Read on for an exclusive extract from the chilling new psychological thriller from S. K. Tremayne
Morvellan Mine is an invention. It is, however, clearly based on the spectacular and historic mines scattered along the rugged cliffs of West Penwith, Cornwall. The tin and copper mines of Botallack, Geevor and the Levant were particular inspirations.
Tin has been extracted from Cornwall for maybe four thousand years. At the age of ten my maternal grandmother Annie Jory worked as a ‘bal maiden’ – a girl employed to crush rocks with a hammer – in the rich mines of St Agnes, North Cornwall.
This book is, therefore, written in memory of my Cornish ancestors: farmers, fishermen, smugglers and miners.
I would like to thank, as ever, Eugenie Furniss, Jane Johnson, Sarah Hodgson, Kate Elton and Anne O’Brien for their wise advice and many editorial insights. My thanks also to Sophie Hannah.
The photos in the book, of historic Cornish mining scenes, were taken by the Cornish photographer, John Charles Burrow (1852–1914). The images date from the 1890s, when Burrow was commissioned by the owners of four of Cornwall’s deepest mines, Dolcoath, East Pool, Cook’s Kitchen and Blue Hills, to capture scenes of life underground.
The original photographs are now kept at the Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro, England.
Morning
The tunnels go under the sea. It’s a thought I can’t easily dismiss. The tunnels go under the sea. For a mile, or more.
I’m standing in the Old Dining Room, where the windows of my enormous new home face north: towards the Atlantic, and the cliffs of Penwith, and a silhouetted blackness. This dark twinned shape is Morvellan Mine: the Shaft House, and the Engine House.
Even on a cloudless June day, like today, the ruins of Morvellan look obscurely sad, or oddly reproachful. It’s like they are trying to tell me something, yet they cannot and will not. They are eloquently muted. The rough-house Atlantic makes all the noise, the booming waves riding the tides above the tunnels.
‘Rachel?’
I turn. My new husband stands in the doorway. His shirt is blinding white, his suit is immaculate, nearly as dark as his hair, and the weekend’s stubble has gone.
‘Been looking for you everywhere, darling.’
‘Sorry. I’ve been wandering. Exploring. Your amazing house!’
‘Our house, darling. Ours.’
He smiles, comes close, and we kiss. It’s a morning kiss, a going-to-work-kiss, not meant to lead anywhere –
