Believing the Lie

BRYANBARROW CUMBRIA

Tim hoped it was Toy4You when his mobile chimed because he was sick with the waiting. But it was bloody stupid Manette. She acted as if he’d done nothing to her. She said she was ringing to talk about their camping adventure. That was what she called it — an adventure — as if they were going to Africa or something and not where they would probably end up, which was in someone’s bloody paddock, where they’d be cheek by jowl with sodding tourists from Manchester. She said cheerfully, “Let’s get the date into our diaries, shall we? We’ll want to go before it gets much later in the year. We can cope with the rain, but if it snows, we’re done for. What d’you say?”

What he said was, “Why don’t you leave me alone?”

She said, “Tim…,” in that patient voice adults tended to use when they thought he was barking, which was most of the time.

He said, “Look. Drop it. All this bollocks about you ‘care about’ me.”

“I do care about you. We all care about you. Good grief, Tim, you’re — ”

“Don’t give me that shit. All you ever cared about was my father and don’t you think I know that? All anyone cared about was that filthy bastard and he’s dead and I’m glad so leave me alone.”

“You don’t mean any of that.”

“I bloody well do.”

“No. You don’t. You loved your father. He hurt you badly, but it wasn’t really about you, dearest, what he did.” She waited, as if for a reply from him, but he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of hearing anything in his voice. She said, “Tim, I’m sorry it happened. But he wouldn’t have done it if he could have seen any other way to live with himself. You don’t understand that now, but you will. Truly. You will someday.”

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“I know this is difficult for you, Tim. How could it be otherwise? But your father adored you. We all love you. Your family — all of us — want you to be — ”

“Shut up!” he screamed. “Leave me alone!”

He ended the call with his insides raging. It was her tone, that bloody soothing, motherly tone of hers. It was what she said. It was everything in his life.

He threw his mobile onto his bed. His body felt strung as tight as part of a high-wire act. He needed air. He went to the window of his bedroom and forced it open. It was cold outside but who bloody cared?

Outside across the farmyard, George Cowley and Dan came out of their cottage. They were talking, heads bent as if what they were saying to each other was of deadly importance. Then they approached George’s wreck of a car: a Land Rover thoroughly crusted with mud, not to mention sheep shit, which was thick in its tyre treads.

George opened the driver’s door and hauled himself inside, but Daniel didn’t go round and get in as well. Instead, he squatted next to the door and fixed his attention on the pedals and his father’s feet. George spoke and gestured and worked the pedals. Up, down, in, out, whatever. He climbed out of the wreck and Dan got in, in his place. Dan worked the pedals in a similar fashion while George nodded, gestured, and nodded some more.

Dan started the ignition then, as his father continued to talk to him. George closed the door and Dan rolled down the window. The vehicle was parked in such a way that he didn’t need to reverse it to set it going, and George gestured round the triangular green. Dan set off. First time with the clutch, the accelerator, and the brakes, he went in fits, starts, and lurches. George ran alongside the vehicle like a third-rate carjacker, shouting and waving his arms. The Land Rover got ahead of him, lurched, and stalled.

George dashed over, said a few words into the driver’s window, and reached inside. Watching this, Tim reckoned the farmer was going to give Dan a smack on the head, but what George did was ruffle his hair and laugh and Dan laughed as well. He started the Land Rover again. They went through the process a second time, this time with George remaining behind and shouting encouragement. Dan did a better job and George punched the air.

Tim turned from the window. Stupid gits, he thought. Two lame bastards. Like father like son. Dan’d end up just like his dad, walking in sheep shit somewhere. Loser, he was. Double loser. Triple. He was such a loser that he needed to be wiped from the face of the earth and Tim wanted to do it. Now. At once. Without a pause. Storming from the house with a gun or a knife or a club, only he had none of these and he needed them so badly, the worst, how he wanted…

Tim strode from his room. He heard Gracie’s voice and Kaveh’s answer, and he went in that direction. He found them in the picture room at the top of the stairs, an alcove that Kaveh used for his office. The bugger was sitting at a drafting table working on something and Gracie — dumb old stupid Gracie — was at his feet with that bloody stupid doll in her arms and wasn’t she even rocking it and crooning to it and didn’t she need to be brought to her senses and wasn’t it time she just grew up anyway and what better way to do it-

Gracie screamed like he’d stuck her in the arse with a pole when he grabbed the doll. He said, “Fucking bloody idiot, for God’s sake,” and he slammed the doll against the edge of the drafting table before he pulled off her arms and her legs and threw her down. He snarled, “Grow up and get a life, you freak,” and he spun and made for the stairs.

