in itself was odd, Karen thought: the cottage was spectacularly situated. It had the kind of view that you could rent to summer holidaymakers for two thousand a month. Even in winter it would attract arty types, who liked the rawness, the stern and brutal beauty of the West Penwith landscape. Why let it fall into ruin?
She turned a further corner and peered in through one of the few unbroken windows. The interior was dark, but there was still enough light to see the piles of contorted and tormented little corpses. What a ghastly thing. She shivered in the wind. Her mother had loved cats …
‘Karen, come over here!’
Stepping over tumbled bricks and shattered window-glass she saw Sally, in the Range Rover, gesturing.
‘Get in the car and shut the door. Listen to this!’
Karen obeyed. Sally could be a little bossy; she hadn’t changed all that much. But that was fine, it was actually reassuring.
‘What?’
Sally’s face was stern. She lifted up the phone, significantly, pointing it Karen’s way. ‘I just got another call, from my Detective Sergeant, Jones.’
‘And?’
‘They found a body.’
‘Where? Here? Zennor?’
‘No, down a mine, Botallack, you know that one, on the coast, over Morvah way.’
Karen’s thoughts whirled into confusion. She wondered aloud, ‘An accident? Falling down a mine shaft? I don’t see the connexion. How …?’
‘The owners found the body this morning, at the bottom of the shaft. They say it was covered in a weird grease, black soot and stuff.’
The Atlantic wind buffeted the window of the Range Rover. Karen looked at the charred and open door of Carn Cottage. It was covered with grease and soot.
10
Morvah, Cornwall, England
What was that line of poetry her father used to quote, about the West Penwith countryside?
This is a hideous and a wicked country,
Sloping to hateful sunsets and the end of time,
Hollow with mine-shafts, naked with granite …
The poet was right.
DCI Trevithick steered her Toyota carefully along the narrow Penwith roads; to her left, the moors rose abruptly, scattered with enormous rocks, oddly deformed. To the right, the pounding and merciless sea, assaulting the cliffs. And in the narrow strip of flat land between, there lay the wind-battered farms and the grey mining villages. Ex-mining villages.
Just ahead was Morvah.
Morvah.
Karen mouthed the vowels, silently, as she slowed the car. There was another line, by some writer, her dad would quote: ‘the fearsome scenery reaches a crescendo of evil at Morvah’. It was so very true.
And yet people loved this country, too, which was why it got so many artistic visitors who adorned it with these famous quotes. Even on a raw and hostile January day, like today, it had a powerful and hypnotic quality that made you want to linger.
Who killed the cats? She had to find out. The case was starting to obsess her.
At Botallack Karen took the last turning, onto a winding, rutted track that seemed to lead past a farm, directly over the cliffs and straight down to the crushing sea three hundred feet below. But at the last moment the track veered right and opened up to a tarmacked car park at the very edge of the precipice.
And there below was Botallack Mine. Just seeing it made Karen shiver.
It was one of the oldest mines in Cornwall, three or four centuries old at least, though tin streaming and tin mining had been happening here for three
thousand
years. That was why the entire Penwith coast was riddled with tunnels and shafts and adits, like a honeycomb under the sea-salted grass. There were so many mine-workings that people occasionally fell down unsuspected shafts to their deaths; dogs disappeared quite frequently.
Yet within this ominous world Botallack had an especially sinister quality, not because of its age, but because of its position: right by the sea, halfway up an almost-vertical cliff. The mine had been built here to exploit the tin and copper
under the ocean.
The shafts were
She turned a further corner and peered in through one of the few unbroken windows. The interior was dark, but there was still enough light to see the piles of contorted and tormented little corpses. What a ghastly thing. She shivered in the wind. Her mother had loved cats …
‘Karen, come over here!’
Stepping over tumbled bricks and shattered window-glass she saw Sally, in the Range Rover, gesturing.
‘Get in the car and shut the door. Listen to this!’
Karen obeyed. Sally could be a little bossy; she hadn’t changed all that much. But that was fine, it was actually reassuring.
‘What?’
Sally’s face was stern. She lifted up the phone, significantly, pointing it Karen’s way. ‘I just got another call, from my Detective Sergeant, Jones.’
‘And?’
‘They found a body.’
‘Where? Here? Zennor?’
‘No, down a mine, Botallack, you know that one, on the coast, over Morvah way.’
Karen’s thoughts whirled into confusion. She wondered aloud, ‘An accident? Falling down a mine shaft? I don’t see the connexion. How …?’
‘The owners found the body this morning, at the bottom of the shaft. They say it was covered in a weird grease, black soot and stuff.’
The Atlantic wind buffeted the window of the Range Rover. Karen looked at the charred and open door of Carn Cottage. It was covered with grease and soot.
10
Morvah, Cornwall, England
What was that line of poetry her father used to quote, about the West Penwith countryside?
This is a hideous and a wicked country,
Sloping to hateful sunsets and the end of time,
Hollow with mine-shafts, naked with granite …
The poet was right.
DCI Trevithick steered her Toyota carefully along the narrow Penwith roads; to her left, the moors rose abruptly, scattered with enormous rocks, oddly deformed. To the right, the pounding and merciless sea, assaulting the cliffs. And in the narrow strip of flat land between, there lay the wind-battered farms and the grey mining villages. Ex-mining villages.
Just ahead was Morvah.
Morvah.
Karen mouthed the vowels, silently, as she slowed the car. There was another line, by some writer, her dad would quote: ‘the fearsome scenery reaches a crescendo of evil at Morvah’. It was so very true.
And yet people loved this country, too, which was why it got so many artistic visitors who adorned it with these famous quotes. Even on a raw and hostile January day, like today, it had a powerful and hypnotic quality that made you want to linger.
Who killed the cats? She had to find out. The case was starting to obsess her.
At Botallack Karen took the last turning, onto a winding, rutted track that seemed to lead past a farm, directly over the cliffs and straight down to the crushing sea three hundred feet below. But at the last moment the track veered right and opened up to a tarmacked car park at the very edge of the precipice.
And there below was Botallack Mine. Just seeing it made Karen shiver.
It was one of the oldest mines in Cornwall, three or four centuries old at least, though tin streaming and tin mining had been happening here for three
thousand
years. That was why the entire Penwith coast was riddled with tunnels and shafts and adits, like a honeycomb under the sea-salted grass. There were so many mine-workings that people occasionally fell down unsuspected shafts to their deaths; dogs disappeared quite frequently.
Yet within this ominous world Botallack had an especially sinister quality, not because of its age, but because of its position: right by the sea, halfway up an almost-vertical cliff. The mine had been built here to exploit the tin and copper
under the ocean.
The shafts were
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