“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 removing 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.”