“In a surfing town like Casvelyn you don’t go to the beach?”
“I don’t surf.”
“You were selling surfboards but you yourself don’t surf? Why’s that, Mr. Mendick?”
“God damn it!” Mendick rose up. He towered above them in the wheelie bin, but he would have towered above them anyway, for he was tall albeit gangly.
Bea could see the veins throbbing in his temples. She wondered what it took for him to control that nasty temper of his and she also wondered what it took for him to unleash it on someone.
She felt Sergeant Havers tense next to her, and she glanced her way. The DS had a hard expression on her face, and Bea liked her for this, for it told her Havers wasn’t the sort of woman who backed down easily in a confrontation.
“Did you compete with other surfers?” Bea asked. “Did you compete with Santo? Did he compete with you? Did you give it up? What?”
“I don’t like the sea.” He spoke through his teeth. “I don’t like not knowing what’s beneath me in the water because there’re sharks in every part of the world and I don’t care to become acquainted with one. I know about boards and I know about surfing but I don’t surf. All right?”
“I suppose. Do you climb, Mr. Mendick?”
“Climb what? No, I don’t climb.”
“What do you do, then?”
“I hang with my friends.”
“Santo Kerne among them?”
“He wasn’t…” Mendick backed off from the rapidity of their conversation, as if he recognised how easily he could become trapped if he continued the pace. He packed more items into his rubbish bag?a few seriously dented tins, some packages of spinach and other greens, a handful of packaged herbs, a packet of tea cakes?before he climbed out of the bin and made his reply. “Santo didn’t have friends,” Mendick said. “Not in the normal sense. Not like other people do. He had people he associated with when he wanted them for something.”
“Such as?”
“Such as having experiences with them. That’s how he put it. He was all about that. Having experiences.”
“What sort of experiences?”
Mendick hesitated, which told Bea they’d come to the crux of the matter. It had taken her longer than she liked to get him to this point, and she briefly considered that she might be losing her touch. But at least she’d got him there, so she told herself there was life in her yet. “Mr. Mendick?” she said.
“Sex,” he replied. “Santo was dead mad about sex.”
“He was eighteen?” Havers noted. “Is there an eighteen-year-old boy alive who isn’t dead mad about sex?”
“The way he was? What he was into? Yeah, I’d say there’s eighteen-year-olds who aren’t a bit like him.”
“What was he into?”
“I don’t know. Just that it was off. That’s all she’d say. That and the fact he was cheating on her.”
“She?” Bea asked. “Would that be Madlyn Angarrack? What did she tell you?”
“Nothing. Just that what he was into made her sick.”
“Ah.” That brought them nearly full circle, Bea thought. And in this investigation full circle continually seemed to mean that yet another liar had been revealed.
“Close to Madlyn, are you?” Havers was asking.
“Not particularly. I know her brother. Cadan. So I know her as well. Like I said, Casvelyn’s small enough. Given time, everyone ends up knowing everyone.”
“In what sense would that be?” Bea asked Will Mendick.
He looked confused. “What?”
“The knowing bit,” she said. “Everyone ends up knowing everyone, you said. I was wondering in what sense you meant that?”
It was clear from Mendick’s expression that the allusion was lost upon him. But that was no matter. They had Madlyn Angarrack where they wanted her.
Chapter Eighteen