In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner (Inspector Lynley, #10)(194)

He looked from the darkened bar door to the black leather jacket, feeling a tingling along his scalp. He thought, No, it can't be. But even as his mind formed the words, his fingers contacted the stiffened lining—stiffened the way only one substance can render an otherwise soft material stiff because the substance itself does not so much dry as coagulate …

Lynley dropped his umbrella. He took the jacket nearer to the entry porch's window, where he could better examine it under the light. And there he saw that in addition to that unnamed substance which had altered the texture of the lining, the leather was damaged in another way. A hole—perhaps the size of a five-pence coin—had pierced the back.

Apart from knowing that the lining of the jacket had once been soaked with blood, Lynley did not need to be a student of anatomy also to know that the hole in the jacket matched up precisely with the left scapula of the unfortunate person who'd been wearing it.

Nan Maiden found him in his lair near their bedroom. He'd left the office as soon as the detective was out of the hotel, and she hadn't followed him. Instead, she'd spent nearly an hour straightening the lounge after the last of the Sunday guests and setting up the dining room for residents and others who would be requiring a light Sunday supper. When she'd completed these tasks, checked the kitchen to see that the evening's soup was being prepared, and given directions to several American hikers who were apparently intent upon reenacting Jane Eyre at North Lees Hall, she went in search of her husband.

Her excuse was a meal: She hadn't seen him eat for days, and if he went on like this, he would certainly fall ill. The reality was something rather different: Andy couldn't be permitted to carry through his plan to be questioned with electrodes attached to his body. None of his responses could possibly be accurate when one considered the condition he was in.

She loaded a tray with anything he might find tempting. She included two drinks for him to choose from, and she climbed the stairs to make her offering.

He was sitting at the kneehole, and before him was a shoe box with its lid off and its contents spread across the secretaire drawer that was pulled out and open. Nan said his name, but he didn't hear her, so engrossed was he with the papers that had been in the box.

She approached. Over his shoulder she could see that he was looking at a collection of letters, notes, drawings, and greeting cards spanning nearly a quarter of a century. What had occasioned each one was different, but their source was the same. They represented every drawing or other communication that Andy had received from Nicola throughout her life.

Nan put the tray down next to the comfortable old overstuffed chair where Andy sometimes read. She said, “I've brought you something to eat, darling,” and was unsurprised when he didn't reply. She didn't know if he could not hear her or if he merely wished to be alone and wasn't willing to say so. But in either case, it didn't matter. She would make him hear her and she would not leave him.

She said, “Please don't take that lie detector test, Andy. Your condition isn't normal, and it hasn't been for months. I'm going to ring that policeman in the morning and tell him you've changed your mind. There's no sin in that. You're perfectly within your rights. He'll know it.”

Andy stirred. In his fingers he held a child's gawky drawing of “dady gets out of his bath” that had provoked in both of them such fond laughter so many years before. But now the sight of that little girl's rendering of her naked father—complete with a penis hilariously out of proportion—caused a shudder in Nan, followed by a shutting down of some basic function in her body and a shutting off of some essential emotion in her heart. “I'll take the polygraph.” Andy set the drawing to one side. “It's the only way.”

She wanted to say The only way to what? And she would have done had she been more prepared to hear the answer. Instead, she said, “And what if you fail?”

He turned to her then. He held an old letter between his fingers.

Nan could see the words Dearest Daddy in Nicola's bold, firm hand. “Why would I fail?” he asked.

“Because of your condition,” she answered. “If your nerves are going bad, they're going to send out incorrect readings. The police will take those readings and misinterpret them. The machine will say your body's not working. The police will call it something else.”

They'll call it guilt.

The sentence hung between them. It seemed to Nan suddenly that she and her husband were occupying different continents. She felt that she was the one who'd created the ocean between them, but she could not take the risk of diminishing its size.

Andy said, “A polygraph measures temperature, pulse, and respiration. There won't be a problem. It's nothing to do with nerves. I want to take it.”

“But why? Why?”

“Because it's the only way.” He smoothed the letter against the top of the secretaire drawer. He traced Dearest Daddy with his index finger. “I wasn't asleep,” he said to her. “I tried to sleep but I couldn't because I was so unnerved when my sight went bad. So why did you tell them you checked on me, Nancy?” And then he looked up and held her gaze with his.

“I've brought you something to eat, Andy,” she said brightly. “There's got to be something here to tempt you. Should I spread some paté on a piece of baguette?”