Careless in Red

  “He needed sorting anyway, like you said,” Frankie Kliskey finished. “None of us liked the bloke. So Jack got Nan Snow to heat him up. End product was, Jamie wanted sex right there in the house.”

  “Preferably where everyone could see he was getting it,” Darren Fields added.

  “Where Jack could see he was getting it,” Chris pointed out. “That’s what Jamie was like.”

  “But Nan said no.” Frankie went on with the story. “No way she’d do it with him where others could watch, especially where Jack could see. She said let’s go down to the cave to do it, so that’s what they did. That’s where we were waiting.”

  “She knew what the plan was?”

  “Jack told her,” Chris said. “She knew. Get Jamie down to the cave for sex. Don’t meet him there because he’s not stupid and he’ll smell a rat and won’t go down. Take him there instead. Act like you want it as bad as he does. We’ll handle the rest. So down they came round half past one in the morning. We were in the cave and Nan handed him over. The rest…You can work it out.”

  “The odds were good. Six of you and one of him.”

  “No,” Darren said. His voice was harsh. “Ben Kerne wasn’t ever there.”

  “Where was he, then?”

  “Gone home. He was stupid about Dellen. Always stupid. Christ, if it hadn’t been for her, we wouldn’t have been at the bloody party at all. But he needed cheering up, so we said, Let’s go and have his drink and eat his food and listen to his music. Only she was there, that bloody Dellen with some new bloke, so Ben got into the wrong girl’s knickers in reaction to seeing Dellen, and after that, he just wanted to go home. Which was what he did. The rest of us talked to Nan and Nan went back to the party and…” Darren gestured in the direction of the cave, down below them, tucked into the cliff.

  Lynley carried the story on, saying, “You stripped him in the cave, and you tied him up. You smeared faeces on him. Did you piss on him? No? What, then? Toss off? One of you? All of you?”

  “He cried,” Darren said. “That’s what we wanted. That’s all we wanted. When he started to cry, we were finished with him. We untied him. We left him to make his way back up the cliff. The rest you know.”

  Lynley nodded. The story made him feel queasy. It was one thing to surmise, another to hear the truth of the matter. There were so many Jamie Parsons on earth, and so many boys like these men before him. There was also the great divide between them and how that divide was or was not negotiated. Jamie Parsons had likely been unbearable. But being unbearable did not amount to being deserving of death.

  Lynley said, “I’m curious about one thing.”

  They waited. All of them looked at him: Darren Fields sullen, Chris Outer as cool as he’d likely been twenty-eight years ago, Frankie Kliskey expectant of a psychological blow of some sort.

  “How did you manage to hold fast to the same story when the police went after you initially? Before they went after Ben Kerne, I mean.”

  “We left the party at half past eleven. We parted at the high street. We went home.” It was Darren speaking, and Lynley got the point. Three sentences only, endlessly repeated. They may have been bloody stupid, those five boys involved, but they had not been ignorant of the law.

  “What did you do with his clothes?”

  “Countryside’s filled with adits and mine shafts,” Chris said. “That’s the nature of this part of Cornwall.”

  “What about Ben Kerne? Did you tell him what had happened?”

  “We left the party at half past eleven. We parted at the high street. We went home.”

  So, Lynley thought, Ben Kerne had always been as ignorant of what had happened as everyone else had been, aside from the original five boys and Nancy Snow.

  “What happened to Nancy Snow?” Lynley asked. “How could you be sure she’d not talk?”

  “She was pregnant by Jack,” Darren told him. “Three months along. She had an interest in keeping Jack out of trouble.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “They married. After he died, she moved off to Dublin with another husband.”

  “So you were safe.”

  “We were always safe. We left the party at half past eleven. We parted at the high street. We went home.”

  There was, in short, nothing more to be said. It was the same situation that had existed after Jamie Parsons’ death nearly thirty years earlier.

  “Did you not feel some sense of responsibility once the police focused their attention on Ben Kerne?” Lynley asked them. “Someone grassed on him. Was it one of you?”

