He gestured to his clothes. “On sale. End of the season. A real bargain. I’ve even managed”?he reached into the pocket of his trousers and brought forth a few notes and a handful of coins?“to bring you change,” he said. “I never thought I’d…” He drifted off.
“What?” She stuffed the notes and coins into the unused ashtray. “Shop for yourself?”
He looked at her, clearly assessing her words. “No,” he said. “I never thought I’d enjoy it.”
“Ah. Well. It’s retail therapy. Absolutely guaranteed to lift one’s spirits. Women know this at birth, somehow. Men have to learn it.”
He was quiet for a moment, and she caught him doing it another time, looking out of the car, through the windscreen, at the street. In a different place and a different time. She heard her words again and bit the inside of her lip. She hastened to add, “Shall we top off your experience with a coffee somewhere?”
He considered this. He answered slowly. “Yes. I think I’d like a coffee.”
DETECTIVE INSPECTOR HANNAFORD WAS waiting for them at the Salthouse Inn when they returned. Lynley decided that the inspector had been watching for Daidre’s car, for as soon as they pulled into the inn’s lumpy car park, she came out of the building. It had begun to rain again, March’s ceaseless bad weather having segued into April and now May, and she pulled up the hood of her rain jacket and marched across to them, moving briskly.
She knocked on Daidre’s window and, when it was lowered, said, “I’d like a word. Both of you, please.” And then directly to Lynley, “You’re looking more human today. It’s an improvement.” She turned and headed back into the inn.
Lynley and Daidre followed. They found Hannaford in the public bar where she’d been?as Lynley suspected?occupying a window seat. She shed her rain jacket onto a bench and nodded for them to do the same. She led them to one of the larger tables on which a magazine-size A to Z was opened.
She spoke expansively to Lynley, which made him immediately suspicious about her motives. When cops were friendly, as he well knew, they were friendly for a reason and it wasn’t necessarily a good one. Where, she asked him, had he begun his coastal walk on the previous day? Would he show her on the map? See, the path’s well marked with a green dotted line, and if he’d be so kind as to point out the spot…It was all a matter of tying up the loose ends of his story, she said. He would know the dance, of course.
Lynley brought out his reading spectacles and leaned over the road atlas. The truth of the matter was that he hadn’t the slightest idea where he’d begun his walk on the South-West Coast Path on the previous day. If there had been a landmark, he hadn’t taken note of it. He remembered the names of several villages and hamlets he’d come upon along the coast, but as to when on his walk he’d passed through them, he couldn’t say. He also didn’t see that it mattered, although DI Hannaford cleared the air on that concern in a moment. He took a stab at placing himself some twelve miles southwest of Polcare Cove. He had no idea if this was accurate.
Hannaford said, “Right,” although she made no note about the location. She went on pleasantly with, “And what about you, Dr. Trahair?”
The vet stirred next to Lynley. “I did tell you I came down from Bristol.”
“You did indeed. Mind showing me the route? C’n I assume you follow the same route each time, by the way? Straightforward matter and all that?”
“Not necessarily.”