Arriving in Truro, I kept my eye out for the body shop the garage attendant in Camborne had mentioned, but to no avail. At the Trafalgar Roundabout, where the road to the hotel branched off along the river, I pulled into a petrol station.
“Fill her up, sir?” asked an attendant, appearing instantly.
“Not today, thanks, just need directions. Is there a mechanic called Stocker near here?”
He jerked his head to one side of the pumps and there it was, a hand painted sign proclaiming, ‘Stocker’s Body Shop – all makes catered for,’ nailed above a set of double doors leading into what looked like no more than a wooden shed. Outside these doors, two men in blue boiler suits were talking, both waving wildly at each other.
“Thanks,” I smiled to the taciturn attendant, before driving slowly to where the men stood and climbing out of the car.
“Good afternoon.”
“Oh, er… hello, what can I do for you?” asked one.
“I tell you it’s real,” said the other, oblivious to my presence. “There’s a TV crew and everything driving around here.”
“Hmm…” said the first. “We’ll never settle it this way.” He pointed at me. “You, sir.”
“Me, sir?” I replied, pointing back at my own chest.
“Yes, you look like an educated man, sir.”
“Well, I try to—”
“Then tell me this. Do you believe in sea monsters?” I took a deep breath.
“Er… not a question I was expecting, but I’d have to say no, and I was in the navy for over twenty years. Never saw a single one I’m afraid.”
“There you are, Ted,” the man said. “Been in the navy he has.”
“Then how does he account for this, Pete?” said Ted, thrusting a newspaper into my hand.
“That’s a bloody elephant swimming, isn’t it, sir?” Pete retorted.
“Perhaps,” I said, now trying not to laugh as I looked at the photo on the front of the broadsheet, positioned under a headline stating, ‘Multiple Morgawr sightings in Falmouth Bay’. The picture showed a grainy outline, with no points of reference, of what at first sight could have been a hump-bodied long-necked monster, but on closer inspection was surely a swimming elephant. “Was this taken recently then?”
“Ah, no,” said Ted, pointing to some very small print at the bottom of the page. ‘Picture shown for illustrative purposes only, sent to the newspaper’s offices anonymously in 1967, Falmouth Packet does not guarantee authenticity’, this small print disclaimed. “The reports from this weekend were all interviews with eye-witnesses, so newspaper’s got no photos. But still, no smoke without fire, eh?”
“Sorry, sir,” said Pete, wiping grease from his hand then offering it to me. “Don’t mind my brother, now where are my manners.” I accepted his hand, feeling immediately he’d missed much of the grease on his palm, and wiped my own hand on my handkerchief, which quickly went from white to grey. “What can we do for you?”
“My car was broken into. I need a new boot lock.”
“Ah, Series 2,” he said, looking admiringly at the car. “Let’s have a look.” Carefully unravelling the string (muttering the words ‘granny’ and ‘knot’ several times), Pete then peered around, inside and outside the boot lid. “Needs a complete new locking mechanism I’m afraid, sir,” he eventually said, shaking his head. “Course, we don’t carry Jag parts here. Nearest concession is Plymouth, and that’ll take a while to deliver, I’ll—”
“Hold on, Pete,” said Ted, brandishing his now rolled-up copy of the Falmouth Packet. “Is Bob going back tonight?”
“Dunno, Bob?” called Pete, to nobody in particular, it seemed.
“Yar,” came an invisible voice.
“You going back home tonight or staying at Rita’s?” Pete shouted back, then whispered to me. “Bob’s got a girl here in Truro, Rita Penberthy from over the chip shop in Lemon Quay, and a wife and kids in Plymouth. Takes turns with them, like.”
“And they don’t mind?”
“Oh no, both women glad to see the back of him every other day I shouldn’t wonder. I would be.”
“Yar, Plymouth tonight,” came the reply, and I looked down to see a pair of booted feet protruding from beneath a Transit van.
“Could you pick up a delivery from the Jag garage first thing then, Bob?”
