but we would say, work hard, play hard.”
“Thank you, Jonny, and sorry, one other thing.”
“Yes sir.”
“Please roll up your left trouser leg.”
“Sir?”
“You heard, lad.”
He then complied, and sure enough, I saw the sad looking nine-tailed fish.
“What’s that, Jonny?”
“Just something Angel drew sir, and we had the tattoos done in Falmouth.”
“What made you want that?”
“I’m not sure sir, I just wanted it… got in a bit of trouble for it as well, but there’s no harm done, is there?”
“No harm done, Jonny.”
*
“Let’s go through to the incident room, Velinda.”
“Did you find out anything more from the boys?”
“Not much I’m afraid. I need to tell the police what I found in the desk draw though.”
“Alright, Jack,” she said, her voice seeming a bit flustered. “Can you go on without me, I’m already late for a class. Still got the day job to do.”
“Of course, must be difficult juggling everything at the moment.”
“Thanks,” she said, almost running away from me down the corridor.
“I’m going to make a few calls after this so I may not see you again today,” I called as she went. “Will let you know if I have any news.”
“Me too,” came the reply as she disappeared, not into a classroom as I would have expected, but back into her office.
I walked on to the school gym, where the numerous uniformed police officers and clerks bustled, and the telephones were busy as ever. Pentreath was standing with his back to me in the corner by the blackboards.
“Morning, Sangster,” he said without turning around, in a way that slightly took me aback. “Don’t worry, haven’t got eyes in the back of my head.”
“How d’you know it was me then?”
“Reflection.” He pointed to a glass board behind the others which was scrawled with black felt pen, parts of which had clearly been wiped clean several times.
“Any news, Pentreath?”
“No, and I might ask you the same. Been interviewing the kids yourself I hear, and you’ve been searching in their rooms.”
“Yes, and I didn’t learn much from talking to the boys, but I did find this.” I showed him the etching of the dagger.
“Interesting. May we keep it?”
“I’ve someone who may understand it, so was wondering if you could somehow make a copy for your files.”
“Woon,” he shouted before I could finish, whereupon the WPC I’d seen the day before comforting the Blackwoods came running. “Take some photos of this would you, wide angle.” The policewoman trotted over to a cupboard at the double, returning with a massive camera which she then clicked over different parts of the paper, each time with a blinding flash.
“One moment, sir,” she said, as the camera whirred, producing several large, fully developed photographs from a slot in the underside after less than a minute. WPC Woon then picked the photos up by the corners and waved them in the air. “Just drying the acetates off.”
“That’s amazing,” I said, looking at the detail of the sketch on the photos. “My wife’s got one of those instant cameras, but nothing like that.”
“Latest industrial Polaroid from America, Sangster,” said Pentreath, with pride judging by the way he held his chin up as he spoke. “We’re not the yokels some people think down here you know. And we get our fair share of murder, abduction, violent crime.”
“I’m sure you do, and I never thought for a minute you were ‘yokels’, as you put it.”
“Your boss does.”
“He thinks that about almost everyone,” I laughed. “Anyway, I did find out that the script on this drawing is likely…” I pulled out my notebook. “Judean Aramaic, so if you know anyone who can translate as well, we can both try.”
“Hmmm…” Pentreath scratched his chin. “Maybe Exeter University. We’ll have a look into it. Anything else?”
“Found this card. Camborne mining school.”
“Ah yes, heard of this chap, Jos Polkinghorne, featured in the newspaper a few weeks back. Came from a local mining family, now lectures all round the world. May I keep it?”
“Of course. And I also found a note, it says—” I felt in my pocket, but the envelope wasn’t there. “I could swear I…”
“You lost something, Sangster?”
“A note I found in an envelope in the girl’s desk. I can remember roughly what it said though.”
“Woon, take this down.” The WPC duly took out a notebook and pencil.
“Er… ‘I must see you. Boathouse at 4. Devoted T’. I think that’s it.”
“Sure?”
“Pretty much.”
“We’ll look for Christian names and surnames beginning with T then. Sounds like a lead.”
“And that old man you mentioned, the one the kids call the tramp?”
“Disappeared off the face of the earth, Sangster. Not a trace. We’re continuing our house-to-house searches though. Done quite a wide range now, almost down to Helston, up as far as Redruth, and over to St Austell.” Once again, he sounded proud, while once again, I felt he was looking in the wrong place, and should be focusing closer to home.
“Pentreath,” I then said quietly. “May I have a word?”
“Of course, over here.” He gestured to one of the larger notice boards. “Behind this screen. Now what is it?”
