The Smuggler's Daughter Read online

I threw my head back in despair. ‘We are no match for Morgan,’ I croaked.

  ‘We can stop him together,’ Arthur said. ‘I love you, Emily, and you love me, and together we can stop him.’

  He kissed me and I kissed him back firmly. I hoped he was right because it seemed like we were taking on an enormous fight that I wasn’t sure we could win.

  Chapter 30

  Phoebe

  2019

  The cellar door was slightly ajar, so I could hear Liv’s conversation with her mum clearly. Luckily, she was a walker and talker – she always wandered around while she chatted – so I lurked behind the door until I heard her voice fade away and then I slid round and into the hall of the pub and shut the door behind me. My head was spinning and all I knew was that I wanted to speak to Liv, tell her what I’d found and what I suspected. I sat down on the stairs and waited for her to finish her phone call.

  When she wandered back out into the hall, she jumped to see me there. ‘God, Phoebe. Where did you come from?’

  I looked at her wondering how to explain everything. ‘I’ve been for a run,’ I said.

  ‘I can see that.’ She leaned on the bannister and examined me carefully. ‘You were gone ages. Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m fine. Liv, I need to speak to you …’

  ‘Fancy a coffee?’ she said. ‘A nice one from the proper machine in the bar?’

  I nodded mutely, still trying to work out what to say. How did you tell your best friend she may have inadvertently – or even, I winced thinking of her credit card bill, deliberately – got mixed up with something criminal?

  Liv’s phone rang loudly, making us both jump. She glanced at the screen. ‘Regional manager,’ she groaned. ‘Probably wants sales figures. Might take a while. Jump in the shower and I’ll put the machine on.’

  I nodded and she answered the call. ‘Des, I thought you might call today.’

  Slowly I got to my feet and went upstairs to shower. I took my time washing my hair, thinking about everything that had happened and trying to piece it all together. And the thing I kept coming back to – ridiculous and far-fetched as it sounded – was Emily Moon and the smugglers. It just all seemed to fit – tunnels and ghost stories and all that. What if this was the same thing? But a twenty-first-century version. Modern-day smugglers – an organised crime gang, bringing in something illegal from abroad.

  I rubbed shampoo into my hair and thought about what they could be smuggling. Drugs was the obvious choice, but perhaps it was firearms? Or even people. I shivered even though the water was warm. Could they be people traffickers? Fleecing desperate refugees out of their life savings in return for dangerous passage to a remote part of the UK? Urgh. This was awful. I felt my heart rate rising and tried to breathe evenly and concentrate on the smell of the shampoo and the feeling of the water on my skin.

  I had no reason to think anything like this, I told myself sternly. Liv was right: just because there were bad people in the world, didn’t mean everyone was bad. But try as I might to be rational, I kept coming back to smuggling. I knew I had to speak to Liv, because it seemed like she was involved somehow – though I was convinced she would never have agreed to anything illegal. I knew her. She was mouthy and streetwise but she was a good person. She’d never done anything dodgy; I was sure of that.

  I turned the water off and dried myself, wondering what she would say if I presented her with my suspicions. She wouldn’t be overly impressed, I thought, remembering how she’d reacted when I’d tried to arrest Jan’s purse-borrowing husband. And if she was involved somehow, I would have to make sure I didn’t point fingers. Liv was inclined to be defensive if she thought she’d got something wrong. I would say I’d found the tunnel and perhaps someone was using it for something dodgy. Perhaps I could suggest going to the local police. Give her a way out. That would work.

  I pulled on jeans and a T-shirt, and dragged a brush through my damp hair, then wandered back downstairs to find Liv. She was behind the bar, fiddling with the coffee machine.

  ‘Cappuccino?’

  ‘Yes please.’

  I perched on a stool and leaned on my hands. ‘How was Des?’

  ‘Not as annoyed as I’d expected.’ She made a face. ‘He said he knows it’s a tough location and to hang in there.’

  ‘Well, that’s positive.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Liv. But she didn’t sound very sure. ‘Chocolate?’

