Careless in Red

Chapter Thirteen

DOWNSTAIRS, BEA FOUND THE NAMED TAMMY PENRULE SITTING in one of the plastic reception chairs, her feet flat on the floor, her hands clasped in her lap, her back a plane perpendicular to the seat. She was dressed in black, but she wasn’t a Goth, as Bea first suspected when she caught sight of her. She wore no makeup, no hideous black nail enamel, and she had no silver protrusions erupting from various points on her head. She also wore no jewellery, and nothing else relieved the midnight of her clothes. She looked like mourning made flesh.

“Tammy Penrule?” Bea said to her, unnecessarily.

The girl jumped to her feet. She was thin as workhouse gruel. One couldn’t look at her without considering eating disorders.

“You’ve got information for me?” When the girl nodded, Bea said, “Come with me, then,” before she realised she had not yet located the interview rooms at the station. Stumbling about wasn’t going to inspire confidence in anyone, so she reversed herself, said, “Hang on a moment,” and found a cubbyhole next to a broom closet that would do until further exploration of the station might provide its secret as to the site of interrogations.

When she had Tammy Penrule situated in this spot, she said to her, “What’ve you got to tell me?”

Tammy licked her lips. She needed balm for them. They were badly chapped and a thin line of scabbing marked a spot where her lower lip had cracked seriously enough to bleed. “It’s about Santo Kerne,” she said.

“I’ve got that much.” Bea crossed her arms beneath her breasts. Unconsciously, it seemed, Tammy did the same, although she had no breasts to speak of, and Bea wondered if Santo Kerne’s relationship with Madlyn Angarrack had ended because of this girl. She hadn’t yet met Madlyn, but the fact that the girl had been a competitive surfer suggested someone…perhaps “more physically defined” was the term she wanted. This teenager seemed more like an evanescent being, corporeal only as long as she had the strength to manifest in human form. Bea couldn’t picture her spread-eagled beneath a hot-blooded adolescent boy.

Tammy said, “Santo talked to me.”

“Ah.”

The girl seemed to be waiting for more of a response, so Bea said cooperatively, “How did you know him?”

“From Clean Barrel Surf Shop,” Tammy said. “It’s where I work. He comes there for wax and the like. And to look at the isobar chart except I think that may have been just an excuse to hang about with the other surfers. You c’n look up the isobar chart on the Internet, and I expect they’ve got Internet over at the hotel.”

“Adventures Unlimited?”

Tammy nodded. The hollow of her throat was deep and shadowed. Above the neck of her jersey, the points of her collarbone protruded, like the excrescent evidence of dutch elm disease on the bark of a tree. “So that’s how I know him. That and Sea Dreams.”

Bea recognised the name of the caravan park and she cocked her head. Perhaps she’d been wrong about this girl and Santo. She said, “Did you meet him there?”

“No. Like I said, I met him at Clean Barrel.”

“Sorry. I don’t mean met him as in met him,” Bea clarified. “I mean met him as in having assignations with him.”

Tammy flushed. There was so little substance between her skin and her blood vessels that she coloured nearly to purple and she did so quickly. “You mean…Santo and me…for sex? Oh no. I live there. At Sea Dreams. My granddad owns the caravan park. I knew Santo from Clean Barrel, like I said, but he came to Sea Dreams with Madlyn. And he came on his own as well because there’s a cliff he used to practise on sometimes and granddad said he could get to it across our land if he wanted to abseil. Anyway, I saw him there and we talked sometimes.”

“On his own?” Bea asked. This was something new.

“Like I said. He climbed. Down and up but sometimes just up, so he’d come from below…or I suppose he just went down and then up all the time because I can’t quite remember. He also visited Mr. Reeth. So did she. Madlyn. Mr. Reeth, he works for Madlyn’s dad at-”

“Yes. I know. We’ve spoken to him.” But what she didn’t know was that Santo had been there to Sea Dreams on his own. This was a new wrinkle.

“He was nice, Santo.”

“He was especially nice to girls, I gather.”

Tammy’s flush had receded, and she didn’t flush again. “Yes, I suppose he was. But it wasn’t like that for me because…Well, that’s not important. What is important is that we talked from time to time. When he was finished with his climbing or when he was leaving Mr. Reeth’s. Or sometimes when he was waiting for Madlyn to get there from work.”

