Careless in Red

  Presently, as he’d hoped, Wilkie concluded with, “World’s going to hell in a shopping trolley, you ask me,” an assessment with which Lynley did not disagree.

  “Was the parents wanted to see that lad go down for the death.” The old man spoke suddenly, some minutes later as they worked their way along another row of pews. “Benesek Kerne. Parents got their jaws round him and they wouldn’t let go.”

  “That would be the parents of the dead boy?”

  “Dad especially went off his nut when that lad died. Was the apple of his eye, was Jamie, and Jon Parsons—that’s the dad—he never made bones about it to me. Man’s s’posed to have a favourite child, he said, and the others’re supposed to em’late him to get into the dad’s good graces.”

  “There were other children in the family, then?”

  “Four in all. Three young girls—one just a wee toddler—and that boy which died. Parents waited for the verdict from the inquest and when the verdict was death by misadventure, Dad came to me. Few weeks later, this was. Dead crazed, poor bloke. Told me he knew for certain the Kerne boy was responsible. I ask him why he waits to tell me this—’cause I’m discounting what he’s saying as the ravings of a man going mad with grief—and he tells me someone grassed. After the fact of the inquest, this was. He’s been doing his own nosing round, he tells me. He’s brought in his own investigator. And what they came up with was the grass.”

  “Did you think he was telling you the truth?”

  “Isn’t that the question? Who bloody knows?”

  “This person—the grass—never spoke to you?”

  “Just to Parsons. So he claimed. Which as you and I know is damn meaningless since what he wants more’n anything is an arrest of someone. He needs someone to blame. So does the wife. They need anyone to blame because they think that accusing, arresting, putting on trial, and imprisoning is going to make them feel better, which of course it isn’t. But Dad doesn’t want to hear that. What dad would? Running his own investigation is the only thing keeping him from sliding over the edge. So I’m willing to cooperate with him, help him out, help him through the bloody mess his life’s become. And I ask him to tell me who the grass is. I can’t ecksackly make an arrest on some tittle-tattle I didn’t even hear firsthand.”

  “Of course,” Lynley noted.

  “But he won’t tell me, so what can I do that I hadn’t already done, eh? We’d investigated the death of that lad left, right, and centre, and believe me, there was sod all to go on. The Kerne boy didn’t have an alibi, aside from ‘walking the long way home to clear my head,’ but you don’t hang a man for that, do you? Still, I wanted to help. So we had the Kerne boy into the station one more time, four more times, eighteen more times…Who the bloody hell remembers. We nosed round every aspect of his life and all of his friends’ lives as well. Benesek didn’t like the Parsons boy—we uncovered that much straightaway—but as things turned out, no one else liked the blighter neither.”

  “Did they have alibis? His friends?”

  “All told the same story. Home and to bed. Those stories stayed the same and no one broke ranks. Couldn’t get a drop of blood out of them even by using a leech. They were either sworn to each other or they were telling the truth. Now, in my experience, when a group of lads gets up to no good, one of them breaks eventually if you keep pressing. But no one ever did.”

  “Which led you to conclude they were telling the truth?”

  “Nothing else to conclude.”

  “What did they tell you about their relationship with the dead boy? What was their story?”

  “Simple one. Kerne boy and Parsons had words that night, a bit of a dustup about something during a party at the Parsons home. Kerne left the scene and his mates did the same. And, ’cording to them all, no one went back later to coax the Parsons boy to his end. He must’ve gone to the beach on his own, they said. End of story.”

  “I’ve learned he died in a sea cave.”

  “Went down there at night, the tide came in, he got caught up in it, and he couldn’t get out. Toxicology showed he was pissed to oblivion and he’d done some doping on top of that. Common thought at first was that he’d met a girl in the cave for a poke and passed out either before or after.”

  “‘Common thought at first’?”

  “The body was well banged up from the cave, see—being slung round for six hours while the tide came in and went out—but pathologist pointed out marks that couldn’t be accounted for and these happened to be round the wrists and ankles.”

