Careless in Red

Chapter Twenty-seven

ULTIMATELY ON THAT MISERABLE DAY, CADAN FOUND HIMSELF in a situation in which the chickens of his machinations had finally come home to roost: caught in the sitting room of the family home in Victoria Road with his sister and Will Mendick. Madlyn, having just returned from work, was still in her Casvelyn of Cornwall getup-all stripes the colour of candy floss and a pinny with ruffles along the edges. She was slouched on the sofa, while Will stood in front of the fireplace with a bunch of daylilies dangling from his fingers. He’d shown good enough sense to buy the flowers and not bring along rejects from the wheelie bin. But that was the limit to the good sense he was showing.

Cadan himself was perched on a stool near his parrot. He’d left Pooh alone for most of the day, and he’d been intent upon making up for that with an elongated bit of bird massage, just the two of them, with the house-or at least the room-to themselves. But Madlyn had arrived home from work and on her heels had come Will. He’d apparently taken to heart Cadan’s bald-faced lies about his sister and her affections.

“…so I thought,” Will was saying, with scant encouragement from Madlyn, “that you might like…well, like to go out.”

“With who?” Madlyn said.

“With…well, with me.” He’d not presented her with the flowers yet, and Cadan was hoping fervently he’d pretend that he’d not brought them at all.

“And why would I want to do that, exactly?” Madlyn tapped her fingers on the arm of the sofa. This gesture, Cadan knew, had nothing to do with nervousness.

Will grew redder in the face-he was already blushing like a bloke with two left feet at a fox-trot lesson-and he shot a look towards Cadan that said, Give us a hand here, mate? Studiously, Cadan averted his eyes.

Will said, “Just…perhaps to get a meal?”

“Out of a bin, you mean?”

“No! God, Madlyn. I wouldn’t ask you to-”

“Look.” Madlyn had that Expression on her face. Cadan knew what it meant, but he also knew that Will hadn’t the first clue that his sister’s detonator was doing whatever detonators did just before the bomb went from UX to X. She pushed herself to the edge of the sofa and her eyes got narrow. “Just in case you don’t know, Will, which you apparently don’t, I had a talk with the police. A quite recent talk with them. They caught me out in a lie, and they crawled all over me. And guess what they knew?”

Will said nothing. Cadan urged Pooh onto his fist. He said, “Hey, what you got to say, Pooh?” The bird was usually very good at providing diversions, but Pooh was silent. If he felt the room’s tension, he wasn’t responding to it in his normal vociferous manner.

“They knew that I followed Santo. They knew what I saw. They knew, Will, that I knew what Santo was doing. Now how do you s’pose the cops knew that? And do you have any idea how that makes me look?”

“They don’t think that you…You don’t need to worry-”

“That’s hardly the point! My boyfriend’s having it off with a cow old enough to be his mum and he’s liking it and this particular cow happens to be the cow I work for and all this is going on under my nose with both of them looking like butter wouldn’t melt and he’s calling her Mrs. Pappas, mind you. Mrs. Pappas in front of me and you can bloody well depend on him not calling her Mrs. Pappas when he’s fucking her. And she knows he’s my boyfriend. That’s part of the fun. She’s specially friendly to me because of it. Only I don’t know. I even have a cup of tea with her and she asks me all about myself. ‘I like to get to know my girls,’ she says. Oh, too bloody right.”

“Don’t you see that’s why-”

“I do not. So there they are-those cops-and they’re looking at me and I can see what they know and what they think. Poor stupid cow she is. Her boyfriend’d rather do some old witch than be with her. And I didn’t need that, d’you see it, Will? I didn’t need their pity and I didn’t need them knowing because now it all gets written down for the world to see and everyone knows and do you know-have you any idea-what that feels like?”

“It wasn’t your fault, Madlyn.”

“That I wasn’t enough for him? So much not enough that he wanted her as well? How could that not be my fault? I loved him. We had something good, or that’s what I thought.”

Will said, stumbling, “No. Look. It wasn’t you. Why couldn’t you see…He would’ve done the same…He would’ve walked away, no matter who he was with. Why couldn’t you ever see that? Why couldn’t you just let him-”

“I was going to have his baby. His baby, all right? And I thought that meant…I thought we would…Oh God, forget it.”

Will’s jaw had dropped with Madlyn’s revelation. Cadan had, of course, heard the expression before-someone’s jaw dropping-but he’d never imagined how lost it made one look till he saw what Will’s face revealed. Will hadn’t known about this, then. But of course, how could he? It was a private business held within the family, and Will was not a member of the family or even close to becoming one, a fact which he did not appear to understand. Even now. Sounding numb, he said, “You could have come to me.”

“What?” Madlyn said.

“To me. I would’ve…I don’t know. Whatever you wanted. I could have-”

“I loved him.”

“No,” Will said. “You can’t. You couldn’t. Why won’t you see what he was like? He was no good, but you looked at him and what you saw-”

“Don’t you say that about him. Don’t you…don’t.”

Will looked like a man who’s spoken a language that he assumes his listener has understood, only to discover she’s a foreigner in his country and so is he as a matter of fact and there’s nothing to be done about the matter. He said slowly and with dawning knowledge, “You can still defend him. Even after…And what you just told me…Because he wasn’t going to stand by you, was he? That’s not who he was.”

“I loved him,” she cried.

“But you said that you hated him. You told me you hated him.”

“He hurt me, for God’s sake.”

“But then why did I…” Will looked around as if suddenly waking. His glance went to Cadan, then to the flowers he’d brought to give Madlyn. He tossed these into the fireplace. Cadan rather liked the drama of the gesture, had the fireplace been one that actually worked. But as it didn’t work, the act seemed past its sell-by date, the sort of thing one saw in old films on the telly.

