Carola Dunn - Manna from Hades: A Cornish Mystery

MANNA FROM HADES

We put in several frogs, Mrs Trewynn, said Miss Annabel Willis anxiously. You did say they were well received?

Very well indeed, Miss Annabel. They sold in no time. My thanks to both of you for your hard work and generosity. Eleanor lifted the big cardboard box, whose faint, sweet fragrance bore out the logo on its sides: Co-op Tea. It was more awkward than heavy.

Its a pleasure to do what little we can to help, the elder Miss Willis assured her from her wheelchair, her knitting needles clicking away tirelessly, producing yet another green and yellow frog. Annabel, stop fussing and give Mrs Trewynn a hand.

Yes, of course, Dorothy. Miss Annabel dithered.

Perhaps you could open the car door for me, Eleanor suggested.

Certainly. Beaming, Miss Annabel buttoned her cardigan over her flower-print dress and trotted ahead out of the tiny cottage. She was over eighty if she was a day. Eleanor only hoped she herself would be half as spry at the same age, a couple of decades hence.

The aged lady opened the door of the aged pea-green Morris Minor (age being a relative term). Teazle seized the chance to hop out and stretch her short legs.

Oh, the dear doggie! We always had West Highlands when I was a child, said Miss Annabel wistfully. Dorothy says we havent room for a dog. Shes right, Im afraid. She wont hear of my wearing trousers, either. They look so comfortable and practical, but in our time, ladies simply didnt. She eyed Eleanors royal-blue tracksuit and white trainers with envy.

Nor in my time. Not even in the fifties. The sixties seem to be altering so many of our ideas. Depositing the box on the passenger seat, Eleanor closed the door. Thank you for the cup of tea, Miss Annabel. It was just what I needed. Come on, Teazle, we must be on our way.

With a shove from behind, Teazle scrambled up on top of a bag of old clothes on the back seat. Eleanor waved a final goodbye and drove back past the other half-dozen cottages of the hamlet. The lane, scarcely wider than the car, wandered through greening valley-bottom woods for a quarter mile and ended at a T-junction with another lane not much wider. Eleanor turned left, up a steep, twisting hill between high banks starred with pale clumps of primroses, the bright gold of celandines, and patches of purple violets.

The slope levelled off for a short stretch. On one side was a grass verge, with a car parked on it with two wheels in the lane. A gate in the bank led to a summer cottage, a tiny farm-labourers dwelling expanded and modernised to provide a country get-away for Londoners. Most of the summer cottages and bungalows with TO LET signs she had passed were still closed up, but the Hendersons appeared to have come down early. They were pleasant people with two teenagers.

She pulled over in front of their car, blocking half the lane, but she wouldnt be more than a moment and shed hear anyone honking to get by.

Mrs Henderson was delighted to see her. The children were doing foreign exchanges over the Easter hols and she and her husband were going to Italy. They were lending the cottage to friends, so she had come down to prepare the place. She hadnt realisedone never did, did one?how much clutter had accumulated over the years, much of it perfectly good but unnecessary. If Mrs Trewynn could just take this box of kitchen stuffnobody needed two egg-beaters and three potato peelers, let alone five cake pans when one never baked on holiday!

The box was somehow squeezed into the boot on top of two boxes of books.

And Ill bring more in to the shop when Ive sorted it all out, Mrs Henderson promised.

Groaning a bit, Eleanors little Morris tackled the hill again.

Yes, well go for a walk when we reach the top, she said in response to an interrogative bark. Teazle raised her black nose from her little white paws and sat up. If we reach the top, Eleanor amended, leaning forward over the steering wheel to aid the ascent.

One last, steep upward bend and the Morris bounded forward, demanding a change into third gear. The lane straightened, the banks gave way to drystone walls. A moment later Eleanor pulled across the road and parked in a lay-by beside a stile marked by a green PUBLIC FOOTPATH sign.

Come on. She opened the door.

Teazle scrambled over the handbrake, paused a moment to nose interestedly at the tea box on the passenger seat, then launched herself across Eleanors lap and out. Before following the terrier, Eleanor remembered to take the keys from the ignition.

Dear Megan was so insistent about the need to lock ones car, wherever one left it, even if it contained nothing of value. Megan said crooks often stole cars just to use to commit other crimes, and being a policewoman, she must know. Though why should anyone choose a car that had barely scraped through the MOT test a month ago? Eleanor had had to pay for several repairs before the examiner would give her that indispensable certificate of safety.

As she closed the door and inserted the key in the stiff lock, she heard a vehicle drawing near. Quickly she turned to look for the dog.

Teazle? From the other side of the stile, two bright brown eyes peered at her through a tangled white fringe. Stay!

The car that approached was one of the few that she recognised, black and white with a blue light on the roof and POLICE blazoned across the door. Panda cars people called them these days. She waved a greeting to the driver.

Constable Leacock slowed down. Everything all right, Mrs Trewynn?

Oh yes, thank you, Bob, were just going for a walk on the cliffs.

Beautiful day for it. He waved and drove on down the hill.

A nice boy, she thought as she went to join Teazle. She was climbing the stile when she heard another car engine, groaning up the hill. Probably someone from one of the farms. The beginning of April was early for tourists or ramblers, especially with Easter late this year, and few others used this lane from nowhere to nowhere.

She glanced back. The grey car that came into sight was not familiar, but then, she never noticed peoples cars. Sunlight gleaming off the windscreen concealed those within, but it might be an acquaintance who would be hurt if she failed to acknowledge them. She waved.

Wuff! said Teazle in a come-on-lets-get-going tone. Eleanor stepped down from the stile and they set off across the field. Sheep raised their heads to watch suspiciously. Teazle stuck close to her mistresss heels.

Behind them, the sound of the cars engine suddenly died. Eleanor hoped that did not portend someone following her along the path. She wanted to practise her Aikido, and spectators always distracted her. Strangers tended to be alarmed when they saw a small woman with snow-white curls twisting and twirling and making strange gestures.

Peter had insisted that she learn to defend herself if she chose to accompany him to the more perilous parts of the earth. Aikido, a then recent development of the martial arts, appealed to both of them with its philosophy of deflecting aggression without harming the aggressor. Now she was safe home in England, shed never need to use it, but the exercise improved her health and the mental discipline brought tranquility.

Nothing could be more tranquil than the present scene. In the quiet, a meadowlark trilled, invisible in the pale blue vault overhead.

Then a car door slammed. A few moments later, the engine started up again and Eleanor breathed a sigh of relief.

On the far side of the field, she climbed another stile while Teazle wriggled underneath. Here they joined the footpath that led around the entire coast of Cornwall and Devon. A grey-green heather-covered slope rose to the cliffs edge, with nothing but sky and wheeling herring gulls visible beyond from Eleanors viewpoint. A thicket of yellow gorse in full bloom sent forth its sweet, coconutty fragrance.