Deception on His Mind (Inspector Lynley, #9)(48)

Barbara glanced at the bedside table, whose drawer was still open. From across the room she could see the half-empty box of condoms, and she recalled that among the contents of the murdered man's pockets had been three other condoms. In tandem with the receipt from the jewellery shop, the rubbers served to underscore a single conclusion.

Not only had there been a fissure in the wedding plans, but there had likely been a third party involved, one who'd possibly encouraged Querashi to abandon his arranged marriage in favour of another relationship. And this had been done recently, since he still had in his possession the evidence that he was planning a honeymoon.

Barbara added the receipt to the other items she'd lifted from the bedside table. She locked the leather case and put it in the evidence bag as well. She wondered what sort of response would be given to the fiancé in an arranged marriage if he asked to call the arrangement to a halt. Would tempers flare? Would revenge be plotted? She didn't know. But she had an excellent idea of how to find out.

“Sergeant Havers?” From the corridor, it was not so much a whisper but a hiss: 007 was getting restless.

Barbara strode to the door and swung it open. She stepped into the corridor and took Treves’ arm. “We may be on to something,” she told him tersely.

“Really?” He was all agog and aquiver.

“Absolutely. D'you keep records of telephone calls? Yes? Good. I want those records,” she directed him. “Every call he made. Every call he received.”

“Tonight?” Treves licked his lips enthusiastically. Doubtless, Barbara saw, if he were given his way, they'd be up to their elbows in hotel paperwork till dawn.

“Tomorrow's fine,” she told him. “Get some sleep now. Be fresh for the fray.”

His whisper was excitement itself. “Thank God I kept everyone out of that room.”

“Continue to do that, Mr. Treves,” she said. “Keep the door locked. Stand watch if you have to. Hire a guard. Set up a video camera. Wire the place for sound. Whatever it takes. But on no account let a single soul cross over that threshold. I'm depending on you. Can I do that?”

“Sergeant,” Treves said, his hand at his heart, “you can depend upon me to the absolute death.”

“Brilliant,” Barbara said. And she couldn't help wondering if those very same words had been recently said to Haytham Querashi.



HE MORNING SUN AWAKENED HER. IT WAS ACCOM-panied by the sound of gulls and the faint scent of brine in the air. As on the day before, this last was utterly still. Barbara could tell that by squinting out of the open window from her semi-foetal position on one of the room's two beds. Beyond the glass, a bay laurel tree stood, and not a dusty leaf on it so much as quivered. By midday, mercury was going to be bubbling in thermometers all over town.

Barbara ground her knuckles into the small of her back, which ached from its night's exposure to a mattress troughed by several generations of bodies. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stumbled blearily into the loo with a view.

This bathroom continued the hotel's established theme of genteel decay: The tiles on the walls and the grout round the tub grew mildew in furry verdigris tufts, and the doors to the cupboards below the sink were held closed by means of an elastic band stretched between their knobs. One gained access to the view through a small window above the toilet, four grimy panes of glass behind a limp curtain on which appliquéd dolphins leapt out of a frothing sea that had long since gone the depressing colour of a winter sky.

Barbara assessed the environment with an “ugh,” and she gazed at her face in the age-spotted mirror above the sink, where perhaps two dozen gold cupid transfers shot amorous arrows at each other from clusters at the glass's four corners. She assessed her appearance with a second and more fervent “ugh.” The combination of bruises going yellow at the edges from her eyes to her chin and the sleep creases across her left cheek created an unappealling vision to have to gaze upon directly before breakfast. The sight could definitely put one off one's bangers, Barbara decided, and turned from it to take in the view that the loo-with provided her.

The window was open to its fullest extent, affording a generous five inches of fresh morning air. She breathed this in and scrubbed her fingers through her thatch of hair as she looked across the slope of lawn to the sea.

On a bluff approximately one mile north of the town's centre, the Burnt House Hotel was positioned propitiously for travellers who came to Balford only seeking a view. To its south, Princes Beach carved a crescent of sand punctuated by three stone breakwaters. To its east, the lawn ended in a cliff beyond which endlessly stretched the sea, motionless this morning and edged by a roll of grey fog that hovered on the distant horizon, making a beguiling promise of cooler weather. To its north, the cranes of distant Harwich Harbour lifted their dinosaur necks far above the ferries that passed beneath them on their way to Europe. Barbara could see all of this from her window, small though it was, and all of this and more would be on display for anyone sitting in one of the drooping canvas chairs that were scattered across the hotel's lawn.

A landscape painter or a sketch artist might find that the Burnt House served his interests, Barbara decided, but for a traveller coming to Balford-le-Nez to sample more than just a pleasant vista, the hotel's location was a study in utter commercial folly. The distance between the hotel and the town proper—with its seafront esplanade, pleasure pier, and High Street—underscored this fact. These locations constituted the commercial heart of Balford-le-Nez, where tourists spent their money. While they were a convenient walking distance from the other hotels, the guest houses, and the summer cottages in the fading seatown, they were not a convenient walking distance from the Burnt House Hotel. Parents with children in tow, young people eager for whatever questionable nightlife the town now afforded, travellers seeking everything from sand to souvenirs, would not find it here on the bluff north of Balford proper. They could walk into the town, of course. But there was no direct access along the seafront. Instead, pedestrians heading townward from the Burnt House would have to trudge inland first along Nez Park Road and then back out again to the Esplanade.