The room was filled with a hollow silence. Then Will said to Madlyn, “I punched him out. I would have done more if he’d even been willing to fight, but he wasn’t. He didn’t even bother to care. He wouldn’t fight. Not for you. Not because of you. But I did that. I punched him out. For you, Madlyn. Because-”

“What?” she cried. “What on earth were you thinking?”

“He hurt you, he was a first-class wanker and he needed to be taught-”

“Who asked you to be his teacher? I never. I never. Did you…My God. What else did you do to him? Did you kill him as well? Is that it?”

“You don’t know what it means, do you?” Will asked her. “That I even hit him once. That I…You don’t know.”

“What? That you’re Sir Bloody Whoever in Sodding Armour? That I’m supposed to be happy about that? Grateful? Thrilled? Your handmaiden forever? What exactly don’t I know?”

“I could’ve gone back inside,” he said dully.

“What’re you talking about?”

“If I so much as tripped some bloke on the street. Even accidentally. I could go back inside. But I was willing to do it, because of you. And I was willing to sort him because he needed sorting. But you didn’t know that and even if you did know-now that you do know-it doesn’t matter. It never mattered. I don’t matter. I never did, did I?”

“Why the hell did you think…”

Will looked at Cadan. Madlyn looked at Will. And then she, too, looked at Cadan.

For his part, Cadan thought it was a very good moment to give little Pooh his walkies for the evening.

BEA WAS STRETCHING WITH the aid of a kitchen chair, doing her part to keep an ageing back more or less pain free when she heard a key in the front door. The sound of the key was followed by a familiar knock-bim bim BIM boom BOOM-and then Ray’s voice, “You here, Bea?”

“I’d say the car’s a fairly good indication of that,” she called out. “You used to be a much better detective.”

She heard him coming in her direction. She was still wearing her pyjamas, but as they comprised a T-shirt and the trousers to her tracksuit, she was not bothered by someone’s coming upon her in her morning deshabille.

Ray was done up to the nines. She looked at him sourly. “Hoping to impress some bright young thing?”

“Only you.” He went to the fridge where she had left a jug of orange juice. He held it to the light, gave it a suspicious sniff, found it apparently to his liking, and poured a glass.

“Do help yourself,” she said sardonically. “There’s always more where that came from.”

“Cheers,” he replied. “D’you still use it on your cereal?”

“Some things never change. Ray, why’re you here? And where’s Pete? Not ill, is he? He has school today. I hope you’ve not let him talk you into-”

“Early day,” he said. “He has something going on in his science course. I got him there and made sure he went inside and wasn’t planning to bunk off and sell weed on the street corner.”

“Most amusing. Pete doesn’t do drugs.”

“We are blessed in that.”

She ignored the plural. “Why’re you here at this hour?”

“He’s wanting more clothes.”

“Haven’t you washed them?”

“I have. But he says he can’t be expected to wear the same thing after school day after day. You sent only two outfits.”

“He has clothes at your place.”

“He claims he’s outgrown them.”

“He wouldn’t notice that. He never gives a toss what he’s wearing anyway. He’d be in his Arsenal sweatshirt all day if he had the option, and you know that very well. So answer me again. Why are you here?”

He smiled. “Caught me. You’re very good at grilling the suspect, my dear. How’s the investigation faring?”

“You mean how is it faring despite the fact I’ve no MCIT?”

He sipped his orange juice and put the glass on the work top, which he leaned against. He was quite a tall man, and he was trim. He’d look good, Bea thought, to whatever bright young thing he was dressing himself for.

“Despite what you believe, I did do the best I could for you with regard to manpower, Beatrice. Why d’you always think the worst of me?”

She scowled. She didn’t reply at once. She dipped into a final stretch and then rose from the chair. She sighed and said, “It isn’t going far or fast. I’d like to say we’re closing in on someone, but each time I’ve thought that, either events or information have proved me wrong.”

“Is Lynley being of any help? God knows he has the experience.”

“He’s a good man. There’s no doubt of that. And they’ve sent his partner down from London. I daresay she’s here more to keep an eye on him than to help me, but she’s a decent cop, if somewhat unorthodox. She’s rather distracted by him-”

“In love?”

“She denies it, but if she is, it’s a real nonstarter. Chalk and cheese doesn’t begin to describe them. No. I think she’s worried about him. They’ve been partnered for years and she cares. They have a history, however bizarre it may be.” Bea pushed away from the table and carried her cereal bowl to the sink. “At any rate, they’re good cops. One can tell that much about them. She’s a pit bull and he’s very quick. I’d like it a bit more if he had fewer ideas of his own, however.”

“You’ve always liked your men that way,” Ray noted.

Bea regarded him. A moment passed. A dog barked in the neighbourhood. She said, “That’s rather below the belt.”

“Is it?”

“Yes. Pete wasn’t an idea. He was-he is-a person.”

Ray didn’t avoid her gaze or her comment. Bea marked this as the first time he’d actually done neither. “You’re right.” He smiled at her in fond if rueful acknowledgement. “He wasn’t an idea. Can we talk about it, Beatrice?”

“Not now,” she said. “I’ve work. As you know.” She didn’t add what she wanted to add: that the time to talk was fifteen years gone. Nor did she add that he’d chosen his moment with scant consideration for her situation, which was damn well typical of how he’d always been. She didn’t think what it meant that she let such an opportunity pass, though. Instead, she went into morning mode and got ready for work.

