UG3 Diminishing Returns   Chapter 10     Free Kernow

 

Heather Young settled into a routine, spending up to six days a week by herself but trying to be occupied enough that she wasn’t bored.

There hadn’t been any calls from Julie Tinker in the week since Heather’s coffee shop visit and nothing new was coming out of existing inquiries. On the one occasion she went to open the folder with her notes on the Hollande case, she found it locked. That generated a call.

“I had a notification, what were you doing?”

“Seeing if there was anything new, Jenny, but even my own stuff is locked away now.”

“I told you to drop it.”

“I’d referenced some of the Fourani addresses and I wanted to check which ones, you can’t tell me to ignore all the Fourani data?”

“We’ll just pass that responsibility over to a member of the team who hasn’t handled the Hollande case?”

“And lose my expertise? Somehow Jenny, I don’t think your manager would accept that?”

“That’s immaterial, you can’t have access, you’ll have to work without that information.”

She decided against visiting the Truro café on the following Wednesday, instead driving herself down to Helston for a look out to sea. Since Helston is set back from the water this brought her into Porthleven at ten in the morning. Under normal circumstances finding a parking space would have been a challenge but as it was late February, most definitely out of season, she had no trouble finding somewhere close to the harbour. First stop was a coffee, and a wee.

As her drink, and cake, were brought to the table, Heather asked the waitress a question.

“Are there any harbour trips today?”

“Wrong time of the year, dear.”

“I had wondered.”

“What did you want to see, St Michael’s Mount?”

“No, the old fort.”

“Oh, that. I wouldn’t bother if I were you?”

“Why?”

“There’s been some problems recently, some of the local fisherman have been threatened. They have lobster pots all around the bay and some of these are near the fort – everyone knows who owns which ones – but the new people on the fort don’t seem to care.”

“New people? I thought it was an older guy and a lad?”

“They left on the thirty-first of January, although I thought I saw a girl coming off the boat when they came along the quay.”

“Oh, so taking a boat out there isn’t a good idea?”

“I can find you a boatman, but it won’t be cheap if you’re on your own?”

“The price isn’t a problem, so long as it’s not a rip off, I just want to go out there, close enough to photograph it, then come straight back. I have an interest in this kind of industrial archaeology, did you know about the ones in the Thames Estuary.”

“I didn’t, it’s not my kind of thing. Let me give my brother a call?”

Heather smiled and waited. The Cornish, especially the older generation, were interconnected by family or kinship. A coffee or a beer, plus the appropriate question, could lead to the person you needed. It had worked that way for centuries, but for how much longer?

It was barely an hour later and Heather was the only passenger in the fishing boat although, thankfully, it didn’t smell of fish, or seaweed.

“I keep it clean or the gulls would keep visiting, and then they leave something behind. Promise me, won’t you, that you’ll never feed the gulls?”

“Not unless I don’t like the people I’m with?”

“That’s nasty, but yes, they are a pest close up, and very dangerous. They’re fine when they’re flying a few hundred yards away but not when they’re in your face.”

It was twenty minutes into their voyage across Mount’s Bay when the skipper cut the engine.

“This is as close as I’m going to go, we’ll come around the back to keep out of the way, using the current.”

Heather took her camera out and took a few photos before the boatman was having second thoughts.

“Sorry, but I think we were spotted.”
 

 
Heather looked at the images she’d taken. “Free Kernow? I thought they’d given up?”

“The lot that claim to be from the Kernow Independence Movement but no-one’s ever heard of them and they swear in English, with a strange accent. One fishing boat was shot at, that’s why I kept my distance.”

“You didn’t mention that when I said where I wanted to go?”

“No, but you might have changed your mind?”

“I think I would still have come along, okay, let’s get back.”

“Did you want to go anywhere else? To the Mount?”

“No, it’s cold and I fancy lunch.”

“I know just the place, I hope you like fish!”

Heather did enjoy her lunch and stayed in the Mounts Bay Tavern for rather longer than originally planned, whilst very deliberately staying off the alcohol.

It was definitely dusk when she parked up outside Fuchsia Cottage in Redruth. Heather was content, but tired, so she didn’t put her car away, off the road.

-o-

There was some noise outside shortly after seven the following morning, Heather looked out to see a removal truck outside the next door cottage, except they were having trouble parking. She threw on a dressing down, grabbed all of the required keys and padded outside in her faux sheepskin slippers, it wasn’t chic.

“Sorry, I’ll move it.”

Heather wasn’t planning to go anywhere so put her car away. She locked her car then went indoors to shower and dress, meanwhile the front of the truck was now parked right across the front of Fuchsia Cottage.

She was delayed starting work when she decided to make a round of tea for the two men and one woman crew who were emptying the next-door property.

“Do you know who your new neighbours are going to be?”

“Yes, and no.”

“Oh, we’ll offer a discount if you refer them to us?”

“It’s not that, we’ve bought the cottage.”

“But you live there … oh.”

“Yes, we’re putting it back into one property, so sorry, there’s no more work for you.”

“Here’s our card, for when you move next?”

Heather accepted the business card but currently had no plans to move anywhere. She gathered the empty mugs and dropped them into the dishwasher before, finally, making her way up to her office.

The first task was to upload her one good photo of her boat trip onto the system, adding some text about the take-over of the fort, although it was still unclear if funds had changed hands.

“That’s interesting, Heather, you were there on a day off?”

