“You’ll take over the business. Santo won’t. So you need to learn things top to bottom,” had been his father’s excuse. “I need an artist and I need one now. Santo knows how to design.”
He knows how to fuck Madlyn, you mean, Cadan had wanted to say. But really, what was the point? Madlyn had wanted Santo employed there, and Madlyn was the favoured child.
And now? Who knew? They’d both disappointed their father in the end, but there was a chance that Madlyn had finally disappointed him more.
“I’m ready to come back here,” Cadan said to Jago. “What d’you think?”
Jago straightened from the board and set down his sanding block. He examined Cadan before he spoke. “What’s going on?” he asked.
Cadan riffled through his brain to try to come up with a good reason for his change of heart, but there was only the truth if he were to stand a chance of getting back into his father’s good graces, with Jago’s assistance. He said, “You were right. I can’t work there, Jago. But I need your help.”
Jago nodded. “She got you bad, eh?”
Cadan didn’t want to spend another moment on the subject of Dellen Kerne, either mentally or conversationally. He said, “No. Yes. Whatever. I’ve got to get out of there. Will you help?”
“’Course I will,” the old man said kindly. “Just give me some time to plan an approach.”
AFTER HIS CONVERSATION IN Zennor with the former detective, Lynley had returned to David Wilkie’s house, which was no particular distance from the church. There he’d ventured into the attic with the old man. An hour of rooting through cardboard boxes had produced Wilkie’s notes on the unresolved case of Jamie Parsons. These notes had in their turn produced the names of the boys who’d been so thoroughly questioned in the matter of Jamie’s death. Wilkie had no idea where those boys now resided, but Lynley thought it possible that at least one or two of them still lived in the vicinity of Pengelly Cove. If he was correct, they were waiting there to be questioned.
This same questioning occupied Lynley’s thoughts as he returned to that surfing village. He gave a great deal of consideration to how he wanted to make his next move.
As it turned out, with Ben Kerne in Casvelyn, one of the boys prematurely dead of lymphoma, and another having emigrated to Australia, only three of the original six still resided in Pengelly Cove, and it was not difficult to find them. Lynley tracked them down by starting at the pub, where a conversation with the publican led him to an auto body repair shop (Chris Outer), the local primary school (Darren Fields), and a marine engine maintenance business (Frankie Kliskey) in very short order. At each place of employment, he did and said the same thing. He produced his police identification, gave minimal details about the death under investigation in Casvelyn, and asked each man if he could free himself up to talk about Ben Kerne in another location in an hour’s time. The death of Ben Kerne’s son, Santo appeared to work the necessary magic, if magic it could be called. Each of the men had agreed.