A Place of Hiding (Inspector Lynley, #12)(165)

She said, “I’ve been phoning. Why haven’t you answered? You’ve been home, haven’t you?”

“Didn’t want to.” He opened the washing machine, where a load was done, and he began shoving this into the dryer. Nearby in a sink, water dripped rhythmically into something that was soaking. Henry inspected this, dumped a splash of bleach in it, and stirred it vigorously with a long wooden spoon.

“Not good for business, that,” Valerie said. “People might be wanting you for work.”

“Answered the mobile,” he told her. “Business calls come there.”

Valerie swore silently at this piece of news. She hadn’t thought of his mobile. Why? Because she’d been too frightened and worried and guiltridden to think about anything but calming her own ragged nerves. She said, “Oh. The mobile. I hadn’t thought of the mobile.”

He said, “Right,” and began tossing his next load of laundry into the washer. These were the girls’ clothes: jeans, jumpers, and socks. “You hadn’t thought, Val.”

The contempt in his voice stung, but she refused to let him intimidate her into leaving the house. She said, “Where’re the girls, Harry?”

He glanced at her when she used the nickname. For an instant she could see past the loathing he wore as his mask and he was again the little boy whose hand she’d held when they’d crossed the Esplanade to bathe at the pools below Havelet Bay. You can’t hide from me, Harry, she wanted to tell him. But instead she waited for his answer.

“School. Where else would they be?”

“I suppose I meant Cyn,” she admitted.

He made no reply.

She said, “Harry, you can’t keep her locked—”

He pointed his finger at her and said, “No one’s locked anywhere. You hear me? No one is locked.”

“You’ve let her out, then. I did see you’ve taken the grille off the window.”

Instead of answering, he reached for the detergent and poured it onto the clothes. He didn’t measure it and he looked at her as he poured and poured, as if challenging her to offer advice. But she’d done that once, only once, God forgive her. And she’d come to assure herself that nothing had resulted from her saying, “Henry, you’ve got to take action.”

She said, “Has she gone off somewhere, then?”

“Won’t come out of her room.”

“You’ve taken the lock off the door?”

“No need for it now.”

“No need?” She felt a shudder run through her. She clasped her arms round her body although the house was not the least bit cold.

“No need,” Henry repeated, and as if he wanted to illustrate a point, he went to the sink where the water was dripping and he used the wooden spoon to fish something out.

It was a pair of woman’s knickers that he held up, and he allowed the water to run off them and pool on the floor. Valerie could see the faint stain that was still upon them despite the soaking and despite the bleach.

She felt a wave of nausea as she understood exactly why her brother had kept his daughter in her room.

“So she’s not,” Valerie said.

“One breeze in hell.” He jerked his head in the direction of the bedrooms. “So she won’t come out. You can talk to her if you have a mind to. But she’s got the door locked from the inside now and she’s been wailing like a cat when you drown its kittens. Bloody little fool.” He slammed down the lid of the washing machine, pushed a few buttons, and set it to its business.

Valerie went to her niece’s bedroom door. She tapped on it and said her name, adding, “It’s Auntie Val, darling. Will you open the door?” but Cynthia was utterly silent within. At this, Valerie thought about the worst. She cried, “Cynthia? Cynthia! I’d like to speak to you. Open the door please.” Again, silence was the only reply. Deathly silence. Inhuman silence. There seemed to Valerie to be only one way that a seventeen-yearold girl went from wailing like a cat to perfect stillness. She hurried back to her brother.

“We need to get into that bedroom,” she said. “She may have harmed—”

“Rubbish. She’ll come out when she’s ready.” He barked a bitter laugh. “Maybe she’s grown to like it in there.”

“Henry, you can’t just let her—”

“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t!” he shouted. “Don’t you sodding ever tell me one bloody thing more. You’ve told me enough. You’ve done your part. I’ll cope with the rest the way I want to.”

This was her biggest fear: her brother’s coping. Because what he was coping with was something far larger than a daughter’s sexual activity. Had it been some boy from town, from the college, Henry might have warned Cynthia of the dangers, might have seen to it that every precaution was taken to safeguard her from the fallout of sex that was casual but nonetheless highly charged because it was all so new to her. But this had been more than the budding of a daughter’s sexual awareness. This had been a seduction and a betrayal so profound that when Valerie had first revealed it to her brother, he had not believed her. He could not bring himself to believe her. He’d retreated from the information like an animal stunned by a blow to the head. She’d said, “Listen to me, Henry. It’s the truth, and if you don’t do something, God only knows what will happen to the girl.”