Careless in Red (Inspector Lynley, #15)(148)

Bea said, “Surfing? And if I go back to have a look at those charts you lot use…What do you call them?”

“Isobar. And yes, if you go back and have a look you’ll see the swells were rubbish, the wind was wrong, and there was no point at all to going out.”

“So why did you?” DS Havers asked.

“I wanted to think. The sea’s always been the best place for me to do that. If I caught a few waves as well, that’d be a bonus. But catching waves wasn’t why I was there.”

“You were thinking about what?”

“Marriage,” he said.

“Yours?”

“I’m divorced. Years ago. The woman I’ve been seeing…” He shifted his weight. He looked like a man who’d had any number of sleepless nights, and Bea wondered how many she could realistically ascribe to a gentleman’s quandary about his marital state. “We’ve been together a few years. She wants to get married. I prefer things as they are. Or with a few changes.”

“What sort of changes?”

“What the hell difference does that make to you? It’s a case of been there, done that for both of us but she won’t see it that way.”

Jago Reeth made a noise, cousin to a snort. It seemed to indicate that he and Lew Angarrack were at one on this topic. He went on with his sanding, and Lew gave a look to what he was doing. He nodded as he ran his fingers along the part of the rail that Jago had already seen to.

“So you were…what?” Bea asked the surfer. “Bobbing in the waves, trying to decide whether to marry her or not?”

“No. I’d already decided that.”

“And your decision was…?”

He stepped away from the sawhorses and the board that Jago was working on. “I don’t see what that question has to do with anything. So let me get us to the point. If Santo Kerne fell from the cliff, he was either pushed or his climbing gear failed. Since my car was some distance away from Polcare Cove and since I was on the water, I couldn’t have pushed him, which leaves his equipment failing in some way. So I expect what you really want to know is who had access to his equipment. Have I got us there a bit quicker by using the direct route, Inspector Hannaford?”

“I find there’re usually half a dozen routes to the truth,” Bea told him. “But you can travel this one, if you’ve a mind to.”

“I had no idea where he kept his equipment,” Angarrack told her. “I still don’t know. I’d assume he kept his climbing kit at home.”

“It was in his car.”

“Well, of course it would have been on that day, wouldn’t it?” he demanded. “He’d gone for a bloody climb, woman.”

“Lew…Just doing her job.” Jago spoke soothingly before he said to Bea, “I had access, if it comes down to it. Knowledge as well. The boy and his father had one run-in too many?”

“Over what?” Bea interrupted.

Jago Reeth and Angarrack exchanged a look. Bea saw this and repeated her question.

“Over anything,” was Jago’s reply. “They didn’t see eye to eye on much, and Santo removed his kit from the premises. Bit of an I’ll-show-you gesture, if you know what I mean.”

“‘I’ll show you’ what, exactly, Mr. Reeth?”

“I’ll show you…whatever boys think they got to show their dads.”

This answer hardly satisfied. Bea said, “If you know something pertinent?either of you?I’ll have it, please.”

Another look between them, this one longer. Jago said to Lew, “Mate…You know it’s not my place.”

“He made Madlyn pregnant,” Lew said abruptly. “And he had no intention of doing anything at all about it.”

Next to her, Bea felt DS Havers stir, itching to get involved but restraining herself. For her part, Bea had to wonder at the information’s being delivered so perfunctorily by the man who’d have had the most reason to do something about it.

“’Cording to Santo, his dad wanted him to do right by Madlyn,” Jago said. Then he added, “Sorry, Lew. I did still talk to the boy. Seemed the best, what with the baby coming.”

“Your daughter didn’t terminate the pregnancy, then?” Bea asked Angarrack.

“She intended to keep it…the child.”

“Intended?” DS Havers asked. “Past tense meaning…?”

“Miscarriage.”

“When did all this happen?” Bea asked.

“Miscarriage? At the beginning of April.”

“According to her, she’d already ended their relationship by then. So she’d done that in the midst of her pregnancy.”

“That would be correct.”

Bea glanced at Havers. The sergeant’s lips were rounded to an o, which was likely short for oh boy. They were on a most interesting track.

“How did you feel about this, Mr. Angarrack? And you as well, Mr. Reeth, since you’d taken such care to see the boy was supplied with condoms.”

“I didn’t feel good,” Angarrack said. “But if doing right by Madlyn was going to mean they’d marry, I was happier they were apart, believe me. I didn’t want her marrying him. They were only eighteen and besides…” He gestured away the rest of what he was going to say.