A Suitable Vengeance (Inspector Lynley, #4)(121)

Something in her face reminded him instantly of a bottle of ink spilled on a dining room chair and a scuffy-shoed ten-year-old’s quavering confession. Something in her voice, however, told him that, for Deborah, a moment of accounting had arrived, and as a result he felt that sudden draining of strength that comes with an onslaught of dread.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“The photograph. I knew that you’d see it one day or another, and I wanted you to see it. It was my dearest wish. I wanted you to know that I sleep with Tommy. I wanted you to know because then I might hurt you. And I wanted to hurt you, Simon. I was desperate to punish you. I wanted you to think of us making love together. I wanted you to be jealous. I wanted you to care. And I…Simon, I despise myself for having done that to you.”

Her words were so unexpected that the very surprise of them buffeted him into a form of shock. For one ridiculous moment, he talked himself into misunderstanding the direction she was heading in, allowing himself to assume that she was speaking of the Cambrey pictures and making references to them that he simply couldn’t comprehend. In that instantaneous way that minds have of working, he made a quick decision to direct the conversation along those lines. What are you talking about? Jealous of Tommy? What photograph, Deborah? I don’t understand. Or better yet, laughing it off, indifferent. Just a practical joke that didn’t work out. But even as he gathered the resources to respond, she continued, making her meaning quite clear.

“I wanted you so much when I left for America. I loved you so much, and I was sure you loved me. Not as a brother or an uncle or a sort of second father. But as a man, an equal. You know what I mean.” Her words were so gentle, her voice so quiet. He felt compelled to keep watching her face. He stood immobilised, unable to go to her even as every sinew in his body insisted he do so. “I don’t know if I can even explain what it was like for me, Simon. So confident when I left, so sure of what you and I had together. And then waiting for you to answer my letters. At first not understanding, even believing something had happened to the post. Phoning you after two months and hearing how distant you were. Your career was making such demands on you, you said. Responsibilities were piling up. Conferences and seminars and papers to write. You’d answer my letters when you could. And how is school, Deborah? Are you getting on? Are you making friends? I’m sure you’ll do well. You’ve the talent. You’ve the gift. You’ve nothing but a brilliant future ahead of you.”

He said the only thing he could manage. “I remember.”

“I judged myself.” Her fleeting smile was a fragile thing. “Not pretty enough for you, not clever enough, not amusing, not compassionate, not loving, not desirable…not enough.”

“That wasn’t the truth. That isn’t the truth.”

“Most mornings I woke and despaired of the fact that I was still alive. And that became part of my loathing as well. I wasn’t even enough of a person to take my own life. Worthless, I thought. Totally without value. Stupid and ugly and utterly useless.”

Each word was more difficult to bear than the last.

“I wanted to die. I prayed to die. But I didn’t. I just went on. Which is what most people do.”

“They do go on. They heal. They forget. I understand.” He hoped those four statements would be enough to stop her. But he saw that she was determined to carry their conversation through to an end of her own devising.

“Tommy was my forgetting at first. When he came to visit, we laughed. We talked. The first time he made an excuse why he’d come. But not after that. And he never pushed me, Simon. He never once made demands. I didn’t talk about you, but I think somehow he knew and was determined to wait until I was ready to open my heart to him. So he wrote, he phoned, he laid a real foundation. And when he took me to bed, I wanted to be there. I’d finally let you go.”

“Deborah, please. It’s all right. I understand.” He stopped looking at her. Turning his head was the only movement he seemed capable of making. He stared at the items he’d placed on the bed.

“You’d rejected me. I was angry. I was hurt. I got over you in the end, but for some reason I still believed that I had to show you how things were now. I had to make you see that if you didn’t want me, someone else did. So I put that photograph on the wall in my flat. Tommy didn’t want me to. He asked me not to. But I pointed out the composition, the colour, the texture of the curtains and the blankets, the shapes of clouds in the sky. It’s just a photograph, I said, are you embarrassed about what it implies about us?”

For a moment, she said nothing more. St. James thought she was finished, and he looked up to see that her hand was at her throat, her fingers pressing along her collarbone. “What a terrible lie to tell Tommy. I just wanted to hurt you. As deeply as I could.”

“God knows I deserved it. I hurt you as well.”

“No. There’s no excusing a need for retaliation like that. It’s adolescent. Disgusting. It says things about me that make me ill. I’m so sorry. Truly.”

It’s nothing. Really. Do forget it, little bird. He couldn’t bring himself to say it. He couldn’t say anything. He couldn’t bear the thought that, through his own cowardice, he had driven her to Lynley. It was more than he could suffer. He despised himself. As he watched, seeking words that he didn’t know, feeling wrenched by emotions he couldn’t bear to possess, she placed the photographs on the edge of the bed, pressing their corners down to keep them from curling.