The Valley of the Shadow (7 page)

That evening, Jocelyn’s duty to her parishioners trumped her duty to accompany Eleanor to see the doctor, but she was rather annoyed. “You should have asked to see him tomorrow,” she said severely.

“Nick and I are going over to Launceston anyway … And for all we know, it may be urgent.”

“Oh, very well. But you must tell me all about it in the morning.”

In comparison to the Incorruptible, Jocelyn’s car was so comfortable that Eleanor dozed as Nick drove over the moors to Launceston. The journey took about half as long as in the aged Morris Minor, though, and she was still very weary when they reached the hospital.

“No need for you to go in. I’ll take it,” Nick offered, reaching for the bag on the backseat that contained the tweed skirt Joce had picked out for Megan.

“Thank you, dear. Ask how he’s doing, will you?”

“Of course.”

Eleanor waited anxiously for news. At last Nick returned, shaking his head when he saw her watching.

“Not visiting hours. The porter wouldn’t let me go in to find someone to ask, as I’m not a relative. I told him the poor chap has no known relatives and that I helped rescue him, but nothing doing. I left the skirt with him. I hope it gets to Megan.”

“I suppose he’s just doing his job, but how maddening.”

“If nothing else, the doctor should be able to find out his condition.”

“True. I do hope he’s come round by now.”

They drove north through the town and across the ancient bridge over the River Kinsey. From there, Nick followed Eleanor’s directions—though she frequently lost her keys, she rarely lost her way. Near Goodmansleigh, they pulled up in front of a west-facing thatched cottage converted from two farm labourers’ tiny dwellings. In front, enclosed by a white picket fence, was a small garden crammed with dahlias of every conceivable colour and shape. They glowed in the afterglow of the sunset.

“Damn, I wish I’d brought my camera! Too twee for words, but the tourists would eat it up.”

“I expect Lois has photos, or would let you borrow their camera.”

Nick instantly metamorphosed from a solicitous friend into an artist with a mission. “Come on then, quick, before the light changes.” He herded Eleanor up the short path and reached past her to knock on the door.

Lois Prthnavi opened the door wearing an apron and wielding a wooden spoon. A nurse when she married Rajendra, she had given up work when they had children. Now that the boys were away at school, she took on part-time supply jobs during term time, but she loved cooking, so the doctor had no cause for complaint. Mouthwatering smells of Indian spices and frying onions wafted past her. “Eleanor, lovely to see you. You didn’t bring the little dog?”

“No, I left her at home this evening.”

“Come in, bab, come in, I’ve got stuff on the range that needs stirring. And you’re Mr. Gresham—”

“Nick, please. How do you do, Mrs. Prthnavi. Your garden is magnificent.”

“Nick’s absolutely dying to take some photos in this evening light, but he didn’t bring his camera.”

“You must use ours. Here, Raj always keeps it on the hall table. He says it’s no use if you can’t lay your hands on it when you want it. It’s not fancy, but there should be plenty of film.”

“Thanks!” Nick strode back down the path.

“He’ll apologise once he’s caught the light.” Eleanor closed the door behind her against the chilly air and followed Lois into the small slate-floored kitchen, dominated and warmed by a modern oil-fired Aga.

“Not to worry. We’ve got one of his pictures of the coast, and Raj would buy one of his musical abstracts like a shot if we had anywhere big enough to hang it. Eleanor, you’re not ill, are you? No, of course not. You’d go to the surgery.”

“Do I look as if I’m on my last legs? I’m just tired and a bit banged up. I tripped on a rough footpath, nothing serious.”

“Raj should be home any moment. He rang when he left the patient’s house.”

“No, really, that’s not what I want to talk to him about. Though it’s sort of connected. I wouldn’t have troubled him till morning except that we had to come over to Launceston to take a skirt to the hospital for Megan.”

“Megan—your niece? She’s in hospital? I’m sure Raj will go and examine her if you’re not happy with her care, only there’s etiquette to be observed with second opinions. He’ll explain—”

“Megan’s there as a police officer, not a patient. Sorry, I’m muddling you.”

“Never mind. You can explain it all to Raj after dinner.”

“Perhaps I’d better leave the explanation to Nick!”

