Careless in Red

by Elizabeth George

  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 shou
lder 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 sa
id, “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…?”