Amanda Cadabra and The Hidey-Hole Truth Read online

  In our village, a stately dwelling is built of timber from the forest. Gardens are planted next to it, and the land around is fenced in. Cottages and a village inn spring up nearby around a triangle formed by the fork in the road. It is a patch of pasture that is called ‘the green’ and has a pond where horses, cattle and sheep can drink on the way to market. One day, humans — fearful fools who have forgotten the legacy of magic of this place — gather around it, shouting and waving their arms. They commit a heinous deed. And after that day the village becomes known as Sunken Madley.

  The stately house is none other than Sunken Madley Manor, built by Lord Dunkley, the first Baron of that name. A man and woman leave one afternoon in a horse-drawn carriage and, disappearing into the trees, do not return. Over the following decades, sometimes at night, figures are seen creeping anxiously into the house or leaving in secret.

  Passed down from generation to generation, the Manor is extended, new wings are added, sometimes with remarkable flamboyance, and then dismantled by a successive son on grounds of either health and safety or good taste. The male line of barons is broken and the lords become misters. Nearby the once feared Church grows kindly over the decades. Shops spring up. Periodically the Dunkleys sell some of their land, on which more houses appear. A school is built overlooking the village green, and the wide space of grass behind becomes the playing fields. Still, the forest shelters the village in its emerald arms. On one side, an orchard laps at the edge of its south-eastern border where there stands a lone cottage. It is often visited by the folk of Sunken Madley. Now a line of houses is being built linking the single dwelling to the centre of the village along on a lane called Orchard Row.

  Here comes a young couple, moving into that last house in Orchard Row. Their children are seen playing in the garden, growing up and leaving for the last time. Now there is another baby playing on the lawn. She too grows up, and the couple grows older. There is a car pulling up outside the house, and a man gets out. He wears a well-fitting grey suit and discreet matching tie that he straightens. After a few paces up the garden path and a short wait, he goes inside.

  Time is slowing down, and it is a full hour before he leaves. The door closes behind him. He stands at his car and thoughtfully looks up at the house. He gets in and he, none other than Detective Sergeant Thomas Trelawney, drives north to the M25, the orbital road that circles London. Sometimes he switches on the radio and listens to the traffic news. He wanders between his favourite talk and music stations, occasionally singing along. But mostly he thinks about the conversations he has had at the house in Orchard Row. He heads for the M3, the motorway that will take him to the far South East, beyond the River Tamar. This is the old border behind which lies the one-time Kingdom of the Cornovii tribe; ancient Britons forced into the corners of the mainland by the Anglo Saxons. Their descendants, the 21st century Cornish, are a different breed from their English countrymen. They are a Brythonic-speaking people. With a long history of magic.

  Chapter 5

  Gut Feeling

  Trelawney drove over the Tamar as the sun was westering. He turned toward the sea, and his journey ended in a car park next to a police station. He went inside to see his boss.

  ‘Thomas.’ Hogarth was pleased, as usual, to see Trelawney. He’d helped the criminal psychology graduate, with the light of enthusiasm in his hazel eyes and fire in his soul to change the world, to mould himself into a steady, professional detective. Now touching 40, Thomas was a credit to his mentor. The intense focus and intelligence had been leavened with patience, and Hogarth liked Thomas’s courteous way with interviewees and his flashes of humour. Hogarth had both nurtured and increasingly respected Thomas’s intuition, and that was what he needed from him now.

  Hogarth beckoned him with a welcoming wave of the hand.

  ‘Come in, close the door and sit down. Got your coffee? Good.’ He let his junior take off his suit jacket and settle himself in a chair at the side of Hogarth’s tidy-ish desk. He waited patiently, contemplating the yellow catkins on the evergreen oak beside the car park, while Thomas took a few sips of his reviving beverage.

  ‘Well now,’ began Hogarth for openers. ‘What did you make of the Cadabras?’

  Trelawney, digging his left hand into his trouser pocket, turned down the corners of his mouth. He wasn’t too sure how close his boss was to Senara and Perran. He fielded the question.

