Filmed in Redcliffe Caves 27 October 2016
https://www.centurion.lu/productions/lauramarlin
Dead Man's Cove
90 minutes (3 X 30 minutes)
Laura Marlin, an orphan has gone to live with her uncle, Calvin Redfern, who lives in St Ives, Cornwall. Her uncle, a handsome, haunted figure, is as kind as he is mysterious. He astounds her by telling her he doesn’t believe in rules and gives her £20 so Laura takes herself out for breakfast. There is a dogfight outside the café, a thin Asian boy calmly separates the animals. Later, Laura witnesses what she assumes is his father, Mr Mukhtar, a respected local store- owner, hitting him across the head.
Mrs Crabtree, her eccentric elderly neighbour, claims that Tariq, Mrs Mukhtar’s adopted son, is treated like a slave by the Mukhtars, working round the clock in their shop. When Laura sees bruises on his arms, she asks him about them, but he makes an excuse. Soon afterwards, the Mukhtars tell her Tariq never wants to see her again and finds her boring. Tariq, now dressed in smart clothes, admits its true.
After she and her Uncle find a playing card on the front steps he asks her again about Tariq and, in view of the card and the fact that Mrs Webb, the housekeeper, was probably a Straight A plant in league with the Mukhtars, thinks that the boy might have been kidnapped. Later she opens the door to a gang member disguised as a delivery driver. She’s kidnapped and taken to a boat off shore. Tariq has also been captured.
Their captors are in league with the Mukthars to bring an initial 20 children to the UK to work as child labour in a tapestry factory. On a freezing dark beach, the children are unloaded. Dead Man’s Cove is passable for only a short period a couple of times a year, during the Lowest Astronomical Tide (LAT), and the kidnappers are running behind. Forced by the gangsters, the children have to walk the length of the dripping, icy-cold tunnel by torchlight. Though petrified themselves, Laura and Tariq try to comfort them. As the tunnel begins to flood, the captors flee, leaving the children to drown. There is a high ladder. Laura and Tariq help all of the children up, but they know that one of them will have to stay behind.