Elizabeth George - Careless in Red

“He wasn’t,” Ben repeated, “my son.” How pathetically true, he realised now.

Jago Reeth said, “You’re a bloody liar. You always were.”

“I only wish that was the case.” Ben saw another detail now. It fell into place neatly and corrected his previous misunderstanding. He said to Reeth, “She talked to you, didn’t she? I thought she meant the police, but she didn’t. She talked to you.”

DI Hannaford said, “Mr. Kerne, you’ve no need to say anything.”

Ben said, “He needs to know the truth. I had nothing to do with what happened to Jamie. I wasn’t there.”

Jago Reeth said abruptly, “ Liar. You’d say that, wouldn’t you.”

“Because it’s the truth. I’d had a scuffle with him. He tossed me out of his party. But I went for a wander and then I went home. What Dellen told you…” He wasn’t sure, then, that he could go on, but he knew that he had to, if only to do the only thing that could be done to avenge Santo’s death. “What Dellen told you, she told you out of jealousy. I’d been with your daughter. A snog. We’d got carried away. Dellen saw us, and she had to get even because that’s what she and I did to each other. Tit for tat, together and apart, in love and in hate, it never mattered. We were bound by something that we couldn’t break free of.”

“You’re a liar now. As you were then.”

“So she went to you and she told you I did…whatever she told you I did. But what I know about that night is what you know and that’s what I’ve always known: Jamie-your son-went down to that cave for some reason after that party and that’s where he died.”

“Don’t you bloody claim that,” Reeth said fiercely. “You ran off. You left Pengelly Cove and you never returned. You had a reason to leave and we both know what it was.”

“Yes. I had a reason. Because no matter what I told him, my own dad, like you, believed I was guilty.”

“With damn good cause.”

“What you will, Mr. Parsons. As you wish. Now and forever, if you like. But I wasn’t there, so I suppose your job isn’t done, is it. Because what she told you…and it was you she told, wasn’t it…? She lied.”

“Why would she ever …? Why would anyone …?”

Ben saw it. The reason, the cause. Beyond the tit for tat and the love and hate, beyond the parry and thrust of what had gone for their relationship for nearly thirty years, he saw. “Because that’s who she is,” he said. “Because that’s simply what she does.”

He left it at that. He got to his feet. At the hut’s doorway, he paused, one small matter left unclear to him. He said to Reeth, “Have you watched me all these years, Mr. Parsons? Has that really been the extent of your life? How you’ve defined yourself? Waiting till I had a boy the very same age as Jamie was when Jamie died and then moving in for the kill?”

“You don’t know what it’s like,” Reeth said. “But you will, man. You bloody sodding will.”

“Or did you find me because of…” Ben considered this. “Because of Adventures Unlimited? The purest chance, reading the newspaper somewhere-wherever you were-and seeing that story poor Alan worked so hard to arrange. Was that it? That story in the Mail on Sunday ? Then dashing here and establishing yourself and waiting, because you’d got so bloody good at biding your time. Because you thought-you believed-that if you did to me what you were so sure I’d done to you, that would…what? Give you peace? Close the circle? Finish things properly? How can you believe that?”

“You’re going to know,” Reeth said. “You’re going to see. Because what I’ve said here-every word of it, man-is speculation. I know my rights. I made a study of my rights. So when I walk out of here-”

“Don’t you see? It doesn’t matter,” Ben replied. “Because I’m walking out of here first.”

He did so. He closed the door behind him and strode along the path towards the steps. His throat ached with the strain of holding back everything he’d been holding back-even without acknowledging that fact-for so many years. He heard his name called, and he turned.

DI Hannaford joined him. She said, “He’s made an error somewhere, Mr. Kerne. They always make an error. We’re going to find it. No one thinks of everything. I want you to hang on.”

Ben shook his head. “It doesn’t matter,” he said again. “Will it bring Santo back?”

“He’s got to pay. That’s how this works.”

“He’s already paying. And even if he isn’t, he’s going to see the only thing there is to see: There’s no peace for him in what he’s done. He can’t scrub it from his brain. None of us can do that.”

“Nonetheless,” Hannaford said. “We’ll be pursuing this.”

“If you must,” Ben said. “But not for my sake.”

“For Santo’s sake, then. He’s owed-”

“He is. God, how he is. He’s just not owed this.”

Ben walked from her, making his way along the path and up the stone steps to the top of the cliff. There, he followed the South-West Coast Path the short distance to the pastures they’d crossed, and he returned to his car. They could do with Jago Reeth or Jonathan Parsons what they wished to do or, indeed, what they were able to do within the confines of the law and the rights he said he knew so well. For whatever they did or did not do would not be sufficient to absolve Ben of the burden of responsibility that would always be his. This responsibility, he saw, went far beyond Santo’s death. It was described by the choices he’d made time and again and what those choices had done to mould the very people he’d claimed to love.

In days to come, he knew he would weep. He couldn’t now. He was numb. But the grief of loss was inescapable, and he accepted that for the first time in his life.

When he got home, he went in search of her. Alan was at work in his office, on the phone with someone and standing at a bulletin board on which he’d affixed two lines of index cards which Ben recognised as the plan for the video he wished to make about Adventures Unlimited. Kerra was talking to a tall blond youth, a prospective instructor no doubt. Ben didn’t bother either of them.

He climbed the stairs. She wasn’t in the family quarters, nor did she appear to be anywhere else in the building. He felt a fluttering in his chest at this, and he went to the wardrobe to check, but her clothing was still there and the rest of her belongings were in the chest of drawers. He finally saw her from the window, a figure in black on the beach whom he might have taken as a surfer in a wet suit had he not possessed a lifetime of knowledge about the shape of her and the texture of her hair. She was standing with her back to the hotel. As the tide was high, most of the beach was covered, and the water was lapping round her ankles. It would still be frigid this time of year, but she wore no protection against it.

He went to join her. He saw when he reached her that she was carrying a bundle of photographs. She was hollow eyed. She looked nearly as numb as he himself felt.

He said her name. She said, “I hadn’t thought of him in years. But there he was in my mind today, like he’d been waiting to get in all this time.”

“Who?”

“Hugo.”

A name he’d never once heard before and not one he cared about hearing now. He said nothing. Far out in the waves, five surfers formed a lineup. A swell rose behind them and Ben watched to see who would be in position to drop in. None of them were. The wave broke too far ahead of them, leaving them waiting for the next one in the set and another attempt at a ride.

Dellen continued. “I was his special one. He made a fuss over me and he asked my parents could he take me to the cinema. To the seal sanctuary. To the Christmas panto. He bought me clothes he wanted to see me in because I was his favourite niece. We’ve got something special, he said. I wouldn’t buy you these things and take you to these places if you weren’t especially special to me.”