Careless in Red

by Elizabeth George

  Daidre would have preferred it if the old man hadn’t decided to join her, but she couldn’t come up with an excuse that would politely communicate her desire to be left in peace. For she’d never come into the Salthouse Inn prior to this for the purpose of having a bit of peace, so why would he assume that now? No one would come to the Salthouse Inn for peace, as the inn was where denizens of the area gathered for gossip and conviviality, not for meditation.

  She said, “They want to talk to me,” and she showed him the note she’d found at her cottage. It was written on the back of DI Hannaford’s card. “I’ve spoken to them already,” she said. “The day Santo died. I can’t think why they want to question me again.”

  Selevan looked at the card, turning it over in his hands. “Looks serious,” he told her. “With them leaving their cards and the like.”

  “I think it’s more that I don’t have a phone. But I’ll speak with them. Of course I will.”

  “Mind you get yourself a solicitor. Tammy didn’t, but that’s cos Tammy had something to tell them and not the reverse, like I said. ’S not as if she was hiding something. She had information, so she handed it over.” He cocked his head at her. “You hiding something yourself, my girl?”

  Daidre smiled and pocketed the card as the old man returned it to her. “We all have secrets, don’t we. Is that why you’re suggesting a solicitor?”

  “Didn’t say that,” Selevan protested. “But you’re a deep one, Dr. Trahair. We’ve known that ’bout you from the first. No girl throws a dart like you without having something tricky in her background, you ask me.”

  “I’m afraid that Roller Derby is as dark as my secrets get, Selevan.”

  “What’s that, then?”

  She tapped his hand with the tips of her fingers. “You’ll have to do your research and find out, my friend.”

  Through the windows, then, she saw the Ford as it bumped into the inn’s uneven car park. Lynley got out of it and started to walk in the direction of the inn, but he turned as another car entered the car park behind him, this one a rather decrepit Mini whose driver honked the car’s horn at him as if he were in the way.

  “That Jago, then?” Selevan was not in a position to see the car park from where he sat. He said, “Cheers, mate,” to Brian, who brought him his Glenmorangie, and he slurped down his first gulp with satisfaction.

  “No,” Daidre said slowly. “It isn’t.” As she watched the car park, she could hear Selevan nattering on about his granddaughter. Tammy had a mind of her own, it seemed, and nothing was going to put her off a course she’d set for herself. “Got to admire the lass for that,” Selevan was saying. “P’rhaps we’re all being too hard on the girl.”

  Daidre made appropriate listening noises, but she was concentrating on the action outside, what little there was of it. Lynley had been accosted by the driver of the banged-up Mini. This was a barrel-shaped woman in droopy corduroy trousers and a donkey jacket buttoned to her neck. Their conversation lasted only a moment. A bit of arm waving on the woman’s part suggested a minor altercation about Lynley’s driving.

  Behind them, then, Jago Reeth’s Defender pulled into the car park. “Here’s Mr. Reeth now,” Daidre told Selevan.

  “Best claim our spot, then,” Selevan told her, and he rose and went to the inglenook.

  Daidre continued to watch. More words were exchanged outside. Lynley and the woman fell silent as Jago Reeth climbed out of his car. Reeth nodded to them politely, as fellow pubgoers do, before heading in the direction of the door. Lynley and the woman exchanged a few more words, and then they parted.

  At this, Daidre rose. It took her a moment to negotiate payment for the tea she’d had while waiting for Lynley. By the time she got to the entry to the hotel, Jago Reeth was ensconced with Selevan Penrule in the inglenook, the woman from the car park was gone, and Lynley himself had apparently returned to his own car for a tattered cardboard box. This he was carrying into the inn as Daidre entered the dimly lit reception area. It was colder here because of the uneven stone floor and the outer door, which was frequently off the latch. Daidre shivered and realised she’d left her coat in the bar.

  Lynley saw her at once. He smiled and said, “Hullo. I didn’t notice your car out there. Did you intend to surprise me?”

  “I intended to waylay you. What’ve you got there?”

  He looked down at what he was holding. “Old copper’s notes. Or copper’s old notes. Both, I suppose. He’s a pensioner down in Zennor.”

