A Place of Hiding (Inspector Lynley, #12)(183)

Adrian wasn’t doing anything in the gallery. He was merely in the act of being Adrian, slumped in an armchair. The room was cold and against its chill, Adrian had donned his leather jacket. His legs were stretched out in front of him and his hands were in his pockets. His might have been the posture of someone watching a favourite football team get thoroughly humiliated on the pitch, but Adrian’s eyes were not fixed on a television. Instead, they were fastened onto the mantel. Half a dozen family pictures stood there, among them Adrian with his father. Adrian with his halfsisters. Adrian with his aunt. Margaret said his name and “Did you hear me? She thinks you’ve no right to his money. He thought that as well, according to her. She says he didn’t believe in entitlements. That’s the way she put it. As if we’re supposed to actually believe that story. If your father had had the great good fortune of having someone leave him an inheritance, d’you think he would have turned up his nose at it? Would he have said ‘Oh dear. No thanks. It’s not good for me. Better leave it to someone whose purity wouldn’t be spoiled by unexpected money.’ Not very likely. They’re hypocrites, both of them. What he did, he did to punish me through you, and she’s happy as a slug on a lettuce leaf just to carry on with his plan. Adrian! Are you listening?

Have you heard a single word I’ve said?”

She’d wondered if he’d escaped to one of his twilight states, which would be so bloody typical of him. Just sink into the self for an extended period of faux catatonia, my fine young man. Leave Mummy to handle the difficult details in your life.

Finally, it was all too much for Margaret: the history of phone calls from the schools that Adrian couldn’t succeed in, with the San sisters telling her confidentially that there was “really nothing wrong with the boy, Madam”; the psychologists with their sympathetic expressions informing her that those apron strings simply had to be cut if her son was to improve; the husbands who’d found their protective wings not large enough to shelter a stepson with so many problems; the siblings punished for tormenting him; the teachers lectured for misunderstanding him; the doctors disagreed with for failing to help him; the pets dispensed with for failing to please him; the employers begged for third and fourth chances; the landlords interceded with; the potential girlfriends importuned and manipulated...And all of it done to bring her to this moment when he was meant to listen at least, to murmur a single word of acknowledgement, to say to her, “You did your best, Mum,” or perhaps even to grunt but, no, that asked too much of him, didn’t it, that asked him to put out a little effort, that asked him to have some gumption, to care about having a life that was a life and not just an extension of hers because God God a mother was guaranteed something, wasn’t she? Wasn’t she at least guaranteed the knowledge that her children had the will to survive if left on their own?

But motherhood had guaranteed her absolutely nothing from her oldest son. Seeing this, Margaret felt her resolve finally crack. She said “Adrian!” and when he didn’t reply, she smacked him hard across the cheek. She shrieked, “I’m not a piece of furniture! Answer me at once! Adrian, if you don’t—” She raised her hand again. He caught it as she began to bring it down on his face. He held it hard and kept it in his grasp as he stood. Then he tossed it to one side like so much rubbish and said, “You always make things worse. I don’t want you here. Go home.”

She said, “My God. How dare you...” But that was all she managed to utter.

He said, “Enough,” and left her in the gallery.

So she’d come to her room, where she’d taken her suitcases from beneath the bed. She’d packed the first and she was on the second. She would go home now. She would leave him to his fate. She would give him the opportunity he apparently wanted to see how he liked coping with life on his own.

Two car doors slammed in quick succession on the drive, and Margaret went to her window. She’d heard the police leave not five minutes earlier, and she’d seen they hadn’t taken the Fielder boy with them. She hoped they’d returned for him, having come up with a reason to lock the little beast away. But she saw below her a navy Ford Escort, its driver and passenger engaged in conversation over its bonnet.

The passenger she recognised from the reception that had followed Guy’s funeral: the disabled, ascetic-looking man she’d seen lurking near the fireplace. His companion, the driver, was a red-headed woman. Margaret wondered what they wanted, who they’d come to see.

She was answered soon enough. For along the drive from the direction of the bay, Adrian came walking. The fact that the newcomers were turned his way told Margaret they’d probably seen him on the lane as they’d driven in and were in fact waiting for him to join them. All her antennae went up. No matter her previous resolve to leave her son to his fate, Adrian talking to strangers while his father’s murder went unsolved was Adrian in jeopardy.

Margaret was holding a nightdress preparatory to placing it in her suitcase. She tossed it on the bed and hurried from the room. She heard the murmur of Ruth’s voice from Guy’s study as she headed for the stairs. She made a mental note to deal later with her sister-in-law’s refusal to let her confront that little yobbo-in-training while the police were in attendance. Now there was a more pressing situation to handle. Once outside, she saw that the man and his red-headed companion were walking to join her son. She called out, “Hello? Hello, there. May I help you with something? I’m Margaret Chamberlain.”