Inside, a small vestibule offered a line of three institutional plastic chairs and a reception counter. Bea Hannaford sat behind this, the telephone receiver pressed to her ear. She raised a finger in greeting to Lynley and said to whoever was on the other end of the line, “Got it. Well, there’s no surprise in that, is there?…We’ll want to have another little chat with her, won’t we, then.”

She rang off and took Lynley up to the incident room, which was set up on the first floor of the building in what seemed to be otherwise a conference room, coffee room, locker room, and meal room. Up here they were making do with a few china boards and computers set up with HOLMES but clearly an insufficiency of manpower. The constable and the sergeant were hard at it, Lynley saw, and two other officers were huddled together exchanging either information on the case or background on the horses currently running at Newmarket. It was difficult to tell. Actions were listed on the china board, some completed and others pending.

DI Hannaford said to Sergeant Collins, “Man reception, Sergeant,” and then to Lynley when Collins left the room to do so, “She was lying, as it turns out.”

He said, “Who?” although there was only one she they’d been looking at, as far as he knew.

“Pro forma question, isn’t that?” the DI said meaningfully. “Our Dr. Trahair, that’s who. Not a pub remembers her on the route she claimed she took from Bristol. And she’d be remembered this time of year, considering how few people are out and about in this part of the country.”

“Perhaps,” he said. “But there must be a hundred pubs involved.”

“Not the way she came. Claiming that was the route may have been her first mistake. And where there’s one, there are others, trust me. What’ve you got on her?”

Lynley related what he’d gleaned from Falmouth about Daidre Trahair. He added what he knew about her brother, her work, and her education. Everything she’d said about herself checked out, he told her. So far, so good.

“Why is it I think you’re not telling me everything there is to tell?” was Bea Hannaford’s reply after a moment of observing him. “Are you holding back something, Superintendent Lynley?”

He wanted to say that he wasn’t Superintendent Lynley any longer. He wasn’t anything related to police work, which was why he also wasn’t required to tell her every fact he had acquired. But he said, “She’s doing some curious research on the Internet just now. There’s that, although I can’t see how it relates to murder.”

“What sort of research?”

“Miracles,” he said. “Or rather, places associated with miracles. Lourdes, for one. A church in New Mexico. There were others as well, but I didn’t have time to look through all the paperwork and I wasn’t wearing my reading glasses anyway. She’s been on the Internet at the Watchman. That’s the local paper. She knows the publisher, evidently.”

“That’d be Max Priestley.” It was Constable McNulty speaking up from a computer in one corner of the room. “He’s been in touch with the dead boy, by the way.”

“Has he indeed?” Bea Hannaford said. “Now that’s an interesting twist.” She told Lynley that the constable was digging through Santo Kerne’s old e-mails, looking for nuggets of information. “What’s he saying?”

“‘No skin off my back. Just watch your own.’ I reckon it’s Priestley ’cause it’s come from MEP at Watchman.co, et cetera. Although it could have come from anyone who knows his password and has access to a computer at the paper, I s’pose.”

“That’s it?” Hannaford asked the constable.

“That’s it from Priestley. But there’s a whole collection from the Angarrack girl, coming straight out of LiquidEarth. The course of most of the relationship being charted. Casual, closer, intimate, hot, graphic, and then nothing else. Like once they started doing the nasty, she didn’t want to commit it to writing.”

“Interesting, that,” Bea noted.

“S’what I thought as well. But ‘wild for him’ doesn’t even touch how she felt about the boy. You ask me, I’ll wager she wouldn’t’ve said no to the idea of someone chopping off his bollocks when they got to the endgame, her and Santo. What d’they say about a woman’s scorn?”

“‘A woman scorned,’” Lynley murmured.

“Right. Well. I’d say we give her a closer look. She’d’ve likely had access to his climbing kit at some point. Or she’d’ve known where he kept it.”

“She’s on our list,” Hannaford said. “Is that it, then?”

“I’ve got e-mails from someone calling himself Freeganman as well, and I’d say that’s Mendick ’cause I doubt the town’s crawling with people of his ilk.”

Hannaford explained the moniker to Lynley: how they’d come to know it and with whom it was associated. She said to the constable, “And what’s Mr. Mendick got to say for himself?”

“‘Can we keep it between us?’ Not exactly illuminating, I’ll give you that, but still…”

“A reason to talk to him, then. Let’s put Blue Star Grocery on the schedule.”

“Right.” McNulty went back to the computer.

Hannaford strode over to a desk where she dug in a heavy-looking shoulder bag. She brought forth a mobile phone. This she tossed to Lynley. She said, “Reception’s the devil round here, I’ve found, but I want you carrying this and I want it turned on.”

“Your reason?” Lynley asked.

“I need a stated reason, do I, Superintendent?”

“If nothing else, because I outrank you” would have been his answer in other circumstances, but not in these. He said, “I’m curious. It suggests my usefulness to you hasn’t come to an end.”

“That would be correct. I’m undermanned and I want you available to me.”

“I’m not-”

“Bollocks. Once a cop, always a cop. There’s a need here, and you and I know you’re not about to walk away from a situation where your help is required. Beyond that, you’re a principal figure and you’re not going anywhere without me coming after you until you have my blessing to leave, so you may as well make yourself useful to me.”

“You’ve something in mind?”

“Dr. Trahair. Details. Everything. From her shoe size to her blood type and all points in between.”

“How am I supposed to-”

“Oh please, Detective. Don’t take me for a fool. You’ve sources and you’ve charm. Use them both. Dig into her background. Take her on a picnic. Wine her. Dine her. Read her poetry. Caress her palm. Gain her trust. I don’t bloody care how you do it. Just do it. And when you’ve done it, I want it all. Are we clear on that?”

Sergeant Collins had appeared in the doorway as Hannaford was speaking. He said, “Guv? Someone to see you. Queer bird called Tammy Penrule down below. Says she’s got information for you.”

The DI said to Lynley, “Keep that phone charged. Take your spade and use it. Do whatever you have to do.”

“I’m not comfortable with-”

“That’s not my concern. Murder’s not comfortable either.”