Careless in Red (Inspector Lynley, #15)(133)

He got out of the Ford and approached Daidre’s cottage. He knocked on the blue front door and waited. As he expected, the vet was not at home. But he went to the outbuildings just to make sure.

The larger one was empty of everything, as it would have to be for a car to be accommodated within its narrow confines. It was also largely unfinished inside and the presence of cobwebs and a thick coating of dust indicated that no one used it often. There were tyre tracks across the floor of the building, though. Lynley squatted and examined these. Several cars, he saw, had parked here. It was something to note, although he wasn’t sure what he ought to make of the information.

The smaller building was a garden shed. There were tools within it, all of them well used, testifying to Daidre’s attempts to create something gardenlike out of her little plot of land, no matter its proximity to the sea.

He was studying these for want of studying something when he heard the sound of a car driving up, its tyres crunching on the pebbles along the verge. He was blocking her driveway, so he left the garden shed to move his vehicle out of her way. But he saw it wasn’t Daidre Trahair who’d arrived. Rather it was DI Hannaford. Barbara Havers was with her.

Lynley felt dispirited at the sight of them. He had rather hoped Havers would have said nothing to Bea Hannaford about what she’d uncovered in Falmouth although he’d known how unlikely that was. Barbara was nothing if not a pit bull when it came to an investigation. She’d run over her grandmother with an articulated lorry if she was on the trail of something relevant. The fact that Daidre Trahair’s past wasn’t relevant would not occur to her because anything odd, contradictory, quirky, or suspicious needed to be tracked down and examined from every angle, and Barbara Havers was just the cop to do it.

Their eyes met as she got out of the car, and he tried to keep the disappointment from his face. She paused to shake a cigarette out of a packet of Players. She turned her back to the breeze, sheltering a plastic lighter from the wind.

Bea Hannaford approached him. “She’s not here?”

He shook his head.

“Sure about that, are you?” Hannaford peered at him intently.

“I didn’t look in through the windows,” he replied. “But I can’t imagine why she wouldn’t answer the door if she were at home.”

“I can. And how’re we coming along with our investigation into the good doctor? You’ve spent enough time with her so far. I expect you’ve something to report.”

Lynley looked to Havers, feeling a curious rush of gratitude towards his former partner. He also felt the shame of having misjudged her, and he saw how much the last months had altered him. Havers remained largely expressionless, but she lifted one eyebrow. She was, he saw, putting the ball squarely into his court and he could do with it what he would. For now.

“I don’t know why she lied to you about the route she took from Bristol,” he told Hannaford. “I’ve not got much further than that. She’s very careful with what she reveals about herself.”

“Not careful enough,” the DI said. “She lied about knowing Santo Kerne, as things turn out. The kid was her lover. She was sharing him with his girlfriend without his girlfriend knowing. At first, that is. She?the girlfriend?had some suspicions on that front so she followed Santo and he led her straight here. He seems to have been a bloke who liked them any way he could get them. Older, younger, and in between.”

Although he found that his heart had begun beating quickly as the DI was speaking, Lynley said in an even tone, “I’m not quite tracking this.”

“Not tracking what?”

“His girlfriend following him and the conclusion you’ve drawn: that he and Dr. Trahair were lovers.”

“Sir…” It was Havers’ monitory tone.

“Are you mad?” Hannaford said to Lynley. “The girlfriend confronted him, Thomas.”

“Confronted him or confronted them?”

“Him or them? What difference does it make?”

“All the difference in the world if she didn’t actually see anything.”

“Really? And what’d you expect the girl to do? Jump through the window with a camera while they were doing the deed? So she would have evidence to back herself up if she ever had to talk to the coppers? She saw enough to have words with him and he told her what was going on.”

“He said that Dr. Trahair was his lover?”

“What the hell do you think?”

“It just seems to me that if he had a taste for older women, he’d want to go after one more readily available to him. Dr. Trahair, according to what she’s said, comes here only for holidays and occasional weekend breaks.”

“According to what she bloody says. My good man, she’s lied about nearly everything so far, so I think we’re God damn safe to assume that if Santo Kerne came to this cottage?”

“Could I have a word, Inspector Hannaford?” Havers broke in. “With the superintendent, I mean.”

Firmly Lynley said, “Barbara, I’m no longer?”

“With his lordship,” Havers corrected herself acidly. “With his earlishness…With Mister Lynley…with whatever he wishes to be called at this point…if you don’t mind, Guv.”

Hannaford threw up her hands. “Take him.” She began to walk towards the cottage, but she paused and pointed her finger at Lynley. “Detective, if I find you’re obstructing this investigation in any way…”