Payment in Blood (Inspector Lynley, #2)(58)
She lifted her hand to her throat, clutched at the collar of her blouse. “Help you? My God, I think I’d rather die.”
Her words and the bitterness of her tone struck Lynley like a blow. He might have answered but was spared the necessity by the police constable who had managed to find a single-bar electric fire to keep her warm through what remained of the night.
9
BARBARA HAVERS paused on the wide drive before going back into the house. Snow had fallen again during the night, but it was a light fall, insufficient to close roads but enough to make walking on the estate grounds wet, cold, and unpleasant. Nonetheless, after a foully sleepless night, she had risen shortly after dawn and had set out through the snow, determined to rid herself of the turmoil of mixed loyalties that were plaguing her.
Logic told Barbara that her primary responsibility was to New Scotland Yard. Adherence right now to procedures, to judges’ rules, to Force regulations would add to the likelihood of her receiving a promotion the next time an inspector’s position came open. After all, she had taken the examination only last month—she could swear for certain that she’d passed it this time—and the last four courses at the training centre had earned her the highest possible marks. So the time was right for advancement, or as nearly right as it was ever going to be, if she only played this entire affair wisely.
Thomas Lynley was what made everything so difficult. Barbara had spent practically every working hour over the last fifteen months in Lynley’s presence, so she was not at all oblivious of the qualities that had made him a superb member of the Force, a man who had risen from constable to sergeant to detective inspector in his first five years. He was quick-witted and intuitive, gifted with both compassion and humour, a man liked by his colleagues and well trusted by Superintendent Webberly. Barbara knew how lucky she was to be working with Lynley, knew how deserving he was of her absolute faith. He put up with her moods, stoically listened to her ravings even when her most virulent attacks were directed against him, still encouraged her to think freely, to offer her own opinions, to disagree openly. He was unlike any other officer she had ever known, and she owed him personal debts that went far beyond her having been returned to CID from her demotion to uniformed patrol fifteen months back.
So now she had to decide where her true loyalties lay, to Lynley or to advancement in her career. For in her forced hike through the woods this morning, she had inadvertently come upon a piece of information that bore the unmistakable stamp of being part of the puzzle. And she had to decide what to do with it. More, no matter what she decided, she had to understand exactly what it meant.
The air was stinging in its icy purity. Barbara felt its sharp stab in her nose and throat, in her ears and against her eyes. Yet she breathed it in deeply five or six times, squinting against the brilliant purity of sunlit snow, before she trudged across the drive, stamped her feet roughly against the stone steps, and walked into the great hall of Westerbrae.
It was nearly eight. There was movement in the house, footsteps in the upper corridor and the sound of keys turning in locks upstairs. A smell of bacon and the rich perfume of coffee gave normality to the morning—as if the events of the past thirty-two hours had only been part of an extended nightmare—and the low murmur of pleasant voices came from the drawing room. Barbara walked in to find Lady Helen and St. James sitting in a soft pool of sunlight at the east end of the room, sharing coffee and conversation. They were alone. As Barbara watched them together, St. James shook his head, reached out and rested his hand for a moment upon Lady Helen’s shoulder. It was a gesture of infinite gentleness, of understanding, the wordless binding of a friendship that made the two of them together stronger and more viable than either one could ever be alone.
Seeing them, Barbara was struck by the thought of how easy it was to make a decision when she considered it in the light of friendship. Indeed, between Lynley and her career there was no choice at all. She had no real career without him. She crossed the room to join them.
Both looked as if they, too, had experienced a restless night. The lines on St. James’ face were more sharply defined than usual, and Lady Helen’s fine skin had a fragile look about it, like a gardenia that would bruise at the slightest touch. When St. James automatically began to rise in greeting, Barbara waved the social nicety to one side.
“Can you come outside with me?” she asked them. “I’ve found something in the woods that I think you ought to see.” St. James’ face registered the impossibility of his being able to navigate the snow drifts, and Barbara hastily sought to reassure him. “There’s a brick walk for part of the way. And I’ve flattened enough of a path in the forest itself, I think. It’s only about sixty yards into the trees.”
“What is it?” Lady Helen asked.
“A grave,” Barbara replied.
THE FOREST had been planted to the south of a pathway that circled the great house. It was not the sort of woodland that would have sprung up naturally in this moor-filled area of Scotland. There were English and sessile oaks, beeches, walnuts, and sycamores mixed in with pines. A narrow path led through them, marked out by small circles of yellow paint that had been dotted onto the trunks of the trees.
The forest was a place of that unearthly kind of silence that comes from the heavy insulation of snow upon tree branches and ground. No wind moved, and although the raw burst of an automobile engine pierced the stillness momentarily, it died off quickly, leaving in its wake only the restless lapping of water in the loch some twenty yards down the slope to their left. The going was not easy, for even though Sergeant Havers had indeed flattened a primitive path through the woods, the snow was deep and the ground irregular, no place for a man who had difficulty enough on a surface that was flat and dry.