“They didn’t come together?”

“Not always. Madlyn works in town now, but she didn’t earlier. She had to come a greater distance than Santo, from out by Brandis Corner. She worked on a farm, making jam.”

“I expect she preferred teaching surfing.”

“Oh yes, she did. She does. But that’s in the season, when she teaches surfing. She’s got to do something else the rest of the year. She works in the bakery now. In town. They make pasties. Mostly for wholesale, but they sell some of them out of the shop as well.”

“And where does Santo fit in with all this?”

“Santo. Of course.” She’d been using her hands to gesture with as she talked, but now she clasped them again in her lap. She said, “We talked now and again. I liked him, but I didn’t like him in the way most girls probably would, if you know what I mean, so I think that made me different and maybe safer or something. For advice or whatever because he couldn’t go to his dad or his mum-”

“Why not?”

“His dad, he said, would’ve got the wrong impression, and his mum…I don’t know his mum, but I get the idea she’s…well, she’s not very mummish, apparently.” She smoothed her skirt. It looked like something that would be scratchy against the skin and it was virtually shapeless, a fashion penance. “Anyway, Santo asked me for advice about something and that’s what I thought you ought to know.”

“Advice of what kind?”

She seemed to look for a gentle way to say what came next and, not finding a euphemism, went for a circuitous route to the truth. “He was…He’d got someone new, you see, and the situation was irregular-that’s the word he used when he talked to me, he said it was irregular-and he wanted to ask me what I thought he should do about that.”

“Irregular. That was his word? You’re sure?”

Tammy nodded. “He said he thought he loved her-this is Madlyn-but he wanted this other thing as well. He said he wanted it very badly and if he wanted this other thing the way he wanted this other thing, did it mean he didn’t actually love Madlyn?”

“He talked to you about love, then?”

“No, that part was more like Santo talking to Santo. He wanted to know what I thought he should do about the whole situation. Should he be honest with everyone about it? he wanted to know. Should he tell the truth start to finish? he asked.”

“And what did you tell him?”

“I said he should be honest. I said he should always be honest because when people are honest about who they are, what they want, and what they do, it gives other people-this is the people they’re involved with, I mean-the chance to decide if they really want to be with them.” She looked at Bea and her expression was earnest. “So I suppose he was, you see,” she said. “Honest, I mean. And that’s why I’ve come. I think that maybe he’s dead because of it.”

“MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE, it’s a question of balance,” was the declaration that Alan used to conclude. “You see that, don’t you, darling?”

Kerra’s hackles stood stiffly. Darling was too much. There was no darling. She was no darling. She thought she’d made that clear to Alan, but the bloody man refused to believe it.

They stood before the glass-fronted notice board in the entry area of the former hotel. Your Instructors was the purpose of their discussion. The imbalance between male and female instructors was Alan’s point. In charge of hiring all of the instructors, Kerra had allowed the balance to swing to females. This was not good for several reasons, according to Alan. For marketing purposes, they needed an equal number of men and women offering instruction in the various activities and, if possible and what was highly desirable, they needed more male than female. They needed the males to be nicely built and good looking because, first of all, such men could serve as a feature to bring unmarried females to Adventures Unlimited and, second of all, Alan intended to use them in a video. He’d lined up a crew from Plymouth to take video footage, by the way, so whatever instructors Kerra came up with also needed to be onboard within three weeks. Or, he supposed-thinking aloud-perhaps they could actually use actors…no, stuntmen…yes, stuntmen could be very good in making the video, actually. The initial outlay would be higher because stuntmen no doubt had some sort of scale upon which they were paid, but it wouldn’t take as long to film them because they’d be professionals, so the final cost would likely not be as high. So…

He was absolutely maddening. Kerra wanted to argue with him, and she had been arguing, but he’d matched her point for point.

He said, “The publicity from that Mail on Sunday article helped us enormously, but that was seven months back, and we’re going to need to do more if we’re to begin heading in the direction of the black. We won’t be in the black of course, not this year and probably not next, but the point is, we have to chip away at debt. So everyone has to consider how best to get us out of the red.”

Red did it for her. Red held her between wanting to run and wanting to argue. She said, “I’m not refusing to hire men, Alan, if that’s what you’re implying. I can hardly be blamed if they’re not applying in droves to work here.”

