Careless in Red (Inspector Lynley, #15)(205)

“What d’you lot want?” Udy asked. His gaze went from Lynley to Daidre and back to Lynley. He seemed to be assessing everything about them but most particularly their shoes for some reason. Lynley saw why when he looked at Udy’s own feet. He wore boots but they were long past their prime. The soles were split at the toes.

“Paying a call…” Daidre had stepped away from Lynley’s embrace. Face-to-face with her father, she bore no resemblance either to him or to her brother.

“What you doing here, then?” Udy said. “We got no need of do-gooders round here. We make it on our own and always have done. So you lot clear out. This’s private property, this is, and there’s a sign posted.”

It came to Lynley that while the women in the caravan knew who Daidre was, the men did not, that for some reason Gwynder had sought and found her sister on her own, perhaps knowing at some level that her mission was futile. Hence, Udy had no idea that he was speaking to his own daughter. But when Lynley considered this, it seemed reasonable. The thirteen-year-old who had been his daughter was someone from the past, not the accomplished, educated woman before him. Lynley waited for Daidre to identify herself. She did not do so.

Instead, she gathered herself together, fumbling with the zip on her jacket, as if with the need to do something with her hands. She said to the man, “Yes. Well, we’re leaving.”

“You do that,” he said. “We got a business we’re running here and we don’t fancy trespassers comin’ round on the off-season. We open in June and there’ll be bits and bobs aplenty for sale then.”

“Thank you. I’ll remember that.”

“And mind the sign as well. If it says no trespassing, that’s what it bloody means. And it’ll say no trespassing till we’re opened, understand?”

“Certainly. We understand.”

There was actually no posted sign that Lynley had seen, either one forbidding trespass or one indicating this desolate spot was a place of business. But there seemed little enough reason to point out the man’s delusion to him. Far wiser to clear out and to put this place and its people and their way of life behind them. He understood, then, that this was exactly what Daidre had done. He also saw what her struggle now was.

He said, “Come away,” and he put his arm round her shoulders once again and led her in the direction of her car. He could feel the stares of the two men behind them and, for reasons he didn’t wish to consider just then, he hoped they wouldn’t realise who Daidre was. He didn’t know what would happen if they realised it. Nothing dangerous, surely. At least nothing dangerous as one typically thought of danger. But there were other hazards here besides the removal of one’s personal safety. There was the emotional minefield that lay between Daidre and these people, and he felt an urgency to remove her from it.

When they returned to the car, Lynley said he would drive. Daidre shook her head. She said, “No, no. I’m fine.” When they climbed inside, though, she didn’t start the engine at once. Instead, she pulled some tissues from the glove box and blew her nose. Then she rested her arms on the top of the steering wheel and peered out at the caravan in the distance.

“So you see,” she said.

He made no reply. Again, her hair had fallen over the frames of her glasses. Again, he wanted to push it away from her face. Again, he did not.

“They want to go to Lourdes. They want a miracle. They have nothing else to hang their hopes on and certainly no money to finance what they want. Which is where I come in. Which is why Gwynder found me. So do I do this for them? Do I forgive these people for what they did, for how we lived, for what they couldn’t be? Am I responsible for them now? What do I owe them besides life itself? I mean the fact of life and not what I’ve done with it. And what does it mean, anyway, to owe someone for having given birth to you? Surely that’s not the most difficult part of taking on parenthood, is it? I hardly think so. Which means the rest of it?the rest of being a parent?they utterly mangled.”

He did touch her then. He did what he’d seen her do herself: take the hair and tuck it back. His fingers touched the curve of her ear. He said, “Why did they come back, your brother and sister? Were they never adopted?”

“There was…They called it an accident, their foster parents. They called it Goron playing with a plastic bag, but I think there was more to it than that. It probably should have been called?whatever ‘it’ was?disciplining an overactive little boy in the wrong way. In any event, he was damaged and deemed unadoptable by people who saw him and met him. Gwynder might have been adopted but she wouldn’t be parted from him. So they moved from home to home together, through the system, for years. When they were old enough, they came back here.” She smiled bleakly as she looked at him. “I wager this place?as well as this story?isn’t much like what you’re used to, is it, Thomas?”

“I’m not certain it matters.” He wanted to say more but he was unsure how to put it so he settled with, “Are you willing to call me Tommy, Daidre? My family and friends?”

She held up her hand. “I think not,” she said.

“Because of this?”

“No. Because this matters to me.”

JAGO REETH MADE IT clear that he wanted Ben Kerne alone, with no hangers-on from his family present. He suggested Hedra’s Hut for the venue, and he used the word venue as if a performance would be given there.