When the question came, it was not what Ben expected. McNulty said, “Is Alexander Kerne your son?”

Ben said “Santo?” and he thought, Thank God. It was Santo who had got himself into trouble, no doubt arrested for trespassing, which Ben had warned him about time and again. He said, “What’s he done, then?”

“He’s had an accident,” the constable said. “I’m sorry to tell you that a body’s been found that appears to be Alexander’s. If you have a photo of him…”

Ben heard the word body but did not allow it to penetrate. He said, “Is he in hospital, then? Which one? What happened?” He thought of how he would have to tell Dellen, of what route the news would send her down.

“…awfully sorry,” the constable was saying. “If you’ve a photo, we-”

“What did you say?”

Constable McNulty looked flustered. He said, “He’s dead, I’m afraid. The body. The one we found.”

“Santo? Dead? But where? How?” Ben looked out at the roiling sea just as a gust of wind hit the windows and rattled them against their sills. He said, “Good Christ, he went out in this. He was surfing.”

“Not surfing,” McNulty said.

“Then what happened?” Ben asked. “Please. What happened to Santo?”

“He’s had a cliff-climbing accident. Equipment failure. On the cliffs at Polcare Cove.”

“He was climbing?” Ben said stupidly. “Santo was climbing? Who was with him? Where-”

“No one, as it seems at the moment.”

“No one? He was climbing alone? At Polcare Cove? In this weather?” It seemed to Ben that all he could do was repeat the information like an automaton being programmed to speak. To do more than that meant he would have to embrace it, and he couldn’t bear that because he knew what embracing it was going to mean. “Answer me,” he said to the constable. “Bloody answer me, man.”

“Have you a picture of Alexander?”

“I want to see him. I must. It might not be-”

“That’s not possible just now. That’s why I need the photo. The body…He’s been taken to hospital in Truro.”

Ben leapt at the word. “So he’s not dead, then.”

“Mr. Kerne, I’m sorry. He’s dead. The body-”

“You said hospital.”

“To the mortuary, for the postmortem,” McNulty said. “I’m very sorry.”

“Oh my God.”

The front door opened below. Ben went to the lounge doorway and called out, “Dellen?” Footsteps came in the direction of the stairs. But then it was Kerra and not Ben’s wife who appeared in the doorway. She dripped rainwater onto the floor, and she’d removed her bicycle helmet. The very top of her head was the only part of her that appeared to be dry.

She looked at the constable, then said to Ben, “Has something happened?”

“Santo.” Ben’s voice was hoarse. “Santo’s been killed.”

“Santo.” Then, “Santo?” Kerra looked round the room in a kind of panic. “Where’s Alan? Where’s Mum?”

Ben found he couldn’t meet her eyes. “Your mother’s not here.”

“What’s happened, then?”

Ben told her what little he knew.

She said, as he had, “Santo was climbing?” and she looked at him with an expression that said what he himself was thinking: If Santo had gone climbing, he’d likely done so because of his father.

“Yes,” Ben said. “I know. I know. You don’t need to tell me.”

“Know what, sir?” It was the constable speaking.

It came to Ben that these initial moments were critical ones in the eyes of the police. They would always be critical because the police didn’t yet know what they were dealing with. They had a body and they reckoned having a body equated an accident, but on the chance that it wasn’t an accident, they had to be ready to point the finger and ask relevant questions and for the love of God, where was Dellen?

Ben rubbed his forehead. He thought, uselessly, that all of this was down to the sea, coming back to the sea, never feeling completely at ease unless the sound of the sea was not far off and yet being forced into feeling at ease for years and years while all the time longing for it and the great open heaving mass of it and the noise of it and the excitement of it and now this. It was down to him that Santo was dead.

No surfing, he’d said. I do not want you surfing. D’you know how many blokes throw their lives away just hanging about, waiting for waves? It’s mad. It’s a waste.

“…act as liaison,” Constable McNulty was saying.

Ben said, “What? What’s that? Liaison?”

Kerra was watching him, her blue eyes narrowed. She looked speculative, which was the last way he wanted his daughter to look at him just now. She said carefully, “The constable was telling us they’ll send a liaison officer round. Once they have the picture of Santo and they know for certain.” And then to McNulty, “Why d’you need a picture?”

“He had no identification on him.”

“Then how-”

“We found the car. A lay-by near Stowe Wood. His driving licence was in the glove box, and the keys in his rucksack fitted the door lock.”

“So this is just form,” Kerra pointed out.

“Essentially, yes. But it has to be done.”

“I’ll fetch a photo then.” She went off to do so.

Ben marveled at her. All business, Kerra. She wore her competence like a suit of armour. It broke his heart.

He said, “When can I see him?”

“Not until after the postmortem, I’m afraid.”

“Why?”

“It’s regulation, Mr. Kerne. They don’t like anyone near the…near him…till afterwards. Forensics, you see.”

“They’ll cut him up.”

“You won’t see. It won’t be like that. They’ll fix him up after. They’re good at what they do. You won’t see.”

“He’s not a God damn piece of meat.”

“’Course he’s not. I’m sorry, Mr. Kerne.”

“Are you? Have you children of your own?”

“A boy, yes. I’ve got a boy, sir. Your loss is the worst a man can experience. I know that, Mr. Kerne.”

Ben stared at him, hot eyed. The constable was young, probably less than twenty-five. He thought he knew the ways of the world, but he had no clue, absolutely not the slightest idea, what was out there and what could happen. He didn’t know that there was no way to prepare and no way to control. At a gallop, life came at you on horseback and there you were with two options only. You either climbed up or you were mowed down. Try to find the middle ground and you failed.

Kerra returned, a snapshot in hand. She gave it to Constable McNulty, saying, “This is Santo. This is my brother.”

McNulty looked at it. “Handsome lad,” he said.

“Yes,” Ben said heavily. “He favours his mother.”

Chapter Four

“FORMERLY.” DAIDRE CHOSE HER MOMENT WHEN SHE WAS alone with Thomas Lynley, when Sergeant Collins had ducked into the kitchen to brew himself yet another cup of tea. Collins had so far managed to swill down four of them. Daidre hoped he had no intention of sleeping that night because, if her nose was not mistaken, he’d been helping himself to her very best Russian Caravan tea.

Thomas Lynley roused himself. He’d been staring at the coal fire. He was seated near it, not comfortably with his long legs stretched out as one might expect of a man enjoying the warmth of a fire, but elbows on knees and hands dangling loosely in front of him. “What?” he said.

“When he asked you, you said formerly. He said New Scotland Yard and you said formerly.”

“Yes,” Lynley said. “Formerly.”

“Have you quit your job? Is that why you’re in Cornwall?”

He looked at her. Once again she saw the injury that she had seen before in his eyes. He said, “I don’t quite know. I suppose I have. Quit, that is.”

“What sort…If you don’t mind my asking, what sort of policeman were you?”

“A fairly good sort, I think.”

“Sorry. I meant…Well, there’re lots of different sorts, aren’t there? Special Branch, protecting the Royals, Vice, walking a patch…”