“It’s not a question of blame,” he reassured her. “But, to be honest, I do wonder how aggressive you’re being in trying to recruit them.”

Not aggressive at all. She couldn’t be. But what was the point in telling him that?

She said, with the greatest courtesy she could manage, “Very well. I’ll start with the Watchman. How much can we spend on an advertisement for instructors?”

“Oh, we’ll need a much wider net than that,” Alan said, affably. “I doubt an ad in the Watchman would do us much good at all. We need to go national: advertisements placed in specialised magazines, at least one for each sport.” He studied the notice board where the pictures of the instructors were posted. Then he looked at Kerra. “You do see my point, don’t you, Kerra? We must consider them as an attraction. They’re more than merely instructors. They’re a reason to come to Adventures Unlimited. Like social directors on a cruise line.”

“‘Come to Adventures Unlimited for a Shag,’” Kerra said. “Yes. I’ve got the point well enough.”

“That’s the implication, naturally,” Alan said. “Sex sells. You know that.”

“It all gets reduced to sex in the end, doesn’t it?” Kerra said bitterly.

He gazed at the pictures again. He was either evaluating them or avoiding her. He said, “Well, yes. I suppose it does. That’s how life is.”

She left him without replying. She said abruptly that she was going to the Watchman if anyone wanted her, daring him to make his point again about the futility of placing an advertisement in that paper, and she set out on her bicycle.

This time, however, she had no intention of riding until the sweat of her efforts bled the anxiety from her muscles. She also had no intention of going to the Watchman to place an advertisement for randy males willing to instruct equally randy females during daylight hours and fulfill their sexual fantasies at night. That was all they needed at Adventures Unlimited: an excess of testosterone oozing down the corridors.

Kerra pedaled off the promontory in the direction of Toes on the Nose, where she was forced to follow the one-way system through town. She climbed to the crest of the hill, where St. Mevan Down rolled inland from the sea, and made her way to Queen Street with its clutter of cars. Ultimately she coursed downward towards the Casvelyn Canal, where just beyond the wharf that edged it a bridge arched to a Y in the road. Go left and you ultimately headed to Widemouth Bay. Go right and you found yourself out on the Breakwater.

This formed the southwest side of the canal, just as the wharf served as its northeastern edge. Cottages lined it, sitting some fifteen feet above the tarmac, and at their far end was the largest of them, one that only a blind man could miss seeing. It was trimmed in fuchsia and painted the pink of flamingos. Unimaginatively, it was called Pink Cottage, and its owner was a maiden lady long referred to by townspeople as Busy Lizzie and only in part as a reference to the flowers she planted in her front garden in enormous banks with riotous abandon every late spring.

Kerra was known to Busy Lizzie as a regular visitor, so when she knocked on the door, the woman admitted her without question, saying, “Why, isn’t this the nicest surprise, Kerra! Alan’s not here at the moment, but I expect you know that. Come in, my dear.”

She was not even five feet tall, and she’d long reminded Kerra of a chess piece. Specifically, she looked very much like a pawn. She wore her white hair in an impressively constructed Edwardian pouf and she favoured high-necked ivory blouses and bell-shaped flannel skirts of navy or grey that fell to the floor. She always looked like someone on the verge of being discovered for a part in a Henry James novel brought to film, but as far as Kerra had ever been able to learn-which admittedly wasn’t very far-Busy Lizzie had no inclination for either screen or stage.

She let one of the bedrooms in her house, the rest being filled with her vast collection of Carlton Ware from the 1930s. She was liberal in her thinking, and, preferring young men to young women as her lodgers-“Somehow one always feels safer with a man in the house” was her way of putting it-she recognised that her lodgers had appetites whose fulfillment she oughtn’t deny. So each successive lodger had kitchen privileges, and if a sleepover occurred in which a young lady might put in an appearance at the breakfast table, Busy Lizzie did not complain. Indeed, she provided either tea or coffee and she asked, “Sleep well, dear?” quite as if the young lady belonged there.