  Darren laughed harshly. “Not bloody likely. Only person who’d’ve grassed on Ben would’ve been someone wanting to cause him trouble.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  “SHE THINKS YOU KILLED SANTO.” ALAN DIDN’T MAKE THE stunned declaration until they were well away from Adventures Unlimited. He’d manhandled Kerra out of her mother’s bedroom, marched her along the hotel corridor and down the stairs. She’d struggled and snarled, “Let me go. Alan! Let me God damn go,” but he’d been obdurate. He’d been strong as well. Who would have believed that someone as wiry as Alan Cheston could be so strong?

  He’d taken her out of the hotel entirely: through the dining room door, onto the terrace, up the stone stairway, and along the promontory in the direction of St. Mevan Beach. It was too cold to be out there without a pullover or a jacket, but he didn’t stop to fetch something to protect them from the rising sea wind. In fact, he didn’t look as if he was even aware that the wind was brisk and soon to be biting.

  They went down to the beach, and at this point Kerra gave up her struggle, submitting herself to be led wherever he was leading. She didn’t give up her fury, however. She would unleash it upon him when they got to where he’d decided to take her.

  This turned out to be the Sea Pit, at the far end of the beach. They climbed up its seven crumbly steps and stood on the surrounding concrete deck. They looked down into the sand-strewn bottom of the pool, and for a moment Kerra wondered if he intended to throw her into the water like some primitive he-man taking control of his woman.

  He didn’t. Instead, he said, “She thinks you killed Santo,” and then he released her.

  Had he said anything else, Kerra would have gone on the attack: verbally, physically. But the statement demanded an answer that was at least marginally rational because the tone of it was both confused and frightened.

  He spoke again. “I’ve never seen anything like that. You and your mum. That was a brawl. It was the sort of thing one sees…” He didn’t seem to know where one would see such a sight, but that would be typical. Alan was hardly the type to frequent locations where women got into hair-pulling, body-scratching, screaming-and-shrieking engagements with one another. Neither was Kerra if it came to that, but Dellen had pushed her to the breaking point. And there was a reason for what had happened between them. Alan would have to admit to that at least. He said, “I didn’t know what to do. That was so far beyond what I’ve ever had to cope with…”

  She rubbed her arm where he’d held on to her. She said, “Santo stole Madlyn. He took her off me, and I hated him for that. Dellen knows it, so it was easy for her to go from that to saying I killed him. That’s her style.”

  Alan looked, if anything, even more confused. He said, “People don’t steal people from other people, Kerra.”

  “In my family, they do. Among the Kernes, it’s something between a knee-jerk reaction and an outright tradition.”

  “That’s rubbish.”

  “Madlyn and I were friends. Then Santo came along and gave her the eye and Madlyn went mad for him. She couldn’t even talk about anything else, so we ended up…Madlyn and I…We ended up with nothing because she and Santo…and what he did…And God, it was just so typical. He was just like Dellen. He didn’t want Madlyn. He just wanted to see if he could get her away from me.” Now that she was finally putting it all into words, Kerra found she couldn’t stop. She ran a hand through
her hair, grasped it hard, and pulled, as if pulling it would cause her to feel something different from what she’d felt so long. “He didn’t need Madlyn. He could’ve had anyone. So could Dellen if it comes to that. She can have anyone. She has had anyone, any time she’s felt the itch. She doesn’t need…She doesn’t.”

  Alan stared at her, as if she were speaking a language whose words he understood but whose underlying meaning was foreign to him. A wave hit the side of the Sea Pit, and he flinched as if surprised at its strength and proximity. The spray from it hit them both. It was fresh and cold, salty against their lips. He said, “I’m completely lost.”

  She said, “You know perfectly well what I’m talking about.”

  “As it happens, I don’t. I honestly don’t.”

  Now was the moment. There was nothing left but to present him with the evidence she’d gathered and to speak the truth as she understood it. Kerra had left the postcard in her mother’s bedroom, but the fact of the postcard still existed. She said, “I went to the cottage, Alan. I looked through your belongings.”

