Careless in Red (Inspector Lynley, #15)(139)

His face alone betrayed his age, for his posture was upright and his body was sturdy. His face, however, was deeply lined, his nose misshapen by rhinophyma, its appearance akin to a floret of cauliflower dipped in beet juice. Ferrell had told Lynley the name of this potential source of information on the Kerne family: David Wilkie, retired detective chief inspector from the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary, once the DI at the head of the investigation into the untimely death of Jamie Parsons.

“Mr. Wilkie?” Lynley introduced himself. He produced his warrant card, and Wilkie put on a pair of spectacles to examine it.

“Off your patch, aren’t you?” Wilkie didn’t sound particularly friendly. “Why’re you nosing up the Parsons death?”

“Was it a murder?” Lynley asked.

“Never proved as much. Death by misadventure at the inquest, but you and I both know what that means. Could be anything with proof of nothing, so you got to rely on what people say.”

“That’s why I’ve come to talk to you. I’ve spoken with Eddie Kerne. His son Ben?”

“Don’t need memory jogging, lad. I’d still be working the job if regulations let me.”

“May we go somewhere to talk, then?”

“Not much for the house of God, are you?”

“Not at present, I’m afraid.”

“What are you, then? Fair-weather Christian? Lord doesn’t come through for you the way you want so you slam the door on His face. That it? Young people. Bah. You’re all alike.” Wilkie dug deeply into his waxed jacket’s pocket and brought out a handkerchief that he wiped with surprising delicacy beneath his terrible nose. He gestured with it to Lynley and for a moment Lynley thought he was meant to use it as well, a form of bizarre communion with the older man. But Wilkie went on, saying, “Look at that. White as the day I bought it and I do my own laundry. What d’you think of that?”

“Impressive,” Lynley said. “I couldn’t match you there.”

“You young cocks, you couldn’t match me anywhere.” Wilkie shoved the handkerchief back to its home. He said, “It’ll be here in God’s house or not at all. ’Sides, I’ve got to dust the pews. You wait here. I’ve got supplies.”

Wilkie, Lynley thought, was definitely not gaga. He could probably have run circles round DS Ferrell in Newquay. Doing so on his hands, at that.

When the old man returned, he had a basket from which he took a whisk broom, several rags, and a tin of polish, which he prised open with a house key and roughly swished a rag through. “I can’t sort out what’s happened to churchgoing,” he revealed. He handed over the whisk broom and gave Lynley detailed instructions as to its use upon and beneath the pews. He’d be following Lynley with the polish rag, so don’t be leaving any spots unseen to, he said. There weren’t enough rags if this lot?here he indicated the basket?got filthy. Did Lynley understand? Lynley did, which apparently gave Wilkie licence to return to his previous line of thought. “My day, the church was filled to capacity. Two, maybe three times on Sunday and then for evensong on Wednesday night. Now, between one Christmas and the next, you won’t see twenty regular goers. Some extras on Easter, but only if the weather is good. I put this down to those Beatles, I do. I remember that one saying he was Jesus way back when. He should’ve been sorted straightaway, you ask me.”

“Long time ago, though, wasn’t that?” Lynley murmured.

“Church’s never been the same after that heathen spoke. Never. All those wankers with hair growing down to their arses singing ’bout getting their satisfactions met. And smashing their instruments to nothing. Those things cost money, but do they care? No. It’s all ungodly. No wonder everyone stopped coming to pay the Lord His due respect.”

Lynley was considering a reassessment of the gaga bit. He also needed Havers with him to sort out the old man when it came to his rock ’n’ roll history. He himself had been a late bloomer when it came to just about everything, and rock ’n’ roll was among the many areas of pop culture from the past upon which he could not wax, eloquently or otherwise. So he didn’t try. He waited until Wilkie had run out of steam on the topic, and in the meantime he became as admirably industrious with the whisk broom as he could manage within the confines of the pews and in the church’s inadequate lighting.

Presently, as he’d hoped, Wilkie concluded with, “World’s going to hell in a shopping trolley, you ask me,” an assessment with which Lynley did not disagree.

“Was the parents wanted to see that lad go down for the death.” The old man spoke suddenly, some minutes later as they worked their way along another row of pews. “Benesek Kerne. Parents got their jaws round him and they wouldn’t let go.”

“That would be the parents of the dead boy?”

“Dad especially went off his nut when that lad died. Was the apple of his eye, was Jamie, and Jon Parsons?that’s the dad?he never made bones about it to me. Man’s s’posed to have a favourite child, he said, and the others’re supposed to em’late him to get into the dad’s good graces.”

“There were other children in the family, then?”

“Four in all. Three young girls?one just a wee toddler?and that boy which died. Parents waited for the verdict from the inquest and when the verdict was death by misadventure, Dad came to me. Few weeks later, this was. Dead crazed, poor bloke. Told me he knew for certain the Kerne boy was responsible. I ask him why he waits to tell me this?’cause I’m discounting what he’s saying as the ravings of a man going mad with grief?and he tells me someone grassed. After the fact of the inquest, this was. He’s been doing his own nosing round, he tells me. He’s brought in his own investigator. And what they came up with was the grass.”