The Lighthouse by James P. D

Author:James, P. D. [James, P. D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Crime, thriller, Suspense
ISBN: 9780307264336
Goodreads: 7148644
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 2005-11-22T08:00:00+00:00

10

* * *

Maycroft had offered Dalgliesh the use of bicycles while the team was on the island. There were four of them kept ready for the use of visitors, but Kate, although she knew that they were working against time, said that she and Benton-Smith would walk to Atlantic Cottage. There was something almost risible in the thought of the two of them pedalling away down the lane to interview a murder suspect. Dalgliesh, she knew, was unlikely to be worried about losing face and would probably have been amused by the unorthodox method of transport. Kate, while regretting that she hadn’t his self-confidence, preferred to walk. It was, after all, only about half a mile. The exercise would do them good.

For the first hundred yards the path was close to the cliff edge, and from time to time they would pause briefly to gaze down on the cracked and layered granite, the jagged teeth of the rocks and the sluicing tide. Then the path swerved to the right and they were walking down a grassy lane bounded on the right by rising ground and protected by a low hedge of brambles and hawthorn. They walked without speaking. If Kate had been accompanied by Piers Tarrant they would, she knew, have been discussing the case—their first reactions to the people, the curious knot on the noose—but now she preferred not to speculate aloud until Dalgliesh held his usual get-together, which could be last thing tonight. And by midday tomorrow, Dalgliesh would have received Dr. Glenister’s report and with luck they would know with certainty that they were investigating a murder. She knew that already Dalgliesh had no doubt, and neither had she. She supposed that Benton felt the same, but some inhibition, not altogether related to her seniority, held her back from asking his opinion. She accepted that they would have to work closely together. With only three of them on the island and no immediate prospect of the usual paraphernalia of a murder investigation—photographers, fingerprint experts, scene-of-crime officers—it would be ludicrous to be punctilious about status or the division of tasks. Her problem was that their relationship, however apparently formal, had to be harmonious; the difficulty was that there was no relationship. He had worked with her as a member of the team only on one previous occasion. Then he had been efficient, not afraid to speak his mind, bringing an obvious intelligence to bear on the case. But she simply hadn’t begun to know him or to understand him. He seemed to be surrounded by some self-erected palisade with Keep Out notices hung on the wire.

And now Atlantic Cottage was in view. She had observed from the air that it was the largest of the stone cottages and the one closest to the cliff edge. Now she saw that there were two cottages, the larger to the right with a tiled porch, two bay windows either side and two above under a stone roof. The smaller was flat-fronted and low-roofed with four smaller windows.

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