-I'm trying to get to the truth, Mr. Angarrack. Did Madlyn tell you - or you, Mr. Reeth - that Santo was seeing someone else in the midst of all this? And I do use seeing as a euphemism, by the way. He was shagging one of the older women hereabouts at the same time as he was shagging and impregnating your daughter. She's told us as much, at least the shagging part.
Well, she had to, as we've caught her in more than one lie so far and I'm afraid she'd lied herself into a brick wall. As things turn out, she'd followed the boy and there they were in this woman's home, the virile, energetic, and young white ram enthusiastically tupping the ageing ewe. Did you know about this? Did you, Mr. Reeth?"
Lew Angarrack said, -No. No." His drove his hand through his greying hair, dislodging a sand fall of polystyrene dust. -I've been caught up in my own affairs...I knew she and the boy were done for, and I thought that with time...Madlyn's always been edgy. I've long thought it was due to her mum and the fact she left us and the fact that Madlyn doesn't cope well with being left.
Well, that seemed natural enough to me, and she always got past it in the end if something died between herself and someone else. I believed she'd get past this as well, even past the loss of the baby. So when she was as...as disturbed as she was, I did what I could, or what I thought I could to help her through it."
-Which was?"
-I sacked the boy, and I encouraged her to get back to her surfing. Get back in shape. Get back on the circuit. I told her no one goes through life without getting their heart broken into bits, but people recover."
-Like you had?" Havers asked.
-If it comes to it, yes."
-And what did you know of this other woman?" Bea asked him.
-Nothing. Madlyn never said...I knew nothing."
-You, Mr. Reeth?"
Jago picked up his block and examined it. He nodded slowly. -She told me. She wanted me to have a word with the boy. I s'pose it was to try to set him straight. But I told her it wouldn't do much good. That age? A boy i'n't thinking with his brain, and didn't she see that? I tell her there's lots of fish in the sea, like they say. I say, Let's be rid of this sorry piece of business, girl, and get on with our lives. It's the only way."
He didn't seem to realise what he had just said. Bea eyed him carefully. She could tell that Havers was doing the same. Bea said, - Irregular is the term that's been used for what Santo was up to on the side while he was seeing Madlyn, and Santo himself was the one to use it. He was advised to be honest about it, about the irregular bit. He may have been, but he apparently wasn't with Madlyn. Was he honest with you, Mr. Reeth? You appear to have something of a touch with young people."
-I only knew what our Madlyn knew," Jago Reeth said. -Irregular, you say? That was the word was used?"
-Irregular, yes. Irregular enough for him to ask advice about it."
-Having it on with an older woman might've been irregular enough," Lew noted.
-But enough to seek advice about it?" Bea asked, more to herself than to them.
-S'pose," Jago said, -it depends on who the woman was, eh? It always comes down to that in the end."
Chapter Twenty-one
DESPITE JAGO'S WARNING, CADAN COULDN'T HELP HIMSELF. It was complete insanity and he damn well knew it, but he engaged in it anyway: the soft silken feel of her thighs tightening round him; the sound of her moaning and then the heightened growing rapturous yes of her response, and this set against a backdrop of waves crashing against the nearby shore; the mixed scents of the sea, of her female smells, and of wood rot from the tiny beach hut; the eternal female salt of her where he licked as she shrieked and yes yes as her fingers dug into his hair; the dim light from the cracks round the door casting a nearly ethereal glow on skin that was slick but lithe and firm and willing God so eager and ever so willing...
It could have been like that, Cadan thought, and despite the growing lateness of the day he wasn't all that far