Elizabeth George: Careless in Red

The wind was fierce. They struggled against it and into the rain as they made their way swiftly towards the beach. They passed the point where the valley stream opened into a pool before tumbling across a natural breakwater and rushing down to the sea. This marked the beginning of Polcare Cove, a narrow strand at low water, just rocks and boulders when the tide was high.

The man called into the wind, “Over here,” and he led her to the north side of the cove. From that point, she needed no further direction. She could see the body on an outcropping of slate: the bright red windcheater, the loose dark trousers for ease of movement, the thin and exceedingly flexible shoes. He wore a harness round his waist and from this dangled numerous metal devices and a lightweight bag from which a white substance spilled across the rock. Chalk for his hands, she thought. She moved to see his face.

She said, “God. It’s…He’s a cliff climber. Look, there’s his rope.”

Part of it lay nearby, an extended umbilical cord to which the body was still attached. The rest of it snaked from the body to the bottom of the cliff, where it formed a rough mound, knotted skillfully with a carabiner protruding from the end.

She felt for a pulse although she knew there would be none. The cliff at this point was two hundred feet high. If he’d fallen from there-as he most certainly had-only a miracle could have preserved him.

There had been no miracle. She said to her companion, “You’re right. He’s dead. And with the tide…Look, we’re going to have to move him or-”

“No!” The stranger’s voice was harsh.

Daidre felt a rush of caution. “What?”

“The police have to see it. We must phone the police. Where’s the nearest phone? Have you a mobile? There was nothing…” He indicated the direction from which they’d come. There was no phone in the cottage.

“I haven’t a mobile,” she said. “I don’t bring one when I come here. What does it matter? He’s dead. We can see how it happened. The tide’s coming in, and if we don’t move him the water will.”

“How long?” he asked.

“What?”

“The tide. How long have we got?”

“I don’t know.” She looked at the water. “Twenty minutes? Half an hour? No more than that.”

“Where’s a phone? You’ve got a car.” And in a variation of her own words, “We’re wasting time. I can stay here with the…with him, if you prefer.”

She didn’t prefer. She had the impression he would depart like a spirit if she left things up to him. He would know she’d gone to make the phone call he so wanted made, but he himself would vanish, leaving her to…what? She had a good idea and it wasn’t a welcome one.

She said, “Come with me.”

SHE TOOK THEM TO the Salthouse Inn. It was the only place within miles she could think of that was guaranteed to have a phone available. The inn sat alone at the junction of three roads: a white, squat, thirteenth-century hostelry that stood inland from Alsperyl, south of Shop, and north of Woodford. She drove there swiftly, but the man didn’t complain or show evidence of worry that they might end up down the side of the hill or headfirst into an earthen hedge. He didn’t use his seat belt, and he didn’t hold on.

He said nothing. Nor did she. They rode with the tension of strangers between them and with the tension of much unspoken as well. She was relieved when they finally reached the inn. To be out in the air, away from his stench, was a form of blessing. To have something in front of her-immediate occupation-was a gift from God.

He followed her across the patch of rocky earth that went for a car park, to the low-hung door. Both of them ducked to get inside the inn. They were at once in a vestibule cluttered with jackets, rainwear, and sodden umbrellas. They removed nothing of their own as they entered the bar.

Afternoon drinkers-the inn’s regulars-were still at their normal places: round the scarred tables nearest the fire. Coal, it put out a welcome blaze. It shot light into the faces bent to it and streamed a soft illumination against soot-stained walls.

Daidre nodded to the drinkers. She came here herself, so they were not unfamiliar to her nor she to them. They murmured, “Dr. Trahair,” and one of them said to her, “You come down for the tournament, then?” but the question fell off when her companion was observed. Eyes to him, eyes to her. Speculation and wonder. Strangers were hardly unknown in the district. Good weather brought them to Cornwall in droves. But they came and went as they were-strangers-and they did not generally show up in the company of someone known.

She went to the bar. She said, “Brian, I need to use your phone. There’s been a terrible accident. This man…” She turned from the publican. “I don’t know your name.”

“Thomas,” he told her.

“Thomas. Thomas what?”

“Thomas,” he said.

She frowned but said to the publican, “This man Thomas has found a body in Polcare Cove. We need to phone the police. Brian,” and this she said more quietly, “it’s…I think it’s Santo Kerne.”

CONSTABLE MICK MCNULTY WAS performing patrol duty when his radio squawked, jarring him awake. He considered himself lucky to have been in the panda car at all when the call came through. He’d recently completed a lunchtime quickie with his wife, followed by a sated snooze with both of them naked beneath the counterpane they’d ripped from the bed (“We can’t stain it, Mick. It’s the only one we’ve got !”), and only fifty minutes earlier he’d resumed cruising along the A39 on the lookout for potential malefactors. But the warmth of the car in combination with the rhythm of the windscreen wipers and the fact that his two-year-old son had kept him up most of the previous night weighed down his eyelids and encouraged him to look for a lay-by into which he could pull the car for a kip. He was doing just that-napping-when the radio burst into his dreams.

Body on the beach. Polcare Cove. Immediate response required. Secure the area and report back.

Who phoned it in? he wanted to know.

Cliff walker and a local resident. They would meet him at Polcare Cottage.

Which was where?

Bloody hell, man. Use your effing head.

Mick gave the radio two fingers. He started the car and pulled onto the road. He’d get to use the lights and the siren, which generally happened only in summer when a tourist in a hurry made a vehicular misjudgment with dire results. At this time of year, the only action he usually saw was from a surfer anxious to blast into the water of Widemouth Bay: Too much speed into the car park, too late to brake, and over the edge onto the sand he’d go. Well, Mick understood that urgency. He felt it himself when the waves were good and the only thing keeping him from his wet suit and his board were the uniform he wore and the thought of being able to wear it-right here in Casvelyn-into his dotage. Messing up a sinecure was not in his game plan. They did not refer to a posting in Casvelyn as the velvet coffin for nothing.

With siren and lights, it still took him nearly twenty minutes to reach Polcare Cottage, which was the only habitation along the road down to the cove. The distance wasn’t great as the crow flies-less than five miles-but the lanes were no wider than a car and a half, and, defined by farmland, woodland, hamlet, and village, not a single one of them was straight.

The cottage was painted mustard yellow, a beacon in the gloomy afternoon. It was an anomaly in an area where nearly every other structure was white, and in further defiance of local tradition, its two outbuildings were purple and lime, respectively. Neither of them was illuminated, but the small windows of the cottage itself streamed light onto the garden that surrounded it.