“Yar, Pete.”
“That’s settled then, sir, now just let me call the garage in Plymouth to make sure they’ve got the part.”
He walked into the shed, coming back out a minute or so later with a beam on his face. “Good news, they got one. Going to cost you mind, about seventy quid with labour, that okay?”
“Yes, as long as that price is fair, and I get a proper receipt. It’s on the insurance.”
“Good, now can I take some details.” I gave him my card (hotel phone number scribbled on the back), along with a five-pound deposit, took a receipt and went to leave.
“Till tomorrow then Mr Stocker. Any particular time?
“Oh, Bob’ll be in around ten, won’t you, Bob?”
“Yar, I should be,” came the reply from under the van.
“And it won’t take too long once we’ve got the part, you’re lucky,” said Ted with a broad smile, as he tied the boot back down using elastic.
“How’s that?” I asked, looking at the mangled lock in Pete’s hand.
“Whoever did this was a pro. Minimum mess, clean triangular cut in the metal under the lock. Now if it had been kids out for a lark, well, could have taken who knows how long to fix…” He shook his head, and Pete shook his head solemnly in agreement. Then a grunting sound emanated from under the van, and I suspected Bob, whatever he looked like, was shaking his head as well.
I smiled, then lowered the hood to take advantage of the last rays of evening sun and drove off.
*
I went deliberately slowly along the road to the village, looking out to my right as it wound past the Truro River. The water was at low tide, mud flats exposed, the narrow course of remaining water in the centre of the channel almost invisible from the bank, so that the uninitiated might have imagined it was possible to cross to the other side on foot.
My sluggish driving was in part to enjoy the view on this beautiful late spring evening, a view which I never tired of seeing, but also to collect my thoughts.
It seemed to me that an older man might well be involved in Angel’s disappearance, but that Cyrus Flimwell, despite clearly being infatuated with the girl, wasn’t that older man. The dagger also seemed at the heart of the matter, but how or why I couldn’t yet tell. The translation of the script on the blade and in Angel’s notebook would surely help, and I suddenly wondered if I’d done the right thing to leave all this in the hands of a seventeen-year-old boy prone to fall into cataleptic trances if he felt the whim. After all, not only was the life of the girl hanging in the balance (I still felt she could be found alive if only I knew where to look), but the academy, which we had set up with such high hopes only a few months before, was rapidly falling apart. And then there was a heavy-hearted nag in the back of my mind about Sarah, which right now, no matter what else happened, was never far away.
*
“Nice evening, squire,” I heard a rich, deep voice almost whisper in my ear as I climbed out of the car and looked up to see Monsignor Slevin standing next to his motorbike.
“Certainly is,” I said, holding out my hand. “Jack Sangster.”
“Jude Slevin, and I know who you are, Jack. Canon Pengelly mentioned you’re looking into the disappearance of that girl from the place down in St Anthony.”
“And I’ve seen your bike around and about as well. You came down on the same train as I did, I think.”
“Sure, I did. Here on secondment to exchange ideas with the bishop and his staff.”
“Secondment from where?”
“Ah, the Vatican of course.” He laughed. “Well, indirectly via London.”
“Of course.” We both looked over the river, which was as calm as a mirror, reflecting the trees on the far bank almost perfectly.
“Beautiful place this, Jack,” he said, spreading his arms out wide and looking upwards in an almost ecstatic manner. “Wouldn’t you say now?”
“My wife loves it.”
“She’d be the dark-haired one I saw you with in the Pullman car then?”
“That’s right.”
“You two make a handsome couple, could almost be Tristan and Iseult.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Alright, a bit old,” he laughed. “Yourself anyway, but you know.”
“No.”
“I see, then let me enlighten you. They were part of a love triangle, an old style ménage-a-trois if you will.”
“Will I?”
“Yes, when you know that you are looking at the very place where they tried to make good their escape. You see, the third party, King Mark of Ireland, was after catching them (first and second parties), and they made their escape across the waters of this river, over the other side there.”
