Careless in Red (Inspector Lynley, #15)(177)

“What was second of all?” Bea asked.

Aldara looked at her blankly. “Sorry?”

“You said ‘first of all’ before you launched into your lack of concern over what other people think. I’m wondering what ‘second of all’ consisted of?”

“Ah. It consisted of my other lover,” Aldara said. “As I said earlier, the secrecy of an affair with Santo appealed to me. The affair charged things and I like to have them charged. Actually, I need to have them charged. When they aren’t…” She shrugged. “For me, the fire simply goes out. The brain, as perhaps you’ve discovered for yourself, habituates to anything over time. When the brain habituates to a lover, as the brain will do, the lover becomes less a lover and more…” She seemed to consider an appropriate term and she chose, “More an inconvenience. When that occurs, one disposes of him or one thinks of a way to bring the fire back to the sex.”

“I see. Santo Kerne was doing duty as the fire,” Bea said.

“My other lover was a very good man, and I quite enjoyed him. In all respects. His company in and out of bed was good, and I didn’t wish to lose it. But for me to continue to be with him?to please him sexually and to be pleased by him in turn?I needed a second lover, a secret lover. Santo was that.”

“Do all these lovers of yours know about each other?” Havers asked.

“They would hardly be secret if they did.” Aldara moved from the shovel to the rake. Her boots, Bea saw, were becoming encrusted with manure. They looked expensive and would bear the scent of animal faeces for months. She wondered the other woman didn’t care about that. “Santo knew, naturally. He had to know in order to understand the…I suppose I could call them the rules. But the other…No. It was essential that the other never know.”

“Because he wouldn’t have liked it?”

“Oh that, of course. But more than that, because secrecy is the key to excitement and excitement is the key to fire.”

“I notice you’ve been referring to the other bloke in the past tense. Was not is. Why would that be?”

Here Aldara hesitated, as if she realised what her answer was going to connote to the police.

Bea said, “May we assume the past is just that?”

“Finito,” Havers added in case Aldara didn’t get the meaning.

“He and I are having a cooling-off period,” Aldara said. “I suppose that’s what you’d call it.”

“And this began when?”

“Some weeks ago.”

“Instigated by whom?”

Aldara didn’t reply, which was answer enough.

“We’ll need his name,” Bea said.

The Greek woman appeared quite surprised by the request, which seemed a largely disingenuous response, as far as Bea was concerned. “Why? He didn’t…He doesn’t know…” She hesitated. She was thinking it over, considering all the signs, Bea concluded.

“Yes, darling,” Bea said to her. “Indeed. It’s very likely he does.” She told her about Santo’s conversation with Tammy Penrule, about Tammy’s advice to him about being honest. “As it turns out, Santo apparently wasn’t asking about whether he should tell Madlyn because Madlyn found out on her own. So it stands to reason he was asking about telling someone else. I expect it’s your gentleman. Which, as you can well imagine, puts him rather into the hot seat.”

“No. He wouldn’t have…” But she hesitated once again. The fact that she was tossing possibilities round inside her attractive head was obvious. Her eyes grew cloudy. They seemed to communicate all the ways in which she knew he very well could have.

“I’m no expert on the subject, but I expect most men don’t care much for sharing their women,” Bea pointed out.

“It’s a cave dweller sort of thing,” Havers added. “My hearth, my fire, my woolly mammoth, my woman. Me Tarzan, you Jane.”

Bea added, “So Santo goes to him and tells him the truth: ‘We’re both having Aldara Pappas, mate, and that’s how she wants it. I just thought you were owed an explanation of where she is when she isn’t with you.’”

“Absurd. Why would Santo??”

“Logically, he probably wouldn’t have wanted another scene like the scene with Madlyn, especially if it involved a man who might beat the hell out of him in a confrontation.”

“And he was beaten by someone,” Havers pointed out, speaking helpfully to Bea. “At least he was well punched out.”

“Indeed he was,” Bea returned to Havers and then went on to Aldara with, “Which, as you can perhaps imagine, does make things look iffy for the other bloke.”

Aldara dismissed this. “No. Santo would have informed me. That was the nature of our relationship. He wouldn’t have spoken to Max?” She stopped herself.

“Max?” Bea looked at Havers. “Did you note that, Sergeant?”

“Got it in concrete,” Havers said.

“And his surname?” Bea asked Aldara pleasantly.

“Santo had no reason to tell anyone anything. He knew if he did, I would end our arrangement.”

“Which, naturally, would have devastated him,” Bea noted sardonically, “as it would have done to any man. Right. But perhaps the whole of Santo was more than the sum of the parts you saw.”