  “Tied up, then. But no other evidence?”

  “Faeces in the ears and wasn’t that a bit peculiar, eh? But that was it. And there wasn’t a witness to anything. Start to finish, it was a case of he said, she said, we said, they said. Finger-pointing, gossiping, and that was that. Without hard evidence, without a witness to a thing, without even a scrap of circumstantial evidence…All we could hope for was someone to break and that might’ve happened had the Parsons kid not been the Parsons kid.”

  “Which means?”

  “Bit of a wanker, sad to say. Family had money, so he thought he was better’n the rest of ’em and he liked to show it. Not the sort of thing going to make him popular with the local youngsters, you know what I mean.”

  “But they went to his party?”

  “Free booze, free dope, no parents at home, a chance to snog with the girl of your choice. Not a lot to do in Pengelly Cove at the best of times. They wouldn’t’ve turned down a chance for some fun.”

  “What happened to them, then?”

  “The other boys? The Kerne boy’s mates? They’re still round Pengelly Cove, for all I know.”

  “And the Parsons family?”

  “Never went back to Pengelly Cove as such. They were from Exeter, and they went back there and there they stayed. Dad had a property-management business in town. Called Parsons and…someone else. Can’t recall. He himself went back to Pengelly regular for a bit, weekends and holidays, trying to get some full stop put to the case, but it never happened. He hired more ’n one investigator to take up the pieces as well. Spent a fortune on the whole situation. But if Benesek Kerne and those boys were behind what happened to Jamie Parsons, they’d learned from the first investigation into his death: If there’s no hard evidence, and no witness to anything, keep the mug plugged and no one can touch you.”

  “I understand he built something of a monument to him,” Lynley noted.

  “Who? Parsons?” And when Lynley nodded, “Well, the family had the funds to do it, and if it gave them some peace, more power to the whole idea.” Wilkie had been working his way along the pews, and now he straightened and stretched his back. Lynley did likewise. For a moment, they stood there in silence in the centre of the church, studying the stained-glass window above the altar. Wilkie sounded thoughtful when he next spoke, as if he’d given the matter considerable thought over the years that had passed. “I didn’t like to leave things unsettled,” he said. “I had a feeling that the dead boy’s dad wouldn’t be able to get a moment’s peace if we didn’t have someone called to account for what happened. But I think…” He paused and scratched the back of his neck. His expression said that his body was present but his mind had gone to another time and place. “I think those boys—if they were involved—didn’t mean the Parsons lad to die. They weren’t that sort. Not a one of them.”

  “If they didn’t intend him to die, what did they intend?”

  He rubbed his face. The sound of rough skin on rough whiskers sandpapered the air. “Sort him out. Give him a bit of a scare. Like I said before, from what I learned, the boy was full of himself and he didn’t mind making clear what he did and what he had that they didn’t and hadn’t.”

  “But to tie him up. To leave him…”

  “Drunk, the lot of them. Doped up as well. They get him down there to the cave—p’rhaps they tell him they’ve more dope to sell—and they jump him. They tie him at the wrists and ankles and give him some discipline
. A talking to. A bit of a roughing up. Smear some poo on him for good measure. Then they untie him and leave him there and they think he’ll make his own way home. Only they don’t account for how drunk he is and how doped up he is and he passes out and…that’s the end of it. See, thing is, like I said, there really wasn’t a truly bad one ’mongst those boys. Not one of ’em ever been in a spot of trouble. And I told the parents that. But it wasn’t something they wanted to hear.”

  “Who found the body?”

  “That was the worst bit,” Wilkie said. “Parsons phoned up the cops morning after that party to say his boy’d gone missing. Cops said the usual: He probably got into a local girl’s knickers and he’s sleeping off the aftermath in her bed or under it, so phone us again if he doesn’t turn up in a day or two because otherwise we can’t be bothered. Meantime, one of his own girls—this is one of the boy’s sisters—tells him about the scuffle Jamie’d had with the Kerne lad, and Parsons thinks there’s more here than meets the eye. So he sets off to have a look round for the boy. And he’s the one who finds him.” Wilkie shook his head. “Can’t imagine what that would be like, but I expect it could drive a man to madness. Favourite child. Only son. No one ever called to answer for what happened. And the one name associated with the hours leading up to the death: Benesek Kerne. You can see how he fixed on him.”