“Yes, and no, Jenny. I’d seen a newspaper report on the fort a month ago and something caught my attention, but I didn’t know what it was. The best way to sort that was to be a tourist for the day. It looks like there’s nothing for me though.”

“That’s how intelligence often works, Heather?”

“Yes, but right now I’m getting diminishing returns on my input, the interest rate isn’t as high as it should be!”

“Is there anything else that wasn’t in your report?”

Heather pondered a moment about whether to mention Julie Tinker and the café but decided against it, that was a personal and business matter. “Just a bit of graffiti on the fort that I saw but didn’t get a clear photo of.”

“Oh, it might be relevant?”

“It was ‘Gwir Rydhses’. I have no idea what it means yet. Google Translate can’t handle Cornish, assuming it is Cornish?”

“Write it up and someone will have a look at it.”

“Understood.”

“Well done Heather, that was a good catch.”

Sophie had been away in London with only the briefest trips back to Redruth over the past fortnight but arrived on Friday night to spend the weekend with Heather.

“Sorry, but all hell has let loose in London, and in Thurso for that matter.”

“Thurso? Do you mean Tammy Smart?”

“Yes, there was an incident at a property she’s bought. It’s been dealt with but it looks like there will be fallout. Personally I think she’s a liability.”

“You’ll have to convince Jenny of that, what did she do?”

“Nothing, nothing that would constitute a breach but she’s had no training and doesn’t know when to stop, when to step back?”

“Well that’s a management problem, giving an eighteen year old the tools but not telling her how to use them, what was the problem this time?”

“Using her privileged phone whilst the mobile networks were closed down for normal users, and being questioned about it.”

“Did she know in advance about the privileged status of her phone?”

“No.”

“When was her phone given the upgrade?”

“A month or so back, Emily authorised it.”

“Don’t blame a horse for walking out of a paddock if someone left the gate open!“

Sophie had already reported the incident to her manager, DI Emily Keane, but Heather now felt obliged to do the same, even though it hadn’t been her incident. Jenny supplied a one word response: “Noted”.

That didn’t help Heather one jot, but there was no point in arguing over the facts, Tammy’s training was slated for the summer, after she finished school, and nothing could be done before that.

Their first task on Saturday morning was to collect the keys to the next door cottage from the estate agency. It didn’t currently have a name and indeed wouldn’t need a name as the front door to that half of the building wouldn’t be in use.

Their finances had been taken care of two weeks earlier so, apart from a few signatures there was no formality.

“Please come back when you’re ready to move on, whenever that may be?”

The next stop was Tesco for the weekly shopping although, as usual, the pair had no idea about their schedule for the next seven days. What Heather did know was that a crew would start work in just over a week so make the modifications the girls had requested. Someone else was handing the little things such as building permits, or regs as they were locally known, and an architect had drawn up details of load bearing supports that would be required once a wall was taken down.

This confused Heather as there originally hadn’t been a wall dividing the ground floor of the cottage. It had been explained simply.

“Maybe not, but there’s now two dividing walls on the upper floor, so what’s to keep them from crashing through the ceiling?”

“Oh.”

“We’ll use seasoned oak, not steel, so you won’t notice it.”

“You’re the experts.”

“Indeed, Miss Young.”

They were back in the kitchen with the bulging bags when Sophie’s mobile rang, she walked into the lounge to take the call, returning a few minutes later.

“That was Miss Smart, I get the feeling that trouble follows her around?”

“This time?”

“There’s a device under her father’s car and the bomb squad are on the way. I spoke to the local Inspector and made certain he was aware that there could be a terrorist aspect. He’s known to Miss Smart.”

“What do we do?”

“Nothing, Heather. They’re over seven hundred miles away, let the local officers handle it. How about lunch?”

“Lunch?”

“Yes, food. There’s nothing we can do right now, but perhaps you can tell me why Emily asked about that fort in Mount’s Bay?”

Heather retold her report from two days earlier.

“Is that it?”

“Err, no.”

“Come on Heather, I don’t play ‘twenty questions’.”

“I have a nagging feeling the issue is much bigger than I’ve seen so far.”

“But you’re not an investigator, you’re an analyst.”

“There’s overlap, like a Venn diagram.”

“Right, but you can’t get on the fort and right now there’s no evidence of anything criminal having taken place?”

“Shots fired?”

“An air gun perhaps, or even just a noise that sounded like shots? If we responded with armed officers to every such report in London we’d need double the number of teams.”

“I suppose so.”

“Good, how about lunch?”

-o-

Heather could see Sophie was getting twitchy as the kitchen table was cleared.

“Phone her, get an update; it’s been an hour.”

Sophie stayed within earshot and dialled Tammy’s number. She spoke for a moment and Heather heard the name Trethgarwyn mentioned. She waited for Sophie to close the call.

“Trethgarwyn?”

“There’s a PC up there with that name, says he’s from Cornwall.”

“Possibly the family from the Scilly Isles?”

“I’d put money on it, it’s a rare name.”

“Especially in the Highlands of Scotland?”

“Indeed, anyway the device was a tracker and apparently the police have a journalist in custody. He was doing a story on the late George Small.”

“So not about Tammy?”

“Not directly, but you can’t assume anything. Anyway, it sounds like there’s a new problem up there but the Smarts are safe.”

“Such as?”

“Nothing for us to be concerned with. How about you walk me through your evidence about the fort?”

"Sure."