“Well, firstly, I think Angel has quite an interest in men.”
“Normal enough for a teenage girl.”
“Yes, but more so than the average teenager. And she’s a real beauty, so equipped to do something about it. Just thought you should know.”
“Thanks, I had wondered, and that could certainly have a bearing on the case. You’ve er… done well here, Sangster. Found a few things we missed.”
“Thanks.”
“And between you and me,” he whispered. “That’s good to know. I, er… I’m not so used to being out in the field these days. As a DCS I tend to be a bit more desk-bound, let the more junior officers do the hands-on detective work if you know what I mean.”
“Really?”
“Yes, but I was given a three-line whip to head up this investigation personally, so what I’m trying to say is, well… we need each other. Your boss is counting on you, and mine on me.” He clapped me on the shoulder, and after a few moments’ silence (being used to the police disliking the Granville Institute’s involvement in cases this didn’t immediately register as a sign of friendship), I realised I had an ally in this Pentreath. “And,” he went on, “I have to say being this hands-on is a little daunting. I’ve not personally led an investigation for some time, and given my rank the personal consequences of failure, well…” He looked me in the eye, and for a moment I saw a genuine anxiety that went some way to explaining the undertones of discomfort I’d detected as he spoke earlier. “Don’t bear thinking about.”
“Um…” I then said, wanting to make the most of the newfound comradeship. “You took most of Angel’s books and her notes from the dormitory. May I look over them?”
“Of course, Sangster, WPC Woon has filed them all. Far corner of the room. Go over now and she’ll show you.”
“Thanks, and one more question if I may.”
“Yes?”
“You say you’re a little rusty but you do have the experience with this kind of thing.” He nodded. “So, tell me, what do you really think Angel’s chances are, now that it’s been four days?”
“Honestly, Sangster, unless she’s run away up-country, which is always possible I suppose, then not good. Not good at all.”
*
“Now listen up everybody, a moment of your time,” shouted Pentreath, emerging from behind the screen as the room gradually went silent. “This is Commander Sangster, here at the specific request of no less an authority than the chief constable himself, so you will, and I repeat will, give him any and all help he needs. Any questions?”
The room remained silent.
“Carry on then.” The bustle recommenced, and I walked over to the corner Pentreath had indicated.
“WPC Serana Woon,” said the officer by the filing cabinets, a trim and pretty young woman with dark brown hair piled up in a bun, and (at least I found it so), a very attractive Cornish lilt. “Ana for short,” she added, pronouncing it ‘aar-na’, slowly but slightly self-consciously I thought, in a way said that she half expected me to make some joke at her expense.
“That’s a very pretty name.” She smiled at this, and the self-conscious look passed. “I’m Jack Sangster. DCS Pentreath said you had catalogued all Angel’s books and so on.”
“That’s right, and here are the books.” She gestured to two piles of volumes, both stacked precariously on a tabletop. “They’re really of two kinds, academic and er… ahem.” She reddened. “Romantic, and we found those all stuffed behind the academics. The girl clearly didn’t want them seen by the teachers.”
“I can imagine,” I said, looking down the spines of the left-hand pile of titles, at least some of which I knew were certainly not ‘romantic’ in the popular women’s fiction sense of the word. “And Angel’s notes, her exercise books?”
“Here, in bundles on the desk. I arranged them by date as best I could. Angel had a habit of dating every sheet she wrote on, which helped.”
“All looks very neat. I’ll have a browse through and let you know if there are any questions.”
“Alright, sir.”
“No saying sir, please. Just Jack, and if I may I’ll call you Ana, I’ll make sure it’s with a long A.”
“Okay, Jack,” she said, now with a broad smile. “And I’ll be right over there if you need me.”
I watched her walk away, past a group of desks where, amongst others, a uniformed officer sat (I recognised him as the sergeant who had taken my statement). The young officer put his leg out.
“Fetch us a cup of tea and try not to ‘Swoon’ when you bring it.”
The WPC kept her nose in the air and tried to pass the sergeant, whose leg remained firmly blocking her path.
“Guess you’re about to ‘Swoon’ at the sight of my trousers. Why don’t you come for a drink with me, and I’ll show you what’s inside.”
“I don’t think so, Bolitho,” she answered, deftly stepping over his outstretched limb. He whistled after her and called out.
“You know you want to.”
Then he turned to his colleagues and made a fist gesture. The group all laughed for a few seconds, adding some more whistles and whoops before resuming whatever it was they were doing at their desks.
