Careless in Red (Inspector Lynley, #15)(174)

The answers turned out to be sorting, washing, chopping, slicing, pressing, and no. The mill in question was a piece of machinery?constructed of steel and painted bright blue?attached to an enormous wooden bin by means of a trough. The machinery of the mill itself consisted of this trough, a barrel-like bath, a water source, a rather sinister-looking press not dissimilar to an enormous vise, a wide pipe, and a mysterious chamber at the top of this pipe, which at the moment was open and being seen to by two individuals. One was a man wielding various tools against the machinery that appeared to operate a series of very sharp blades. The other was a woman who seemed to be monitoring his every move. He was wearing a knitted cap that came down to his eyebrows, as well as grease-stained jeans and a blue flannel shirt. She was garbed in jeans, boots, and a thick but cozy-looking chenille sweater. She was saying, “Have a care, Rod. I don’t want you bleeding all over my blades,” to which he replied, “No worries, luv. I been looking after clobber lots more difficult ’n this lot since you was in nappies.”

“Aldara Pappas?” Bea said.

The woman turned. She was quite exotic for this part of the world, not exactly pretty but striking, with large dark eyes, hair that was thick and shiny and black, and dramatic red lipstick emphasising a sensual mouth. The rest of her was sensual as well. Curves in all the right places, as Bea knew her former husband might have said. She looked to be somewhere in her forties, if the fine lines round her eyes were anything to go by.

The woman said, “Yes,” and gave one of those woman-evaluating-the-competition sort of looks both to Bea and to DS Havers. She seemed to linger particularly on the sergeant’s hair. The colour of this was sandy, the style not so much a style as an eloquent statement about impatience: Hacked over the bathroom sink seemed to be the best description. “What can I do for you?” Aldara Pappas’s tone suggested the task was hopeless.

“A bit of conversation will do.” Bea showed her identification. She nodded to Havers to show hers as well. The sergeant didn’t look happy about doing so since this required her to conduct an archaeological excavation through her shoulder bag, seeking the leather lump that went for her wallet.

“New Scotland Yard,” Havers told Aldara Pappas. Bea watched for a reaction.

The woman’s face was still although Rod gave an appreciative whistle. “What you get up to now, luv?” he asked Aldara. “You been poisoning the customers again?”

Aldara smiled faintly and told him to carry on. “I’ll be at the house if you need me,” she said.

She told Bea and Havers to follow her, and she took them through the cobbled courtyard of which the mill formed one edge. The other edges consisted of a jam kitchen, a cider museum, and an empty stall, presumably for the draft horse. In the middle of the yard, a pen housed a pig the approximate size of a Volkswagen Beetle. He snorted suspiciously and charged the fence.

“I could do with less drama, Stamos,” Aldara told the animal. Understanding or not, he retreated to a pile of what looked like rotting vegetation. He stuck his snout into this and flipped a portion of it into the air. “Clever boy,” Aldara said. “Do eat up.”

He was an orchard pig, she told them as she ducked through an arched gate that was partially concealed by a heavy vine, to the far side of the jam kitchen. PRIVATE was fixed onto a sign that swung from the gate’s handle. “His job used to be to eat the unusable apples after the harvest: Let him loose in the orchard and stand aside. Now he’s supposed to add an air of authenticity to the place, for visitors. The problem is that he wishes more to attack them than to fascinate them. Now. What can I do for you?”

Had they thought Aldara Pappas meant to make them welcome by leading them towards her house and offering them a nice steaming cuppa, they were soon corrected in that notion. The house was a farm cottage with a vegetable garden in front of it, odoriferous piles of manure sitting at the end of raised beds neatly defined by wooden rails. At one side of the garden was a small stone shed. She took them to this and dislodged a shovel and a rake from its interior, along with a pair of gloves. She brought a head scarf from the pocket of her jeans and used it to cover and hold back her hair in the fashion of a peasant woman or, for that matter, certain members of the royal family. Thus ready for labour, she began to shovel the manure and the compost into the vegetable beds. Nothing had been planted there yet.

She said, “I’ll continue with my chores while we talk, if you don’t mind. How might I help you?”

“We came to talk about Santo Kerne,” Bea informed her. She jerked her head at Havers to indicate that the sergeant’s usual brand of ostentatious note taking was to begin. Havers obliged. She was watching Aldara steadily, and Bea liked the fact that Havers didn’t seem the least bit cowed by another?and decidedly more attractive?woman.

Aldara said, “Santo Kerne. What about him?”

“We’d like to talk to you about your relationship with him.”

“My relationship with him. What about it?”

“I hope this isn’t going to be your style of answering,” Bea said.

“My style of answering. What do you mean?”

“The Little Miss Echo bit, Miss Pappas. Or is it Missus?”

“Aldara will do.”

“Aldara, then. If it is your style?the echoing bit?we’re likely to be with you most of the day, and something tells me you’d not appreciate that. We’d be happy enough to oblige, however.”