Nonetheless, on her drive even Radio Four didn’t divert her enough that she failed to realise Ray had just as good as admitted his inadequacy as a husband at long last. She wasn’t sure what to do with that knowledge, so she was grateful when she walked into the incident room to a ringing phone that she scooped up from its receiver before anyone from the team could do likewise. They were milling round, waiting for their assignments. She was hoping that someone on the end of the phone was going to give her an idea of what to tell them to do next.

It turned out that Duke Clarence Washoe from Chepstow was on hand with the preliminaries about the comparison of hairs she’d provided him. Was she ready for that?

“Regale me,” she told him.

“Microscopically, they’re close,” he said.

“Just close? No match?”

“Can’t do a match with what we have. We’re talking cuticle, cortex, and medulla. This isn’t a DNA thing.”

“I’m aware of that. So what can you say?”

“They’re human. They’re similar. They might be from the same person. Or a member of the same family. But ‘might’ is as far as we go. I’ve got no problem putting myself on record with the microscopic details, mind. But if you want further analysis, it’s going to take time.”

And money, Bea thought. He wasn’t saying that, but both of them knew it.

“Shall I carry on, then?” he was asking her.

“Depends on the chock stone. What d’you have on that?”

“One cut. It went straight through without hesitation. No multiple efforts involved. No identifying striations, either. You’re looking for a machine, not a hand tool. And its blade is quite new.”

“Certain about that?” A machine for cutting cable narrowed the field considerably. She felt a mild stirring of excitement.

“You want chapter and verse?”

“Chapter will do.”

“Aside from possibly leaving striations, a hand tool’s going to depress both the upper and the lower parts of the cable, crimping them together. A machine’s going to make a cleaner cut. Resulting ends’ll be shiny as well.” He was, he said, expressing this unscientifically to her. Did she want the proper lingo?

Bea nodded a good morning to Sergeant Havers as she came into the room. Bea looked for Lynley to walk in behind her, but he didn’t appear. She frowned.

“Inspector?” Washoe said at his end of the line. “D’you want-”

“What you’ve given me is fine,” she told him. “Save the science for your formal report.”

“Will do.”

“And…Duke Clarence?” She grimaced at the poor sod’s name.

“Guv?”

“Thanks for rushing things with that hair.”

She could hear that he was pleased with her expression of gratitude as he rang off. She gathered her team, such as it was. They were looking for a machine tool, she told them and gave them the details on the chock stone as Washoe had related them to her. What were their options on finding one? Constable McNulty? she enquired.

McNulty seemed to be feeling his oats this morning, perhaps as a result of the success he’d had tracking down unhelpful photos of dead surfers. He pointed out that the erstwhile air station was a good possibility. There were any number of businesses set up in the old buildings and doubtless a machine shop was going to be one of them.

Auto-body shop would do as well, someone else suggested.

Or a factory of some sort, came another suggestion.

Then the ideas emerged quickly. Metal worker, iron worker, even a sculptor. What about a blacksmith? Well, that wasn’t likely.

“My mum-in-law could do it with her teeth,” someone said.

Guffaws all round. “That’ll do,” Bea said. She gave Sergeant Collins the nod to make the assignments: set out and find the tool. They knew their suspects. Consider them, their homes, and their places of employment. And anyone who might have done work for them at their homes or their places of employment as well.

Then she said to Havers, “I’d like a word, Sergeant,” and she had that word in the corridor. She said, “Where’s our good superintendent this morning? Having a bit of a lie-in?”

“No. He was at breakfast. We had it together.” Havers smoothed her hands on the hips of her baggy corduroy trousers. They remained decidedly baggy.

“Did you indeed? I hope it was delicious and I’m thrilled to know he’s not missing his meals. So where is he?”

“He was still at the inn when I-”

“Sergeant? Less smoke and more mirrors, please. Something tells me that if anyone on earth knows exactly where Thomas Lynley is and what he’s doing, you’re going to be that person. Where is he?”

Havers ran a hand through her hair. The gesture did nothing at all to improve its state. She said, “All right. This is stupid and I’ll wager he’d rather you didn’t know.”

“What?”

“His socks were wet.”

“I beg your pardon? Sergeant, if this is some kind of joke…”

“It’s not. He hasn’t enough clothes with him. He washed both pairs of his socks last night and they didn’t dry. Probably,” she added with a roll of her eyes, “because he’s never had to personally wash his socks in his life.”

“And are you telling me…?”

“That he’s at the hotel drying his socks. Yes. That’s what I’m telling you. He’s using a hair dryer and, knowing him, he’s probably set the building on fire by now. We’re talking about a bloke who doesn’t even make his own toast in the morning, Guv. Like I said, he washed them last night and he didn’t put them on the radiator or wherever. He just left them…wherever he left them. As far as the rest of his kit goes-”

Bea raised her hand. “Enough information. Believe me. Whatever he may have done with his pantaloons is between him and his God. When can we expect him?”

Havers’s teeth pulled at the inside of her lower lip in a fashion that suggested discomfort. There was something more going on.

Bea said, “What is it?” as, from below, a courier’s envelope was brought up the stairs in the hands of one of the team members already heading out on his assignment. It had just come, the constable told her, two blokes having been working with the relevant software for hours. Bea opened the envelope. The contents comprised six pages, not fixed together. She flipped through them as she said, “Where is he, Sergeant, and when can we expect him?”

Havers said, “Dr. Trahair.”

“What about her?”

“She was in the car park when I left this morning. I think she was waiting for him.”

“Was she indeed?” Bea looked up from the paperwork. “That’s an interesting wrinkle.” She handed the sheets to Havers. “Have a look at these,” she told her.

“What are they, then?”