While his house in Lansdown Road was undergoing work, Alan had his temporary lodging here in Pink Cottage. He could have moved in with his parents-it would have saved him money-but he’d explained to Kerra that, while he loved his mum and dad devotedly, he liked to have a degree of freedom that his parents’ blind adoration of him sometimes precluded. Besides, he’d delicately said to her, they had a certain image of him that he didn’t want to mess about with.

Kerra read this as he intended. She said, “God, they can’t think you’re a virgin, Alan.” And when he didn’t answer, “Do they, Alan?”

“No, no. Of course not. Of course they don’t. What a ridiculous…They know I’m normal. But they’re older people, aren’t they, and it’s a sign of respect to them that I don’t take a woman to bed while I’m unmarried and under their roof. They’d feel very…well, odd about it.”

Kerra understood, at least at first. But in the end, the whole question of Alan having this lodging separate from his parents began to have a different resonance.

So she had to know. She had to be certain. She said to Busy Lizzie, “I’ve left a rather personal item in Alan’s room, Miss Carey”-for such was her name-“and I wonder if I might dash in and have a look for it? Alan’s forgotten to give me his key, but if you’d like to phone him at work…?”

“Oh my dear, no need of that. The room’s unlocked anyway, as this is bed-linen day. You know the way. I was just watching my telly. Would you like a cup of tea? Do you need my help?”

Kerra demurred: both the offer of tea and the offer of help. She shouldn’t be long, she said. She’d let herself out when she had what she’d come for.

“And are you riding about in the rain, my dear? On your bicycle? Why, you’ll catch your death, Kerra. Are you sure you wouldn’t care for a nice cup of PG Tips?”

No, no. She was fine, Kerra assured Miss Carey. She was right as rain. They both chuckled at her lame remark, and they parted at the far end of the sitting room. Busy Lizzie went back to her telly as Kerra ducked into the corridor that led along to the far end of the house. There, Alan’s room overlooked the southwest section of St. Mevan Beach. From the window, Kerra could see that the tide was in. The waves were breaking from three-foot swells, and at least a dozen surfers bobbed in the distance.

Kerra turned from the sight of them. The thought came to her of her father last night, and of what it meant that part of his life was hidden from her. But she dismissed this consideration because now was not the time and, anyway, she had to work quickly.

She was looking for signs without actually knowing what the signs would be. She needed to understand why the Alan Cheston of the last few days was not the Alan Cheston she had known and involved herself with. She reckoned she knew the explanation, but still she wanted hard evidence, although what she would do with it when she had it was something she hadn’t yet considered.

She’d also never done a search before. The whole enterprise made her feel unclean, but there was no alternative other than hurling accusations at him, and going that route was something she couldn’t afford to do.

She girded herself mentally and began to look about. It was, she saw, all so vintage Alan, with every item in its place. His djembe drum stood in its stand in the corner of the room, in front of a stool upon which Alan sat when he played it during his daily meditation. A tambourine-something of a joke gift that Kerra had given him before she’d understood how significant the drum actually was to Alan’s spiritual regimen-leaned nearby, against a bookcase where he kept his yoga books. On top of this bookcase were his photos: Alan, wearing the cap and gown of the university graduate, flanked by his beaming parents; Alan and Kerra on a holiday in Portsmouth, his arm round her shoulders on the deck of the Victory; Kerra by herself, perched on the flat stone top of Lanyon Quoit; a younger Alan with his childhood dog, a mixed-breed terrier with a coat the colour of rusty bedsprings.

The trouble was that Kerra had no idea what she was looking for. She wanted a sign, but she didn’t know if she’d recognise anything that wasn’t written out for her by means of flashing neon lights. She prowled the room, opening and closing drawers in the chest and then in the desk. Aside from neatly folded clothes in conservative hues, the only items of interest she came up with were a collection of birthday cards given or sent to him through the years and a list entitled “Five-Year Objectives” upon which she read that, among other things, he intended to learn Italian, take xylophone lessons, and visit Patagonia, in addition to “marry Kerra,” which came before Patagonia but after Italian.

And then in a tarnished silver toast rack where Alan kept his mail, she found it: the item without a purpose in the bedroom of a man for whom every item had a purpose, either in the present, the past, or the future. This was a postcard, tucked at the back of correspondence from Alan’s bank, his dentist, and the London School of Economics. The picture on the card was taken from the sea, into the shore, and the view presented was of two deep sea caves, one on either side of a cove. Above the cove was a Cornish village well known to Kerra, as it was the place she’d been sent with her brother throughout their childhoods, to stay with their grandparents while their mother was going through one of her spells.

