“I’ll fetch a photo then.” She went off to do so.
Ben marveled at her. All business, Kerra. She wore her competence like a suit of armour. It broke his heart.
He said, “When can I see him?”
“Not until after the postmortem, I’m afraid.”
“Why?”
“It’s regulation, Mr. Kerne. They don’t like anyone near the…near him…till afterwards. Forensics, you see.”
“They’ll cut him up.”
“You won’t see. It won’t be like that. They’ll fix him up after. They’re good at what they do. You won’t see.”
“He’s not a God damn piece of meat.”
“’Course he’s not. I’m sorry, Mr. Kerne.”
“Are you? Have you children of your own?”
“A boy, yes. I’ve got a boy, sir. Your loss is the worst a man can experience. I know that, Mr. Kerne.”
Ben stared at him, hot eyed. The constable was young, probably less than twenty-five. He thought he knew the ways of the world, but he had no clue, absolutely not the slightest idea, what was out there and what could happen. He didn’t know that there was no way to prepare and no way to control. At a gallop, life came at you on horseback and there you were with two options only. You either climbed up or you were mowed down. Try to find the middle ground and you failed.
Kerra returned, a snapshot in hand. She gave it to Constable McNulty, saying, “This is Santo. This is my brother.”
McNulty looked at it. “Handsome lad,” he said.
“Yes,” Ben said heavily. “He favours his mother.”
Chapter Four
“FORMERLY.” DAIDRE CHOSE HER MOMENT WHEN SHE WAS alone with Thomas Lynley, when Sergeant Collins had ducked into the kitchen to brew himself yet another cup of tea. Collins had so far managed to swill down four of them. Daidre hoped he had no intention of sleeping that night because, if her nose was not mistaken, he’d been helping himself to her very best Russian Caravan tea.
Thomas Lynley roused himself. He’d been staring at the coal fire. He was seated near it, not comfortably with his long legs stretched out as one might expect of a man enjoying the warmth of a fire, but elbows on knees and hands dangling loosely in front of him. “What?” he said.
“When he asked you, you said formerly. He said New Scotland Yard and you said formerly.”
“Yes,” Lynley said. “Formerly.”
“Have you quit your job? Is that why you’re in Cornwall?”
He looked at her. Once again she saw the injury that she had seen before in his eyes. He said, “I don’t quite know. I suppose I have. Quit, that is.”
“What sort…If you don’t mind my asking, what sort of policeman were you?”
“A fairly good sort, I think.”
“Sorry. I meant…Well, there’re lots of different sorts, aren’t there? Special Branch, protecting the Royals, Vice, walking a patch…”
“Murder,” he said.
“You investigated murders?”
“Yes. That’s exactly what I did.” He looked back at the fire.
“That must have been…difficult. Disheartening.”
“Seeing man’s inhumanity? It is.”
“Is that why you quit? I’m sorry. I’m being intrusive. But…Had you had enough trials on your heart?”
He didn’t reply.
The front door opened with a thud, and Daidre felt the wind gust into the room. Collins came out of the kitchen with his cup of tea as Detective Inspector Hannaford returned to them. She carried a white boiler suit over her arm. This she thrust at Lynley.
“Trousers, boots, and jacket,” she said. It was clearly an order. And to Daidre, “Where’re yours, then?”
Daidre indicated the carrier bag into which she’d deposited her outer clothing when she’d changed into blue jeans and a yellow jumper. She said, “But he’ll have no shoes.”
“It’s all right,” Lynley said.
“It isn’t. You can’t go round?”
“I’ll get another pair.”
“He won’t need them just yet anyway,” Hannaford said. “Where can he change?”
“My bedroom. Or the bathroom.”