  “I know that.”

  “All right. You know that. I found the postcard.”

  “What postcard?”

  “This is it. That postcard. Pengelly Cove, the sea cave, Dellen’s writing on it in red and an arrow pointing straight to the cave. We both know what that means.”

  “We do?”

  “Stop it. You’ve been working in that marketing office with her for…how long? I asked you not to. I asked you to take a job some place else. But you wouldn’t, would you. So you sat in the office with her day after day and you can’t tell me…You bloody well cannot claim that she didn’t…You’re a man, for God’s sake. You know the signs. And there were more than just signs, weren’t there?”

  He stared at her. She wanted to stomp her feet. He could not possibly be so obtuse. He’d decided this was the way to go: to feign ignorance until she simply threw up her hands in defeat. How clever of him. But she was not a fool.

  “Where were you the day that Santo died?” she asked him.

  “Christ. You can’t be thinking that I had something to do with—”

  “Where were you? You were gone. So was she. And you had that postcard. It was in your room. It said This is it and we both know what she meant. She’d begin with red. The lipstick. A scarf. A pair of shoes. When she did that…When she does that…” Kerra felt as if she would weep, and the very thought of weeping because of this, because of her, because of them, caused all of her anger to come roaring back, swelling within her to such an extreme that she thought it might explode from her mouth, a foul effluent capable of polluting whatever remained between her and this man whom she’d chosen to love. Because she did love him, only love was dangerous. Love put one where her father was, and that she could not begin to bear.

  Alan was apparently beginning to track all this because he said, “I see. It’s not Santo at all, is it? It’s your mum. You think that I…with your mum…the day Santo died. And this was supposed to have happened in that cave on the postcard?”

  She couldn’t reply. She couldn’t even nod. She was working too hard to get back under control so that if she had to feel something—indeed, if she had to show that she felt something—what that something would be was rage.

  Alan said, “Kerra, I told you: We talked about the video, your mum and I. I’d spoken to your dad about it as well. Your mum kept telling me about a spot along the coast that she thought would serve our purposes well because of the sea caves and the atmosphere they provided. She handed me that card and—”

  “You are not that stupid. And neither am I.”

  He looked away from her, not at the sea but in the direction of the hotel. From the lip of the Sea Pit the old Promontory King George Hotel could not be seen. But the beach huts could, that neat blue and white line of them, the perfect spot for assignations.

  Alan sighed. “I knew what she had in mind. She suggested we go to the caves and have a look, and I knew. She’s rather painfully obvious and not very creative when it comes to innuendoes. But then, I don’t expect she’s ever had to be creative. She’s still a beautiful woman, in her way.”

  “Don’t,” Kerra said. Finally they’d come to it, and she found she couldn’t bear to hear the details. It was, at heart, the same bloody story with the same bloody plot. Only the leading men altered.

  “I will,” Alan said. “And you’ll listen and decide what you want to believe. She claimed the sea caves were perfect for the video. She said we had to go have a look. I told her I’d have to meet her there, and I used as an excuse the fact that I had errands to run, because I had no intention of riding in the same car with her. So we met there and she showed me the cove, the village, and the sea caves. And nothing happened between us because I had no intention of anything other than nothing ever happening between us.” He’d kept his gaze on the beach huts as he spoke, but now he looked back at her. His expression was earnest, but his eyes were wary. Kerra could not make out what that meant. He said, “So now you get to decide, Kerra. You get to choose.”

  Then she understood: What would she believe: him or her instincts? What would she select: trust or suspicion? She said hollowly, “They take from me everything that I love.”

  He said quietly, “Darling Kerra, that’s not how it works.”

  “It’s the way it’s always worked in our family.”

  “Perhaps in the past. Perhaps you’ve lost people you didn’t wish to lose. Perhaps you’ve let them go yourself. Perhaps you’ve cut them off. The point is that no one gets taken away who doesn’t want to be taken away in the first place. And if someone’s taken, that’s no reflection on you. How can it possibly be?”

