A Place of Hiding (Inspector Lynley, #12)(203)

“I’m not joking about this,” Margaret said. “You’ve lied about asking your father for money, you’ve lied about Carmel and her involvement with your father, you’ve allowed me to believe that your engagement ended because you wanted ‘different things’ from the woman who’d previously agreed to marry you...Exactly when haven’t you lied?”

He glanced her way. “What difference does it make?”

“What difference does what make?”

“Truth or lies. You see only what you want to see. I just make that easier for you.” He barreled past a minivan that was trundling along ahead of them. He sat on the horn as they overtook it and regained their own lane mere inches—it seemed—from an oncoming bus.

“How on earth can you say that?” Margaret demanded. “I’ve spent the better part of my life—”

“Living mine.”

“That is not the case. I’ve been involved, as any mother would be. I’ve been concerned.”

“To make sure things went your way.”

“And,” Margaret ventured onward, determined that Adrian would not direct the course of their conversation, “the gratitude I’ve received for my effort has all come in the form of outright falsehoods. Which is unacceptable. I deserve and demand nothing less than the truth. I mean to have it this instant.”

“Because you’re owed it?”

“That’s right.”

“Of course. But not because you’re naturally interested.”

“How dare you say that! I came here for you. I exposed myself to the absolute agony of my memories of that marriage—”

“Oh please,” he scoffed.

“—because of you. To make sure you got what you deserved from your father’s will because I knew he’d do anything he could to keep it from you. That was the only way he had left to punish me.”

“And why would he be interested in punishing you?”

“Because he believed that I’d won. Because he couldn’t cope with losing.”

“Won what?”

“Won you. I kept you from him for your own good, but he couldn’t see that. He could see it only as my act of vengeance because to see it any other way would have meant that he’d have to look at his life and assess the effect it might have had on his only son had I allowed you to be exposed to it. And he didn’t want to do that. He didn’t want to look. So he blamed me for keeping you apart.”

“Which you never intended to do, of course,” Adrian pointed out sardonically.

“Of course I intended it. What would you have had me do? A string of lovers. A string of mistresses when he was married to JoAnna. God only knows what else. Orgies, probably. Drugs. Drinking. Necrophilia and bestiality for all I know. Yes, I protected you from that. I’d do it all again. I was right to do it.”

“Which is why I owe you,” Adrian said. “I get the picture. So tell me”—he glanced at her as they paused to filter into the traffic at an intersection which would direct them towards the airport—“what is it exactly that you want to know?”

“What happened to his money? Not the money that bought all the things that were put into Ruth’s name, but the other money, the money he kept, because he must have kept a mountain of it. He couldn’t have had his little flings and kept a woman as high-maintenance as Ana?s Abbott on cash that Ruth doled out to him. She’s far too censorious to be financing his mistress’s lifestyle anyway. So what in God’s name happened to his money?

He either gave it to you already or it’s hidden somewhere and the only way I will know whether I ought to continue to pursue this is if you tell me the truth. Did he give you money?”

“Don’t pursue it” was his laconic reply. They were coming up to the airport, where a plane was making its approach to touch down, presumably the same plane that would fuel up and, within the hour, take Margaret back to England. Adrian turned in along the lane to the terminal and came to stop in front of it rather than parking in one of the bays across the way.

“Let it go,” he said.

She tried to read his face. “Does that mean...?”

“It means what it means,” he said. “The money’s gone. You won’t find it. Don’t try.”

“How do you...He gave i t to you, then? You’ve had it all along? But if that’s the case, why haven’t you said...? Adrian, I want the truth for once.”

“You’re wasting your time,” he said. “And that’s the truth.”

He shoved open his car door and went to the back of the Range Rover. He opened the back of it and the cold air rushed in as he pulled her suitcases out and dumped them with no notable ceremony on the kerb. He came round to her door. It seemed their conversation was finished. Margaret got out, drawing her coat more closely round her. Here in this exposed area of the island, a chill wind was gusting. It would ease her flight back to England, she hoped. In time, it would do the same for her son. She did know that about Adrian despite what he seemed to think about the situation and despite how he was acting at the moment. He would be back. It was the way of the world in which they lived, the world she had created for both of them.

She said, “When are you coming home?”