A Place of Hiding (Inspector Lynley, #12)(123)

She hadn’t counted on the creature who answered her knock on the door. He was a hulking mass of unkempt unwashed unseemly male antagonism. To her pleasant enquiry of “Good morning. Do the parents of Paul Fielder live here?” he replied, “Could be they do, could be they don’t,”

and he fastened his eyes upon her breasts with the deliberate intention of unnerving her.

She said, “You aren’t Mr. Fielder, are you? Not the father...” But, of course, he couldn’t have been. For all his deliberate sexual precocity, he looked no more than twenty years old. “You must be a brother? I’d like to speak to your parents, if they’re here. You might tell them this is about your brother. Paul Fielder is your brother, I take it?”

He lifted his eyes from her chest momentarily. “Little git,” he said, and stepped away from the door.

Margaret took this as invitation to enter, and when the lout disappeared to the rear of the house, she took this as further invitation to follow. She found herself in a cramped kitchen smelling of rancid bacon, alone with him, where he lit a cigarette on the gas burner of the hob and turned to face her as he inhaled.

“Wha’s he done now?” Brother Fielder asked.

“He’s inherited a fair sum of money from my husband, from my former husband, to be exact. He’s inherited it away from my son, to whom it is owed. I’d like to avoid a lengthy court battle over this matter, and I thought it best to see if your parents felt likewise.”

“Did you?” Brother Fielder asked. He adjusted his filthy blue jeans round his hips, shifted his legs, and broke wind loudly. “Pardon,” he said.

“Must mind my manners with a lady. I forget.”

“Your parents aren’t here, I take it?” Margaret settled her bag on her arm in an indication that their encounter was quickly drawing to a close.

“If you’ll tell them—”

“Could be they’re just ’bove stairs. They like to go at it in the morning, they do. What ’bout you? When d’you like it?”

Margaret decided her conversation with this yob had gone on long enough. She said, “If you’ll tell them Margaret Chamberlain—formerly Brouard—stopped by...I’ll phone them later.” She turned to go the way she’d come.

“Margaret Chamberlain Formerly Brouard,” Brother Fielder repeated.

“Don’t know if I c’n remember that much. I’ll need some help with all that. Real mouthful, it is.”

Margaret stopped in her progress to the front door. “If you have a piece of paper, I’ll write it down.”

She was in the passage between front door and kitchen and the young man joined her there. His proximity in the narrow corridor made him seem more threatening than he otherwise might have been, and the silence in the house round and above them seemed amplified suddenly. He said, “I di’n’t have a paper in mind. I don’t ever remember any good with papers.”

“Well, then. That’s that, isn’t it? I’ll just have to phone and introduce myself to them.” Margaret turned—although she was loath to put him out of her sight—and made for the door.

He caught her up in two steps and trapped her hand on the knob. She felt his breath hot on her neck. He moved against her so she was pressed into the door. When he had her there, he released her hand and groped downward till he’d found her crotch. He grabbed hard and jerked her back against him. With his other hand he reached for and squeezed her left breast. It all happened in a second. “This’ll help me remember good enough,” he muttered.

All Margaret could think, ludicrously, was what had he done with the cigarette he’d lit? Was it in his hand? Did he mean to burn her?

The lunacy of those thoughts in circumstances in which burning was clearly the last thing on the creature’s mind acted as a spur to free her from fear. She drove her elbow backwards into his ribs. She drove the heel of her boot into the centre of his foot. In the moment his grip loosened upon her, she shoved him back and got herself out of the door. She wanted to stay and drive her knee into his bollocks—God, how she was itching to do that—but although she was a tigress when enraged, she had never been a fool. She made for her car.

As she drove in the direction of Le Reposoir, she found that her body was shot through with adrenaline and her response to the adrenaline was rage. She directed it at the loathsome excuse of a human being she’d found in the Bouet. How dared he...Who the hell did he thi nk...What did he intend... She could bloody well have killed... But that lasted only so long. It spent itself as the realisation of what might have happened grew in her mind, and this redirected her fury onto a more appropriate recipient: her son.

He hadn’t gone with her. He’d left her to deal with Henry Moullin herself on the previous day, and he’d done exactly the same this morning. She was finished with it, Margaret decided. By God, she was finished. She was finished with orchestrating Adrian’s life without the slightest assistance or even any thanks. She’d been fighting his battles since the day he was born, and that was over.

At Le Reposoir, she slammed the door of the Range Rover and stalked to the house, where she opened and slammed its door as well. The slams punctuated the monologue going on in her head. She was finished. Slam. He was bloody well on his own. Slam again. No sound came in response to her ministrations upon the heavy front door. This infuriated her in ways she wouldn’t have expected, and she charged across the old stone hall with her boot heels marking an enraged tattoo. She fairly flew up the stairs to Adrian’s room. The only things keeping her from bursting in on him were concern that some sign of what she’d just gone through might be apparent on her person and fear that she’d find Adrian engaged in some disgusting personal activity. And perhaps, she thought, that’s what had driven Carmel Fitzgerald into the all-too-willing arms of Adrian’s own father. She’d had a first-hand experience of one or another of Adrian’s odious methods of self-soothing when under pressure and she’d run to Guy in confusion, seeking solace and an explanation, both of which Guy had been all too willing to give her.