Careless in Red

“Whyever would I not?”

“Well…” Kerra looked away. How to put it? “You may have gone a bit off on the whole idea of marriage. You know what I mean.”

“Because of your mother.”

“It can’t have been a pleasant journey for you. I could see how you mightn’t want me to take it.”

Ben took his turn at avoiding Kerra’s gaze. He said, “Marriage is difficult no matter the situation the couple finds themselves in. Think otherwise, and you’ll be in for a surprise.”

“But there’s difficult and there’s difficult,” Kerra said. “Truly difficult. Impossible to accept.”

“Ah. Yes. I know you’ve thought that: the why of it all. I’ve been reading that question on your face since you were twelve years old.”

He looked so regretful as he spoke that Kerra felt pained. She said, “Did you never think…Did you never want to…”

He covered her hand with his. “Your mum has had her trying times. There’s no question about that. But her trying times have made her own path rockier than they’ve made mine, and that’s the truth of it. Beyond that, she gave me you. And I have to thank her for that, whatever her faults may be.”

At this, Kerra saw that the moment had arrived when she’d least expected it. She looked down at her Coke, but something of what she needed to say to her father must have shown in her features because he said, “What is it, Kerra?”

“How do you know?” she asked him.

“Whether to take the leap with another person? You don’t know. There’s never any certainty about the kind of life you’ll have with someone else, is there, but at some point-”

“No, no. That’s not what I mean.” She felt the colour come into her face. It burned her cheeks and she could imagine it spreading out like a fan towards her ears. She said, “How do you know about us? About me? For sure. Because…”

He frowned for a moment, but then his eyes widened a little as he took in her meaning.

She added miserably, “Because of what she’s like. I’ve wondered, you see, from time to time.”

He stood abruptly, and she thought he might stride out of the café altogether since he looked towards the door. But instead he said to her, “Come with me, girl. No no. Leave your things where they are,” and he took her to a coat rack, where a small mirror hung within a seashell frame. He stood her in front of that mirror, himself behind her, his hands on her shoulders. “Look at your face,” he said, “and look at mine. Good God, Kerra, who would you be if not my daughter?”

Her eyes burned. She blinked the smarting away. “What about Santo?” she asked.

His hands tightened on her shoulders reassuringly. “You favour me,” he replied, “and Santo always favoured your mum.”

BY THE TIME LYNLEY walked into the incident room in Casvelyn, he’d been gone most of the day, traversing Cornwall from Exeter to Boscastle. He found DI Ha

“He’s catching the wave here, and it’s a good shot of him. You can see his face and the colours of his board, right? He’s got good position and he’s got experience. He mostly surfs Hawaii and the water’s cold as the dickens in Half Moon Bay, so he’s not used to it, but what he is used to is the size of the wave. He’s scared, but who wouldn’t be? If you’re not scared, then you’re mad. To

Lynley joined them at the table. He saw that the constable was talking about a single surfer on a wave the size of a moving hillside the colour of jade. In the photo he was referring to, the breaking wave had entirely swallowed up the surfer whose ghostly figure could be made out behind the crashing white water, a rag doll in a washing machine.

“Some of these blokes live to get their pictures taken riding monster waves,” McNulty said in conclusion to his remarks. “And some of them die for just the same reason. That’s what happened to him.”

“Who is he?” Lynley asked.

“Mark Foo,” McNulty said.

“Thank you, Constable,” Bea Ha

She took them to a badly appointed interview room, which seemed to have been used mostly as storage for more paper products until the present investigation. She didn’t sit. Nor did they. She said, “Tell me about Falmouth, Thomas.”

Taken up by the events of the day, Lynley was genuinely confused. “I was in Exeter,” he told her. “Not Falmouth.”

“Don’t be coy. I’m not talking about today. What do you know about Daidre Trahair and Falmouth that you haven’t been revealing to me? And don’t either of you lie to me again. One of you went there, and if it’s you, Sergeant Havers, as Dr. Trahair apparently suspects, then I reckon there’s only one reason you took yourself on that little side trip and it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with taking orders from me. Am I correct?”

Lynley intervened. “I asked Barbara to look into-”

“As amazing as it sounds,” Bea cut in, “I’d already worked that out. But the problem is that you’re not directing this investigation. I am.”

“That’s not what it was,” Havers said. “He didn’t ask me to go there. He didn’t even know I was on my way here when he asked me to look into her background.”

“Oh, is that the case, is it?”

“It is. Yeah. He got me on my mobile. In my car. I expect he knew that bit of it, that I was in my car, but he didn’t know where I was or where I was going and he had no idea I was going to be able to go to Falmouth at all. He just asked if I would look into a few details concerning her background. As it was, I could go to Falmouth. And as it wasn’t far out of the way from where I was heading-which was here, of course-I thought I could go there before-”

“Are you mad? It’s miles and miles out of the God damn way. What is it with you two?” Bea demanded. “Do you always go your own way in an investigation or am I the first of your colleagues to be so honoured?”

“With due respect, ma’am,” Lynley began.

“Do not call me ma’am.”

“With due respect, Inspector,” Lynley said, “I’m not part of the investigation. Not officially. I’m not even an”-he sought a term-“an official official.”

“Are you trying to be amusing, Superintendent Lynley?”

“Not at all. I’m merely trying to point out that once you informed me I’d be assisting you despite my own wishes in the matter-”

“You’re a bloody material witness. No one cares about your wishes. What did you expect? To go merrily on your way?”

“Which makes it even more irregular,” he said.

“He’s right,” Havers added, “if you don’t mind me saying.”