Careless in Red (Inspector Lynley, #15)(78)

McNulty had divided them into categories: local businesses whose names he recognised (largely pubs, hotels, and surf shops); rock bands both popular and extremely obscure; festivals, from music to the arts; and those designs that were questionable because he “had a feeling about them,” which Bea interpreted to mean he didn’t know what they were. She was wrong, as she soon discovered.

The first questionable T-shirt design was for LiquidEarth, a name Bea recognised from the invoice left in Santo Kerne’s car. This, McNulty explained, was the name of a surfboard shaper’s business. The board shaper was called Lewis Angarrack.

“As in Madlyn Angarrack?” Bea asked him.

“As in her dad.”

This was interesting. “What about the others?”

Cornish Gold was the second design he’d singled out. This belonged to a cider farm, he told her.

“How’s that important?”

“It’s the only business from outside Casvelyn. I thought that was worth looking into.”

McNulty, she thought, might not be as useless as she’d earlier concluded. “And the last one?” She gave the design her scrutiny. It appeared to be two-sided. The obverse declared “Commit an Act of Subversion” above a rubbish bin, which was suggestive of everything from bombs in the street to delving into the bins of celebrities for information to sell to the tabloids. On the reverse, however, things became clear. “Eat Free” declared an Artful Dodger urchin, who was pointing to the same rubbish bin, which had been upended, spilling its contents onto the ground.

“What d’you make of this?” Bea asked the constable.

“Don’t know,” he said, “but it seemed worth looking into because it’s got nothing to do with an organisation, unlike the others. Like I said, I had a feeling. What can’t be identified needs to be examined.”

He sounded like someone quoting a manual. But it was good sense, the first she’d heard from him. It gave her hope.

“You might have a future in this business,” she told him.

He didn’t look entirely pleased with the idea.

TAMMY WAS QUIET IN the morning, which concerned Selevan Penrule. She was always on the quiet side anyway, but this time her lack of conversation seemed to indicate a pensiveness she hadn’t previously been caught up in. Before, it always looked to her grandfather as if the girl was just preternaturally calm, yet another indication that something was off about her because, at her age, she wasn’t supposed to be calm about anything. She was supposed to be caught up worrying about her complexion and her figure, about having the right clothes and the perfect haircut, and other such nonsense. But this morning, she looked caught up in considering something. To Selevan, there could be little doubt about what that something was.

Selevan contemplated his approach. He thought about his conversation with Jago Reeth and what Jago had said on the subject of guiding and not directing a young person. Despite Selevan’s earlier reaction of easy-for-you-to-say-mate, he had to admit that Jago had spoken good sense. What was the point of trying to impose one’s will upon an adolescent when that adolescent had a will as well? It wasn’t as if people were all meant to do the same thing as their parents, was it? If they did, the world would never change, would never develop, would perhaps never even be interesting. It would all be lockstep, one generation after another. But, on the other hand, was that so bad?

Selevan didn’t know. What he did know was that he’d ended up, despite his own wishes in the matter and because of a cruel twist of fate in the person of his father’s ill health, doing the same thing as his parents. He’d given in to duty, and the end result had been carrying on with a dairy farm that he’d intended, as a young boy and then an adolescent, to escape as soon as possible. He’d never thought that situation was fair, so he had to ask himself how fair the family were being on Tammy, opposing her desires. On the other hand, what if her desires weren’t her desires at all but only the result of her fear? Now that was a question that wanted answering. But it couldn’t be answered unless it was asked.

He waited, though. First, he had to keep his promise to her and her parents, and that meant he had to go through her rucksack before he drove her to work. She submitted to the search with resignation. She watched him in silence. He could feel her gaze on him as he pawed through her belongings for contraband. Nothing. A meagre lunch. A wallet holding the five pounds he’d given her for spending money two weeks earlier. Lip balm and her address book. There was a paperback novel as well, and he leapt upon this as evidence. But the title?Shoes of the Fisherman?suggested she was reading at last about Cornwall and her heritage, so he let it go. He handed the rucksack over to her with a gruff, “See you keep it this way,” and then he noted she was wearing something he’d not seen before. It wasn’t a new garment. She was still in unrelieved black from head to toe, like Queen Victoria in the post-Albert period, but she had something different round her neck. It was inside her jersey, its green cord the only part he could see.

He said, “What’s this, then?” and he pulled it out. Not a necklace, he realised. Because if it was, it was the oddest necklace he’d ever looked at.

It had two ends, each of which was identical. They had small squares of cloth attached to them. These were embroidered with an ornamental M above which was embroidered a small gold crown. Selevan examined the cloth squares suspiciously. He said to Tammy, “What’s this, then, girl?”