A Place of Hiding (Inspector Lynley, #12)(189)

“That isn’t true!”

“Funnily enough, though, she did prefer me. Even with him there. You could say it was because she wasn’t his type and she knew it—not blonde, not submissive the way he liked them, not appropriately awed by his money and his power. But the fact is she wasn’t impressed by him, no matter the charm he poured on. She knew it was just a game, and it was, wasn’t it: the clever talk, the anecdotes, the probing questions while giving a woman all of his attention. He didn’t want her, not really, but if she’d been willing, he would’ve gone for it because that’s what he always did. Second nature. You know. Who better than you? Only she wasn’t willing.”

“Then why on earth did you tell me...did you imply...And you can’t deny it. You did imply. Why?”

“You’d already worked it out in your head. Carmel and I ended things after we came here to see him, and what other reason could there possibly have been? I’d caught him with his hands down her knickers—”

“Stop that!”

“And I’d been forced to end it. Or she’d ended it, liking him better than me. That was the only thing you could work out, wasn’t it? Because if it wasn’t that, if I hadn’t lost her to Dad, then it would have to be something else, and you didn’t want to think what that was because you’d been hoping all of it was finally passed.”

“You’re talking nonsense.”

“So here’s what it was, Mother. Carmel was willing to take just about anything. She wasn’t a looker and she didn’t have much spark to her either. She wasn’t likely to hook up with more than one bloke in her life, so she was willing to settle. And having settled, she wasn’t likely to go after other men. In short, she was perfect. You saw it. I saw it. Everybody saw it. Carmel saw it, too. We were made for each other. But there was only one problem: a compromise she wasn’t able to make.”

“What sort of compromise? What are you talking about?”

“A nocturnal compromise.”

“Nocturnal? You sleepwalked? She was frightened? She didn’t understand that these things—”

“I peed the bed,” he cut in. His face blazed humiliation. “All right?

Happy? I peed the bed.”

Margaret attempted to keep the aversion from her voice as she said,

“That could have happened to anyone. A night of too much drink...A nightmare, even...The confusion of being in a house not your own...”

“Every night we were here,” he said. “Every night. She was sympathetic, but who can blame her for calling things off? Even a mousy little chess player without a hope in hell of ever having another man draws the line somewhere. She’d been willing to put up with the sleepwalking. The night sweats. The bad dreams. Even my occasional descent into the fog. But she drew the line at having to sleep in my piss, and I can hardly blame her. I’ve been sleeping in it myself for thirty-seven years, and it gets unpleasant.”

“No! You were past that. I know you were past that. Whatever happened here in your father’s house, it was an aberration. It won’t happen again because your father is dead. So I’ll phone her. I’ll tell her.”

“That eager, are you?”

“You deserve—”

“Let’s not lie. Carmel was your best chance of being rid of me, Mother. It just didn’t work out the way you hoped.”

“That isn’t true!”

“Isn’t it?” He shook his head in amused derision. “And here I was thinking you wanted no more lies.” He turned back to the door, no mother there any longer to stop him leaving the room. He opened it. He said over his shoulder as he stepped from the drawing room, “I’m finished with this.”

“With what? Adrian, you can’t—”

“I can,” he said. “And I do. I am what I am, which is, let’s face it, exactly what you wanted me to be. Look where that’s brought us both, Mother. Right to this moment: the two of us stuck with each other.”

“Are you blaming me?” she asked him, aghast at how he was deciding to interpret her every loving gesture. No thanks for protecting him, no gratitude for guiding him, no acknowledgement for interceding for him. My God, if nothing else, she was at least owed a nod of his head in the direction of her tireless interest in his affairs. “Adrian, are you blaming me?” she demanded again when he didn’t reply.

But all the answer she received was a bark of laughter. He closed the door upon her and went on his way.

“China said she wasn’t involved with him,” Deborah said to her husband once they were out on the drive. She weighed every word. “But she could be...perhaps not wanting to tell me. Embarrassed to have had a fling with him because she’s on the rebound from Matt. She can’t actually’ve been proud of that. Not for moral reasons, but because...well, it’s rather sad. It’s...i t’s qui te needy in a way. And she’d hate that about herself: being needy. She’d hate what that says about her.”

“It would explain why she wasn’t in her own room,” Simon agreed.

“And it gives someone else a chance—someone who knew where she was—to pick up her cloak, that ring, a few of her hairs, her shoes...It would have been easy.”

“Only one person could have done it, though,” Simon pointed out.