For the Sake of Elena (Inspector Lynley, #5)(150)

“You never tried to understand anything about us. She’d finally begun to forgive me, Sarah. She’d finally begun to accept Justine. We were building something together. The three of us were a family. She needed that.”

“You needed it. You wanted the appearance it offered to your public.”

“I stood to lose her if I left Justine. They’d started to develop a relationship together, and if I left Justine—just as I’d left Glyn—I stood to lose Elena for good. And Elena came first. She had to.” His voice grew louder as he moved in the room. “She came to our home, Sarah. She saw what a loving marriage could be like. I couldn’t destroy that—I couldn’t betray what she believed about us—by leaving my wife.”

“So you destroyed what was best about me instead. It was, after all, the more convenient thing to do.”

“I had to keep Justine. I had to accept her terms.”

“For the Penford Chair.”

“No! God damn you! I did it for Elena! For my daughter. For Elena. But you could never see that. You didn’t want to see it. You didn’t want to think I could possibly feel anything beyond—”

“Narcissism? Self-interest?”

In answer, metal slid savagely against metal. It was the unmistakable sound of a round being chambered within a shotgun. Lynley moved to within two inches of the studio door, but both Weaver and Sarah Gordon stood outside his line of vision. He tried to gauge their positions by listening to their voices. He rested one hand lightly against the wood.

“I don’t think you really want to shoot me, Tony,” Sarah Gordon was saying, “any more than you want to hand me over to the police. In either case, a scandal will come crashing down round you, and I don’t think you want that. Not after everything that’s happened already between us.”

“You killed my daughter. You phoned Justine from my rooms on Sunday night, you arranged that Elena would run alone, and then you killed her. Elena. You killed Elena.”

“Your creation, Tony. Yes. I killed Elena.”

“She never touched you or hurt you. She never even knew—”

“That you and I were lovers? No, she never knew. I was good about that. I kept my promise. I never told her. She died thinking you were devoted to Justine. And that’s what you wanted her to think, isn’t it? Isn’t that what you wanted everyone to think?”

Although enormously weary, her voice was more clearly defined than his. She would, Lynley thought, be facing the door. He pressed on it gently. It swung inward a few more inches. He could see the edge of Weaver’s tweed coat. He could see the gunstock resting at his waist.

“How could you bring yourself to it? You met her, Sarah. You knew her. She sat in this room and let you sketch her and pose her and talk to her and…” His voice caught on a sob.

“And?” she said. “And, Tony? And?” She gave a small, pain-stricken laugh when he didn’t respond. “And paint her. That’s how the story goes. But it doesn’t end there. Justine made certain of that.”

“No.”

“Yes. My creation, Tony. The only copy. Just like Elena.”

“I tried to tell you how sorry—”

“Sorry? Sorry?” For the first time, her own voice broke.

“I had to accept her terms. Once she knew about us. I had no choice.”

“Neither did I.”

“So you murdered my daughter—a human being, flesh and blood, not a lifeless piece of canvas—to get your revenge.”

“I didn’t want revenge. I wanted justice. But I wasn’t going to get it in a court of law because the painting was yours, my gift to you. What did it matter how much of myself I’d put into it because it no longer belonged to me. I had no case. So I had to balance the scales myself.”

“As I’m about to do now.”

There was movement in the room. Sarah Gordon passed in line with the door. Her hair matted, her feet bare, she was wrapped in a blanket. Her face was colourless, even to her lips. “Your car’s in the drive. No doubt someone saw you arrive. How do you intend to get away with killing me?”

“I don’t particularly care.”

“About the scandal? Oh, but there won’t be much of one, will there? You’re the grieving father driven to violence by his daughter’s death.” She straightened her shoulders and faced him directly. “You know, I think you ought to thank me for killing her. With public opinion so much on your side, you’re guaranteed the Chair now.”

“Damn you—”

“But how on earth will you manage to pull the trigger without Justine here to steady the gun?”

“I’ll manage it. Believe me. I will. With pleasure.” He took a step towards her.

“Weaver!” Lynley shouted and at the same instant threw open the door.

Weaver whirled in his direction. Lynley dived for the floor. The gun discharged. A deafening explosion roared through the room. The stench of gunpowder filled the air. A cloud of blue-black smoke seemed to rise out of nowhere. Through it, he could see Sarah Gordon’s crumpled form not five feet away from him, prone on the floor.

Before he could go to her, he saw rather than heard the click and slither of metal once again as Weaver reloaded. He surged to his feet a moment before the history professor turned the gun awkwardly on himself. Lynley leapt at the other man, shoving the gun to one side. It discharged a second time just as the front door to the house was kicked open. Half a dozen men from the police firearms unit stormed down the corridor and into the studio, guns extended, ready to fire.