“They’re age progressions. From that photograph Thomas handed over. I think you’re going to find them of interest.”

DAIDRE TRAHAIR HESITATED JUST outside his door. She could hear the sound of the hair dryer from within, so she knew that Sergeant Havers had been telling her the truth. It hadn’t seemed so. Indeed, when Daidre had confronted the sergeant in the car park of the Salthouse Inn, asking for Thomas Lynley, the idea that he might not be present because he was actually drying his socks had sounded like the lamest sort of excuse for his absence from Sergeant Havers’s side. On the other hand, the DS from London hardly had a reason to invent an activity for Lynley to be engaging in in order to hide the fact that he might instead be spending yet another day scouring through the detritus of Daidre’s past. For it seemed to Daidre at this point that he’d done as much scouring as he’d be able to do without her own participation.

She knocked on his door sharply. The dryer switched off. The door swung open. “Sorry, Barbara. I’m afraid they’re still not-” He saw it was Daidre. “Hullo,” he said with a smile. “You’re out and about early, aren’t you?”

“The sergeant told me…I saw her in the car park. She said you were drying your socks.”

He had a sock in one hand and the dryer in the other, proof of the matter. He said, “I did try to wear them at breakfast, but I found there’s something particularly disturbing about damp socks. Shades of World War I and life in the trenches, I suppose. Would you like to come in?” He stepped back and she passed him, into the room. The bed was unmade. A towel lay in a heap on the floor. A notebook had scribbles of pencil in it, with car keys sitting on its open pages. “I thought they’d dry by morning,” he said. “Foolishly, I washed both pairs. I hung them by the window all night. I even cracked it open for air. It was all for nothing. According to Sergeant Havers, I should have shown some common sense and considered the radiator. You don’t mind…?”

She shook her head. He began his work with the hair dryer again. She watched him. He’d nicked himself shaving, and he’d apparently not noticed: A thin line of blood traced along his jaw. It was the sort of thing his wife would have seen and told him about as he left the house in the morning.

She said, “This isn’t the sort of thing I’d expect the lord of the manor to be doing.”

“What? Drying his own socks?”

“Doesn’t someone like you have…What do you call them? People?”

“Well, I can’t see my sister drying my socks. My brother would be as useless as I am, and my mother would likely throw them at me.”

“I don’t mean family people. I mean people people. Servants. You know.”

“I suppose it depends on what you think of as servants. We have staff at Howenstow-that’s the family pile, if I’ve not mentioned its name-and I’ve a man who oversees the house in London. But I’d hardly call him a servant and can a single employee actually be called staff? Besides that, Charlie Denton comes and goes fairly at will. He’s a theatre lover with personal aspirations.”

“Of what sort?”

“Of the sort involving greasepaint and the crowd. He longs to be onstage but the truth of the matter is that he stands little chance of being discovered as long as he limits his range to what it currently is. He vacillates between Algernon Moncrieff and the porter in Macbeth.”

Daidre smiled in spite of herself. She wanted to be angry with him and part of her remained so. But he made it difficult.

She said, “Why did you lie to me, Thomas?”

“Lie to you?”

“You said you hadn’t gone to Falmouth asking questions about me.”

He clicked off the hair dryer. He set it on the edge of the basin and considered it. “Ah,” he said.

“Yes. Ah. Strictly speaking, I realise, you were telling me the truth. You didn’t go personally. But you sent her, didn’t you? It wasn’t her plan to go there.”

“Strictly speaking, no. I’d no idea she was in the area. I thought she was in London. But I did ask her to look into your background, so I suppose…” He made a small gesture with his hand, a European gesture telling her to complete the thought on her own.

Which she was happy enough to do. “You lied. I don’t appreciate that. You might have asked me a few questions.”

“I did, actually. You likely didn’t think I’d check on the answers.”

“To verify them. To make sure-”

“That you yourself weren’t lying.”

“I seem so questionable to you. So like a murderer.”

He shook his head. “You seem as unlike a murderer as anyone I’ve ever come across. But it’s part of the job. And the more I asked, the more I discovered there were areas in your story-”

“I thought we were getting to know each other. Foolish me.”

“We were, Daidre. We are. That was part of it. But from the beginning, there were inconsistencies in what you said about yourself, and they couldn’t be ignored.”

“You mean you couldn’t ignore them.”

He gazed at her. His expression was frank. “I couldn’t ignore them,” he said. “Someone is dead. And I’m a cop.”

“I see. D’you want to share what you’ve discovered?”

“If you like.”

“I like.”

“Bristol Zoo.”

“I work there. Has someone claimed that I don’t?”

“There is no Paul keeping primates there. And there is no Daidre Trahair born in Falmouth, at home or elsewhere. Do you want to explain?”

“Are you arresting me?”

“No.”

“Then come along. Gather your things. I want to show you something.” She headed for the door but paused there. She offered him a smile that she knew was brittle. “Or d’you want to phone DI Hannaford and Sergeant Havers first, and tell them you’re coming with me? After all, I may send you over a cliff, and they’ll want to know where to find your body.”

She didn’t wait to hear him reply or to see whether he took her up on the offer. She headed for the stairs and from there out to her car. She assured herself that one way or another it didn’t really matter if he followed or not. She congratulated herself on feeling absolutely nothing. She’d come a long way, she decided.

LYNLEY DIDN’T PHONE DI Hannaford or Barbara Havers. He was a free agent, after all, not on loan, on duty, or on anything at all. Nonetheless, he took the mobile with him once he’d donned his socks-thankfully far drier than they’d been during breakfast-and gathered up his jacket. He found Daidre in the car park, her Vauxhall idling. She’d gone rather pale during their conversation, but her colour had returned as she’d waited for him to join her.

