Chapter 13 – The Case III

"Right," Louisa was saying into her mobile while I drove my Lexus at a fast, but safe speed, towards the old mine. "Pipper? You sure? Uh, huh. Bloody kids!" she sighed. "We'll have to sort that lot, later. I know, I know…. trying to civilize them is never easy."

I intruded with, "What's she saying?" Pippa Woodley had been left in charge at school when we left for the Marrak place. Louisa had called her to grill Frank's class, so perhaps there was some indication now of what this was about. Why did Frank skip from school?

"Shush, Martin." She looked up. "Turn here, Martin, no, no! The second right, and then take the next left, I think. It's been years since I been out this way."

I wrenched the wheel, turning the car down the narrow lane, which was lined with tumbledown stone walls. Then we passed through a tunnel of tree branches, and there was the left-hand turning ahead. Then the vista opened to a moonscape scattered with stone; foundations and ruined walls, none more than three feet high. Piles of broken rock were scattered about. It looked like a bomb had gone off.

Louisa nodded approval and then pointed ahead. "Just there, Martin. See the white, uhm, thingy? Stop over there."

"Yes." The object she was pointing to looked like a white pyramid of metal, streaked with rust. I stopped the car fifty feet or so away from the thing, as close as I could get on open ground.

"Stop here, Martin. Pipper, we just arrive at the mine," she announced. She opened the door and got out, grunting at the effort. I followed her.

As I looked around it struck me that the place was a monument to the Industrial Revolution as well as to whoever said, 'there is something that doesn't love a wall.' Time and the elements had worked their will on the place. Even the few bushes and shrubs looked beaten down and defeated. I kicked at the ground with my shoe and the ground was a mostly light grey gravel, mixed with dust, and as hardpacked as any tarmac. Broken struts of rusty steel lay here and there, proving this had once been an industrial site, I supposed.

As I looked around the place, I didn't see anyone there, but I called out anyway. "Frank Marrak! Frank! It's Dr. Ellingham and Miss Glasson! Frank! Where are you?" I bellowed. My voice echoed slightly then died away, "No answer."

Louisa walked around a scrub tree and went from sight. "Martin!" I heard her call.

"Louisa?" I ran towards the sound of her voice. Rounding the vegetation, I saw her standing over a child's bicycle.

"You think this is Franks?" she asked.

"Hm. Penhale said it was red. This one is red."

Louisa went back to her mobile, which she'd left operating. "Pipper! We found Frank's bike." She looked around. "It'll be dark soon enough." She stared at me. "We'll need help."

A crunching of gravel and sound of engine and brakes announced PC Penhale's arrival. He had been following my car but had disappeared somewhere in the last ten minutes.

Joe got out of the Rover. "Doc, Louisa. Sorry. Got lost back there. You can't believe how one farm road looks like the other." He peered around. "Desolate place. I remember comin' out here as a boy. Hasn't changed much. We used to shoot rabbits over that way," he pointed.

"Joe, we found Frank's bike!" Louisa shouted. "Come on! Over here."

Joe followed us back to it. "Hm… it is a bike," he said as he picked it up. 'Bout right for a kid of ten. But does it belong to Frank Marrak? Could be anyone's really," he said, shrugging.

I pointed to a strip of faded tape on the handlebars. "It reads F. Marrak just there."

Joe laughed. "Oh yeah. Sure, sure, sure." He set the bike back on the ground. "Missing man, uhm, boy. Right. We need to spread out." He parked his thumbs over his equipment belt. "Standard procedure is to line up arms apart." He looked around. "Now where to start?"

Louisa sighed, and put her mobile back to her ear. "Pipper! Joe's here with us at Wheal Bal. We found Frank's bike! Can you round up a few men from the village? Yep, yep. Good idea. As many as you can. Lights and things, ropes as well, just in case."

Joe shook his head, his eyes wide. "And now I'm thinking we need to look at the mine mouth." He rubbed his arms. "Spooky old place. Ugh."

"But why in Heaven's name would Frank come here?" I asked. None of this made any sense. But we were dealing with a ten-year-old who had seen some bit of trouble. But the books he had been reading gave some clue.

Louisa snapped her phone closed. "It's a dare."

"What?" I exploded.

"Some of the boys dared Frank to get a stone from the mine," Louisa barked. "Stupid, stupid, boys!" she grumbled. "Tommy Gloyne, William Davey, and John Bogan, Pipper said. The three top troublemakers in his class. And they are a bit older too. So, you know, dominance games, and frank is none too large for his age."

