Careless in Red (Inspector Lynley, #15)(144)

“Not for hours.”

“What about Cadan? Did he show up to work on the radiators?”

“Not sure. He may have done, but I haven’t seen him. It’s been rather quiet all the way round.”

He didn’t mention Dellen. On this day, she was as she had always been when things went bad: the great unmentionable. Just the thought of her?of Dellen the malodorous dead elephant in the room?reduced everyone to mute trepidation.

“What’ve you been…?” Kerra inclined her head towards his office. He seemed to take this as welcome, for he entered hers although this wasn’t what she’d intended. She wanted him at a distance. Things were, she’d decided, finished between them now.

He said, “I’ve been trying to get everyone in place for the video. Despite what’s happened, I do still think…” He pulled out a chair from its position between the office wall and the open door. When he sat, they were virtually knee to knee. Kerra didn’t like this. She didn’t want any kind of proximity to him. “This is important,” Alan said. “I want your dad to see that. I know the timing couldn’t be worse, but?”

“Not my mother?” Kerra inquired.

Alan blinked. He looked momentarily puzzled, perhaps by her tone. He said, “Your mum as well, but she’s already onboard, so your dad?”

“Oh. Is she?” Kerra said. “But then, I suppose she would be.” His embracing of her mother as a topic was surprising. Dellen’s opinion on anything had hardly ever counted, since she was incapable of consistency, so to hear someone counting it now came as something of a shock. Yet on the other hand, it did make sense. Alan worked with Dellen in marketing, on the rare occasions when Dellen actually worked at all, so they would have talked the video project through before he presented it to Kerra’s father. Alan would have wanted Dellen on his side: It meant one vote in the bag and a vote from someone who might have considerable influence with Ben Kerne.

Kerra wondered if Alan had talked to Santo as well. She wondered what Santo had made or would have made of Alan’s ideas for Adventures Unlimited.

“I’d like to talk to him again, but I haven’t actually seen…” Alan hesitated. Then he finally appeared to give in to his curiosity. He asked, “What’s going on? Do you know?”

“About what, exactly?” Kerra kept her voice polite.

“I heard them…Earlier in the day…I’d gone upstairs to look for…” His face was colouring.

Ah, she thought, were they there at last? “To look for?” Now she sounded arch. She liked that and wouldn’t have thought it was possible to manage arch when what she felt was anything but.

“I heard your mum and dad. Or rather your mum. She was…” He lowered his head. He appeared to be examining his shoes. These were two-tone saddle shoes, and Kerra regarded them as he did the same. What other man would wear saddle shoes? she wondered. And what on earth did it mean that he somehow managed to carry off wearing them without looking like Bertie Wooster? “I know things are bad,” he said. “I’m just not sure what I’m meant to be doing. At first I thought soldiering on was the ticket, but now it’s begun to seem inhuman. Your mum’s clearly in pieces, your dad’s?”

“How would you know about that?” The question came out precipitately. Kerra regretted it the moment she spoke.

“About what?” Alan looked confused. He’d been speaking meditatively, and her question appeared to have disrupted his chain of thought.

“About the pieces my mother is in?”

“As I said, I heard her. I’d gone up because no one was about and we’re at the point when we have to decide whether we’re still taking bookings or throwing the whole thing into the rubbish.”

“Concerned about that, are you?”

“Shouldn’t we all be?” He leaned back in his chair. He looked at her squarely. He folded his hands over his stomach, and he spoke again. “Why don’t you tell me, Kerra?”

“What?”

“I think you know.”

“And I think that’s a trap.”

“You were at Pink Cottage. You went through my room.”

“You’ve got a good landlady.”

“What else would you expect?”

“So I suppose you’re asking me what I was looking for?”

“You told her you left something; I assume you left something. But I can’t work out why you didn’t ask me to fetch it here for you.”

“I didn’t want you to bother.”

“Kerra.” Huge breath drawn in, huge breath expelled. He slapped his hands onto his knees. “What in God’s name is going on?”

“Excuse me?” She managed arch again. “My brother’s been murdered. Does something else need to be ‘going on’ for things not to be quite as you’d like them?”

“You know what I mean. There’s what happened to Santo and God knows that’s a nightmare. And a gut-ripping tragedy.”

“Nice of you to add that last bit.”

“But there’s also what’s happened between you and me and that?whether you want to admit it or not?began the same day as what happened to Santo.”

“Murder happened to Santo,” Kerra said. “Why can’t you say that, Alan? Why can’t you say murder?”