Careless in Red

Daidre smiled in spite of herself. She wanted to be angry with him and part of her remained so. But he made it difficult.

She said, “Why did you lie to me, Thomas?”

“Lie to you?”

“You said you hadn’t gone to Falmouth asking questions about me.”

He clicked off the hair dryer. He set it on the edge of the basin and considered it. “Ah,” he said.

“Yes. Ah. Strictly speaking, I realise, you were telling me the truth. You didn’t go personally. But you sent her, didn’t you? It wasn’t her plan to go there.”

“Strictly speaking, no. I’d no idea she was in the area. I thought she was in London. But I did ask her to look into your background, so I suppose…” He made a small gesture with his hand, a European gesture telling her to complete the thought on her own.

Which she was happy enough to do. “You lied. I don’t appreciate that. You might have asked me a few questions.”

“I did, actually. You likely didn’t think I’d check on the answers.”

“To verify them. To make sure-”

“That you yourself weren’t lying.”

“I seem so questionable to you. So like a murderer.”

He shook his head. “You seem as unlike a murderer as anyone I’ve ever come across. But it’s part of the job. And the more I asked, the more I discovered there were areas in your story-”

“I thought we were getting to know each other. Foolish me.”

“We were, Daidre. We are. That was part of it. But from the begi

“You mean you couldn’t ignore them.”

He gazed at her. His expression was frank. “I couldn’t ignore them,” he said. “Someone is dead. And I’m a cop.”

“I see. D’you want to share what you’ve discovered?”

“If you like.”

“I like.”

“Bristol Zoo.”

“I work there. Has someone claimed that I don’t?”

“There is no Paul keeping primates there. And there is no Daidre Trahair born in Falmouth, at home or elsewhere. Do you want to explain?”

“Are you arresting me?”

“No.”

“Then come along. Gather your things. I want to show you something.” She headed for the door but paused there. She offered him a smile that she knew was brittle. “Or d’you want to phone DI Ha

She didn’t wait to hear him reply or to see whether he took her up on the offer. She headed for the stairs and from there out to her car. She assured herself that one way or another it didn’t really matter if he followed or not. She congratulated herself on feeling absolutely nothing. She’d come a long way, she decided.

LYNLEY DIDN’T PHONE DI Ha

He got into the car. In closer proximity to her, he could smell the scent she was wearing. It put him in mind of Helen, not the scent itself but the fact of the scent. Helen had been citrus, the Mediterranean on a su

“We’re going to Redruth,” Daidre told him. “Do you want to phone DI Ha

“I don’t actually think you’re a killer,” he told her. “I’ve never thought that.”

“Haven’t you.”

“I haven’t.”

She changed the car into gear. “Perhaps I can alter all that for you, then.”

They began with a jerk, bumping over the uneven surface of the car park and from there out into the lane. It was a long drive, but they didn’t speak. She flicked on the radio. They listened to the news, to a tedious interview with a nasally challenged and self-important novelist clearly hoping to be nominated for the Booker Prize, and to a discussion on genetically altered crops. Daidre asked him at last to sort out a CD from the glove compartment, which he did. He chose at random and they ended up with the Chieftains. He put it on and she turned up the volume.

At Redruth, she avoided the town centre. Instead, she followed the signs for Falmouth. He wasn’t alarmed, but he glanced at her then. She didn’t look his way. Her jaw was set, but her expression seemed resigned, the look of someone who’d come to the endgame. Unexpectedly, he felt a brief stab of regret, although put to the question, he couldn’t have said what it was that he regretted.

A short distance from Redruth, she turned into a minor road and then into another, which was the sort of narrow lane that co

Daidre said, “Tell me about the room you were born in, Thomas.”

It was, he thought, the oddest sort of question. He said, “Why d’you want to know about that?”

“I’d like to imagine it, if you don’t mind. You said you were born at home, not in hospital. At the family pile. I’m wondering what sort of family pile it is. Was it your parents’ bedroom you were born in? Did they share a room? Do your kind of people do that, by the way?”

Your kind of people. A battle line had been drawn. It was an odd moment for him to feel the sort of despair that had come upon him at other moments throughout his life: always reminding him that some things didn’t change in a changing world, most of all these things.

He unfastened his seat belt and opened the door. He got out. He walked to the hedge. The wind was brisk in this area, as there was nothing to impede it. It carried the bawling of the sheep and the scent of wood smoke. Behind him, he heard Daidre’s door open. In a moment she was at his side.

He said, “My wife was quite clear about it when we married: Just in case you’re considering it, none of this separate rooms nonsense, she said. None of those coy, thrice-weekly nocturnal conjugal visits, Tommy. We shall do our conjugating when and where we desire and when we fall asleep nightly, we shall do so in each other’s presence.” He smiled. He looked back at the sheep, the expanse of land, the undulations of it as it rolled to the horizon. He said, “It’s quite a large room. Two windows with deep embrasures look down on a rose garden. There’s a fireplace-still used in winter because no matter central heating, these houses are impossible to keep warm-and a seating area in front of it. The bed’s opposite the windows. It, too, is large. It’s heavily carved, Italian. The walls are pale green. There’s a heavy gilt mirror above the fireplace, a collection of miniatures on the wall next to it. Between the windows, a demilune table holds a porcelain urn. On the walls, portraits. And two French landscapes. Family photos on side tables. That’s all.”