“And then?”
“The boat sank, they were caught, and this place, this crossing, in whatever language was used over the ages, has translated to ‘Bad Passage’ ever since.”
I remembered the title of Angel’s pen and ink sketch with a jolt. And then there was the note, which I now realised wasn’t badly punctuated at all. The ‘I’ with the comma after it clearly meant Iseult, and the ‘T’ stood for Tristan, doubtless Cyrus Flimwell’s fantasy names for himself and the object of his infatuation, Angel Blackwood.
“You look a little distracted, Jack,” said Slevin, perspicacious as ever. “If I may say so that is.”
“Not at all.” I shook my head, perhaps too vigorously I wondered.
“Mind you,” Slevin went on, stroking his beard. “It might have been named because Henry the Eighth and Anne Boleyn lost their baggage here, I never can remember.”
“Not a solid bit of history then, Slevin.”
“Not really, but where’s that divine wife of yours now? Doesn’t worry her, you being down here and so on. Temptations of the flesh?”
“Phhh…” I spluttered, taken aback by his directness and change of tack. “Er… trusts me implicitly, a quality I admire in her almost as much as her unique ability to mind her own business.”
“Oops, sorry there. Said a bit too much.”
“And what ideas…” I then said to change the subject, “are you exchanging with the bishop?”
“Ah,” he said, pointing at me. “Very good, changing the subject, so I’m honour-bound to answer.” He laughed again, an infectious laugh, so that I understood why his charms had struck with Pengelly. “Well, I specialise in the first century AD, founding of the church and so on. Studied all that at Trinity, PhD and all. Could ask that you call me Doctor Slevin if I’d a mind.”
“Fascinating.”
“It is, to be sure. We’ve been debating the possibility of Christ visiting these shores you know. Bishop certainly finds it fascinating, and Canon Pengelly just lives for the idea.”
“And you?”
“Oh,” he laughed again. “I’m sure it’s what people might like to think, but we’ve yet to show the world a shred of real evidence, so I wouldn’t pay the idea any credence.” As he said this, I noticed an uncharacteristically serious look suddenly pass over his face, disappearing again almost as quickly as it came. “Course,” he then smiled, “if the man upstairs wanted to send his only son somewhere around the British Isles, then it’d surely have been Ireland. Far more civilised place in those days.”
I laughed with him and was about to ask more about his Triumph Bonneville, when a van, followed by a convoy of cars, pulled up next to us, people spilling out, filling the evening with noise and bluster.
From the rear of the van, I saw two men jump to the road, carrying equipment that included a camera on a tripod and a long microphone boom, the mic itself covered in what looked like a woolly mop head. A woman followed them, carrying a box the size, shape, and texture of Sir John Granville’s picnic hamper.
“I’m out of here,” said Slevin, beating a hasty retreat to the hotel door. “Good luck, Sangster,” he called over his shoulder as he disappeared inside.
“There he is,” said the holder of the mop, pointing in my direction. I looked around to see who he was talking about.
“Sir, can you just say something into the mic?” he asked me, now thrusting the mop in my face. “We’re not recording.”
“I think you’ve got the wrong—”
“You are Jack Sangster, owner of this green E-Type?”
“Yes, but how did you…” I saw Pasco climb out of the van.
“Sorry, Jack, they gave me a lift from Truro, and I just may have mentioned you’d seen a Dandy Hound.”
“May have?”
“Did.”
“Thanks a lot, Pasco.”
“Now sir, hold still.” The woman brushed both of my shoulders then held both of my cheeks. “That’s got rid of any dandruff,” she then said, opening her basket to reveal rows of cosmetics; jars of cream, powder brushes, eyeliners, mascara, lipstick, and face paints, all crowded together, so that she seemed to have an entire portable beauty parlour to hand. “And you know, I think we’ll leave powdering your skin. Not much shine at all.”
“That’s, er… very good to know.” I felt rooted to the ground, completely confused as the crowd from the cars gathered around.
