Believing the Lie

CHALK FARM LONDON

Barbara Havers had spent the first part of her day off visiting her mother in the private care home where she was domiciled in Greenford. The call was long overdue. She hadn’t been there in seven weeks, and she’d been feeling the weight of guilt grow heavier with every day once she’d reached the three-week point. She’d admitted the worst to herself: that she welcomed having work piled upon her so she wouldn’t have to go and witness the further disintegration of her mother’s mind. But there had come a point when continuing to live with herself meant she had to make the journey to that pebbledash house with its neat front garden and spotless curtains hanging behind windows that fairly gleamed in sun or rain, so she took the Central Line from Tottenham Court Road, not because it was faster but because it wasn’t.

She wasn’t liar enough to tell herself she was travelling in this manner to give herself time to think. The last thing she really wanted to do was to think about anything, and her mother was only one of the subjects she didn’t want pressing in on her mind. Thomas Lynley was another: where he was, what he was doing, and why she hadn’t been informed about either. Isabelle Ardery was yet another: whether she was actually going to be named to the position of detective superintendent permanently and what that would mean to Barbara’s own future with the Met, not to mention to her working relationship with Thomas Lynley. Angelina Upman was still another: whether she — Barbara — could have a friendship with the lover of her neighbour and friend Taymullah Azhar, whose daughter had become a needed bit of sparkle in Barbara’s life. No. The reason she took the train was avoidance, pure and simple. Additionally, the distractions afforded by the Tube were vast and continually shifting, and what Barbara wanted was distractions because they gave her conversation openers that she could use with her mother when she finally saw her.

Not that she and her mother had conversations any longer. At least not the sort of conversations one might deem normal between a mother and daughter. And this day had ultimately been no different to others in which Barbara spoke, hesitated, watched, and felt desperate to end the visit as soon as possible.

Her mother had fallen in love with Laurence Olivier, the younger version. She was completely swept away by Heathcliff and Max de Winter. She wasn’t sure who he was exactly — the man she kept watching on the television screen — tormenting Merle Oberon when he wasn’t leaving poor Joan Fontaine completely tongue-tied. She only knew that they were meant to be together, she and this handsome man. That he was, in reality, long dead and gone was no matter to her.

She didn’t recognise the older version of the actor. Olivier doing the job on poor Dustin Hoffman’s teeth — not to mention Olivier rolling round the floor with Gregory Peck — made no impact on her at all. Indeed, whenever an Olivier film other than Wuthering Heights or Rebecca was brought to her attention, she became quite ungovernable. Even Olivier as Mr. Darcy could not sway her from either of the other two films. So they looped endlessly through a television in her mother’s bedroom, a feature that Mrs. Florence Magentry had installed in order to save the sanity of her other residents as well as her own. There were only so many times one could watch devious Larry destroy poor David Niven’s tenuous claim on happiness.

Barbara had spent two hours with her mother. They were heart-sore hours, and she felt the pain of them all the way home from Greenford. So when she’d run into Angelina Upman and her daughter Hadiyyah on the pavement just outside the big house in Eton Villas where they all lived, she’d accepted their invitation to “look at what Mummy bought, Barbara” as a means of clearing her mind of the images of her mother cradling one breast tenderly as she watched the flickering screen display Max de Winter in torment over the death of his evil first wife.

She was with Hadiyyah and her mother now, having dutifully admired two ultra-modern lithographs that Angelina had managed to “practically pinch, Barbara, they were such a bargain, weren’t they, Mummy?” from a vendor in the Stables Market. Barbara admired them. Not to her taste, but she could indeed see how they were going to work in the sitting room of Azhar’s flat.

Barbara gave thought to the fact that Angelina had apparently taken her daughter to one of the places absolutely verboten by the little girl’s father. She wondered if Hadiyyah had mentioned this to her mother or if, perhaps, Angelina and Azhar had agreed in advance that it was time Hadiyyah began to experience more of the world. She had her answer when Hadiyyah clapped her hands over her mouth and said, “I forgot, Mummy!” Angelina replied, “No matter, darling. Barbara will keep our secret. I hope.”

“You will, Barbara, won’t you?” Hadiyyah asked. “Dad’ll be so cross if he knows where we went.”

“Don’t nag, Hadiyyah,” Angelina said. And to Barbara, “Would you like a cup of tea? I’m parched and you look a bit rough round the edges. Difficult day?”

“Just a trip to Greenford.” Barbara said nothing more but Hadiyyah added, “That’s where Barbara’s mum lives, Mummy. She’s not well, is she, Barbara?”

Barbara certainly didn’t want to entertain the topic of her mother, so she sought a different subject. Angelina being 100 percent female in ways Barbara could only dream of, Barbara pulled a topic out of the air that seemed the sort of subject a 100 percent female might wish to pursue.

Hair. More to the point, the fact that, upon Isabelle Ardery’s strongly worded recommendation, she was going to have to do something with hers. Angelina had mentioned, Barbara recalled, that she knew of a beauty parlour…?

“Salon!” Hadiyyah crowed. “Barbara, it’s not a parlour. It’s a salon!”

“Hadiyyah,” her mother said sternly. “That’s very rude. And parlour is fine, by the way. Salon is more modern, but it hardly matters. Don’t be so silly.” To Barbara she said, “Yes, of course, I do know, Barbara. It’s where I get my own hair done.”

“D’you think they could…?” Barbara wasn’t even sure what she was meant to ask for. A haircut? A styling? A colour job? What? She’d been cutting her own hair for years and while it generally looked exactly as one would expect a self-cut hairstyle to look — which was not like a style at all but rather like an application of scissors to head during a thunderstorm — it had long served the simple purpose of keeping it out of her face. That, however, was no longer going to suit, at least as far as Barbara’s superior officer at the Met was concerned.

“They could do whatever you’d like them to do. They’re very good. I can give you their number. And my stylist’s name. He’s called Dusty and he’s a bit of a flamboyant arse I’m afraid — if you’ll excuse me, Hadiyyah, don’t tell your father I said arse in front of you — but if you can get past the fact that he’s completely full of his own excruciating wonderfulness, he’s actually quite good with hair. In fact, why don’t I make you an appointment and come with you as well? Unless, of course, you think that too intrusive.”

Barbara wasn’t sure what she thought about having Azhar’s lover along for the ride of her self-improvement. Hadiyyah had done this service before Angelina’s return to her daughter’s life, but making the switch to her mother and what was implied by making the switch to her mother… a movement towards friendship… She wasn’t sure.

Angelina seemed to sense this hesitation because she said, “Well, let me fetch you that number and in the meantime, think about it. I’m completely happy to go with you.”

“Where is it, exactly, this par… salon?”

“Knightsbridge.”

“Knightsbridge?” God, now that would cost a fortune.

“It’s not the moon, Barbara,” Hadiyyah said.

Her mother lifted a warning finger. “Hadiyyah Khalidah — ”

“S’okay,” Barbara said. “She knows me too well. If you give me the number, I’ll phone them right now. You want to come as well, kiddo?” she asked Hadiyyah.

“Oh yes yes yes!” Hadiyyah cried. “Mummy, I c’n go with Barbara, can’t I?”

“You as well,” Barbara said to Angelina. “I think I’ll need all the help I can get for this enterprise.”

Angelina smiled. She had, Barbara noted, a very pretty smile. Azhar had never told her how he’d met Angelina, but she reckoned it was the woman’s smile that he’d first noticed about her. Since he was male, he’d probably gone right onto her body next, which was lithe and feminine and clothed in appealing and well-groomed ways Barbara could never have hoped to duplicate.

She took out her mobile phone in anticipation of making the call, but it rang before she was able to do so. She looked at the number and saw it was Lynley. She didn’t like the delight that swept through her when she recognised his number.

“Time for a rain check on the hair,” she said to Angelina. “I have to take this call.”

CHALK FARM LONDON

“What are you doing?” Lynley asked her. “Where are you? Can you talk?”

“My vocal cords haven’t been cut, if that’s what you mean,” Barbara said. “If, on the other hand, you mean is it safe… God, that’s what he kept saying to Dustin Hoffman, isn’t it? I might be losing my bloody mind if I’m starting to quote — ”

“Barbara, what are you talking about?”

“Laurence Olivier. Marathon Man. Don’t ask. I’m at home, more or less. I mean I’m on the terrace outside Azhar’s flat, having been saved at the final moment from making an appointment to have my hair styled to please Acting Detective Superintendent Ardery. I was thinking Big Hair, circa 1980. Or one of those complicated World War II jelly-roll affairs, if you know what I mean. Masses of hair on either side of the forehead wound round something and looking like salami. I’ve always wondered what it was they used to get that style. Toilet rolls, p’rhaps?”

“Should I anticipate all future conversations with you to take this bent?” Lynley enquired. “Frankly, I’ve always thought your appeal lay in your complete indifference to personal grooming.”

“Those days are past, sir. What c’n I do for you? I reckon this isn’t a personal call, made to see if I’m keeping my legs shaved.”