  She heard the words, and she sensed their warmth. The warmth made her go quiet inside. It was very strange. It was equally unexpected. With what Alan said, Kerra felt a subtle release within her. Something indefinable was giving way, as if a great internal bulwark were dissolving. She also felt the prick of tears, but she would not allow herself to go that far.

  “You, then,” she said.

  “Me then? What?”

  “I suppose I choose you.”

  “Just ‘suppose’?”

  “I can’t. More than that just now…I can’t, Alan.”

  He nodded gravely. Then he said, “I took a videographer with me. That was the errand I went on before Pengelly Cove. I fetched the videographer. I didn’t go to the sea caves alone.”

  “Why didn’t you just tell me? Why didn’t you say…?”

  “Because I wanted you to choose. I wanted you to believe. She’s sick, Kerra. Anyone with sense can see that she’s sick.”

  “She’s always been so—”

  “She’s always been so sick. And spending your life reacting to her sickness is going to make you sick as well. You’ve got to decide if that’s how you want to live. I, for one, do not.”

  “She’ll still keep trying to—”

  “Very likely she will. Or she’ll get help. She’ll make up her mind or your dad will insist on it or she’ll end up out on the street on her ear and she’ll have to make a change to survive. I don’t know. The point is, I intend to live my life the way I want to live my life regardless of what your mum does with hers. What, exactly, do you want to do? The same? Or something else?”

  “The same,” she said. Her lips felt stiff. “But I’m…so afraid.”

  “We’re all afraid at the end of the day because there’s no guarantee of a single thing. That’s just how life is.”

  She nodded numbly. A wave broke against the Sea Pit. She flinched.

  “Alan,” she said, “I didn’t hurt…I wouldn’t have done anything to Santo.”

  “Of course you wouldn’t. No more would I.”

  BEA WAS ALONE IN the incident room when she logged on to the computer. She’d sent Barbara Havers back to Polcare Cove to haul Daidre Trahair into Casvelyn for a tête-à tête. If she’s not there, wait for an hour, Bea told the detective se
rgeant. If she doesn’t show up, call it a day and we’ll lasso her tomorrow morning.

  The rest of the team she’d sent to their respective homes after a lengthy postmortem on the day’s developments. Have a decent meal and a good night’s sleep, she told them. Things will look different, clearer, and more possible in the morning. Or so she hoped.

  She considered logging on to the computer a last resort, a giving way to Constable McNulty’s fanciful approach to detective work. She did it because, before she and DS Havers had left LiquidEarth earlier that day, she’d paused in front of the poster that had so fascinated the young constable—the surfer wiping out on the monstrous wave—and she’d said in reference to it, “So this is the wave that killed him?”

  Both men were with her: Lew Angarrack and Jago Reeth. Angarrack was the one who said, “Who?”

  “Mark Foo. Isn’t this Mark Foo on the Maverick’s wave that killed him?”

  “True enough that Foo died at Maverick’s,” Lew said. “But that’s a younger kid. Jay Moriarty.”

  “Jay Moriarty?”

  “Yeah.” Angarrack had cocked his head curiously. “Why?”

  “Mr. Reeth said this was Mark Foo’s last wave.”

  Angarrack glanced at Jago Reeth. “How’d you come up with Foo?” he said. “If nothing else, the board’s all wrong.”

  Jago came to the door that separated the work area from the reception area and showroom, where the poster was pinned, among others, to the wall. He leaned against the jamb and nodded at Bea. “Top marks,” he told her and said to Lew, “They’re doing the job they’re meant to be doing, taking note of everything the way they ought. Had to check, didn’t I? Hope you don’t take it personally, Inspector.”

  Bea had been irritated. Everyone wanted a piece of a murder investigation if the victim was known to them. But she hated anything that wasted her time, and she disliked being tested in that way. Even more she disliked the way Jago Reeth watched her after this exchange, with that kind of knowing look men often adopted when forced to do business with a female whose position was superior to theirs.