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…”
“Murder,” he said.
“You investigated murders?”
“Yes. That’s exactly what I did.” He looked back at the fire.
“That must have been…difficult. Disheartening.”
“Seeing man’s inhumanity? It is.”
“Is that why you quit? I’m sorry. I’m being intrusive. But…Had you had enough trials on your heart?”
He didn’t reply.
The front door opened with a thud, and Daidre felt the wind gust into the room. Collins came out of the kitchen with his cup of tea as Detective Inspector Hannaford returned to them. She carried a white boiler suit over her arm. This she thrust at Lynley.
“Trousers, boots, and jacket,” she said. It was clearly an order. And to Daidre, “Where’re yours, then?”
Daidre indicated the carrier bag into which she’d deposited her outer clothing when she’d changed into blue jeans and a yellow jumper. She said, “But he’ll have no shoes.”
“It’s all right,” Lynley said.
“It isn’t. You can’t go round-”
“I’ll get another pair.”
“He won’t need them just yet anyway,” Hannaford said. “Where can he change?”
“My bedroom. Or the bathroom.”
“See to it, then.”
Lynley had already risen when the DI joined them. Less anticipation, this seemed, than years of breeding and good manners. The DI was a woman. One rose politely when a woman came into the room.
“SOCO’s arrived?” Lynley said to her.
“And the pathologist. We’ve a photo of the dead boy as well. He’s called Alexander Kerne. A local boy from Casvelyn. D’you know him?” She was speaking to Daidre. Sergeant Collins hovered in the kitchen doorway as if not quite sure he was meant to be having tea while on duty.
“Kerne? The name’s familiar, but I can’t say why. I don’t think I know him.”
“Have a vast acquaintance round here, do you?”
“What d’you mean?” Daidre was pressing her fingernails into her palms, and she made herself stop. She knew the detective was attempting to read her.
“You say you don’t think you know him. It’s a strange way of putting it. Seems to me, you either know him or you don’t. Are you getting changed?” This last to Lynley, an abrupt shift that was as disconcerting as her steady and inquisitive gaze.
He cast a quick look at Daidre and then away. He said, “Yes. Of course,” and ducked through the low doorway that separated the sitting room from a passage created by the depth of the fireplace. Beyond it lay a tiny bathroom and a bedroom big enough for a bed and a wardrobe and nothing else. The cottage was small and safe and snug. It was exactly the way Daidre wanted it.
She said to the detective, “I believe one can know someone by sight-actually have a conversation with him, if it comes down to it-without ever knowing that person’s identity. Their name, their details, anything. I expect your sergeant here can say the same and he’s a local man.”
Collins was caught, teacup halfway to his mouth. He shrugged. Agreeing or discounting. It was impossible to tell.
“Takes a bit of exertion, that, wouldn’t you say?” Hannaford asked Daidre shrewdly.
“I’ve found the exertion worth it.”
“So you knew Alexander Kerne by sight?”
“I may have done. But as I said earlier and as I’ve told the other policeman, Sergeant Collins here, and you as well, I didn’t get a good look at the boy when I first saw the body.”
Thomas Lynley returned to them then, sparing Daidre any further questions as well as any further exposure to DI Hannaford’s penetrating stare. He handed over the clothing the DI had asked for. It was absurd, Dairdre thought. He was going to catch his death if he wandered round like that: no jacket, no shoes, and just a thin white boiler suit of the type worn at crime scenes to ensure that the official investigators did not leave trace evidence behind. It was ridiculous.