Payment in Blood

15

FOR THE ENTIRE DAY, Lady Helen had known that she should have felt exultant. After all, they had done what she had been determined they should do. They had proven Tommy wrong. Through their explorations into Lord Stinhurst’s background, they had proven nearly every suspicion against Rhys Davies-Jones in the deaths of Joy Sinclair and Gowan Kilbride to be without merit. They had, in doing so, altered the entire direction of the case. So when Sergeant Havers telephoned St. James at noon with the information that Stinhurst had been brought in for interrogation, that he had admitted to the truth about his brother’s involvement with the Soviets, Lady Helen knew that she should have been swept up in a tide of jubilation.

Shortly after two, she had left St. James’ house, had spent the remainder of the day in preparation for her evening with Rhys, an evening that would be one of loving celebration. She had prowled the streets of Knightsbridge for hours, in search of the perfect sartorial accompaniment to her mood. Except that soon enough she found that she wasn’t at all sure of her mood. She wasn’t sure of anything.

She told herself at first that the welter she was in arose from the fact that Stinhurst had admitted to nothing in the deaths of Joy Sinclair and Gowan Kilbride. But she knew she could not hold on to that lie for long. For if Strathclyde CID were able to turn up a hair, a spot of blood, or a latent fi ngerprint to tie the Scotland deaths to Stinhurst, she would then have to face what was really at the centre of her turmoil today. And at the centre was not an argument over one man’s guilt and another man’s innocence. At the centre was Tommy, his despairing face, his final words to her last night.

Yet she knew quite distinctly that whatever pain Tommy felt couldn’t be allowed to matter to her now. For Rhys was innocent. Innocent. And she had clung so tenaciously to that belief for the past four days that she could not let it go long enough to think of anything else, could not let herself be turned in any other direction but his. She wanted Rhys cleared completely in everyone’s eyes, wanted him to be seen for what he truly was-and seen by everyone, not just by her.

It was after seven when her taxi drew up to her flat on Onslow Square. Snow was falling heavily, wave after silent wave of it drifting from the east into soft piles along the iron fence that bordered the green at the centre of the square. When Lady Helen stepped into the frosty air and felt the sweet sting of fl akes against her cheeks and eyelashes, she spent a moment admiring the change that fresh snow always brought to the city. Then, shivering, she scooped up her packages and ran up the tiled front steps of the building that housed her flat. She fumbled in her handbag for her keys, but before she could fi nd them the door was swung open by her maid, who drew her inside hastily.

Caroline Shepherd had been with Lady Helen for the past three years, and although she was five years younger than her employer, she was passionately devoted to Lady Helen’s every interest, so she minced no words when the cold night air caught at her cloud of black hair as she slammed the door home. “Thank God! I’ve been that worried about you. Do you know it’s gone seven and Lord Asherton’s been ringing again and again and again this past hour? And Mr. St. James as well. And that lady sergeant from Scotland Yard. And Mr. Davies-Jones has been here these last forty minutes waiting for you in the drawing room.”

Lady Helen dimly heard it all but acknowledged only the last. She handed her packages over to the younger woman as they hurried up the stairs. “Lord, am I really as late as that? Rhys must wonder what’s become of me. And it’s your evening off, isn’t it? I am sorry, Caroline. Have I made you dreadfully late? Are you seeing Denton tonight? Will he forgive me?”

Caroline smiled. “He’ll see his way to that if I encourage him proper. I’ll just pop these in your room and be on my way.”

Lady Helen and Caroline occupied the largest flat in the building, seven rooms on the fi rst floor with a large drawing room that overlooked the square below. Here, the curtains were undrawn, and Rhys Davies-Jones stood at the French doors that spilled light onto a small balcony crusted with snow. He turned when Lady Helen entered.

“They’ve had Stinhurst at Scotland Yard for most of the day,” he said, his brow furrowed.

She hesitated at the door. “Yes. I know.”

“Do they actually think…I can’t believe that, Helen. I’ve known Stuart for years. He couldn’t have…”

She swiftly crossed the room to him. “You’ve known all these people for years, haven’t you, Rhys? Yet one of them did kill her. One of them killed Gowan.”

“But Stuart? No. I can’t…Good God, why?” he asked fi ercely.

