“Santo Kerne taking up with Dr. Trahair?”
“For which Madlyn either seeks vengeance herself with this”?Bea held up the chock stone in one hand and a bolt cutter in the other?“and this. Or one of the men does it for her, after she’s supplied him with two of the chock stones, which she’s nicked out of the boot of Santo’s car. She’s already done the business on the sling. That was easy. But the chock stones require rather more strength than she has. So she needs a helper. She would have known where Santo was keeping his equipment. All she needed was someone willing to be her assistant.”
“That would be someone with a bone to pick with Santo anyway?”
“Or someone hoping to get himself into Madlyn’s good graces by helping her out.”
“Sounds like that bloke Will Mendick to me. Santo treats her badly and Will wants to sort him out for her sake; Will also wants into Madlyn’s knickers.”
“That’s how I see it.” Bea set the chock stone down. “Have you seen your Superintendent Lynley this morning, by the way?”
“He’s not my?”
“Yes. Yes. We’ve already been through it. He says the same thing about you.”
“Does he?” Havers chewed thoughtfully. “Not sure how I feel about that.”
“Mull it over later. As for now?”
“He’s off to Exeter. Second half of whatever he was up to yesterday, he said. But…”
Bea narrowed her eyes. “But…?”
Havers looked regretful about having to mention the next bit. “Dr. Trahair came to see him. This would be yesterday, late afternoon.”
“And you didn’t bring her?”
“I didn’t know, Guv. I didn’t see her. And since I haven’t yet seen her anyway, I wouldn’t know her if she flew in front of my car on a broomstick. He didn’t tell me until this morning.”
“Did you see him at dinner last night?”
Havers looked unhappy before she said, “Yeah. I s’pose I did.”
“And he said nothing to you then about her visit?”
“That would be the situation. But he’s got a lot on his mind. He might not have thought about telling me.”
“Don’t be absurd, Barbara. He damn well knew we want to talk to her. He should have told you. He should have phoned me. He should have done almost anything but what he did. This man is walking on very thin ice.”
Havers nodded. “That’s why I’m telling you. I mean, not because I know he’s on thin ice with you but because I know it’s important. I mean, it’s important not because he didn’t tell you but because…Not that she came to see him. That’s not the important bit. What I mean is that it’s important that she’s resurfaced and I thought?”
“All right, all right! Jesus in a teaspoon. Stop. I see I can’t expect you to grass his mighty lordship, no matter the situation, so I’m going to have to find someone willing to grass you. And it’s not like we’ve the manpower for that, is it, Sergeant? What, God damn it?”
This last she said to Sergeant Collins, who’d come to the door of the incident room. He was manning the phones below, for what little good it was doing, while the rest of the team continued with actions she’d assigned them earlier, most of which had them going over old ground.
“Dr. Trahair is here to see you, Guv,” Sergeant Collins told her. “She said you wanted her to come by the station.”