A Place of Hiding (Inspector Lynley, #12)(81)

“I do,” he said.

“Nonsense. Why?”

“Because he liked it. Because it provided him the kicks he’d lost when he sold his business. Because it gave him power.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“No? Look at his son, then. Look at Ana?s, poor cow. And if it comes to it, Frank, just look at yourself.”

We’ve got to do something about this, Frank. You see that, don’t you?

Frank averted his gaze. He felt the tightening, the tightening, the tightening. Once again, though, the air carried nothing that could have restricted his breathing.

“He said ‘I’ve helped you out as far as I can,’ ” Nobby said quietly. “He said ‘I’ve given you a leg-up, son. You can’t expect more than that, I’m afraid. And certainly not forever, my good man.’ But he’d promised, you see. He’d made me believe...” Nobby blinked furiously and turned away. He shoved his hands dejectedly into his pockets. He said again, “He made me believe...”

“Yes,” Frank murmured. “He was good at that.”

St. James and his wife parted ways a short distance from the cottage. A phone call from Ruth Brouard had come near the end of their interview with the Duffys, and it resulted in St. James handing over to Deborah the ring they’d found on the beach. He would go back to the manor house to meet with Miss Brouard. For her part, Deborah would take the ring in its handkerchief to Detective Chief Inspector Le Gallez for possible identification. It was unlikely that a usable fingerprint would be found on it, considering the nature of its design. But there was always a chance. Since St. James had nothing with him to make an examination of it—not to mention the jurisdiction to do so—Le Gallez would need to carry things further.

“I’ll make my own way back and meet you at the hotel later,” St. James told his wife. Then he looked at her earnestly and said, “Are you quite all right with this, Deborah?”

He wasn’t referring to the errand he’d assigned her but rather to what they’d learned from the Duffys, particularly from Valerie, who was unshakable in her conviction that she’d seen China River following Guy Brouard to the bay. Deborah said, “She might have a reason to want us to believe there was something between China and Guy. If he had a way with the ladies, why not with Valerie as well?”

“She’s older than the others.”

“Older than China. But surely not that much older than Ana?s Abbott. A few years, I should guess. And that still makes her...what? Twenty years younger than Guy Brouard?”

He couldn’t discount that, even if she sounded to his ears far too eager to convince herself. Nonetheless, he said, “Le Gallez’s not telling us everything he has. He wouldn’t do. I’m a stranger to him, and even if I weren’t, it doesn’t work that conveniently, with the investigating officer opening his files to someone who’d normally be part of another arm of a murder investigation. And I’m not even that. I’m a stranger come calling without appropriate credentials and no real place in what’s going on.”

“So you think there’s more. A reason. A connection. Somewhere. Between Guy Brouard and China. Simon, I can’t think that.”

St. James regarded her fondly and thought of all the ways that he loved her and all the ways that he continually wanted to protect her. But he knew that he owed her the truth, so he said, “Yes, my love. I think there may be.”

Deborah frowned. She looked beyond his shoulder, where the path to the bay disappeared into a thick growth of rhododendrons. “I can’t believe it,” she said. “Even if she was that vulnerable. Because of Matt. You know. When that sort of thing happens—that kind of break-up between men and women—it still does take time, Simon. A woman needs to feel that there’s something more between herself and the man who’s next. She doesn’t want to believe it’s just...well, just sex...” A fan of crimson spread open on her neck and sent its colour up and across her cheeks. St. James wanted to say, That’s how it was for you, Deborah. He knew that she was inadvertently paying their love the highest compliment there was: telling him that she had not moved easily from himself to Tommy Lynley when it came down to it. But not all women were like Deborah. Some, he knew, would have needed the immediate reassurance of seduction upon the end of a long affair. To know they were still desirable to a man would be more important than to know they were loved by him. But he could say none of this. Too much lay connected to Deborah’s love for Lynley. Too much was involved in his own friendship with the man. So he said, “We’ll keep our own minds open. Till we know more.”

She said, “Yes. We’ll do that.”

“I’ll see you later?”

“At the hotel.”

He kissed her briefly, then twice more. Her mouth was soft and her hand touched his cheek and he wanted to stay with her even as he knew he couldn’t. “Ask for Le Gallez at the station,” he told her. “Don’t hand over the ring to anyone else.”

“Of course,” she replied.

He walked back towards the house.

Deborah watched him, the way the brace on his leg hampered what would have otherwise been a natural grace and beauty. She wanted to call him back and explain to him that she knew China River in ways that were born of a trouble he couldn’t understand, ways in which a friendship is forged that makes the understanding between two women perfect. There are bits of history between women, she wanted to tell her husband, that establish a form of truth that can never be destroyed and never be denied, which never need a lengthy explanation. The truth just is and how each woman operates within that truth is fixed if the friendship is real. But how to explain this to a man? And not just to any man but to her husband who’d lived for more than a decade in an effort to move beyond the truth of his own disability—if not denying it altogether—treating it like a mere bagatelle when, she knew, it had wreaked havoc over the greater part of his youth.