A Place of Hiding (Inspector Lynley, #12)(212)

She watched and waited, but nothing changed. It seemed that whoever was inside the car was waiting for her to make the next move. She did so.

She left Guy’s study and went to the stairs. She was stiff from sitting for her lengthy meditation, so she took them slowly. She could smell her dinner, which Valerie had left on the hob in the kitchen. She headed there, not because she was hungry but because it seemed the reasonable thing to do.

Like Guy’s study, the kitchen was at the back of the house. She could use the dishing up of her meal as an excuse to see who’d come to LeReposoir.

She had her answer when she finally negotiated the last of the stairs. She followed the corridor to the back, where a door was ajar and a shaft of light created a diagonal slice on the carpet. There she pushed against the panels and saw her nephew standing at the hob, energetically stirring whatever it was that Valerie had left simmering on its back burner. She said, “Adrian! I thought...”

He swung round.

Ruth said, “I thought...You’re here. But when your mother said she was leaving...”

“You thought I’d be going as well. That makes sense. Wherever she goes, I generally follow. But not this time, Aunt Ruth.” He held out a long wooden spoon for her to taste what appeared to be beef bourguignon. He said, “Are you ready for this? D’you want to eat in the dining room or in here?”

“Thank you, but I’m not very hungry.” What she was was lightheaded, perhaps the result of pain medication on an empty stomach.

“That’s been obvious,” Adrian told her. “You’ve lost a lot of weight. Doesn’t anyone mention it?” He went to the dresser and took down a serving bowl. “But tonight, you’re going to eat.”

He began scooping the beef into the bowl. When he had it filled, he covered it and took from the fridge a green salad that Valerie had also prepared. From inside the oven, he brought out another bowl—this one of rice—and he began setting all of this on the table in the centre of the kitchen. He followed up with a water goblet, crockery, and cutlery for one.

Ruth said, “Adrian, why have you come back? Your mother...Well, she didn’t say exactly, I suppose, but when she told me she was leaving, I assumed...My dear, I know how disappointed you are about your father’s will, but he was quite adamant. And no matter what, I feel I must respect—”

“I don’t expect you to do anything about the situation,” Adrian told her. “Dad made his point. Sit down, Aunt Ruth. I’ll fetch you some wine.”

Ruth felt some concern and confusion. She waited where he left her and sought out the larder which Guy had long ago turned into his wine cellar. There she could hear Adrian making his selection from among his father’s expensive bottles. One of them clinked on the old marble shelf on which meats and cheeses had once been kept. In a moment, she heard the sound of pouring.

She considered his actions, wondering what he was up to. When he returned moments later, he bore an opened burgundy in one hand and a single glass of wine in the other. The bottle was old, she saw, and its label was dusty. Guy wouldn’t have used it for so unimportant a meal. She said, “I don’t think...” but Adrian swept past her and pulled out a chair from beneath the table with much ceremony.

“Sit, Madam,” he said. “Dinner is served.”

“Aren’t you eating?”

“I had something on the way back from the airport. Mum got off, by the way. She’s probably already landed by now. We’ve washed our hands of each other at last, which William—that’s her current husband, in case you’ve forgotten—will no doubt deeply appreciate. Well, what else can you expect? He didn’t plan on taking in a permanent lodger in the person of his stepson when he married her, did he?”

If Ruth hadn’t known otherwise about her nephew, she would have seen both his behaviour and his conversation as evidence of a manic state. But in the thirty-seven years of his life, she’d never witnessed anything in him that could be remotely described as manic. This, then, was something else she was seeing. She just didn’t know how to label it. Or what it meant. Or how, indeed, she should feel about it.

“Isn’t it odd?” Ruth murmured. “I quite thought you’d packed. I didn’t see the suitcases, but I...It’s odd, isn’t it, how things appear to us when we have our minds made up about them?”

“How right you are.” He dished out rice for her and topped it with the beef. He set the plate in front of her. “That’s the trouble we bring on ourselves: looking at life with preconceived notions. Looking at people with preconceived notions. You’re not eating, Aunt Ruth.”

“My appetite...It’s difficult.”

“I’m going to make things easier, then.”

“I don’t see how you can.”

“I know,” he said. “But I’m not actually as useless as I look.”

“I didn’t mean...”

“It’s okay.” He lifted her glass. “Have a sip of wine. One thing—probably the only thing—I learned from Dad was how to pick out a wine. This little selection”—he held the wine to the light and gazed at it—“I’m pleased to say has outstanding legs, magnificent length, excellent bouquet, a little bite at the finish...Fifty quid a bottle, perhaps? More? Well, no matter. It’s perfect for what you’re eating. Have a taste.”