In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner (Inspector Lynley, #10)(59)

“She was quite popular,” Samantha said from her end of the run. “She was always surrounded by people up here, so she must have had dozens of student friends as well. I expect she got phone calls from them all the time when she was away from college.”

“College?” Hanken asked.

Nicola had just finished doing a conversion course at the College of Law, Julian told them. And he added, “In London,” when they asked him where she'd studied. “She was up for the summer working for a bloke called Will Upman. He's got a firm of solicitors in Buxton. Her dad fixed it up for her because Upman's something of a regular at the Hall. And because, I expect, he hoped she'd work for Upman in Derbyshire when she finished her course.”

“That was important to her parents?” Hanken asked.

“It was important to everyone,” Julian replied.

Lynley wondered if everyone included Julian's cousin. He glanced her way. She was very busy hiding dog biscuits for the puppies to search out. He asked the obvious next question. How had Julian parted from Nicola that night of the marriage proposal? In anger? Bitterness? Misunderstanding? Hope? It was a hell of a thing, Lynley said, to ask a woman to marry you and to be turned down. It would be understandable if her refusal led to depression or an unexpected burst of passion.

Samantha rose from her position at the far end of the run. “Is that your clever way of asking if he killed her?”

“Sam,” Julian said. It sounded like a warning. “I was down, of course. I felt blue. Who wouldn't?”

“Was Nicola involved with someone else? Is that why she refused you?”

Julian didn't reply. Lynley and Hanken exchanged a glance. Samantha said, “Ah. I see where this is heading. You're thinking that Julie came home on Monday night, phoned her up the next day to arrange a meeting, discovered where she'd be that night—which he of course wouldn't admit to you—and then killed her. Well, I can tell you this: That's absurd.”

“Perhaps. But an answer to the question would be helpful,” Lynley noted.

Julian said, “No.”

“No, she wasn't involved with someone else? Or no, she didn't tell you if she was involved with someone else?”

“Nicola was honest. If she'd been involved with someone else romantically, she would have told me.”

“She wouldn't have tried to protect you from the knowledge, to spare your feelings once you'd made them clear to her?”

Julian gave a rueful laugh. “Believe me, sparing people's feelings wasn't her way.”

Despite any suspicions that he had elsewhere, the nature of Julian's response seemed to prompt Hanken to ask, “Where were you on Tuesday night, Mr. Britton?”

“With Cass,” Julian said.

“The dog? With the dog?”

“She was whelping,” Samantha said. “You don't leave a dog alone when she's whelping.”

“You were here as well, Miss McCallin?” Lynley asked. “Helping out with the delivery?”

She caught her lower lip with her teeth. “It was in the middle of the night. Julie didn't get me up. I saw the puppies in the morning.”

“I see.”

“No, you don't!” she cried. “You think Julie's involved. You've come to trick him into saying something that will implicate him. That's how you work.”

“We work at getting to the truth.”

“Oh right. Tell that to the Bridgewater Four. Only it's three now, isn't it? Because one of those poor sods died in prison. Call a solicitor, Julie. Don't say another word.”

Julian Britton in possession of a solicitor was exactly what they didn't need at the moment. Lynley said, “You appear to keep records about the dogs, Mr. Britton. Did you record the time of delivery?”

“They don't all pop out at once, Inspector,” Samantha said.

Julian said, “Cass went into labour round nine at night. She began delivering round midnight. There were six puppies—one was stillborn—so it took several hours. If you want the exact times, I have them in the records. Sam can fetch the book.”

She went to do so. When she returned, Julian said to her, “Thanks. I'm nearly finished in here. You've been a real help. I'll manage the rest.”

Obviously, he was dismissing her. She appeared to communicate something to him through eye contact only. Whatever it was, he either couldn't or didn't want to receive the message. She cast a moderately baleful look at Lynley and Hanken before she left them. The sound of the dogs barking outside rose, then fell as she opened and closed the door behind her.

“She means well,” Julian told them when she was gone. “I don't know what I'd do without her. Trying to put the whole manor back together … It's a hell of a job. Sometimes I wonder why I took it on.”

“Why did you?” Lynley asked.

“There've been Brittons here for hundreds of years. My dream is to keep them here for a few hundred more.”

“Nicola Maiden was part of that dream?”

“In my mind, yes. In her mind, no. She had her own dreams. Or plans. Or whatever they were. But that's fairly obvious, isn't it?”

“She told you about them?”

“All she told me was that she didn't share mine. She knew I couldn't offer her what she wanted. Not at the moment and probably never. She thought it was the wiser course to leave our relationship the way it was.”