  “That’s where you’ve been today?”

  “There and Newquay. Pengelly Cove as well. I stopped by your cottage this morning to invite you along, but you were nowhere to be found. Did you go off for the day?”

  “I like driving in the countryside,” Daidre said. “It’s one of the reasons I come down here when I can.”

  “Understandable. I like it as well.” He shifted the box, held it at an angle against his hip in that way men have, so different to the way women hold something bulky, she thought. He regarded her. He looked healthier than he had four days ago. There was a small spark of life about him that had not been present then. She wondered if it had to do with being caught up in police work again. Perhaps it was something that got into one’s blood: the intellectual excitement of the puzzle of the crime and the physical excitement of the chase.

  “You’ve work to do.” She indicated the box. “I was hoping for a word, if you had the time.”

  “Were you?” He lifted an eyebrow. The smile again. “I’m happy to give it to you—the word, the time, whatever. Let me put this in my room and I can meet you…in the bar? Five minutes?”

  She didn’t want it to be the bar, now that Jago Reeth and Selevan Penrule were within. More of the regulars would be arriving as the time wore on, and she wasn’t enthusiastic about the prospect of gossip developing over Dr. Trahair’s intimate conversation with the Scotland Yard detective.

  She said, “I’d prefer some place a bit more private. Is there…?” Aside from the restaurant, whose doors were closed and would be for another hour at least, there was really no other spot where they could meet aside from his room.

  He seemed to conclude this at the same moment she did. He said, “Come up, then. The accommodations are monastic, but I’ve tea if you’re not averse to PG tips and those grim little containers of milk. I believe there’re ginger biscuits as well.”

  “I’ve had my tea. But thanks, yes. I think your room’s the best place.”

  She followed him up the stairs. She’d never been above in the Salthouse Inn, and it felt odd to be there now, treading down the little corridor in the wake of a man, as if they had an assignation of some sort. She found herself hoping that no one would see and misinterpret, and then she asked herself why and what did it matter anyway?

  The door wasn’t locked—“Didn’t seem to be a point, as I have nothing here for someone to steal,” he noted—and he ushered her within, politely stepping to one side to allow her to precede him into the room. He was right in calling it monastic, she saw. It was quite clean and brightly painted, but spare. There was only the bed to sit on unless one wished to perch on the small chest of drawers. The bed itself seemed vast although it was only a single. Daidre found herself getting hot in the face when she took it in, so she looked away.

  A basin was fitted into the corner of the room, and Lynley went to this after setting his cardboard box on the floor, carefully, against the wall. He hung up the jacket he was wearing—she could see that he was a man who was diligent about his clothing—and he washed his hands.

  Now that she was here, she wasn’t sure of anything. Instead of the anxiety she’d been feeling earlier when Cilla Cormack had brought her the news of Scotland Yard’s interest in her and her family in Falmouth, she now felt awkward and shy. She told herself it was because Thomas Lynley seemed to fill the room. He was a good-size man, several inches over six feet tall, and the result of being in such a confined space with him appeared to be having her r
idiculously melting into Victorian-maiden-caught-in-a-compromising-situation. It was nothing he was doing, particularly. It was, rather, the simple fact of him and the tragic aura that seemed to surround him, despite his pleasant demeanour. But the fact that she was feeling other than she would have liked to be feeling made Daidre impatient, both with him and with herself.

  She sat at the foot of the bed. Before she did so, she handed him the note she’d found from DI Hannaford. He told her that the inspector had arrived at her cottage shortly after his own arrival that morning. “I see you’re in demand,” he said.

  “I’ve come for your advice.” This wasn’t altogether true, but it was a good place to begin, she decided. “What do you recommend?”

  He went to the head of the bed and sat. “About this?” He gestured with the card. “I recommend that you talk to her.”

  “Have you any idea what it’s about?”

  He said, after a revealing moment of hesitation, that he had not. “But whatever it is,” he said, “I suggest you be completely truthful. I think it’s always best to tell investigators the truth. In general, I think it’s best to tell the truth full stop, one way or another.”

  “And if the truth is that I killed Santo Kerne?”

