Robert Goddard - Name To a Face

“Oh, it seems strange, all right. She was a journalist, y’know. Not a bloody historian.”

“She was interested in the Association story.”

“Yeah, but that’s bang up-to-date by comparison with the fourteenth century. And there’s a wreck to explore. As she made the fatal mistake of doing. Not to mention divers to interview about the treasure hunt back in the sixties, if she’d had a mind to. Who was she going to interview about the… what was he called?”

“Grey Man of Ennor.”

“I take it the old boy’s not still around?”

Harding smiled thinly. “I doubt it.”

“There you are, then. Total non-starter.”

“Kerry never mentioned him to you?”

“Not as I recall. And I reckon I would. Besides, she’d have known better than to ask me about something like that-just supposing, for the sake of argument, she was remotely interested.”

“Who would she ask, then?”

Trathen pondered for a moment, then said, “John Metherell, maybe. She knew him. He lives on the Scillies. And he’s a historian-of sorts.”

Trathen was an amused witness when, a few minutes later, Harding phoned Metherell. His call was a surprise, naturally, and Metherell wanted to ask all the obvious questions about Barney Tozer’s death, as well as Hayley Foxton’s responsibility for it, before he could be induced to focus on the arcane issue of the Grey Man of Ennor.

“I’ve never heard of him. But then I’m no medievalist. Working on the Association story’s given me tunnel vision where the past’s concerned. I certainly don’t remember Kerry asking me anything about the fourteenth century or the Black Death… or the Old Man of Ennor.”

“Grey. Not old. Necessarily.”

“Sorry?”

“Never mind.”

“Crosbie Hicks would’ve been the person to ask. There wasn’t much he didn’t know about Scillonian history. Used to write a piece in The Cornishman every month or so. Might have written about your fellow. Yes, he might well have done. That sort of thing would’ve been right up his street.”

“ Would’ve been?”

“Sadly, he died a couple of years ago.”

“But he was alive in 1999?”

“Oh yes. Very much so. In fact-” Metherell broke off, seemingly struck by a thought. “Now, that’s odd.”

“What is?”

“Well, you’ve jogged my memory. Crosbie Hicks. I met him once with Kerry Here in Hugh Town. Nothing unusual about that. It’s a small place. You meet everybody sooner or later. But-”

“Hold on. Were you with Kerry? Or was she with Hicks?”

“I was with Kerry. We bumped into old Crosbie coming out of the post office and chatted for a few moments. Well…”

“What?”

“It was obvious they knew each other. Again, nothing unusual about that. Crosbie could easily have been a regular customer at Carol’s café. But I remember Kerry thanked him for some help he’d given her. So I acted affronted and said, ‘You’ve been double-checking what I’ve told you about the wreck of the Association with Crosbie, haven’t you?’ And Crosbie said, ‘Don’t worry, John. Kerry’s asked me nothing about the Association. I’ve been helping her with an entirely unrelated matter’ Well, that could have been your Black Death legend, I suppose.”

“Yes,” said Harding thoughtfully. “It could.”

“Unfortunately, it’s too late to ask either of them now. So, we’ll never know for sure.”

T oo late. Metherell’s description applied to everything Harding had done or tried to do since returning to Penzance. The dead held their secrets too close for the living to unlock. Mere stubbornness had prompted his latest and surely last recourse: a trawl through the public library’s microfilmed back copies of The Cornishman , in search of some vital clue buried in the roughly monthly offerings of Crosbie Hicks on subjects plucked from Scillonian history.

He had begun with editions from two years prior to the accident and was working his way slowly towards the summer of 1999. So far, Hicks had written about ancient burial mounds, King Arthur, the tin trade, rising sea levels, the Godolphins, Augustus Smith, the daffodil industry, lighthouses, dialect, place names, even the wreck of the Association. But none of what he had written seemed to come close to the “unrelated matter” he had helped Kerry with. And now, as Harding reached the spring of 1999, he began to fear he would come away empty-handed once more.

Hicks’s articles appeared, when they did, at the foot of the page of The Cornishman devoted each week to specifically Scillonian news. This seldom amounted to anything momentous and Harding had slipped into a pattern of checking at a glance to see if there was a contribution from Hicks that week before scrolling on to the next. He had, in fact, already done so with the Thursday, 29 April edition when some combination of words in one of the headlines belatedly registered in his mind. He scrolled back. And there it was. Charity Walk to Become Celebration of Miracle Cure.

The article had not been written by Crosbie Hicks. Yet there, in the phrase miracle cure , was the connection with the Grey Man of Ennor Harding had been searching for, the connection that was also a clue.

CHARITY WALK TO BECOME

CELEBRATION OF MIRACLE CURE

The campaign to pay for a fourteen-year-old St. Mary’s girl to receive treatment in the United States for a rare form of leukaemia has ended in her complete and unexpected recovery.

A sponsored walk round the coast of St. Mary’s to raise some of the money that would have been needed was planned for Bank Holiday Monday 31 May. The walk will still go ahead but will now be a celebration of the all-clear Josephine Edwards recently received from her consultant at Treliske Hospital. Her parents, David and Christine Edwards, of Guinea-Money Farm, St. Mary’s, said they were “amazed and overjoyed” when they were informed that exhaustive tests had confirmed the reason for the sudden disappearance of Josephine’s symptoms was that she was now free of the disease.

“We were told a bone-marrow transplant wouldn’t be effective for Josephine’s particular type of leukaemia,” Mrs. Edwards added, “and that her only hope was a revolutionary treatment being pioneered at a hospital in Colorado. There was no way we could afford to send her there and we’re hugely grateful to everyone who offered to take part in fund-raising, including the walk round the island. The doctors can’t explain what’s happened. They’ve never known anything like this before. It’s not just a remission. It’s a total cure. In fact, it’s a miracle. We’re over the moon.”

Harding went out into the street to call Metherell. His phone rang almost as soon as he switched it on. His first thought was that Metherell had called him , perhaps having remembered something more about Crosbie Hicks. Accordingly, he answered without checking the number. And found himself talking to Carol.

“Ah, at last. Mind telling me where you are, Tim?”

“Penzance.”

“Why have you gone back there? What the hell are you trying to do?”

“Tie up some loose ends.”

“Oh yeah? And have you tied up any?”

“For a start, I’ve learnt Humph stole the ring from Heartsease.”

“Really? Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. It’s the sort of thing he would do, just to spite Barney.”

“He thinks you’re spiting him , by holding the funeral in Monaco.”

“He flatters himself. I don’t care what he says, thinks or does. The ring means nothing to me. You must know that. Which is another reason why I just don’t understand what you’re doing.”