He should have measured both ends, he realised. He felt his neck grow hot with embarrassment.
“Oh dear,” Daidre said. And then quickly, as if she believed her remark spoke of a lack of confidence, “Well, I’m sure it’s only a matter of-”
“Putty,” he said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“This merely calls for a greater amount of putty at one end. There’s no real problem.”
“Oh that’s lovely,” she said. “That’s good. That’s excellent.” She took herself off to the kitchen at once, murmuring obscurely about brewing tea.
He struggled with the project: the putty, the putty knife, the glass, the placement of the glass, the falling rain that he should have damn well known was going to make the entire enterprise impossible. She stayed in the kitchen. She remained there so long that he drew the conclusion she was not only laughing at his ineptitude but also hiding the fact that she herself could have repaired the window with one hand tied behind her back. After all, she was the woman who’d used him as a mop when it came to darts.
When at last she emerged, he’d managed to get the glass in, but it was obvious that someone with more skill than he was going to have to repair his repair. He admitted as much and apologised. He had to go down to Pengelly Cove, he told her, and if she had the time to accompany him there, he’d make everything up to her with dinner.
“Pengelly Cove? Why?” she asked.
“Police business,” he replied.
“Does DI Hannaford think there are answers in Pengelly Cove? And she’s setting you after them? Why not one of her own policemen?” Daidre asked. When he hesitated about giving her an answer, it took her only a moment to understand. She said, “Ah. So you’re not a suspect any longer. Is that wise of DI Hannaford?”
“What?”
“To dismiss you from suspicion because you’re a cop? Fairly shortsighted, isn’t it?”
“I think she’s had trouble coming up with a motive.”
“I see.” Her voice had altered, and he knew she’d put the rest of it together. If he was no longer a suspect, she still was. She would know that there was a reason for this, and she would probably know why.
He thought she might refuse to go with him, but she didn’t, and he was glad. He was seeking a way to get to the truth of who she was and what she was hiding, and with no easy resources at hand to do this, gaining her trust through companionship did seem the best way.
Miracles proved to be his means of access. They’d driven up from the cove and they were winding through Stowe Wood on their way to the A39 when he asked her if she believed in miracles. At first she frowned at the question. Then she said, “Oh. The Internet paperwork you saw. No, I don’t, actually. But a friend of mine-a colleague at the zoo, the primate keeper, as a matter of fact-is planning a trip for his parents because they believe in miracles and they’re in rather bad need of one at the moment. A miracle, that is, not a trip.”
“That’s very good of you to help him out.” He glanced over at her. Her skin was blotchy. “Your…” What was the colleague to her? he wondered. Your lover, your boyfriend, your erstwhile partner? Why this reaction?
“It’s an act of friendship,” she said, as if he’d asked those questions. “Pancreatic cancer. There’s no real coming back from that diagnosis, but he’s not an old man-Paul says his dad’s only fifty-four-and they want to try everything. I think it’s futile, but who am I to say? So I told him I’d…well, I’d look for the place with the best statistics. Rather silly, isn’t it?”
“Not necessarily.”
“Well, of course it is, Thomas. How does one apply statistics to a place dominated by mysticism and earnest if misplaced belief? If I bathe in these waters, are my chances for a cure better than if I scribbled my request on a scrap of paper and left it at the foot of a marble statue of a saint? What if I kiss the ground in Medjugorje? Or is the best course to stay home and pray to someone on the fast track for a halo? They need miracles to get their sainthood, don’t they? What about that route? It would at least save money that we can’t afford to spend anyway.” She drew a breath and he glanced her way again. She was leaning against the car door, and her face looked rather pinched. “Sorry,” she said. “I do go on. But one so hates to see people divorce themselves from their own common sense because a crisis has arisen. If you know what I mean.”
“Yes,” he said evenly. “As it happens, I do know what you mean.”
She raised her hand to her lips. She had strong-looking hands, sensible hands, a doctor’s hands, with clipped, clean nails. “Oh my God. I am so bloody sorry. I’ve done it again. Sometimes, my mouth goes off.”
“It’s all right.”
“It isn’t. You would have done anything to save her. I’m terribly sorry.”
“No. What you said is perfectly true. In crisis people thrash about, looking for answers, trying to get to a solution. And to them the solution is always what they want and not necessarily what’s actually best for anyone else.”
“Still, I didn’t mean to cause you pain. I don’t ever mean that for anyone, for that matter.”
“Thank you.”
From there he couldn’t see how to get to her lies except to tell a few of his own, which he preferred not to do. Surely, it was up to Bea Hannaford to question Daidre Trahair about her alleged route from Bristol to Polcare Cove. It was up to Bea Hannaford to reveal to Daidre exactly what the police knew about her putative lunch at a pub, and it was up to Bea Hannaford to decide how to utilise that knowledge to force the vet into an admission of whatever it was that she needed to admit.
He used the pause in their conversation to head in another direction. He said lightly, “We started with a governess. Have I told you that? Completely nineteenth century. It only lasted till my sister and I rebelled and put frogs into her bed on Guy Fawkes night. And at that time of year, believe me, frogs weren’t easy to find.”
“Are you saying you actually had a governess as a child? Poor Jane Eyre with no Mr. Rochester to rescue her from a life of servitude, dining in her bedroom alone because she wasn’t upstairs or downstairs either?”
“It wasn’t as bad as that. She dined with us. With the family. We’d begun with a nanny but when it was time for school, the governess came onboard. This was for my older sister and me. By the time my brother was born-he’s ten years younger than I, have I told you?-that had all been put to rest.”
“But it’s so…so charmingly antique.” Lynley could hear the laughter in Daidre’s voice.
“Yes, isn’t it? But it was that, boarding school, or the village school where we would mix with the local children.”
“With their ghastly Cornish accents,” Daidre noted.
“The very thing. My father was determined that we would follow in his educational footsteps, which did not lead to the village school. My mother was equally determined we wouldn’t be packed off to boarding school at seven years of age-”
“Wise woman.”
“-so their compromise was a governess until we drove her off with her sanity barely intact. At which point, we did go to the local school, which was what we both wanted anyway. My father must have tested our accents every day, however. It seemed so. God forbid that we should ever sound common.”
“He’s dead now?”
“Years and years.” Lynley ventured a look. She was studying him and he wondered if she was considering the topic of schooling and wondering why they were talking about it. He said, “What about you?” and tried to make it casual, noting his discomfort as he did so. In the past, attempting to work a suspect round to a trap had presented no problem for him.
“Both of my parents are hale and hearty.”
“I meant school,” he said.