Payment in Blood (Inspector Lynley, #2)(120)

She rolled her eyes at Lynley, wrinkled her nose delicately in distaste at the smell and the clutter, and said, “Here’s Detective Inspector Lynley, Superintendent.”

Lynley waited expectantly for Webberly to correct her. It was a game the two of them played. Webberly preferred mister to the use of titles. Dorothea Harriman (“call me Dee, please”) vastly preferred titles to anything else.

This afternoon, however, the superintendent merely growled and looked up from his map, saying, “Did you get everything, Harriman?”

His secretary consulted her notes, adjusting the high scalloped collar of her Edwardian blouse. She wore a pert bow tie beneath it. “Everything. Shall I type this lot up?”

“If you will. And run thirty copies. The usual routing.”

Harriman sighed. “Before I leave, Superintendent?…No, don’t say it. I know, I know. ‘Put it on the tick, Harriman.’” She shot Lynley a meaningful look. “I’ve so much time on the tick right now that I could take my honeymoon on it. If someone would be so good as to pop the question.”

Lynley smiled. “Blimey. And to think I’m busy tonight.”

Harriman laughed at the answer, gathered up her notes, and brushed three paper cups from Webberly’s desk into the rubbish. “See if you can get him to do something about this pit,” she requested as she left.

Webberly said nothing until they were alone. Then he folded the map, slid it onto one of his filing cabinets, and went to his desk. But he did not sit. Rather, puffing on his cigar contentedly, he looked at the London skyline beyond the window.

“Some people think it’s lack of ambition that makes me avoid promotion,” Webberly confided without turning. “But actually it’s the view. If I had to change offices, I’d lose the sight of the city coming to light as darkness falls. And I can’t tell you what pleasure that’s given me through the years.” His freckled hands played with the watch fob on his waistcoat. Cigar ash fluttered, ignored, to the floor.

Lynley thought about how he had once liked this man, how he had respected the fine mind inside the dishevelled exterior. It was a mind that brought out the best in those under his command, conscientiously using each one to his personal strength, never to his weakness. That quality of being able to see people as they really were had always been what Lynley admired most in his superior. Now, however, he saw that it was double-edged, that it could be used—indeed, had been used in his case—to probe a man’s weakness and use that weakness to meet an end not of his own devising.

Webberly had known without a doubt that Lynley would believe in the given word of a peer. That kind of belief was part and parcel of Lynley’s upbringing, a precious clinging to “my word as a gentleman” that had governed people of his class for centuries. Like the laws of primogeniture, it could not be sloughed off easily. And that is what Webberly had depended upon, sending Lynley to hear Lord Stinhurst’s manufactured tale of his wife’s infidelity. Not MacPherson, Stewart, or Hale, or any other DI who would have listened sceptically, called in Lady Stinhurst to hear the story herself and then moved on to uncover the truth about Geoffrey Rintoul without a second thought.

Neither the government nor the Yard had wanted that to happen. So they had sent in the one man they believed could be depended upon to take the word of a gentleman and hence to sweep all connections to Lord Stinhurst right under the carpet. That, to Lynley, was the unpardonable offence. He couldn’t forgive Webberly for having done it to him. He couldn’t forgive himself for having mindlessly lived up to their every expectation.

It didn’t matter that Stinhurst had been innocent of Joy Sinclair’s death. For the Yard had not known that, had not even cared, had desired only that key information in the man’s past not come to light. Had Stinhurst been the killer, had he escaped justice, Lynley knew that neither the government nor the Yard would have felt a moment’s compunction as long as the secret of Geoffrey Rintoul was safe.

He felt ugly, unclean. He reached into his pocket for his police identification and tossed it onto Webberly’s desk.

The superintendent’s eyes dropped to the warrant card, raised back to Lynley. He squinted against the smoke from his cigar. “What’s this?”

“I’m done with it.”

Webberly’s face looked frozen. “I’m trying to misunderstand you, Inspector.”

“There’s no need for that, is there? You’ve all got what you wanted. Stinhurst is safe. The whole story is safe.”

Webberly took the cigar from his mouth and crushed it among the stubs in his ashtray, spattering ash. “Don’t do this, lad. There’s no need.”

“I don’t like being used. It’s a funny quirk of mine.” Lynley moved to the door. “I’ll clean out my things—”

Webberly’s hand slammed down against the top of his desk, sending papers flying. A pencil holder toppled to the floor. “And you think I like being used, Inspector? Just what’s your fantasy about all this? What role have you assigned me?”

“You knew about Stinhurst. About his brother. About his father. That’s why I was sent to Scotland and not someone else.”

“I knew only what I was told. The order to send you north came from the commissioner, through Hillier. Not from me. I didn’t like it any better than you did. But I had no choice in the matter.”