“And the Parsons family?”
“Never went back to Pengelly Cove as such. They were from Exeter, and they went back there and there they stayed. Dad had a property-management business in town. Called Parsons and…someone else. Can’t recall. He himself went back to Pengelly regular for a bit, weekends and holidays, trying to get some full stop put to the case, but it never happened. He hired more ’n one investigator to take up the pieces as well. Spent a fortune on the whole situation. But if Benesek Kerne and those boys were behind what happened to Jamie Parsons, they’d learned from the first investigation into his death: If there’s no hard evidence, and no witness to anything, keep the mug plugged and no one can touch you.”
“I understand he built something of a monument to him,” Lynley noted.
“Who? Parsons?” And when Lynley nodded, “Well, the family had the funds to do it, and if it gave them some peace, more power to the whole idea.” Wilkie had been working his way along the pews, and now he straightened and stretched his back. Lynley did likewise. For a moment, they stood there in silence in the centre of the church, studying the stained-glass window above the altar. Wilkie sounded thoughtful when he next spoke, as if he’d given the matter considerable thought over the years that had passed. “I didn’t like to leave things unsettled,” he said. “I had a feeling that the dead boy’s dad wouldn’t be able to get a moment’s peace if we didn’t have someone called to account for what happened. But I think…” He paused and scratched the back of his neck. His expression said that his body was present but his mind had gone to another time and place. “I think those boys?if they were involved?didn’t mean the Parsons lad to die. They weren’t that sort. Not a one of them.”
“If they didn’t intend him to die, what did they intend?”
He rubbed his face. The sound of rough skin on rough whiskers sandpapered the air. “Sort him out. Give him a bit of a scare. Like I said before, from what I learned, the boy was full of himself and he didn’t mind making clear what he did and what he had that they didn’t and hadn’t.”
“But to tie him up. To leave him…”
“Drunk, the lot of them. Doped up as well. They get him down there to the cave?p’rhaps they tell him they’ve more dope to sell?and they jump him. They tie him at the wrists and ankles and give him some discipline. A talking to. A bit of a roughing up. Smear some poo on him for good measure. Then they untie him and leave him there and they think he’ll make his own way home. Only they don’t account for how drunk he is and how doped up he is and he passes out and…that’s the end of it. See, thing is, like I said, there really wasn’t a truly bad one ’mongst those boys. Not one of ’em ever been in a spot of trouble. And I told the parents that. But it wasn’t something they wanted to hear.”
“Who found the body?”