He stormed down them and out of the door and behind him he heard Gracie’s cries, which should have felt good to him but didn’t. And then there was Kaveh’s voice calling his name and the sound of Kaveh coming after him, Kaveh of all people, Kaveh who’d created this whole pile of shit that was his life.

He thudded past George Cowley and Daniel, who were standing by the Land Rover, and while he didn’t need even to go near them, he did anyway, just so he could shove that limp-wrist Daniel out of the way. George yelled, “Just you bloody — ”

“Fuck you!” Tim cut in. He needed, he wanted, he had to find something because everything was cresting inside of him, his very blood was cresting and he knew if he didn’t find something, his head would explode and the blood and the brains would surge out of him and while that didn’t matter a whit he didn’t want it to be this way and there was Kaveh calling his name, telling him to stop telling him to wait only that was the last thing he’d ever do: wait for Kaveh Mehran.

Around the side of the pub and through a garden and there was Bryan Beck. On the stream the village ducks floated and on the opposite bank wild mallards rooted through the heavy-topped grass for slugs or worms or whatever the hell it was that they ate and oh God how he wanted to feel one of them all of them crushed beneath his fist or his feet it didn’t matter just to have something die die die.

Tim was in the water without knowing he was in the water. The ducks scattered. He flailed at them. Shouting was coming from every direction and some of it he realised was coming from him and then he was grabbed. Strong arms came round him and a voice in his ear said, “No. You mustn’t. You don’t mean to. It’s all right.”

And goddamn, it was the bumboy himself, the limp wrist, the queer. He had his arms and his hands on Tim and he was holding him God he was actually holding him touching him the filth the filth the filth.

“Get away!” Tim shrieked. He fought. Kaveh held on harder.

“Tim. Stop!” Kaveh cried. “You don’t mean to do this. Come away. Quickly.”

They wrestled in the water like two greased monkeys till Tim squirmed away and Kaveh fell back. He landed on his bum and the frigid water was up to his waist and he was struggling to get back to his feet and Tim felt such triumph because what he wanted was the stupid git struggling, he wanted to show him, he wanted to prove-

“I’m not a butt fucker,” he screamed. “Keep your fucking hands off me. You hear me? Find someone else.”

Kaveh watched him. He was breathing hard and so was Tim, but something came over his face and what it was not was what Tim wanted it to be, which was hurt, devastation, destruction.

Kaveh said, “Of course you’re not, Tim. Did you think you might be?”

“Shut up!” Tim yelled in reply. He turned and ran.

He left Kaveh sitting in Bryan Beck, water to his waist, watching him run.

GREAT URSWICK CUMBRIA

Manette had managed to get the tent raised by herself. It hadn’t been easy and although she had always been excessively competent when it came to anything that required her to follow instructions, she hadn’t done her usual perfect job with erecting the poles and the canvas, not to mention plunging the stakes into the ground, so she reckoned the whole thing would collapse on her. But she crawled inside anyway and sat Buddhalike in the opening, facing the pond at the bottom of the garden.

Freddie had knocked on her bathroom door and said he needed to speak with her. She’d said of course and could he give her a few minutes. She was just… whatever. He hurriedly said absolutely as if the last thing he wanted to know was what she was doing in the bathroom and who could blame him, really. There were some forms of intimacy that were far too intimate.

She hadn’t been doing anything. She’d been killing time. She’d sensed something was going on with Freddie when they’d met at the coffeemaker midmorning. She’d come down from her room; he’d come in from outside and since he’d entered wearing what he’d been wearing the previous day, she knew he’d spent the night with Sarah. Wily one, that Sarah, Manette reckoned. She knew a gem when she saw it.

So when Freddie asked to speak with her, she reckoned the boom was going to fall. He’d seen in Sarah a potential to be the One or perhaps, Manette thought wryly, the Two, since she herself had been the one. At any rate, he probably wanted to bring her home this very night or move her into the house soon, and she wondered how she was going to cope with that.

