Careless in Red (Inspector Lynley, #15)(107)

She’d got only a step inside the door when it became clear that her plan was not going to be carried out without some fancy footwork, however. For someone came clattering down the stairs?undoubtedly alerted by the happy barking of dogs in the garden?and in a moment she was face-to-face with her son.

He said, “Mum! What’re you doing here? Those the Labs?” with an inclination of his head in the general direction of the garden.

Bea saw he was eating, which would have been a mark against his father had Pete’s snack consisted of crisps or chips. But he was munching from a plastic bag of apple slices and almonds, of all things, and the bloody child appeared to be actually enjoying them. So she couldn’t get riled at that, but she could get riled at the fact that he was home at all.

She said, “Never mind about me. What’re you doing here? Did your father allow you to stay home from school? Or have you done a bunk? What’s going on? Are you alone? Who’s upstairs? What the hell are you doing?” Bea knew the game: It started with truancy and went on to drugs. Drugs led to breaking and entering. That led to gaol. Thank you so very much, Ray Hannaford. Wonderful job. Father of the year.

Pete took a step backward. He chewed thoughtfully and watched her.

She said, “Answer me at once. Why aren’t you at school?”

“Half day,” he said.

“What?”

“Half day today, Mum. There’s a conference or something. I don’t know what. I mean, I knew but I forgot. Teachers’re doing something. I told you about it. I brought home the announcement.”

She remembered. He had done, several weeks ago. It was on the calendar. She’d even told Ray about it and they’d discussed who’d fetch Pete when the shortened day ended. Still, she wasn’t ready to apologise for the suspicious leap she’d made. There remained fertile ground here, and she intended to till it. She said, “So. How’d you get home?”

“Dad.”

“Your father? And where is he now? What’re you doing here alone?” She was quite determined. There had to be something.

Pete was too astute for her, his parents’ own son, possessing their ability to cut to the quick. He said, “Why’re you always so mad at him?”

That wasn’t a question Bea was ready to answer. She said, “Go say hello to your animals. They’re wanting you. We’ll talk afterwards.”

“Mum…”

“You heard me.”

He shook his head: a teenager’s black movement that signaled his disgust. But he did as she told him although the fact that he went outside without a jacket telegraphed his intention of not remaining long with the Labradors. She had little enough time, so she ran up the stairs.

The house had two bedrooms only. She made for Ray’s. She did not want her son exposed to photos of Ray’s lovers posed suggestively, with backs arched and pert breasts thrust skyward. Nor did she want him looking at their discarded bras and flimsy knickers. If there were coy notes and gushing letters lying about, she intended to find them. If they’d left smears of lipstick playfully on mirrors, she would wipe them off. She intended to absent the premises of whatever souvenirs his father kept of his conquests, and she told herself it was in Pete’s best interests that she do so.

But there was nothing. Ray had swept the place clean in advance of Pete’s arrival. The only evidence of anything was evidence of his fatherhood: on the chest of drawers Pete’s most recent school photo in a wooden frame, next to it their daughter, Ginny, and her daughter, Audra, and next to that a photo from Christmas: Ray, Bea, their two children, Ginny’s husband with Audra in his arms. Playing happy extended family, which they were not. Ray’s left arm around her, his right arm around Pete.

She told herself it was better than displaying a photo of Brittany or Courtney or Stacy or Katie or whoever she was, coyly smiling on a summer holiday, bikini clad and tan of skin. She checked the clothes cupboard but found nothing there either and she went on to slide her hands under the pillows on the bed in a search for a few bits of lace that would go for night clothes. Nothing. All to the good. At least the man was being discreet. She turned to head for the bathroom. Pete was watching from the doorway.

He was no longer chewing. The bag of his carefully prepared guaranteed-to-be-nutritious snack dangled from his fingers. His jaw looked slack.

She said hastily, “Why aren’t you with the dogs? I swear to you, Pete, if you insist on having pets and you don’t take care of them?”

“Why d’you hate him so much?”

The question stopped her dead this time. As did his face, which bore an expression of pained knowledge that no fourteen-year-old boy should carry round on his shoulders. She felt deflated. “I don’t hate him, Pete.”

“Yeah, you do. You’ve always. And see, I don’t get it, Mum, ’cause he’s a decent bloke, seems to me. He loves you, as well. I can see that, and I don’t get why you can’t love him back.”

“It isn’t as easy as that. There are things…” She didn’t want to hurt him, and the truth would do that. It would come at this point of his delicate dawning manhood and it would tear it to pieces. She began to move past him, to get to the bathroom, to complete her futile investigation, but he was in the doorway and he didn’t move. It came to her how much he’d grown over the last year. He was taller than she now although still not as strong.