“He’s mixed up in whatever it is, too? No, don’t answer, it can wait. Let Raj relax over supper before you tell us.” Lois took an earthenware casserole from the slow oven, emptied into it the fragrant contents of one of her pans, and returned it to the oven. “Or is it private?”

“Not exactly. I expect Megan’s inspector would just as soon the story didn’t get about, but too many people know what happened to keep it secret.”

“You’re really whetting my appetite!”

“Not as much, I’m sure, as the smell of what you’re cooking is whetting mine!”

“And mine! I hope you don’t mind, Mrs. Prthnavi, I let myself in. I’ve finished your film, I’m afraid. Would you rather I had it processed and sent you the prints and negatives of your pictures, or the other way round? I’d pay for mine, of course.”

“You do it, would you? Otherwise you might wait weeks before I remember to take it in.” She tested a grain of rice. “This is ready. I need to drain it and I don’t want to scald anyone. Do go through to the other room and help yourselves to sherry. You might pour one for me, too. Or there’s beer if you prefer, Nick.”

The whole of the rest of the ground floor was one room. Where the wall between the cottages had once stood, a beamed arch divided sitting and dining areas, the latter denoted by a gate-legged table in the window overlooking the dahlias.

Once when visiting the Prthnavis, Eleanor had gone upstairs to the loo and, through an open bedroom door, had caught sight of a picture of Krishna and his lover, the milkmaid Radha. In the downstairs room, however, the furnishings were thoroughly English, chintzes in lavender blue and lavender green, and polished oak. Above the fireplace hung a painting of Kynance Cove.

While Nick poured sherry for the ladies and a beer for himself, Eleanor told him what Lois had said about his paintings.

He grinned. “I expect I could do something that would fit in here.” He took Lois her drink. On his return he went over to the record player and started looking through the records. “Mozart Clarinet Quintet, Benny Goodman. Britten’s
Four Sea Interludes
. It might help to listen to different sea music…” His gaze became abstracted. Humming a tune unfamiliar to Eleanor, he took an LP out of its sleeve and put it on the turntable.

The sound of the front door opening and closing distracted him before Eleanor had time to suggest he should ask their hostess’s permission before playing the record. The doctor was home.

Eleanor was instantly certain that she’d be wasting his time. If he knew of someone missing, he’d have rung the police. If he was needed to communicate with the rescued man, DI Scumble could hardly fail to think of him.

They heard him talking to Lois in the kitchen. Then he came to greet them.

“Namaste, Eleanor. Namaste, Mr. Gresham.”

“Namaste, Rajendra.”

Self-consciously, Nick said, “Namaste, Doctor.”

“I am happy to welcome you to my house. You will excuse me if I go and change before dinner.”

“Would you mind if I put on a record?”

“Please, help yourself.” With a little bow, he went out.

“He’s not going to put on a dinner jacket, is he?” Nick asked in a voice full of misgivings.

“Good lord no. Even if he usually did, he wouldn’t because you and I aren’t in evening dress. He wouldn’t want to make us uncomfortable. I’m sure he’s just changing into something more comfortable than the suit he wears for work.”

“He does dress rather formally. Not the tweedy country doctor sort.”

“With patients already wary because of the colour of his skin, he can’t afford to give them anything else to cavil at.”

“Surely there isn’t much of that sort of attitude here in Cornwall. Enoch Powell does his rabble-rousing in the big cities.”

“That’s where his audience is,” Eleanor pointed out, “where most Indian immigrants settle. People here don’t in general feel threatened by the influx.”

“And then there are always mindless idiots like Chaz. He really embarrassed Julia. She’s a nice girl.”

How times changed, Eleanor reflected, and not always for the worse. In her young days, a “nice” girl might well have let the victim die rather than strip and climb into a sleeping bag with him, naked as he was. That part of the story was better kept from Jocelyn. It would pose her a moral dilemma bound to upset her no end.

“She said Chaz isn’t her boyfriend,” Nick said ruminatively. “I wonder whether she has a steady.”

Eleanor didn’t like this trend in his thoughts. She still nourished hopes of a closer rapport between Nick and Megan. But she had nothing against Julia, not to mention that it was none of her business.

“She’s a bit young to settle down, isn’t she? She has her degree to think about.”

Nick laughed. “These days, having a steady boyfriend is a temporary state of affairs, not necessarily a precursor to settling down.
O tempora! O mores!
” With that he turned on the record player and set the needle on the disc. As peaceful, contemplative music filled the room, his eyes took on a dreamy, faraway look.

