Careless in Red (Inspector Lynley, #15)(108)

“What’d he do?” Pete asked. “’Cause he must’ve done something ’cause that’s why people get divorced, eh?”

“People get divorced for lots of reasons.”

“Did he have a girlfriend or something?”

“Pete, that’s really none?”

“’Cause he doesn’t have one now, if that’s what you’re looking for. And it must be ’cause it can’t be drugs or something like that ’cause you know he doesn’t take drugs. But is that it? Did he? Or drink or something ’cause there’s this bloke at school called Barry and his parents are splitting up ’cause his dad broke the front window in a rage and he was drunk.” Pete watched her. He seemed to be trying to read her face. “It was double glazed,” he added.

She smiled in spite of herself. She put her arms around him and pulled him to her. “Double glazed,” she said. “Now that’s a reason to throw a husband out.” But he jerked away from her.

“Don’t make fun.” He went to his room.

She said, “Pete, come on…”

He didn’t reply. He shut the door instead, leaving her looking at its blank panels. She could have followed, but she went to the bathroom. She couldn’t stop herself from a final check even though she knew how ridiculous she was being. Here, like everywhere else, there was nothing. Just Ray’s shaving gear, damp towels hanging lopsided from a towel bar, across the tub a sky blue shower curtain drawn to dry. And in the tub, nothing other than a soap tray.

A clothes hamper stood beneath the bathroom window, but she didn’t go through this. Instead, she sat on the toilet seat and looked down at the floor. This was not to study the tiles for evidence of sexual malefaction, but to force herself to stop and consider all the ramifications.

She’d done that more than fourteen years ago: She’d considered the ramifications. What it would mean to stay with a man and have his child when day after day what he so plainly told her he wanted was a termination to the pregnancy. An abortion, Beatrice. Do it now. We’ve raised our child. Ginny’s grown and left the nest and this is our time now. We don’t want this pregnancy. It was a stupid miscalculation and we don’t have to pay for it the rest of our lives.

They had plans, he told her. They had great and wonderful things to do now Ginny was grown. Places to go, sights to see. I don’t want this kid. Neither do you. One visit to the clinic and it’s behind us.

It was odd to think now how one’s perception of a person could change in an instant. But that was what had happened. She’d looked at Ray with eyes newly born. The passion of the man, and all of it about killing off their own child. She’d just gone cold, right to her core.

While he’d spoken the truth?she had given up on the idea of a second pregnancy when it hadn’t happened within a reasonable period after Ginny’s birth and with Ginny at university and engaged to be married, she and Ray were free to plan a future?it wasn’t a truth carved in stone for her. It never had been. It had, instead, been a quiet acceptance that had bloomed from initial disappointment. But it wasn’t meant to be interpreted as the end all and be all of her life. She couldn’t come to terms with how Ray had arrived at the belief that it was.

So she’d told him to leave. She’d done it not to shake him and not to make him see things her way. She’d done it because she’d believed she’d never really known him at all. How could she have known him if what he wanted was to end a life they had created from their love for each other?

But to tell Pete all this? To let him know his father had wished to deny him his place on earth? She couldn’t do that. Let Ray tell him if he wished.

She went to Pete’s room. She knocked on the door. He said nothing, but she entered anyway. He was at his computer. He was on Arsenal’s Web site, surfing through pictures of his idols in a desultory way so completely unlike him.

She said, “Homework, love?”

He said, “Did it already.” And then after a moment, he added, “I got a perfect mark on the maths exam.”

She went to him and kissed the top of his head. “I am so proud of you,” she told him.

“That’s what Dad says.”

“Because he is. We both are. You’re our shining star, Pete.”

“He asked me about those Internet blokes you date.”

“That must have made for some good stories,” she said. “Did you tell him about the bloke Dog Two lifted a leg on?”

Pete snuffled, his form of forgiving laugh. “That bloke was a real wanker. Two knew that.”

“Language, Pete,” she murmured. She stood for a moment, looking at the pictures of Arsenal that he continued to click through. “World Cup’s coming,” she said unnecessarily. The last thing Pete would be likely to forget was their plans for a World Cup match.

“Yeah,” he breathed. “World Cup’s coming. C’n we ask Dad if he wants to go? He’d like us to ask him.”

It was a simple thing, really. They’d not likely be able to get an extra ticket, so what did it matter if she agreed? “All right,” she told him. “We’ll ask Dad. You can ask him tonight when he gets home.” She smoothed his hair and kissed his head again. “Are you going to be okay on your own till he gets here, Pete?”