“I need you to do some digging for me, but it’s got to be completely out of everyone’s sight and hearing. It might involve legwork as well. Are you willing? More, can you manage that?”

“This’s to do with whatever you’re up to, I reckon. Everyone’s talking, you know.”

“About?”

“Where you are, why you are, who sent you, and all the trimmings. Common thought is you’re investigating a monumental cock-up somewhere. Police corruption, with you on tiptoe fading into the woodwork to catch someone taking a payoff or someone else putting electrodes to a suspect’s cobblers. You know what I mean.”

“And you?”

“What do I think? Hillier’s got you up to your eyeballs in something he himself doesn’t want to touch with a ten-foot plastic one. You put a step wrong, you take the fall, he still smells like dewdrops on roses. Am I close?”

“On the Hillier part. But it’s just a favour.”

“And that’s all you can say.”

“For the moment. Are you willing?”

“What? To lend a hand?”

“No one can know. You have to fly beneath the radar. Everyone’s but particularly — ”

“The superintendent’s.”

“It could get you into trouble with her. Not in the long run, but in the short term.”

“Why else do I breathe in our native land?” Barbara said. “Tell me what you need.”

CHALK FARM LONDON

As soon as Lynley said Fairclough, Barbara knew. This wasn’t due to the fact that she had her fingers on the pulse of the life of everyone possessing a title in the UK. Far be that from the fact. Rather it was due to her being a devout albeit closet reader of The Source. She was addicted and had been so for years, an absolute victim to four-inch headlines and deliciously compromising photographs. Whenever she passed an advertising placard set up on the pavement and screaming a front-page story on sale inside this tobacconist or that corner shop, her feet went into the place of their own accord, she handed over her money, and she had a good wallow, generally over an afternoon cuppa and a toasted tea cake. Thus, Fairclough was a familiar name to her, not only as it referenced the Baron of Ireleth and his business — which had garnered many journalistic guffaws over the years — but also as it attached itself to his loose-living scion, Nicholas.

She also knew at once where Lynley was: in Cumbria, where the Faircloughs and Fairclough Industries were based. What she didn’t know was how Hillier knew the Faircloughs and what he’d asked Lynley to do regarding the family. In other words, she wasn’t sure if it was a case of we’re-for-’em or we’re-against-’em, but she reckoned that, if there was a title involved, Hillier was cosying up to the for-’em side. Hillier had a thing about titles, especially those that were above his own rank, which was all of them.

So this probably had to do with Lord Fairclough and not his wastrel son, long the subject of tabloid exposes along with other rich young things throwing their lives away. But the list of Lynley’s interests suggested that he was casting a very wide net indeed since they involved a will, an insurance policy, The Source, Bernard Fairclough, and the most recent edition of Conception magazine. They also involved someone called Ian Cresswell, identified as Fairclough’s nephew. And for good measure — if she had time to pursue the matter — someone called Alatea Vasquez y del Torres, hailing from somewhere in Argentina called Santa Maria di whatever, might bear looking into. But only if she had the time, Lynley stressed, because at the moment the real digging needed to be about Fairclough. Fairclough the father, not the son, he emphasised.

LAKE WINDERMERE CUMBRIA

Freddie’s next Internet date had spent the night and while Manette always tried to think of herself as a with-it sort of woman, this did seem a bit much to her. Her ex-husband was no schoolboy, to be sure, and he certainly wasn’t asking for her opinion on the matter. But for the love of God, it had been their first date and where was the world going to — or more to the point, where was Freddie going to? — if men and women tried each other out in bed as a modern-day form of singing “Getting to Know You”? But that’s exactly what had happened, according to Freddie, and it had been her idea. The woman’s! According to Freddie, she’d said, “Really, there’d be no point in carrying on further if we’re not sexually compatible, Freddie, don’t you agree?”

Well, Freddie was a man, after all. Presented with the opportunity, what was he going to do, ask for six months of chastity to give them time to suss each other out on matters from politics to prestidigitation? Plus, it seemed reasonable enough to him. Times were changing, after all. So two glasses of wine at the local and home they came to take the plunge. Evidently, they’d found all their parts in working order and the experience pleasurable, so they’d done it two more times — again, this was according to Freddie — and she’d spent the rest of the night. There she’d been, having coffee with him in the kitchen when Manette came downstairs in the morning. She’d been wearing Freddie’s shirt and nothing else, which left her showing a lot of leg and not a small part of where the leg came from. And like a cat with canary feathers hanging from her mouth, she said to Manette, “Hello. You must be Freddie’s ex. I’m Holly.”

Holly? Holly! What sort of name was that? Her former husband was going for a shrub? Manette looked at Freddie — who at least had the grace to turn puce — and then poured herself a hasty cup of coffee, after which she retreated to her bathroom. There, Freddie came to apologise for the uneasiness of the situation — not, Manette noted, for having had the woman stay the night — and he said in best Freddie fashion that in the future he’d spend the night at their places instead of the reverse. “It all just happened between us rather quickly,” he told her. “I’d not intended it.”

But Manette homed in on their places, and this was how she learned that times had changed and that instantaneous copulation had become the new form of shaking hands. She’d sputtered, “You mean, you intend to try out every one of them?”

“Well, it does seem to be the way things are done these days.”

She’d tried to tell him that this was lunacy. She’d lectured him about STDs, unplanned pregnancies, entrapment, and everything else she could think of. What she didn’t say was that they had a very good situation, she and Freddie, living as roommates, because she didn’t want to hear him say that it was time they both moved on. At the end of it all, though, he’d kissed her forehead, told her not to worry about him, revealed he had another date that night, declared he might therefore not be home afterwards, and said he’d see her at work. He’d take his own car today, he told her, because this date lived in Barrow-in-Furness, and they were meeting at Scorpio nightclub so if she wanted to hook up seriously — Freddie actually said “hook up seriously” — they’d go to her place as it was apparently too far to drive to Great Urswick if their knickers were on fire.

Manette wailed, “But, Freddie …!” yet realised there was nothing else she could say. She could hardly accuse him of being unfaithful or destroying what she and he had or acting hastily. They weren’t married, they “had” next to nothing, and they’d been divorced long enough that Freddie’s decision to get back into the world of dating — as bizarre as that world now apparently was — had not been made on the fly. He wasn’t that sort of man, anyway. And one only had to look at him to understand why women would be happy to try him out as a mate: He was fresh and sweet and not half-bad looking.

No, she had no rights here, and Manette knew it. But she mourned something lost all the same.

Nonetheless, there were things to be seen to that went beyond her situation with Freddie, and she found that she was grateful for them, although she wouldn’t have thought so on the previous day after her confrontation with Niamh Cresswell. Something had to be done about Niamh, and while Manette herself was powerless when it came to the woman, she was not powerless when it came to Tim and Gracie. If she had to move a mountain to help those children, then that was what she intended to do.

She drove to Ireleth Hall. She thought there was a good chance that Kaveh Mehran would be there since he’d been long engaged in designing a children’s garden for the estate, as well as overseeing the implementation of this design. The garden was intended for Nicholas’s future children — and wasn’t that like counting chickens, Manette thought — and considering the size of the garden that had been staked out, it looked as if Valerie was expecting dozens of them.

She was in luck, Manette saw upon her arrival. She traipsed round to the location of the future children’s garden, which was north of the immense and fantastical topiary garden, and she saw not only Kaveh Mehran but her father as well. There was another man with them whom Manette did not recognise but reckoned was “the earl” that her sister had phoned her about.

“Widower,” Mignon had told her. Manette could hear the tapping of her keyboard in the background, so she knew her sister was doing her usual multitasking: e-mailing one of her online lovers while simultaneously dismissing what she’d reckoned was a potential offline one. “It’s rather obvious why Dad’s dragged him up here from London. Hope springs eternal et cetera. And now I’ve had the surgery and lost all the weight, he reckons I’m ready for a suitor. A regular Charlotte Lucas, just waiting for Mr. Collins to show up. God, how embarrassing. Well, dream on, Pater. I’m quite happy where I am, thank you very much.”

Manette wouldn’t have put it past her father. He’d been trying to offload Mignon for years, but she had him very much where she wanted him and she had no intention of making any changes. Why Bernard wouldn’t show her the door or give her the boot or any other figurative cutting of ties with Mignon was beyond Manette, although once he’d built the folly for her sister some six years earlier, Manette had concluded her twin was holding back something damaging that would ruin their father if she let it be known. What that was Manette couldn’t imagine, but it had to be something big.

Kaveh Mehran appeared to be showing the other two men the progress so far made on the children’s garden. He was pointing hither and yon at stacks of timber beneath tarps and piles of quarried stone and stakes driven into the ground with string strung between them. Manette called out a hello and strode in their direction.