“In fact, I think you’ve got quite the natural look we want, all that lovely grey hair and a nice upright stance,” the woman went on to say. “Don’t move from here please. Light still okay, Jimmy?”
“All ready, Nora,” the cameraman answered, giving a thumbs up.
“Sound right, Clip?” Clip also gave the thumbs up, waving his mop headed microphone.
“Right, I’ll get Sue. Now don’t you move, Mr Sangster.”
“The witness is there, Nora?” came a deep female voice from the cab of the van.
“Jack Sangster, all ready for you, Sue.”
“Let’s do it then,” the deep voice replied, and I watched as a stiletto heel at least four inches high, followed by the shapeliest of legs, appeared from the van. The owner of both was then revealed, a statuesque woman, perhaps just less than forty years old, with shoulder-length dark hair and a heart-shaped face, not perhaps classically beautiful, but nevertheless as striking as I could remember seeing. Her eyes met mine, and mine met hers, both of us staring for an instant.
“You must be Jack Sangster,” she said, her voice sounding even deeper than it had in the van cab.
“Er, yes.”
“I’d like to interview you.”
“Here?”
“Of course. Here and now.”
“Alright,” I shrugged.
“I’m Sue Driver by the way, Harlech TV.” We shook hands, she maintaining her grip just a second or so longer than was necessary. “And we’re mainly here because of the Morgawr sightings, but we also heard you might have seen a cryptid on the moor.” As she spoke, I noticed a Harlech TV logo on the side of the van, along with a complicated arrangement of antennae on the roof.
“I’m sorry, a what?”
“A cryptid, an unknown animal, or a known animal that shouldn’t be where it is.”
“Ah.”
“Now we’d like to start filming, if we may, Jack.”
“Okay.”
“Nora,” Sue shouted, voice suddenly becoming shriller. “Move these people to a distance, would you?” Nora shooed the crowd backwards, which now numbered at least twenty, then waved to the cameraman. “And pass me the book and newspaper, would you?” Nora ran to the van and returned with a small hardback volume and a rolled-up newspaper which she passed to Sue, who stepped closer to me and began to talk into the microphone.
“I’m here this evening, just outside the Watersmeet Hotel on the beautiful banks of the Fal, and once again on the track of unknown animals.” She held up the book, which had a red and white dust cover with line drawings depicting various apes and other odd-looking creatures.
“And, as ever, I’m trying, in my own small way, to add to the work of Bernard Heuvelmans, author of this ground-breaking work.” She pointed to the volume, which was titled ‘On the Track of Unknown Animals’.
“This evening, I’m lucky enough to be able to speak to an eyewitness from a strange animal encounter, right here in Cornwall a few days ago. This is Commander Jack Sangster, RN, surely as sober and credible a witness as one could ask for. Hello Commander Sangster.” Nora jerked her head at me and mouthed ‘say hello’.
“Hello.”
“Now, Commander Sangster, Jack, if I may?”
“You may.”
“Jack, tell us in your own words what you saw on the moor.”
“I’d say it looked like a black panther.”
“And what makes you qualified to judge that?”
“Seen one in India, during my time in the navy. This animal moved like a panther.”
“So not only credible, but qualified,” said Sue, now facing directly into the camera.
“Did you see any other evidence this might have been a panther?”
“I came on a shepherd who’d lost one of his sheep, and we found the carcass torn to pieces.”
“Now the locals here have legends of giant black hounds from hell roaming the moors at night, Dandy hounds they call them. Could it have been a dog you saw?”
“No, I’m—”
“So, it couldn’t have been a dog,” she interrupted (I’d been going to say ‘No, I’m not expert enough to have an opinion’), then looked straight at the camera again. “So, there you have it. An eyewitness of the highest provenance, sighting what can only have been a big cat loose on Bodmin Moor, and in broad daylight. Now then…” I felt a hand pulling on my shoulder and saw Nora behind me.