Pengelly Cove. They were not allowed to go to the beach there, no matter the weather. The reason given was the tide and the sea caves. The tide came in fast, the way it came in at Morecambe Bay. Deep in a sea cave where you thought you were safe with your exploration-or whatever else you were doing-the water swept in and the walls marked its depth, which was higher than the top of the tallest man’s head, as relentless as it was unforgiving.

Kids just like you lot’ve died in those caves, Granddad would thunder, so there’ll be no beachgoing while you’re stopping here. ’Sides, there’s work enough round this place to keep you busy, and if I see you’re bored, I’ll give you more.

But all of that was an excuse, and they knew it, Kerra and Santo. Beach-going meant village-going, and in the village they were known as the children of Dellen Kerne, or Dellen Nankervis as she’d been then. Long, loose, wide-spreading Dellen, the village tart. Dellen whose unmistakable handwriting formed the sentence “This is it,” which was scripted in red on the face of the postcard in Alan’s old toast rack. From the it an arrow extended down to the sea cave on the south side of the cove.

Kerra pocketed the postcard and looked about for something more. But nothing else was actually needed.

CADAN HAD SPENT THE morning with a mouth that felt like a wrestler’s jockstrap and a stomach doing a shimmy to his throat. More hair of the dog that had bitten him was what he’d needed from the get-go, but an unexpected pre-Adventures Unlimited conversation with his sister had prevented him from doing a recce for his father’s booze. Not that Madlyn would have reported Cadan to Lew had she caught him in the act of going through cupboards-despite her general weirdness, Cadan’s sister had never been known to sneak-but she would have realised what he was doing and she would have ragged on him about it. He couldn’t handle that. As it was, he’d had enough trouble merely responding to what she had to say when the subject wasn’t him at all. It was, instead, Ione Soutar, who’d phoned three times in the last thirty-six hours, on one spurious excuse after another.

“Well, she was stupid if she ever thought it was going to go somewhere,” Madlyn had said. “I mean, did they ever have anything between them besides sex and dating, if you can call what they did dating, because judging surfing competitions in Newquay and having pizza nights and takeaway curry nights with those two obnoxious girls of hers…Not exactly what I’d call a promising relationship, would you? So what was she thinking?”

Cadan was the last person capable of answering these questions, and he wondered if Madlyn herself ought to be holding forth on what comprised a promising relationship. But he reckoned her final query was rhetorical, and he was happy enough that he didn’t have to reply.

Madlyn went on. “All she had to do was look at his history. But could she do that? Would she do that? No. And why? Because she saw him as father material, and that’s what she wanted, for Leigh and Jennie. Well, God knows they need that. Especially Leigh.”

Cadan managed an answer to this. “Jennie’s all right.” He hoped that would put an end to the matter, leaving him to his headache and general queasiness in peace.

Madlyn said, “Oh, I suppose, if you like them that age, she’s all right. The other one, though…Leigh’s a real piece of work.” She said nothing for a moment, and Cadan saw that she was watching him watching Pooh. He was waiting for the parrot to finish a breakfast of sunflower seeds and apples. Pooh preferred English apples-Cox, if he could get them-but in a pinch and in the off-season, he enjoyed an imported Fuji, which he was doing now.

Madlyn continued. “But for God’s sake, he’s had his kids. Why would he want to go through all that again? And why didn’t she see that? I can see it. Can’t you?”

Cadan mumbled noncommittally. Even if he hadn’t felt like worshipping the porcelain god, he knew better than to engage his sister lengthily or otherwise on the topic of their dad. So he said, “Come on, Pooh. We got work to go to,” and he offered the last sixteenth of apple. Pooh ignored it, and instead wiped his beak on his right claw. Then he set about investigating the feathers under his left wing, looking like an avian miner with all the digging he was doing there. Cadan frowned and thought about mites. In the meantime, Madlyn went on.