  He hesitated a moment before replying. “I don’t believe that is the truth, frankly.”

  “Are you a truthful man yourself, Thomas?”

  “I try to be.”

  “Even in the middle of a case?”

  “Especially then. When it’s appropriate. Sometimes, with a suspect, it’s not.”

  “Am I a suspect?”

  “Yes,” he told her. “Unfortunately, you are.”

  “So that would be why you went to Falmouth to ask about me.”

  “Falmouth? I didn’t go to Falmouth. For any reason.”

  “Yet someone was there, talking to my parents’ neighbours, as things turned out. It was apparently someone from New Scotland Yard. Who would that be if it wasn’t you? And what is it you would need to know about me that you couldn’t ask me yourself?”

  He rose. He came to her end of the bed and squatted before her. This gave her more proximity to him than she would have liked, and she made a move to rise. He stopped her: Just a gentle hand on her arm was enough. “I wasn’t in Falmouth, Daidre,” he said. “I swear to you.”

  “Then who?”

  “I don’t know.” He fixed his eyes on hers. They were earnest, steady. “Daidre, have you something to hide?”

  “Nothing that would interest Scotland Yard. Why’re they investigating me?”

  “They investigate everyone when there’s been a murder. You’re involved because the boy died close by your property. And…Are there other reasons? Is there something you’ve not told me that you’d like to tell me now?”

  “I don’t mean why are they investigating me.” Daidre tried to sound casual but the intensity of his look made it difficult. “I mean, why Scotland Yard? What’s Scotland Yard doing here at all?”

  He rose once again. He went to the electric kettle. Surprisingly, she found that she was both relieved and sorry that he’d moved away from her, as there was a form of safety in his proximity that she hadn’t expected to feel. He didn’t answer at once. Instead, he filled the kettle at the basin and switched it on. When he did speak in answer to her next question, he still didn’t look at her.

  She said, “Thomas? Why are they here?”

  He said, “Bea Hannaford is undermanned. She should have a murder squad working the case, and she doesn’t. I daresay they’re spread too thin just now across the district, and the regional constabulary made a request to the Met for someone to assist.”

  “Is that usual?”

  “To have the Met involved? No. It’s not. But it happens.”

  “Why would they be asking questions about me? And why in Falmouth?”

  Silence as he messed about with a bag of PG Tips and a cup. He was frowning. A car door slammed outside, and then another. A happy shout went up as fellow drinkers greeted each other.

  He had finally turned back to her when he made his reply. He said, “As I said, in a murder investigation, everyone is looked into, Daidre. You and I went to Pengelly Cove on a similar mission, about Ben Kerne.”

  “But that doesn’t make sense. I grew up in Falmouth. Yes, indeed. But why ask someone to go there and not to Bristol, where my life is now?”

  “Perhaps they’ve someone else in Bristol,” Lynley said. “Is this important somehow?”

  “Of course it’s important. What a ridiculous question! How would you feel, knowing the police were digging into your background for no apparent reason save the fact that a boy fell from a cliff nearby your cottage?”

  “If I had nothing to hide, I don’t imagine I’d care one way or the other. So we’ve come full circle. Have you something to hide? Something you wish the police not to know about you? Perhaps about your life in Falmouth? About who you are or what you do?”

  “What could I possibly have to hide?”

  He gazed at her steadily before finally saying, “How could I have the answer to that?”

  She felt all on the wrong foot with him now. She’d come to speak to him, if not in high dudgeon, then at least believing that she was in a position of strength: the injured party. But now she felt as if the tables had been turned. It was as if she’d tossed the dice a bit too wildly and he’d ever so deftly scooped them up.

  “Is there something more you want to tell me?” he asked her again.

  She said the only thing she could. “Not at all.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  BEA HAD A NEW CHOCK STONE ON HER DESK WHEN SERGEANT Havers entered the incident room on the following morning. She’d got its stiff plastic sheathing off by using the blade of a new and consequently highly sharp X-Acto knife. She’d had to be careful about it, but the operation hadn’t taken either skill or much effort. She was in the process of comparing the unsheathed chock stone to the array of cutting tools she also had on her desk.