  I nodded and she sprinkled some cocoa on top of my cappuccino with a flourish, then pushed it across the bar towards me. ‘What did you want to talk about?’

  ‘You’re going to think it sounds crazy,’ I said.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I found a …’

  Liv turned the handle on the coffee machine to steam the milk and my words were lost in the hissing and bubbling.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, turning it off again. ‘Say that again. You found a …?’

  ‘Tunnel. On the beach.’

  Liv raised an eyebrow. ‘You went on the beach?’

  ‘There’s a path down from the cliff. It’s really steep, though, and a bit hairy in places. But I was down there, and I found a tunnel. It goes from the beach, up through the cliff to the pub cellar.’

  ‘I know,’ Liv said.

  I stared at her over the top of my coffee froth. ‘You know?’

  ‘Of course I know. Well, I know there’s a door in the cellar, so it had to go somewhere. But I assumed it wasn’t used. The door looks like it hasn’t been opened in years.’

  ‘I literally just came through it.’

  ‘Really?’ She looked alarmed. ‘I should check that, because having an unlocked door will get me in trouble with the insurance.’

  I couldn’t believe how blasé she was being about all this.

  ‘Liv,’ I said. ‘Aren’t you worried?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About the tunnel?’

  She made a face. ‘No. Should I be?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because of the smugglers.’

  ‘Phoebe, my love, you’re sounding a big unhinged. What smugglers? What are you talking about?’

  ‘I think that back in Emily Moon’s time, the smugglers used the tunnel to bring contraband in through the pub.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘What if it’s still happening?’

  ‘Smugglers?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Like pirates with barrels of beer on their shoulders and those three-cornered hats?’

  ‘No,’ I was sounding unhinged to my own ears now too. ‘Present-day smugglers.’

  ‘Smuggling what?’

  ‘I don’t know for sure and I’ve never worked in major crimes. Drugs? People?’

  ‘I hope they are smuggling people – maybe they’ll stay for a drink,’ Liv said. She started clearing away our coffee cups, obviously fed up with the conversation.

  ‘I think we should go to the police,’ I said desperately.

  Liv stared at me. ‘What?’

  ‘I think we should go and say we found the tunnel and someone’s clearly using it for dodgy reasons and they should investigate.’

  ‘Phoebe …’ Liv began, then she stopped.

  ‘I know it sounds crazy,’ I said. ‘I know that. But I really believe something bad’s happening here. What about the Watsons disappearing like that?’

  ‘They had a family emergency.’

  ‘And now the tunnel.’

  ‘It’s, like, a thousand years old.’

  ‘But it’s obviously been used recently.’

  ‘Probably just kids,’ Liv said. ‘Think about how much we’d have loved somewhere cool like that to hang out when we were teenagers. Somewhere to stash our fags and the booze we sneaked out of our parents’ house.’

  I nodded. That was true. Maybe Liv had a point. But I couldn’t rest.

  ‘You said yourself it was weird that the pub’s still open,’ I said. ‘You said you didn’t understand
it.’

  ‘It’s scheduled for redevelopment.’ Liv started stacking the cups in the glasswasher at the end of the bar. ‘They want to keep it open until the work starts so people don’t forget about it. It’s going to be a gastropub, I think. A destination venue.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really. It’s all happening, Des said the plans have gone in to the council.’

  I felt unsettled and odd, as though the ground was shifting below my feet. Because everything Liv said made perfect sense. All of it. Except I knew Ewan had phoned Liv and she’d been in the cellar and had told him it was sorted. And I knew that I’d seen Jed and Mark on the beach. It was like pieces of a jigsaw all slotting into place. I opened my mouth to tell Liv what I’d seen and then shut it again. For some reason, I didn’t want her to know that I’d watched them down below the cliffs. Liv was looking at me, worry in her eyes. ‘Phoebe, are you okay? You’re acting so weird.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I snapped. ‘It’s not me who’s weird.’

  She raised an eyebrow. ‘Who?’

  ‘Ewan.’

  ‘Phoebe, he’s not some local crime lord. He’s a bloke who knows people, that’s all.’

