Elizabeth George: Careless in Red

He finished his coffee before he got to the surf shop. There was no bin nearby, so he folded the takeaway cup and put it in the pocket of his rain jacket. Ahead of him, he could see a young man with Julius Caesar hair having an earnest conversation with Nigel Coyle, Clean Barrel’s owner. This would be Will Mendick, Selevan thought. He’d had high hopes of Will, but so far they’d come to nothing.

Selevan heard Will saying to Nigel Coyle, “I admit I was wrong, Mr. Coyle. I shouldn’t even have suggested it. But it’s not like it’s something I ever did before,” to which Coyle replied, “You’re not a very good liar, are you,” before walking off with his car keys jingling in his hand.

Will said darkly, “Sod you, man. Sod you for a lark,” and as Selevan came up to him, “Hullo, Mr. Penrule. Tammy’s inside.”

Selevan found his granddaughter restocking a rack with colourful brochures. He observed her the way he always observed her, like a species of mammal he’d never come upon before. Most of what he saw he disapproved of. She was skin and bones in black: black shoes, black tights, black skirt, black jersey. Hair too thin and cut too short and not even a bit of that sticky goo in it to make it do something other than what it did, which was lie lifelessly against her skull.

Selevan could have coped with the black and the skin and bones of the girl if she’d given the slightest bit of evidence that she might be normal. Ring her eyes with kohl and plant silver rings through her eyebrows and her lips and a stud in her tongue, and he understood that. Mind, he didn’t like it, but he understood. That was the fashion among certain people her age and they’d come to their senses, one hoped, before they disfigured themselves entirely. When they hit twenty-one or maybe twenty-five and they discovered that gainful employment wasn’t beating a path to their doorsteps, they’d sort themselves out. Like Tammy’s father. And what was he now? Lieutenant colonel in the army with a posting in Rhodesia or wherever, because Selevan could never keep track of him-and it would always be Rhodesia to Selevan, never mind what it wanted to call itself-and a distinguished career stretching out before him.

But as for Tammy? Can we send her to you, Dad? her father had asked Selevan, his voice coming over the phone line as true as if he’d been standing in the very next room and not in an African hotel where he’d parked his daughter prior to flying her off to England. And what was her granddad to do, then? She had her ticket. She was on her way. We can send her to you, can’t we, Dad? This isn’t the right environment for her. She sees too much. We think that’s the problem.

Selevan himself had his own ideas of what the problem was, but he liked the thought of a son relying on his father’s wisdom. Send her, Selevan told David. But mind, I’ll not have any of her nonsense if she’s going to stop with me. She’ll eat her meals and clean up after herself and-

That, his son told him, would not be a problem.

True enough. The girl barely left a wake behind her. If Selevan had thought she would cause him trouble, what he’d come to learn was that the trouble she caused came from not causing trouble at all. That wasn’t normal, which was the heart of the matter. For damn it all, she was his granddaughter. And that meant she was meant to be normal.

She tapped the final brochure into place and straightened the rack. She stepped back, as if to see its effect, just as Will Mendick came into the shop. He said to Tammy, “No bloody good. Coyle won’t take me back,” and then to Selevan, “You’re early today, Mr. Penrule.”

Tammy swung round from the brochure rack at this. She said, “Grandie. Didn’t you get my message?”

“Haven’t been home,” Selevan told her.

“Oh. I was…Will and I were meaning to have a coffee after closing.”

“Were you now?” Selevan was pleased. Perhaps, he thought, he’d been incorrect in his assessment of Tammy’s regard for the younger man.

“He was going to drive me home afterwards.” Then she frowned as she seemed to realise it was too early for her grandfather to be there to fetch her home anyway. She looked at a watch that flopped round on her thin wrist.

“Come from the Salthouse Inn,” Selevan said. “Been an accident out round Polcare Cove.”

“Are you all right?” she asked. “Did you get in a smash with the car or something?” She sounded concerned, and this gratified Selevan. Tammy loved her old granddad. He might be short with her, but she never held it against him.

“Not me,” he said, and here he began to watch her closely. “It was Santo Kerne.”

“Santo? What’s happened to him?”

Was there a rise to her voice? Panic? A warding off of bad news? Selevan wanted to think so, but he couldn’t reconcile the tone of her voice with the look that she exchanged with Will Mendick.

“Fell off the cliff, way I understand it,” he said. “Down Polcare Cove. Dr. Trahair brought some coast walker to the inn to phone the police. This bloke-the walker-he found the boy.”

“Is he all right?” Will Mendick asked even as Tammy said, “Santo’s all right, though, isn’t he?”

Selevan was definitely gratified at this: the rush of Tammy’s words and what that rush of words indicated about her feelings. No matter that Santo Kerne was about as worthless an object for a young girl’s affections as could be found. If affection was present, that was a positive sign, and Selevan Penrule had recently allowed the Kerne boy access to his property at Sea Dreams for just this reason. Give him a shortcut across to the sea cliffs or the sea itself and who knew what might blossom in Tammy’s heart? And that had been the objective, hadn’t it? Tammy, blossoming, and a diversion.

“Don’t know,” Selevan told her. “Just that Dr. Trahair came in and told Brian over Salthouse that Santo Kerne was down on the rocks ’n Polcare Cove. That’s all I know.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” Will Mendick said.

“Was he surfing, Grandie?” Tammy asked. But she didn’t look at her grandfather when she spoke. She kept her eyes on Will.

This made Selevan look more closely at the young man. Will, he saw, was breathing oddly, a bit like a runner, but his face had lost colour. He was a ruddy boy naturally, so it was noticeable when the blood drained away.

“Don’t know what he was doing, do I?” Selevan said. “But something’s happened to him, that’s for certain. And it looks bad.”

“Why?” Will asked.

“Cos they’d’ve hardly left the boy on the rocks alone if he’d only been hurt and not…” He shrugged.

“Not dead?” Tammy said.

“Dead?” Will repeated.

Tammy said, “ Go, Will.”

“But how can I-”

“You’ll think of something. Just go. We’ll have coffee another time.”

That was apparently all he needed. Will nodded at Selevan and headed for the door. He touched Tammy on the shoulder as he passed her. He said, “Thanks, Tam. I’ll ring you.”

Selevan tried to take this as a positive sign.

DAYLIGHT WAS FAST FADING by the time Detective Inspector Bea Hannaford arrived in Polcare Cove. She’d been in the midst of buying football shoes for her son when her mobile had rung, and she’d completed the purchase without giving Pete a chance to point out that he’d not tried on every style available, as was his habit. She’d said, “We buy now or you come back later with your father,” and that had been enough. His father would force him into the least expensive pair, brooking no arguments about it.

They’d left the shop in a hurry and dashed through the rain to the car. She’d rung Ray from the road. It wasn’t his night for Pete, but Ray was flexible. He was a cop as well, and he knew the demands of the job. He’d meet them in Polcare Cove, he said. “Got a jumper?” he’d asked her.