When she’d told Thomas Lynley that she had things to do in town, she hadn’t been lying…exactly. There were arrangements to be made eventually about the broken window at the cottage, but beyond that there was the not insignificant matter of Santo Kerne’s death. The Watchman would be covering the teenager’s fall in Polcare Cove, and as she did not take a newspaper in Cornwall, it would be perfectly logical that she might stop by the offices of the paper to see if an issue with this story in it was soon going to be available.
When she entered, she saw Max Priestley at once. The place was quite small?consisting of Max’s own office, the layout room, a tiny newsroom, and a reception area that conveniently doubled as the newspaper’s morgue?so this was no surprise. He was in the layout room in the company of one of the paper’s two reporters, and they were bent over what appeared to be a mock-up of a front page, which Max seemed to want changed and which the reporter?who looked like nothing so much as a twelve-year-old girl in flip-flops?apparently wanted to remain the same.
“People’ll expect it,” she was insisting. “This’s a community paper, and he was a member of the community.”
“The queen dies and we go three inches,” Max replied. “Otherwise we don’t get carried away.” He looked up then and fixed on Daidre.
She raised a hand hesitantly and studied him as closely as she could without being obvious about it. He was an outdoorsman, and he looked it: weathered skin making him seem older than his forty years, thick hair permanently bleached from the sun, trim from regular coastal walking. He seemed normal today. She wondered about that.
The receptionist?who tripled as copy editor and secretary to the publisher?was in the process of politely enquiring after Daidre’s business when Max came out to join them, polishing his gold-rimmed spectacles on his shirt. He said to Daidre, “I just sent Steve Teller to interview you not five minutes ago. It’s time you had a phone like the rest of the world.”
“I do have a phone,” she told him. “It’s just not in Cornwall.”
“That’s hardly convenient to our purpose, Daidre.”
“So you’re working on the story about Santo Kerne?”
“I can’t exactly avoid it and still call myself a newsman, can I.” He tilted his head towards his office, saying to the receptionist, “Bring up Steve on his mobile if you can, Janna. Tell him Dr. Trahair’s come into town and if he manages to get back quick enough, she might consent to an interview.”
“I’ve nothing to tell him,” Daidre told Max Priestley.
“‘Nothing’ is our business,” he replied affably. He held out his hand, a gesture telling Daidre to go into his office.
She cooperated. Beneath his desk, his golden retriever snoozed. Daidre squatted by the dog and caressed her silky head. “Looking well,” she said. “The medication’s working?”
He grunted in the affirmative and said, “But you aren’t making a house call, are you.”
Daidre made a cursory exam of the dog’s belly, more a matter of form than from any real need. All signs of the skin infection were gone. She rose and said, “Don’t let it go on so long next time. Lily could lose her fur in gobs. You don’t want that.”
“Won’t be a next time. I’m actually a fast learner, despite what my history suggests. Why’re you here?”
“You know how Santo Kerne died, don’t you?”
“Daidre, you know that I know. So I suppose the real question is why’re you asking. Or stating. Or whatever you’re doing. What do you want? How can I help you this morning?”
She could hear the irritation in his voice. She knew what it meant. She was merely an occasional holiday maker in Casvelyn. She had entrée to some places and not to others. She shifted gears. “I saw Aldara last night. She was waiting for someone.”
“Was she indeed?”
“I thought it might have been you.”
“That’s not very likely.” He looked round the office as if for employment. “And is that why you’ve come? Checking up on Aldara? Checking up on me? Neither seems like you, but I’m not much good at reading women, as you know.”
“No. That’s not it.”
“Then…? Is there more? Because, as we want to get the paper out earlier today…”
“I’ve actually come to ask a favour.”