For the Sake of Elena (Inspector Lynley, #5)(146)

Lynley didn’t reply. Instead, just before they reached the bridge that crossed the river on Fen Causeway, he pulled off the road and onto the pavement. Leaving the motor running, he turned to the others and said, “I’ll just be a moment.” Ten steps from the Bentley, he was enveloped by the fog.

He didn’t cross the street to look at the island for a third time. He knew it had no further secrets to reveal. From the causeway, he knew, he would see the shapes of trees, the mist-washed form of the footbridge that crossed the river, and perhaps the etching of birds on the water. He would see Coe Fen as an opaque screen of grey. And that would be all. If the lights of Peterhouse managed to cut through the vast and tenebrous expanse of fog on this day, they would be mere pinpricks, less substantial than stars. Even Whistler, he thought, would have found it a challenge.

For the second time, he walked to the end of the causeway bridge where the iron gate stood. And for the second time, he made note of the fact that anyone running along the lower river from Queens’—or from St. Stephen’s—would have three options upon reaching Fen Causeway. A turn to the left and she would run past the Department of Engineering. A turn to the right and she would head towards Newnham Road. Or, as he had seen for himself on Tuesday afternoon, she could proceed straight ahead, crossing the street to where he now stood, ducking through the gate, and continuing south along the upper river.

What he had failed to consider on Tuesday afternoon was that someone running into the city from the opposite direction would have had three options as well. What he had failed to consider on Tuesday afternoon was that someone could have run in the opposite direction in the first place, starting from the upper rather than the lower river, and hence following the upper rather than the lower path on which Elena Weaver had been running on the morning of her death. He observed this upper path now, noting how it disappeared into the fog like a thin line of pencil. As on Monday, visibility was poor—perhaps less than twenty feet—but the river and hence the path next to it flowed due north at this particular section, with scarcely a bend or a wrinkle to cause a walker or a runner—either of them familiar with the lay of the land—any need for marked hesitation.

A bicycle came wheeling towards him out of the mist, a headlamp affixed to the ten-speed’s handlebars providing a weak beam of light not much wider than an index finger. When the rider—a young, bearded man wearing a rakish trilby as an odd accent piece to his faded jeans and black oilskin jacket—dismounted to open the gate, Lynley spoke to him.

“Where does this path lead?”

Making an adjustment to his hat, the young man looked back over his shoulder as if a perusal of the path would help him answer the question. Thoughtfully, he pulled on the end of his beard. “Along the river for a bit.”

“How far?”

“Couldn’t say for certain. I always pick it up round Newnham Driftway. I’ve never headed in the other direction.”

“Does it go to Grantchester?”

“This path? No, mate. It doesn’t go there.”

“Blast.” Lynley frowned at the river, realising that he might have to reassess what he had thought of as a plausible explanation for how Elena Weaver’s death had been orchestrated on Monday morning.

“But you can get there from here if you’ve a mind for the walk,” the young man said, perhaps anticipating that Lynley was anxious for a fog-dampened stroll. He slapped a spattering of mud from his jeans and waved his arm vaguely from south to southwest. “Down the river path there’s a car park, just past Lammas Land. If you cut through there and nip down Eitsley Ave, there’s a public footpath that goes through the fields. It’s posted well enough, and it’ll take you straight to Grantchester. Although—” He eyed Lynley’s fine overcoat and his hand-tooled Lobbs shoes. “I don’t know if I’d try it in the fog if you don’t know the route. You could end up doing nothing but thrashing round in the mud.”

Lynley found his excitement quickening as the young man spoke. The facts were going to support him after all. “How far is it?” he asked.

“The car park’s under half a mile, I should guess.”

“I mean Grantchester itself. If you go through the fields.”

“Mile and a half, mile and three-quarters. No more than that.”

Lynley looked back at the path, at the untroubled surface of the sluggish river. Timing, he thought. It all centred round timing. He returned to the car.

“Well?” Havers said.

“She wouldn’t have driven her car on the first trip,” Lynley said. “She couldn’t have taken the risk that one of her neighbours might see her leaving—as two did later in the morning—or that anyone might see it parked near the island.”

Havers looked in the direction from which he’d just come. “So she walked in on a footpath. But she must have had to run like the devil all the way back.”

He reached for his pocket watch and unhooked it from his waistcoat. “Who was it—Mrs. Stamford?—who said she was in a tearing hurry when she left at seven? At least now we know why. She had to find the body before anyone else did.” He flipped the watch open and handed it to Havers. “Time the drive to Grantchester, Sergeant,” he said.

He slid the Bentley into the traffic which, although slow-moving, was sparse at this time of afternoon. They descended the gentle slope of the causeway and, after one quick pause when an oncoming car veered into their lane in order to avoid hitting a postal van that was parked half on the pavement with its hazard lights blinking, they made their way into the Newnham Road roundabout. From there traffic diminished noticeably, and although the fog was still thick—swirling round the Granta King pub and a small Thai restaurant as if it were being stage-managed to do so—Lynley was able to increase his speed marginally.