He held up a polythene envelope of white powder.

“What is it?” she said foolishly.

“We’ll need Forensic to test it,” he said, “but it looks like heroin.”

Chapter Five

Most of the trippers who explored the narrow road signposted to Porthkennan were disappointed and turned back before they reached Myrtle Cottage. At first there was little to see. Grey, sheep-cropped moorland rose away from the seaward side of the road, so there were no views of cliffs or water, and the colour of the hillside made it seem always to be in shadow. The monotony of the landscape was broken by granite outcrops, huge and brooding against the sky. After a mile there was a turn in the road and then a row of derelict cottages, windowless, with holes in the roofs and the distinctive chimneys of a disused tin mine. The scene of industrial decay so close to the road had nothing in common with the picture-postcard Cornwall of thatched cottages and cream teas. The trippers thought they had reached Porthkennan and turned back to the main road with relief.

But beyond the abandoned hamlet the lane turned again towards the sea. Like a green scar in the bare hillside, a valley cut through the granite to the coast. Porthkennan was the name of the valley and the scattering of houses which had been built in its shelter. There was no real village, no pub, but a forest of vegetation—trees, shrubs, and large exotic flowers—which seemed to overwhelm the houses. Even in winter the place was lush and green. In the valley the light and heat seemed trapped and intensified. If it had been daytime, Claire Bingham would have seen the whitewashed walls of the houses, dark green leaves, shining blackberries, overblown roses, all with a startling clarity. Even now, in the car, they were aware of the stillness and the trees all around them. It was like driving into the jungle.

The vegetation was richest near the stream which followed the valley to a small cove. There the water trickled through smooth boulders as big as a child, and across shingle and sand to the waves.

Louis Rosco’s cottage was almost on the beach, as lifeless from the outside as one of the miners’ cottages on the moor. It had no main electricity, and the water was collected from the roof in a tank. The fishermen in Heanor wondered how he could bear to live there.

Rose Pengelly’s place was much grander. Myrtle Cottage was near the head of the valley. Once a small farmhouse and two cottages had stood on the site, but the house had been converted by a previous owner. It was long, predominantly single-storeyed. It faced the sea. Behind it the stream flowed through the garden, and by its side was the barn which Rose had turned into hostel accommodation for birdwatchers.