Ben’s face had altered to granite as she’d spoken. After a fractional hestitation, he rose from the sofa where he’d placed himself and his wife, and he went back to the cappuccino maker. Bea let the silence continue, and when Constable McNulty cleared his throat as if to speak, she knocked her foot against his to keep him quiet. She liked tension during an interview, especially if one of the suspects was inadvertently providing it to the other.
Dellen finally spoke again, but she looked at Ben, as if what she said comprised a hidden message for him. “We lived down the coast, Ben and I, but not in a place like Newquay, where there’re at least a few diversions. We were from a village where there was nothing to do besides the beach in summer and sex in winter. And sometimes sex in summer as well if the weather wasn’t good enough for the beach. We ran in packs then-a gang of kids-and we mixed it up with each other. Pairing off this way for a bit, pairing off that way for a bit. Till we got to Truro, that is. Ben went first and I-clever girl-followed him directly. And that made all the difference. Things changed for us in Truro.”
Ben returned with her drink. He also brought with him a packet of cigarettes that he’d taken from somewhere in the kitchenette, and he lit one for her and handed it over. He sat next to her, quite close.
Dellen downed the second coffee much as she’d done the first, as if her mouth were lined with asbestos. She took the cigarette from him and drew in on it expertly, doing what Bea always thought of as that double-inhaling bit: drawing smoke in, letting a bit out, drawing it all back in again. Dellen Kerne made the act look unique. Bea tried to get a bead on the woman. Dellen’s hands were unsteady.
“Bright lights, big city?” she asked the Kernes. “Is that what took you to Truro?”
“Hardly,” Dellen said. “Ben had an uncle who took him in when he was eighteen. He kept rowing with his dad. Over me. Dad thought-this is Ben’s, not mine-that if he got him out of the village, he’d get him out of my hair as well. Or get me out of his. He didn’t reckon I’d follow. Did he, Ben?”
Ben covered her hand with his. She was saying too much and all of them knew it, but only Ben and his wife knew why she was doing it. Bea considered what all this had to do with Santo as Ben endeavoured to wrest control of the conversation from Dellen by saying, “That’s a reinvention of history. Truth of the matter”-and this he said directly to Bea-“is that my dad and I never got on very well. His dream was to live entirely off the land, and after eighteen years of that, I’d had enough. I made arrangements to live with my uncle. I took off for Truro. Dellen followed me in…I don’t know…What was it? Eight months?”
“Seemed like eight centuries,” Dellen said. “For my sins, I knew a good thing when I saw it. For my sins, I still do.” She kept her gaze on Ben Kerne as she said to Bea, “I’ve a wonderful husband whose patience I’ve tried for many years, Inspector Hannaford. Could I have another coffee, Ben?”
Ben said, “Are you sure that’s wise?”
“But make it hotter still, please. I don’t think that machine is working very well.”
And it came to Bea that that was it: the coffee and what the coffee stood for. She hadn’t wanted it, and he’d insisted. Coffee as metaphor, and Dellen Kerne was rubbing his face in it.
She said, “I’d like to see your son’s room, if I may. As soon as you’ve finished with your coffee, of course.”
DAIDRE TRAHAIR WAS WALKING back towards Polcare Cove along the cliff top when she saw him. A brisk wind was blowing and she’d just stopped to refasten her hair in its tortoiseshell slide. She’d managed to capture most of it, and she’d shoved the rest of it behind her ears, and there he was, perhaps one hundred yards to the south of her. He’d obviously just climbed from the cove, so her first thought was that he was on his way again, resuming his walk, having been released from all suspicion by Detective Inspector Hannaford. She concluded that this release was reasonable enough: As soon as he’d said he was from New Scotland Yard, he’d probably been absolved from suspicion. If only she herself had been half so clever…
Except she had to be truthful, at least with herself. Thomas Lynley had never told them he was from New Scotland Yard, had he? It had been something assumed last night by the other two the moment he’d said his name.
He’d said Thomas Lynley. They’d said-one of them and she couldn’t remember which one it had been-New Scotland Yard? in such a way that seemed to speak volumes among them. He’d said something to indicate they were correct in their assumption and that had been it.
She knew why now. For if he was Thomas Lynley of New Scotland Yard then he was also Thomas Lynley whose wife had been murdered in the street in front of their Belgravia house. Every cop in the country would know about that. The police were, after all, a brotherhood of sorts. This meant, Daidre knew, that all cops everywhere in the country were connected. She needed to remember that, and she needed to be careful round him, no matter his pain and her inclination to assuage it. Everyone had pain, she told herself. Life was all about learning to cope with it.
He raised an arm to wave. She waved in turn. They walked towards each other across the top of the cliff. The path here was narrow and uneven-with shards of carboniferous stone tipping up from the soil-and along its east side gorse rustled thickly, a yellow intrusion standing hardily against the wind. Beyond the gorse, grass grew abundantly although it was closely cropped by the sheep that grazed freely upon it.
When they were close enough to be heard by each other, Daidre said to Thomas Lynley, “So. You’re on your way, then?” But as soon as she spoke, she realised this was not the case, and she went on to add, “Except you’ve not got your rucksack with you, so you aren’t on your way at all.”
He nodded solemnly. “You’d make a good detective.”
“A decidedly elementary deduction, I’m afraid. Anything more would escape my notice. Are you out for a walk?”
“I was looking for you.” As it had done to hers, the wind tossed his hair and he brushed it away from his forehead. Again, she thought how like hers it was. She assumed that he went quite blond in summer.
“For me?” she asked. “How did you know where to find me? Beyond knocking at the door of the cottage, I mean. Because I hope I can presume you did knock this time. I don’t have many more windows to offer up to you.”
“I knocked,” he said. “When no one answered, I had a look round and saw the fresh footprints. I followed them. It was simple enough.”
“And here I am,” she said.
“And here you are.”
He smiled and seemed to hesitate for some reason, which surprised Daidre as he didn’t seem the type of man who’d hesitate at anything. She said, “And?” and cocked her head. He had, she noted, a scar on his upper lip that relieved his otherwise off-putting appearance, which was handsome in that classical sense: He had strong features that were well defined. No indication of inbreeding here.
“I’ve come to ask you to dinner,” he said. “I’m afraid I can only offer you the Salthouse Inn as I’ve no funds of my own yet, and I can hardly invite you for a meal and ask you to pay for it, can I. But at the inn, they’ll put our meal on the books, and as breakfast was excellent-well, at least it was filling-I suspect dinner will be adequate as well.”
“What a dubious invitation,” she said.
He seemed to think about it. “D’you mean the ‘adequate’ part?”
“Yes. ‘Join me for an adequate albeit far-from-sumptuous meal.’ It’s one of those gallant post-Victorian requests one can only respond to with ‘Thank you, I think.’”
He laughed. “Sorry. My mother would roll in her grave, were she dead, which she isn’t. Let me say, then, that I’ve had a look at tonight’s menu, and it appears…if not brilliant, then at least swell.”