I pushed away my own unpleasant memories of school. "I see. Now the mine?"

Louisa grabbed my hand and started pulling. "Come on. It's under the cage."

The cage, as she called it, was a squat pyramidal structure, perhaps twenty feet square and about eight high. Made from square steel tube and wire mesh, it had been painted white at one time but was now being conquered by rust, so the thing was orange and brown in many places. The wire mesh was sagging and rotten, leaving holes small and large. The opening it guarded looked dark and foreboding.

"Why would Frank go down there? And how?" I asked.

Louisa pointed to the gravel under our feet. "Look. Here it's all a light gray. See? But down there?" She squatted down and picked up a small pebble and held it up to me. It was a darker gray, shot through with blobs that were a dull green. "This is what they were pulling up when it was a working mine. Pipper says that Frank was told to go down the shaft and bring up a piece as big as his fist that looked like this."

"Copper ore is that," Joe volunteered. He then edged warily towards the hole. "Frank? You down there?" he called nervously.

Louisa was struggling to stand, so I pulled her up to her feet. I took in the look she gave me, and she didn't want me pitying her. No, it was almost a thankful look. "Are you alright?" I asked her. She must be uncomfortable with her belly so large and delivery mere weeks off.

"Yeah. No. Will be when we find my student." Her eyes had gone wet and there was concerned wrinkle across her forehead. "Oh Frank."

I was still holding her hands, so I released her, reluctantly. Oh Louisa, if only.

She looked at me strangely, then she smoothed her cardigan and ran her hands down her belly, holding them there. Then she said, her voice quavering, "Martin, I'm afraid to get to close to look down there. What if he? If Frank's… he's, uhm, lying down there?" she almost sobbed. "Hurt, uhm or worse?"

I looked to Penhale, but he had a vacant look. The village's agoraphobic and acrophobic constable stood well back from the enclosure with arms crossed, and back rigid. His head slowly turned to look at me. "Doc… Doc. Like Louisa says, you go look."

"Oh, very well." Swallowing hard, I walked towards the void. Looking down through the mesh, especially the largest opening, which was about big enough for a boy, I saw the top of a rusted ladder. I inched forward.

"Mar-tin! Be careful!" Joe and Louisa shouted as one.

"Yeah,… right…" I muttered. From this angle I couldn't see down very far, just the far wall, so I got on hands and knees and crawled forward. It was bad as the cliff when the baker fell going after the chough eggs. Silly sod.

My mouth was dry, and the ground sloped downwards a bit, so next I got to my belly and inched forward. Now I could see the ladder going down and down into the dimness. I called down into the hole. "Frank!" All I heard back where echoes. "Frank!"

I got a pebble and dropped it over the edge, and counted seconds after release. "One, two…"

A faint "Splash." came up the shaft.

"A hundred feet," I said.

"Now how do you know how deep it is?" Penhale scoffed.

"Distance is one half the acceleration of gravity times the time squared," I said. "The pebble fell in around two and a half seconds, so that would be 100 feet, just over."

Louisa had sidled forward and nudged my foot. "Martin, here's Joe's torch, from his belt." She knelt by my knee and handed it to me.

I took it, switched the beam on and scooted forward until my eyes had advanced far enough to look straight down. Even in the daylight, the shaft was gloomy, but the torch beam lit up the bottom faintly. "I don't see… very much."

"God. Is he there?" Louisa hissed.

Joe coughed. "Oh, I hope not. Maybe he's just gone for a walk… up here. That would be better."

I waved the torch around a bit more and saw a pool of water at the bottom. "Hm… I think… I see."

"What? What do you see?" Louisa asked, and now she'd moved forward until her knees were by my waist.

"God," I rolled over. "Louisa, you're too close to the edge. Back away for God's sake! Back to safety!"

Joe hissed, "What, Doc?"

Louisa crawled backwards and I felt her pregnant belly brush against my leg; a solid, round, and water-filled football. This was no place for a pregnant teacher! As well as a child, born, or unborn.

"Tell us," she nearly begged.

I sat up, brushing at my suit coat and trousers. "There are footprints in the mud down there. And they look like child-size trainers."

Louisa grabbed my knee. "Mar-tin, you have to go find him; bring him up."

A very pregnant teacher, a policeman who was scared of nearly everything, and a surgeon turned GP. It was very clear who would have to go down that ladder. "Yes," I said. "I know."