Careless in Red (Inspector Lynley, #15)(137)

“As to that…?” It was Constable McNulty speaking, half risen from behind Santo Kerne’s computer. He sounded something between hopeful and excited, “Guv, there’s?”

“Vengeance,” Havers agreed. “He takes the girl’s virtue and cheats on her. They take care of him. Or at least one of them does. Or they plan it together. That sort of thing plays strong when it comes to murder.”

“Guv?” McNulty again, fully upright now.

“And both Reeth and Angarrack would’ve had access to the boy’s equipment,” Bea said. “In the boot of his car? They would’ve likely known it was there.”

“Madlyn telling them?”

“Perhaps. But either one of them just could have seen it at one time or another.”

“Guv, I know you wanted me off the big-wave thing,” McNulty broke in. “But you need to have a look at this.”

“In a minute, Constable.” Bea motioned him down. “Let me follow one thought at a time.”

“But this one relates. It’s part of the picture.”

“Damn it, McNulty!”

He sat. He exchanged a black look with Sergeant Collins. Bloody cow was its message. Bea saw this and said sharply, “That’ll do, Constable. All right, all right. What?” She approached the computer. He tapped frantically at the keyboard. A Web site appeared, featuring an enormous wave with a flea-size surfer upon it. Bea saw this and prayed for patience although she wanted to drag McNulty from the computer by his ears.

“It’s what he said about that poster,” McNulty told her. “That old bloke over LiquidEarth. When you and I were talking to him. See, first of all that kid on the wave?riding Maverick’s, he said, remember??couldn’t’ve been Mark Foo. That’s a picture of Jay Moriarty?”

“Constable, this is all sounding rather too familiar,” Bea cut in. “But wait. Look. Like I said, it’s a picture of Jay Moriarty and it’s famous, least among surfers who ride big waves. Not only was the kid sixteen, but he was the youngest surfer ever to ride Maverick’s at the time. And that picture of him was taken during the same swell that killed Mark Foo.”

“And this is critically important because…?”

“Because surfers know. At least surfers who’ve been to Maverick’s know.”

“Know what, exactly?”

“The difference between them. Between Jay Moriarty and Mark Foo.” McNulty’s face was alight, as if he’d cracked the case on his own and was waiting for Bea to say “Just call me Lestrade.” When she did not, he continued, perhaps less enthusiastically but certainly no less doggedly. “Don’t you see? That bloke with the Defender?Jago Reeth?he said the poster at LiquidEarth was Mark Foo. Mark Foo on the wave that killed him, he said. But here?right here?” McNulty tapped a few keys, and a photo identical to the poster appeared. “This is the same picture, Guv. And it’s Jay Moriarty, not Mark Foo at all.”

Bea thought about this. She didn’t like to dismiss anything out of hand, but McNulty appeared to be reaching, his own enthusiasm for surfing taking him into an area that bore no relevance to the case in hand. She said, “All right. So. The poster at LiquidEarth was misidentified by Jago Reeth. Where do we go with that?”

“To the fact that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” McNulty proclaimed.

“Just because he’s misidentified a poster he likely didn’t mount on the wall in the first place?”

“He’s blowing smoke,” McNulty said. “Mark Foo’s last ride is part of surfing history. Jay Moriarty’s wipeout is the same. Someone green to the sport might not know who he was and what happened to him. But a longtime surfer…? Someone who says he’s hung round the scene for decades…? Someone who says he’s been all over the world following waves…? He’s going to know. And this bloke Reeth didn’t. And now we’ve got his car near the spot where Santo Kerne fell. I say he’s our man.”

Bea thought about this. McNulty was borderline incompetent as a detective, it was true. He would spend his life at the Casvelyn police station, never rising above the level of sergeant and even that advancement would come only if he was extremely lucky and Collins died with his boots on. But there were times when out of the mouths of babes and just as much out of the mouths of the bungling dribbled the truth. She didn’t want to overlook that possibility just because most of the time she wanted to smack the constable on the side of his head.

She said to Sergeant Collins, “What’ve we got on the prints from the Kerne boy’s car? Are Jago Reeth’s among them?”

Collins consulted a document, which he unearthed from a pile on Bea’s desk. The boy’s prints were everywhere on the car, as one would expect, he said. William Mendick’s were on the exterior: on the driver’s side. Madlyn Angarrack’s were nearly everywhere Santo’s were: interior, exterior, inside the glove compartment, on the CDs. Others belonged to Dellen and Ben Kerne, and still others remained to be identified: from the CD and the boot of the car.

“On the climbing equipment?”

Collins shook his head. “Most of those aren’t any good. Smears, largely. We’ve got a clear one of Santo’s and a partial that hasn’t been identified. But that’s the limit.”