Mignon was out of her mind, Manette decided as the men turned towards her, if she thought “the widower” had been brought up from London as a potential suitor for her, a sort of “gentleman caller” in the best tradition of Tennessee Williams’s psychodramas. He was tall, blond, exceedingly attractive, and dressed — even in the Lakes, for God’s sake — with that kind of understated rumpled elegance that fairly screamed old family money. If he was a widower out looking for Wife Number Two or Wife Number Two Hundred and Twenty-two, he wasn’t going to choose her sister to step into that position. The human animal’s capacity for self-delusion was absolutely amazing, Manette thought.

Bernard smiled a hello at Manette and made the introductions. Tommy Lynley was the name of the earl and wherever he was earl of was not mentioned. He had a firm handshake, an interesting old scar on his upper lip, a nice smile, and very brown eyes at odds with his light hair. He was good at small talk, she found, and equally good at putting people at ease. Beautiful day in a beautiful place, he told her. He himself was from Cornwall originally, south of Penzance, an area which was — obviously — lovely as well, and he’d spent very little time in Cumbria. But from what he was seeing round Ireleth Hall, he knew he should make regular visits here.

Very nicely said, Manette thought. Very polite. Had he said it to Mignon she would doubtless have considered it rife with double meanings. Manette said, “Come in winter and it’s likely you’ll think otherwise,” and then to Kaveh Mehran, “I’d like a word if you’ve time.”

Her father had succeeded wildly in industry because he was a man fully capable of reading nuances. He said, “What’s going on, Manette?” and when she gave a glance at Lynley, Bernard continued with, “Tommy’s a close friend. He knows we’ve had a recent tragedy in the family. Has something more…?”

“Niamh,” Manette said.

“What about her?”

Manette glanced at Lynley and then said to her father, “I’m not sure you want…”

Lynley started to excuse himself but Bernard said, “No. It’s fine. Stay.” And to Manette, “As I said, he’s a friend. It can’t be anything — ”

Fine, Manette thought. Whatever you like. And she said abruptly, “Niamh’s not yet taken the children back. They’re still with Kaveh. We need to do something about it.”

Bernard glanced at Kaveh, his brow furrowed, and he murmured to Lynley, “My late nephew’s wife.”

“It’s absolutely not right,” Manette said. “She knows it, and she doesn’t much care. I spoke to her yesterday. All dressed to the ninety-nines, she was, with a bucket of sex toys sitting out for all the world to see. She’s got some bloke coming round to do the business with her, and Tim and Gracie are in the way.”

Bernard cast another look at Kaveh. The young man said, “‘Absolutely not right,’ Manette?” He spoke politely enough, but his tone told Manette he’d misunderstood her meaning.

She said, “Oh for God’s sake, Kaveh. You know I’m not talking about what you are. You can be as bent as a broken twig for all I care, but when it comes to children — ”

“I’m not interested in children.”

“Well, that’s just the point, isn’t it?” Manette snapped, choosing to misinterpret his remark. “It helps to have an interest in children if one is actually caring for them. Dad, Tim and Gracie belong with family and whatever he is, Kaveh’s not family.”

“Manette…” Her father’s voice was minatory. Evidently, there were things in the “recent tragedy in the family” that he did indeed prefer Tommy Lynley not to know, despite what he’d said a moment earlier. Well, that was unfortunate, because he’d welcomed her to speak openly in front of the London man, so that was what she intended to do.

She said, “Ian was happy to have the children with him in Bryanbarrow. I understood that and I was on board with it. Anything to keep them away from Niamh, who’s about as motherly as a great white shark, as you know very well. But Ian can’t have intended Kaveh to keep them if something happened to him. You know that, Kaveh.” And back to her father, “So you have to talk to Niamh. You have to order her. You have to do something. Tim’s in a very bad way — he’s worse than what he was like to get him into Margaret Fox School in the first place — and God knows Gracie needs a mother more than ever just now and she’s going to be completely desperate for one in a year or two. If Niamh isn’t willing to do the job, then someone else is going to have to step onto the pitch.”

“I see the situation,” Bernard said. “We’ll carry on further another time.”

“We can’t, Dad. I’m sorry.” And to Lynley, “Dirty laundry and more to come. If you haven’t the stomach for it…”

To Bernard, Lynley said, “Perhaps there’s a way I can be of help?” and something passed between them, some sort of message or assurance or something that assuaged whatever Manette’s father had been concerned about in having Lynley present at an escalating conversation.

Manette said, “Tim attacked me. No, no, I didn’t get hurt. I’m sore but that’s not the point. He must be dealt with — the whole bloody situation must be dealt with — and since Kaveh’s not going to be staying on that farm forever, it’s in everyone’s best interests to deal with it now before the farm is sold. Once Kaveh has to move house, what happens to the children? Are they going with him? And where? This can’t go on. They can’t keep being uprooted.”

“He left it to me,” Kaveh said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Manette swung back to him. “What?”

“The farm, Manette. Ian left it to me.”

“To you? Why?”

Kaveh said with a dignity Manette had to admire, “Because he loved me. Because we were partners and that’s what partners usually do: make arrangements to take care of each other in the event of death.”

Silence ensued. Into it, the sound of jackdaws burst into the air. From somewhere the smell of burning leaves came at them in a rush as if there were flames nearby, which there were not.

“Men usually take care of their children as well,” Manette said. “That farm should be Tim’s, not yours. It should be Gracie’s. It should be theirs to sell, to provide for their future.”

Kaveh looked away. He worked his jaw as if this would allow him to master an emotion. “I think you’ll find there was an insurance policy for that.”

“How convenient. Whose idea was all this: the farm left to you and insurance for them? How much insurance, by the way? And exactly who does the money go to? Because if it goes to Niamh in trust for the children — ”

“Manette,” her father cut in. “That’s not on just now.” And to Kaveh, “Will you be keeping the farm or selling it, Kaveh?”

“Keeping it. As for Tim and Gracie, they’re welcome to stay with me till Niamh’s ready to have them back. And if she’s never ready, Ian would have wanted — ”

“No, no, no!” Manette didn’t particularly care to hear the rest. The point was that the children belonged with family, and Kaveh — partner to Ian or not — was not family. She said hotly, “Dad, you must… Ian can’t have wanted… Does Niamh know all this?”

“What part?” Kaveh asked. “And do you think she actually cares one way or the other?”

“Does she know you’ve inherited? And when did Ian do this?”

Kaveh hesitated, as if evaluating the potential responses that he could make. Manette had to say his name twice to get him to respond at all. “I don’t know,” he told her.

A look passed between Bernard and Tommy Lynley. Manette saw this and knew that they were thinking what she herself was thinking. Kaveh was lying about something. The only question was which of her enquiries he was answering with “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know what, exactly?” she asked him.

“I don’t know a thing about Niamh, one way or the other. She has the insurance money, and there’s quite a pile. Ian meant it to help her care for Tim and Gracie, of course, but that’s because he believed that if anything happened to him, Niamh would come to her senses about them.”

“Well, she hasn’t. And it’s not looking likely she’s going to.”

“If they must, then, they’ll stay with me. They’re established at the farm, and they’re happy enough.”

Ludicrous thought, that Tim Cresswell was happy. He hadn’t been happy in ages. Manette said, “And what exactly is supposed to happen when you meet someone new in a month or two, Kaveh? When you move him to the farm and take up life with him? What then? What are the children supposed to do? What are they supposed to think?”

“Manette,” Bernard murmured cautiously.

Kaveh had gone quite pale with her words, but he said nothing, although his jaw worked furiously and at his side, his right hand clenched into a fist.

Manette said, “Niamh will fight you in court for that farm. She’ll contest the will. For the children.”

“Manette, enough,” her father said on a sigh. “There’s been plenty of grief to go round and everyone needs to recover, yourself included.”

“Why are you playing the peacemaker in this?” Manette demanded of her father. “He’s nothing to us,” she said with a jerk of her head at Kaveh. “He’s nothing to the children. He’s just someone Ian ruined his life for and — ”

“I said enough!” Bernard snapped. And to Kaveh, “Excuse her, Kaveh. She doesn’t mean — ”

“Oh, she knows very well what she means,” Kaveh said. “Most people do.”

Manette sought a way out of the mire she’d created for herself by saying lamely, “All right. Look. If nothing else, you’re too young to be the father of a fourteen-year-old boy, Kaveh. He needs someone older, someone experienced, someone — ”

“Not homosexual,” Kaveh finished for her.

“I didn’t say that. And I don’t mean that. I was going to say someone within his own family.”

“You’ve made that point more than once.”

“I’m sorry, Kaveh. It’s not about you. It’s about Tim and Gracie. They can’t be asked to tolerate more devastation in their lives. It’s destroying Tim. It’s going to do the same to Gracie. I have to stop their world from falling apart even further. I hope you can understand that.”

“Leave things as they are, Manette,” her father said. “There are larger concerns at the moment.”

“Like what?”

He said nothing. But there were those glances between her father and his London friend and she wondered for the first time what was going on here. Clearly, this bloke wasn’t intended to press a case for love with her wily sister in the fashion of the eighteenth century: out for her money, perhaps, in order to support a crumbling estate in Cornwall. And the fact that her father had actually wanted him to hear every word of her conversation with Kaveh suggested that the quiet waters of Tommy Lynley’s outward appearance were probably deep enough for Nessie to swim in. Well, that couldn’t matter. Nothing could matter. She intended to do something about her cousin’s children and if her father wouldn’t join forces with her, she knew someone else who was likely to do so.

