By this, Bea took it to mean that Angarrack was operating whatever tool was making the noise. As she reached her conclusion, the older gentleman turned. He had an antique face, and his specs were held together with wire.

He said, “Sorry. Can’t stop just now,” with a nod at what he was doing. “Come in, though. You the cops?”

That was obvious enough, as McNulty was in uniform. But Bea stepped forward, leaving tracks along a floor powdered with polystyrene dust, and offered her identification. He gave it a cursory glance and a nod and said he was Jago Reeth. The glasser, he added. He was putting the final coat of resin on a board, and he had to smooth it before it began to set or he’d have a sanding problem on his hands. But he’d be free to talk to them when he was finished if they wanted him. If they wanted Lew, he was doing the initial shaping of the rails on a board and he wouldn’t want to be disturbed, as he liked to do it in one go.

“We’ll be sure to make our apologies,” Bea told Jago Reeth. “Can you fetch him for us. Or shall we…?” She indicated the door behind which the shrieking of a tool told the tale of some serious rail shaping.

“Hang on, then,” Jago said. “Let me get this on. Won’t take five minutes and it’s got to be done all at once.”

They watched as he finished with the plastic pail. The resin formed a shallow pool defined by the curve of the surfboard, and he used a paintbrush to spread it evenly. Once again Bea noted the degree to which his hand shook as he wielded the paintbrush. He seemed to read her mind in her glance.

He said, “Not too many good years left. Should have taken on the big waves when I had the chance.”

“You surf yourself?” Bea asked Jago Reeth.

“Not these days. Not if I want to see tomorrow.” He peered up at her from his position bent over the board. His eyes behind his spectacles-the glass of which was flecked with white residue-were clear and sharp despite his age. “You’re here about Santo Kerne, I expect. Was a murder, eh?”

“You know that, do you?” Bea asked Jago Reeth.

“Didn’t know,” he said. “Just reckoned.”

“Why?”

“You’re here. Why else if not a murder? Or are you lot going round offering condolences to everyone who knew the lad?”

“You’re among those?”

“Am,” he said. “Not long, but I knew him. Six months or so, since I worked for Lew.”

“So you’re not an old-timer here in town?”

He made a long sweep with his paintbrush, the length of the board. “Me? No. I come up from Australia this time round. Been following the season long as I can tell you.”

“Summer or surfing?”

“Same thing in some places. Others, it’s winter. They always need blokes who can do boards. I’m their man.”

“Isn’t it a bit early for the season here?”

“Not hardly, eh? Just a few more weeks. And now’s when I’m needed most cos before the season starts is when the orders come in. Then in the season boards get dinged and repairs are needed. Newquay, North Shore, Queensland, California. I’m there to do them. Use to work first and surf later. Sometimes the reverse.”

“But not now.”

“Hell no. It’d kill me for sure. His dad thought it’d kill Santo, you know. Idjit, he was. Safer than crossing the street. And it gets a lad out in the air and sunlight.”

“So does sea cliff climbing,” Bea pointed out.

Jago eyed her. “And look what happened there.”

“D’you know the Kernes, then?”

“Santo. Like I said. And the rest of them from what Santo said. And that would be the limit of what I know.” He set his paintbrush in the pail, which he’d put on the floor beneath the board, and he scrutinised his work, squatting at the end of the board to study it from tail to nose. Then he rose and went to the door behind which the rails of a board were being shaped. He closed it behind him. In a moment, the tool was shut off.

Constable McNulty, Bea saw, was looking about, a line forming between his eyebrows, as if he was considering what he was observing. She knew nothing about the making of surfboards, so she said, “What?” and he roused himself from his thoughts.

“Something,” he said. “Don’t quite know yet.”

“About the place? About Reeth? About Santo? His family? What?”

“Not sure.”

She blew out a breath. The man would probably need a bloody Ouija board.

Lew Angarrak joined them. He was outfitted like Jago Reeth, in a white boiler suit fashioned from heavy paper, the perfect accompaniment to the rest of him, which was also white. His thick hair could have been any colour-probably salt and pepper, considering his age, which appeared to be somewhere past forty-five-but now it looked like a barrister’s wig, so thoroughly covered as it was by polystyrene dust. This same dust formed a fine patina on his forehead and cheeks. Round his mouth and eyes there was none, its absence explained by the air filter that dangled round his neck along with a pair of protective glasses.

Behind him, Bea could see the board he was working on. Like the board being finished by the glasser, it lay on two tall sawhorses: shaped from its earlier form of a blank oblong of polystyrene that was marked in halves by a wooden stringer. More of these blanks lined a wall to one side of the shaping room. The other side, Bea saw, bore a rack of tools: planers, sanders, and Surforms, by the look of them.

Angarrack wasn’t a big man, not much taller than Bea herself. But he appeared quite powerful in the upper body, and Bea reckoned he had a great deal of strength. Jago Reeth had apparently put him in the picture about the facts of Santo’s death, but he didn’t seem wary about seeing the police. Nor did he seem surprised. Or shocked or sorrowful, for that matter.

Bea introduced herself and Constable McNulty. Could they speak with Mr. Angarrack?

“That bit’s a formality, isn’t it?” he replied shortly. “You’re here, and I assume that means we’re going to be speaking.”

“Perhaps you can show us round as we do so,” Bea said. “I know nothing of making surfboards.”

“Called shaping,” Jago Reeth told her. He stood nearby.

“Little enough to see,” Angarrack said. “Shaping, spraying, glassing, finishing. There’s a room for each.” He used his thumb to indicate them as he spoke. The door to the spraying room was open but unlit, and he flipped a switch on the wall. Bright colours leapt out at them, sprayed onto the walls, the floors, and the ceiling. Another sawhorse stood in the middle of the room, but no board waited upon it, although five stood against the wall, shaped and ready for someone’s artistry.

“You decorate them as well?” Bea asked.

“Not me. An old-timer did the designs for a time till he moved on. Then Santo did them, as a way of paying for a board he wanted. I’m looking for someone else now.”

“Because of Santo’s death?”

“No. I’d already sacked him.”

“Why?”

“I’d guess you’d say loyalty.”

“To?”

“My daughter.”

“Santo’s girlfriend.”

“For a time, but that time was past.” He moved by them and out into the showroom, where an electric kettle stood-along with brochures, a clipboard thick with paperwork, and board designs-on a card table behind the counter. He plugged this in and said, “You want something?” and when they demurred, he called out, “Jago?”

“Black and nasty,” Jago returned.

“Tell us about Santo Kerne,” Bea said as Lew went about his business with coffee crystals, which he loaded up into one mug cup and used more sparingly in another.

“He bought a board from me. Couple years ago. He’d been watching the surfers round the Promontory, and he said he wanted to learn. He’d started out down at Clean Barrel-”

“Surf shop,” McNulty murmured, as if believing Bea would need a translator.

“-and Will Mendick, bloke who used to work there, recommended he get a board from me. I place some boards in Clean Barrel, but not a lot.”