He’d shown good sense in this, at least. From the moment they’d arrived at the Promontory King George Hotel?a crumbling heap of derelict art deco that needed to be pulled down, in Bea’s opinion?Constable McNulty had uttered not a word. He’d even taken notes, never once looking up from his pad as she spoke to Alan Cheston while they waited for the return of Ben Kerne, one hoped with his wife in tow.
Cheston was not a niggard with details: He was twenty-five, he was putatively the partner of the Kerne daughter, he’d grown up in Cambridge as the only child of a retired physicist (“That’s Mum,” he explained with no little pride) and a retired university librarian (“That’s Dad,” he added unnecessarily). He’d studied at Trinity Hall, gone on to the London School of Economics, and worked in marketing in a Birmingham redevelopment corporation until his parents’ retirement to Casvelyn, at which point he moved to Cornwall to be close to them in their latter years. He owned a terrace house in Lansdown Road that was being renovated, making it suitable for the wife and family he hoped for, so in the meantime he was living in a bed-sit at the far end of Breakwater Road.
“Well, not exactly a bed-sit,” he added after watching Constable McNulty’s industrious scribbling for a moment. “It’s rather a room in that house?the large pink cottage??at the end of the road, opposite the canal. I’ve kitchen privileges and…well, the landlady’s quite liberal with how I use the rest of the house.”
By which, Bea assumed, he meant that the landlady had modern ideas. By which, she assumed, he meant that he and the Kerne daughter bonked there with impunity.
“Kerra and I intend to marry,” he added, as if this fine detail might smooth the troubled waters of what he mistakenly saw as Bea’s ostensible concern for the young woman’s virtue.
“Ah. How nice. And Santo?” she asked him. “What sort of relationship did you have with him?”
“Terrific lad,” was Alan’s reply. “He was hard not to like. He was no great intellectual, mind you, but he had a happiness about him, a playfulness. He was infectious, and from what I could see, people liked to be around him. People in general.”
Joie de vivre, Bea thought. She pressed on. “And what about you in particular? Did you like to be around him?”
“We didn’t spend much time together. I’m Kerra’s partner, so Santo and I…We were more like in-laws, I suppose. Cordial and friendly in conversation, but not anything else. We didn’t have the same interests. He was very physical. I’m more…cerebral?”
“Which makes you better suited to run a business, I expect,” Bea noted.
“Yes, of course.”
“Like this business, for example.”
The young man was no idiot. He, unlike the Stan and Ollie she was saddled with, could tell a hawk from a handsaw no matter the direction of the wind. He said, “Actually Santo was a bit relieved when he knew I was going to work here. It took an unwanted pressure off him.”
“What sort of pressure?”
“He’d have had to work with his mum in this part of the business, and he didn’t want to. At least, that’s what he led me to believe. He said he wasn’t suited for this end of the operation.”
“But you don’t mind it? Working this end of things. Working with her?”
“Not at all.” When he said this last bit, he kept his eyes well fixed on Bea’s and his entire body motionless. That alone made her wonder about the nature of his lie.
She said, “I’d like to look at Santo’s climbing kit if you’ll point out where I can find it, Mr. Cheston.”
“Sorry. Thing is, I don’t actually know where he kept it.”
She had to wonder about that as well. He’d answered rather promptly, hadn’t he, as if he’d been expecting the question.
She was about to press him further on this topic when he said, “Here’s Ben with Dellen,” into the sound of the old cagelike lift descending. She told the young man they’d speak again, no doubt. He said, Absolutely. Whenever the inspector wished.