He got into the car. In closer proximity to her, he could smell the scent she was wearing. It put him in mind of Helen, not the scent itself but the fact of the scent. Helen had been citrus, the Mediterranean on a sunny day. Daidre was…It seemed like the aftermath of rain, fresh air after a storm. He passed through a fleeting moment in which he missed Helen so much he thought his heart might stop. But it didn’t, of course. He was left with the seat belt, which he fumbled into place.

“We’re going to Redruth,” Daidre told him. “Do you want to phone DI Hannaford if you’ve not already done so? Just to be safe? Although since I’ve seen your Sergeant Havers already, she’ll be able to tell the authorities I was the last one to see you alive.”

“I don’t actually think you’re a killer,” he told her. “I’ve never thought that.”

“Haven’t you.”

“I haven’t.”

She changed the car into gear. “Perhaps I can alter all that for you, then.”

They began with a jerk, bumping over the uneven surface of the car park and from there out into the lane. It was a long drive, but they didn’t speak. She flicked on the radio. They listened to the news, to a tedious interview with a nasally challenged and self-important novelist clearly hoping to be nominated for the Booker Prize, and to a discussion on genetically altered crops. Daidre asked him at last to sort out a CD from the glove compartment, which he did. He chose at random and they ended up with the Chieftains. He put it on and she turned up the volume.

At Redruth, she avoided the town centre. Instead, she followed the signs for Falmouth. He wasn’t alarmed, but he glanced at her then. She didn’t look his way. Her jaw was set, but her expression seemed resigned, the look of someone who’d come to the endgame. Unexpectedly, he felt a brief stab of regret, although put to the question, he couldn’t have said what it was that he regretted.

A short distance from Redruth, she turned into a minor road and then into another, which was the sort of narrow lane that connects two or more hamlets. This last was marked for Carnkie, but rather than drive upon it, she stopped at a junction, merely a triangular bit of land where one might pull over and read a map. He expected her to do just that, as it appeared to him that they were in the middle of a nowhere characterised by an earthen hedge, partly reinforced by stone, and beyond it an expanse of open land studded occasionally with enormous boulders. In the distance, an unpainted granite farmhouse stood. Between them and it, ragwort and chickweed along with scrub grass were being seen to by sheep.

Daidre said, “Tell me about the room you were born in, Thomas.”

It was, he thought, the oddest sort of question. He said, “Why d’you want to know about that?”

“I’d like to imagine it, if you don’t mind. You said you were born at home, not in hospital. At the family pile. I’m wondering what sort of family pile it is. Was it your parents’ bedroom you were born in? Did they share a room? Do your kind of people do that, by the way?”

Your kind of people. A battle line had been drawn. It was an odd moment for him to feel the sort of despair that had come upon him at other moments throughout his life: always reminding him that some things didn’t change in a changing world, most of all these things.

He unfastened his seat belt and opened the door. He got out. He walked to the hedge. The wind was brisk in this area, as there was nothing to impede it. It carried the bawling of the sheep and the scent of wood smoke. Behind him, he heard Daidre’s door open. In a moment she was at his side.

He said, “My wife was quite clear about it when we married: Just in case you’re considering it, none of this separate rooms nonsense, she said. None of those coy, thrice-weekly nocturnal conjugal visits, Tommy. We shall do our conjugating when and where we desire and when we fall asleep nightly, we shall do so in each other’s presence.” He smiled. He looked back at the sheep, the expanse of land, the undulations of it as it rolled to the horizon. He said, “It’s quite a large room. Two windows with deep embrasures look down on a rose garden. There’s a fireplace-still used in winter because no matter central heating, these houses are impossible to keep warm-and a seating area in front of it. The bed’s opposite the windows. It, too, is large. It’s heavily carved, Italian. The walls are pale green. There’s a heavy gilt mirror above the fireplace, a collection of miniatures on the wall next to it. Between the windows, a demilune table holds a porcelain urn. On the walls, portraits. And two French landscapes. Family photos on side tables. That’s all.”

“It sounds very impressive.”

“It’s more comfortable than impressive. Chatsworth needn’t worry about the competition.”

“It sounds…suitable for someone of your stature.”

“It’s just where I was born, Daidre. Why did you want to know?”

She turned her head. Her gaze took in everything: the earthen hedge, the stones, the boulders in the field, the tiny junction in which they’d parked. She said, “Because I was born here.”

“In that farmhouse?”

“No. Here, Thomas. In this…well, whatever you want to call it. Here.” She walked over to a stone and from beneath it he saw her remove a card. She brought it to him and handed it over. As she did so, she said, “Did you tell me that Howenstow is Jacobean?”

“It is, in part, yes.”

“I thought so. Well, what I had was a bit more humble. Do have a look.”

He saw she’d given him a postcard with the image of a gipsy caravan on it. It was of the type that once embellished the countryside with the flavour of Romany: the wagon bright red, the arched roof green, the wheels’ spokes yellow. He studied it. Since she clearly wasn’t of gipsy birth, her parents must have been on holiday, he thought. Tourists had done that in Cornwall for years: They hired wagons and played at being gipsies.

Daidre seemed to read his mind, for she said, “No romance to it at all, I’m afraid. No getting caught short on a holiday and no Romanies in my background. My parents are travellers, Thomas. Their parents were travellers as well. My aunts and uncles, such as they are, are travellers also, and this is where our caravan was parked when I was born. Our accommodation was never as picturesque as this one,” with a nod at the card, “as it hadn’t been painted in years, but it was otherwise much the same. Not quite like Howenstow, wouldn’t you say?”

