Payment in Blood (Inspector Lynley, #2)(21)

“You said you talked, Helen. Am I to understand that, having refused his offer of a drink of whatever is in this bottle, you spent the remainder of the night in scintillating conversation together?”

His refusal to answer her question, his rigid adherence to the formality of police interrogation when it served his needs, his casual decision to fix blame upon a man and then bend the facts to fit it, outraged her. Carefully, deliberately, giving each separate syllable its own private position in the balance on which she measured the gravity of what he was doing to their friendship, she replied.

“No. Of course there’s more, Tommy. He made love to me. We slept. And then, much later, I made love to him.”

Whatever she had hoped for, Lynley showed absolutely no reaction to her words. Suddenly the smell of burnt tobacco from the ashtray was overwhelming. She wanted to fling it from sight. She wanted to fling it at him.

“That’s all?” he asked. “He didn’t leave you during the night? He didn’t get out of bed?”

He was too damnably quick for her. When she couldn’t keep the answer off her face, he said, “Ah. Yes. He did get out of bed. What time please, Helen?”

She looked down at her hands. “I don’t know.”

“Had you been asleep?”

“Yes.”

“What awakened you?”

“A noise. I think it was a match. He was smoking, standing by the table.”

“Dressed?”

“No.”

“Just smoking?”

She hesitated momentarily. “Yes. Smoking. Yes.”

“But you noticed something more, didn’t you?”

“No. It’s just that…” He was dragging words from her. He was compelling her to say things that belonged unspoken.

“That what? You noticed something about him, something not quite right?”

“No. No.” And then Lynley’s eyes—shrewd, brown, insistent—held her own. “I went to him and his skin was damp.”

“Damp? He’d bathed?”

“No. Salty. He was…his shoulders…perspiring. And it was so cold in here.”

Lynley looked automatically to Joy Sinclair’s room. Lady Helen continued.

“Don’t you see, Tommy? It was the cognac. He wanted it. He was desperate. It’s like an illness. It had nothing at all to do with Joy.”

She might not have spoken, for Lynley was clearly following his own line of thought. “How many cigarettes did he have, Helen?”

“Five. Six. What you see here.”

He was designing a pattern. Lady Helen could see it. If Rhys Davies-Jones had taken the time to smoke the six cigarettes that lay crushed in the ashtray, if she had not awakened until he was smoking the very last one, what else might he have done? Never mind the fact that she knew perfectly well how he had spent the time while she slept: fighting off legions of demons and ghouls that had drawn him to the bottle of cognac like a man with an unquenchable thirst. In Lynley’s mind, he had used the time to unlock the door, murder his cousin, and return, his body broken out with the sweat of apprehension. Lady Helen read all of that in the stillness—like a void—that followed her sentence.

“He wanted a drink,” she said simply. “But he can’t drink. So he smoked. That’s all.”

“I see. May I assume he’s an alcoholic?”

Her throat felt numb. It’s only a word, Rhys would have said with his gentle smile. A word alone has no power, Helen. “Yes.”

“So he got out of bed, and you never awakened. He smoked five or six cigarettes, and you never awakened.”

“And you want to add that he unlocked the door to murder Joy Sinclair and I never awakened, don’t you?”

“His prints are on the key, Helen.”

“Yes, they are! I’ve no doubt of it! He locked the door before he took me to bed. Or are you going to say that was part of his plan? To make certain I saw him lock the door so I could explain away his fingerprints later? Is that how you have it worked out?”

“It’s what you’re doing, isn’t it?”

She drew in a broken breath. “What a rotten thing to say!”

“You slept through his getting out of bed, you slept through his smoking one cigarette after another. Are you going to try to argue now that, in reality, you’re a light sleeper, that you would have known had Davies-Jones left your room?”

“I would have known!”

Lynley looked over his shoulder. “St. James?” he asked evenly. And those two words took the entire affair out of the realm of control.

Lady Helen sprang to her feet. Her chair toppled over. Her hand came down brutally against Lynley’s face. It was a blow of lightning swiftness, driven by the power of her rage.

“You filthy bastard!” she cried and headed for the door.

“Stay where you are,” Lynley ordered.

She whirled and faced him. “Arrest me, Inspector.” She left the room, slamming the door behind her.

St. James followed her at once.





4


BARBARA HAVERS closed her notebook. It was a studied movement, one that bought her time while she thought. Across from her, Lynley felt in the breast pocket of his jacket. Although colour still splodged his face where Lady Helen had struck him, his hands were quite steady. He brought out his cigarette case and lighter, used them both and handed them over. Barbara did likewise although after inhaling once, she grimaced and crushed out the cigarette.