  “D’you know Benesek Kerne’s own son has died?” Lynley asked. “He was killed in a fall from one of the sea cliffs. His equipment had been tampered with. It’s a murder.”

  Wilkie shook his head. “Didn’t know,” he said. “That’s bloody unfortunate. How old’s the boy?”

  “Eighteen.”

  “Same as the Parsons lad. Now, that’s a bloody shame.”

  DAIDRE WAS SHAKEN. WHAT she wanted was the peace she’d had a week earlier, when all that her life had asked of her was that she look after herself and meet the obligations of her career. She might have been alone as a result of this, but that was her preference. Her small existence was safer that way, and safety was paramount. That had been the case for years.

  Now, however, the smooth-moving vehicle that had been her life had developed serious engine troubles. What to do about them was the issue that intruded upon her serenity.

  So on her return to Polcare Cove, she’d left her car at the cottage and walked the remainder of the distance down the lane to the sea. There, she’d made for the path and picked her way along its stony ascent.

  It was windy on the path and windier still on the cliff top. Daidre’s hair whipped round her face and flicked its ends into her eyes, which smarted. When going out onto the cliffs, she usually removed her contact lenses and wore her glasses instead. But she hadn’t taken her glasses when she’d set out in the morning, which had been a matter of vanity. She should have stopped into the cottage to get her glasses, but at the end of her day’s journey, it had seemed that only a vigorous climb to the cliff top could keep her fixed in present time.

  Some situations one came across required a person’s intervention, she thought. But surely this wasn’t one of them. She didn’t want to do what was being asked of her, but she was wise enough to know that wanting was not what this was about.

  The sound of an unmuffled engine came to her not long after she reached the top of the cliff. She’d been sitting upon an outcrop of limestone, watching the kittiwakes, and following the majestic arcs the birds made in the air as they sought shelter in niches in the cliff. But now she stood and walked back to the path. A motorcycle, she saw, was coming down the lane. It reached her cottage and veered into the pebbly driveway, where it stopped. The rider removed his helmet and approached the front door.

  Daidre thought of couriers and messengers when she saw him: someone carrying a package for her, perhaps a message from Bristol? But she was expecting nothing, and from what she could tell, the rider had nothing with him. He went round her cottage to seek another door or to look into a window. Or worse, she thought.

  She made for the path and began to descend. There was no point to shouting because she couldn’t have been heard from this distance. Indeed, there was also little point in hurrying. The cottage was some way from the sea and she was some way above the lane. Likely by the time she got back, the rider would have left.

  But the thought that someone might be breaking into her cottage spurred her downward. She kept her glances going between her footwork and her cottage as she went, and the fact that the motorcycle remained in place in her driveway kept her speed up and her curiosity piqued.

  She arrived breathless and dashed in through the gate. Instead of a housebreaker half in and half out of a window, though, she found a girl clad in leathers lounging on her front step. She was sitting with her back against the bright blue door and her legs stretched out in front of her. She had a hideous silver ring through her septum and a turquoise-coloured choker tattooed brightly round her neck.

  Daidre recognised her. Cilla Cormack, the bane of her own mother’s life. Her gran lived next door to Daidre’s family in Falmouth. What on earth, Daidre thought, was the girl doing here?

  Cilla looked up as Daidre approached. The dull sun glinted off her septum ring, giving it the unappealing look of those rings once used on cows to urge their cooperation when they were attached to a lead. She said, “Hey,” and gave Daidre a nod. She rose and stamped her feet as if with the need to get the circulation going.

  “This is a surprise,” Daidre said. “How are you, Cilla? How’s your mum?”

