'I'm just taking Pryce down to the end of the Mermaid.' Manack answered, 'I'll be right back.'
'Okay. We'll have the other two cases up by then.'
We stood aside to let the trolley with its load of two cases pass The sound of it dwindled in a hollow rumble as the light of their lamps disappeared round a bend.
The sound of the sea became louder as we descended the sloping tunnel. The dank, salt-laden air grew colder. Round another bend we came suddenly on a patch of daylight — a cold, grey light that was barely strong enough to reveal the black, slime-streaked walls. 'One of the old shafts,' Manack said as we paused, looking up a sloping cleft in the wet rock. Green, half-rotten ladders were pegged to the rock, snaking up through the gloom to the bright light that filtered down from above. The rock cleft sloped so many ways that it was impossible to see the top. 'This is the way my father comes into the mine. Sometimes he uses the gig, but not often. Personally, I wouldn't trust myself on those ladders. They've been there since before the war. The shaft is part of the really early workings of the mine. It's not shown on any of the plans and was only discovered after — after a nasty accident.'
'You mean when Mrs Manack was killed? Was this the shaft?'
He looked at me quickly. His face looked pale in the grey half-light. 'Yes,' he said. 'You know about that?'
I nodded. 'Friar told me,' I said.
'Friar talks too much.' He stared up the shaft.'She was my stepmother. I only met her once. A pretty little woman. They had to put ladders down to get her up. Her body was about halfway down. My father explored and opened up the rest of the shaft later. You wouldn't think a man would prefer the shaft where his wife was killed to the hoist, would you now? It's almost as though he dares the shaft to kill him, too.' He gave a harsh laugh and turned away.
As I followed him down towards the growing sound of the sea, I said, 'Your father is very interested in the mine, isn't he?'
'Interested! He's mad about it. He eats, sleeps and dreams Wheal Garth. He thinks of nothing else. Worked in it when he was a kid. Swore he'd own it one day. Now he does, every single share — except what the girl, Kitty, owns. That must have riled him.' He laughed. The sound of it echoed against the walls of the adit. 'The woman who was killed in that shaft was her mother. A few weeks before her death, Harriet Manack made a fresh will, leaving everything she possessed, which was mostly worthless holdings in Wheal Garth, to Kitty — or that's the story. My father never talks about it.'