Careless in Red (Inspector Lynley, #15)(135)

Havers nodded. Hannaford came round the far side of the cottage. She was tramping through the heavy growth of marram grass and cowslip beneath the windows. It was more than obvious that she fully intended Daidre Trahair to know that someone had been there.

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

Hannaford was not impressed. “Fool’s errand,” she declared. “What’re we supposed to make of all that?”

“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 Hannaford headed to her car. He and Havers exchanged a look before she followed.

He decided on Newquay anyway, that being the beauty of his role in the investigation. And damn the consequences if he and Hannaford disagreed, he wasn’t obliged to discount his own inclinations in favour of hers.

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 planned. The special constable on duty in reception handed him over to the head of the MCIT squad, a detective sergeant called Ferrell with a globelike head and eyebrows so thick and black that they looked artificial. He was aware of the investigation ongoing in the Casvelyn area. He wasn’t, however, aware that the Met had become involved. He said this last bit meaningfully. The Met presence suggested an investigation into the investigation, which in itself suggested gross incompetence on the part of the officer in charge.

In fairness to Hannaford, Lynley disabused DS Ferrell of whatever notion he was brewing about Hannaford’s capabilities. He’d been in the area on holiday, he explained. He’d been present when the body was found. The boy, he explained, was the son of a man who had himself been at least tangentially involved in a death a number of years ago, one that had been investigated by the Newquay police, and that was why Lynley had come to Newquay: for information relating to that situation.

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.