“Did you give him the old heave-ho as well?” Havers asked. “Not wanting big drama in your life.”
“I intended to, but-”
“I doubt he would have liked that much,” Havers said. “What bloke would? Finding himself out of two dolly birds in one fell swoop instead of just one. Being reduced to what…wanking in the shower?…when before he was getting it on all sides. I’ll wager he would’ve fought you on that one. Maybe even told you he could make things a bit tough on you, a bit embarrassing, if you tried to break it off.”
“Indeed,” she said, without a pause in her labours. “Had we got to that point, he might have done and said all of that. As it was, we never got to that point. I did have to rethink my involvement with him, and I decided that we could continue as long as he understood the rules.”
“Which were?”
“More caution and a very clear understanding about the present and the future.”
“Meaning?”
“The obvious. About the present, I wasn’t going to change my ways to suit him. About the future, there wasn’t one. And that was perfectly fine with him. Santo lived largely for the moment.”
“What was second of all?” Bea asked.
Aldara looked at her blankly. “Sorry?”
“You said ‘first of all’ before you launched into your lack of concern over what other people think. I’m wondering what ‘second of all’ consisted of?”
“Ah. It consisted of my other lover,” Aldara said. “As I said earlier, the secrecy of an affair with Santo appealed to me. The affair charged things and I like to have them charged. Actually, I need to have them charged. When they aren’t…” She shrugged. “For me, the fire simply goes out. The brain, as perhaps you’ve discovered for yourself, habituates to anything over time. When the brain habituates to a lover, as the brain will do, the lover becomes less a lover and more…” She seemed to consider an appropriate term and she chose, “More an inconvenience. When that occurs, one disposes of him or one thinks of a way to bring the fire back to the sex.”
“I see. Santo Kerne was doing duty as the fire,” Bea said.
“My other lover was a very good man, and I quite enjoyed him. In all respects. His company in and out of bed was good, and I didn’t wish to lose it. But for me to continue to be with him-to please him sexually and to be pleased by him in turn-I needed a second lover, a secret lover. Santo was that.”
“Do all these lovers of yours know about each other?” Havers asked.
“They would hardly be secret if they did.” Aldara moved from the shovel to the rake. Her boots, Bea saw, were becoming encrusted with manure. They looked expensive and would bear the scent of animal faeces for months. She wondered the other woman didn’t care about that. “Santo knew, naturally. He had to know in order to understand the…I suppose I could call them the rules. But the other…No. It was essential that the other never know.”
“Because he wouldn’t have liked it?”
“Oh that, of course. But more than that, because secrecy is the key to excitement and excitement is the key to fire.”
“I notice you’ve been referring to the other bloke in the past tense. Was not is. Why would that be?”
Here Aldara hesitated, as if she realised what her answer was going to connote to the police.
Bea said, “May we assume the past is just that?”
“Finito,” Havers added in case Aldara didn’t get the meaning.
“He and I are having a cooling-off period,” Aldara said. “I suppose that’s what you’d call it.”
“And this began when?”
“Some weeks ago.”
“Instigated by whom?”
Aldara didn’t reply, which was answer enough.
“We’ll need his name,” Bea said.
The Greek woman appeared quite surprised by the request, which seemed a largely disingenuous response, as far as Bea was concerned. “Why? He didn’t…He doesn’t know…” She hesitated. She was thinking it over, considering all the signs, Bea concluded.
“Yes, darling,” Bea said to her. “Indeed. It’s very likely he does.” She told her about Santo’s conversation with Tammy Penrule, about Tammy’s advice to him about being honest. “As it turns out, Santo apparently wasn’t asking about whether he should tell Madlyn because Madlyn found out on her own. So it stands to reason he was asking about telling someone else. I expect it’s your gentleman. Which, as you can well imagine, puts him rather into the hot seat.”
“No. He wouldn’t have…” But she hesitated once again. The fact that she was tossing possibilities round inside her attractive head was obvious. Her eyes grew cloudy. They seemed to communicate all the ways in which she knew he very well could have.
“I’m no expert on the subject, but I expect most men don’t care much for sharing their women,” Bea pointed out.
“It’s a cave dweller sort of thing,” Havers added. “My hearth, my fire, my woolly mammoth, my woman. Me Tarzan, you Jane.”
Bea added, “So Santo goes to him and tells him the truth: ‘We’re both having Aldara Pappas, mate, and that’s how she wants it. I just thought you were owed an explanation of where she is when she isn’t with you.’”
“Absurd. Why would Santo-?”
“Logically, he probably wouldn’t have wanted another scene like the scene with Madlyn, especially if it involved a man who might beat the hell out of him in a confrontation.”
“And he was beaten by someone,” Havers pointed out, speaking helpfully to Bea. “At least he was well punched out.”
“Indeed he was,” Bea returned to Havers and then went on to Aldara with, “Which, as you can perhaps imagine, does make things look iffy for the other bloke.”
Aldara dismissed this. “No. Santo would have informed me. That was the nature of our relationship. He wouldn’t have spoken to Max-” She stopped herself.
“Max?” Bea looked at Havers. “Did you note that, Sergeant?”
“Got it in concrete,” Havers said.
“And his surname?” Bea asked Aldara pleasantly.
“Santo had no reason to tell anyone anything. He knew if he did, I would end our arrangement.”
“Which, naturally, would have devastated him,” Bea noted sardonically, “as it would have done to any man. Right. But perhaps the whole of Santo was more than the sum of the parts you saw.”
“That would be the dangly bits,” Havers muttered.
Aldara shot her a look.
Bea said, “Perhaps Santo actually felt guilty about what you two were up to. Or perhaps after the scene with Madlyn, he wanted more off you than you were giving and he reckoned this was the way to get it. I don’t know although I’d like to find out and the way to find out is by talking to your other lover: former, cooling, or otherwise. So. We’re at the end point here. You can give us his surname or we can talk to your employees and get it from them because if this other bloke wasn’t your secret lover like Santo was, it stands to reason he didn’t have to come to you under cover of darkness and you didn’t have to slither off to meet him in someone’s wheelie bin. So someone here is going to know who he is, and that someone is likely to give us his surname.”
Aldara thought about this for a moment. From out in the courtyard, a whir of machinery started, suggesting that Rod was having success in his efforts with the mill. Aldara said abruptly, “Max Priestley.”
“Thank you. And where might we find Mr. Priestley?”
“He owns the Watchman, but-”
Bea said to Havers, “The town rag. He’s local, then.”
“-if you think he had anything to do with Santo’s death, you’re wrong. He didn’t, and he wouldn’t.”
“We’ll let him tell us that himself.”