Careless in Red (Inspector Lynley, #15)(57)

“What sort of pressure?”

“He’d have had to work with his mum in this part of the business, and he didn’t want to. At least, that’s what he led me to believe. He said he wasn’t suited for this end of the operation.”

“But you don’t mind it? Working this end of things. Working with her?”

“Not at all.” When he said this last bit, he kept his eyes well fixed on Bea’s and his entire body motionless. That alone made her wonder about the nature of his lie.

She said, “I’d like to look at Santo’s climbing kit if you’ll point out where I can find it, Mr. Cheston.”

“Sorry. Thing is, I don’t actually know where he kept it.”

She had to wonder about that as well. He’d answered rather promptly, hadn’t he, as if he’d been expecting the question.

She was about to press him further on this topic when he said, “Here’s Ben with Dellen,” into the sound of the old cagelike lift descending. She told the young man they’d speak again, no doubt. He said, Absolutely. Whenever the inspector wished.

He returned to his office before the lift reached the ground floor and disgorged the Kernes. Ben came out first and extended his hand to assist his wife. She emerged slowly, looking rather like a somnambulist. Drugs, Bea thought. She’d be sedated, which was hardly unexpected in the mother of a dead child.

The rest of her appearance, however, was unexpected. The polite term for it would have been faded beauty. Somewhere in her midforties, she suffered from the voluptuous woman’s curse: the luscious curves of her youth having given way to the spread and the sag of advancing middle age. She’d been a smoker as well and perhaps she still was, for her skin was heavily webbed round the eyes and creviced round the lips. She wasn’t fat, but she lacked the toned body that her husband possessed. Too little exercise and too much indulgence, Bea concluded.

And yet the woman had a way about her: pedicured feet, manicured hands, sumptuous blond hair with a pleasing sheen, large violet eyes with thick dark lashes, and a manner of movement that asked for aid. Troubadours would have called her a damsel. Bea called her Big Trouble and waited to find out why.

“Mrs. Kerne,” she said. “Thank you for joining us.” And then to Ben Kerne, “Is there somewhere we could talk? This shouldn’t take overly long.” The last bit was typical police casuistry. It would take however long it took for Bea to be satisfied.

Ben Kerne said they could go up to the hotel’s first floor. The residents’ lounge was there. They’d be comfortable.

They were. The room overlooked St. Mevan Beach, and it was fitted out with plush but durable new sofas, a large-screen television, a DVD player, a stereo, a pool table, and a kitchenette. This last feature possessed tea-making facilities and a shiny stainless-steel cappuccino machine. The walls displayed vintage posters of athletic scenes from the 1920s and 30s: skiers, hikers, cyclists, swimmers, and tennis players. It was well thought out and nicely done. A lot of money had gone into it.

Bea wondered where the money for such a project had come from, and she was not shy about asking. Rather than reply, however, Ben Kerne asked if the police wanted something from the cappuccino machine. Bea demurred for both of them before Constable McNulty?who’d raised his head from his pad with what she considered precipitate enthusiasm?could accept. Kerne went to the machine anyway, saying, “If you don’t mind…,” and going on to make some sort of concoction, which he pressed upon his wife. She took it from him with no enthusiasm. He asked her to have a bit of it, and he sounded solicitous. Dellen said she didn’t want it, but Ben was obdurate. “You must,” he told her. They looked at each other and seemed to engage in a battle of wills. Dellen was the one to blink. She raised the cup to her lips and didn’t lower it till she’d drunk it all, leaving a disturbing smear of red where her lips had touched the stoneware.

Bea asked them how long they’d been in Casvelyn, and Ben told her they’d arrived two years earlier. They’d come from Truro, he said, and he went on to explain that he’d owned two sporting goods shops in that town, which he’d sold?along with the family house?in order to finance, if only partially, the project of setting up Adventures Unlimited. Further money had come from the bank, naturally. One did not take on a venture like this without more than one source of financing. They were due to open in mid-June, he said. At least, they had been due to open. Now…He didn’t know.

Bea let that go for the moment. She said, “Grow up in Truro, did you, Mr. Kerne? Were you and your wife childhood sweethearts?”

He hesitated at this, for some reason. He looked to Dellen as if considering how best to phrase his answer. Bea wondered which of the questions was giving him pause: the growing up in Truro part or the childhood sweethearts part.

“Not in Truro, no,” he finally answered. “But as to being childhood sweethearts…” He looked at his wife again, and there was no doubt that his expression was fond. “We’ve been together more or less since we were teenagers: sixteen and fifteen, wasn’t it, Dell?” He didn’t wait for his wife to reply. “We were like most kids, though. Together for a bit, broken up for a bit. Then forgiveness and getting back together. We did that for six or seven years before we got married, didn’t we, Dell?”

Dellen said, “I don’t know. I’ve forgotten all that.” She had a husky voice, a smoker’s voice. It suited her. Anything else would have been wildly out of character.