She threw up her hands. “All right,” she said. And to Lynley, “Sorry you had to listen to all this.”

He nodded politely. But there was an expression on his face that told he hadn’t minded hearing the information at all.

BRYANBARROW EN ROUTE TO WINDERMERE CUMBRIA

The previous day had been a wash-out. Two hours trying to thumb it to Windermere and Tim had finally given up. But he was determined today would be different.

The rain started not long after he began the most difficult part of his journey: the endless hike from Bryanbarrow village down to the main road through the Lyth Valley. He didn’t expect to get a lift during this part of the route, as the cars were few and far between and if a farm vehicle happened to come by — a tractor, for example — it moved so slowly and went so little distance that he could actually make better time on foot.

He hadn’t counted on the rain, though. This was stupid of him, considering it was the sodden month of sodding November and as far as he knew, it rained more in the Lakes than anywhere else in the bloody country. But because he’d left Bryan Beck farm in a state in which clear thinking wasn’t exactly going on in his head, he had put a hoodie on over a flannel shirt, which he wore over a tee-shirt and none of this was waterproof. He had trainers on his feet, too, and while these weren’t soaked through, they were mud up to the ankles because the verges of the lane were swampy the way they always were at this time of year. As for his jeans, they were growing heavier and heavier as the rain got to them. Since they were several sizes too large anyway, the struggle to keep them up round his hips was infuriating.

He was on the main road through the valley when he scored his first lift, a spot of luck in a day that otherwise was sucking ostrich eggs. This was supplied by a farmer. He pulled over in a Land Rover that was up to its wings in crusted mud and he said, “Get in, son. You look like something dragged out of the pond. Where to?”

Tim said Newby Bridge — the opposite direction from Windermere — because he had a feeling about the bloke and the way the bloke looked at him, close and curious. He also didn’t want to leave a trail once everything was over. If things went the way he wanted them to go, if his name and face showed up in the paper and this bloke recognised him, then Tim wanted the phone call he made to the cops to be one that said, “Oh, yeah, I ’member that kid. Said he was going to Newby Bridge.”

The farmer said, “Newby Bridge, is it?” and pulled back onto the road. He said he could take him as far as Winster, and after that he did the usual thing, which was to ask why Tim wasn’t at school. He said, “School day, innit? You doing a bunk?”

Tim was used to the maddening habit adults had of asking questions that were none of their business. It always made him want to dig his thumbs into their eyeballs. It wasn’t as if they’d ask a question like that of another adult — like “Why aren’t you at work today like the rest of the world?” — but they seemed to think it was open season on firing just about any question at a kid. He’d been prepared for this, though, so he said, “Check the time. Half day.”

The farmer said, “Not for my three, it’s not. Where d’you go to school?”

Jesus, Tim thought. Where he went to school was the farmer’s business like it was his business asking Tim when his last shit had occurred. He said, “Not round here. Margaret Fox. Near Ulverston,” reasonably sure that the man wouldn’t have heard of the place and its reason for being. He added, “Independent school. It’s boarding but I don’t board.”

“What’s happened to your hands, then?” the farmer asked. “You don’t want them to stay like that.”

Tim gritted his teeth. He said, “Cut myself. Got to be more careful.”

“Cut? Those don’t look like you cut — ”

“Look, pull over,” Tim said. “You c’n let me out here.”

“This’s nowheres near Winster, boy.” True enough. They’d gone barely a mile.

“Just let me out, okay?” Tim’s voice was controlled. He didn’t want it to go fierce with all that fierceness revealed, but he knew that if he didn’t get out of the Land Rover now, he would do something and it wouldn’t be pleasant.

The farmer shrugged. He pulled over. He looked long and hard at Tim as he braked, and Tim knew that the man was memorising his face. No doubt he’d be listening to the radio news next time it came on, waiting to hear about a local burglary or a spate of malicious mischief that he could pin on Tim. Well, that was the risk he’d have to take. Better that than riding farther with the bloke.

“You take care, son,” the farmer said just before Tim slammed the door, hard.

“Whatever,” Tim replied as the Land Rover moved on. He tore at the back of his hand with his teeth.

His next ride was better. A German couple took him as far as the road to Crook, where they turned off in search of some posh country house hotel. They spoke good English, but all they wanted to talk about to him was “ach, such rain you have in Cumbria,” and when they spoke to each other — which was most of the time anyway — they spoke in German, rapid sentences about someone called Heidi.

Tim managed to get a final lift from a lorry driver just north of the Crook Road. This bloke was heading all the way to Keswick, so Windermere would be no problem, he said.

What was a problem was the driver’s intention of using their limited time together to lecture Tim on the dangers of hitchhiking and to quiz him about his parents and did they know he was out on the roads taking lifts from strangers? You don’t even know who I am, he announced. I could be Sutcliffe. I could be Brady. I could be some child molester. You understand that?

Tim bore all this without kicking the bloke in the face, which was what he badly wanted to do. He nodded, said, “Yeah,” said, “Whatever,” and when they finally reached Windermere, said, “Drop me off over there by the library.” This the lorry driver did, although not without saying it was lucky for Tim that he had no interest in twelve-year-old boys. Because this was truly and absolutely too much, Tim said that he was fourteen, not twelve. The lorry driver hawked a laugh and said, “You aren’t ever. And what’re you hiding under them baggy clothes? I reckon truth is you’re a girl, you are,” in response to which Tim slammed the door.

He’d borne just about all that he could. If he’d done exactly what he preferred to do at that precise moment, he would have gone into the library and ripped up a shelf of books. But that, he knew, would not get him an inch closer to where he wanted to be. So he bit down hard, harder, and then hardest of all on his knuckles till he tasted the blood and that helped a bit and made him able to set off towards the business centre.

Even at this time of year, there were tourists in Windermere. It was nothing like the summer, when one couldn’t move in the town without bashing straight into some fell-walking enthusiast with a bulging rucksack on his back and a hiking pole in his hand. Then no one local with any sense came into town since endless tailbacks transformed every street into nothing more than a car park. Now, though, moving about was easier, and the tourists on the pavements were of the who-gives-a-shit sort, kitted out in green plastic bedsheets with their rucksacks underneath making them all look like hunchbacks. Tim passed them by and followed the route into the business centre, where there was not a single tourist at all, tourists having no reason to go there.

Tim, however, had a very good reason and it was called Shots! This was a photographic developing service, he’d learned upon his only visit to the place, and its general purpose was to create super-enlargements for professional photographers who came to the Lakes to memorialise its grand vistas at all times of year.

In the window, samples of what Shots! was capable of producing stood on large easels against a black background curtain. Inside the shop itself, photo portraits were hanging on the walls, digital cameras were on offer, and a display of antique cameras was arranged in a glass-fronted bookcase as well. There was a counter and, as Tim knew, a back room. From this room a man emerged. He was wearing a white lab coat with Shots! embroidered on the left breast and a plastic name tag above it. When his eyes met Tim’s, his hand went quickly to that name tag. He removed it and shoved it into his pocket.

Tim thought once again how normal Toy4You looked. He was not at all what one would expect, with neat brown hair, roses in his cheeks, and wire-rimmed specs. He had a pleasant smile and he used it now. But what he said to Tim was, “This isn’t a good time.”

“I texted you,” Tim said. “You didn’t answer.”

“I had no message from you,” Toy4You replied. “Are you sure you sent it to the right number?” He looked directly at Tim, which was how Tim knew he was lying because that was what he himself had used to do until he’d understood how dead a giveaway it was to meet someone’s eyes like that.

Tim said, “Why didn’t you answer? We had a deal. We have a deal. I did my part. You didn’t do yours.”

The man’s gaze shifted. It went from Tim to the doorway. This meant he was hoping that someone would enter the shop so that the conversation could go no further because he knew as well as Tim knew that neither of them wanted to be overheard. But there was no one out there, so he was going to have to talk or Tim was going to do something inside the shop… like make a move for those old cameras in that case or one of the digitals. He doubted Toy4You wanted any of them destroyed.

Tim said, “I said-”

“For what you’re proposing, the risk is too great. I’ve thought about it, but that’s how it is.”

Tim grew so hot that he felt a fire being lit at his feet. It rose quickly and engulfed him and he breathed fast and hard because that seemed the best way to control it. He said, “We fucking agreed. You think I’m forgetting about that?” He clenched his fists, unclenched them, and looked around. “D’you even want to know what I can do to you if you don’t keep your promise to me?”

Toy4You went to a drawer at the end of the counter. Tim tensed, reckoning he meant to pull out a gun or something, which was what would have happened in a film. But instead, he pulled out a packet of cigarettes. He lit one. He examined Tim for a very long moment before he spoke. He finally said, “Okay. All right. But if you want it to happen, I need more from you than you’ve given so far. That’s the only thing that makes it worthwhile for me. A risk you take for a risk I take. Equality.”