  Havers said to her, “What’re you on to, then?” The DS had obviously made a stop at Casvelyn of Cornwall on her way to the station. Bea could smell the pasties from across the room, and she didn’t need to look for it to know that Sergeant Havers had a bag of them somewhere on her person.

  “Second breakfast?” she asked the sergeant.

  “I skipped the first,” Havers replied. “Just a cup of coffee and a glass of juice. I reckoned I owed myself a dip into the more substantial food groups.” She carried her capacious shoulder bag and from this she brought forth the incriminating Cornish delicacy, well wrapped but nonetheless emitting its telltale aroma.

  “A few of those and you’ll blow up like a balloon,” Bea told her. “Go easy on them.”

  “Will do. But I find it essential to sample the local cuisine, wherever I am.”

  “Lucky for you it’s not goat’s head, then.”

  Havers hooted, which Bea took as her version of a laugh. “Also felt the need to give a few words of encouragement to our Madlyn Angarrack,” Havers said. “You know the sort of thing: Don’t worry, lass, buck up, tut-tut, tallyho, and all that, keep your pecker pecking, and it’ll all come out in the wash at the end of the day. I found I’m a veritable fountain of clichés.”

  “That was good of you. I’m sure she appreciated it.” Bea selected one of the heavier bolt cutters and applied it forcefully to the chock stone’s cable. Nothing but pain shooting up her arm. “That one’s a real nonstarter,” she said.

  “Right. Well, she wasn’t overly friendly, but she did accept a wee pat on the shoulder, which was easy enough to give as she was loading up the front window at the time.”

  “Hmm. And how did Miss Angarrack take your fond caress?”

  “She didn’t debark from the tuna boat yesterday, I’ll give her that. She knew I was up to something.”

  “Were you?” Bea suddenly took more notice of Havers.

  The DS was smiling wickedly. She was also removi
ng a paper napkin carefully from her shoulder bag. She brought it to Bea’s desk and laid it gently down. “Can’t use it in court, of course,” she said. “But there it is all the same for a comparison, if you’ve the mind for it. Not a regular DNA comparison cause there’s no skin attached. But one of those others. Mitochondrial. I expect we can use it for that if we need to.”

  It, Bea saw, as she unfolded the napkin, was a single hair. Quite dark, with a slight curl to it. She looked up at Havers. “You wily thing. From her shoulder, I take it?”

  “You’d think they’d have them wear caps or hairnets or something if they’re going to be around food, wouldn’t you?” Havers shuddered dramatically and took an enormous bite of the pasty. “I reckoned I needed to do my bit for hygiene in Casvelyn. And anyway, I thought you might like to have it.”

  “No one has ever brought me such a thoughtful gift,” Bea told her. “I may be falling in love with you, Sergeant.”

  “Please, Guv,” Havers said, holding up her hand. “You’ll have to get in the queue.”

  Bea knew that, as Havers had said, the hair was useless in building a crown case against Madlyn Angarrack, considering how the sergeant had got her hands on it. They could do nothing with it save assure themselves through comparison that the hair they’d already found caught up in Santo Kerne’s equipment was one belonging to his former girlfriend. But it was something, a shot in the arm that they needed. Bea placed it in an envelope and labeled it carefully for Duke Clarence Washoe to peruse in Chepstow.

  “I’m reckoning it’s all to do with sex and vengeance,” Bea said when the hair was taken care of. Havers pulled over a chair and joined her, munching the pasty with evident appreciation.

  She shoved a wad of it to one side of her mouth and said, “Sex and vengeance? How’ve you got it playing out?”

  “I was off and on thinking about it all night, and I kept coming back to the initial betrayal.”

  “Santo Kerne taking up with Dr. Trahair?”

  “For which Madlyn either seeks vengeance herself with this”—Bea held up the chock stone in one hand and a bolt cutter in the other—“and this. Or one of the men does it for her, after she’s supplied him with two of the chock stones, which she’s nicked out of the boot of Santo’s car. She’s already done the business on the sling. That was easy. But the chock stones require rather more strength than she has. So she needs a helper. She would have known where Santo was keeping his equipment. All she needed was someone willing to be her assistant.”