Elizabeth George - Careless in Red

At this, Ben Kerne lowered his head. Bea said, “Mr. Kerne, I think this is-”

He said, “No.” He raised his head with effort. “More,” he said to Jago Reeth.

“The Confessor waits for an opportunity, which presents itself soon enough because the lad’s open and easy with his belongings, one of which is his car. This is nothing at all to get into as it’s never locked and a quick manoeuver opens the boot and there it all is. Selection is the key. Perhaps a chock stone or a carabiner. Or a sling. Even the harness will do. All four, perhaps? No, that likely would be-if you’ll pardon the expression-overkill. If it’s a sling, there’s not a problem in the world as it’s nylon or whatever and easily cut by shears, a sharp knife, a razor, whatever. If it’s something else, things are a bit trickier, as everything else save the rope-and rope seems too bloody obvious a choice, not to mention too noticeable-is metal and a cutting device is going to be necessary. How to find one? Purchase one? No. That would be traceable. Borrow one? Again, someone’s going to recall the borrowing, yes? Use one without the knowledge of the owner? That seems more possible and decidedly more sensible, but where to find one? Friend, associate, acquaintance, employer? Someone whose movements are intimately known because they’ve been watched just as intimately? Any of those, yes? So the Confessor chooses the moment and the deed is done. One cut does it and afterwards no sign is left behind because, as we’ve said, the Confessor’s no fool and he knows-or she knows, because as we’ve seen, she is as possible as he when it comes to this-that it’s crucial there be no evidence afterwards. And the beauty of it all is that the equipment’s been marked with tape by the lad-or even by his father, perhaps-so that it can be distinguished from everyone else’s. Because this is what climbers do, you see. They mark their equipment because so often they climb together. It’s safer that way, climbing together, you see. And this tells the Confessor that there’s little to no chance that anyone other than the lad will use this sling, this carabiner, this harness…whatever it was that was damaged because, of course, I myself don’t know. But I’ve thought about it, and here’s what I’ve come up with. The one thing the Confessor has to take care with is the tape used to identify the equipment. If he-or she, of course-buys more tape, there’s a chance the new tape won’t match exactly or can be traced back. God knows how, but there’s that possibility, so the thing is to keep that tape usable. The Confessor manages this and it’s quite a project because that tape is tough, like electrical tape. He-or she, of course, like I said-rewraps it just so and maybe it’s not quite as tight as it once was but at least it’s the same and will the lad even notice? Unlikely, and even if he does, what he’s likely to do is smooth it down, apply more tape on top, something like that. So once the deed is done and the equipment’s replaced, all that’s left is waiting. And once what happens, happens-and it is a tragedy, no one doubts that-there’s nothing really that can’t be explained away.”

“There’s always something, Mr. Reeth,” Bea said.

Jago looked at her in a kindly way. “Fingerprints on the boot of the car? In the interior? On the keys to the car? Inside the boot? The Confessor and the boy spent hours together, perhaps they even worked together at…let’s say it was at his dad’s business. They each rode in the other’s car, they were mates, they were pals, they were surrogate father and surrogate son, they were surrogate mother and surrogate son, they were surrogate brothers, they were lovers, they were…anything. It doesn’t matter, you see, because it all can be explained away. Hair inside the boot of the car? The Confessor’s? Someone else’s? Same thing, really. The Confessor planted someone else’s or even his own or her own because it can be a woman, we’ve already seen that. What about fibres? Clothing fibres…perhaps on the tape that marked the equipment. Wouldn’t that be lovely? But the Confessor helped wrap that equipment or he or she touched that equipment because…why? Because the boot was used for other things as well-a surfing kit, perhaps?-and things would get moved round here and there and in and out. What about access to the equipment? Everyone had that. Every single person in the poor lad’s life. What about motive? Well, nearly everyone, it seems, had that as well. So at the end of the day, there is no answer. There is only speculation but no case to present. Which the killer probably considers the beauty of the crime but which you and I know, Mr. Kerne, is any crime’s biggest horror: that the killer simply walks away. Everyone knows who did it. Everyone admits it. Everyone shakes a head and says, What a tragedy. What a useless, senseless, maddening-”

“I think that’s enough, Mr. Reeth. Or Mr. Parsons,” Bea said.

“-horror because the killer walks away now he-or she, of course-has done his business.”

“I said that’s enough.”

“And the killer can’t be touched by the cops and all the cops can do is sit there and drink their tea and wait and hope to find something somewhere someday…But they get busy, don’t they? Other things on their plates. They shove you to one side and say don’t ring us every day, man, because when a case goes cold-like this one will-there’s no point to ringing, so we’ll ring you if and when we can make an arrest. But it never comes, does it, that arrest. So you end up with nothing but ashes in an urn and they may as well have burnt your body on the day they burned his because the soul of you is gone anyway.”

He was finished, it seemed, his recital completed. All that was left was the sound of harsh breathing, which was Jago Reeth’s, and outside, the cry of gulls and the gusting of the wind and the crash of the surf. In a suitably well-rounded television drama, Bea thought, Reeth would rise to his feet now. He would dash for the door and throw himself over the cliff, having at long last achieved the vengeance he’d anticipated and having no further reason to continue living. He’d take the leap and join his dead Jamie. But this, unfortunately, was not a television drama.

His face seemed lit from within. Spittle had collected at the corners of his mouth. His tremors had worsened. He was waiting, she saw, for Ben Kerne’s reaction to his performance, for Ben Kerne’s embracing of a truth that no one could alter and no one could resolve.

Ben finally lifted his head and gave the reaction. “Santo,” he said, “was not my son.”

THE CRY OF THE GULLS SEEMED TO GROW LOUDER, AND FROM far below them the slamming of waves on rock indicated that the tide was in. Ben thought what this meant and the irony of it: excellent surfing conditions today.

The breathing that had been Jago Reeth’s stopped, drawn in and held as perhaps the old man decided whether to believe what Ben had told him. For Ben, it no longer mattered what anyone believed. Nor, finally, did it matter at all that Santo had not been his by blood. For he saw that they had been father and son in the only way that mattered between a man and a boy, which had everything to do with history and experience and nothing to do with a single blindly swimming cell that through sheerest chance makes piercing contact with an egg. Thus his failures were every bit as profound as a blood father’s would have been towards a son. For he’d made every paternal move out of fear and not love, always waiting for Santo to show the colours of his true origins. Since after their adolescence Ben had never known any one of his wife’s lovers, he had waited for Dellen’s least desirable characteristics to surface in her son, and when anything remotely Dellen-like had appeared, that had been Ben’s focus and passion. He as much as moulded Santo into his mother, so great was the emphasis he had placed upon anything in the boy that had seemed like her.