He wasn’t sure what to say. He wasn’t sure he believed her.

“Conditions were…I’d have to call them rather cramped, I suppose, although things improved marginally by the time I was eight years old. But for a time there were five of us shoehorned together. Myself, my parents, and the twins.”

“The twins.”

“My brother and my sister. Younger than I by three years. And not a single one of us born in Falmouth.”

“Are you not Daidre Trahair, then?”

“I am, in a way.”

“I don’t understand. ‘In a way’? What way?”

“Would you like to meet my real self?”

“I suppose I would.”

She nodded. She hadn’t removed her gaze from him since he’d looked up from the postcard. She seemed to be trying to evaluate his reaction. Whatever she read on his face either reassured her or told her there was no further point to obfuscation.

She said, “Right. Come along then, Thomas. There’s far more to see.”

WHEN KERRA CAME OUT of her office to ask Alan’s advice on a hiring issue, she was greatly surprised to see Madlyn Angarrack in reception. She was alone and wearing her kit from the bakery, and Kerra had the odd sense that Madlyn had come to make a delivery of pasties. She looked at the reception desk to see if a box with Casvelyn of Cornwall written upon it was sitting there.

No box in sight, Kerra hesitated. She reckoned that Madlyn had apparently come on a different sort of errand, and she assumed that the errand might have to do with her. But she didn’t want any more harsh words with Madlyn. She felt somehow beyond them now.

Madlyn saw her and said her name. She spoke tremulously, as if in fear of Kerra’s reaction. That was reasonable enough, Kerra decided. Their last conversation hadn’t gone swimmingly and they’d hardly parted as friends. They hadn’t, indeed, been friends in ages.

Madlyn had always possessed a glow of health, but that was missing at the moment. She looked as if she hadn’t been sleeping well, and her dark hair had lost something of its lustre. Her eyes, however, were still her eyes. Large, dark, and compelling, they drew you in. No doubt they’d done as much for Santo.

“Could I have a word?” Madlyn asked. “I’ve asked for a half hour from the bakery. I told them personal business…?”

“What, with me, then?” The mention of the bakery made Kerra think Madlyn must have come about a job, and who could blame her? For all the relative fame of its pasties, one could hardly expect to build a career at Casvelyn of Cornwall. Or to have much fun. And Madlyn could give surfing instruction if Kerra was able to talk her father into offering it.

“Yes. With you. Could we…somewhere?”

Alan came out of his office, then. He was saying, “Kerra, I’ve just had a word with the video crew and they’ll be available-” when he saw Madlyn. His look went from her to Kerra and rested with Kerra. His expression was warm. He nodded and he said, “Oh. I’ll speak with you later,” and then, “Hullo, Madlyn. Fantastic to see you again.”

Then he was gone and Kerra was faced with whatever reason Madlyn had for coming to speak to her. She said, “I s’pose we could go up to the lounge?”

“Yes, please,” Madlyn said.

Kerra took her there. Outside and below, she saw that her father was directing two blokes who were making something of a mess out of a flower bed, which edged a lawn that was clipped for bowling. They had containers of shrubbery meant to go at the back of the bed and Kerra could see that the labourers had nonsensically planted the shrubs at the front. She muttered, “What are they thinking?” And then to Madlyn, “It’s to give the less adventurous something to do.”

Madlyn looked confused. “What is?”

Kerra saw the other girl hadn’t even glanced outside, so apparently nervous was she. She said, “We’ve done a pitch for lawn bowling over there, beyond the rope-climbing setup. It was Alan’s idea. Dad thinks no one’s going to use it, but Alan says a gran or granddad might come along with the family and not exactly want to abseil or rope climb or whatever. I tell him he’s not got the first clue about modern grans and granddads, but he’s insisted. So we’re letting him have his way. He’s been right about other things. If it doesn’t work out, we can always do something else with the area. Croquet or something.”

“Yes. I can see how he would be. Right, that is. He always seemed…He seems very clever.”

Kerra nodded. She waited for Madlyn to reveal the reason for this call. Part of her was prepared to tell the girl up front that Ben Kerne wasn’t likely to offer surfing, so do save your breath in that regard. Part of her wanted to give Madlyn a chance to make her case. Yet another part had a small suspicion this might not be about employment at all, so she said helpfully, “Here we are, then. D’you want a coffee or something, Madlyn?”

Madlyn shook her head. She went to one of the new sofas and perched on the edge. She waited for Kerra to sit opposite her. Then she said, “I’m very sorry about Santo.” Her eyes filled, quite a change from their previous encounter. “I didn’t say properly when we talked before. But I’m so very sorry.”

“Yes. Well. I expect you are.”

Madlyn flinched. “I know what you think. That I wanted him dead. Or at least that I wanted him hurt. But I didn’t. Not really.”

“It wouldn’t have been so strange if you’d wanted that, at least that he be hurt as much as he hurt you. He was rotten in the way he treated you. I thought he might be. I did try to warn you.”

“I know you did. But, see, I thought that you…” Madlyn pressed her hand down the front of her pinny. The whole kit she wore was terrible on her: the wrong colour, the wrong style. It was amazing to Kerra that Casvelyn of Cornwall could hold anyone in their employment, making their girls wear such a getup. “I thought it was jealousy, you see.”

“What? That I wanted you for myself? Sexually, or something?”

“Not that. But in other ways. In friendship ways. She doesn’t like to share her friends, I thought. That’s what this is all about.”

“Well. Yes. It was, rather. You were my friend and I couldn’t see how you could be with him and still be…It was so complicated. Because of how he was. And what would happen when he threw you over? I wondered that.”