She was turning to use the mirror over the tiny coal fireplace in order to see to her hair. In the past, she’d never given much attention to her hair, but she hadn’t needed to. Like Cadan’s and like their father’s, it was dark and curly. Kept short enough, it was low maintenance: A good shaking sorted it out in the morning. But she’d grown it because Santo Kerne had liked it longer. Once their whatever-it-was-because-Cadan-didn’t-want-to-call-it-a-relationship ended, he’d thought she’d cut it-to get even with Santo if for no other reason-but so far she hadn’t done so. She hadn’t got back to surfing yet, either.

She said, “Well, he’ll move on to someone else now, if he hasn’t already. And so will she. And that will be an end to the whole thing. Oh, I expect there may be a few more weeks of tearful phone calls, but he’ll do his pained-silence thing, and after a time, she’ll get sick of that and realise she’s thrown away three years of her life, or however long it’s been because I can’t remember and as the clock is ticking, she’ll move on. She’ll want a man before her sell-by date comes along. And, believe me, she knows it’s out there.”

Madlyn was pleased. Cadan could hear it in her voice. The longer their father had seen Ione Soutar, the more anxiety ridden Madlyn had become. She’d been household goddess for most of her life-thanks to the Bounder’s final bounding shortly before Madlyn’s fifth birthday-and the last thing she had ever wanted was another woman usurping her position of Sole Female. She’d wielded considerable power from that position, and no one with power ever wanted to let it go.

Cadan scooped up the newspapers from beneath Pooh’s perch, balling them up against the detritus of his meal and the copious morning excretions of his body. He spread out a fresh old edition of the Watchman, and said, “Whatever. We’re off, then.”

“Off? Where?” Madlyn frowned.

“To work.”

“Work?”

She didn’t, Cadan thought, need to sound so amazed. “Adventures Unlimited,” he told her. “I got hired there.”

Her face altered. Cadan could see how she would take the information: as a fraternal betrayal, no matter his need for gainful employment. Well, she was going to have to take it whatever way she wanted to take it. He required a source of income and jobs were practically nonexistent. Still, he didn’t want to engage her on the topic of Adventures Unlimited any more than he’d wanted to engage her on the topic of Ione Soutar and the end of her affair with their father. So he set Pooh on his shoulder and said by way of diversion, “Talking of sell-by dates, Mad…What the hell were you doing with Jago night before last? His went by round forty years ago, didn’t it?”

“Jago,” she said, “is a friend.”

“I got that much. I like the bloke myself. But you won’t catch me spending the night out there.”

“Are you actually suggesting…You know, you’re quite nasty, Cade. If you need the information, he came to tell me about Santo but he didn’t want to tell me at the bakery, so he took me home because he cared about how I was going to react to the news. He actually cares about me, Cadan.”

“And we don’t?”

“You didn’t like Santo. Don’t pretend you did.”

“Hey. At the end, neither did you. Or did something change? Did he come crawling back to you, begging forgiveness and declaring love?” Cadan hooted. Pooh duplicated the sound exactly. “Not bloody likely,” Cadan said.

“Blow holes in the attic,” Pooh remarked shrilly.

Cadan winced at the sound so near his ear. Madlyn saw this. She said, “You got drunk last night. That’s what you were doing in your room, isn’t it? What’s the matter with you, Cade?”

He wished he could have answered that question. He’d have loved to do so. But the fact was, he’d headed for the off-licence without thinking, and in the same manner he’d purchased the Beefeater and in the same manner he’d drunk it. He’d told himself that the fact that he was doing his drinking at home was admirable when one considered he could be out at a pub or sitting on a street corner or-worse-driving round in a car while pouring gin down his throat. But instead, he was being responsible: getting obliterated in silence within the four walls of his room, where he would hurt no one but himself.

What this was related to, he’d not questioned. But as his hangover subsided-a blessed event that did not occur till the middle of the afternoon-he realised he was perilously close to having to think.

What he ended up thinking about was his father, as well as Madlyn and Santo Kerne. But he didn’t like where his thoughts headed when he bunched those three individuals together in his mind because when he did that, the fourth thought that popped up like an unwanted uncle at Christmas lunch was the thought of murder.

It went like this: Madlyn in love. Madlyn heartbroken. Santo dead. Lew Angarrack…what? Out with his surfboard on a day when not a single wave was worthy of a ride. Missing in action and determinedly mum on the subject of his whereabouts. And what did those two considerations add up to. A daughter scorned? A father enraged? Cadan didn’t want to begin an extended consideration of that topic.