Tim parted his lips to speak but he couldn’t at first. He’d already done everything. Every single damn thing. And now he was meant to do more? He said the only thing he could think of, “You promised me.”

Toy4You made the sort of expression one might make upon the discovery of a seriously soiled nappy in the front seat of one’s car. He said, “What’s this ‘you promised me’? Like some infant school pupils’ arrangement, that’s it? You give me your chocolate bikkie and I let you ride my skateboard? Only I eat the bikkie and then run off and you don’t get your ride?”

Tim said, “You agreed. You said. This is fucking unfair.”

Toy4You drew in long on the cigarette and watched Tim over its glowing tip. He said, “I changed my mind. That’s what people do. I’ve assessed the risk and it’s all on my part and none on yours. You want things done, you do them yourself.”

Tim saw a curtain of red fall between himself and Toy4You. He knew what it meant: Action was called for and Toy4You wasn’t about to call the cops to prevent him from taking it. But on the other hand, that would finish things between them and despite what he was feeling at the moment, Tim knew he didn’t want to start this process all over again, searching for someone else. He couldn’t face that: the days and weeks that it would take. So he said, “I swear to God, I’ll tell. And when I’m done telling… No. Before that, I’ll kill you and then I’ll tell. I swear. I’ll say I had to. I’ll say you made me.”

Toy4You lifted an eyebrow casually. “With the trail you’ve left on that computer of yours? I don’t think so, mate.” He glanced at a wall clock behind the shop counter and said, “And now it’s time for you to leave.”

“I’m staying.” Tim’s voice began to shake. The rage filled him with both passion and need. “I’m telling everyone who walks in that door. You throw me out, I wait in the car park. Anyone comes near this place, I tell them. You call the cops to get me out of here, I tell them as well. You think I won’t? You think I even care at this point?”

At this Toy4You took a moment without replying. It became so quiet within the shop that the movement of the second hand on the wall clock sounded like a gun being cocked, over and over again. Finally the man said, “Hell. Relax. Okay. You’ve got my short ’n curlies in your fist but I have yours as well, and you’re not seeing that. As I’ve already said, you’re taking no risk. I’m taking it all. So you’re going to have to make things more worthwhile than you’re making them at present. That’s all I’m saying.”

Tim said nothing. What he wanted to do — “at present,” as Toy4You put it — was dive over the shop counter and beat the bastard to a pulp. But he remained where he was.

Toy4You said, “Really, kid, what’s it going to take you to do that much: an hour, two, three? You want this bad enough, you go along. You don’t want it bad enough, you phone the cops. But if you do, you have to give them something to prove what you’re telling them and you and I both know where that proof leads. You’ve got a mobile with messages. You’ve got a computer with e-mail. There’re cops out there who’re going to take a look at all that and see what’s what with you, and that’s going to be easy. We’re both in a dodgy position here, so why don’t we help each other instead of trying to push each other in front of the train, eh?”

They engaged in a stare-down. From rage and need, what Tim felt altered to pure hopelessness. He didn’t want to face the truth of the matter, that truth being that Toy4You had a point that Tim could not deny. So he finally said numbly, “What?”

Toy4You smiled briefly. “Not alone this time.”

Tim felt his bowels get loose. He said, “When?”

That smile again, the kind of smile that acknowledges triumph. “Soon, my friend. I’ll send you a text. You just be ready. Completely ready this time. Got that?”

“Yeah,” Tim said because there was nothing else left, and he knew that.

LAKE WINDERMERE CUMBRIA

After Manette had left them, Lynley told Bernard Fairclough that they needed to have a talk. Fairclough apparently anticipated this because he nodded, although he said, despite the rain that had begun to fall, “Let me take you through the topiary garden first.”

Lynley reckoned that Fairclough made this offer in order to prepare himself for whatever talk was coming, but he let the other man have the time. They went in through an arched gate in a stone wall that was grey-speckled with lichen. Fairclough chatted about the site. He sounded casual enough, but doubtless he’d gone this route a hundred times: showing off what his wife had accomplished with her efforts to return the garden to its former glory.

Lynley listened without comment. He found the garden oddly beautiful. He generally preferred his shrubbery natural, but in this place box, holly, myrtle, and yew had been fashioned into fantastic shapes, some of them over thirty feet tall. There were trapezoids, pyramids, and spirals. There were double spirals, mushrooms, arches, barrels, and cones. Paths of bleached limestone led among them and where there were no shrubs, there were parterres created from low box hedges. In these parterres yellow dwarf nasturtiums still bloomed, a contrast to the purple violas that surrounded them.

The garden was more than two hundred years old, and restoring it had been Valerie’s dream upon inheriting Ireleth Hall, Fairclough told him. It had taken her years upon years with the assistance of four gardeners and photos from early in the twentieth century. “Magnificent, eh?” Fairclough said with pride. “She’s amazing, my wife.”

Lynley admired the garden. Anyone, he knew, would have done the same. But there was something not quite right in Fairclough’s tone, and Lynley said to him, “Shall we talk here in the garden or somewhere else?”

Fairclough, obviously knowing that the time had come, replied, “Come with me, then. Valerie’s gone to check on Mignon. She’ll be a while. We can talk in the library.”

This turned out to be a misnomer, as there were no books. The room was a small and cosy chamber just off the great hall, with darkly panelled walls that were hung with portraits of Faircloughs long departed. A desk sat in the centre of the room, and two comfortable armchairs faced a fireplace. This was an impressive Grinling Gibbons affair surmounted by a display of old Willow pattern pottery, and a coal fire was laid within. Fairclough lit this, for the room bore a chill. Then he opened the heavy curtains that covered the lead-paned windows. Rain was streaking them.

Fairclough offered drinks. It was a little early for Lynley, so he demurred, but Fairclough poured sherry for himself. He indicated the chairs, and they sat. He said, “You’re seeing more dirty laundry than I expected. I’m sorry about that.”

“Every family has its share,” Lynley noted. “My own included.”

“Not like mine, I wager.”

Lynley shrugged. He said, because at this point it had to be asked, “Do you want me to proceed, Bernard?”

“Why do you ask?”

Lynley steepled his fingers beneath his chin and looked at the coal fire. Lit by candle stubs beneath it, it was building nicely. The room would soon be quite warm. He said, “Aside from this business about Cresswell’s farm, which bears looking into, you may already have the result you prefer. If the coroner has declared it an accident, you might well want to leave it that way.”

“And let someone get away with murder?”

“At the end of the day, no one gets away with anything, I’ve found.”

“What have you uncovered?”

“It’s not a matter of what I’ve uncovered. So far, that’s little enough as my hands are somewhat tied by the pretence of my being a visitor here. It’s rather a matter of what I might uncover, which is a motive for murder. I suppose what I’m saying is that while this easily could have been an accident, you run the risk of discovering things about your son, your daughters, even your wife that you’d rather not know, no matter how your nephew died. That sort of thing happens in an investigation.”

Fairclough seemed to give this some thought. Like Lynley, he directed his gaze to the fireplace and then to the Willow pattern pottery above it. One of the vases, Lynley saw, was cracked and had been repaired at some time. Long ago, he reckoned. The repair was inexpert, not like what could be done today to hide damage.

Lynley said, “On the other hand, this could indeed be a murder, perpetrated by someone you love. Do you want to face that?”

Fairclough looked at him then. He said nothing, but Lynley could see that the man’s mind was ticking away at something.

Lynley continued. “Consider this as well. You wanted to know if Nicholas was somehow involved in what happened to his cousin. That was why you came to London. But what if someone else is involved, other than Nicholas? Some other member of your family. Or what if Ian wasn’t the intended victim? Do you want to know that as well?”

Fairclough didn’t hesitate. Both of them knew who the other intended victim would have been. He said, “No one has a reason to want Valerie hurt. She’s the centre of this world. Both my world and theirs.” He indicated the out-of-doors, by which Lynley took that he meant his children, and one of them in particular.

Lynley said, “Bernard, we can’t avoid looking at Mignon. She has access to that boathouse every day.”

“Absolutely not Mignon,” Fairclough said. “She wouldn’t have lifted a finger against Ian and certainly not against her own mother.”

“Why not?”

“She’s fragile, Tommy. Always has been. She had a head injury as a child and ever since … She’s incapacitated. Her knees, her surgery… No matter… She wouldn’t have been able to manage it.”

Lynley pressed him. “If she somehow were able, has she a motive? Is there something I should know about her relationship with her mother? With her cousin? Were they close? Were they enemies?”

“In other words, did she have a reason to want Ian dead?”

“That’s what I’m asking.”

Fairclough took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Ian advised me on financial matters, as you know. He was in charge of all finances. That was his job. He was good at that and I needed him.”

“I understand,” Lynley said.

