Careless in Red (Inspector Lynley, #15)(189)

He chuckled, raised her hand, and kissed her fingers. He wore a wide gold wedding band.

He packed his guitar into its case and bade them both farewell. Aldara saw him to the door and stepped outside with him. They murmured together. She returned to Daidre.

She looked, Daidre thought, like a cat who’d come upon an endless supply of cream. Daidre said, “I can guess what the offer was.”

Aldara returned her own guitar to its case. “What offer do you mean, my dear?”

“The one he couldn’t refuse.”

“Ah.” Aldara laughed. “Well. What will be will be. I have a few things to do, Daidre. We can chat while I do them. Come along, if you like.”

She led the way to a narrow set of stairs whose handrail was a thick velvet cord. She climbed and took Daidre up to the bedroom, where she set about changing the sheets on a large bed that took up most of the space.

“You think the worst of me, don’t you?” Aldara said.

“Does it matter what I think?”

“Of course, it does not. How wise you are. But sometimes what you think isn’t what is.” She flung the duvet to the floor and whipped the sheets off the mattress, folding them neatly rather than balling them up as another person might have done. She went to an airing cupboard in the tiny landing at the top of the stairs and brought out crisp linens, expensive by the look of them and fragrant as well. “Our arrangement isn’t a sexual one, Daidre,” Aldara said.

“I wasn’t thinking?”

“Of course you were. And who could blame you? You know me, after all. Here. Help me with this, won’t you?”

Daidre went to assist her. Aldara’s movements were deft. She smoothed the sheets with affection for them. “Aren’t they lovely?” she asked. “Italian. I’ve found a very good private laundress in Morwenstow. It’s a bit of a drive to take them to her, but she does wonders with them, and I wouldn’t trust my sheets to just anyone. They’re too important, if you know what I mean.”

She didn’t want to. To Daidre sheets were sheets, although she could tell these likely cost more than she made in a month. Aldara was a woman who didn’t deny herself life’s little luxuries.

“He has a restaurant in Launceston. I was there for dinner. When he wasn’t greeting guests, he was playing his guitar. I thought, How much I could learn from this man. So I spoke with him and we came to an agreement. Narno will not take money, but he has a need to place members of his family?and he has a very large family?in more employment than he can provide at his restaurant.”

“So they work for you here?”

“I have no need. But Stamos has a continual need for workers round the hotel in St. Ives, and I find a former husband’s guilt is a useful tool.”

“I didn’t know you still speak to Stamos.”

“Only when it is helpful to me. Otherwise, he could disappear off the face of the earth and, believe me, I wouldn’t bother to wave good-bye. Could you tuck that in properly, darling? I can’t abide rucked sheets.”

She moved to Daidre’s position and demonstrated deftly how she wanted the sheets seen to. She said, “Nice and fresh and ready,” when she was done. Then she looked at Daidre fondly. The light in the room was greatly subdued, and in it Aldara shed twenty years. She said, “This isn’t to say we won’t, eventually. Narno will, I think, make a most energetic lover, which is how I like them.”

“I see.”

“I know you do. The police were here, Daidre.”

“That’s why I’ve come.”

“So you were the one. I suspected as much.”

“I’m sorry, Aldara, but I had no choice. They assumed it was me. They thought Santo and I?”

“And you had to safeguard your reputation?”

“It isn’t that. It wasn’t that. They need to get to the bottom of what happened to him, and they aren’t going to get there if people don’t start telling the truth.”

“Yes. I do see what you mean. But how often the truth is…well, rather inconvenient. If one person’s truth is an unbearable blow to another person and simultaneously unnecessary for him to know, need one speak it?”

“That’s hardly the issue here.”

“But it does seem that no one is quite telling the police everything there is to tell, wouldn’t you say? Certainly, if they came to you at first instead of to me, it would be because little Madlyn did not tell them everything.”

“Perhaps she was too humiliated, Aldara. Finding her boyfriend in bed with her employer…That might have been more than she wanted to say.”

“I suppose.” Aldara handed over a pillow and its accompanying case for Daidre to sort out while she herself did the same with another. “It’s of no account now, though. They know it all. I myself told them about Max. Well, I had to, hadn’t I? They were going to uncover his name eventually. My relationship with Max was not a secret. So I can hardly be cross with you, can I, when I also named someone to the police?”

“Did Max know…?” Daidre saw from Aldara’s expression that he did. “Madlyn?” she asked.

“Santo,” Aldara said. “Stupid boy. He was wonderful in bed. Such energy he had. Between his legs, heaven. But between his ears…” Aldara gave an elaborate shrug. “Some men?no matter their age?do not operate with the sense God gave them.” She placed the pillow on the bed, and straightened the edge of its case, which was lace. She took the other from Daidre and did the same, going on to turn down the rest of the linen in a welcoming fashion. On the bedside table, a votive candle was nestled in a crystal holder. She lit this and stood back to admire the effect. “Lovely,” she said. “Rather welcoming, wouldn’t you say?”