For the Sake of Elena (Inspector Lynley, #5)(72)

“It may not be fair. But it’s also an order. Go home, Barbara. You can be there by five. Come back in the morning.”

“I’ll check out Thorsson first.”

“There’s no need for that. He’s not going anywhere.”

“I’ll check him out anyway.” She took up her shoulder bag and picked her coat off the floor. When she turned to him, he saw that her nose and cheeks had become quite red.

He said, “Barbara, the right thing is sometimes the most obvious thing. You know that, don’t you?”

“That’s the hell of it,” she replied.



“My husband isn’t home, Inspector. He and Glyn have gone to make the funeral arrangements.”

“I think you can give me the information I need.”

Justine Weaver looked beyond him to the drive where the fading afternoon light was winking along the right wing of his car. Brows drawn together, she appeared to be trying to decide what to do about him. She crossed her arms and pressed her fingers into the sleeves of her gabardine blazer. It might have been a gesture to keep herself warm, save for the fact that she didn’t move away from the door to get out of the wind.

“I don’t see how. I’ve told you everything I know about Sunday night and Monday morning.”

“But not, I dare say, everything you know about Elena.”

Her eyes moved off the car to him. Hers, he saw, were morning glory blue, and their colour needed no heightening through an appropriate choice of clothes. Although her presence at home at this hour suggested that she hadn’t gone to work that day, she was dressed with nearly as much formality as she had been on the previous night, in a taupe blazer, a blouse buttoned to the throat and printed with the soft impression of small leaves, and slim wool trousers. She’d swept her long hair off her face with a single comb.

She said, “I think you ought to speak with Anthony, Inspector.”

Lynley smiled. “Indeed.”

In the street, the double tin ringing of a bicycle bell was met by the answering honk of a horn. Closer by, three hawfinches swept in an arc from the roof to the ground, their distinctive call—tzik—like a repetitive, single-word conversation. They hopped on the drive and pecked at the gravel and, as one unit, shot into the air again. Justine followed their flight to a cypress on the edge of the lawn. Then she said:

“Come in,” and stepped back from the door.

She took his overcoat from him, smoothed it round the newel post at the bottom of the stairs, and led him into the sitting room where they had met on the previous night. Unlike the previous night, however, she made no offer of refreshment. Instead, she went to the glass tea table along the wall and made a small adjustment to its arrangement of silk tulips. That done, she turned to face him, hands clasped loosely in front of her. In that setting, dressed and posed as she was, she looked like a mannequin. Lynley wondered what it took to fracture her control.

He said, “When did Elena arrive in Cambridge for Michaelmas term this year?”

“The term began the first week of October.”

“I’m aware of that. I was wondering if she came here in advance, perhaps to stay with you and her father. It would take a few days to settle into the college, I should think. Her father would want to help her.”

Her right hand slowly climbed her left arm, stopping just above the elbow where her thumbnail dug in and began to trace a circular pattern. “She must have arrived sometime towards the middle of September because we had a gathering for some of the history faculty on the thirteenth and she was here for the party. I remember that. Shall I check the calendar? Do you need the exact date when she came to us?”

“She stayed here with you and your husband when she first came to town?”

“As much as Elena could be said to stay anywhere. She was on the go, in and out most of the time. She liked to be active.”

“All night?”

Her hand climbed to her shoulder, then rested beneath the collar of her blouse like a cradle for her neck. “That’s a curious question. What is it you’re asking?”

“Elena was eight weeks pregnant when she died.”

A quick tremor passed across her face, like a frisson that was emotional rather than physical. Before he could assess it, she had dropped her eyes. Her hand, however, remained at her throat.

“You knew,” Lynley said.

She looked up. “No. But I’m not surprised.”

“Because of someone she was seeing? Someone you knew about?”

Her gaze went from him to the sitting room doorway as if she expected to see Elena’s lover standing there.

“Mrs. Weaver,” Lynley said, “right now we’re looking directly at a possible motive for your stepdaughter’s murder. If you know something, I’d appreciate your telling me about it.”

“This should come from Anthony, not from me.”

“Why?”

“Because I was her stepmother.” She returned her gaze to him. It was remarkably cool. “Do you understand? I don’t have the sort of rights you seem to think I have.”

“Rights to speak ill of this particular dead?”

“If you will.”

“You didn’t like Elena. That’s obvious enough. But all things considered, you’re hardly in a unique situation. No doubt you’re one of millions of women who don’t much care for the children they’ve been saddled with through a second marriage.”