Show over, I turned to the matter in hand, and noticed that, as WPC Woon had said, some of Angel’s books would indeed have been worth hiding from the teachers.
The Passion Flower Hotel,
Lady Chatterley’s Lover,
The Story of O,
Nana,
Venus in Furs…
…the pile of ‘romantic’ books went on, merely confirming, if it were necessary, that Angel was very much ‘on the cusp of womanhood’.
I then perused the academics, to see that WPC Woon had topped the pile with a number of classics in the author’s original languages. It seemed the likes of Tolstoy, Moliere, Boccaccio (whose Decameron, I felt, might have sat as easily in the ‘romantics’ pile), and even Hans Christian Anderson had all graced Angel’s shelves in their unadulterated form. Below that were books on Cornwall itself; the county’s myths and legends, the locale around the River Fal, metallurgy of Cornish natural resources, and one heavy (and judging by its cover, quite old) tome entitled Cornish Castles, The History of Mine Workings from Bronze Age to Steam Age. I noticed something sticking out of the pages, which turned out to be a pressed leaf, marking a page that showed an old photo of the Bethadew Well mine. The accompanying text explained that this small working, which had begun as an open cast mine and was already operating when written records began, had been abandoned in the nineteenth century after its tin lode ran dry. The picture was clearly important to Angel as next to it she’d drawn an exclamation mark in turquoise blue ink.
My eyes then fell on a medium sized paperback published, according to its cover, by the University of Michigan, and entitled: Lake Superior Copper and the Indians: Miscellaneous studies of Great Lakes prehistory.
This rather nondescript looking volume also seemed to have been important to Angel, as she had inserted a bright-red book mark inside. I opened the book at the marked page to find a fold-out map, detailing an island. ‘Archaeological expedition of 1929 and 1930’ was written at the top, with the island named as ‘Isle Royale’. Besides towns and roads, numerous mines were noted, and by one mine, next to a small lake, Angel had scribbled, in the same turquoise ink used for the exclamation mark, ‘He lies here’. I folded the map back and closed the book, then picked up the next, which bore the incomprehensible title Iron Age Fogous of Cornwall.
Clearly Angel was researching archaeology, but why Lake Superior or Iron Age Cornwall?
I carried on looking through the stack of books, coming upon a volume on Phoenician Ceremonial Artefacts, and another on The Charts of Ottoman Cartographer Admiral Piri Reis. There then remained just a few books that dealt with Aramaic dialects, so that, all in all, the academic book pile seemed less in number than the romantics, and I assumed Angel had supplemented the front of her shelves with exercise books and sheaves of notes to disguise her private library. In any event, there were plenty of notes, piled high on an adjacent table.
And in front of these was a typed inventory (the work of WPC Woon I assumed), which was, as she had said earlier, arranged by date. Picking a date at random, I easily found the appropriate pile of notes, and having read through these, repeated the exercise several times before realising the notes (which were loose leaf sheets designed to fit in the standard ring binders which all of the pupils at the academy used as exercise books), didn’t seem to hold anything pertinent to the case.
Below the list of dates, however, WPC Woon had handwritten:
Notebook is of interest.
Shows some location nearby?
Impossible to decipher.
Dates may be significant.
SW.
I waved across the room, and she waved back, setting off to run the gauntlet past Sergeant Bolitho and his gang, where sure enough, the officer’s leg once again blocked the aisle. This time the harassed WPC said nothing, jumping over the leg and proceeding on her way.
“Bet I could make you jump higher than that, Swoon,” Bolitho called after her. “Just you see if I couldn’t.”
“Sorry about that Command… Jack, I mean.”
“Nothing to apologise for. Now what did you mean when you wrote this line about a notebook?”
“Angel kept a notebook, a small leather-bound one.”
“Like a diary?”
“That’s what you’d expect from a teenage girl isn’t it, but not Angel.” She opened a filing cabinet and produced the notebook, leather-bound and threadbare, its spine torn and held together by an elastic band, its dimensions making me think it might have started life as an autograph album. “Nearly fell apart when I opened it, must have been very well used, but it was worth seeing nevertheless, look.”
I turned back the cover and leafed through the pages very carefully, seeing diagrams and symbols similar to those on the dagger etching. These were seemingly directions for finding some sort of location, or perhaps more than one location, although it was hard to understand exactly what the directions meant. I fancied some were very local to the academy and small scale, while others could have been on an epic intercontinental scale, showing oceans and coastlines.
At the bottom of some pages were scribbled lines I could at least read (if not understand their meaning), all in Angel’s trademark turquoise ink and more in the manner of a diary, and each with a date, in line with Angel’s habit…
19.4.70 – What have we found in the mud?