“He’d insisted for a while — perhaps three years — that I cut Mignon off. He never understood that the girl can’t work. She’s never been able. Ian’s point was that giving her money was what had crippled her and she was otherwise perfectly fine. It was a bone of contention between us. Not a big one and it only came up once or twice a year. But I had no intention of… I just couldn’t. When your child’s been badly injured… When you have children of your own, you’ll understand, Tommy.”

“Did Mignon know about Ian’s wanting to cut her off?”

Fairclough nodded, reluctantly. “He spoke to her. When I wouldn’t agree to stopping her allowance, he went to see her. He talked to her about ‘bleeding money from her father,’ as he put it. Mignon told me. She was hurt, of course. She told me I could cut her off at once. She invited me to do it, in fact.”

“I daresay she knew you wouldn’t.”

“She’s my child,” Fairclough said.

“And your other children? Had Manette a reason to want Ian out of the picture?”

“Manette adored Ian. I think at one time she would have liked to marry him. Long before Kaveh, of course.”

“And his feelings for her?”

Fairclough finished off his sherry and went to pour another. He motioned the decanter in Lynley’s direction. Again Lynley demurred. “He was fond of Manette,” Fairclough said. “But that was the extent of it.”

“She’s divorced, isn’t she?”

“Yes. Her former husband works for me. Freddie McGhie. So does she for that matter.”

“Is there any reason Freddie McGhie might have wanted Ian out of the way? You did tell me that you haven’t definitely fixed on a successor at Fairclough Industries. How do things stand with Ian gone?”

Fairclough said nothing at first. It seemed to Lynley that they were getting close to something Fairclough preferred to ignore. Lynley raised an eyebrow. Fairclough said, “As I’ve said, I’ve not decided. Either Manette or Freddie could take over. They know the business. They’ve worked for me their entire careers. Freddie especially would be a good choice, despite being Manette’s ex. He knows every department and he’s worked in them all. I’d prefer a member of the family, as would Valerie, but if no one has the experience and the proper outlook, Freddie would be the logical one to take up the reins.”

“Would you consider Nicholas?”

“That would be madness, with his history. But he’s trying to prove himself to me.”

“What did Ian think about that?”

“He reckoned Nick would fail. But as Nick had promised me that he was a changed man once and for all, I wanted to give him a chance to demonstrate it. He’s working his way up from the bottom at the business. I rather admire him for that.”

“Is that the deal you struck with him?”

“Not at all. It was his idea. I expect it’s what Alatea advised him to do.”

“So it’s possible he could take over the company?”

“Anything’s possible,” Fairclough said. “As I said, it’s not been decided.”

“But you must have given thought to it at one point or another, else why have me come up here and look into Nicholas?”

Fairclough was silent. It was answer enough. Nicholas was, after all, the son. And the son, not the meek, was generally the one to inherit the earth.

Lynley went on. “Anyone else with a motive to be rid of Ian? Anyone you can think of with an ax to grind, a secret to keep, an issue to clear?”

“No one at all, as far as I know.” Fairclough sipped his sherry, but his eyes stayed on Lynley’s over the rim of the glass.

Lynley knew he was lying, but he didn’t know why. He also felt they hadn’t got to the bottom of why he himself was there in the first place: at Ireleth Hall, investigating something that had already been resolved in a way that should have relieved the man. Lynley said, “Bernard, no one is actually in the clear on this except those who had no access to the boathouse. You’ve a decision to make if you want the truth, whatever it is.”

“What sort of decision?”

“If you actually do want to get to the bottom of the matter, you’re going to have to agree to let me be who I am.”

“And that is?”

“A cop.”

FLEET STREET CITY OF LONDON

Barbara Havers chose a pub near Fleet Street, one of the watering holes that had long ago been a gathering place for journalists in the heyday of the newspaper business when nearly every tabloid and broadsheet had its headquarters in the immediate vicinity. Things had changed, with property in the Canary Wharf area luring more than one news organisation to the east end of the city. But not all had heeded that siren call of lower rents, and one in particular had stubbornly remained, determined to be close to the action. That was The Source, and Barbara was waiting for her source at The Source to show up. She’d phoned and asked him for a meeting. He’d been reluctant till she let him set the time and offered lunch. He’d still been reluctant till she mentioned Lynley. That got his attention. He asked, “How is he?” and Barbara could tell the reporter was hoping for something suitable to whet the readers’ appetite in the Recovery from Personal Tragedy department. It wouldn’t make the front page, but he could hope for page 3 plus photos, if the details were good.

She’d said, “I’m not prepared to say a word about a word over the phone. C’n you meet?”

That had done the trick. She hated to use Lynley that way — she hated to use him any way if it came down to it — but as he himself was the one who was asking her for information, she reckoned she was on the safe side of what was appropriate between friends.

Isabelle Ardery had been more difficult to deal with. When Barbara phoned to ask for the time off that she was owed, Ardery had been at once suspicious, as her questions of “Why? Where are you going?” indicated. Barbara had known the acting detective superintendent was probably going to be the difficult nail to pound into the board, so she’d had her excuse ready.

“Haircut,” she said. “Or perhaps I should say hairstyle. I’ve found a place in Knightsbridge.”

“So you just need the day,” Ardery had clarified.

“So far,” Barbara replied.

“What’s that supposed to mean, Sergeant?” There was that suspicion again. The super needed to do something about the sharpness in her voice if she wanted to hide her paranoia, Barbara thought.

She said, “Have some mercy, guv. If I end up looking like last night’s dinner, I’ll have to find someone to repair the damage. I’ll be in touch. I’m owed the time anyway.”

This was no lie, and Ardery knew that. Besides, she herself had been the one to order — in the guise of making a recommendation — an improvement in Barbara’s personal appearance. The superintendent had reluctantly agreed, although she’d added, “No more than two days,” to make certain Barbara knew which one of them was in charge.

On her way to the pub, Barbara had taken care of another of Lynley’s requests. She’d searched out the latest edition of Conception magazine, finding it at King’s Cross Station, where a WH Smith provided every journal imaginable in the railway terminal. That had been convenient since Barbara’s underground route from Chalk Farm took her through King’s Cross Station anyway. So all it had involved was a brief stop there, not to mention putting up with an evaluative glance from the young man behind the till when she paid for the journal. She could see it in his eyes and in the ever-so-slightly-amused movement of his mouth: Conception? You? Not bloody likely. She’d wanted to pull him over the counter by the neck of his white shirt, but the dirty ring round its collar stopped her. No need to expose herself so closely to someone whose personal hygiene didn’t extend to washing his clothes regularly, she’d decided.

She was leafing through Conception as she waited in the pub. She was wondering where they found all the perfect babies to photograph, along with all the mothers who looked dewy fresh and not at all like what they probably were, which was haggard with lack of sleep. She’d ordered herself a jacket potato topped with chili con carne and she was dipping into this and reading about the care of one’s nipples during breast-feeding — who knew it was so painful? she wondered — when her inside guy at The Source showed up.

Mitchell Corsico came into the pub in his usual getup. He always wore a Stetson, jeans, and cowboy boots, but Barbara saw he’d added a fringed leather jacket. God, she thought, chaps and six-guns were probably next. He saw her, jerked his head in a nod, and approached the bar to place his order. He looked at the menu for a moment, tossed it down, and told the publican what he wanted. He paid for it as well, and this Barbara took for a positive sign till he walked to her table and said, “Twelve pounds fifty.”

She said, “Bloody hell, what did you order?”

“Did I have a limit?”

She muttered and pulled out her purse. She dug for the cash and shoved it over as he reached for a chair and mounted it like a cowboy onto a horse. She said, “Where’s Trigger?”

“Say what?”

“Never mind.”

“That’s bad for your arteries,” he noted with a nod at her potato.

“And you ordered…?”

“All right. Never mind. What’s up?”

“Back-scratch situation.”

She saw the wariness across his features. Who could blame him? Corsico was the one who was usually coming to the cops for information and not the reverse. But hope passed crossed his features as well because he knew his stock was very low at the Yard. He’d been embedded with the police during the hunt for a serial killer nearly a year earlier, and he wasn’t popular because of that.

Still, he was careful. He said, “I don’t know. Let’s see. What d’you need?”

“A name.”

He remained noncommittal.

“There’s a reporter from The Source been sent up to Cumbria. I need to know who he is and why he’s there.” At this, he began to reach into his jacket pocket, so she said, “Uh, we haven’t started scratching yet, Mitch. Hold Trigger’s rein, if you know what I mean.”

“Oh. A horse.”

“Yeah. Just like Silver. Hi ho, and all that. I’d expect you to know this, all things considered. So who’s gone up there? And why?”

He considered. After a moment during which his meal arrived — roast beef and Yorkshire bloody pud and all the trimmings, and Barbara reckoned he didn’t eat like that unless someone else was footing the bill — he said, “I need to know what’s in it for me.”

“That’s going to depend on the value of your information.”

“It doesn’t work that way,” he said.

“Not usually. But things have changed. New super looking over my shoulder. I have to be careful.”

“An exclusive with DI Lynley would do.”

“Ha! Not bloody likely.”