“You knew he’d do what he did, then.”

“I thought he might. It was rather his pattern. And then what? You’d hardly want to come round here and be reminded of him, would you? Even being with me would remind you of him, put you into the position of having to hear about him when you weren’t prepared. It was all too difficult. I couldn’t see a way past it and I couldn’t put what I was feeling into words anyway. Not in any sensible fashion. Not in a way that would make me sound reasonable.”

“I didn’t like losing you as a friend.”

“Yes. Well. There it is.” Kerra thought, What now? They could hardly pick up where they’d left off in the pre-Santo days. Too much had occurred, and the reality of Santo’s death still had to be dealt with. His death and the means of it hung between them even now. It was the great unspoken and it would remain so, as long as there was the slightest possibility that Madlyn Angarrack was involved.

Madlyn herself seemed to understand this because she next said, “I’m frightened about what happened to him. I was angry and hurt. Other people knew I was angry and hurt. I didn’t keep it to myself…what he’d done. My father knew. My brother knew. Other people knew. Will Mendick. Jago Reeth. One of them, you see…Someone might have hurt him, but I didn’t want that. I never wanted that.”

Kerra felt a tingle of apprehension along her spine. She said, “Someone might have hurt Santo to get revenge on your behalf?”

“I never wanted…But now that I know-” Her hands balled into fists. Kerra saw her fingernails-those nicely clipped crescents-dig into her palms, as if telling her she had said enough.

Kerra said slowly, “Madlyn, do you know who killed Santo?”

“No!” There was a rise to Madlyn’s voice, suggesting that what she’d come to say had not yet been said.

“But you do know something, don’t you. What?”

“It’s only that…Will Mendick came round last night. You know him, yes?”

“That bloke from the grocery. I know who he is. What about him, then?”

“He thought…I’d spoken to him, you see. Like I said before. He was one of the people I told about Santo and what happened. Not everything, but enough. And Will…” It seemed that Madlyn couldn’t finish. She twisted her hands in the hem of her pinny and looked generally miserable. “I didn’t know he fancied me,” she concluded.

“You’re telling me he did something to Santo because he fancied you? To…to get even with Santo on your behalf?”

“He said he sorted him. He…I don’t think he did more than that.”

“He and Santo were friendly. It wouldn’t have been impossible for him to get to Santo’s climbing kit, Madlyn.”

“I can’t think he actually…He wouldn’t have.”

“Have you told the police?”

“I didn’t know, you see. Not till last night. And if I’d known…If I’d known that he’d even planned it or thought about it…I didn’t want Santo hurt. Or if I wanted him hurt, I wanted him hurt, not hurt. D’you know what I mean? Hurt inside, the way I was hurt. And now I’m afraid…” She was making a real mess of her pinny. She’d balled it up and got it hopelessly wrinkled. Casvelyn of Cornwall was not going to like that.

“You think that Will Mendick killed him for you,” Kerra said.

“Someone. P’rhaps. And I didn’t want that. I didn’t ask…I didn’t tell…”

Kerra saw why the girl had come to her, finally. The knowledge dawned upon her and with the dawning came a fuller understanding of who Madlyn was. Perhaps it was the central shift within her that had come about because of Alan. She didn’t know. But she did feel different about Madlyn at long last, and she could see things from Madlyn’s perspective. She rose from her place opposite the other girl and sat at her side. She thought about taking her hand, but she didn’t. Too abrupt, she thought. Too soon.

She said, “Madlyn, you must listen to me. I don’t believe you had anything to do with what happened to Santo. There was a time when I might have done and I probably did, but it wasn’t real. Do you understand? What happened to Santo wasn’t your fault.”

“But I said to people-”

“What you said to people. But I doubt you ever said that you wanted him to die.”

Madlyn began to cry. Whether it was from grief too long withheld or from relief, Kerra could not tell. “D’you believe that?” Madlyn asked her.

“I absolutely believe it,” Kerra said.

IN THE INGLENOOK OF the Salthouse Inn’s bar, Selevan waited for Jago Reeth in something of a lather, which was unusual for him. He’d phoned his mate at LiquidEarth and asked could they meet at the Salthouse earlier than normal. He needed to talk to him. Jago was good about the matter. He didn’t ask could they talk on the phone. Instead, he said, ’Course, that’s what makes mates mates, eh? He’d give the word to Lew and set out directly, soon as he could. Lew was a decent bloke about things deemed emergencies. He could be there in…say, half an hour?

Selevan said that would do him fine. It would mean a wait and he didn’t want to wait, but he could hardly expect a miracle from Jago. LiquidEarth was some distance from the Salthouse Inn and Jago couldn’t exactly beam himself there. So Selevan finished his business at Sea Dreams, packed up the car with everything he would need for the coming trip he’d be taking, and set out for the inn.

He knew he’d carried things as far as he could, and it was time to bring it all to a conclusion, so he’d gone into Tammy’s cramped little bedroom, and from the cupboard he’d taken her canvas rucksack, which she’d first brought with her from Africa. She hadn’t needed it then and she certainly didn’t need it now, because her possessions were few and pathetic. So it was the matter of a moment only to remove them from the chest of drawers: a few pairs of knickers of the overlarge sort an old lady might wear, a few pairs of tights, four vests because the girl was so flat in the chest that she didn’t even require a brassiere, two jerseys, and several skirts. There were no trousers. Tammy did not wear trousers. Everything she possessed was black, except the knickers and the vests. These were white.