  ‘They seem like nice people.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Hogarth. He put the question another way. ‘But from a detective’s point of view … first, let’s take Mr and Mrs Cadabra. Impressions?’

  Fortified by caffeine, and feeling more confident, Trelawney recommenced.

  ‘Well, if you put it like that; Senara Cadabra is a terrifying grande dame, and Perran is an unassuming gentleman with a comforting presence. Both as shrewd as they can hold together, in their different ways. Senara is apparently a cards-on-the-table sort; very forthright about her dislike of her family and her joy at their collective demise. Perran seemed relaxed about my visit, and content with his family and life in general. In short, I didn’t learn much from them that isn’t in your file. Oh, except, horse manure needs to be cured for three years before being fed to the roses,’ he added wryly. Hogarth smiled. Thomas summarised, ‘I felt they gave me exactly what they wanted to and no more.’

  ‘How about the granddaughter?’ asked Hogarth, leaning back in his chair.

  ‘Hm. Bright … polite … friendly … but there was one thing about her. They knew I was coming; after all, you had made an appointment for me, but …’ Thomas frowned at the memory, ‘well … the old lady was precise to a pin, well dressed and not a hair out of place. Her husband was fresh from the workshop but presentable. However, the granddaughter, Amanda … boiler suit and glasses, covered in dust, hair in a mess. It was like she’d deliberately made no effort. A sort of teenage rebellion. Odd for someone who’s about 30.’ He sighed and shook his head as though to clear it. ‘Oh, it’s nothing, I’ve got it all wrong — she’s a working woman.’ He stopped speaking, feeling irked by a detail that probably was meaningless. Hogarth waited for him to continue. Trelawney resumed.

  ‘And here’s the thing that doesn’t make any sense at all. Amanda Cadabra has asthma, it’s been potentially lethal to her in the past, but she works in the worst possible conditions for it. A furniture restorer in a workshop with sawdust and fumes from toxic liquids! And none of them really explained that. I felt the old lady especially was batting away questions about it. In fact, any questions that led in any direction she didn’t want to go.’

  Trelawney remembered something else. ‘I noticed that Perran Cadabra still has a faint Cornish accent after all these years, but not Senara. I expect her family thought she was marrying beneath her.’

  ‘Perhaps when you get to know them better you can ask them about that,’ suggested his boss.

  ‘I will.’ Thomas paused, looking into his coffee cup as though for enlightenment there.

  ‘Gut feeling?’ Hogarth invited. Thomas looked up and spoke with certainty.

  ‘That they know, or at least suspect, some underlying cause that led to the minibus accident. But,’ he added regretfully, ‘I don’t think I made any progress beyond what you’ve already made, sir. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Not at all, Thomas,’ Hogarth reassured him. ‘You’ve done well. You’ve picked up what I hoped you’d pick up.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘Remember what I told you when I gave you the file for this case. You’re in this for the long game. It’s already lasted two and a half decades, and maybe goes back far further than that. You’ve only a fraction of the jigsaw pieces in that document folder, and probably you’ll find a fish-farm-full of red herrings. So starting with your instincts is the only way, and you’ve made a good beginning. Now … what else is bothering you?’

  Trelawney sat with pursed lips and creased forehead. At last, he spoke. ‘It felt so … ‘

  There was a dif
fident knock at the door, and a shapely figure could be seen through the frosted glass.

  ‘“Speak friend and enter,”’ Hogarth called out, quoting from his favourite book, The Lord of the Rings.

  A youthful policewoman came in, carrying a plate of biscuits.

  ‘Sorry to interrupt, sir, but I got these on the way back to the station and thought you might like them.’ She placed the dish on Hogarth’s desk and retreated, flashing a quick, shy smile at Trelawney.