He started to rise. Barbara knew it was show because there was no way in hell he was going to walk off and leave his roast beef and Yorkshire pud languishing uneaten at the table. But she played along and said, “All right. I’ll do what I can. So you do what you can. Who’s been sent to Cumbria?”

He spilled the beans as she reckoned he would. He gave her everything: Zedekiah Benjamin, a story on Nicholas Fairclough, a rejection by the editor, and a reporter’s determination to mould the story into something suitable for The Source instead of what he’d turned in at first, which appeared to be a puff piece that belonged in Hello! He’d been up to Cumbria at least three times now — maybe four — trying to sex up the story enough for Rodney Aronson, but he was apparently slow on the uptake. He’d not been getting anywhere till Ian Cresswell drowned.

This was an interesting bit, Barbara thought. She asked for the dates of Zedekiah Benjamin’s sojourns in Cumbria and she learned that two of those sojourns had occurred in advance of the Cresswell drowning. The second of these had ended just three days prior to the death, at which point Benjamin had apparently returned to London with his tail between his legs, having failed to suss out the sex that his editor required.

She said, “What happens to this bloke if he doesn’t find the sex?”

Corsico did the knife-across-the-throat business and topped that by flipping his thumb over his shoulder in case Barbara was too dim to work out what he meant. She nodded and said, “Know where he’s staying up there?”

Corsico said he didn’t. But he added that Benjamin wouldn’t exactly be difficult to spot if he was lurking in the bushes near someone’s house.

“Why?” Barbara asked.

Because, Corsico said, he was six feet eight inches tall with a head of hair so red it looked like his skull was on fire.

“Now,” he concluded, taking out his notebook, “my back’s itching.”

“I’ll have to scratch it later,” she replied.

ARNSIDE KNOT CUMBRIA

The rain had begun during Alatea’s walk. She was prepared for it, though, having seen the nasty bank of clouds approaching Arnside across Morecambe Bay, coming from the direction of Humphrey Head. What she hadn’t anticipated was the strength of it. She’d known from the wind it would be coming on quickly. The fact that it altered from a quarter of an hour’s downpour to a tempest was the surprise.

She was halfway to her destination when the pelting began. She could have turned for home, but she did not. It seemed to her a necessity that she complete the climb to the top of Arnside Knot. She told herself grimly that she might be struck by lightning there, and at the moment this sort of end to her life didn’t actually seem like such a bad thing. She’d be done in an instant, over, out. It would be a form of the ultimate knowing in a situation in which not knowing was slowly eating her up.

The rain had abated when she began the final ascent among the auburn-coated Scottish steers that grazed freely on the hillside. Her feet sought safe purchase in the areas of limestone scree, and she grasped the trunks of the bent, wind-scarred conifers to aid her as she reached the top. Once there, she found she was breathing less heavily than she had done in earlier climbs. Soon, she told herself, she’d probably be able to jog to the top of Arnside Knot and arrive there no worse for the exertion.

From the top of the knot, she could see it all: two hundred and eighty degrees of panorama that comprised everything from the speck that was Piel Island Castle to the undulating mass of Morecambe Bay and the fishing villages strung along its shore. This vista offered endless sky, treacherous waters, and landscape of every variety. What it did not offer, however, was a glimpse into the future, and Alatea had come out into the uncertain weather in an attempt to run from what she knew she could not hope to escape indefinitely.

She’d told Nicholas part of what she’d discovered in her research, but she had not told him all of it. “She’s a freelance photographer, not a location scout at all,” she’d informed him. Her nerves were on edge, and she’d had a bit of sherry to still them. “Come, look, Nicholas. She has a website.”

It had been a simple matter to find out what she needed to know about Deborah St. James. The Internet was a bottomless pit of information and one did not need to be a genius in order to use it. Find a search engine, type in a name. In the world as it was at present, one could run but one could not hide.

Deborah St. James wasn’t even trying to hide. What Do You Want Photographed? was part of her website design, which contained various links showing the nature of her work. She was an art photographer, if that was the word for it. She took the kinds of photos sold in galleries: landscapes, portraits, still lifes, dramatic action shots, spontaneous moments of life captured in the streets. She worked largely in black and white, she’d had several gallery shows, and she’d been featured in photographic competitions. She was obviously good at what she did but what she did not do was scout locations for anyone, let alone for a company called Query Productions.

There was no such company. Alatea had discovered that as well. But that was what she did not tell her husband because she knew intuitively where telling Nicholas that part of the information was going to lead. A logical question had to be asked and Nicholas would ask it: So what is she doing here, then? Alatea didn’t want him to ask that because they’d have to look at the answers. What Do You Want Photographed? said it all. The real matter before them — or before Alatea herself if the truth be told — was what Deborah St. James intended to do with the pictures.

Yet that was far too fragile a subject to entertain with her husband, so Alatea had said to Nicholas, “I’m not comfortable having her round here, Nicky. There’s something about her that I don’t like.”

Nicholas frowned. They’d been in bed and he’d turned on his side to face her, propping his head on his hand. He didn’t have his glasses on, which meant he couldn’t see her properly, but he still looked as if he was studying her face and what he apparently thought he saw there made him say with a smile, “Because she’s a photographer or because she’s a woman? Because, darling wife, let me tell you this: If it’s the woman part that you’re concerned about, you’re never going to have a single worry on that score.” He’d scooted over to her to prove this declaration and she’d allowed this. She’d wanted it, even, for the sheer diversion from her thoughts that love with Nicholas produced. But afterwards the worry and the fear came sweeping back like the tidal bore in Morecambe Bay. There was no escape and the fast-rising tide threatened to drown her.

He’d sensed this. Nicholas was good at that. He could read her tension although he could not interpret it. He’d said, “Why’re you so wound up about this? She’s a freelance photographer, and freelancers get hired to take pictures and to hand them over to whoever hired them. That’s what she’s here to do.” He moved away on the bed. “We need a break, I think.” His face looked tender as he spoke. “We’ve been working too hard, too long. You’ve been up to your ears for months dealing with the house, and I’ve been running between the tower project and Barrow, so bloody caught up in getting back into my father’s good graces that I haven’t been paying enough attention to you. To how you’re feeling, to the fact that this is all foreign to you, coming here, living here. To me, it’s home, but I haven’t seen that for you, it’s a foreign country.” He smiled regretfully. “Addicts are selfish wankers, Allie. I’m a prime example.”

From this, she took up a single strand. She said, “Why do you need this?”

“A break? You? This, here in bed?” His smile, then, and, “I’d hope you wouldn’t have to ask that last question.”

“Your father,” she said. “Why must you get into his good graces?”

When he answered, his voice showed his surprise. “Because I made his life hell for years. My mother’s as well.”

“You cannot rewrite the past, Nicky.”

“But I can make amends for it. I took years off their lives, and I want to give those years back to them if I can. Wouldn’t you want the same in my position?”

“Life,” she said, “is meant to be lived by the individual living it, being true to himself. What you’re doing is living your life in order to be true to someone else’s perception of you.”

He’d blinked and an expression of hurt touched his features and then dissipated as quickly as it had come upon him. He said, “We’ll have to agree to disagree on this. And you’ll have to wait and see how things turn out, how they change for me, for you, and for the family.”

She’d said, “Your family — ”

And he’d cut in with, “I don’t mean my family. I mean our family. Yours and mine. The family we make. Things are going to continue to get better from this point on. You’ll see.”

In the morning, she’d tried again, but this time it was with a diversion and not with a frontal attack. She’d said, “Don’t go to work today. Stay with me, stay here, don’t go to the tower.”

His reply of, “That’s a very tempting proposition,” had given her hope for an instant but he went on to say, “I must go into work, though, Allie. I’ve taken a day off already.”

“Nicky, you’re the son of the owner. If you can’t take a day off — ”

“I’m a line operator in the shipping department. Someday I might be the son of the owner again. But I’m not there yet.”

They were, thus, back to where they started. Alatea knew that this was the point of departure for them. He believed he had to prove himself in order to make amends for his past. In this manner he would pave a way to the future through illustrating over and over again that he was not who he once had been. While she understood this, it was not how she lived. Indeed, living in the way Nicholas was choosing to live was impossible for her.

And now there was the matter of Query Productions and the fact that it did not exist. This meant only one thing: that the presence of the photographer here in Cumbria had nothing at all to do with the work Nicholas was doing, nothing at all to do with what he was attempting to create with the Middlebarrow Pele Project, and nothing at all to do with any intention he had with regard to his parents and to transforming his life. That left only one explanation as far as she could see for the photographer’s presence. What Do You Want Photographed? said it all.

Alatea’s descent from the top of Arnside Knot took more time than the ascent had done. The patches of limestone scree were slick after the rain. Slipping upon the loose stones, falling, and tumbling down the slope were distinct possibilities. So was sliding upon the fallen leaves from the lime and chestnut trees that formed a copse lower down the hill. So safety was foremost in her mind as she made her way home in the fast-fading daylight. Safety, too, took her to the telephone soon after she walked into Arnside House.

