A Place of Hiding (Inspector Lynley, #12)(20)

“Thank you,” he said.

“Sorry. Have I always been so obvious?”

“No. You’ve always been so kind. But I don’t think I’ve ever thanked you properly. That’s what comes from a marriage too happy for its own good: taking the beloved for granted.”

“Do you take me for granted, then?”

“Not intentionally.” He cocked his head to one side and observed her.

“Frankly, you don’t give me the chance.” He made his way across the room to her, and she put her arms round his waist. He kissed her gently and then kissed her long, one arm holding her to him, till she felt the wanting that stirred in them both.

She looked up at him then. “I’m glad you can still do that to me. But I’m gladder I can do it to you.”

He touched her cheek. “Hmm. Yes. Yet all things considered, it’s probably not the time...”

“For what?”

“For exploring some interesting variations of this ‘it’ you were speaking of.”

“Ah.” She smiled. “That. Well, perhaps it is the time, Simon. Perhaps what we learn every day is how quickly life changes. Everything that’s important can be gone in an instant. So it is the time.”

“To explore...?”

“Only if we’re exploring together.”

Which was what they did in the glow of a single lamp that burnished their bodies gold, darkened Simon’s grey-blue eyes, and turned to crimson the otherwise hidden pale places where their blood beat hot. Afterwards, they lay in the tangle of the counterpane, which they hadn’t bothered to remove from the bed. Deborah’s clothes were scattered wherever her husband had tossed them and Simon’s shirt draped from one of his arms like an indolent tart.

“I’m glad you hadn’t gone to bed,” she said against his chest, where she rested her cheek. “I thought you might have done. It didn’t seem right to just deposit him in the spare room without staying for a moment. But you were looking so tired in the kitchen that I thought you might’ve decided to sleep. I’m glad you didn’t, though. Thank you, Simon.”

He caressed her hair as was his habit, moving his hand into the heavy mass of it till his fingers came into contact with her head. He played them warmly against her scalp, and she felt her body relax in response. “He’s all right?” Simon asked. “Is there anyone we can phone, just in case?”

“Just in case what?”

“Just in case he doesn’t get what he wants from the embassy tomorrow. I expect they’ve already been in contact with the police on Guernsey. If they’ve not sent someone over there...” Deborah felt her husband shrug.

“Chances are good there’s nothing else they intend to do.”

Deborah rose from his chest. “You aren’t thinking China actually committed this murder, are you?”

“Not at all.” He brought her back to his arms. “I’m only pointing out that she’s in the hands of a foreign police force. There’ll be protocols and procedures to be followed and that might be the extent of what the embassy is going to involve itself with. Cherokee needs to be prepared for that. He might also need someone to lean on if that turns out to be the case. That might be why he’s come, in fact.”

Simon said this last more quietly than the rest. Deborah raised her head to look at him again. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“There’s more, Simon. I can hear it in your voice.”

“Just this. Are you the only person he knows in London?”

“Probably.”

“I see.”

“I see?”

“He might well need you, then, Deborah.”

“And does that bother you if he does?”

“Not bother. No. But are there other family members?”

“Just their mum.”

“The tree-sitter. Yes. Well, it might be wise to phone her. What about the father? You said China has a different father to Cherokee’s?”

Deborah winced. “Hers is in prison, my love. At least he was when we lived together.” And when she saw the concern on Simon’s face—expressing nothing so much as like father, like daughter?— she went on to say, “It was nothing serious. I mean, he didn’t kill anyone. China never talked about him much, but I know it had something to do with drugs. An illegal lab somewhere? I think that was it. It’s not like he pushed heroin on the street, though.”

“Well, that’s comforting.”

“She’s not like him, Simon.”

He made a grumbling sound, which she took for his hesitant agreement. They lay in silence then, content with each other, her head back on his chest and his fingers once again in her hair.

Deborah loved her husband differently in moments like this. She felt more his equal. The sensation came not only from their quiet conversation but also—and perhaps more important for her—from what had preceded their conversation. For the fact that her body could give him such pleasure always seemed to balance the scales between them and that she could be a witness to that pleasure allowed her to feel even momentarily her husband’s superior. Because of this, her own pleasure had long been secondary to his, a fact that Deborah knew would horrify the liberated women of her world. But that’s just how it was.