He’d scooped up her books next. She had more books than clothes and these comprised mostly philosophy and the lives of saints. She had journals as well. Her writing within them was the one thing about her that he hadn’t monitored, and Selevan was rather proud about this since during her stay with him the girl had done nothing to hide them from him. Despite her parents’ wishes in the matter, he hadn’t been able to bring himself to read her girlish thoughts and fantasies.

She had nothing else except a few toiletries, the clothes she was currently wearing, and whatever she had in her shoulder bag. That wouldn’t include her passport, since he’d taken it from her upon her arrival. “And don’t let her keep her bloody passport,” her father had intoned from Africa once he’d put her on the plane. “She’s likely to run off if she has it.”

She could have her passport now, Selevan decided. He went to fetch it from the spot where he’d hidden it, beneath the liner of the dirty clothes bin. It wasn’t there. She must have found it straightaway, he realised. The little vixen had probably been carrying it round for ages. And she had been carrying it on her person as well, since he had regularly gone through her bag for contraband. Well, she’d always been a step ahead of everyone, hadn’t she?

Selevan had made a final stab that day at bringing her parents round. Ignoring the cost and the fact that he could ill afford it, he’d rung Sally Joy and David in Africa and he’d felt them out on the matter of Tammy. He’d said to David, “Listen here, lad, at the end of the day, kids got to follow their own path. Let’s s’pose it was some ruffian she decided she was in love with, eh? More you argue against it, more you forbid her seeing the bloke, more she’s going to want to do it. It’s simple psycho-whachamacallit thingummybob. Nothing more or less’n that.”

“She’s won you over, hasn’t she?” David had demanded. In the background, Selevan could hear Sally Joy wailing, “What? What’s happened? Is that your father? What’s she done?”

“I’m not saying she’s done anything,” Selevan said.

But David went on, as if Selevan hadn’t spoken. “I’d hardly think it was possible for her to do it, all things considered. It’s not as if your own kids were ever able to make you see reason, were they.”

“’Nough of that, son. I admit my mistakes with you lot. Point is, though, you made lives for yourself and they’re good lives, eh? The girl wants nothing less.”

“She doesn’t know what she wants. Look, do you want a relationship with Tammy or not? Because if you don’t oppose her in this, you’ll not have a relationship with her. I can promise you.”

“And if I do oppose her, I’ll have no relationship with her anyway. So what would you have me do, lad?”

“I’d have you show sense, something Tammy’s clearly lost. I’d have you be a model for her.”

“A model? What’re you on about? What sort of model am I meant to be to a girl of seventeen? That’s rubbish, that is.”

They’d gone round and round. But Selevan had failed to convince his son of anything. He couldn’t see that Tammy was resourceful: Being sent to England had hardly put her off her stride. He could send her to the North Pole if he wanted, but when it came down to it, Tammy was going to find a way to live as she wanted to live.

“Pack her on home, then,” had been David’s final remark. Before he’d rung off, Selevan could hear Sally Joy in the background, crying, “But what’ll we do with her, David?” Selevan had said bah to it all. He’d set about packing up Tammy’s belongings.

That was when he’d phoned Jago. He’d be fetching Tammy from Clean Barrel Surf Shop for a final time and he wanted to do so with someone’s goodwill behind him. Jago seemed the likeliest someone.

Selevan hadn’t been happy drawing Jago away from his work. On the other hand, he needed to set out on his journey and he’d told himself that Jago would go to the Salthouse Inn for their regular knees-up later on that day, so one way or another he had to tell him he wouldn’t be there at their regular time. Now he waited and felt the nerves come upon him. He needed someone on his side, and he’d be in a state till he got someone there.

When Jago came in, Selevan waved a hello with no small measure of relief. Jago stopped at the bar to have a word with Brian and came over, still in his jacket with his knitted cap pulled over his long grey hair. He shed both jacket and cap and rubbed his hands together as he drew out the stool that faced Selevan’s bench. The fire hadn’t yet been lit-too early for that as they were the only two drinkers in the bar-and Jago asked could he light it? Brian gave the nod and Jago put match to tinder. He blew on the emergent flames till they caught. Then he returned to the table. He gave a thanks to Brian as his Guinness was brought to him and he took a swig of it.

He said, “What’s the brief, then, mate?” to Selevan. “You look a right state.”

“I’m heading out,” Selevan said. “Few days, a bit more.”

“Are you, then? Where?”

“North. Place not far from the border.”

“What? Wales?”

“Scotland.”

Jago whistled. “Far piece, that. Want me to keep an eye on things, then? Want me to keep a watch on Tammy?”

“Taking Tammy with me,” Selevan said. “I’ve done as much as I can here. Job’s finished. Now we’re off. Time the girl was let to lead the life she wants.”

“Truth to that,” Jago said. “I won’t be here that much longer myself.”

Selevan was surprised to feel the extent of his dismay at hearing this news. “Where you off to, Jago? I thought you meant to stay the season.”

Jago shook his head. He lifted his Guinness and drank of it deeply. “Never stay one place long. That’s how I look at it. I’m thinking South Africa. Capetown, p’rhaps.”

“You won’t go till I’m back, though. Sounds a bit mad, this, but I’ve got used to having you round.”

Jago looked at him and the lenses of his glasses winked in the light. “Best not to do that. Doesn’t pay to get used to anything.”

“’Course, I know that, but-”

The bar door swung open, but not in its usual fashion, with someone swinging it just wide enough to enter. Instead, it opened with a startling bang that would have put an end to all conversation had anyone save Jago and Selevan been within.

Two women came inside. One of them had stand-up hair that looked purple in the light. The other wore a knitted cap pulled low on her face, just to her eyes. The women looked around and Purple Hair settled on the inglenook.

She strode over saying, “Ah. We’d like a word with you, Mr. Reeth.”