So he considered Will Mendick instead. Torchbearer of love for Madlyn. Unrequited love for Madlyn. Waiting to step in as chief comforter once Santo Kerne was finally dispatched.

But would Will have had access to Santo’s climbing equipment? Cadan wondered. And was Will the sort to go for such a crafty way to dispose of someone? And even if the answer to both of those questions was yes, wasn’t the real question whether Will was actually so hot for Madlyn’s knickers that he’d get rid of Santo in the hope of closing the deal with Madlyn? Did that even make sense? Why rid Madlyn’s life of Santo when Santo himself had already rid her life of Santo? Unless Santo’s death had nothing to do with Madlyn at all…And wouldn’t that be a bloody relief?

But if it did have to do with Madlyn, what about Jago, then? Jago in the role of elderly Avenger. Who’d suspect an old bloke with shakes like a barman making martinis? He was hardly fit enough to sit on the loo unassisted, let alone in the shape one considered necessary to do away with another human being. Except, it had been a hands-off murder, hadn’t it? Santo’s equipment had been messed about with, if Kerra Kerne was to be believed. Surely Jago could have managed that. But then, so could any of them. So could Madlyn, for instance. So could Lew. So could Will. So could Kerra Kerne or Alan Cheston or Father Christmas or the Easter Bunny.

Cadan’s head felt stuffed with cotton wool. It was too soon after the hangover to be doing any serious thinking about anything, really. He hadn’t taken a break since his arrival at Adventures Unlimited that morning, and he was owed one at this point. Perhaps some fresh air-and even a sandwich-would allow him to dwell on these thoughts more clearly.

Pooh had been patient. Without doing the slightest bit of damage and only once letting his bird bowels loose, he’d spent hours watching Cadan paint radiators from his perch on a series of shower-curtain rods. He, too, was owed some R & R, and he probably wouldn’t say no to a bite of sandwich.

Cadan hadn’t brought one from home, so that was a bit of a problem. But he could solve it with a quick trip for takeaway from Toes on the Nose. Now that his stomach had returned to its normal condition, tuna and sweet corn on brown bread sounded good to him, with crisps on the side and a Coke.

First, he needed to move his painting supplies to the next room up for radiator refreshment, something he accomplished quickly. He headed for the stairway-forgoing the groaning old lift that, frankly, gave him the willies-and shared with Pooh what was coming next.

He said, “Toes on the Nose, and behave yourself. No swearing in front of the ladies.”

“Which ladies are you talking about?”

The question came from behind him. Cadan swung about. Santo Kerne’s mother had appeared from out of nowhere, like a spirit materialising directly through the wainscoting. She was coming towards him soundlessly on the new carpet runner. She wore black once again but now it was relieved at her throat by a billowy red scarf that exactly matched the red of her shoes.

Those shoes reminded Cadan, ridiculously, of a description he’d heard once of The Wizard of Oz: the story of two old birds fighting over a pair of red shoes. He smiled unconsciously at the thought. Dellen returned the smile.

“You didn’t ask him not to swear in front of me.” She had a throaty voice, like a blues singer.

He said stupidly, “What?”

“Your bird. When we were first introduced. You didn’t tell him not to swear in my presence. I wonder how I’m to take that, Cadan. Am I not a lady?”

He hadn’t the first clue how to reply, so he chuckled lamely. He waited for her to pass him in the corridor. She didn’t do so. He said, “Going to lunch.”

She looked at her watch. “Rather late for that, isn’t it?”

“I wasn’t hungry earlier.”

“And are you now? Hungry, that is?”

“Bit. Yeah.”

“Good. Come with me.”

She went towards the stairs but she didn’t descend. Instead she headed upwards, and when he didn’t follow at once, she turned. “Come with me, Cadan,” she told him. “I don’t bite. There’s a kitchen above and I’ll sort something out for you up there.”

“Oh. S’okay,” he said. “I was going to walk over to Toes-”

“Don’t be silly. This will be quicker and you won’t have to pay for it.” She smiled wistfully. “Not in money, that is. In companionship. I’d like someone to talk to.”

