Deception on His Mind (Inspector Lynley, #9)(16)
As Theo approached the house, Agatha considered all the aspects of him that prompted her disapproval. His clothes were utterly wrong for his position. He favoured loosely tailored linens: jackets with shoulder pads, shirts with no collars, trousers with pleats. And all of them were always done in pastel colours or fawn or buff. He wore sandals rather than shoes. Whether he put on socks had always been a matter of chance. If all this wasn't enough to prevent potential investors from taking him seriously, since the night of her death he'd worn his execrable mother's chain and gold cross, one of those ghastly, macabre Catholic things with a tiny crucified body stretched out on it. Just the thing to ask an entrepreneur to gaze upon while attempting to convince him to put his money into the restoration, renovation, and renaissance of Balford-le-Nez.
But there was no telling Theo how to dress, how to carry himself, or how to speak when presenting the Shaw plans for the town's redevelopment. “People either believe in the project or they don't, Gran” would be the way he received her suggestions.
The fact that she had to make suggestions in the first place also set her teeth on edge. This was her project. This was her dream. She'd got herself onto the Balford town council for four successive terms on the strength of her dreams for the future, and it was maddening that now—because of a single blood vessel's audacious rupturing within her brain—she had to step back and regain her strength, allowing her soft-spoken, addle-brained grandson to do her talking for her. The very thought was enough to send her into another seizure, so she tried not to think of it.
She heard the front door open. Theo's sandals slapped against the parquet floor, then were muffled as he reached the first of the Persian carpets. He exchanged a few words with someone in the entry—Mary Ellis, the daily girl, no doubt, whose borderline incompetence made Agatha wish she'd been born at a time when the hired help was flogged as a matter of course. Theo said, “The library?” and came in her direction.
Agatha saw to it that she was upright when her grandson joined her. The tea things were laid out on the table, and she'd left them there with the sandwiches curling up at the edges and a dull-sheened skin forming on the surface of the tea. They would serve as an illustration of the fact that Theo was late again. Agatha grasped the handle of her walking stick with both hands and placed it in front of her so that its three prongs could bear the bulk of her weight. This effort to seem the mistress of her physical functions caused her arms to tremble, and she was grateful that she'd donned a cardigan despite the day's heat. At least the trembling was camouflaged by the thin folds of wool.
Theo paused in the doorway. His face was shiny with perspiration and his linen shirt clung to his torso, emphasising his wiry frame. He didn't speak. Instead, he walked to the tea tray and the three-tiered sandwich stand next to it. He scooped up three egg salad sandwiches, and he ate them in rapid succession without apparent regard for their lack of freshness. He didn't even seem to notice that the tea into which he dropped a lump of sugar hadn't been hot for the last twenty minutes.
“If the summer stays like this, we're in for a good run with the pier and arcade,” Theo said. But his words sounded cautious, as if there was something besides the pier on his mind. Agatha's antennae went up. But she said nothing as he continued. “It's too bad we can't have the restaurant done before August, because we'd be in the black before we knew it. I spoke to Gerry DeVitt about the time line for completion, but he doesn't think there's much hope of hurrying things up a bit. You know Gerry. If it's to be done, it's to be done properly. No cutting corners.” Theo reached for another sandwich, cucumber this time. “And, of course, no cutting costs.”
“Is that why you're late?” Agatha needed to sit—she could feel her legs beginning to tremble along with her arms—but she refused to allow her body to overrule what her mind had dictated for it.
Theo shook his head. He carried his cup of cold tea over to her and gave her a dry kiss on the cheek. “Hullo,” he said. “I'm sorry for ignoring the proprieties. I had no lunch. Aren't you hot in that cardigan, Gran? Do you want a cup of tea?”
“Stop fussing with me. I don't have either foot in the grave no matter how much you might wish it.”
“Don't be stupid, Gran. Here. Sit down. Your cheeks're getting damp and you're shaking. Can't you feel it? Come on. Sit.”
She pulled her arm away from him, saying, “Stop treating me like an imbecile. I'll sit when I'm ready. Why're you acting so strange? What happened at the council meeting?” It was where she herself should have been and would have been had not her stroke supervened ten months before. Heat or no heat, she would have been there, bending that band of myopic misogynists to the power of her will. It had taken ages—not to mention a hefty contribution to their campaign coffers—to talk them into a special town council meeting to consider her redevelopment plans for the seafront, and Theo along with their architect and a city planner imported from Newport, Rhode Island, had been scheduled to make the presentation.
Theo sat, holding his teacup between his knees. He sloshed the liquid round in it, then swallowed it in one fast gulp and placed the cup on the table next to his chair. “You haven't heard, then?”
“Heard what?”
“I went to the meeting. We all went, just as you wanted.”