“I’ll have to be the one making that decision,” Bea told him.
The door of the shaping room opened and Lew Angarrack came out. As before, he was attired as Jago was, and he had a breathing mask and eyewear slung round his neck. A circular section of skin round his eyes, mouth, and nose looked oddly pink against the white of the rest of him. He and Jago Reeth exchanged an unreadable look.
“Ah. You were in the vicinity of Polcare Cove as well, Mr. Angarrack,” Bea noted in a welcoming manner. She clocked the surprise on Jago Reeth’s face.
“When was this?” Angarrack removed the breathing mask and goggles from round his neck and set them on top of the surfboard that Jago was sanding.
“On the day of Santo Kerne’s fall. Or perhaps better stated, on the day of Santo Kerne’s murder. What were you doing there?”
“I wasn’t there,” he said. “Not in Polcare Cove.”
“I said in the vicinity.”
“Then you’re speaking of Buck’s Haven, which I suppose is arguably in the vicinity. I was surfing.”
A quick look went from Jago to Lew Angarrack. The latter man didn’t seem to notice it.
Bea said, “Surfing? And if I go back to have a look at those charts you lot use…What do you call them?”
“Isobar. And yes, if you go back and have a look you’ll see the swells were rubbish, the wind was wrong, and there was no point at all to going out.”
“So why did you?” DS Havers asked.
“I wanted to think. The sea’s always been the best place for me to do that. If I caught a few waves as well, that’d be a bonus. But catching waves wasn’t why I was there.”
“You were thinking about what?”
“Marriage,” he said.
“Yours?”
“I’m divorced. Years ago. The woman I’ve been seeing…” He shifted his weight. He looked like a man who’d had any number of sleepless nights, and Bea wondered how many she could realistically ascribe to a gentleman’s quandary about his marital state. “We’ve been together a few years. She wants to get married. I prefer things as they are. Or with a few changes.”
“What sort of changes?”
“What the hell difference does that make to you? It’s a case of been there, done that for both of us but she won’t see it that way.”
Jago Reeth made a noise, cousin to a snort. It seemed to indicate that he and Lew Angarrack were at one on this topic. He went on with his sanding, and Lew gave a look to what he was doing. He nodded as he ran his fingers along the part of the rail that Jago had already seen to.
“So you were…what?” Bea asked the surfer. “Bobbing in the waves, trying to decide whether to marry her or not?”
“No. I’d already decided that.”
“And your decision was…?”
He stepped away from the sawhorses and the board that Jago was working on. “I don’t see what that question has to do with anything. So let me get us to the point. If Santo Kerne fell from the cliff, he was either pushed or his climbing gear failed. Since my car was some distance away from Polcare Cove and since I was on the water, I couldn’t have pushed him, which leaves his equipment failing in some way. So I expect what you really want to know is who had access to his equipment. Have I got us there a bit quicker by using the direct route, Inspector Hannaford?”
“I find there’re usually half a dozen routes to the truth,” Bea told him. “But you can travel this one, if you’ve a mind to.”
“I had no idea where he kept his equipment,” Angarrack told her. “I still don’t know. I’d assume he kept his climbing kit at home.”
“It was in his car.”
“Well, of course it would have been on that day, wouldn’t it?” he demanded. “He’d gone for a bloody climb, woman.”
“Lew…Just doing her job.” Jago spoke soothingly before he said to Bea, “I had access, if it comes down to it. Knowledge as well. The boy and his father had one run-in too many-”
“Over what?” Bea interrupted.
Jago Reeth and Angarrack exchanged a look. Bea saw this and repeated her question.
“Over anything,” was Jago’s reply. “They didn’t see eye to eye on much, and Santo removed his kit from the premises. Bit of an I’ll-show-you gesture, if you know what I mean.”
“‘I’ll show you’ what, exactly, Mr. Reeth?”
“I’ll show you…whatever boys think they got to show their dads.”
This answer hardly satisfied. Bea said, “If you know something pertinent-either of you-I’ll have it, please.”
Another look between them, this one longer. Jago said to Lew, “Mate…You know it’s not my place.”
“He made Madlyn pregnant,” Lew said abruptly. “And he had no intention of doing anything at all about it.”
Next to her, Bea felt DS Havers stir, itching to get involved but restraining herself. For her part, Bea had to wonder at the information’s being delivered so perfunctorily by the man who’d have had the most reason to do something about it.
“’Cording to Santo, his dad wanted him to do right by Madlyn,” Jago said. Then he added, “Sorry, Lew. I did still talk to the boy. Seemed the best, what with the baby coming.”
“Your daughter didn’t terminate the pregnancy, then?” Bea asked Angarrack.
“She intended to keep it…the child.”
“Intended?” DS Havers asked. “Past tense meaning…?”
“Miscarriage.”
“When did all this happen?” Bea asked.
“Miscarriage? At the beginning of April.”
“According to her, she’d already ended their relationship by then. So she’d done that in the midst of her pregnancy.”
“That would be correct.”
Bea glanced at Havers. The sergeant’s lips were rounded to an o, which was likely short for oh boy. They were on a most interesting track.
“How did you feel about this, Mr. Angarrack? And you as well, Mr. Reeth, since you’d taken such care to see the boy was supplied with condoms.”
“I didn’t feel good,” Angarrack said. “But if doing right by Madlyn was going to mean they’d marry, I was happier they were apart, believe me. I didn’t want her marrying him. They were only eighteen and besides…” He gestured away the rest of what he was going to say.
“Besides?” Havers prompted him.
“He’d shown his colours. He was a little sod. I didn’t want the girl involved with him any longer.”
“D’you mean he wanted her to abort?”
“I mean he didn’t care one way or another what she did, according to Madlyn. Which, apparently, was his style. Only she didn’t know that at first. Well, none of us did.”
“Must have made you frantic when you found out.”
“So did I kill him in my frantic state?” Lew asked. “Hardly. I had no reason to kill him.”
“Ill use of your daughter being insufficient reason?” Bea asked.
“It was over and done with. She was…She is recovering.” And he added, with a look at Jago, “Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Slow process,” was Jago’s reply.
“Made easier if Santo was dead, I daresay,” Bea pointed out.
“I’ve told you. I didn’t know where he kept his equipment, and had I known-”
“I knew,” Jago Reeth cut in. “Santo’s dad kept trying to sort him, see, after Madlyn came up pregnant. Like I said before, they rowed. Part of the row was that act-like-a-man-for-once challenge dads give their sons sometimes, and for Santo, it’s easier to apply acting like a man to something other than act-like-the-proper-father-of a-baby-that’s-coming. So he takes his climbing kit to do just that. ’Nstead of, ‘You want me to stand by Madlyn, I’ll stand by Madlyn,’ it was easier to have it, ‘You’d rather I climb cliffs than surf? Then I’ll climb. I’ll show you a real cliff climber, come down to it.’ Then off he went to climb. Now. Then. Whenever. He kept his kit in the boot of his car. I knew it was there.”
“May I assume that Madlyn knew as well?”
“She was with me,” Jago said. “The two of us had gone to Asperyl. We made the walk out to Hedra’s Hut. There was something inside she wanted to be rid of. It was the last thing that tied her to Santo Kerne.”