Eleanor didn’t understand how music became transformed into pictures in his mind. To be honest, she didn’t understand the pictures once he put them on canvas. But she was delighted that, since her art dealer friend had taken him up, he had been doing very well with his musical abstracts—his “real” art as opposed to his “tourist” art.

Lois came in to set the gate-legged table. Jerked from his dream, Nick got up to help and then went with her to the kitchen to carry dishes through. Rajendra came down in grey slacks and a hand-knitted maroon pullover. They all sat down to eat.

Eleanor discovered she was very hungry. Since lunch, she’d had nothing but the sherry, not even a cup of tea from Bob Leacock’s thermos.

As Lois had requested, Nick and Eleanor didn’t broach the reason for their visit while they were eating. Nick and Rajendra talked about music and art, with Lois contributing a word now and then. Eleanor, her mind a little fuzzy from the effect of alcohol on an empty stomach, concentrated on the food. The meal tasted as good as it smelled.

Her travelling life had allowed Eleanor little opportunity for cooking—or art and music, for that matter—so she always greatly appreciated other people’s culinary skills. Nevertheless, she was glad when everyone finished eating and they moved to the other side of the room.

At least, she and Rajendra did. Nick, ever obliging, helped Lois clear the table.

Rajendra stooped to turn on the Calor gas log. “The evenings are getting chilly. What is it you wanted to talk to me about, Eleanor?”

“It’s complicated. And, come to think of it, I don’t actually know the whole story.” She had missed the rescue, and the odds and ends she’d heard from the others did not make a coherent whole. On the other hand, did the doctor really need all the details? Lois would want to hear the story, though. Feeling muddled, Eleanor hesitated, unable to decide. “I’m too tired to think straight. Perhaps Nick had better tell you.”

“He’s in on this … whatever it is? I thought he was just acting as your chauffeur. This is all very mysterious.”

Lois returned with an electric percolator, followed by Nick with a tray of cups and saucers, sugar bowl, and milk jug. At the doctor’s request, Nick embarked on the tale.

Eleanor was eager to hear the bits she had missed. Despite her best intentions, however, she drowsed off, as she discovered when the ring of the telephone roused her.

“Oh dear…”

“I’ve just got to DI Scumble’s unexpected arrival,” Nick informed her. “You’ve deflated my high opinion of myself as a raconteur.”

Rajendra answered the phone. After giving the number, he listened for a moment, then said, “Speak of the devil! We’ve been taking your name in vain, Inspector … My wife, myself, Mrs. Trewynn, and Mr. Gresham…” An explosive noise came from the receiver. “You’d better ask them yourself … Ten minutes? Right you are.”

“He’s coming here?” Lois asked. Eleanor saw she was upset by the plight of the victim and the hazards Megan had run to save him. “I’d better put on another pot of coffee.”

Nick sighed. “No doubt he’ll be posing the questions I was leading up to, so I won’t bother. We really came in case he didn’t.”

Lois turned at the door. “But you will finish the story? You’re an excellent raconteur. You can’t stop now. I shan’t be a minute.”

“All right. There’s not much more, but I’ll stop when Scumble arrives, finished or not. He’s not too keen on me.”

“A competent officer,” said the doctor, “but his manner is not ingratiating.”

“You’re telling me!” said Eleanor.

Lois came back and Nick resumed the story, telling how the inspector had sent Megan off half dressed in the ambulance. “It was a sort of compliment, in his backhanded way. He said—after she’d gone—that she was the only available officer he could rely on to make sense, if humanly possible, of anything the chap might say. That’s assuming he’d speak in English, possibly garbled to some extent.”

“And if he doesn’t speak English?” Rajendra said dryly. “I take it that’s where I come in.”

When the doorbell rang, Rajendra went to open the door. He could be heard exchanging polite greetings, in English, with DI Scumble, then he ushered him into the room.

Scumble’s greeting to Lois was punctilious. “Good evening, Mrs. Prthnavi.” Then he turned to Eleanor and Nick. “All right, so what are the pair of you doing here?”

“The Prthnavis are good friends of mine,” Eleanor protested. “Am I not allowed to visit them? And bring a friend?”

“In the circumstances, something tells me there’s more to it than that. Gresham?”