Robert Goddard - Name To a Face

“Have you heard that Nathan Gashry’s dead?”

“Yes. Suicide, apparently. Good riddance.”

“Is that all you have to say about it?”

“What else is there to say? I never even met the man. But he sounds a nasty piece of work.”

“For God’s sake, Carol, don’t you see? There’s something going on here you’re missing.”

“And what might that be?”

“Do you remember Josephine Edwards?”

“Who?”

“A young girl on St. Mary’s who made a miraculous recovery from leukaemia back in 1999. Just before Kerry went to stay with you.”

“Leukaemia? What are you talking about?”

“Josephine Edwards,” Harding insistently repeated. “Do you remember?”

“No. Of course I don’t.”

“It must have been big news at the time, Carol. Your customers would have discussed it. A lot of them would have known her. Or taken part in the walk round the island intended to raise money for her treatment. Isn’t any of this even vaguely familiar?”

There was a brief interval of silence. Then Carol said, “All right. I do remember. For what it’s worth. Yeah. I put a poster up in the café and I signed up for the walk. You’re right. She got better spontaneously. Happy ending all round. What about it?”

“Did Kerry take an interest in the story?”

“It happened before she came down.”

“But people must still have been talking about it. You must have mentioned it to her.”

“Probably, yeah. What about it?”

“Did she seem interested?”

“I can’t remember.”

“Try.”

“This is crazy Tim. You’re-”

“Did she seem interested?”

Another silence. Then: “Maybe. Maybe not. I genuinely can’t remember. And I really don’t see why it should matter. For Christ’s sake, Tim, what are you-”

He ended the call there and then. And rang Metherell immediately. “Why does it matter?” he murmured under his breath as he listened to the dialling tone. “I don’t know, Carol. But it does. I’m certain of that.”

“Hello?”

“Mr. Metherell. It’s Harding again.”

“Ah, Mr. Harding. Found what you’re looking for yet?”

“I may have. Do you remember a local girl called Josephine Edwards, who made a miraculous recovery from leukaemia? The case got a bit of publicity at the time. This was seven years ago, just before Kerry’s accident.”

“Of course I remember. It was a remarkable thing. But I don’t-”

“Do you know if she’s still living on the island? She was fourteen then, so she’d be-what?-twenty-one now.”

“Certainly she’s still living here. In fact, you met her yourself last week.”

“I did?”

“Yes. Josephine Edwards is Josie Martyn now.”

Harding spotted Metherell’s white Honda parked behind the terminal building as the helicopter descended towards St. Mary’s Airport. It was the last flight of the day, so Harding would not be able to return to the mainland until the following morning. Metherell had offered him a bed for the night, which he had naturally accepted, but he was in truth thinking no further ahead than that afternoon. He was close to the answer now. He could almost touch it.

The Isles of Scilly’s famed subtropical splendour was no more in evidence than it had been the week before. The cloud was low, the wind biting. Metherell did not get out of his car as Harding approached, merely raising his hand in greeting.

“And so, here we are again,” he said as Harding climbed into the passenger seat and closed the door. “My wife thinks I’m mad to be indulging your whims like this, you know.”

“They’re more than whims. But I’m certainly grateful for your help. And sorry if I’ve caused any domestic friction.”

“Don’t worry about it. Just put me in the picture.”

Harding did his level best to assemble his surmises and suspicions into a coherent account as they sat watching the helicopter loading for its immediate return to Penzance. The missing segment of the Gashry report; Kerry’s interest in the Grey Man of Ennor; Josephine Edwards’s miraculous recovery from terminal leukaemia; her marriage to Fred Martyn; and Kerry’s fatal diving accident: they were linked, he felt certain. There was a hidden truth that bound them together. Whether he had persuaded Metherell of that, however, he rather doubted. As the tone of the other man’s response seemed to confirm.

“What does all this really amount to, Mr. Harding? I don’t get it. I just don’t get it.”

“I can’t tell you exactly what it adds up to. But it adds up to something. You told me yourself the Martyn family has lived on this island since the Middle Ages.”

“According to Crosbie Hicks, yes. Since the fourteenth century as I recall. Which you’ll immediately point out to me is the Grey Man of Ennor’s century.”

“So it is.”

“But what of it?”

“Barney Tozer talked to me just before he died about the sequence of events on the day of the accident. Mind if I check it with you?”

Metherell shrugged. “Why not?”

“Barney flew over with Ray Trathen the day before. He spent the night at your house and you drove down to the quay together the following morning with the diving suits and gear he and Kerry were going to use. Right so far?”

“Yes.”

“You and Barney loaded the stuff onto the Jonquil , then he walked back into town to fetch Kerry and Carol. You stayed on the boat with the Martyns. Correct?”

“Yes.”

“Were you on board the whole time you were waiting for Barney to come back?”

“Sorry?”

“Did you stay on the boat until Barney returned with the girls-and Ray Trathen, who they met on the way?”

“I…” Metherell frowned as he struggled to remember.

“Well, did you?”

“No. Since you ask, I didn’t. The harbourmaster wanted to confirm we had proper written permission from the salvors to dive to the wreck. I went to show him the paperwork. I can’t have been off the boat more than five minutes, but-”

“You were off it.”

“Yes. So?”

“Well, you obviously didn’t take the diving gear with you.”

“Of course I didn’t.” Metherell looked round sharply at Harding. “What are you suggesting?”

“The gear stayed aboard. With the Martyns. If they’d wanted to tamper with it…”

“Why in God’s name would they want to do that?”

“I don’t know. I’m not even sure they did. But… I just have this… feeling that…”

“I spoke to Christine Edwards before coming to pick you up, Mr. Harding. She remembered the accident, of course. It was big news at the time. Much bigger than her daughter’s triumph over leukaemia. She was quite adamant on one point. Kerry Foxton had never contacted them. Which I’m guessing you’d have expected her to, if she made the same connection you seem to be making between Josie’s defiance of the medical odds and the Grey Man of Ennor.”

“You believe her?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“No reason, I suppose.”

“Exactly.”

“Nevertheless…”

“I’ll tell you what, Mr. Harding. Let’s go and see the Martyns now. See if you think Josie’s lying when she tells us she never met Kerry Foxton. Or if Fred and Alf are holding something back. My bet is you’ll sense what I sense: there’s nothing to this. You’ve put two and two together and made five. Actually, a lot more than five. So, how about it? Isn’t it time to put up or shut up?”

“OK,” Harding replied, acknowledging with a nod that such a time probably had come. “Let’s go.”

The scene at Pregowther Farm had not altered since Harding’s last visit: smoke rising from the farmhouse chimney; chickens scavenging in the yard; a perspective of hazy yellow away through the daffodil fields towards Porth Hellick. He suspected it had probably not altered to any significant degree in centuries. The past and the present were fused here in the thin grey light of late afternoon. Only the future could not be detected.