  ‘Thank you, Constable, very considerate of you,’ Hogarth said, as she closed the door. He inspected the offering. ‘Hm. Now, what do we deduce from this, Thomas? An apparently innocent plate of biscuits. Allegedly acquired especially for my delectation. Except! What do we find? Aha. These are not my favourites. I, as is well known throughout the station, am a Hobnobs man. These, however, are …,’ pronounced Hogarth, leaning in and pretending to inspect the biscuits with a magnifying glass, ‘… shortcake. The chosen confection of … who can it be?‘

  Thomas was grinning, torn between amusement at his senior’s playful narrative and his own embarrassment.

  ‘All right, yes, I do like shortcake.’

  ‘Can we deduce from this that our fledgeling constable has a crush on you, Thomas?’

  ‘I have done nothing to encourage that, sir,’ protested Trelawney.

  ‘I don’t doubt it.’ Hogarth gestured towards the biscuits. ‘Go on, help yourself. And go on with what you were saying. I asked what else was bothering you and you said that it felt so …?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Thomas, much more at ease after the humorous interlude. ‘It felt so staged.’

  ‘Then,’ replied Hogarth, ‘I suggest next time you go back unheralded. Just drop in, when you’re on one of your trips to London. How is your mother by the way? Still living in Crouch End?’

  Thomas’s mood lightened. ‘She’s well, thank you. Yes, still there.’

  ‘And your aunt?’

  ‘Just the same: still loathes my father, as all the London lot do.’

  ‘But they’re very fond of you. And it does you good to go up there as often as you can. You always come back a new man,’ observed Hogarth. ‘You know … I could call in a few favours and get you posted to Hertfordshire. I know you don’t get on with your father’s bunch in these parts.’

  Thomas shook his head. ‘I appreciate the offer, sir. But you’re retiring in a couple of weeks, and this is unfinished business, isn’t it? My place is here until this case is, not just closed but, solved,’ he said with determination.

  ‘Hmm, the sentiment does you credit, Thomas. We’ll see. Bide your time. Let them smooth their feathers for a few months, think you’ve forgotten all about them. I tell you what: let me tip you off when the time is right.’

  ‘Even after you’ve retired, sir?’

  ‘You know I’ll keep in touch. My cottage is just up the road. Not going anywhere for the time being. And I meant what I said, come and see me whenever you want.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. It’ll be pretty often then.’ Thomas drained his cup.

  ‘Good,’ approved Hogarth.

  Trelawney got up and headed for the door. He turned. ‘So you’ll tell me when to visit them again?’

  ‘Yes. But you may have caused some ripples. So, for now, let the waters calm.’

  Chapter 6

  The First Sign

  It is the day after the ‘accident’. A 12-year-old boy is buying a newspaper at London’s Paddington Station, where his mother, newly divorced, has just dropped him off. The headline has caught his eye: ‘Mysterious Death of Cornish Family’. Bound for his father’s home in Cornwall, he takes the Great Western Railway to Plymouth. Before the train passes over the Wessex Downs, he knows what his future career will be.

  ***

  Shortly after Amanda was orphaned, Senara and Perran had formally applied to become first her guardians and then to adopt her. They had received visits from two sets of social workers to assess their suitability for the role of permanent legal carers. The second pair, a woman in a tight blue suit and a man with odd socks, came only once. They observed Amanda carefully, looked at her eyes and asked about her development.

  ‘Anything unusual?’ Blue-suit had asked earnestly, holding her hands a few inches either side of Amanda’s body, as though trying to detect any aura emanating from the child.

  ‘Unusual? In my granddaughter?’ Senara had responded with outrage. But the pair had seemed convinced that Amanda was a tediously normal infant, and soon left.

  Eventually, the adoption papers were signed. Amanda became Amanda Cadabra, both the legal child and the natural grandchild of Senara and Perran. Amanda, whom Perran, from the time of her birth, had called his bian, Cornish for baby, truly became his.

  Amanda’s asthma continued to trouble her. She tried attending nursery school, but was disorientated, distressed and off sick so often that Senara and Perran decided to educate her themselves at home. Granny had had a university education, and Grandpa was well versed in any number of practical skills, so they were more than qualified. Amanda was relieved, and happy with the arrangement. She felt shy and awkward around her peers, lacking the physical stamina for their games. Being of above average intelligence and used to interacting with her grandparents, she found children of her own age strange, confusing and exhausting.

