Careless in Red (Inspector Lynley, #15)(21)

“Don’t trouble?” Lynley began.

“It’s no trouble,” Daidre said. What it was was a need to get Sergeant Collins and DI Hannaford out of her cottage, something that she could effect only if she had a reason to get out of the cottage herself.

After a pause, DI Hannaford said, “Fine,” and handing over her card to Lynley, “Phone me when you’re established somewhere. I’ll want to know where to find you, and I’ll be along directly we have matters sorted out here. It’ll be some time.”

“I know,” he said.

“Yes. I expect you do.” She nodded and left them, taking with her their clothing stuffed into bags. Sergeant Collins followed her. Police cars were blocking Daidre’s access to her own Vauxhall. They would have to be moved if she was to be able to get Thomas Lynley to the Salthouse Inn.

Silence swept into the cottage with the departure of the police. Daidre could feel Thomas Lynley looking at her, but she was finished with being looked at. She went from the sitting room into the entry, saying over her shoulder, “You can’t go out in your stocking feet like that. I have wellies out here.”

“I doubt they’ll fit,” he said. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll take the socks off for now. Put them back on when I get to the inn.”

She stopped. “That’s sensible of you. I hadn’t thought of it. If you’re ready, then, we can go. Unless you’d like something…? A sandwich? Soup? Brian does meals at the inn, but if you’d rather not have to eat in the dining area…” She didn’t want to make the man a meal, but it seemed the proper thing to do. They were somehow bound together in this matter: partners in suspicion, perhaps. It felt that way to her, because she had secrets and he certainly seemed to have them, too.

“I expect I can have something sent up to my room,” Lynley said, “providing they have rooms available tonight.”

“Let’s be off then,” Daidre said.

They made their second drive to the Salthouse Inn more slowly as there was no rush, and they encountered two more police vehicles and an ambulance on the way. They didn’t speak and when Daidre glanced over at her companion, she saw that his eyes were closed and his hands rested easily on his thighs. He looked asleep, and she didn’t doubt that he was. He’d seemed exhausted. She wondered how long he’d been hiking along the coastal path.

At the Salthouse Inn, she stopped the Vauxhall in the car park, but Lynley didn’t move. She touched him gently on the shoulder.

He opened his eyes and blinked slowly, as if clearing his head of a dream. He said, “Thank you. It was kind?”

“I didn’t want to leave you in the clutches of the police,” she cut in. Then, “Sorry. I forget you’re one of them.”

“After a fashion, yes, I am.”

“Well, anyway…I thought you might like a respite from them. Although from what she said…the inspector…it doesn’t appear you’ve escaped them for long.”

“No. They’ll want to talk to me at length tonight. The first person on the scene is always suspect. They’ll be intent on gathering as much information as possible as quickly as possible. That’s the way it’s done.”

They were silent then. A gust of wind?stronger than any other so far?hit the car and rocked it. It stirred Daidre to words once more. She said, “I’ll come round for you tomorrow, then.” She made the declaration without thinking through all the ramifications of what it meant, what it could mean, and what it would look like. This wasn’t like her, and she shook herself mentally. But the words were out there, and she let them lie. “You’ll need to get things from Casvelyn, I mean. I don’t expect you want to walk round in that boiler suit for long. You’ll want shoes as well. And other things. Casvelyn’s the closest place to get them.”

“That’s good of you,” Lynley told her. “But I don’t want to trouble you.”

“You said that earlier. But it isn’t and you’re not. It’s very strange, but I feel that we’re in this together although I don’t quite know what this is.”

“I’ve caused you a problem,” he said. “More than one. The window in your cottage. Now the police. I’m sorry about it.”

“What else were you to do? You could hardly walk on once you’d found him.”

“No. I couldn’t walk on, could I?”

He sat for a moment. He seemed to be watching the wind play with the sign hanging above the inn’s front door.

He finally said, “May I ask you something?”

She said, “Certainly.”

“Why did you lie?”

She heard an unexpected buzzing in her ears. She repeated the last word, as if she’d misheard him when she’d heard him only too clearly.

He said, “The first time we came here, you told the publican that the boy in the cove was Santo Kerne. You said his name. Santo Kerne. But when the police asked you…” He gestured, a movement saying finish the rest for yourself.

The question reminded Daidre that this man, disheveled and filthy though he was, was himself a policeman, and a detective at that. From this moment, she needed to take extraordinary care.

She said, “Did I say that?”

“You did. Quietly, but not quietly enough. And now you’ve told the police at least twice that you didn’t recognise the boy. When they’ve said his name, you’ve said you don’t know him. I’m wondering why.”