In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner (Inspector Lynley, #10)(209)

“Say it,” he'd said to her, finding his voice at last.

She'd looked at him blankly, the black plastic plug with its black leather streamers dangling from her lovely slender hand. “What?”

“The word. Hanging from his what? If you can't say it, how can you do it?”

“Oh. That. Well, I only don't say it because you're my dad.”

And that admission had shattered something within him, some last vestige of control and an outdated restraint born of lifelong repression. “Arsehole,” he'd shouted. “It hangs from his God damn arse-hole, Nick,” and he swept from the dining table all the devices of torture that she'd assembled for him to see.

Nicola realised—finally—that she'd pushed him too far. She backed away from him as he let his rage, incomprehension, and despair take whatever form they chose. He upended furniture, broke crockery, and ripped her legal books from their bindings. He'd seen the fear in her, and he'd thought of the times that he could have inspired it in the past and had chosen not to. And that enraged him further until the roaring destruction he visited upon her bed-sit reduced his daughter to a cowering heap of the silk, suede, and linen that comprised her clothing. She huddled in the corner with her arms over her head, and that wasn't enough for him. He hurled her filthy equipment at her and bellowed, “I'll see you dead before I let you do it!”

It was only later, when he had time to think in the way that Nicola thought, that he realised there was another route to dissuading his daughter from her newly chosen vocation. There was the route of Will Upman and the possibility that he would do to her what he had the reputation for doing to so many other women. So he'd phoned her two days after his London visit and he'd offered her the deal. And Nicola, seeing that she could make more money in Derbyshire than in London, was willing to compromise.

He'd bought time, he thought. And they didn't discuss what had occurred between them that day in Islington.

For Nancy's sake, Andy had spent the summer trying to pretend that everything would work out well in the end. Should Nick return to the College of Law in the autumn, in fact, he'd have been willing to go to his death acting as if Islington had never happened at all.

“Don't tell your mother any of this,” he'd said to his daughter when they made their arrangements.

“But, Dad, Mummy—”

“No. God damn it, Nick, I'm not going to argue. I want your word to keep silent about all of this when you come home. Is that perfectly clear? Because if one whisper reaches your mother, you'll not have a penny from me, and I mean it. So give me your word.”

She did. And if there was any saving grace in the ugliness of Nick's life and the horror of her death, it was that Nancy had been spared the knowledge of what that life had become.

But now that knowledge threatened to bring further destruction into Andy's world. He'd lost his daughter to degradation and defilement. He wasn't about to lose his wife to the anguish and grief of learning about it.

He saw that there was only one way to stop the wheel of Nicola's death in the midst of its cycle of destruction. He knew he had the means to stop it. He could only pray that at the last moment he would also have the will.

What did it matter that yet another life would pay the forfeit? Men had died for less if the cause was good. So had women.

By Monday midmorning Barbara Havers had increased her knowledge of archery by several degrees. In the future, she'd be able to discuss with the best of them the merits of Mylar instead of feathers for fletchings or the differences among long, compound, and recurve bows. But as to getting any closer to pinning the William Tell award on Matthew King-Ryder's jacket … she'd not had a breath of luck in that.

She'd been through Jason Harley's mailing list. She'd even tracked down by telephone every name from the Ust with a London address, to see if King-Ryder was using a pseudonym. But after three hours she was nowhere with the list, and the catalogue—while improving her backlog of trivia for those moments at la-dee-dah drinks parties when one racked one's brain for something to add to the conversation—had gained her nothing. So when her phone rang and it was Helen Lynley on the line, asking if she could come round to Belgravia, Barbara was happy to comply. Helen was nothing if not scrupulous about her mealtimes, and it was drawing towards lunch with nothing in the fridge but more reheatables in the rogan josh line. Barbara knew she could do with a change.

She arrived at Eaton Terrace within the hour. Helen herself answered the door. She was, as usual, perfectly turned out in neat tan trousers and a forest-green shirt. Seeing her, Barbara felt like a lump of mouldy cheese on the doorstep. Since she'd called in ill to the Yard, she'd dressed with even less care than was her norm. She wore an oversize grey T-shirt over black leggings and she was sockless in her red high-top trainers.

“Don't mind me. I'm traveling incognito,” she said to Lynley's wife.

Helen smiled. “Thanks for coming so quickly. I would have come to you, but I thought you might want to be in this part of town when we've finished.”

Finished? Barbara thought. Wonderful news. Then lunch was in the offing.

Helen beckoned Barbara inside, calling out, “Charlie? Barbara is here. Have you had lunch, Barbara?”

“Well. No,” Barbara said, and she added,“I mean not exactly,” because brutal honesty strong-armed her into admitting that having toast with Chicken Tonight creamy garlic sauce on it for her elevenses might be considered an early lunch in some quarters.