“That p’rhaps you’re behind the investigation,” Havers said. “Well, you are behind it and with damn good reason. Sir, let me finish what I was saying. You know how this works. If you hadn’t come upon Santo Kerne’s body, the first person at the scene would have been Daidre Trahair. And you know the game on that one. I don’t have to tell you.”
“For God’s sake, she didn’t kill Santo Kerne. She didn’t show up to pretend she found the body. She came into her cottage and discovered me there and I took her to the body because she asked to see it. She said she was a doctor. She wanted to see if she could help him.”
“She could have done that for a dozen reasons and heading the list is the fact that it might have looked damn odd if she hadn’t done it.”
“She has absolutely no motive?”
“Okay. What if everything you’re claiming is true? What if she is who she says she is and it all checks out? What does it matter that she knows we’re looking into her story? That I’m looking into it? That you’re looking into it? That Father effing Christmas is looking into it? What does it matter?”
He blew out a breath. He knew part of the answer, but only part. He wasn’t willing to give it.
He drank down his tea. He longed for simplicity where there was none. He longed for answers that were yes or no instead of an infinite string of maybe.
The bed creaked as Havers rose. The floor creaked as she walked across it to stand behind him. She said, “If she knows we’re investigating her, she’s going to get nervous and that’s where we want her. That’s where we want them all, isn’t it? Nervous people betray themselves. Betrayal like that works in our favour.”
“I can’t see how openly investigating this woman?”
“Yes, you can. I know you can. You can and you do.” She touched him lightly, briefly, on the shoulder. Her voice was cautious but it was also gentle. “You’re…you’re in something of a state, sir, and that’s normal after what you’ve been through. Now, I wish this wasn’t a world where people took advantage of others when they’re susceptible, but you and I know what kind of world this is.”
The kindness in her voice shook him. It was the primary reason he’d avoided everyone since Helen’s burial. His friends, his associates, his colleagues, and finally his very family. He couldn’t bear their kindness and their unbounded compassion because it kept reminding him endlessly of the very thing he so desperately wanted to forget.
Havers said, “You’ve got to have a care. That’s all I’m saying. That and this: We have to look at her exactly like we’re looking at everyone else.”
“I know that,” he said.
“Knowing is one thing, Superintendent. Believing will always be something else.”
DAIDRE SAT ON A stool at the corner of the kitchen work top. Against a tin canister of lentils, she propped the postcard she’d bought in the honesty stall of St. Smithy’s Church on the previous afternoon. She studied the gipsy caravan and the countryside in which it sat, with a tired-looking horse munching grass nearby. Picturesque, she thought, a charming image of a time long gone. On occasion, one still saw these sorts of conveyances on a country lane in this part of the world. But now?with their pleasing curved roofs and gaily painted exteriors?they mainly served tourists who wanted to play briefly at Romany travelers.