Deception on His Mind (Inspector Lynley, #9)(42)

‘Okay. I'm supposing.” Connie smoked, looking as thoughtful as one could hope to look in a black strapless bra, matching knickers cut high on the thigh, and a lace suspender belt.

“This is a seriously bad thing that happened. And suppose you know something that might help people understand why this bad thing happened in the first place.”

“Understand why?” Connie said. “Why does anyone need to understand why? Bad things happen to people all the time.”

“But this is a real bad thing. This is the worst.”

Connie inhaled again, eyes on her daughter speculatively. “The worst, eh? Now, what could that be? House burnt down? Winning lottery ticket got tossed in the rubbish? Wife ran off with Ringo Starr?”

“I'm being serious,” Rachel said.

Connie must have seen the anxiety in her daughter's face, because she pulled out a chair and lowered herself into it, joining Rachel at the table. “Okay,” she said. “Something bad happened to someone. And you know why. Is that right? Yes? So what's this something, then?”

“Death.”

Connie's cheeks puffed out. She took up her cigarette and drew on it deeply. “Death, Rachel Lynn. What're you on about?”

“Someone died. And I—”

“You mixed up in something nasty?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

“Mum, I'm trying to explain. I mean, I'm trying to ask you—”

“What?”

“For help. For advice. I need to know if when a person knows something about a death, that person should tell the whole truth no matter what. If what a person knows may not have anything at all to do with that death, then should that person hold back on telling what she knows if she's asked what she knows in the first place. Because I know that the person doesn't need to say anything if no one asks her. But on the chance that she is asked, should she say something if she isn't sure it could be of help?”

Connie looked at her as if she'd just sprouted wings. Then her eyes narrowed. Despite Rachel's rambling presentation, when Connie next spoke, it was clear that she'd made some sophisticated leaps of comprehension. “Is this a sudden death we're talking of, Rache? Is this death unexpected?”

“Well. Yeah.”

“Is it unexplained?”

“I s'pose so. Yeah.”

“Is it recent?”

“Yeah.”

“Is it local?”

Rachel nodded.

“Then is it …” Connie stowed her cigarette between her lips and rooted in a stack of newspapers, magazines, and post that lay beneath the plastic basket from which she'd taken her cigarettes. She looked at the front page of one Tendring Standard, discarded it in favour of another, discarded that in favour of a third. “This?” She tossed the paper in front of Rachel. It was the one reporting the death on the Nez. “D'you know something about this, my girl?”

“What makes you think that?”

“Come on, Rache. I've not gone blind. I know you're thick with the coloureds.”

“Don't say that.”

“Why? You never made a secret that you and Sally Malik—”

“Sahlah. Not Sally. And I didn't mean don't say I'm thick with them. I meant don't call them coloured. It's ignorant.”

“Well, pardon me.” Connie tapped her cigarette against an ashtray. This was shaped like a high-heeled shoe, with the heel a resting spot for the fag. Connie didn't use this, since to use it meant to forego a few lungfuls of smoke, which was something she was clearly loath to do at the moment. She said, “You best tell me direct what's got your knickers knotted, girl, because I'm not up to playing mind games tonight. Do you know something about this bloke's death?”

“No. Not exactly, that is.”

“So you know something unexactly. That it? You know this bloke personal?” The question, once asked, seemed to push a button of some sort, because Connie's eyes widened and she stubbed out her cigarette so quickly that she upended the ashtray onto the table. “Is this the bloke you were going between the beach huts with? God Almighty, were you letting some coloured man do you? Where's your sense, Rachel? Where's your decency? Where's your value of yourself? D'you think a coloured man would ever give two figs if he put you in the club? Not bloody likely. And if he gave you one of those coloured diseases? What then, girl? And what about some virus? What's it called? Enola? Oncola?”

Ebola, Rachel corrected her silently. And it had nothing to do with getting poked by a man—white, brown, black, or purple—between the beach huts in Balford-le-Nez. “Mum,” she said patiently.

“Connie to you. ConnieConnieConnie!”

“Yes. Right. No one's poking me, Connie. D'you actually think that anyone—no matter his colour—would want to poke me?”

“And whyever not?” Connie demanded. “What's wrong with you? With a beautiful body and fabulous cheekbones and wonderful legs, why wouldn't some bloke want to have his way with Rachel Lynn Winfield every night of the week?”

Rachel could see the desperation in her mother's eyes. She knew it would be pointless—worse, it would be unnecessarily cruel—to wring an admission of the truth from Connie. She was, after all, the person who had given birth to the baby without a proper face. That would probably be as difficult a reality to live with as it was to live with the face itself. She said, “You're right, Connie,” and felt a quiet despair settle over her, like a net whose webbing was composed of sorrows. “But this bloke on the Nez? I didn't do it with him.”