In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner (Inspector Lynley, #10)(202)

This exercise of command was simple for him to gain and maintain. Myriad women over the years had been so taken by his looks, his title, or his wealth that giving over to him not only their bodies but also their minds had seemed of little consequence in comparison with what they hoped they'd be getting in return. And Tommy had become used to this power. What human being wouldn't?

The real question was why he'd grasped the power that very first time with that very first woman. He'd been young, it was true, but although he could have chosen to meet that lover and every lover that followed her on a playing field that he himself made level despite the woman's reluctance or inability to insist upon that leveling, he had not done so. And Helen was certain that the why of Tommy's sway over women was behind his difficulties with Barbara Havers.

But Barbara was wrong, Helen could hear her husband insisting, and there's no damn way you can twist the facts to make them read that she was right.

Helen couldn't disagree with Tommy on that. But she wanted to tell him that Barbara Havers was only a symptom. The disease, she was certain, was something else.

She left the bedroom and descended to the dining room, where Denton had assembled the breakfast she preferred. She helped herself to eggs and mushrooms, poured a glass of juice and a cup of coffee, and set everything on the dining table, where her morning's copy of the Daily Mail lay next to her cutlery and Tommy's Times lay just beneath it. She flipped through the morning post idly as she added milk and sugar to her coffee. She set the bills to one side—no reason to spoil her breakfast, she thought—and she also set aside the Daily Mail upon whose front page the latest decidedly unattractive royal paramour was being acclaimed as looking “radiant at the annual Children in Need tea.” No reason, Helen thought grimly, to spoil her entire day as well.

She was just opening a letter from her eldest sister—its postmark from Positano telling her that Daphne had prevailed over her husband in terms of where to spend their twentieth wedding anniversary—when Denton came into the room. “Good morning, Charlie,” Helen said to him cheerfully. “You've excelled with the mushrooms today.”

Denton didn't return her greeting with similar enthusiasm. He said, “Lady Helen …” and hesitated—or so it seemed to Helen—somewhere between confusion and chagrin.

“I hope you're not going to scold me about that wallpaper, Charlie. I phoned Peter Jones and asked for another day. Truly, I did.”

Denton said, “No. It's not the wallpaper,” and he lifted the manila envelope he was holding, bringing it level with his chest.

Helen set down her toast. “What is it, then? You look so …” How did he actually look? she asked herself. He looked quite agitated, she concluded. She said, “Has something happened? You've not received bad news, have you? Your family's well, aren't they? Oh Lord, Charlie, have you got yourself into trouble with a woman?”

He shook his head. Helen saw that a duster hung over his arm, and the pieces fell into place: He'd been doing a spot of cleaning up, she realised, and no doubt he wished to lecture her on the messier of her habits. Poor man. He couldn't decide how best to begin.

He'd come from the direction of the drawing room, and Helen recalled that she hadn't picked up those sheets of music that Barbara had left upon her abrupt departure on the previous afternoon. Den-ton wouldn't like that, Helen thought. He was so like Tommy in his neatness.

“You've caught me out,” she confessed with a nod at the envelope. “Barbara brought that yesterday for Tommy to look at. I'm afraid I forgot all about it, Charlie. Will you believe me if I promise to do better next time? Hmm, I suppose not. I'm promising that constantly, aren't I?”

“Where did you get this, Lady Helen? This… I mean, this … ?” And Denton gestured with the envelope as if he had no words to describe what it contained.

“I've just told you. Barbara Havers brought it. Why? Is it important?”

As an answer, Charlie Denton did the unexpected. For the first time since Helen had known the man, he drew a chair out from beneath the dining table and, completely unbidden, he sat.

“The blood matches” was Hanken's terse announcement to Lynley. He was phoning from Buxton, where he'd just got the word from the forensic lab. “The jackets the boy's.”

Hanken went on to tell him that they were moments away from getting a warrant to search Maiden Hall. “I've six blokes who can find diamonds in dog shit. If he's stashed the long bow there, we'll find it.” Hanken groused about the fact that Andy Maiden had had more than enough time since the night of the murders to rid himself of the bow in three dozen locations round the White Peak, which made their job of finding it doubly difficult. But at least he didn't know they'd twigged that an arrow was the missing weapon, which gave them the advantage of surprise if he hadn't rid himself of the rest of his equipment.

“We don't have the slightest indication that Andy Maiden's an archer,” Lynley pointed out.

“How many parts did he play undercover?” was Hanken's riposte. He rang off with “You're in if you want to be. Meet us at the Hall in ninety minutes.”

Heavy of heart, Lynley hung up the phone.

Hanken was right in his pursuit of Andy. When virtually every piece of information that was gathered led to one particular suspect, you proceeded with that suspect. You didn't avoid thinking the unthinkable because you couldn't disengage your mind from a memory of your twenty-fifth year and an undercover operation that you had so longed to be a part of. You did what you had to do as a professional.