Careless in Red

She said, “Are you asking me this because you think I had something to do with that boy’s death?”

“Did you?”

“I did not.”

“Then you won’t mind showing me your route, will you.”

Daidre pressed her lips together. She pushed an errant lock of hair behind her left ear. Her lobe, Lynley saw, was pierced three times. She wore a hoop, a stud, but nothing else.

She traced the route: A3079, A3072, A39, and then a series of smaller roads until she reached Polcare Cove, which earned barely a speck in the A to Z. As she pointed out the journey she’d made, Ha

Daidre didn’t look pleased to have the detective’s thanks. She looked, if anything, angry and trying to master her anger. This told Lynley that Daidre knew what the detective was up to. What it didn’t tell him was where her anger was being directed, though: at DI Ha

“Are we released now?” Daidre asked.

“You are, Dr. Trahair,” Ha

“You can’t think he-” She stopped. The flush was there again. She looked at Lynley and then away.

“He what?” Ha

“He’s a stranger round here. How would he have known that boy?”

“Are you saying you yourself knew him, Dr. Trahair? Did you know that boy? He might have been a stranger here as well. Our Mr. Lynley-for all we know-may have come along precisely to toss Santo Kerne-that’s his name, by the way-right down the face of that cliff.”

“That’s ridiculous. He’s said he’s a policeman.”

“He’s said. But I’ve no actual proof of that. Have you?”

“I…Never mind.” She’d placed her shoulder bag on a chair, and she scooped it up. “I’m leaving now, as you said you were finished with me, Inspector.”

“As indeed I am,” Bea Ha

THEY EXCHANGED ONLY A brief few remarks in the car afterwards. Lynley asked Ha

He said, “I’m not talking about the route to Truro, Inspector.”

She said, “I knew that. And do you really expect me to answer that question? You found the body. You know the game if you’re who you say you are.” She glanced his way. She’d put on sunglasses although there was no sun and, indeed, it was still raining. He wondered about this and she answered his wonder. “Corrective,” she told him. “For my driving. My others are at home. Or possibly in my son’s rucksack at school. Or one of the dogs could have eaten them, for all I know.”

“You have dogs?”

“Three black Labs. Dogs One, Two, and Three.”

“Interesting names.”

“I like to keep things simple at home. To balance all the ways things are never simple at work.”

That was the extent of what they said. The rest of the drive they made in silence broken by radio chatter and two calls Ha

At the hospital in Truro, Ha

“This is Gordie Lisle,” Ha

“You do me too much honour,” Lisle said.

“I know. This is Thomas Lynley,” she told him. “What’ve we got?”

Finishing his juice, Lisle went to a desk and scooped up a document to which he referred as he began his report. This he prefaced with the information that the injuries were consistent with a fall. He went about relating them. Pelvis broken, he said, and right medial malleolus shattered. He added, “That’s ankle to the layman.”

Ha

Right tibia and right fibula fractured, Lisle continued. Compound fractures of the ulna and radius, also on the right, six ribs broken, left greater tubercle crushed, both lungs pierced, spleen ruptured.

“What the hell is a tubercle?” Ha

“Shoulder,” he explained.

“Nasty business, but is all that enough to kill him? What sent him to the other side, then? Shock?”

“I was saving the best for last. Enormous fracture of the temporal bone. His skull broke like an eggshell. See here.” Lisle set his document on a work top and strolled over to a wall on which the human skeletal system was displayed on a large chart. “When he fell, I reckon he hit an outcrop on the way down the cliff. He flipped at least once, picked up speed with the rest of the descent, landed heavy on the right side and crushed his skull on the slate. When the bone fractured, it sliced into the middle meningeal artery. That produced an acute epidural haematoma. Pressure on the brain and no place for it to go that’s not lethal. He’d have died in about fifteen minutes although he would have been unconscious throughout. I take it there was no helmet nearby? No other headgear?”

“Kids,” Ha

“This one wasn’t. Anyway, the extent of the injuries suggests he fell the moment he began the abseil.”

“Which itself suggests the sling broke the instant it took his full weight.”

“I’d agree with that.”

“What about the black eye? It was healing, yes? What’s it consistent with?”

“A bloody good punch. Someone gave him a decent one that likely floored him. You can still see the impression of the knuckles.”

Ha

“When?” Ha

“The punch?” Lisle said. “I’d say a week ago.”

“Does it look like he was in a fight?”

Lisle shook his head.

“Why not?”

“No other marks on him of a similar age,” Lynley put in. “Someone got one good blow in and that was that.”

Ha

“What about sadomasochism?” Ha

Lisle looked thoughtful, and Lynley said, “I’m not sure sadomasochists like being punched in the face.”

“Hmm. Yes,” Lisle said. “I’d think your common S and M freak would be looking to have himself tweaked round his privates. Spanked as well. Maybe whipped for good measure. And we’ve got nothing on the body consistent with that.” All three of them stood for a moment, staring at the chart of the skeletal system. Lisle finally said to Ha