For the Sake of Elena (Inspector Lynley, #5)(34)

“Were they a couple?”

“They went about together. People paired their names.”

“Did Elena like that?”

“She said he was just a friend.”

“Was there someone else special?”

She took a drink of her coffee and added more whisky to it, shoving the bottle across to him when she was through. “I don’t know if he was special, but she saw Adam Jenn. Her father’s graduate student. She saw a good bit of him. And her dad stopped by lots, but I suppose he doesn’t count, does he, because he was only here to keep tabs on her. She hadn’t done well last year—have they told you that?—and he wanted to make sure there was no repeat performance. That’s how Elena put it, at least. Here comes my keeper, she’d say when she saw him from the window. Once or twice she hid in my bed-sit just to tease him and came out laughing when he started to react because she wasn’t in her room when she’d said she’d be there to meet him.”

“I take it she didn’t like the plan they’d come up with to keep her at the University.”

“She said the best part about it was the mouse. Tibbit, she called him, companion of my cell. She was like that, Inspector. She could make a joke out of anything.”

Miranda seemed to have completed her recital of information, for she sat back in her chair Indian style with her legs tucked under her on the seat, and she drank more coffee. But her look at him was a chary one which indicated that something was being withheld.

“Was there someone else, Randie?”

Miranda squirmed. She examined a small basket of apples and oranges on the table, and after that the posters on the wall above it. Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong, Wynton Marsalis in concert, Dave Brubeck at the piano, Ella Fitzgerald at the mike. She hadn’t abandoned her love of jazz. She glanced at him again, poking the handle of the teaspoon into her mop of hair.

“Someone else?” Lynley repeated. “Randie, if you know something more—”

“I don’t know anything else absolutely for sure, Inspector. And I can’t tell you every little thing, can I, because something I tell you—some little detail—might not even mean anything. But if you took it to heart, people might get hurt, mightn’t they? Dad says that’s the biggest danger in policework.”

Lynley made a mental note to discourage Webberly from waxing philosophical with his daughter in the future. “That’s always possible,” he agreed. “But I’m not about to arrest someone just because you mention his name.” When she said nothing, he leaned across the table and tapped his finger against her coffee cup. “Word of honour, Randie. All right? Do you know something else?”

“What I know about Gareth and Adam and her father came from Elena,” she said. “That’s why I told you. Anything else in my head is nothing but gossip. Or something I maybe saw and didn’t understand. And that can’t be helpful. That could make things go wrong.”

“We’re not gossiping, Randie. We’re trying to get at the truth behind her death. The facts, not conjectures.”

She didn’t immediately respond. She stared at the bottle of whisky on the table. Its label bore a greasy fingerprint stain. She said, “Facts aren’t conclusions. Dad always says that.”

“Absolutely. Agreed.”

She hesitated, even looked over her shoulder as if to make sure they were still alone. “This is about seeing, nothing more,” she said.

“Understood.”

“All right.” She straightened her shoulders as if in preparation, but she still didn’t look as if she wanted to part with the information. “I think she had a row with Gareth on Sunday evening. Only,” she added in a rush, “I can’t know for sure because I didn’t hear them, they talked with their hands. I just caught a glimpse of them in Elena’s room before she shut the door and when Gareth left he was in quite a temper. He banged his way out. Only it could mean nothing because he’s so intense anyway that he’d be acting like that even if they’d been discussing the poll tax.”

“Yes. I see. And after their argument?”

“Elena left as well.”

“What time was this?”

“Round twenty to eight. I never heard her come back.” Miranda seemed to read heightened interest in his face, for she went on hastily. “I don’t think Gareth had anything to do with what’s happened, Inspector. He has a temper, true, and he’s on a tight string, but he wasn’t the only one…” She gnawed at her lip.

“Someone else was here?”

“Noooo…not exactly.”

“Randie—”

Her body slumped. “Mr. Thorsson then.”

“He was here?” She nodded. “Who is he?”

“One of Elena’s supervisors. He lectures in English.”

“When was this?”

“I saw him here twice, actually. But not on Sunday.”

“Day or night?”

“Night. Once probably round the third week of the term. Then again last Thursday.”

“Could he have been here more often?”

She looked reluctant to answer, but she said, “I suppose, yes. But I just saw him twice. Twice is all, Inspector.” Twice is the fact, her voice implied.