The room’s lighting placed part of his body in shadow, so she could not see him distinctly, but she could hear in his voice the insistent plea for trust. And she did indeed trust him- she knew that without a doubt. But even so, she couldn’t bring herself to delineate for him all the details of Stinhurst’s family and background. For doing that would ultimately reveal Lynley’s humiliation, all the errors in judgement he had made over the past few days, and for the sake of the long friendship she had shared with Lynley-no matter that it might well be dead between them now-she found that she could not bear to expose him to the possibility of anyone’s derision, deserved or not.

“I’ve thought about you all day,” she answered simply, laying her hand on his arm. “Tommy knows you’re innocent. I’ve always known that. And we’re here together now. What else really matters at the heart of it?”

She felt the change in his body even as she spoke. His tension dissolved. He reached for her, his face melting, warming with his lovely smile. “Oh God, nothing. Nothing at all, Helen. Only you and I.” He pulled her to him, kissing her, whispering only the single word love. No matter the horrors of the past few days. They were over now. It was time for going on. He drew her away from the windows to the couch that sat in front of a low fi re at the opposite end of the room. Pulling her down next to him, he kissed her again, with more assurance, with a rising passion that kindled her own. After a long while, he lifted his head and ran his fingers in a feather-like touch along the line of her jaw and across her neck.

“This is madness, Helen. I’ve come to take you to dinner and I find that all I can manage to think about is taking you to bed. At once, I’m rather ashamed to admit. We’d best be off before I lose interest in dinner altogether.”

She lifted a hand to his cheek, smiling fondly when she felt its heat.

At her gesture, he murmured, bent to her again, his fingers working loose the buttons of her blouse. Then his mouth moved warmly against her bare throat and shoulders. His fi ngers brushed against her breasts. “I love you,” he whispered and sought her mouth again.

The telephone rang shrilly.

They jumped apart as if an intruder were present, staring at each other guiltily as the telephone went unanswered. It made its way through four jarring double rings before Lady Helen realised that Caroline, already two hours behind schedule on her free evening, had left the flat. They were entirely alone.

Her heart still pounding, she went into the hallway and lifted the receiver on its ninth ring.

“Helen. Thank God. Thank God. Is Davies-Jones with you?”

It was Lynley.

HIS VOICE was tightly strung with such unmistakable anxiety that Lady Helen froze. Her mind felt numb. “What is it? Where are you?” She knew she was whispering without even intending to do so.

“In a call box near Bishop’s Stortford. There’s a bloody great wreck on the M11 and every back road I’ve tried has been done in by the snow. I can’t think how long it’s going to take me to get back to London. Has Havers spoken to you yet? Have you heard from St. James? Damn it all, you’ve not answered me. Is Davies-Jones with you?”

“I’ve only just got home. What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Just answer me. Is he with you?”

In the drawing room, Rhys was still on the couch, but leaning towards the fi re, watching the last of the flames. Lady Helen could see the play of light and shadow on the planes of his face and in his curly hair. But she couldn’t speak. Something in Lynley’s voice warned her off.

He began to talk rapidly, driving the words home to her with the strength of a terrifying, passionate conviction.

“Listen to me, Helen. There was a girl. Hannah Darrow. He met her when he was in The Three Sisters in Norwich in late January of 1973. They had an affair. She was married, with a baby. She planned to leave her husband and child to take up a life with Davies-Jones. He convinced her that she was going to audition for the stage and she practised a part he chose for her, believing that after her audition she would run off with him to London. But the night they were to leave, he murdered her, Helen. And then he hanged her from a hook in the ceiling of a mill. It looked like a suicide.”

She managed only a whisper. “No. Stinhurst-”

“Joy’s death had nothing at all to do with Stinhurst! She was planning to write about Hannah Darrow. It was to be her new book. But she made the mistake of telling Davies-Jones about it. She phoned him in Wales. The tape recorder in her purse even had a message to herself, Helen, reminding her to ask Davies-Jones how to handle John Darrow, Hannah’s husband. So don’t you see? He knew all along that Joy was writing this book. He knew as early as last month. So he suggested to Joy that you be given the room right next to her, to make sure he had access. Now for the love of God, I’ve had men out looking for him since six o’clock. Tell me if he’s with you, Helen!”

Every force within her joined in conjunction to prevent her from speaking. Her eyes burned, her throat closed, her stomach tightened like a vise. And although she fought against the vivid memory, she heard Rhys’ voice clearly, those words of condemnation spoken so easily to her at Westerbrae. I’d been doing a winter’s season round Norfolk and Suffolk…when I got back to London she was gone.

“Hannah Darrow left a diary,” Lynley was saying desperately. “She left the programme from the play. I’ve seen them both. I’ve read it all. Helen, please, darling, I’m telling you the truth!”

Dimly, Lady Helen saw Rhys get up, saw him go to the fire, saw him pick up the poker. He glanced in her direction. His face was grave. No! It was impossible, absurd. She was in no danger. Not from Rhys, never from Rhys. He wasn’t a murderer. He had not killed his cousin. He couldn’t kill anyone. But Tommy was still speaking. Even as Rhys began to move.

“He arranged for her to copy a scene from the play in her own writing and then he used part of what she’d copied as the suicide note. But the words…they were from one of his own speeches in the play. It was Tuzenbach. He was Tuzenbach. He’s killed three people, Helen. Gowan died in my arms. For the love of God, answer me! Tell me! Now!”

Her lips formed the hateful word in spite of her resolve. She heard herself say it. “Yes.”

“He’s there?”

Again. “Yes.”

“Are you alone?”

“Yes.”

“Oh God. Caroline’s out?”

It was easy, so easy. Such a simple word. “Yes.”

And as Lynley continued to speak, Rhys turned back to the fire, poked at it, added another log, returned to the couch. Watching him, understanding the implications of what she had just done, of the choice she had made, Lady Helen felt tears sting at the back of her eyes, felt the constriction in her throat, and knew that she was lost.

“Listen to me carefully, Helen. I want to put a tail on him until we get the fi nal forensic report from Strathclyde CID. I could bring him in before then, but all it would amount to is another go-round with nothing to show. So I shall phone the Met now. They’ll send a constable, but it may take as long as twenty minutes. Can you keep him with you for a while? Do you feel safe enough with him to do that?”

She battled against despair. She could not speak.

Lynley’s own voice was torn. “Helen! Answer me! Can you manage twenty minutes with him? Can you? For God’s sake-”

Her lips were stiff, dry. “I can manage that. Easily.”

For a moment, she heard nothing more, as if Lynley were evaluating the exact nature of her response. Then he asked sharply: “What does he expect from you tonight?”

She didn’t reply.

“Answer me! Has he come to take you to bed?” When still she said nothing, he cried, “Helen! Please!”

She heard herself whisper hopelessly, “Well, that should take up your twenty minutes nicely, shouldn’t it?”

He was shouting, “No! Helen! Don’t-” when she hung up the phone.

SHE STOOD with her head bent, struggling for composure. Even now, he was placing his call to Scotland Yard. Even now the twenty minutes had begun.

Odd, she thought, that she felt no fear. Her heart throbbed in her ears, her throat was dry. But she was not afraid. She was alone in the flat with a killer, with Tommy miles away, with a snowstorm sealing off easy escape. But she was not at all afraid. And it came to her, as hot tears seared and demanded release, that she was not afraid because she no longer cared. Nothing mattered any longer, least of all whether she lived or died.

BARBARA HAVERS picked up the telephone in Lynley’s office on the second ring. It was a quarter past seven, and she had been sitting at his desk for over two hours, smoking so steadily that her throat was raw and her nerves strung to breaking. She was so relieved to hear Lynley’s voice at last that her release of tension gave way to hot anger. But her imprecations were interrupted by the intensity of his voice.

“Havers, where’s Constable Nkata?”

“Nkata?” she repeated stupidly. “Gone home.”

“Get him. I want him at Onslow Square. Now.”

She stubbed out her cigarette and reached for a piece of paper. “You’ve found Davies-Jones?”

“He’s in Helen’s flat. I want a tail on him, Havers. But if it comes to it, we’re going to have to bring him in.”

“How? Why?” she demanded incredulously. “We’ve virtually nothing to work with in spite of this Hannah Darrow angle which God knows is about as thin as what we have on Stinhurst. You told me yourself that every single one of them save Irene Sinclair was involved in that Norwich production in seventy-three. That still includes Stinhurst. And besides, Macaskin-”

“No arguments, Havers. I’ve no time at the moment. Just do as I say. And once you’ve done it, telephone Helen. Keep her talking to you for at least thirty minutes. More if you can. Do you understand?”

“Thirty minutes? What am I supposed to do? Tell her the flipping story of my life?”

Lynley made a sound of furious exasperation. “God damn it, do as I say for once! Now! And wait for me at the Yard!”

The line went dead.

Havers placed the call to Constable Nkata, sent him on his way, slammed down the receiver, and stared moodily at the papers on Lynley’s desk. They comprised the fi nal information from Strathclyde CID-the report on fingerprints, the results of having used the fibre-optic lamp, the analysis of blood stains, the study of four hairs found near the bed, the analysis of the cognac Rhys Davies-Jones had taken to Helen’s room. And all of it amounted to a single nothing. Not one shred of evidence existed that could not be argued away by the least skilled barrister.

Barbara faced the fact that Lynley was as yet unaware of. If they were going to bring Davies-Jones-or anyone else-to justice, it was not going to be on the strength of anything they could get from Inspector Macaskin in Scotland.

HER NAME was Lynette. But as she sprawled beneath him, writhing hotly and moaning appreciatively at his every thrust, Robert Gabriel had to school himself to remember that, had to discipline himself not to call her something else. After all, there had been so many over the past few months. Who could possibly be expected to keep them all straight? But at the appropriate moment, he recalled who she was: the Agincourt’s nineteen-yearold apprentice set designer whose skin-tight jeans and thin yellow jersey now lay in the darkness on the floor of his dressing room. He had discovered soon enough-and with considerable joy-that she wore absolutely nothing beneath them.

He felt her fingernails clawing at his back and made a sound of delight although he would have vastly preferred some other method of her signalling her mounting pleasure. Still, he continued to ride her in the manner she seemed to prefer-roughly-and tried his best not to breathe in the heavy perfume she wore or the vaguely oleaginous odour that emanated from her hair. He murmured subtle encouragement, keeping his mind occupied with other things until she had taken satisfaction and he might then seek his own. He liked to think he was considerate that way, better at it than most men, more willing to show women a good time.

“Ohhhh, don’t stop! I can’t stand it! I can’t!” Lynette moaned.

Nor can I, Gabriel thought as her nails danced abrasively down his spine. He was three-quarters of the way through a mental recitation of Hamlet’s third soliloquy when her ecstatic sobbing reached its crescendo. Her body arched. She shrieked wildly. Her nails sank into his buttocks. And Gabriel made a mental note to avoid teenagers henceforth.

That decision was affirmed by Lynette’s subsequent behaviour. Having taken her pleasure, she became an inert object, passively and not so patiently waiting for him to fi nish with his own. Which he did quickly, groaning out her name with feigned rapture at the appropriate moment and all the time as eager to bring this encounter to an end as she seemed to be. Perhaps the costume designer would be a likelier possibility for tomorrow, he thought.

“Ohhh, tha’ was a bit all right, wasn’t it?” Lynette said with a yawn when it was over. She sat up, swung her legs off the couch, and groped on the floor for her clothes. “’Ave you the time?”

Gabriel glanced at the luminous dial of his watch. “A quarter past nine,” he replied, and in spite of his desire that she be on her way so that he could have a thorough wash, he ran his hand up her back and murmured, “Let’s have another go tomorrow night, Lyn. You drive me mad,” just in case the costume designer proved unattainable.

She giggled, took his hand, and placed it on her melonsized breast. Even at her age, it was beginning to sag, the result of her eschewing undergarments. “Can’t, luv. Me ’usband’s on the road tonight. But ’e’ll be back tomorrow.”

Gabriel sat up with a jerk. “Your husband? Christ! Why didn’t you tell me you were married?”

Lynette giggled again, squirming into her jeans. “Didn’t ask, did you? ’E drives a lorry, gone at least three nights a week. So…”

God, a lorry driver! Twelve or thirteen stone of muscle with the IQ of a good-sized vegetable marrow.

“Listen, Lynette,” Gabriel said hastily, “let’s cool this thing off, shall we? I don’t want to come between you and your husband.”

He felt rather than saw her careless shrug. She pulled on her jersey and shook back her hair. Again, he caught its odour. Again, he tried not to breathe.

“’E’s a bit thick,” she confided. “’E’ll never know. There’s nothing to worry about as long as I’m there when ’e wants me.”

“Still and all,” Gabriel said, unconvinced.

She patted his cheek. “Well, you jus’ let me know if you want another tumble. You aren’t ’alf bad. A bit slow, is all, but I s’pose that’s due to your age, isn’t it?”

“My age,” he repeated.

“Sure,” she said cheerfully. “When a bloke gets along in years, things take a bit of time to heat up, don’t they? I understand.” She scrambled on the floor. “Seen my ’and-bag? Oh, ’ere it is. I’m off then. P’raps we’ll ’ave a go on Sunday? My Jim’ll be back on the road by then.” That being her sole form of farewell, she made her way to the door and left him in the dark.

My age, he thought, and he could hear his mother’s cackle of ironic laughter. She would light one of her foul Turkish cigarettes, regard him speculatively, and try to keep her face vacant. It was her analyst’s expression. He hated her when she wore it, cursing himself for having been born to a Freudian. What we’re dealing with, she would say, is typical in a man your age, Robert. Midlife crisis, the sudden realisation of impending old age, the questioning of life’s purpose, the search for renewal. Coupled with your over-active libido, this propels you to seek new ways of defi ning yourself. Always sexual, I’m afraid. That appears to be your dilemma. Which is unfortunate for your wife, as she seems to be the only steadying influence available to you. But you are afraid of Irene, aren’t you? She’s always been too much woman for you to cope with. She made demands on you, didn’t she? Demands of adulthood that you simply couldn’t face. So you sought out her sister-to punish Irene and to keep yourself feeling young. But you couldn’t have everything, lad. People who want everything generally end up with nothing.

And the most painful fact was that it was true. All of it. Gabriel groaned, sat up, began the search for his clothes. The dressing-room door opened.

He had only time to look in that direction, to see a thick shape against the additional darkness of the hallway outside his door. He had only a moment to think, Someone’s shut off all the corridor lights, before a fi gure stormed across the room.

Gabriel smelled whisky, cigarettes, the acrid stench of perspiration. And then a rain of blows fell, on his face, against his chest, savagely pounding into his ribs. He heard, rather than felt, the cracking of bones. He tasted blood and ate the torn tissue in his mouth where his cheek was driven into his teeth.

His assailant grunted with effort, spewed spittle with rage, and finally rasped on the fourth vicious blow between Gabriel’s legs, “Keep your soddin’ piece in your trousers from now on, man.”

Gabriel thought only, Absolutely no teenagers next time, before he lost consciousness.

LYNLEY REPLACED the telephone and looked at Barbara. “No answer,” he said. Barbara saw the muscle in his cheek contract. “What time did Nkata first phone in?”

“A quarter past eight,” she replied.

“Where was Davies-Jones?”

“He’d gone into an off-licence near Kensington Station. Nkata was in a call box outside.”

“And he was alone? He hadn’t taken Helen with him? You’re certain of that?”

“He was alone, sir.”

“But you spoke to her, Havers? You did speak to Helen after Davies-Jones left her fl at?”

Barbara nodded, feeling a growing concern for him that she would have rather lived without. He looked completely worn out. “She phoned me, sir. Right after he’d left.”

“Saying?”

Barbara patiently repeated what she had told him once already. “Only that he’d gone. I did try to keep her on the line for thirty minutes when I first phoned, just as you asked. But she wouldn’t have it, Inspector. She only said that she’d got company and could she telephone me later. And that was it. I don’t think she wanted my help, frankly.” Barbara watched the play of anxiety cross Lynley’s face. She finished by saying: “I think she wanted to handle it alone, sir. Perhaps…well, perhaps she doesn’t see him as a killer yet.”

Lynley cleared his throat. “No. She understands.” He pulled Barbara’s notes across his desk towards him. They contained two sets of data, the results of her interrogation of Stinhurst and the fi nal information from Inspector Macaskin at Strathclyde CID. He put on his spectacles and gave himself over to reading. Outside his office, night subdued the normal jangle of noises in the department. Only the occasional ringing of a telephone, the quick raising of a voice, the congenial burst of laughter told them that they were not alone. Beyond, snow muffled the sounds of the city.

Barbara sat opposite him, holding Hannah Darrow’s diary in one hand and the playbill from The Three Sisters in the other. She had read them both, but she was waiting for his reaction to the material she had prepared for him during his absence in East Anglia and his entanglement in traffic on the way back to London.

He was, she saw, frowning as he read and looking as if the past few days had made demands upon him that were scarring their way into his very flesh. She averted her eyes and made an exercise out of considering his office, pondering the ways it reflected the dichotomy of his character. Its shelves of books bowed to the proprieties of his job. There were legal volumes, forensic texts, commentaries upon the judges’ rules, and several works from the Policy Studies Institute, evaluating the effectiveness of the Metropolitan Police. They composed a fairly standard collection for a man whose interest was well focussed on his career. But the office walls inadvertently cut through this persona of professionalism and revealed a second Lynley, one whose nature was filled with convolutions. Little enough hung there: two lithographs from America’s Southwest that spoke of an abiding love of tranquillity, and a single photograph that disclosed what had lain long at the heart of the man.

It was of St. James, an old picture taken prior to the accident that had cost him the use of his leg. Barbara noticed the overtly innocuous details: how St. James stood, his arms crossed, leaning against a cricket bat; how the left knee of his white flannels bore a large, jagged tear; how a grass stain made a cumulous shadow on his hip; how he laughed unrestrainedly and with perfect joy. Summer past, Barbara thought. Summer dead forever. She knew quite well why the photograph hung there. She moved her eyes away from it.

Lynley’s head was bent, supported by his hand. He rubbed three fingers across his brow. It was some minutes before he looked up, removed his spectacles, and met her gaze. “We’ve nothing here for an arrest,” he said, gesturing at the information from Macaskin.

Barbara hesitated. His passion on the telephone earlier that evening had so nearly convinced her of her own error in seeking an arrest of Lord Stinhurst that even now she thought twice before pointing out the obvious. But there was no need to do so, for he went on to speak of it himself.

“And God knows we can’t take Davies-Jones on the strength of his name in a fi fteenyear-old playbill. We may as well arrest any one of them if that’s all the evidence we have.”

“But Lord Stinhurst burnt the scripts at Westerbrae,” Barbara pointed out. “There’s still that.”

“If you want to argue that he killed Joy to keep her silent about his brother, yes. There is still that,” Lynley agreed. “But I don’t see it that way, Havers. The worst Stinhurst really faced was familial humiliation if the entire story about Geoffrey Rintoul became known through Joy’s play. But Hannah Darrow’s killer faced exposure, trial, imprisonment if she wrote her book. Now, which motive seems more logical to you?”

“Perhaps…” Barbara knew she had to suggest this carefully, “we’ve a double motive. But a single killer.”

“Stinhurst again?”

“He did direct The Three Sisters in Norwich, Inspector. He could be the man Hannah Darrow met. And he could have gotten the key to Joy’s bedroom door from Francesca.”

“Look at the facts that you’ve forgotten, Havers. Everything about Geoffrey Rintoul had been removed from Joy’s study. But everything related to Hannah Darrow-everything that led us right to her death in 1973-was left in plain sight.”

“Of course, sir. But Stinhurst could hardly have asked the boys at MI5 to collect everything about Hannah Darrow as well. That hardly applied to the government’s concern, did it? It wasn’t exactly an Official Secret. And besides, how could he have known what she had gathered on Hannah Darrow? She merely mentioned John Darrow at dinner that night. Unless Stinhurst-all right, unless the kill-er-had actually been inside Joy’s study prior to the weekend, how would he know for sure what material she had managed to gather? Or managed not to gather, for that matter.”

Lynley stared past her, his face telling her that he was caught up in a sudden thought. “You’ve given me an idea, Havers.” He tapped his fingers against the top of his desk. His eyes dropped to the journal in Barbara’s hand. “I think we’ve a way to manage it all without a single thing from Strathclyde CID,” he said at last. “But we’ll need Irene Sinclair.”

“Irene Sinclair?”

He nodded thoughtfully. “She’s our best hope. She was the only one of them not in The Three Sisters in 1973.”

DIRECTED BY a neighbour who had been drawn into staying with and calming her children, they found Irene Sinclair not at her home in Bloomsbury but in the waiting area of the emergency room at the nearby University College Hospital. When they walked in, she jumped to her feet.

“He asked for no police!” she cried out frantically. “How did you…what are you…? Did the doctor phone you?”

“We’ve been to your home.” Lynley drew her to one of the couches that lined the walls. The room was inordinately crowded, filled with an assortment of illnesses and accidents manifesting themselves in selected cries and groans and retchings. That pharmaceutical smell so typical of hospitals hung heavily in the air. “What’s happened?”

Irene shook her head blindly, sinking onto the couch, cradling her cheek with her hand. “Robert’s been beaten. At the theatre.”

“At this time of night? What was he doing there?”

“Going over his lines. We’ve a second reading tomorrow morning and he said that he wanted a feeling for how he sounded on the stage.”

Lynley saw that she didn’t believe the story herself. “Was he on the stage when he was attacked?”

“No, he’d gone to his dressing room for something to drink. Someone switched off the lights and came upon him there. Afterwards, he managed to get to a phone. Mine was the only number he could remember.” This last statement had the ring of excusing her presence.

“Not the emergency number?”

“He didn’t want the police.” She looked at them anxiously. “But I’m glad you’ve come. Perhaps you can talk some sense into him. It’s only too clear that he was meant to be the next victim!”

Lynley drew up an uncomfortable plastic chair to shield her from the stares of the curious. Havers did likewise.

“Why?” Lynley asked.

Irene’s face looked strained, as if the question confused her. But something told Lynley it was part of a performance designed specifi cally and spontaneously for him. “What do you mean? What else could it be? He’s been beaten bloody. Two of his ribs are cracked, his eyes are blackened, he’s lost a tooth. Who else could be responsible?”

“It’s not the way our killer’s been working, though, is it?” Lynley pointed out. “We’ve a man, perhaps a woman, who uses a knife, not fists. It doesn’t really look as if anyone intended to kill him.”

“Then what else could it be? What are you saying?” She drew her body straight to ask the question, as if an offence had been given and would not be brooked without some form of protest.

“I think you know the answer to that. I imagine you’ve not told me everything about tonight. You’re protecting him. Why? What on earth has he done to deserve this kind of devotion? He’s hurt you in every possible way. He’s treated you with a contempt that he hasn’t bothered to hide from anyone. Irene, listen to me-”

She held up a hand and her agonised voice told him her brief performance was at an end. “Please. All right. That’s more than enough. He’d had a woman. I don’t know who she was. He wouldn’t say. When I got there, he was still…he hadn’t…” She stumbled for the words. “He couldn’t manage his clothes.”

Lynley heard the admission with disbelief. What had it been like for her, going to him, soothing his fear, smelling those unmistakable odours of intercourse, dressing him in the very same clothes he had torn from his body in haste to make love to another woman? “I’m trying to understand why you still feel loyalty to a man like this, a man who went so far as to deceive you with your very own sister.” Even as he spoke, he considered his words, considered how Irene had attempted to spare Robert Gabriel tonight, and thought back to what had been said about the night Joy Sinclair died. He saw the pattern clearly enough. “You’ve not told me everything about the night your sister died either. Even in that, you’re protecting him. Why, Irene?”

Her eyes closed briefly. “He’s the father of my children,” she replied with simple dignity.

“Protecting him protects them?”

“Ultimately. Yes.”

John Darrow himself could not have said it better. But Lynley knew how to direct the conversation. Teddy Darrow had shown him.

“Children generally discover the worst there is to know about their parents, no matter how one longs to protect them. Your silence now does nothing but serve to protect your sister’s killer.”

“He didn’t. He couldn’t! I can’t believe that of Robert. Nearly anything else, God knows. But not that.”

Lynley leaned towards her and covered her cold hands with his own. “You’ve been thinking he killed your sister. And saying nothing about your suspicions has been your way of protecting your children, sparing them the public humiliation of having a murderer for a father.”

“He couldn’t. Not that.”

“Yet you think he did. Why?”

Sergeant Havers spoke. “If Gabriel didn’t kill your sister, what you tell us can only help him.”

Irene shook her head. Her eyes were hollows of terrible fear. “Not this. It can’t.” She looked at each one of them, her fi ngers digging into the worn surface of her handbag. She was like a fugitive, determined to escape but recognising the futility of further flight. When she began to speak at last, her body shuddered as if an illness had taken her. As, in a way, it had. “My sister was with Robert that night in his room. I heard them. I’d gone to him. Like a fool…God, why am I such a pathetic fool? He and I had been in the library together earlier, after the read-through, and there was a moment then when I thought that we might really go back to the way things had been between us. We’d been talking about our children, about…our lives in the past. So later, I went to Robert’s room, meaning to…Oh God, I don’t know what I meant to do.” She ran a hand back through her dark hair, gripping it hard at the scalp as if she wanted the pain. “How much more of a fool can I possibly be in one lifetime? I almost walked in on my sister and Robert for a second time. And the funny part-it’s almost hysterical when one really thinks about it-is that he was saying exactly the same thing that he had been saying to Joy that day in Hampstead when I found them together. ‘Come on, baby. Come on, Joy. Come on! Come on!’ And grunting and grunting and grunting like a bull.”

Lynley heard her words, recognising the kaleidoscopic effect they had on the case. They threw everything into a new perspective. “What time was this?”

“Late. Long after one. Perhaps nearly two. I don’t actually know.”

“But you heard him? You’re certain of that?”

“Oh, yes. I heard him.” She bent her head in shame.

Yet after that, Lynley thought, she would still seek to protect the man. That kind of undeserved, selfless devotion was beyond his comprehension. He avoided trying to deal with it by asking her something altogether different. “Do you remember where you were in March of 1973?”

She did not seem to take in the question at once. “In 1973? I was…surely I was at home in London. Caring for James. Our son. He was born that January, and I’d taken some time off.”

“But Gabriel wasn’t home?”

She pondered this. “No, I don’t think he was. I think he was appearing in the regionals then. Why? What does that have to do with all this?”

Everything, Lynley thought. He put all his resources into compelling her to listen and understand his next words. “Your sister was getting ready to write a book about a murder that occurred in March of 1973. Whoever committed that murder also killed Joy and Gowan Kilbride. The evidence we have is virtually useless, Irene. And I’m afraid we need you if we’re to bring this creature to any kind of justice.”

Her eyes begged him for the truth. “Is it Robert?”

“I don’t think so. Inspite of everything you’ve told us, I simply don’t see how he could have managed to get the key to her room.”

“But if he was with her that night, she could have given it to him!”

That was a possibility, Lynley acknowledged. How to explain it? And then how to align it with what the forensic report revealed about Joy Sinclair? And how to tell Irene that even if, by helping the police, she proved her husband innocent, she would only be proving her own cousin Rhys guilty?

“Will you help us?” he asked.

Lynley saw her struggle with the decision and knew exactly the dilemma she faced. It all came down to a simple choice: her continued protection of Robert Gabriel for the sake of their children, or her active involvement in a scheme that might bring her sister’s killer to justice. To choose the former, she faced the uncertainty of never knowing whether she was protecting a man who was truly innocent or guilty. To choose the latter, however, she in effect committed herself to an act of forgiveness, a posthumous absolution of her sister’s sin against her.

Thus, it was a choice between the living and the dead wherein the living promised only a continuation of lies and the dead promised the peace of mind that comes from a dissolution of rancour and a getting on with life. On the surface, it appeared to be no choice at all. But Lynley knew too well that decisions governed by the heart could be wildly irrational. He only hoped Irene had grown to see that her marriage to Gabriel had been infected with the disease of his infidelities, and that her sister had played only a small and unhappy role in a drama of demise that had been grinding itself out for years.

Irene moved. Her fingers left damp marks on her leather handbag. Her voice caught, then held. “I’ll help you. What do I have to do?”

“Spend tonight at your sister’s home in Hampstead. Sergeant Havers will go with you.”