In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner (Inspector Lynley, #10)(122)

“What I'm trying to explain is that it's a way of life that works for me at the moment. It won't always, of course. But it does today. And because it does, I'm grabbing it, Jules. I would be every sort of fool if I didn't.”

“You've gone bloody mad” was his numb assessment. “London's done this to you. You need to come home, Nick. You need to be with friends. You need help.”

She looked at him blankly.

“It's obvious, isn't it? Something's wrong. You can't be in your right mind and be selling your body night after night.”

“Several times a night, frequently.”

He'd clutched at his head. “Jesus, Nick … You need to talk to someone. Let me find a doctor, a psychiatrist. I won't tell anyone why. It'll be our secret. And when you've recovered—”

“Julian.” She drew his hands from his head. “There's nothing wrong with me. If I thought I was having relationships with these men, there'd be something wrong. If I thought I was on the path to true love, there'd be something wrong. If I was trying to avenge a wrong or hurt someone else or live in a fantasy, I'd need to be carted to the madhouse straightaway. But that's not how it is. I'm doing this because I enjoy it, because I'm paid well, because my body has something to offer men, and while it's silly to me that they'd pay me to get it, I'm perfectly willing to—”

He'd hit her then. God forgive him, but he'd hit her because he was desperate to make her stop. So he struck her in the face with a hard, closed fist, and her head flew back and hit the window.

Then they stared at each other, she with her fingertips at the point where his knuckles had met her face, he with his left hand holding those knuckles and in his ears a high, loud singing like the whining of car tyres caught in a skid. And there was nothing to say. Not a single word to excuse what he'd done, to excuse what she was doing to both of them with the choices she was making and the life she was living. Still, he'd tried.

“Where did this come from?” he'd asked hoarsely. “Because it had to come from somewhere, Nick. It's not how normal people live.”

“A nasty skeleton in the closet, d'you mean?” she'd replied lightly, fingers still at her cheek. Her voice was the same, but her eyes had changed, as if she was seeing him differently. Like the enemy, he'd thought. And he'd despaired right to the soles of his feet because he loved her so. “No, Jules. I haven't got any convenient excuses. No one to blame. No one to accuse. Just a few experiences that led to other experiences. Just exactly as I told you. First an escort, then a brief little grope and feel, then …” She smiled. “Then on from there.”

He read the truth of who she was in that instant. “You must despise us all. Men. What we want. What we do.”

She'd reached for his hand. It was still clenched and she unclenched it. She raised it to her lips and kissed the knuckles that he'd used to bruise her. “You are who you are,” she said. “Julian, it's the same for me.”

But he couldn't accept the simplicity of that statement. He railed against it. And he railed against her. And he determined to change her no matter the cost. She would see reason, he'd decided. She would get help if that's what it took.

She'd got death instead. A fair trade, some would argue, for what she offered life.

Julian felt numb as he packed his mountain rescue equipment away in its haversack. His mind was swarming with memories, and he was willing to do just about anything to silence the voices in his head.

Distraction arrived in the person of his father, who toddled along the first floor passageway just as Julian was placing his haversack into the old mule trunk. Jeremy Britton clutched a glass in one hand, which was no surprise, and a fan of brochures in the other, which was. He said, “Ah. M'boy. Here you are, then. Have you a minute for your dad?”

His speech was clear, which caused Julian to eye his fathers drinking glass curiously. The colourless liquid suggested gin or vodka. But the glass was large enough to hold at least eight ounces of fluid, and since it was three-quarters empty and since Jeremy would have never splashed so meagre an amount into a glass whose volume could have held more, and since he wasn't slurring his words, it could only mean that the glass didn't hold either vodka or gin at all. Which in turn had to mean … Julian rattled his own head mentally. God, he was losing it by leaps and by bounds.

“Sure.” He did his best not to eye the glass or to sniff its contents.

Jeremy smiled, lifted the glass, and said, “Water, Julie. The old local aitch-two-and-oh. I'd nearly forgotten the taste of it.”

[page]The sight of his father drinking water was akin to having a vision of the Ascension into Heaven while hiking on the moor. “Water?”

“Best there is. You ever notice, my boy, how the flavour of water taken off our own land tastes sweeter than what you can get from a bottle? Bottled water, I mean,” he added with a smile. “Evian, Perrier. You know.” He tipped the glass up and swigged down a mouthful. He smacked his lips. “Spare a bit of time for your dad? I want to ask your advice, old chap.”

Puzzled, wary, amazed at the change in his father—prompted, it seemed to Julian, by nothing at all—he followed him into the parlour. There Jeremy sat in his usual chair after pulling another round to face it. He gestured for Julian to take that place. Julian did so hesitantly.