Elizabeth George: Careless in Red

BEN KERNE’S OFFICE AT Adventures Unlimited was on the first floor of the old hotel. He’d fashioned it out of a single that had once undoubtedly been used by a lady’s maid, since directly next door to it-and formerly with an adjoining door-was a suite. That he’d had converted to a unit suitable for one of the holidaying families upon whom he’d bet his economic future.

The time had seemed right to Ben for this, his biggest venture ever. His children were older and at least one of them-Kerra-was self-sufficient and completely capable of obtaining gainful employment elsewhere should this venture go under. Santo was a different matter, for more than one reason that Ben preferred not to consider, but he had become more dependable of late, thank God, as if he finally understood the weighty nature of their undertaking. So Ben had felt the family was with him. It wouldn’t be just himself upon whose shoulders the responsibility rested. They were fully two years into it now: the conversion complete save for the exterior painting and a few final interior details. By the middle of June, they would be up and running. The bookings had been coming in for several months.

Ben was looking through these when the police arrived. Although the bookings represented the fruits of his family’s labours, he hadn’t been thinking of this or really even thinking of them at all: the bookings. Instead he’d been thinking of red. Not red as being in the red, which he certainly was and would be for any number of years until the business earned back what he’d spent upon it, but red as in the colour of nail varnish or lipstick, of a scarf or a blouse, of a dress that hugged the body.

Dellen had been wearing red for five days. First had come the nail varnish. Lipstick had followed. Then a jaunty beret over her blond hair when she went out. Soon, he expected a red sweater would top snug black trousers as it also revealed just a bit of cleavage. Ultimately, she would wear the dress, which would show more cleavage as well as her thighs, and by that time, she’d be in full sail and his children would be looking at him as they had looked at him forever: waiting for him to do something in a situation in which he could do nothing at all. Despite their ages-eighteen and twenty-two-Santo and Kerra still persisted in thinking that he was capable of changing their mother. When he did not do so, having failed at the effort when he was even younger than they were now, he saw the why in their eyes, or at least in Kerra’s eyes. Why do you put up with her?

When Ben heard the slam of a car door, then, he thought of Dellen. When he went to the window and saw it was a police car below and not his wife’s old BMW, he still thought of Dellen. Later, he realised that thinking of Kerra would have been more logical since she’d been gone for hours on her bicycle in weather that had been growing ever worse since two o’clock. But Dellen had been the centre of his thoughts for twenty-eight years and since Dellen had gone off at noon and had not yet returned, he assumed she’d got herself into trouble.

He left his office and went to the ground floor. When he got to reception, a uniformed constable was standing there, looking about for someone and no doubt surprised to find the front door unlocked and the place virtually deserted. The constable was male, young, and vaguely familiar. He’d be from the town, then. Ben was getting to know who lived in Casvelyn and who was from the outlying area.

The constable introduced himself: Mick McNulty, he said. And you are, sir…?

Benesek Kerne, Ben told him. Was something wrong? Ben switched on more lights. The automatic ones had come on with the end of daylight, but they cast shadows everywhere, and Ben found he wanted to dispel those shadows.

Ah, McNulty said. Could he speak to Mr. Kerne, then?

Ben realised the constable meant could they go somewhere that was not the reception area, so he took him one floor above, to the lounge. This overlooked St. Mevan Beach, where the swells were of a decent size and the waves were breaking on the sand bars in rapid sets. They were coming in from the southwest, but the wind made them rubbish. No one was out there, not even the most desperate of the local surfers.

Between the beach and the hotel, the landscape was much changed from what it had been during the heyday of the Promontory King George. The pool was still there, but in place of the bar and the outdoor restaurant, a rock-climbing wall now stood. As did the rope wall; the swinging bridges; and the pulleys, gears, cords, and cables of the Canopy Experience. A neat cabin housed the sea kayaks and another contained the diving equipment. Constable McNulty took all of this in, or at least he appeared to be doing so, which gave Ben Kerne time to prepare himself to hear what the policeman had come to say. He thought about Dellen in bits of red, about the slickness of the roads and Dellen’s intentions, which likely had been to get out of town entirely, to go along the coast, and perhaps to end up at one of the coves or bays. But getting there in this weather, especially if she hadn’t stuck to the main road, would have exposed her to danger. Of course danger was what she loved and wanted, but not the sort that led to cars skidding off roads and down the sides of cliffs.

When the question came, it was not what Ben expected. McNulty said, “Is Alexander Kerne your son?”

Ben said “Santo?” and he thought, Thank God. It was Santo who had got himself into trouble, no doubt arrested for trespassing, which Ben had warned him about time and again. He said, “What’s he done, then?”

“He’s had an accident,” the constable said. “I’m sorry to tell you that a body’s been found that appears to be Alexander’s. If you have a photo of him…”

Ben heard the word body but did not allow it to penetrate. He said, “Is he in hospital, then? Which one? What happened?” He thought of how he would have to tell Dellen, of what route the news would send her down.

“…awfully sorry,” the constable was saying. “If you’ve a photo, we-”

“What did you say?”

Constable McNulty looked flustered. He said, “He’s dead, I’m afraid. The body. The one we found.”

“Santo? Dead? But where? How?” Ben looked out at the roiling sea just as a gust of wind hit the windows and rattled them against their sills. He said, “Good Christ, he went out in this. He was surfing.”

“Not surfing,” McNulty said.

“Then what happened?” Ben asked. “Please. What happened to Santo?”

“He’s had a cliff-climbing accident. Equipment failure. On the cliffs at Polcare Cove.”

“He was climbing?” Ben said stupidly. “Santo was climbing ? Who was with him? Where-”

“No one, as it seems at the moment.”

“ No one? He was climbing alone? At Polcare Cove? In this weather?” It seemed to Ben that all he could do was repeat the information like an automaton being programmed to speak. To do more than that meant he would have to embrace it, and he couldn’t bear that because he knew what embracing it was going to mean. “Answer me,” he said to the constable. “Bloody answer me, man.”

“Have you a picture of Alexander?”

“I want to see him. I must. It might not be-”

“That’s not possible just now. That’s why I need the photo. The body…He’s been taken to hospital in Truro.”

Ben leapt at the word. “So he’s not dead, then.”

“Mr. Kerne, I’m sorry. He’s dead. The body-”

“You said hospital .”

“To the mortuary, for the postmortem,” McNulty said. “I’m very sorry.”

“Oh my God.”

The front door opened below. Ben went to the lounge doorway and called out, “Dellen?” Footsteps came in the direction of the stairs. But then it was Kerra and not Ben’s wife who appeared in the doorway. She dripped rainwater onto the floor, and she’d removed her bicycle helmet. The very top of her head was the only part of her that appeared to be dry.