“Get out of camera, we’re finished with you now,” she whispered, still pulling me.
“This,” said Sue in the meantime, holding up the same copy of the Falmouth Packet I’d seen at Stocker’s garage, “is the hot local headline for the week. There’ve been sightings of a marine dinosaur-like animal, christened Morgawr by locals, for decades, centuries even. Cornwall’s own Nessie.” She pointed to the picture of the (probable), elephant. “Now this is an old photo, but there’ve been several sightings in Falmouth Bay over recent days. Too many to discount.” She turned and looked out over the creek, then began to speak in wistful tones, voice lower, quieter, and slower for dramatic effect (Clip held the mop microphone close).
“Yes, this is a truly mysterious country, and perhaps it holds its mysteries close, but at Harlech we intend to get to the truth if we can.” She turned back, smiled, and resumed the commentary in her natural voice.
“So, for now, it just remains for me to say that we’ll be back on air when we have more news, and to thank our witness. Jack, come and say goodbye to the viewers.” Nora then tugged me back within range of the camera, then thrust me towards Sue, perhaps a little too hard so that I fell against her.
“Oh, you’re very forward, Jack,” Sue said, grabbing me around the waist before I could escape, and smiling at the camera. “And a personal thanks for your…” She gave me a slow kiss on the cheek. “Help,” she then said, pulling away again and addressing the camera close-up. “This is Sue Driver in Truro, for Harlech Television, on the track of unknown animals.”
“Cut,” shouted Nora.
“Did we get that alright?” Sue shouted to Clip.
“Yes, Sue, and just in time for the network news if we’re really quick.”
“Then get to it.”
Sue was then mobbed for autographs, so that I was swept aside, pushed towards the water’s edge. I leaned over the railings at the side of the road and regarded the creek, wondering what had just happened, as the noise of the crowd began to subside, and I heard the sound of motors starting (people driving home now the show was over I supposed).
Thwack.
I felt something hit my backside and jumped up straight then turned to see Sue Driver, holding two glasses in one hand and a rolled-up newspaper in the other.
“Sorry, you presented too good a target bending over the railings there. Did we bushwhack you just now, Jack?”
“Well just a bit. Hadn’t a clue what was going on for a minute, Sue.”
“Peace offering.” She passed me a gin and tonic. “Friends?”
“Of course,” I said. “I just like to be asked nicely.”
“Don’t we all,” she said with a wink. “Cheers.” We clinked glasses and stood, arms resting on railings overlooking the water.
“So, is that all genuine?”
“What?”
“The unknown animals and so on.”
“How do you mean, Jack?”
“Well, do you do it for, what is it you people say, ratings?”
“Yes, but it’s also a passion.”
“You don’t look like an unknown animal-tracker.”
“Not sure what an unknown animal-tracker looks like,” she replied, reminding me of Professor Polkinghorne, and making me wonder if I tended to judge books by their covers.
“Well, it’s just that…” I felt my cheeks redden and she sensed my embarrassment.
“Poor boy. No, it’s a long-time passion of mine. I read the first edition of that book of Heuvelmans’ while I was still up at Cambridge, and it really did it for me.”
“You studied that cryptozoology stuff then?”
“No,” she laughed. “College didn’t approve, it’s not even considered mainstream science. I read English and became a journalist, then a newsreader, but cryptozoology’s always been my thing.”
“How d’you get into it then, through that book?”
“Oh no. It was an article in a kids’ magazine about a fish called a coelacanth. Said to have died out with the dinosaurs but they found one alive. Look.” She opened the inside page of the newspaper to show a photo of a large and very ugly fish.
“You wrote that article in the Packet, didn’t you?”
Sue smiled, and we both went back to staring across the creek.
“So, what’s your thing, Jack?” she asked after a few minutes.
“Naval history.”
“But you’re what, a school inspector?”
