Careless in Red

She released his arm. “I’m saying you’re badly wounded. You’re not coming at this from a position of strength because you can’t and to expect anything else of yourself is just bloody wrong. I don’t know who this woman is or why she’s here or if she’s Daidre Trahair or someone who’s claiming to be Daidre Trahair. But the fact remains that when someone lies in the middle of a murder investigation, that’s what the cops look at. So the question is, Why don’t you want to? I think we both know the answer to that.”

“What would that be?”

“You’re using your lordship voice. I know what that means: You want distance, and you usually get it. Well, I’m not giving it to you, sir. I’m here, standing directly in your face, and you have to look at what you’re doing and why. And if you can’t cope with the thought of doing it, you have to look at that as well.”

He made no reply. He felt as if a wave were washing over him, breaking through everything he’d built to hold it temporarily at bay. He finally said, “Oh God,” but that was all he could say. He lifted his head and looked at the sky, where grey clouds were promising to transform the day.

When Havers spoke again, her voice was altered, from hard to soft. The change cut into him as much as her declarations had done. “Why did you come here? To her cottage? Have you found out anything else about her?”

“I thought…” He cleared his throat and looked from the sky to her. She was so solid and so unutterably real and he knew that she was on his side. But he couldn’t make that matter at the moment. If he told Havers the truth, she’d move upon it. The very fact of yet another lie from Daidre Trahair would tip the balance. “I thought she might want to go to Newquay with me,” he said. “It would give me a chance to talk to her another time, to try to sort out…” He didn’t complete the thought. It sounded now, even to his ears, so pathetically desperate. Which is what I am, he thought.

Havers nodded. Ha

Lynley told her his intention: Newquay, the police, the story of Ben Kerne and the death of a boy called Jamie Parsons.

Ha

“I don’t know yet. But it seems to me-”

“I want you on her, Superintendent. Is she somehow involved in what happened during the Ice Age? She would have been…what? Four years old? Five?”

“I admit that there may be issues about her that need exploring.”

“Do you indeed? How good to hear. So explore them. Got that mobile with you? Yes? Keep it on, then.” She jerked her fuchsia-coloured head towards her car. “We’ll be off. Once you locate our Dr. Trahair, escort her to the station. Am I being clear on that?”

“You are,” Lynley said. “Completely clear.”

He watched as Ha

He decided on Newquay anyway, that being the beauty of his role in the investigation. And damn the consequences if he and Ha

He took the most direct route to Newquay once he made his way through the tangled skein of lanes that separated Polcare Cove from the A39. He hit a tailback caused by an overturned lorry some five miles out of Wadebridge, which slowed him considerably, and he ended up in Cornwall’s surfing capital shortly after two in the afternoon. He became immediately lost and cursed the obedient, parent-pleasing young adolescent he had been prior to his father’s death. Newquay, his father had more than once intoned, was a vulgar town, not the sort of place a “true” Lynley frequented. Consequently, he knew nothing of the town, while his younger brother-never burdened with the need to please-probably could have found his way round blindfolded.

Having suffered the frustrating one-way system twice and having nearly driven into the pedestrian precinct once, Lynley gave up the effort and followed the signs to the information office, where a kindly woman asked him if he was “looking for Fistral, love?” by which he took it that he was being mistaken for an ageing surfer. She was happy enough to give him directions to the police station, however, and they were of a detailed nature, so he managed to get there without further difficulty.

His police identification worked as he’d hoped it would, although it didn’t take him as far as he’d pla

In fairness to Ha

Thirty years ago had obviously seen Ferrell not long out of nappies, so the DS knew nothing about anyone called Parsons, about Benesek Kerne, or about a sea cave mishap in Pengelly Cove. On the other hand, it wouldn’t be tough for him to suss out who did know what in relation to that death. If the superintendent didn’t mind a bit of a wait…?

Lynley chose to do his waiting in the canteen, the better to be a hovering presence that might spur things on. He bought himself an apple because he knew he ought to eat despite not having felt hungry since his conversation with Havers that morning. He bit into it, was gratified to find it mealy, and tossed it into the rubbish bin. He followed up with a cup of coffee and wished vaguely that he was still a smoker. There was, of course, no smoking in the canteen these days, but having something to do with his hands would have been gratifying, even if what he was doing was only rolling an unsmoked cigarette in his fingers. At least he wouldn’t feel as if he needed to tear packets of sugar into shreds, which was what he did as he waited for DS Ferrell to return. He opened one and dumped it into his coffee. The others he dumped into a neat pile on the table, where he then ran a plastic stir stick through the mess, creating designs as he tried not to think.

There was no Paul the primate keeper, but what did that mean, really? A private person who’d been caught looking at sites for miracles, she’d want to make an excuse for that. It was human nature. Embarrassment led to prevarication. This was not a crime. But that, of course, was not the only instance of prevarication on the vet’s part, and this was the problem he faced: what to do about Daidre Trahair’s lies and, even more, what to think about them.

DS Ferrell did not return for a very long twenty-six minutes. When he did come into the canteen, however, he had nothing with him but a slip of paper. Lynley had been hoping for boxes of files he might look through, so he felt deflated. But there was moderate cheer in what Ferrell had to say.

“DI ru