Careless in Red (Inspector Lynley, #15)(140)

“Did you think he was telling you the truth?”

“Isn’t that the question? Who bloody knows?”

“This person?the grass?never spoke to you?”

“Just to Parsons. So he claimed. Which as you and I know is damn meaningless since what he wants more’n anything is an arrest of someone. He needs someone to blame. So does the wife. They need anyone to blame because they think that accusing, arresting, putting on trial, and imprisoning is going to make them feel better, which of course it isn’t. But Dad doesn’t want to hear that. What dad would? Running his own investigation is the only thing keeping him from sliding over the edge. So I’m willing to cooperate with him, help him out, help him through the bloody mess his life’s become. And I ask him to tell me who the grass is. I can’t ecksackly make an arrest on some tittle-tattle I didn’t even hear firsthand.”

“Of course,” Lynley noted.

“But he won’t tell me, so what can I do that I hadn’t already done, eh? We’d investigated the death of that lad left, right, and centre, and believe me, there was sod all to go on. The Kerne boy didn’t have an alibi, aside from ‘walking the long way home to clear my head,’ but you don’t hang a man for that, do you? Still, I wanted to help. So we had the Kerne boy into the station one more time, four more times, eighteen more times…Who the bloody hell remembers. We nosed round every aspect of his life and all of his friends’ lives as well. Benesek didn’t like the Parsons boy?we uncovered that much straightaway?but as things turned out, no one else liked the blighter neither.”

“Did they have alibis? His friends?”

“All told the same story. Home and to bed. Those stories stayed the same and no one broke ranks. Couldn’t get a drop of blood out of them even by using a leech. They were either sworn to each other or they were telling the truth. Now, in my experience, when a group of lads gets up to no good, one of them breaks eventually if you keep pressing. But no one ever did.”

“Which led you to conclude they were telling the truth?”

“Nothing else to conclude.”

“What did they tell you about their relationship with the dead boy? What was their story?”

“Simple one. Kerne boy and Parsons had words that night, a bit of a dustup about something during a party at the Parsons home. Kerne left the scene and his mates did the same. And, ’cording to them all, no one went back later to coax the Parsons boy to his end. He must’ve gone to the beach on his own, they said. End of story.”

“I’ve learned he died in a sea cave.”

“Went down there at night, the tide came in, he got caught up in it, and he couldn’t get out. Toxicology showed he was pissed to oblivion and he’d done some doping on top of that. Common thought at first was that he’d met a girl in the cave for a poke and passed out either before or after.”

“‘Common thought at first’?”

“The body was well banged up from the cave, see?being slung round for six hours while the tide came in and went out?but pathologist pointed out marks that couldn’t be accounted for and these happened to be round the wrists and ankles.”

“Tied up, then. But no other evidence?”

“Faeces in the ears and wasn’t that a bit peculiar, eh? But that was it. And there wasn’t a witness to anything. Start to finish, it was a case of he said, she said, we said, they said. Finger-pointing, gossiping, and that was that. Without hard evidence, without a witness to a thing, without even a scrap of circumstantial evidence…All we could hope for was someone to break and that might’ve happened had the Parsons kid not been the Parsons kid.”

“Which means?”

“Bit of a wanker, sad to say. Family had money, so he thought he was better’n the rest of ’em and he liked to show it. Not the sort of thing going to make him popular with the local youngsters, you know what I mean.”

“But they went to his party?”

“Free booze, free dope, no parents at home, a chance to snog with the girl of your choice. Not a lot to do in Pengelly Cove at the best of times. They wouldn’t’ve turned down a chance for some fun.”

“What happened to them, then?”

“The other boys? The Kerne boy’s mates? They’re still round Pengelly Cove, for all I know.”

“And the Parsons family?”

“Never went back to Pengelly Cove as such. They were from Exeter, and they went back there and there they stayed. Dad had a property-management business in town. Called Parsons and…someone else. Can’t recall. He himself went back to Pengelly regular for a bit, weekends and holidays, trying to get some full stop put to the case, but it never happened. He hired more ’n one investigator to take up the pieces as well. Spent a fortune on the whole situation. But if Benesek Kerne and those boys were behind what happened to Jamie Parsons, they’d learned from the first investigation into his death: If there’s no hard evidence, and no witness to anything, keep the mug plugged and no one can touch you.”

“I understand he built something of a monument to him,” Lynley noted.

“Who? Parsons?” And when Lynley nodded, “Well, the family had the funds to do it, and if it gave them some peace, more power to the whole idea.” Wilkie had been working his way along the pews, and now he straightened and stretched his back. Lynley did likewise. For a moment, they stood there in silence in the centre of the church, studying the stained-glass window above the altar. Wilkie sounded thoughtful when he next spoke, as if he’d given the matter considerable thought over the years that had passed. “I didn’t like to leave things unsettled,” he said. “I had a feeling that the dead boy’s dad wouldn’t be able to get a moment’s peace if we didn’t have someone called to account for what happened. But I think…” He paused and scratched the back of his neck. His expression said that his body was present but his mind had gone to another time and place. “I think those boys?if they were involved?didn’t mean the Parsons lad to die. They weren’t that sort. Not a one of them.”