Elizabeth George - Careless in Red

Bea told Reeth to step away from the spirit stove, which he did willingly enough. She checked it and the rest of his supplies, of which there were few enough: plastic cups, sugar, tea, powdered milk in sachets, one spoon for shared stirring. She was surprised the old man hadn’t thought of crumpets.

She ducked back out of the door and motioned Havers and Ben Kerne to join her. Once all four of them were inside the hut, there was barely room to move, but Jago Reeth still managed to make the tea, and he pressed a cup upon each of them, like the hostess of an Edwardian house party. Then he doused the flame on the stove and set the stove itself on the stones beneath the bench, perhaps as a way of reassuring them that he had no intention of using it as a weapon. At this, Bea decided to pat him down again for good measure. Having put the spirit stove in the hut in advance of their arrival, there was no telling what else he’d stowed in the place. But he was weaponless, as before.

With the hut’s double door shut and fastened, the sound of the wind and the gulls’ crying was muted. The atmosphere was close, and the four adults took up nearly every inch of the space. Bea said, “You’ve got us here, Mr. Reeth, at your pleasure. What is it you’d like to tell us?”

Jago Reeth held his tea in both hands. He nodded and spoke not to Bea but to Ben Kerne, and his tone was kind. “Losing a son. You’ve got my deepest sympathy. It’s the worst grief a man can know.”

“Losing any child’s a blow.” Ben Kerne sounded wary. It appeared to Bea that he was trying to read Jago Reeth. As was she. The air seemed to crackle with anticipation.

Next to Bea, Sergeant Havers took out her notebook. Bea expected Reeth to tell her to put it away, but instead the old man nodded and said, “I’ve no objection,” and to Kerne, “Have you?” When Ben shook his head, Jago added, “If you’ve come wired, Inspector, that’s fine as well. There are always things wanting documentation in a situation like this.”

Bea wanted to say what she’d earlier thought: He’d considered all the angles. But she was waiting to see, hear, or intuit the one angle he hadn’t yet considered. It had to be here somewhere, and she needed to be ready to deal with it when it raised its scaly head above the muck for a breath of air.

She said, “Do go on.”

“But there’s something worse about losing a son,” Jago Reeth said to Ben Kerne. “Unlike a daughter, a son carries the name. He’s the link between the past and the future. And it’s more, even, than just the name at the end of the day. He carries the reason for it all. For this…” He gave a look around the hut, as if the tiny building somehow contained the world and the billions of lifetimes present in the world.

“I’m not sure I make that sort of distinction,” Ben said. “Any loss…of a child…of any child…” He didn’t go on. He cleared his throat mightily.

Jago Reeth looked pleased. “Losing a son to murder is a horror, though, isn’t it? The fact of murder is almost as bad as knowing who killed him and not being able to lift a finger to bring the bloody sod to justice.”

Kerne said nothing. Nor did Bea or Barbara Havers. Bea and Kerne held their tea undrunk in their hands, and Ben Kerne set his carefully on the floor. Next to her, Bea felt Havers stir.

“That part’s bad,” Jago said. “As is the not knowing.”

“Not knowing what, exactly, Mr. Reeth?” Bea asked.

“The whys and the wherefores about it. And the hows. Bloke can spend the rest of his life tossing and turning, wondering and cursing and wishing…You know what I mean, I expect. Or if not now, you will, eh? It’s hell on earth and there’s no escaping. I feel for you, mate. For what you’re going through now and for what’s to come.”

“Thank you,” Ben Kerne said quietly. Bea had to admire him for his control. She could see how white the tops of his knuckles were.

“I knew your boy Santo. Lovely lad. Bit full of himself, like all boys are when they’re that age, eh, but lovely. And since this tragedy happened to him-”

“Since he was murdered,” Bea corrected Jago Reeth.

“Murder,” Reeth said, “ is a tragedy, Inspector. No matter what kind of game of scent-and-chase you lot might think it is. It’s a tragedy, and when it happens, the only peace available is in knowing the truth of what happened and having others know it as well. If,” he added with a brief smile, “you know what I mean. And as I knew Santo, I’ve thought and thought about what happened to the lad. And I’ve decided that if an old broken-down bloke like myself can give you any peace, Mr. Kerne, that’s what I owe you.”

“You don’t owe me-”

“We all owe each other,” Jago cut in. “It’s forgetting that that leads us to tragedies.” He paused as if to let this sink in. He drained his tea and put the cup next to him on the bench. “So what I want to do is tell you how I reckon this happened to your boy. Because I’ve thought about it, see, as I’m sure you have and sure the cops here have as well. Who would’ve done this to such a fine lad, I been asking myself for days. How’d they manage it? And why?”

“None of that brings Santo back, does it?” Ben Kerne asked steadily.

“’Course not. But the knowing…the final understanding of it all: I wager there’s peace in that and that’s what I’ve got to offer you. Peace. So here’s what I reckon was-”

“No. I don’t think so, Mr. Reeth.” Bea had a sudden glimmer what Reeth intended, and in that glimmer she saw where this could lead.

But Ben Kerne said, “Let him go on, please. I want to hear him out, Inspector.”

“This will allow him to-”

“Please let him continue.”

Reeth waited affably for Bea to concur. She nodded sharply, but she wasn’t happy. To irregular and mad she had to add provocative .

“So here’s what I reckon,” Jago said. “Someone has a score to settle and this someone sets out to settle that score on the life of your lad. What sort of score, you wonder, right? Could be anything, couldn’t it. New score, old score. It doesn’t matter. But a form of accounting’s waiting out there, and Santo’s life’s the means of settling it. So this killer-could be a man, could be a woman, doesn’t much matter, does it, because the point is the lad and the lad’s death, see, which is what cops like these two always forget-this killer gets to know your lad because knowing him’s going to provide access. And knowing the lad leads to the means as well because your boy’s an openhearted sort and he talks. About this and that, but as things turn out, he talks a lot about his dad, same as most boys do. He says his dad’s riding him hard for lots of reasons but mostly because he wants women and surfing and not settling down, and who can blame him as he’s only eighteen. His dad, on the other hand, has his own wants for the boy, which makes the boy roil and talk and roil some more. Which makes him look for…What d’you call it? A substitute dad…?”

“A surrogate dad.” Ben’s voice was heavier now.

“That would be the word. Or perhaps a surrogate mum, of course. Or a surrogate…what? Priest, confessor, priestess, whatever? At any rate, this person-man or woman, young or old-sees a door of trust opening and he-or she, of course-walks right through it. If you know what I mean.”

He was keeping his options open, Bea concluded. He was, as he had said himself, no bloody fool, and the advantage he had in this moment was the years he’d had to think about the approach he wanted to use when the time came for it.

“So this person…let’s call him or her the Confessor for want of a better term…this Confessor makes cups of tea and cups of chocolate and more cups of tea and more cups of chocolate and offers biscuits, but more important offers a place for Santo to do whatever and to be whoever. And the Confessor waits. And soon enough reckons that means are available to settle whatever score needs settling. The boy’s had yet another blowup with his dad. It’s an argument that goes nowhere like always and this time the lad’s taken all of his climbing equipment from where he’s kept it in the past-right alongside Dad’s-and he’s stowed it in the boot of his car. What does he intend? It’s that classic thing: I’ll show him, I will. I’ll show him what sort of bloke I am. He thinks I’m nothing but a lout but I’ll show him. And what better way to do it than with his own sport, which I’ll do better than he’s ever managed. So that puts his equipment within the grasp of the Confessor and the Confessor sees what we’ll call the Way.”