21.4.70 – London
21.4.70 – For the first time, a man worth meeting!
25.4.70 – Sketched the Bad Passage today. Imagines he’s Tristan and me Iseult. No fool like an Old Fool.
27.4.70 – JP will analyse it.
8.5.70 – Eureka! J brought J, J brought M, J moved J far away.
9.5.70 – Should I tell him?
10.5.70 – Why am I being watched?
22.5.70 – He’s coming for me at last.
24.5.70 – Old fool persistent. I’ll be gone anyway.
Then finally, on an otherwise blank page, with no dates, I read:
Bethadew Well Mine – Beth a Dhu Hwel – leave out the mine. Beth a Dhu – tomb of black? No!
Below this she had added:
Did he cause me to find the dagger?
Does he really wander the Earth for ever, this FK?
“Those are interesting dates, Ana, at least some of them. Did you show this notebook to Pentreath?”
“Yes, of course. He wasn’t sure it was really relevant.”
“Well, that last entry was dated last Sunday, when she disappeared. Tells us something, surely?”
“I guess,” she shrugged. “But unless we could find out who these people are, JP, the Old Fool, the wandering one, the FK she just mentions as ‘him’ and ‘he’, if that refers to a different person, then I don’t see what more we can do.”
“Can I take the book?”
“Yes, I suppose so, just sign in the register here.”
“Oh, and Ana?” I said as I scribbled. “Are you a local?”
“Born and bred in Gerrans, by Portscatho. Mum runs the post office there.”
“I remember seeing signposts.”
“That’s right, just a few miles up the road, by the coast, so yes, I’m very local.”
“You’re Truro police then?” I asked, remembering that MP Tremayne had arranged for detectives outside of the locality to work on the case.
“That’s right again, but they didn’t assign anyone from our local CID. Sent Chief Superintendent Pentreath. No idea why.”
“Politics I suppose. Anyway, on another subject, and given you are a local.” Here she smiled. “Do you know if there are any mine workings around here, really close by?”
“Not much at all. There’s the old Bethadew Well, but that’s mainly tumbled down.”
I jolted as she said the name.
“It’s near here then?”
“Oh yes, in the wood, the one they call the Plantation. Used to play there as a kid. Went up to Bethadew on summer evenings courting a few times when I was older as well,” she added with a twinkle.
“And I suppose the mine has an old well?”
“No,” she said, pausing to think. “It doesn’t come to think of it. There’s a closed-up entrance to a fogou next to the building where we’d, you know, snuggle up, but there was never a proper well that I saw.”
“Fogou?” I asked, remembering the curiously titled book in Angel’s academic pile.
“Yeah, an old prehistoric tunnel thing.”
“What was it used for?”
“I don’t think anyone knows. There’s a sign up next to the entrance, tells you about it.”
“Okay. And I suppose you would have seen this academy building when you were growing up too.”
“Oh yes, of course, Jack.”
“And?”
“Well, it was a hotel right up until your institute bought it, although…” She thought for a moment. “It’s owned by an old Cornish family, and I think my dad said it was used by the Ministry of Defence during the war, hence the high walls and fences.”
“I know who the owners are, and the MOD thing wasn’t on the records I saw but makes sense,” I laughed. “I mean, you don’t get many hotels with unscalable fences that stretch all the way down to the low tide mark.” We were both silent for a moment. “And that’s what makes Angel’s disappearance so hard to fathom.”
“It does,” said Ana, shaking her head. “It does.”
“Alright, well you’ve done some great work here, Ana. I’ll be sure to mention that to Pentreath.”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” she blushed. “You don’t need to…”
“Oh, but I do. Your filing system’s immaculate. By the way, once the case is over what happens to all this lot?”
“Oh, all these papers will get stored somewhere and forgotten about, but we never throw anything away.”
“Okay, but good work, really.”
“Just doing my job.”
“Perhaps, now one other thing if I may…” She nodded, cheeks still flushed. “That sergeant over there,” I said quietly.
“Nick Bolitho?” she replied in similar tones.
“Does he bother you?”
“I can handle the likes of him.”
“I know you can, but should you have to?”
“That’s what my fiancé says. And Bolitho’s a lot worse when nobody’s looking, there was one time when he touched me and… no, I shouldn’t say more.” Her eyes welled up with tears. “Richard wanted to wait outside the station and have a go at him.”
“Did he?”
