“Then who?”
“I don’t know.” He fixed his eyes on hers. They were earnest, steady. “Daidre, have you something to hide?”
“Nothing that would interest Scotland Yard. Why’re they investigating me?”
“They investigate everyone when there’s been a murder. You’re involved because the boy died close by your property. And…Are there other reasons? Is there something you’ve not told me that you’d like to tell me now?”
“I don’t mean why are they investigating me.” Daidre tried to sound casual but the intensity of his look made it difficult. “I mean, why Scotland Yard? What’s Scotland Yard doing here at all?”
He rose once again. He went to the electric kettle. Surprisingly, she found that she was both relieved and sorry that he’d moved away from her, as there was a form of safety in his proximity that she hadn’t expected to feel. He didn’t answer at once. Instead, he filled the kettle at the basin and switched it on. When he did speak in answer to her next question, he still didn’t look at her.
She said, “Thomas? Why are they here?”
He said, “Bea Hannaford is undermanned. She should have a murder squad working the case, and she doesn’t. I daresay they’re spread too thin just now across the district, and the regional constabulary made a request to the Met for someone to assist.”
“Is that usual?”
“To have the Met involved? No. It’s not. But it happens.”
“Why would they be asking questions about me? And why in Falmouth?”
Silence as he messed about with a bag of PG Tips and a cup. He was frowning. A car door slammed outside, and then another. A happy shout went up as fellow drinkers greeted each other.
He had finally turned back to her when he made his reply. He said, “As I said, in a murder investigation, everyone is looked into, Daidre. You and I went to Pengelly Cove on a similar mission, about Ben Kerne.”
“But that doesn’t make sense. I grew up in Falmouth. Yes, indeed. But why ask someone to go there and not to Bristol, where my life is now?”
“Perhaps they’ve someone else in Bristol,” Lynley said. “Is this important somehow?”
“Of course it’s important. What a ridiculous question! How would you feel, knowing the police were digging into your background for no apparent reason save the fact that a boy fell from a cliff nearby your cottage?”
“If I had nothing to hide, I don’t imagine I’d care one way or the other. So we’ve come full circle. Have you something to hide? Something you wish the police not to know about you? Perhaps about your life in Falmouth? About who you are or what you do?”
“What could I possibly have to hide?”
He gazed at her steadily before finally saying, “How could I have the answer to that?”
She felt all on the wrong foot with him now. She’d come to speak to him, if not in high dudgeon, then at least believing that she was in a position of strength: the injured party. But now she felt as if the tables had been turned. It was as if she’d tossed the dice a bit too wildly and he’d ever so deftly scooped them up.
“Is there something more you want to tell me?” he asked her again.
She said the only thing she could. “Not at all.”
Chapter Twenty-three
BEA HAD A NEW CHOCK STONE ON HER DESK WHEN SERGEANT Havers entered the incident room on the following morning. She’d got its stiff plastic sheathing off by using the blade of a new and consequently highly sharp X-Acto knife. She’d had to be careful about it, but the operation hadn’t taken either skill or much effort. She was in the process of comparing the unsheathed chock stone to the array of cutting tools she also had on her desk.