Elizabeth George: Careless in Red

“We phoned from the inn, so they’ll know up there.”

“And everywhere else no doubt, by now. You know the dead boy?”

Daidre had considered the possibility that she might be asked this question again. She decided to base her answer on her personal definition of the word know . “I don’t,” she said. “I don’t actually live here, you see. The cottage is mine, but it’s my getaway. I live in Bristol. I come here for breaks when I have time off.”

“What d’you do in Bristol?”

“I’m a doctor. Well, not actually a doctor. I mean, I am a doctor, but it’s…I’m a veterinarian.” Daidre felt Thomas’s eyes on her, and she grew hot. This had nothing to do with shame about being a vet, a fact about which she was inordinately proud, considering how difficult it had been to reach that goal. Rather, it was the fact that she’d led him to believe she was another sort of doctor when she’d first come upon him. She wasn’t quite sure why she had done it, although to tell someone she could help him with his supposed injuries because she was a vet had seemed ludicrous at the time. “I do larger animals mostly.”

DI Hannaford had drawn her eyebrows together. She looked from Daidre to Thomas, and she seemed to be testing the waters between them. Or perhaps she was testing Daidre’s answer for its level of veracity. She looked like someone who was good at that, despite her incongruous hair.

Thomas said, “There was a surfer. I couldn’t tell if it was male or female. I saw him-I’ll call him him -from the cliff top.”

“What? Off Polcare Cove?”

“In the cove before Polcare. Although he could have come from here, I suppose.”

“There was no car, though,” Daidre pointed out. “Not in the car park. So he had to have gone into the water at Buck’s Haven. That’s what it’s called. The cove to the south. Unless you meant the north cove. I’ve not asked you what direction you were walking in.”

“From the south,” he said. And to Hannaford, “The weather didn’t seem right to me. For surfing. The tide was wrong as well. The reefs weren’t covered completely. If a surfer came too close to them…Someone could get hurt.”

“Someone did get hurt,” Hannaford pointed out. “Someone got killed.”

“But not surfing,” Daidre said. Then she wondered why she’d said it because it sounded to her as if she were interceding for Thomas when that hadn’t been her intention.

Hannaford said to both of them, “Like to play detectives, do you? Is it a hobby of yours?” She didn’t seem to expect a response to this. She went on to Thomas, saying, “Constable McNulty tells me you helped him move the body. I’ll want your clothes for forensics. Your outer clothes. Whatever you had on at the time, which I presume is what you have on now.” And to Daidre, “Did you touch the body?”

“I checked for a pulse.”

“Then I’ll want your outer clothing as well.”

“I’ve nothing to change into, I’m afraid,” Thomas said.

“Nothing?” Again, Hannaford looked from the man to Daidre. It came to Daidre that the detective had assumed that she and the stranger were a couple. She supposed there was some logic in this. They’d gone for help together. They were together still. And neither of them had said anything to dissuade her from this conclusion. Hannaford said, “Exactly who might you two be and what brings you to this corner of the world?”

Daidre said, “We’ve given our details to the sergeant.”

“Humour me.”

“I’ve told you. I’m a veterinarian.”

“Your practise?”

“At the zoo in Bristol. I’ve just come down this afternoon for a few days. Well, for a week this time.”

“Odd time of year for a holiday.”

“For some, I suppose. But I prefer my holidays when there are no crowds.”

“What time did you leave Bristol?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t actually look. It was morning. Perhaps nine. Ten. Half past.”

“Stop along the way?”

Daidre tried to work out how much the detective needed to know. She said, “Well…briefly, yes. But it hardly has to do with-”

“Where?”

“What?”

“Where did you stop?”

“For lunch. I’d had no breakfast. I don’t, usually. Eat breakfast, that is. I was hungry, so I stopped.”

“Where?”

“There was a pub. It’s not a place I usually stop. Not that I usually stop, but there was a pub and I was hungry and it said ‘pub meals’ out front, so I went in. This would be after I left the M5. I can’t remember its name. The pub’s. I’m sorry. I don’t think I even looked at the name. It was somewhere outside Crediton. I think.”

“You think. Interesting. What did you eat?”

“A ploughman’s.”

“What sort of cheese?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t pay attention. It was a ploughman’s. Cheese, bread, pickle, onion. I’m a vegetarian.”

“Of course you are.”

Daidre felt her temper flare. She hadn’t done anything, but the detective was making her feel as if she had. She said with some attempt at dignity, “I find that it’s rather difficult to care for animals on the one hand and eat them on the other, Inspector.”

“Of course you do,” DI Hannaford said thinly. “Do you know the dead boy?”

“I believe I already answered that question.”

“I seem to have lost the plot on that one. Tell me again.”

“I didn’t get a good look at him, I’m afraid.”

“And I’m afraid that isn’t what I asked you.”

“I’m not from around here. As I said, this is a getaway place for me. I come on the occasional weekend. Bank holidays. Longer holidays. I know a few people but mostly those who live close by.”

“This boy doesn’t live close by?”

“I don’t know him.” Daidre could feel the perspiration on her neck and she wondered if it was on her face as well. She wasn’t used to speaking to the police, and speaking to the police under these circumstances was especially unnerving.

A sharp double knock sounded on the front door then. But before anyone made a move to answer it, they heard it open. Two male voices-one of them the voice of Sergeant Collins-came from the entry, just ahead of the men themselves. Daidre was expecting the other to be the pathologist who Inspector Hannaford had indicated was on the way, but this was apparently not the case. Instead, the newcomer-tall, grey haired, and attractive-nodded to them and said to Hannaford, “Where’ve you got him stowed, then?” to which she answered, “He’s not in the car?”

The man shook his head. “As it happens, no.”

Hannaford said, “That bloody child. I swear. Thanks for coming at short notice, Ray.” Then she spoke to Daidre and Thomas. To Daidre she repeated, “I’ll want your clothes, Dr. Trahair. Sergeant Collins will bag them, so sort yourself out about that.” And to Thomas, “When SOCO arrives, we’ll get you a boiler suit to change into. In the meantime, Mr… I don’t know your name.”

“Thomas,” he said.

“Mr. Thomas, is it? Or is Thomas your Christian name?”

He hesitated. Daidre thought for a moment that he meant to lie, because that was what it looked like. And he could lie, couldn’t he, since he had no identification with him. He could say he was absolutely anyone. He looked at the coal fire as if meditating on all the possibilities. Then he looked back at the detective. “Lynley,” he said. “It’s Thomas Lynley.”

There was a silence. Daidre looked from Thomas to the detective, and she saw the expression alter on Hannaford’s face. The face of the man she’d called Ray altered as well, and oddly enough, he was the one to speak. What he said was completely baffling to Daidre: