Payment in Blood (Inspector Lynley, #2)(62)

“You seem fairly certain about what was going on between them in Vinney’s room. I do wonder about that. Did you see Joy? Are you certain she was with him? Are you sure it wasn’t somebody else?”

“I…” Elizabeth stopped. She toyed jerkily with knife and fork. “Of course it was Joy. I heard them, didn’t I?”

“But you didn’t see her?”

“I heard her voice!”

“Whispering? Murmuring? It was late. She’d have kept it low, wouldn’t she?”

“It was Joy! Who else could it have been? And what else would be going on between them after midnight, Inspector? Poetry readings? Believe me, if Joy went to a man’s room, it was with only one thing on her mind. I know it.”

“She did that with Alec when she visited at your home?”

Elizabeth’s mouth shut, tightened. She went back to her plate.

“Tell me what you did when you left the read-through the other night,” Lynley said.

She moved the sliced sausage into a neat little triangle. Then with the knife, she began cutting the circular pieces in half. Each slice was sparely made and carried out with acute concentration. It was a moment before she replied. “I went to my aunt. She was upset. I wanted to help.”

“You’re fond of her.”

“You seem surprised, Inspector. As if it’s a miracle of sorts that I could be fond of anything. Is that right?” In the face of his refusal to rise to her taunting, she put down knife and fork, pushed her chair fully back, and regarded him straightforwardly. “I took Aunt Francie to her room. I put a compress on her head. We talked.”

“About?”

Elizabeth smiled one last time, but it was, inexplicably, a reaction that seemed to mix both amusement and the knowledge of having bested an opponent. “The Wind in the Willows, if you really must know,” she said. “You’re familiar with the story, aren’t you? The toad. The badger. The rat. And the mole.” She stood, reached for her cape, and swung it round her shoulders. “Now if there’s nothing more, Inspector, I’ve things to see to this morning.”

That said, she left him. Lynley heard her bark of laughter echo in the hall.



IRENE SINCLAIR had herself just heard the news when Robert Gabriel found her in what Francesca Gerrard optimistically labelled her games room. Behind the last door in the lower northeast corridor, almost obscured behind a pile of disused outdoor garments, the room was completely isolated, and once inside, Irene welcomed its smell of mildew and wood rot and the pervasive congestion of dust and grime. Obviously, the renovation of the house had not reached this far corner yet. Irene found herself glad of it.

An old billiard table sat in the centre of the room, its baize covering loosely rippled, the netting under most of the pockets either torn or missing altogether. There were cue sticks on a rack on the wall, and Irene fingered these absently as she made her way to the window. No curtains covered it, a condition that contributed to the numbing want of heat. Since she wore no coat, she held her body tightly and rubbed her hands along her arms, pressing hard against the wool sleeves of her dress, feeling the answering friction like a kind of pain.

From the window there was little to see, just a grove of winter-bare alders beyond which the slate top of a boathouse seemed to be sprouting from a hillock like a triangular excrescence. It was an optical illusion, fabricated from the angle of the window and the height of the hill. Irene considered this idea, brooding over the continuing place that illusions seemed to be making in her life.

“God in heaven, Renie. I’ve been looking for you everywhere. What are you doing in here?” Robert Gabriel crossed the room to her. He had come in noiselessly, managing to shut the warped door without a sound. He was carrying his overcoat and said in explanation of it, “I was just about to go outside and start a search.” He dropped the coat on her shoulders.

It was a meaningless enough gesture, yet Irene still felt a distinct aversion to his touch. He was so near that she could smell the cologne he wore and the last vestige of coffee fighting with toothpaste upon his breath. It made her feel ill.

If Gabriel noticed, he gave no sign. “They’re letting us leave. Have they made an arrest? Do you know?”

She couldn’t bring herself to look at him. “No. No arrest. Not yet.”

“Of course, we’re to be available for the inquest. God, what a dashed inconvenience it is to have to run back and forth from London. But at least it’s better than having to stay in this ice pit. The hot water’s entirely gone, you know. And little hope of having repairs done on that old boiler for at least three days. That’s taking roughing it to the limit, isn’t it?”

“I heard you,” she said. Her voice was a whisper, small and despairing. She felt him looking at her.

“Heard?”

“I heard you, Robert. I heard you with her the other night.”

“Irene, what are you—”

“Oh, you needn’t worry that I’ve told the police. I wouldn’t do that, would I? But that’s why you’ve come looking for me, I dare say. To make sure my pride ensures my silence.”

“No! I don’t even know what you’re talking about. I’m here because I want to take you back to London. I don’t want you to be going off on your own. There’s no telling—”