“Not exactly. I’m a special investigator.” I immediately wished I hadn’t used the ‘special’ prefix, although she didn’t seem to notice. “I write about naval history, but my day job’s finding missing children, trying to help troubled kids, that sort of thing. Also did a lot of the set-up work for the Granville Academy near St Mawes.”
“If I may say,” she said, placing her hand on my arm and laughing, “you don’t look like an investigator.”
“Touché,” I laughed in return. “Teenage naval cadet if you want to know, made it to commander, served in the war, then worked all over for National Oil. The investigator thing’s quite new. A bit over a year old.”
“Ah, then you’re brave, successful, experienced, travelled and have a conscience as well. Is there anything at all about you that isn’t perfect?”
“Plenty wrong with me, you really don’t want to know?”
“Oh, but I do, Jack,” she said with a grin. “Anyway, I’ll leave you to it. Take this copy of the Packet as well.” She handed me her newspaper. “Limited sea monster edition. Memento of your interview.”
With that she drained her glass, turned, dark hair swinging about her shoulders in the most alluring manner as she did so, then crossed the road and walked up the steps back to the pub.
I couldn’t help but watch her go.
Once Sue was out of sight, I looked at the Falmouth Packet again, and decided to call the only person I knew who might be able to cast light on the veracity of the witnesses’ claims.
That person was Sam Youd, long-time friend, head vet at Chester Zoo, and invaluable source of information about anything weird and wonderful in the animal kingdom. I’d tapped into that source more than once during my case work, and I was fairly sure it wouldn’t fail me now. I looked at a red call box next to me, then crossed the road to the hotel.
“Morwenna, can you change up a pound note for the phone box please?”
“Why not use the one in the hall, love, and we’ll put the call costs on your account?”
“I need a bit of privacy,” I shouted over the noise in the bar.
“Right you are, my lover,” she said, reaching into her cash register. “Ten-shilling note, and ten shillings. That alright?”
“Wonderful.” I took the change, handed her a pound note, then negotiated my way through the crowd in the bar and crossed the road to the phone box.
Dialling, I heard tell-tale pips, pushed the money into the slot, then waited the pre-requisite few seconds, after which the familiar Cheshire tones of Sandra, Sam’s wife, echoed faintly out of the receiver.
“Hello, 625 7701.”
“Sandra, it’s Jack,” I shouted. “How are you doing?”
“Jack, you’re very loud,” she said, as far as I could tell also coming closer to the mouthpiece herself.
“Sorry. Bad line, quiet one minute, deafening the next.”
“No, it’s wonderful to hear from you, and I’m fine thanks. Saw Sarah the other day and she told me about the weekend. Sounds lovely where you are.”
“Yes, you two must come down to Cornwall at some point.”
“Just you try and stop us. Now is it Sam you want?”
“If you could get the old ball and chain to come to the phone, I’d appreciate it. Need his advice.”
She laughed, and I heard her calling out to Sam.
“Jack, how the devil are you?”
“I’m well in myself, Sam, but I’ve got a bit happening down here.” I went on to give him a short version of the last week’s events. “So, I’m just a little bit tense.” I then also explained that Sir John was petrified we would be closed down if Angel wasn’t found.
“You do fall into these things, lad,” said Sam when I’d finished. “But why do you think she’ll be found? I mean, of course we’d all want her to be safe and sound, but four days missing, it’s not—”
“I feel it in my water, as they say, Sam. Don’t ask me why, but I’m sure she’s alive.”
“I won’t. You have good instincts for things like that, whereas I don’t have instincts about anything, unless it’s to do with animals.”
“Well as it happens…” I told him about the animal we saw on Bodmin Moor, the dead sheep, and the recent sightings of Morgawr. “What do you think?”
“Right up my street, it really is,” he said excitedly. “So, Jack, let’s talk about the Bodmin Moor sighting first. I take it there are no known big cats on the loose, escaped private pets, or from circuses or zoos?”
“Cops didn’t think so.”
“And no hard evidence, like photos, paw prints, scat or anything?”
“Nope.”
“So just eye-witnesses?”
