He made no reply. He felt as if a wave were washing over him, breaking through everything he’d built to hold it temporarily at bay. He finally said, “Oh God,” but that was all he could say. He lifted his head and looked at the sky, where grey clouds were promising to transform the day.
When Havers spoke again, her voice was altered, from hard to soft. The change cut into him as much as her declarations had done. “Why did you come here? To her cottage? Have you found out anything else about her?”
“I thought…” He cleared his throat and looked from the sky to her. She was so solid and so unutterably real and he knew that she was on his side. But he couldn’t make that matter at the moment. If he told Havers the truth, she’d move upon it. The very fact of yet another lie from Daidre Trahair would tip the balance. “I thought she might want to go to Newquay with me,” he said. “It would give me a chance to talk to her another time, to try to sort out…” He didn’t complete the thought. It sounded now, even to his ears, so pathetically desperate. Which is what I am, he thought.
Havers nodded. Hannaford came round the far side of the cottage. She was tramping through the heavy growth of marram grass and cowslip beneath the windows. It was more than obvious that she fully intended Daidre Trahair to know that someone had been there.
Lynley told her his intention: Newquay, the police, the story of Ben Kerne and the death of a boy called Jamie Parsons.
Hannaford was not impressed. “Fool’s errand,” she declared. “What’re we supposed to make of all that?”
“I don’t know yet. But it seems to me?”
“I want you on her, Superintendent. Is she somehow involved in what happened during the Ice Age? She would have been…what? Four years old? Five?”
“I admit that there may be issues about her that need exploring.”
“Do you indeed? How good to hear. So explore them. Got that mobile with you? Yes? Keep it on, then.” She jerked her fuchsia-coloured head towards her car. “We’ll be off. Once you locate our Dr. Trahair, escort her to the station. Am I being clear on that?”
“You are,” Lynley said. “Completely clear.”
He watched as Hannaford headed to her car. He and Havers exchanged a look before she followed.
He decided on Newquay anyway, that being the beauty of his role in the investigation. And damn the consequences if he and Hannaford disagreed, he wasn’t obliged to discount his own inclinations in favour of hers.
He took the most direct route to Newquay once he made his way through the tangled skein of lanes that separated Polcare Cove from the A39. He hit a tailback caused by an overturned lorry some five miles out of Wadebridge, which slowed him considerably, and he ended up in Cornwall’s surfing capital shortly after two in the afternoon. He became immediately lost and cursed the obedient, parent-pleasing young adolescent he had been prior to his father’s death. Newquay, his father had more than once intoned, was a vulgar town, not the sort of place a “true” Lynley frequented. Consequently, he knew nothing of the town, while his younger brother?never burdened with the need to please?probably could have found his way round blindfolded.