She always kept the phone number with her. This had been the case since the very first time she’d made the call. She didn’t want to do what she had to do, but she couldn’t see any other choice available. She took out the card, managed a few deep breaths, punched in the numbers, and waited for the connection to go through. When it did, she asked the only question that mattered to her now.

“I don’t mean to pressure you, but I do need to know. Have you considered my offer?”

“I have,” the quiet voice replied.

“And?”

“Let’s meet to talk it over.”

“This means?”

“You’re completely serious about the money?”

“Yes, yes. Of course I’m serious.”

“Then I think I can do what you’re asking.”

MILNTHORPE CUMBRIA

Lynley tracked them down having what Deborah called “a most indifferent curry, Tommy,” which they’d found in a restaurant called Fresh Taste of India on Church Street in Milnthorpe. St. James added, “We’re not spoiled for choices. It was this, take away Chinese, or pizza. I voted for pizza but was overruled.”

They’d finished their meal and were each drinking a rather disturbingly large glass of limoncello, which was odd in both its size and the fact that an Indian restaurant was serving the Italian liqueur at all. “Simon likes me soused after nine in the evening,” was how Deborah explained at least the size of the glass. “I become putty in his wily hands although I don’t expect he’s worked out how he’s going to get me off the floor, out of the restaurant, and back to the hotel if I drink this entire thing.”

“A trolley,” St. James said. He indicated a nearby table with its unoccupied chairs. Lynley dragged one of them over and joined them.

“Anything?” St. James said to him.

Lynley knew he didn’t mean food or drink. “There are motives, I’m finding. It’s becoming a case of turn over a stone and find a motive.” He ticked them off for his friends: an insurance policy with Niamh Cresswell as the beneficiary; the land and the farm going to Kaveh Mehran; the potential loss of funds to Mignon Fairclough; the potential gain of position at Fairclough Industries by Manette or Freddie McGhie or, for that matter, Nicholas Fairclough; Niamh Cresswell’s need for revenge. “There’s also something not quite right about Cresswell’s son, Tim. Evidently he’s a day pupil in a school called Margaret Fox, which turns out to be an institution for troubled children. A phone call got me that much but no one’s saying anything else about him.”

“So troubled could mean anything,” St. James noted.

“It could.” Lynley went on to tell them about the Cresswell children’s being unceremoniously dumped first upon their father and his lover and now upon the lover alone. “The sister — Manette McGhie — was in quite a state about the situation this afternoon.”

“Who wouldn’t be?” Deborah noted. “That’s ghastly, Tommy.”

“I agree. The only people so far who don’t seem to have motives are Fairclough himself and his wife. Although,” Lynley added thoughtfully, “I do have the impression that Fairclough’s holding something back. So I have Barbara looking at the London end of his life.”

“But why ask you to look into matters if he’s got something to hide?” Deborah asked.

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Lynley said. “It hardly makes sense for a killer, who’s got away with the murder, to head for the cops asking for a closer look.”

“As to that…” He’d been to see the forensic pathologist, St. James told Lynley. It seemed that all the i’s had been dotted and all the t’s crossed. He’d had a look at the reports and the X-rays and from the latter, it was perfectly obvious that Ian Cresswell’s skull had been fractured. As Lynley well knew when a skull was fractured, it didn’t bear the imprint of that which had fractured it. The skull either cracked like an egg with a spiderweb of breaks spreading out from the point of impact or it suffered a lateral break in the form of a semicircle on the surface. But in either case, one needed to examine the potential instruments that could have caused the fracture in order to decide how it had occurred.

“And?” Lynley asked.

And this had been done. There was blood on one of the stones remaining upon the dock when the others had dislodged and had fallen into the water. DNA analysis of this blood indicated it had come from Ian Cresswell. There were hairs, skin, and fibres as well, and when they were tested, they proved to be from Ian Cresswell, too.

“I tracked down the coroner’s officers who did the investigation prior to the inquest,” St. James went on, “There were two of them: a former detective from the constabulary offices in Barrow-in-Furness and a paramedic who does this sort of work on the side. They felt they were looking at an accident, not a murder, but they checked all alibis just in case.”

Like Lynley, St. James ticked them off, consulting a notepad that he withdrew from the breast pocket of his jacket: Kaveh Mehran, he said, was at home, and although the Cresswell children could have confirmed this, they were not interviewed in order to spare them further trauma; Valerie Fairclough was at home on the estate, having entered the house at five in the afternoon after fishing on the lake and not leaving until the next morning when she went out to speak to the gardeners working in her topiary garden; Mignon Fairclough was at home as well although no one could confirm her alibi that she was sending e-mails since anyone with access to her computer and her password could have been sending e-mails in her name; Niamh Cresswell was en route to taking the children back to Bryan Beck farm and afterwards she was en route back to Grange-over-Sands, although no one could confirm this-

“Leaving both herself and Kaveh Mehran without confirmable alibis for a period of time,” Lynley noted.

“Indeed.” St. James went on: Manette and Freddie McGhie were both at home, where they remained for the evening; Nicholas was at home with his spouse, Alatea; Lord Fairclough was in London having dinner with a member of the board of his foundation. This was a woman called Vivienne Tully, and she confirmed, St. James concluded. “Of course, the essential difficulty resides in the way the man died.”

“It does,” Lynley agreed. “If the stones on the dock were tampered with, it could have been done at any time. So we’re back to access, which roughly means we’re back to nearly everyone.”

“We’re back to a closer examination of the dock as well as bringing up the missing stones. Either that or we’re back to calling it an accident and calling it a day. I suggest a closer examination if Fairclough wants to be certain.”

“He says he does.”

“So we need to get into the boathouse with bright lights and someone needs to get into the water for the stones.”

“Unless I can convince Fairclough to bring this all into the open, we may well have to do it on the sly,” Lynley said.

“Any idea why he’s playing his cards so close?”

Lynley shook his head. “It’s to do with his son, but I don’t know why, aside from what one would expect.”

“Which is?”

“I can’t imagine him wanting his only son to know his father harbours suspicions about him, no matter how chequered a past he has. He’s supposed to have turned over a new leaf, after all. He was welcomed home with open arms, evidently.”

“And, as you said, he has an alibi.”

“Home with the wife. There’s that,” Lynley agreed.

Deborah had been listening to all this, but at this final mention of Nicholas Fairclough, she brought a sheaf of papers from her handbag. She said, “Barbara’s faxed me the pages I wanted from Conception magazine, Tommy. She’s overnighting the magazine itself, but in the meantime…” Deborah handed him the pages.

“Relevant?” Lynley could see they comprised advertisements, both personal and professional.

She said, “They fit in with what Nicholas told me about wanting to start a family.”

Lynley exchanged a look with St. James. He knew the other man was thinking what he himself was thinking: How objective could Deborah be if it turned out she’d stumbled onto a woman suffering the very same problems as she herself was suffering?

Deborah saw the look. She said, “Really, you two. Aren’t you supposed to remain expressionless in the presence of a suspect?”

Lynley smiled. “Sorry. Force of habit. Please continue.”

She hmmphed but did so. “Look at what we have here and consider the fact that Alatea — or someone — tore these pages from the magazine.”

“The someone part of it might be important,” St. James pointed out.

“I don’t think it’s likely someone else removed them, do you? Look. We have advertisements for just about anything you can think of relating to the process of reproduction. We have ads for solicitors who’re specialists in private adoptions, ads for sperm banks, ads from lesbian couples looking for sperm donors, ads for adoption agencies, ads for solicitors specialising in surrogacy, ads looking for university girls willing to have their eggs harvested, ads looking for university boys willing to make regular deposits of semen for a price. It’s become an industry, courtesy of modern science.”

Lynley gauged the passion in Deborah’s voice and considered what it might mean, especially as it applied to Nicholas Fairclough and his wife. He said, “Protecting one’s wife is important to a man, Deb. Fairclough might well have seen the magazine and torn these pages out so Alatea wouldn’t come across them.”

“Perhaps,” she said. “But that hardly means Alatea never knew they were there.”

“All right. But how does this relate to Ian Cresswell’s death?”

“I don’t know yet. But if you’re exploring every possible avenue, Tommy, then this has to be one of them.”

Lynley looked again at St. James. The other man said, “I daresay she’s right.”

Deborah’s expression registered her surprise. The fact that her husband chronically and, to Deborah, infuriatingly attempted to protect her from pain had long been an issue between them, born of the fact that he’d known her since she was seven years old, born of the fact that he was eleven years her senior. She said, “I think I need a second go with Alatea, Tommy. I can establish a bond with her. It will be easy enough if she’s having my sort of trouble. Only a woman can know what that’s like. Believe me.”

Lynley was careful at this point not to look at St. James. He knew how Deborah would take it if he appeared to be asking her husband for permission like someone stepping out of a Victorian novel. So he said, “I agree. Another go is in order. See what else you can find out about her.” He didn’t add that she should have a care. He knew that St. James would make sure of that.