“Yep.”
“And you say what you saw looked like a leopard?”
“From a distance.”
“Well, leopards can easily hide from people, and some do live in climates harsher than Cornwall. And they’re occasionally melanistic.”
“Sorry?”
“All black rather than spotted, you know, like panthers.”
“Oh, yes.”
“And if someone owned a big cat illegally and wanted rid of it, they might not say if they released it into the countryside.”
“Interesting.”
“The sheep carcass you saw, how had it been killed?”
“Ripped to pieces around the neck, and disembowelled.”
“Hmmm…” Sam went silent for a minute. “You see, a leopard will usually despatch its prey neatly with a killer bite, two razor teeth puncturing the victim’s neck. Then it will hide the carcass if it can, maybe even up a tree.”
“And if it can’t?”
“Um… it’ll generally eat the fleshiest parts like the rump as fast as possible. Wouldn’t tend to go for the guts unless it had a few days to finish a meal uninterrupted.
“So…”
“I reckon your sheep was killed by a dog, or if it was a weak animal, sickly or injured, then maybe even a couple of foxes could have done the job.”
“Certainly made a mess.”
“Yes, I’ve seen dog-kill on farms before. Dogs don’t have the best table manners.”
“And the sea monster, Sam?”
“Ah,” he laughed “Now that’s a very different matter. Again, any photos?”
“There’s one on the front page of the local paper, but there’s no background, the sender was anonymous, and anyway, I’m pretty sure it’s of a swimming elephant.”
“Yes, likely. We get sent this kind of thing to us at the zoo most months, and I’m always very sceptical. There’s lots of ocean still to explore, but the big sea animals have all been found I think.”
“The TV reporter was very compelling, she was really believable.”
“She?”
“Yes, she.”
“I hear that tone in your voice, Jack, so exactly how was ‘she’ compelling?”
“Stop it right there, Sam,” I said, the exquisite form of Sue Driver immediately flashing into my mind.
“Likes an older man, does she?”
“She’s a professional newscaster and reporter, and I meant her arguments were compelling. She’s a crypto… what did she call it?”
“Cryptozoologist, Jack, someone interested in animals unknown to science.”
“That’s it, and she mentioned this enormous fish, showed me a photo, it’s called a—”
“Whoa Jack.” Sam cut me off immediately when I said the word ‘fish’. “It was a coelacanth, wasn’t it?”
“How d’you guess?”
“All these people, these cryptozoologists who want to believe in living dinosaurs and so on, bring out the old coelacanth before too long.”
“She said it was thought to have died out with the dinosaurs, but it looked pretty real to me.”
“It’s just a fish, Jack. Amazing discovery, sure, found in deep water off Madagascar just before the war.”
“Oh.”
“And if people have really seen something I’d bet on some kind of whale, maybe a fin. Huge thing, very rare for those waters but could look just like a monster from a distance.”
“A fin whale?”
“Yeah, but if you really want to dazzle her, tell this woman that the coelacanth is what we call a ‘Lazarus taxon’. She’ll love you for it.”
“A what?
“An animal thought to be extinct, that came back from the dead as it were.”
“Well, you really are a font of useless information, Sam. I’d never have known that.”
“Sarky.”
“No, sorry, that’s all actually really useful, I mean it. Anyway, what’s your verdict on the cat and the monster?”
“Well, cat’s unlikely by the way you describe the dead sheep, although just possible, but put it this way about the monster. When I was an undergrad, I remember what my old professor said when they had all that fuss in Loch Ness with monster sightings during the thirties.” The pips went again, and I thrust several more shillings into the slot.
“What did he say?”
“Sorry, Jack, say again?”
“You mentioned a professor.”
“Yes. He said that if there were enough dinosaurs in Loch Ness for a breeding population of monsters then we’d have a forest of necks sticking up out of the water.”
“The sea is bigger than Loch Ness though.”
“True.”
“Anyway, Sam, odds?”
