For the Sake of Elena (Inspector Lynley, #5)(53)

“You lost that purity?”

“Success taints everything. In the long run.”

“And you had success.” Lynley went to the wall where her large charcoal sketches were hanging, one on top of the other. He began to browse through them. An arm, a hand, the line of jaw, a face. He was reminded of the Queen’s collection of Da Vinci’s studies. She was very talented.

“After a fashion. Yes. I had success. But that meant less to me than peace of mind. And ultimately peace of mind was what I was seeking yesterday morning.”

“Finding Elena Weaver put an end to that,” Sergeant Havers remarked.

As Lynley was looking through her sketches, Sarah had gone to stand near the covered easel. She had raised a hand to adjust its linen shroud—perhaps with the hope of keeping them from seeing how far the quality of her work had disintegrated—but she stopped and said without looking in their direction: “Elena Weaver?” Her voice sounded oddly uncertain.

“The dead girl,” Lynley said. “Elena Weaver. Did you know her?”

She turned to them. Her lips worked without making any sound. After a moment, she whispered, “Oh no.”

“Miss Gordon?”

“Her father. Anthony Weaver. I know her father.” She felt for the tall stool at one side of the easel and sat upon it. She said, “Oh my God. My poor Tony.” And as if answering a question which no one had spoken, she gestured round the room. “He was one of my students. Until early last spring when he began all the politicking for the Penford Chair, he was one of my students.”

“Students?”

“I offered classes locally for a number of years. I don’t any longer, but Tony…Dr. Weaver took most of them. He was a private student of mine as well. So I knew him. For a time we were close.” Her eyes filled. She blinked the tears away quickly.

“And did you know his daughter?”

“After a fashion. I met her several times—early last Michaelmas term—when he brought her with him to act as a model for a life-drawing class.”

“But you didn’t recognise her yesterday?”

“How could I? I didn’t even see her face.” She lowered her head, raised a hand quickly, and brushed it over her eyes. “This is going to destroy him. She was everything to him. Have you talked to him yet? Is he…? But of course you’ve talked to him. What am I asking?” She raised her head. “Is Tony all right?”

“No one takes well the death of a child.”

“But Elena was more than a child to him. He used to say that she was his hope of redemption.” She looked round the room, her expression filling with self-contempt. “And here I’ve been—poor little Sarah—wondering if I can begin to draw again, wondering if I’ll ever create another piece of art, wondering…while all the while Tony…How could I possibly be any more selfish?”

“You’re not to blame for trying to get your career back on track.”

It was, he thought, the most rational of desires. He reflected on the work he had seen hanging in her sitting room. It was crisp and clean. One somehow expected that of a lithograph, but to achieve such purity of line and detail in oil seemed remarkable. Each image—a child playing with a dog, a weary chestnut seller warming himself over his metal-drum brazier, a bicyclist pumping along in the rain—spoke of assurance in every stroke of the brush. What would it be like, Lynley wondered, to believe one had lost the ability to produce work so palpably excellent? And how could a desire to recapture that ability ever be construed as an act of selfishness?

It seemed odd to him that she would even consider it so, and as she led them back to the front of the house, Lynley became aware of a vague disquiet in his evaluation of her, the same sort of disquiet he had felt when confronted with Anthony Weaver’s reaction to his daughter’s death. There was something about her, something in her manner and her words, that gave him pause. He couldn’t put his finger on what it was about her that nagged at his subconscious, yet he knew intuitively that something was there, like a reaction that was too much planned in advance. A moment later, she gave him the answer.

As Sarah Gordon opened the front door for them, Flame leaped out of his basket, began to bark, and came tearing along the passage, intent upon a gambol in the outdoors. Sarah leaned forward, grabbed onto his collar. As she did so, the towel fell from her head, and damp curling hair the rich colour of coffee streamed round her shoulders.

Lynley stared at the image of her, caught in the doorway. It was the hair and the profile, but mostly the hair. She was the woman he had seen last night in Ivy Court.



Sarah headed for the lavatory the moment after she closed and locked the front door. With a gasp of urgency, she hurried through the sitting room, through the kitchen beyond it, and barely made it to the toilet. She vomited. Her stomach seemed to twist as previously sweet cocoa, hot and sour now, burned in her throat. It shot up towards her nose when she attempted to breathe. She coughed, gagged, and continued to vomit. Cold sweat broke out on her forehead. The floor seemed to dip, the walls to sway. She squeezed her eyes shut.

Behind her, she heard a soft whimper of sympathy. A nudge on her leg followed it. Then a head rested on one of her extended arms, and warm breath wafted against her cheek.

“It’s all right, Flame,” she said. “I’m all right. Don’t worry. Have you brought Silk with you?”