“On the phone, you didn’t say Parsons.”
“I didn’t want you driving here like a madman. And I don’t want you like a madman now. We already have one on our hands, I believe, and two would be overwhelming. Mr. Kerne, I can’t tell you how far out on a limb we are with this entire approach so I won’t even go into it. Are you able to listen to what he has to say? More, are you willing?”
“Did he…?” Kerne seemed to search for a way to put it that wouldn’t make what he had to say into a fact he might have to accept. “Did he kill Santo?”
“That’s what we’re going to talk to him about. Are you able?”
He nodded. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his windcheater and indicated with a tilt of his head that he was ready. They set out towards the kissing gate.
On the other side of this gate, a field provided grazing for cows, and the way towards the sea edged along a barbed-wire fence. The path they walked on was muddy and uneven, marked deeply by ruts made from a tractor’s wheels. At the far end of the field lay another field, fenced off from the first by more barbed wire and accessed through yet another kissing gate. Ultimately, they walked perhaps half a mile or more and their destination was the South-West Coast Path, which crossed the second field high above the sea.
The wind was fierce here, coming onshore in continuous gusts. On these, the seabirds rose and fell. Kittiwakes called. Herring gulls replied. A lone green cormorant shot up from the cliff side as up ahead Jago Reeth approached the edge. The bird dove down, rose, and began to circle. Looking for prey, Bea thought, in the turbulent water.
They headed south on the coastal path, but within some twenty yards, a break in the gorse that stood between the path and perdition indicated a set of steep stone stairs. This, Bea saw, was their destination. Jago Reeth disappeared down them.
She said to her companions, “Hang on, then,” and she went to see where the stone steps led. She was reckoning they were a means to get to the beach, which lay some two hundred feet below the cliff top, and she intended to tell Jago Reeth that she had no intention of putting her life, Havers’s life, and Ben Kerne’s life at risk by following him down some perilous route to the water. But she found the steps went down only as far as fifteen of them could descend, and they terminated in another path, this one narrow and heavily grown on each side with gorse and sedge. It, too, headed south but for no great distance. Its conclusion was an ancient hut built partially into the face of the cliff that backed it. Jago Reeth, she saw, had just reached the hut’s doorway and swung it open. He saw her on the steps but made no further gesture. Their eyes met briefly before he ducked inside the old structure.
She returned to the top of the cliff. She spoke above the sound of the wind, the sea, and the gulls. “He’s just below, in the hut. He might well have something stowed inside, so I’m going in first. You can wait on the path, but don’t come near till I give you the word.”
She went down the steps and along the path, the gorse brushing against the legs of her trousers. She reached the hut and found that Jago had indeed prepared for this moment. Not with weapons, however. Either he or someone else had earlier supplied the hut with a spirit stove, a jug of water, and a small box of supplies. The man was, incredibly, brewing tea.
The hut was fashioned from the driftwood of wrecked ships, of which there had been countless numbers over the centuries. It was a small affair, with a bench that ran round three sides and an uneven stone floor. As long as it had been in this place, people had carved their initials into its walls, so they had the appearance now of a wooden Rosetta stone, this one immediately comprehensible and speaking both of lovers and of people whose internal insignificance made them seek an outward expression-any outward expression-that would give their existence meaning.
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-”