Careless in Red (Inspector Lynley, #15)(152)

Will went to the far end of the greenhouse where supplies were kept and fetched down a box of fertiliser from a shelf. Cadan followed him.

“So I reckoned we could hoist a brew”?Cadan cringed internally at the bizarre expression; he sounded like someone on American telly?“and let bygones be bygones. What d’you say?”

“Can’t,” Will said. “I can’t leave at the moment.”

“That’s where you’re lucky. I wasn’t actually talking about leaving,” Cadan told him frankly. “I reckoned we could booze up here.”

Will shook his head. He returned to his vines and his pitchfork. Cadan had the distinct impression that something was eating at his friend’s peace of mind.

“Can’t. Sorry.” Will picked up the pace of his work and clarified his situation by adding tersely, “Cops were at the grocery, Cade. They gave me a grilling.”

“What about?”

“What the hell d’you think it was about?”

“Santo Kerne?”

“Yeah, Santo Kerne. Is there another subject?”

“Why you, for God’s sake?”

“The hell I know. They’ve been talking to everyone. How’d you escape?” Will dug furiously once again.

Cadan said nothing. He felt ill at ease all at once. Speculatively, he looked at Will. The fact that the cops had sought him out suggested things Cadan didn’t want to begin to consider.

“Well,” he said in the expansive tone that always indicates an end to a conversation.

“Yeah,” Will said grimly. “Well.”

Cadan made his farewell soon after this and was thus at a loose end once again. Will and Will’s troubles aside, fate seemed to be telling him that action was called for. And action meant the single deed?aside from drinking?that Cadan had not been able to get out of his brain.

Christ, but his mind seemed fixed on her. She might as well have been a deadly infection eating away at his brain. Cadan knew that his choices were simple: He had to get rid of her or he had to have her. Yet having her was not unlike committing ritual suicide, and he knew that if nothing else, so he rode from Binner Down House to the only place left in his limited list of escape hatches from the self: the Royal Air Station. He couldn’t come up with any other alternative. He’d lie to his father about having gone to work, if it came to that. He just needed to be somewhere that wasn’t at home alone or at Adventures Unlimited in the vicinity of that woman.

As luck had it, his father’s car wasn’t there. But Jago’s was, which seemed a godsend. If anyone could act the part of confidant, it was Jago Reeth.

Unfortunately, someone else had the same idea. Cadan walked in to find the two daughters of Ione Soutar in the reception area and the door to the inner workshops closed. Jennie was scrupulously attending to her school prep at the card table that served as his father’s desk while the redoubtable Leigh was pressing one finger to the side of her nostril, a tube of Super Glue on the counter in front of her along with a compact mirror into which she gazed.

“Mum’s inside, Cadan?” Leigh told him with that perpetual, maddening interrogatory inflection of hers, which always suggested she was speaking to a fool. “She’s said it’s personal, so you’re not to go in?”

“I expect she’s talking to Jago ’bout your dad,” Jennie added frankly. She was sucking on her lower lip as she rubbed out pencil marks she’d made on her paper. “She said it’s over, but she keeps crying at night in the bath when she thinks we can’t hear, so I reckon it’s not as over as she wants it to be.”

“She needs to give him the permanent heave-ho?” Leigh said. “I mean, no offense, Cadan, but your father’s a dickhead? Women need to stand up for themselves and they need to stand firm and they especially need to kick arse when they’re not being treated the way they deserve to be treated. I mean, like, what sort of example is she setting for the two of us?”

“What the hell’re you doing to your face?” Cadan asked.

“Mummy wouldn’t let her get her nose pierced, so she’s gluing a stone on,” Jennie informed Cadan in the friendly fashion that was her nature. “C’n you do long division, Cade?”

“God, don’t ask him,” Leigh said to her sister. “He didn’t even pass one GSCE? You know that, Jennie.”

Cadan ignored her. “You want a calculator?” he asked Jennie.

“She’s supposed to show her work?” Leigh told him. She inspected her nose stud and said to the mirror, “I’m not stupid. I’m not going to rubbish up my face. Like I’d ackshully do that?” She rolled her eyes. “What d’you think, Jennie?”

Jennie said without looking, “I think you’re going to have a real row with her now.”

Cadan couldn’t disagree. Leigh looked like someone with a large spot of blood on the side of her nose. She should have chosen a different-coloured stone.

“Mum’s going to make her take it off,” Jennie went on. “It’ll hurt when she does, as well, cos the Super Glue holds it real good. You’ll be sorry, Leigh.”

“Shut up?” Leigh said.

“I only said?”

“Shut up? Put a sock in it? Cram your fist down your throat? Gag yourself with a shovel?”