the place. The body heat of the crowd was seeing to that.
When he'd been at the Salthouse Inn earlier with Daidre Trahair, just a few late-afternoon drinkers had been present. Now, the place's nighttime crowd had arrived, and Lynley had to work his way through them and through their silence to get to the bar. He knew it was more than his clothing that made him an object of interest. There was the not small matter of his smell: unwashed from head to toe for seven weeks now. Unshaven and unshorn as well.
The publican - Lynley recalled that Daidre Trahair had referred to him as Brian - apparently remembered him from his earlier visit because he said abruptly into the silence, -Was it Santo Kerne out there on the cliffs?"
-I'm afraid I don't know who it was. But it was a young man. An adolescent or just older than that. That's all I can tell you."
A murmur rose and fell at this. Lynley heard the name Santo repeated several times. He glanced over his shoulder. Dozens of eyes - young and old and in between - were fixed on him.
He said to Brian, -The boy - Santo - he was well known?"
-He lives hereabouts," was the unhelpful reply. That was the limit of what Brian appeared to be willing to reveal to a stranger. He said, -Are you after a drink, then?"
When Lynley asked for a room instead, he recognised in Brian a marked reluctance to accommodate him. He put this down to what it likely was: a logical unwillingness to allow an unsavoury stranger such as himself access to the inn's sheets and pillows. God only knew what vermin might be crawling upon him. But the novelty he represented at the Salthouse Inn was in his favour. His appearance was in direct conflict with his accent and his manner of speaking, and if that were not enough to make him an object of fascination, there was the intriguing matter of his finding the body, which had likely been the subject of conversation inside the inn before he entered.
-A small room only," was the publican's reply. -But that's the case with all of 'em. Small.
Wasn't like people needed much when the place was built, did they."
Lynley said that the size didn't matter and he'd be happy with whatever the inn could give him.
He didn't know how long he'd actually need the room, he added. It seemed that the police were going to require his presence until matters about the young man in the cove had been decided.
A murmur rose at this. It was the word decided and everything that the word implied.
Brian used the toe of his shoe to ease open a door at the far end of the bar, and he spoke a few words into whatever room existed behind it. From this a middle-aged woman emerged, the inn's cook by her garb of stained white apron, which she was hastily removing. Beneath it she wore a black skirt and white blouse. Sensible shoes as well.
She would take him up to a room, she said. She was all business, as if there was nothing strange about him. This room, she went on, was above the restaurant, not the bar. He'd find it quiet there.
It was a good place to sleep.
She didn't wait for his reply. His thoughts likely didn't interest her anyway. His presence meant custom, which was hard to come by until late spring and summer. When beggars went begging, they couldn't exactly choose their benefactors, could they?
She headed for another door at the far side of the public bar. This gave onto an icy stone passage.
The inn's restaurant operated in a room off this passage, although no one was seated within it, while at the far end a stairway the approximate width of a suitcase made the climb to the floor above. It was difficult to imagine how furniture had been worked up the stairs.
There were three rooms only on the first floor, and Lynley had his choice, although his guide -
her name was Siobhan Rourke, she'd told him, and she was Brian's longtime and apparently long-suffering partner - recommended the smallest of them as it was the one she'd mentioned earlier as being above the restaurant and quiet at this time of year. They all shared the same bathroom, she informed him, but that ought to be of no account as no one else was staying.
Lynley wasn't particular about which room he was given so