  ‘I just have a feeling …’

  ‘Like you had a feeling about that kid in Kirrinporth?’ Liv said. I winced at the memory of the child’s mother yelling at me. ‘Or the bloke who was stealing a purse in the pub?’ I flinched again and Liv’s face softened. ‘You’re still not right, Phoebe,’ she said softly. ‘That business at work. And that’s fine. It was a horrible thing to happen and I think once you’re back on your feet and back at work you’ll be a better police officer than you were before. But for now you’re wobbly and you’re crazy suspicious about people who aren’t doing anything wrong. You’re just jumping to conclusions and spending too much time researching Emily Moon.’

  I bit my lip. Maybe she was right. I knew that I’d made mistakes. And yet I was really sure about this. ‘I just think we should tell the police,’ I said.

  Liv nodded. ‘I know, love,’ she said. ‘But you’ll go in to the police station, and you’ll speak to someone and you’ll tell them your name and they’ll check you out and they’ll find out you’re a police officer who’s off sick with what I think might be some sort of PTSD, and …’

  She trailed off but I understood what she was saying. In fact, with a flash of insight I saw myself as she was seeing me. Fragile and suspicious and getting everything wrong. Perhaps Mark and Jed had just been exploring the beach. Perhaps they knew about the tunnel and just wanted to see it for themselves. There was an explanation for everything. I nodded. ‘Sorry,’ I whispered.

  Liv smiled. ‘It’s not your fault,’ she said. ‘Just take some time out, relax, and let me get on with running the pub, eh?’

  ‘Okay.’ I got down from the bar stool where I’d been sitting. ‘I think I might go and watch some Homes Under the Hammer.’

  Liv grabbed me as I went past and pulled me into a hug. ‘You’ll be all right soon,’ she said. ‘You’ll be better again.’

  I felt close to tears suddenly. I wriggled out of her embrace and blew her a kiss. ‘Got to get on,’ I said. ‘I think they’re doing a country cottage today. Might get some ideas for the pub refurb.’

  Slowly, I climbed the stairs to the living room, feeling sad and confused. An hour or so on the sofa watching people rip up manky carpets and pull out avocado bathroom suites would make me feel better.

  I curled up on the couch and turned on the TV. Outside, the sky was darkening – again – over the sea but it felt cosy in the lounge, hearing the sound of Liv bustling about downstairs. I must have fallen asleep because I woke later on to see Homes Under the Hammer had finished and been replaced with the lunchtime news. There were voices coming from the bar, which meant there were customers – good news for once. I would wash my face and head down to give Liv a hand, I decided.

  I plodded out on to the landing and stopped as I heard Liv say my name. Peering over the bannister to reply, I saw she wasn’t calling to me as I’d thought, but instead she had her back to the stairs and was talking to someone I couldn’t see, about me.

  ‘Phoebe’s seeing things that aren’t there,’ she was saying. I frowned. Why was she discussing me with a customer? ‘She’s fine.’

  I leaned over a bit further to see who Phoebe was talking to, and wasn’t remotely surprised to see Ewan Logan, leaning against the wall.

  ‘Just make sure she’s not going to bother us,’ he said. He spoke in a way that sounded casual but there was an edge to his voice that made the hairs on the back of my neck stick up. ‘It’s up to you to stop her.’

  ‘She’s fine,’ Liv said again, but she sounded less sure this time. I drew myself back, away from the bannister so I could still hear, but not be seen. Liv, though, was finished. ‘I need to get on, Ewan,’ she said.

  ‘Just do it.’

  ‘I will.’

  I heard the door to the bar open and close as they both went back to the pub and I stayed where I was for a moment, taking some deep breaths. What was happening here? Suddenly I wanted to get out of there. Away from The Moon Girl and the cliffs and Ewan bloody Logan and all my worries about what they were doing. I needed a distraction. I would go to the library and find out some more about Emily Moon, I thought. I would take my laptop and use their Wi-Fi and do some proper research.