  “Cow,” Cilla said, by which Daidre assumed she meant her mother, Cilla’s disputes with that woman being something of a neighbourhood legend. “C’n I use your toilet or summick?”

  “Of course.” Daidre unlocked the front door. She ushered the girl inside. Cilla clomped across the entry and into the sitting room. “Through there,” Daidre said. She waited to see what would happen next because surely Cilla hadn’t come all the way from Falmouth just to use the loo.

  Some minutes later—during which time water ran enthusiastically and Daidre began to wonder if the girl had decided to have a bath—Cilla returned. Her hair was wet and slicked back and she smelled as if she’d decided to help herself to Daidre’s scent as well. “Better, that,” she said. “Felt like bloody hell, I did. Roads’re bad this time of year.”

  “Ah,” Daidre said. “Would you like…something? Tea? Coffee?”

  “Fag?”

  “I don’t smoke. I’m sorry.”

  “Figgers, that.” Cilla looked round and nodded. “This’s nice, innit. But you don’t live here reg’lar, right?”

  “No. Cilla, is there something…?” Daidre felt stymied by her upbringing. One didn’t come out and ask a visitor what on earth she was doing visiting. On the other hand, it was impossible that the girl had just been passing by. Daidre smiled and tried to look encouraging.

  Cilla wasn’t the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but she did manage to get the point. She said, “My gran asked me would I come. Said you di’n’t have a mobile.”

  Daidre felt alarmed. “Has something happened? What’s going on? Is someone ill?”

  “Gran says Scotland Yard came by. She says you’d best know straightaway cos they were aksing about you. She says they went to your house first but when no one was home, they started banging doors up an’ down the street. She phoned up Bristol to tell you. You wa’n’t there, so she reckoned you might be here and she aksed would I come here to let you know. Whyn’t you get yourself a mobile, eh? Or even a phone here? That’d make sense, you know. I mean, just like in a emergency. Cos it’s one hell of a way to get here from Falmouth. And petrol…D’you know how much petrol costs these days?”

  The girl sounded aggrieved. Daidre went to the sideboard in the dining room and fetched twenty pounds. She handed it over. She said, “Thank you for coming. It can’t have been easy, all this way.”

  Cilla relented. She said, “Well, Gran aksed. And she’s a good old girl, innit. She always lets me stop there when Mum throws me out, whi
ch’s about once a week, eh? So when she aksed me and said it was important…” She shrugged. “Anyways. Here I am. She said you should know. She also said…” Here Cilla frowned, as if trying to remember the rest of the message. Daidre wondered that the girl’s grandmother had not written it down. But then, it had probably occurred to the elderly woman that Cilla was likely to lose a note while a brief message of one or two sentences was not beyond her ability to pass along. “Oh. Yeah. She also said not to worry because she di’n’t tell them nuffink.” Cilla touched her septum ring, as if to make sure it was still in place. “So why’s Scotland Yard nosing round you?” she asked. Grinning, she added, “What you done? You got bodies buried in the garden or summick?”

  Daidre smiled faintly. “Six or seven,” she said.

  “Thought as much.” Cilla cocked her head. “You’ve gone dead white. You best sit down. Put your head…” She seemed to lose the thread of where one’s head was supposed to go. “You want a glass of water, eh?”

  “No, no. I’m fine. Haven’t eaten much today…Are you sure you don’t want something?”

  “Gotta get back,” she said. “I’ve a date tonight. M’boyfriend’s taking me dancing.”

  “Is he?”

  “Yeah. We’re taking lessons. Bit daft, that, but it’s summick to do, innit. We’re at that one where the girl gets thrown around a bit and you got to keep your back real stiff otherwise. Stick your nose in the air. That sorta thing. I got to wear high heels for it, which I don’t like much, but the teacher says we’re getting quite good. She wants us to be in a competition, she says. Bruce—that’s m’ boyfriend—he’s dead chuffed ’bout it and he says we got to practise every day. So that’s why we’re going dancing tonight. Mostly we practise in his mum’s sitting room, but he says we’re ready to go out in public.”