The Lamorna Wink by Martha Grimes Page A

watch the sunrise every morning. Up before the sun! What a dreadful idea; he shuddered.
    He thought of the Bletchleys. He could empathize with them and their painful memories; what had happened in this house was too painful for them to continue here. And yet . . . memories could never be eradicated. Was it even possible that they gathered force from having been torn from a place one no longer came to?
    He regretted selling the Belgravia house. He saw that gesture now for what it was: an act of revenge or, worse, spite. Punishing his mother and Nicholas Grey. His memories of Nicholas Grey were even more abundant or, at least, more finely wrought because now they couldn’t be diffused.
    Melrose tried not to think of this Nicholas Grey—of heroism and courage and self-denial—preferring instead to picture him as the snake in the Eden grass, the betrayer of his father and seducer of his mother.
    The trouble was, he could not love his father much because he always drew back from Melrose. This did not happen because his father knew the boy was not his son; Lady Marjorie would never have admitted this. Had his father known, she would have had to pay a high price; there would literally have been hell to pay. He would not have divorced her, no. That would have rewarded her behavior, for she could then have gone immediately to Grey.
    What he realized now was that he had rescinded the titles not because it was the honorable thing to do but because he hadn’t wanted them. It would have been nice to believe that he felt like an impostor, unfair to the Caverness line and especially unfair to his father. He would have preferred to believe he was doing the honorable thing, only it wasn’t so. He just wanted to be rid of the Earl of Caverness and be, as his mother had written, “a plain old fellow.”

15
    M elrose was seated at his regular table in the Drowned Man’s dining room, trying to stare down the dogs in the doorway, when Johnny Wells slapped through the swinging door of the kitchen with a jug of water and a basket of bread.
    â€œAh!” exclaimed Melrose. “We’ve looked for you at your various places of employment. That is to say, the Devon and Cornwall police looked.”
    Johnny took a step back, wide-eyed. He still held the jug of water, slices of lemon floating on top like pale flowers. “Me? Why?”
    â€œI’m glad you were gone. Police were called to a place—Lamorna Cove, you know it?” Johnny nodded, waiting. “A woman— not your aunt; not, I repeat, your Aunt Chris—was found dead, probably murdered. I was, as I said, extremely glad you weren’t here to be asked to look at the police photos taken at the scene.” Melrose went on to describe what Brenda Friel had said.
    â€œChrist! I’m glad I wasn’t here, too.” He filled Melrose’s water glass and handed him the tasseled wine list. “I was in Penzance. My uncle lives there, and I thought he might know something.” Johnny shrugged. “He didn’t. I didn’t expect him to. I’d already rung him up once. I guess I just wanted someone to worry along with me. And you: you’re leaving, Mr. Pfinn says.”
    There was that note of accusation in his tone over Melrose’s hurried—and irresponsible?—return to Northamptonshire. He was flattered to be included in those people Johnny chose to worry along with him, and said, “But I’ll be back in no time, within the next few days, as soon as I can pack up a few clothes and my car. I’ve rented Seabourne for three months.”
    At this Johnny looked relieved. “Good. I’ll look for you, then.”
    â€œI’ll be coming here on a fairly regular basis for dinner. I’m not much of a cook.” Melrose felt abashed at the truth of this and looked down at his napkin. Was he much of anything when it came to looking out for himself? He removed a card from his silver card