“Well, if I was a betting man, and I had a hundred quid, I’d put half a crown on the sea monster, a fiver on the big cat, and keep the rest for myself.”
“Thanks Sam. And I’m pretty sure I already know what this Morgawr really is.”
“Do tell.”
“No, I need more proof first, but I’ll bet you the rest of your hundred quid it ain’t no dinosaur.”
“Mysterious as ever, Jack, and it sounds to me as if your lady newsreader is out to catch an altogether different kind of dinosaur tonight. You guard your honour, my lad.”
“Goodbye, Sam, and thanks for the advice. All of it.”
*
Sam’s talking about Sue catching a dinosaur took my mind back to my call with Sarah, which had been eating away at the back of my mind all afternoon. I resolved to ring her immediately and took a draft of air in through my nose for courage before dialling. There was one ring, and then the pips went.
“Hello, Sarah. It’s Jack. I—”
I was immediately met by a barrage of screaming, the gist of which told me she had seen my interview on network TV news, especially the part with Sue kissing me (I cursed Clip’s comment ‘just in time for the network news if we’re really quick’). The phone at the other end was then slammed down, and despite me dialling back several times, not picked up again. What could I do?
Taking several more deep breaths, I determined to call Sarah’s sister in the morning. Perhaps she could cast light on all of this, I wondered, feeling a new sensation when I thought about Sarah, a slight frustration. None of this recent discord felt as if it had been of my doing, but if she wanted it that way, then perhaps I just needed to give her some time. Not letting myself think further, I walked back to the hotel, entering the taproom to see Pasco grinning in front of me.
“Reckon you owe me a pint, Jack. Made you a star.”
“No, you’ve dropped me in it with my wife, so it’s you who owes me the drink, Pasco,” I snapped. “G and T, Morwenna, make it a large one.”
“Sorry for I don’t know what,” muttered Pasco, lowering his shoulders like a slinking dog. “Put it on my slate, Morwenna.”
“If there’s room on your slate,” she snarled back at Pasco, then passed me my drink with an exaggerated smile.
“Anyway, Sangster,” Pasco said. “Me and the lads are out tonight, wanna come?”
“Out tonight,” echoed Stocker and Jackson.
“Out where?”
Jackson explained that the landlord (one Jem Treburden), of a local waterside pub, the Cassandra Arms, was being evicted at midnight by the Devenish brewery for, and here he lifted up a newspaper clipping and held it at length from his nose before reading out loud.“‘Brawling, pilfering, serving minors, running a house of ill-repute, fencing smuggled goods, failing to pay excise on same, keeping pigs without a permit, brewing and distilling beer and liquor without due license, illicitly gathering and selling Duchy owned oysters, and harbouring known ruffians and criminals’, at least that’s what the judge apparently declared.”
“Was there anything this Treburden character didn’t do?”
Jackson admitted that there wasn’t much Treburden didn’t do, but also noted that the court order didn’t question the apparently disreputable landlord’s own brewing skills, or, most importantly, his intellect. In fact, it seemed that not only did he brew the best (‘you mean strongest’ shouted Stocker), rough cider in Cornwall, but had also identified a loophole in his eviction terms.
“You see,” Jackson continued, “the landlord of a tied pub like the Cassandra can charge what he likes for drinks, and if he makes a loss that’s his problem providing the brewery gets its share. But Treburden’s already been evicted, so he figures he can serve what he likes until midnight, and the whole loss’ll be on the brewery.”
“Clever, eh?” said Stocker.
“I don’t quite see.”
“To spell it out,” shouted Pasco. “He’s giving free drinks, it won’t cost him a penny, and there’s nothing the law can do about it. We’re all off there tonight, as is half of Truro, Penryn and Falmouth. Coming, Sangster?”
“You know,” I said, thinking of my most recent call with Sarah, as well as the apparently insoluble case of Angel Blackwood. “I believe I will.”
“Then meet us down here at eight,” said Stocker. “The wife’s agreed to drive us.”