For the Sake of Elena (Inspector Lynley, #5)(33)

“Her room wasn’t locked?”

“No. Not yet at least. Elena never locked up.” On a set of shelves in an alcove were several bottles of spirits, five glasses, three cups and saucers. Miranda fetched two of the cups and one of the bottles and took them to the table. “That could be important, couldn’t it?” she said. “That she didn’t lock her room.”

The little mouse left off running and scampered from the wheel to the side of the cage. His whiskers twitched, his nose quivered. His paws grasping the slender metal bars, he raised himself up and sniffed eagerly at Lynley’s fingers.

“It could be,” he said. “Did you hear anyone in her room this morning? Later on, I imagine, perhaps at seven or half past.”

Miranda shook her head. She looked regretful. “Earplugs,” she said.

“You wear earplugs to bed?”

“Have done since…” She hesitated, appearing embarrassed for a moment before she sloughed the feeling off and continued with, “It’s the only way I can sleep, Inspector. Got used to them, I suppose. Unappealing as the devil, but there it is.”

Lynley filled in the blanks of Miranda’s awkward justification, admiring her for the plucky effort at bravado. The struggle that was the Webberly marriage was no particular secret to anyone who knew the superintendent well. His daughter would have begun wearing earplugs at home, wanting to block out the worst of her parents’ nighttime quarrels.

“What time did you get up this morning, Randie?”

“Eight,” she said. “Give or take ten minutes.” She smiled wryly. “Give ten minutes, then. I had a lecture at nine.”

“And when you got up, what did you do? Shower? Bathe?”

“Hmm. Yes. Had a cup of tea. Ate some cereal. Made some toast.”

“Her door was shut?”

“Yes.”

“Everything seemed normal? No sign that anyone had been in?”

“No sign. Except…” The kettle began to whistle in the gyp room. She hooked the two cups and a small jug over her fingers and went to the door, where she paused. “I don’t know that I would have noticed. I mean, she had more visitors than I did, you see.”

“She was popular?”

Miranda picked at a chip in one of the cups. The pitch of the kettle’s whistle seemed to intensify a degree. She looked uncomfortable.

“With men?” Lynley asked.

“Let me get the coffee,” she said.

She ducked out of the room, leaving the door open. Lynley could hear her movements in the gyp room. He could see the closed door across the hall. From the porter, he’d obtained the key to that now-locked door, but he felt no inclination to use it. He considered this sensation, so at odds with how he believed he ought to feel.

He was going at the case backwards. The rational dictates of his job told him that, despite the hour of his arrival, he should have spoken to the Cambridge police first, to the parents next, to the finder of the body third. That accomplished, he should have sifted through the victim’s belongings for a possible clue to her killer’s identity. All textbook stuff, labelled proper procedure, as Sergeant Havers would have undoubtedly pointed out. He couldn’t have listed reasons why he wasn’t adhering to it. He merely felt that the nature of the crime itself suggested a personal involvement, perhaps, more than that, a settling of scores. And only an understanding of the central figures involved could reveal exactly what those personal involvements and those settled scores were.

Miranda returned, cups and jug on a pink tin tray. “Milk’s gone off,” she announced, putting the cups into their saucers. “Sorry. We’ll have to make do with the whisky. But I’ve a bit of sugar. Would you like some?”

He demurred. “Elena’s visitors?” he asked. “I assume they must have been men.”

She looked as if she’d been hoping he’d forgotten the question while she was making the coffee. He joined her at the table. She sloshed some whisky into both of their cups, stirred them with the same spoon, which she licked and then continued to hold, slapping it into her palm as she spoke.

“Not all,” she said. “She was best mates with the girls in Hare and Hounds. They came by now and then. Or she’d go off with them to a party somewhere. She was a great one for parties, Elena was. She liked to dance. She said she could feel the vibrations from the music if it was loud enough.”

“And the men?” Lynley asked.

The spoon slapped noisily against her palm. She screwed up her face. “Mummy would be happy if I had only a tenth of whatever Elena had. Men liked her, Inspector.”

“Something which you find difficult to understand?”

“No. I could see why they did. She was lively and funny and she liked to talk and to listen, which is awfully odd when you think she couldn’t really do either, could she? But somehow she always gave the impression that when she was with you, she was only and completely interested in you. So I could see how a man…You know.” She flipped the spoon back and forth to complete her sentence.

“Creatures of ego that we are?”

“Men like to believe they’re the centre of things, don’t they? Elena was good at letting them think they are.”

“Particular men?”

“Gareth Randolph for one,” Miranda said. “He was here to see her lots. Two or three times every week. I could always tell when Gareth came to call because the air got heavy, he’s so intense. Elena said she could feel his aura the moment he opened the door to our staircase. Here comes trouble, she’d say if we were in the gyp room. And thirty seconds later, there he would be. She said she was psychic when it came to Gareth.” Miranda laughed. “Frankly, I think she could smell his cologne.”