  Feeling marginally calmer, I went into the bedroom to get my stuff. It was only as I was stuffing my laptop into a bag that I noticed that Liv’s belongings had all gone. Curious, I picked up my bag and went across the hall into the master bedroom. We’d packed up all the Watsons’ bits and pieces but it still felt like someone else’s room. That clearly didn’t bother Liv, though. Her suitcase was on the end of the bed, her trainers were on the floor, and her dressing gown was hanging on the back of the door. She’d moved bedrooms.

  It didn’t matter in the slightest, of course. And in fact it made perfect sense. Two women in their thirties were really past the stage of sharing a bedroom. But I couldn’t help wondering why she’d done it and if our conversation earlier had anything to do with it.

  I turned to go, and noticed on her bedside table was her bracelet. The one with the dove on it, which I’d bought her for her twenty-first birthday. It was curled on the top of the table like a little silver snake. I reached out and touched it gently. She never took it off. Never. Just like I never took off my moon necklace. It was a symbol of our friendship, and our loyalty to each other. But here it was. I felt tears prickle my eyes. What was happening here?

  Chapter 31

  Still upset about the bracelet, I thought about shouting to Liv to tell her I was going into Kirrinporth and then changed my mind. I didn’t want to see her or Ewan Logan. So I put on my shoes, grabbed my waterproof jacket, slung my bag on to my shoulder, then I ran down the stairs and out of the side door.

  Outside, the drizzle clung to my face, but I didn’t mind. I felt like it was waking me up. I walked at a good pace, all the way into the village. I was thinking about anything but what was going on with Liv and Ewan Logan and how badly I’d misjudged Jed. I just wanted to distract myself for a while and I thought reading some more history might do the trick.

  But as I got into the village, my eye was caught by the tiny police station on the main road. It was just a shopfront really; a small neighbourhood office where tourists could report lost phones, or local people could ask for advice on home security.

  I stopped walking, looking at the posters in the window for Crimestoppers. How many times had I despaired that people hadn’t reported something suspicious? How many times had I thought why didn’t you tell someone? Well now it was me who was suspicious and me who had to tell someone.

  Quickly, before I had time to change my mind, I crossed the road and pushed open the door. Inside it was dim and quiet. There was a counter with a long Perspex window like in the post office, to stop anyone leaping over I assumed, and racks of leaflets about window locks,
or bike registration. To one side was a bell with a sign saying please ring for attention.

  I would just say that I’d seen some suspicious activity on the beach, I thought. I’d not mention the pub, or name any names. Just suggest they should have a look down on the sand. With my approach worked out, I pressed the bell.

  It took a second for anyone to answer then I heard a door open and a man appeared behind the window. As he emerged into the gap in the window, my heart sank. It was the police officer who’d been there when I had the incident with the little girl. I closed my eyes briefly, hoping he wouldn’t recognise me, but he was already smiling.

  ‘Hello there,’ he said. ‘Come to report another crime have you?’

  I opened my mouth to speak but he’d not finished. ‘So we’ve done the child kidnapped by her mother. What about the dog being dognapped by its owner?’ He chuckled, pleased with his own joke.

  ‘I made a mistake,’ I said, not laughing.

  ‘Lighten up,’ he said. ‘It’s just banter.’

  Glaring at him, I said: ‘There is something …’

  ‘You’re staying at the pub, aren’t you?’ he said suddenly. ‘The Moon Girl?’

  I nodded and he grinned again. ‘I heard someone made a citizen’s arrest on a fella for nicking his wife’s purse.’

  I forced myself not to react. ‘Really? I didn’t hear that.’

  He looked at me carefully. ‘No?’

  ‘No.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘So what did you want to say?’

  I couldn’t tell him anything now, could I? I couldn’t blurt out some vague suspicions about dodgy dealings on the beach, without sounding like I’d had one too many drinks. Unless I told him I was in the police. But like Liv said, as soon as he looked me up, he’d see what had happened and realise I was signed off sick. It wouldn’t take long for him to realise it was my mental health that was an issue, as I was quite clearly fine physically and he was already questioning the way I’d reacted to things. He could even, I thought, take it on himself to report any concerns about me. And that could possibly harm my return to work.