Deception on His Mind (Inspector Lynley, #9)(185)

“Old Agatha Shaw blew a brain fuse, Con. It happened yesterday. Mary Ellis was with her. They got her in hospital, and she's hooked up to machines every which way to Sunday.”

A few minutes’ conversation was enough to glean the details, the most important of which was Mrs. Shaw's prognosis. Connie wanted to learn it because of what the elderly woman's continuing health meant to the redevelopment of Balford-le-Nez, a plan in which the owners of the High Street shops had a natural interest. Rachel wanted to learn it because of what Mrs. Shaw's present condition could mean to her grandson's future behaviour. It was one thing to be certain that Theo would do his duty to Sahlah under normal circumstances. It was another to expect him to take up the burden of marriage and fatherhood in the midst of a family crisis.

And what Rachel had learned from Mr. Unsworth—who'd had it from Mr. Hodge at Granny's Bakery, who'd had it from Mrs. Barrigan at Sketches, who was Mary Ellis's paternal aunt—was that Mrs. Shaw's current situation constituted a family crisis of major proportions. True, she would live. And while this at first made it likely that Theo would indeed come round to accept his manly responsibilities to Sahlah Malik, when Mr. Unsworth had expounded upon Mrs. Shaw's condition at greater length, Rachel saw things differently.

He used words like constant care and intensive rehabilitation, words like devotion of a loved one, thank her lucky stars and she's got that boy. Hearing all this, it didn't take long for Rachel to understand that whatever his responsibilities were to Sahlah, Theo Shaw faced greater responsibilities to his grandmother. Or at least that was how he was likely to see it.

So all morning long, Rachel had watched the clock. She'd been too much at odds with her mother recently to ask for time to go to the Snuggeries. But the moment the second hand swept past twelve, she was out of the shop and bent over her handlebars, pumping like a cyclist in the Tour de France.

“Brilliant,” Mr. Dobson said as she affixed her signature to the final line of the purchase agreement. He removed it from the table and waved it in the air, as if drying the ink. He beamed at her and said, “Brill-i-ant. Very nice indeed. You won't regret the purchase for a moment, Miss Winfield. A tidy investment, these flats are. ‘Nother five years and your money will be doubled. Just see if it won't. Clever of you to snap up this last one before someone else got to it, ‘f you ask me. But I expect you're a clever girl about most things, aren't you?”

He went on to chat about mortgage advisors, building societies, and investment officers at the local Barclays, Lloyds, or NatWest. But she wasn't really listening. She nodded and smiled, wrote the down-payment cheque that would decimate her account at Midlands, and thought of nothing but the need to complete this piece of business as quickly as possible so that she could ride over to Malik's Mustards and be there to offer Sahlah her support when the news of Agatha Shaw's condition reached her ears.

Doubtless, Sahlah would interpret this news exactly as Rachel herself had done, seeing it as an immovable impediment to a life with Theo and their baby. There was no telling what sort of tailspin this piece of information would send Sahlah into. And since people in tailspins of worry and confusion were liable to make hasty decisions which they later regretted, it only made sense that she—Rachel Lynn Winfield—be in the immediate vicinity should Sahlah begin to think it necessary to do something rash.

Despite the need for haste, however, Rachel couldn't help taking just a minute to have a peek at the flat. She knew she'd be living in it soon enough—they'd be living in it soon enough—but still it seemed like such a dream to actually have the flat at last that she knew the only way to make the dream real would be to walk from room to room, to open cupboards, and to admire the view.

Mr. Dobson parted with the key, saying, “‘F course, ’f course,” and adding “Naturellement, chére mademoiselle,” with a waggle of his eyebrows and a leer that, Rachel knew, were supposed to demonstrate that he wasn't the least put off by her face. She ordinarily would have responded curtly to a display of such spurious bonhomie, but this afternoon she felt only good will for her fellow man, so she shook back her hair to unveil the worst of her deformities, thanked Mr. Dobson, clutched the key in her palm, and took herself off to Number 22.

There wasn't much to it: two bedrooms, one bathroom, a sitting room, a kitchen. It was on the ground floor, so a tiny terrace directly off the sitting room overlooked the sea. Here, Rachel thought placidly, they would sit in the evenings, with the baby lying in its pram between them.

Looking out of the sitting room window, Rachel drew in a happy breath and pictured the scene. Sahlah's dupattā rustled in the North Sea breeze. Rachel's skirt moved gracefully as she rose from her chair to adjust the blanket over the chest of the sleeping infant. She cooed at him—or her, possibly—and gently removed a miniature thumb from the cherub mouth. She caressed the softest little cheek she could ever remember touching, and she brushed her fingers lightly against hair that was …what colour? she wondered. Yes, indeed. What colour was his hair, or her hair, for that matter?

Theo was blond. Sahlah was deeply brunette. Their child's hair would be a combination of the two, as would his skin be a combination of Theo's fair complexion and Sahlah's olive tones.

Rachel was simultaneously enchanted by and utterly taken with the thought of this miracle of life that Sahlah Malik and Theo Shaw had created between them. In that moment, she realised that she could hardly wait the months that she knew she had to wait to see the form this miracle would actually take.