“P’rhaps Kerra-”

“She’s out. My husband’s disappeared. Alan is closeted with his telephone. Come with me, Cadan.” Her eyes clouded when he didn’t move. “You need to eat and I need to talk. We can be of service to each other.” When he still didn’t move because he couldn’t come up with a way to get himself out of the situation, she added, “I’m the boss’s wife. I think you’ve no choice but to humour me.”

He gave a two-chuckle laugh, feeling no amusement. There seemed nothing for it but to follow her up the stairs.

They went up to what seemed to be the family’s flat. It was a good-size space that was modestly furnished in what had once been called Danish modern but now was Danish retro. She led him through a sitting room and into a kitchen, where she pointed to the table and told him to sit. She turned on a radio that sat on the spotless white work top, and she fiddled with the knob till she had a station that she seemed to prefer. It featured dance music of the ballroom type. She said, “That’s nice, isn’t it?” and kept the volume low. “Now.” She put her hands on her hips. “What do you fancy, Cadan?”

It was just the sort of question one saw in films: a Mrs. Robinson question while poor Benjamin was caught up still thinking about plastics. And Dellen Kerne was a Mrs. Robinson type, no doubt about that. She was, admittedly, a bit gone to seed, but it was a voluptuous gone to seed. She had the kind of curves one didn’t see in younger women obsessed with looking like catwalk models, and if her skin was grooved from years of sun and cigarettes, her masses of blonde hair made up for that. As did her mouth, which had what they called bee-stung lips.

Cadan reacted to her. It was automatic: too long a period of celibacy and now too much blood heading in the wrong direction. He stammered, “I was…that is…going to…tuna and sweet corn.”

Her full lips curved. “I think we can manage that.”

He was vaguely aware of Pooh moving restlessly on his shoulder, claws digging a little too deeply into his flesh. He needed to remove the bird, but he didn’t like to put the parrot onto the back of a chair since often Pooh took a removal from Cadan’s shoulder to a perch as a sign he was meant to drop his load. Cadan looked about for a newspaper that he could use beneath a chair, just in case. He spied one sitting on the counter, and he went to fetch it. Last week’s edition of the Watchman, he saw. He picked it up and said, “Mind?” to Dellen. “Pooh needs to perch and if I could put this on the floor…?”

She was opening a tin. She said, “For the bird? Of course,” and when he had the paper spread and Pooh on the back of the chair, she went on to say, “An unusual choice of pet, isn’t he.”

Cadan didn’t think he was meant to answer, but he did so anyway. “Parrots c’n live to be eighty.” The answer seemed to be sufficient unto itself: A pet who could live eighty years wasn’t likely to be going anywhere, and it didn’t take a degree in psychology to sort that one out.

“Yes,” Dellen said. “Eighty. I do understand.” She cast him a look and her smile was tremulous. “I hope he makes it. But they don’t always, do they.”

He dropped his gaze. “I’m sorry about Santo.”

“Thank you.” She paused. “I can’t talk about him yet. I keep thinking that if I just move forward a bit, even try to distract myself, I won’t have to face the fact that he’s dead. I know that’s not true, but I’m not…How can one ever be ready to look squarely at the death of one’s child?” She reached hastily for the knob of the radio and raised the volume. She began to move with the music. She said, “Let’s dance, Cadan.”

It was a vaguely South American rhythm. A tango, a rumba. Something like that. It called for bodies moving together sinuously, and no way did Cadan want to be one of them. But she moved across the kitchen towards him, each step a swaying of the hips, a rolling of one shoulder then the other, hands extended.

Cadan saw she was crying in the way that actresses cried in films: no redness of face, no screwing up of features, just tears marking a forking path downward from her remarkable eyes. She danced and she wept simultaneously. His heart went out to her. Mother of a son who’d been murdered…Who was to say how the woman was meant to act? If she wanted to talk, if she wanted to dance, what did it matter? She was coping as best she could.

She said, “Dance with me, Cadan. Please dance with me.”

He took her into his arms.

She pressed against him at once, each movement its own form of caress. He didn’t know the dance, but that didn’t appear to matter. She raised both arms to his neck and held him close, one hand on the back of his head. When she lifted her face to his, the rest was natural.

His mouth lowered to hers, his hands moved from his waist to her bum, and he drew her tightly against him.

She did not protest.