She refused to feel guilt. Anger was easier. It might have been the last refuge of the fearful, but she didn’t care. She used terms like I don’t need, I don’t care, and I certainly don’t owe and these carried her from the church through the graveyard, from the graveyard to the road, and from there along Pengelly Cove’s main street. By the time she reached the Curlew Inn, she’d dismissed all matters relating to prayer boards, and she was helped in her efforts by the sight of Ben Kerne entering the Curlew Inn before her.
She’d never met him. She knew of him, of course, and she’d heard him mentioned in the midst of more than one conversation in the last two years. But she might not have recognised him so readily had she not just that morning been looking at his picture in the Watchman’s article about his enterprise involving the Promontory King George Hotel.
She’d been heading for the Curlew Inn anyway, so she followed Ben Kerne inside. She had the advantage, as they’d never been introduced. Consequently, it was an easy matter to be his distant shadow. She reckoned he was seeking his mother, as she’d overheard the postmistress’s conversation with Thomas Lynley about Ann Kerne’s employment. It was either that, she decided, or he wanted a meal, but she thought that was unlikely although it was indeed nearing time for dinner.
Once within, Ben Kerne didn’t walk in the direction of the inn’s restaurant, and as he moved, it was obvious to Daidre that he was quite familiar with this place. He bypassed a reception desk, and he walked down a gloomy corridor towards a square of light that fell from the window of what seemed to be an illuminated office at the back of the building. He entered without knocking on the door, which suggested that either he was expected or he wished his appearance to come as a surprise and hence to disarm whoever was inside.
Daidre moved quickly to observe, and she was in time to see an older woman rising awkwardly from behind a desk. She was grey of hair and colourless of face, and part of her dragged a bit, and Daidre recalled she’d suffered a stroke. But she’d recovered well enough to be able to hold out one arm to her son. When he strode to her, she embraced him in a grip so fierce that Daidre could see its power to crush his body to hers. They said nothing to each other. Instead they merely expressed and rested within the bond of mother and child.
The sheer force of the moment reached through the office window to Daidre and embraced her as well. But she felt no succour rushing through her. Instead, she felt a grief she could not bear to experience. She turned away.
Chapter Fifteen
DI BEA HANNAFORD INTERRUPTED HER WORKDAY BECAUSE OF the dogs. She knew this was a feeble excuse that would have proved embarrassing had someone pointed it out to her, but that fact did not lessen its efficacy. Dogs One, Two, and Three needed to be fed, walked, and otherwise attended to, and Bea told herself that only an inexperienced companion to canines actually believed that dogs were sufficient company for each other during the long hours when their humans had to be away. So not too long after her conversation with Tammy Penrule, she checked on the progress among the officers in the incident room?there was little enough of this and damn if Constable McNulty wasn’t studying large surfing waves on the screen of Santo Kerne’s computer monitor and doing everything but drooling over them?and afterwards she climbed into her car and drove to Holsworthy.