Careless in Red (Inspector Lynley, #15)(90)

“If nothing else, because I outrank you” would have been his answer in other circumstances, but not in these. He said, “I’m curious. It suggests my usefulness to you hasn’t come to an end.”

“That would be correct. I’m undermanned and I want you available to me.”

“I’m not?”

“Bollocks. Once a cop, always a cop. There’s a need here, and you and I know you’re not about to walk away from a situation where your help is required. Beyond that, you’re a principal figure and you’re not going anywhere without me coming after you until you have my blessing to leave, so you may as well make yourself useful to me.”

“You’ve something in mind?”

“Dr. Trahair. Details. Everything. From her shoe size to her blood type and all points in between.”

“How am I supposed to?”

“Oh please, Detective. Don’t take me for a fool. You’ve sources and you’ve charm. Use them both. Dig into her background. Take her on a picnic. Wine her. Dine her. Read her poetry. Caress her palm. Gain her trust. I don’t bloody care how you do it. Just do it. And when you’ve done it, I want it all. Are we clear on that?”

Sergeant Collins had appeared in the doorway as Hannaford was speaking. He said, “Guv? Someone to see you. Queer bird called Tammy Penrule down below. Says she’s got information for you.”

The DI said to Lynley, “Keep that phone charged. Take your spade and use it. Do whatever you have to do.”

“I’m not comfortable with?”

“That’s not my concern. Murder’s not comfortable either.”





Chapter Thirteen


DOWNSTAIRS, BEA FOUND THE NAMED TAMMY PENRULE SITTING in one of the plastic reception chairs, her feet flat on the floor, her hands clasped in her lap, her back a plane perpendicular to the seat. She was dressed in black, but she wasn’t a Goth, as Bea first suspected when she caught sight of her. She wore no makeup, no hideous black nail enamel, and she had no silver protrusions erupting from various points on her head. She also wore no jewellery, and nothing else relieved the midnight of her clothes. She looked like mourning made flesh.

“Tammy Penrule?” Bea said to her, unnecessarily.

The girl jumped to her feet. She was thin as workhouse gruel. One couldn’t look at her without considering eating disorders.

“You’ve got information for me?” When the girl nodded, Bea said, “Come with me, then,” before she realised she had not yet located the interview rooms at the station. Stumbling about wasn’t going to inspire confidence in anyone, so she reversed herself, said, “Hang on a moment,” and found a cubbyhole next to a broom closet that would do until further exploration of the station might provide its secret as to the site of interrogations.

When she had Tammy Penrule situated in this spot, she said to her, “What’ve you got to tell me?”

Tammy licked her lips. She needed balm for them. They were badly chapped and a thin line of scabbing marked a spot where her lower lip had cracked seriously enough to bleed. “It’s about Santo Kerne,” she said.

“I’ve got that much.” Bea crossed her arms beneath her breasts. Unconsciously, it seemed, Tammy did the same, although she had no breasts to speak of, and Bea wondered if Santo Kerne’s relationship with Madlyn Angarrack had ended because of this girl. She hadn’t yet met Madlyn, but the fact that the girl had been a competitive surfer suggested someone…perhaps “more physically defined” was the term she wanted. This teenager seemed more like an evanescent being, corporeal only as long as she had the strength to manifest in human form. Bea couldn’t picture her spread-eagled beneath a hot-blooded adolescent boy.

Tammy said, “Santo talked to me.”

“Ah.”

The girl seemed to be waiting for more of a response, so Bea said cooperatively, “How did you know him?”

“From Clean Barrel Surf Shop,” Tammy said. “It’s where I work. He comes there for wax and the like. And to look at the isobar chart except I think that may have been just an excuse to hang about with the other surfers. You c’n look up the isobar chart on the Internet, and I expect they’ve got Internet over at the hotel.”

“Adventures Unlimited?”

Tammy nodded. The hollow of her throat was deep and shadowed. Above the neck of her jersey, the points of her collarbone protruded, like the excrescent evidence of dutch elm disease on the bark of a tree. “So that’s how I know him. That and Sea Dreams.”

Bea recognised the name of the caravan park and she cocked her head. Perhaps she’d been wrong about this girl and Santo. She said, “Did you meet him there?”

“No. Like I said, I met him at Clean Barrel.”

“Sorry. I don’t mean met him as in met him,” Bea clarified. “I mean met him as in having assignations with him.”

Tammy flushed. There was so little substance between her skin and her blood vessels that she coloured nearly to purple and she did so quickly. “You mean…Santo and me…for sex? Oh no. I live there. At Sea Dreams. My granddad owns the caravan park. I knew Santo from Clean Barrel, like I said, but he came to Sea Dreams with Madlyn. And he came on his own as well because there’s a cliff he used to practise on sometimes and granddad said he could get to it across our land if he wanted to abseil. Anyway, I saw him there and we talked sometimes.”