Billy’s assistant appears with coffee and sandwiches, blushing when she sets down the tray. I’ve got a good memory for faces, but with so many other distractions, her familiarity could just be my imagination playing tricks. My thoughts are pulling in three directions at once. Nina is top of my list, followed by Hayle’s murder. I’m trying not to consider the hired killer who’s heading my way, but the threat stays at the back of my mind.
I wait until Chloe leaves the room before explaining what I’ve learnt: how Arthur Penwithick witnessed Hayle’s attack on Nathan Kernow as a child. There’s a bemused look on Ken Ellis’s face when I explain that he may have harmed other kids too, under the guise of mentorship. Tom Kinsella seems to be taking events in his stride, proving that he’s cool under pressure.
Eddie is the first to speak after my update. ‘Most people saw Hayle as a force for good, boss. No one’s claimed he was a predator until now.’
‘That’s how it works, isn’t it? High-profile abusers create a smokescreen of respectability, then choose their victims. Confident kids never get picked in case they squeal. We still need to find out why Hayle died, whatever his crimes, but this is compelling as a motive. Ray sensed there was something sinister behind Hayle’s regime too.’
‘Sounds like the bloke had it coming,’ Gannick mutters, but her professionalism soon returns. ‘There’s no sign of forced entry on the external doors and windows of his house. I’ve lifted fingerprints from internal surfaces too, but they’re all his so far. The killer did a tidy job cleaning up after themselves.’
‘We’re looking for someone meticulous then. The only reason we know the skeleton was Hugh Porthcawl is because you found a minute bone fragment. They must have gone over the burial site with a toothcomb. But it’s possible Louis Hayle killed him, isn’t it? The lad had just reached adulthood, and might have been a victim as a child. If he threatened to tell the authorities, Hayle’s world would have crumbled.’
‘Jamie’s complaining about being locked up, boss,’ Eddie says.
‘We can keep him until tomorrow morning. I need to be sure he’s innocent, before releasing him.’
‘It wasn’t Nathan Kernow who killed Hayle. I’ve checked alibis for the time of death, and his is cast-iron. He was helping old Mrs Wood in the Town; he rigged up an outdoor light, mowed her lawn, then stayed for dinner. Apparently he’s given her loads of support since her husband died.’
The news interests me. Kernow endured more trauma than any child should face, yet he’s made a life for himself here. Why would he return to a place where his abuser lived in a hilltop mansion, staring down at the rest of us like a king? Shame or embarrassment about the attacks, as well as horrifying memories, might have silenced other victims too.
‘We can work out the exact timescale. Nathan Kernow is forty now, which means that Hayle was abusing kids twenty-nine years ago. Maggie says his wife started accompanying him on his trips here about twenty years ago. Eddie, can you find out the names and ages of all the kids and teenagers on the island during that nine-year window? One of his victims may have taken revenge at last. We also have to find Danny Trenwith. Can you get a party of volunteers together to scour the island again?’
When I cast my gaze round the room, my team are reacting differently to the news that Hayle was a child abuser. The expression on Liz Gannick’s face is the most memorable. Her scowl has drawn a hard vertical line between her eyebrows that looks too deep ever to be erased.
I let everyone return to their tasks after the meeting then check my phone messages. The first is from my old boss in London. Local police and the murder squad have had no luck yet in finding out who killed Annie Hardwick. Commander Goldman sounds convinced that the killer will have got here before the ferry’s last crossing.
‘Stay safe, Kitto. Take every imaginable precaution,’ she says. Her message ends abruptly, leaving nothing behind except white noise.