“Richard wouldn’t last a second with Bolitho. Nick’s a rugby captain, and Richard’s, well, he’s not…” She dabbed her eye. “He’s brave and he’s my fiancé. I begged him to leave it, told him I’d get a transfer.”
“I see. Well, sterling work on the Angel Blackwood case, Ana. Truly sterling work. You’ll be mentioned in despatches, as they say.”
“I like you, Jack. You’re not like other Commanders I’ve met. Maybe it’s because you’re out of uniform.”
“We’re all different,” I said, my mind beginning to turn over. Pentreath hadn’t thought to make the distinction, so that they all clearly imagined ‘Commander’ meant a senior police officer, not an ex-naval rank. Alright, I thought, it had worked in the taproom at the Watersmeet with calming down the male voice choir, so maybe it would work with a bullying sergeant.
*
“Bolitho, is it?”
“That’s right,” said the sergeant, standing up. “And you are Commander, er…”
“Sangster,” I answered, thinking I would name-drop the chief constable of Devon and Cornwall, but then realising I didn’t know his name. “Now tell me, what are you and your team working on here, sergeant?”
“Collating all the house-to-house search notes, sir. Piecing it all together.”
“Any luck?”
“Sir?”
“Shed any light on this affair, have you?” He looked to the ground.
“Oh, er… no sir, we just collate. Get the data from the search officers, sort through it, hand the sorted data over to the chief super.”
“Four of you?”
“Yes sir.”
“Well, Bolitho,” I said, putting my hand on his back. “Come along with me would you, I may be able to help.” We walked through the incident room and into the corridor, where, once out of earshot, I stopped.
“Been a sergeant long?”
“Three years, sir.”
“Ripe for promotion I shouldn’t wonder, a talented chap like you.”
“Hope so, sir. Not really for me to say.”
“You must have an idea.”
“Well, my chief inspector said a few times I have it in me to make inspector before too long. Thought I might have to take a post up-country though.”
“I’m afraid I can’t make promotion happen, but here’s how I can help you, Bolitho.” I stared him hard in the eye, and he looked back at me, a little confused but still, I sensed, hopeful to hear something to his advantage. “I know that you wouldn’t want to go back on the beat, now would you?” He shook his head. “Well, it could happen, but luckily, er… I can stop that happening. Only if you help me, mind.”
“How’s that, sir?”
“Well, it’s come to my attention that some officers have been, how shall we put it, taking liberties with WPC Woon.”
“No, you don’t say.” He feigned surprise, making such an effort to be convincing that I wondered how this Bolitho imagined I could have missed his behaviour in the incident room.
“Yes, hard to believe isn’t it, but I have a solution.”
“Sir?”
“Oh yes. I’ve been looking for a guardian angel, a tough copper who will make sure it never happens again. Use force if needs be.” I clapped him on the shoulders (he was almost exactly my height, six foot one, so that our eyes were entirely level as I spoke). “And I’ve chosen you.”
“Oh, er… yes sir, be an honour, sir.”
“And we’ll keep this between ourselves eh, Bolitho? No need to burden an already busy DCS Pentreath?”
“Oh no, sir.”
“Good, now off you go.” He turned away. “And…” I said after him, “if I were to get even a whiff of anything happening to WPC Woon from now on, who by the way is the best of the bunch of you, someone will find themselves back on the beat faster than you can say ‘Swoon’. Got it?”
“Got it, sir.”
*
Feeling rather smug (although I knew Sarah would have laughed at me for playing the knight in shining armour quite so theatrically), I walked on down the corridor, past the Flimwells’ offices, where I could hear raised voices through the door. I thought nothing of it (most married couples argue now and then) and continued out into the entrance hall. I felt my heart miss a beat when I saw Mr and Mrs Blackwood there, standing close together and looking visibly aged (especially Angel’s mother), since we had last met two days before.
“Hello,” was all I could say.
“Mr Sangster,” Mrs Blackwood asked with desperate eyes. “Have you any more news on our daughter?”
“We’re all doing everything we can, Mrs Blackwood, and you will be kept right up to date, I’m sure. Are you staying close by in case we need to reach you?”
“A bed and breakfast in St Mawes.”
“Well, I do hope you’re comfortable.”
“We’re waiting for the Flimwells, have you seen them?” asked her husband.
“I heard them in their office just now, so I’m sure they won’t be long. Anyway, I’ll say—”
“I’m still counting on you, Mr Sangster,” Mrs Blackwood implored, grabbing my arm. “I know my Angel’s still alive, and I know you can find her.”
“Somehow,” I said, quite genuinely. “I think the same. At least about her being alive.”