  Each day, Amanda got up, had breakfast with her grandparents, then moved between the workshop with Grandpa, when it was clean enough, and the dining room with Granny where they would sit and pursue whatever subject was firing her interest. The grandparents regarded themselves as facilitators rather than teachers. They threw themselves into designing games and finding books and places to take little Amanda where she could sponge up whatever data she was currently craving.

  Over the next three years, Amanda’s asthma worsened, and life was dominated by prescriptions, nebulisers, inhalers, emergency visits to Barnet General Hospital and appointments with specialists at the Royal Brompton allergy clinic. There were tests for dust, feathers, mites, milk, dander, chalk and cheese. Amanda's workshop time was strictly limited, and the space had to be thoroughly vacuumed first. Even her two plush teddy bears, Honey and Marmalade, had to take it in frequent turns to go for a spin in the washing machine and spend some time drying on the radiator.

  And so life continued, with asthma and education, until, what they came to call, ‘The Day of the Mustard Spoon.’

  It happened at the polished oak dining table. Amanda was 6 years old and liked English mustard with her bacon in the mornings. Granny served the thick, savoury, yellow paste in a little green-glazed earthenware container that had its own tiny beechwood spoon. That day, Granny had laid the clean mini ladle on the table beyond the mustard pot where it happened to be just out of Amanda’s reach. Perran watched Amanda stretch out her little hand. Senara was just about to tell her not to reach across the table … when they saw it. All else was still. No one had shaken the solid piece of furniture they were eating on. But two inches from Amanda’s fingers, the spoon … rocked. The couple froze with shock. It was the first sign.

  With every appearance of being at ease, Senara picked up the wooden implement and handed it to Amanda, as if she had noticed nothing unusual.

  Later, when their granddaughter was tucked up asleep in her bedroom under the eves, Perran and Senara were free to talk.

  ‘I couldn’t believe my eyes, Perran,’ Senara said, bringing the pudding dishes into the kitchen.

  ‘She has it, all right. After all.’ Perran had made a start on the washing up from dinner.

  ‘Very unusual for it to take six years to show itself,’ remarked Senara.

  ‘Very lucky, I’d say,’ said her husband.

  ‘True,’ she agreed with feeling, picking up a dishcloth and disappearing into the dining room to wipe the table.

  ‘The main thing is,’ said Perran on her return,’ that it didn’t upset her. The bian’s perfectly natural with it. She didn’t think anything of it. And now i
t’s started it’s not going to go away anytime soon.’ He took the dishcloth from his wife and passed her a towel. ‘I think we should start her training tomorrow.’

  Granny was less relaxed than her husband. ‘You know where this could lead.’ She wiped her hands anxiously. ‘And do we tell her? Surely not. Then what do we say to her?’

  ‘Now, there’s no need to be agitated, Senara. There might not be any threat at all. At least, not immediately. We tell her just enough,’ replied Perran ‘Begin by explaining to her what she is and see how she takes it.’

  ‘She’ll have a lot of questions,’ Senara warned him, taking up a tea towel and drying the cutlery.

  ‘That’s all right. But I’ll bet she’ll love it, and she’ll lap it up.’

  ‘That’s just what worries me.’

  ‘Then teach her control right from the start,’ suggested Perran. ‘Like I taught her with the tools in the workshop. Health and Safety for Witchcraft,’ he joked.

  Senara gave a half-smile. She considered for a few moments, as she slotted the knives carefully into the block, then said confidently, ‘All right. Let’s be positive. She’s as sharp as a tack. Give Amanda a rule and she’ll remember it, and she’ll keep it.’ She paused and said, hope rising, ‘Yes, dear, we just have to tell her to keep it secret. Very secret.’

  ‘No need to worry her with why, love,' added Perran, 'It may be that the danger has long passed.’

  The following morning, with the autumn sun slanting into the living room, the grandparents sat Amanda down on the sofa, her feet leaning against a needlepoint covered stool, and Granny beside her.