Obviously, they’d have to sell the house and go their separate ways. She didn’t want to do that because she loved this place. Not so much the house, which, admittedly, was rather pokey, but this particular little spot that had been her haven for years. It was, indeed, all about the place itself and having to leave it… this disquiet she was feeling. It was about the silence of Great Urswick, about the canopy of stars that hung above the village at night. It was about the pond and the resident swans that floated placidly on it and only occasionally went after an overly enthusiastic dog who stupidly tried to chase them. And it was about the old paint-flecked rowingboat tied to the dock and the fact that she could take it out onto the water and watch the sunrise or the sunset or sit in the rain if she wanted to.

She supposed it was really all about roots, having them planted somewhere and not wanting them to be torn out because transplanting often killed the plant and she didn’t know what it was going to feel like when she herself had to move on.

This wasn’t about Freddie, she told herself. This wasn’t about Sarah or any other woman Freddie might finally choose. How could it be when she herself had been the one to bring up the spark and how they had lost it, she and Freddie? It was absolutely, utterly, and irrevocably gone and didn’t he agree with her, at heart?

Manette couldn’t recall the expression on Freddie’s face when she had initiated this painful conversation. Had he disagreed? She couldn’t remember. He was always so bloody affable about everything. It should have come as no surprise to her that he’d been equally affable about the idea that their marriage was as dead as roadkill. And she’d been relieved, then. Now, however, she couldn’t remember why on earth she’d been so relieved. What had she been expecting of marriage, after all? High drama, sparks, and falling all over each other like randy teenagers every night? Who could sustain that? Who would want to?

“You and Freddie?” Mignon had said. “Divorcing? You’d better have a long look at what’s out there these days before you take that step.”

But this wasn’t about trading Freddie in for a different model. Manette had no interest in that. It was just about being realistic, about looking squarely at the life she had and evaluating its potential for going the distance. As they’d been — best friends who occasionally made the time for a pleasant encounter between the sheets — they hadn’t stood a chance of lasting. She knew it, he knew it, and they’d had to deal with it. That was what they’d done and they’d both been relieved to have it out in the open. Hadn’t they?

“Here you are. What the devil are you doing out here, old girl?”

She roused herself. Freddie had come to find her, and he bore in his hands two mugs. He squatted by the tent opening and handed one over. She began to crawl out but he said, “Hang on. I’ve not been inside a tent in years.” He crawled in to join her. He said, “That pole’s going to go down, Manette,” with a nod in the general direction of the troublesome part of the structure.

She said, “I could tell. One strong gust of wind, and it’s over. Good place to think, though. And I wanted a trial run.”

“Not at all necessary,” he said. He sat next to her, Indian style, and she noted he was flexible enough to do the same as she: His knees went all the way to the ground, not like some people who couldn’t manage that because they were far too stiff.

She took a sip of what he’d brought her. Chicken broth. Interesting choice, as if she were ill. She said, “Not necessary?”

“Decamping,” he said, “if you’ll pardon the pun. Deciding upon the out-of-doors just in case.”

She frowned. “Freddie, what are you talking about?”

He cocked his head. His brown eyes seemed to twinkle at her, so she knew he was joking about something and she hated not to be in on the joke. He said, “You know. The other night? Holly? That was a one-off. Won’t happen again.”

She said, “You giving it up or something?”

“The dating? Good God, no.” And then he blushed that Freddie blush. “I mean, I’m rather enjoying it. I’d no idea women had become so… so forthright in the years I was out of action. Not that I’d ever really been in action.”

“Thank you very much,” she said sourly.

“No, no. I didn’t mean… What I did mean is that you and I, having started so young, having been together from the word go, more or less… You were my first, you know. My only, as a matter of fact. So to see what’s going on in the real world… It’s an eye opener, I can tell you. Well, of course you’ll see for yourself soon enough.”

She said, “Not sure I want to.”

“Oh.” He was silent. He sipped his chicken broth. She liked the fact that he’d never made any noise when he sipped. She loathed the sound of people slurping, and Freddie, for one, had never slurped. “Well. Anyway.”

She said, “Anyway yourself. And I have no right to ask you not to bring women home, Freddie. Never fear. A heads-up would be nice, though. A phone call when she goes to the ladies or something, but even that’s not compulsory.”

“I know that,” he said, “the thing about rights and the like. But I also know how I’d feel if I came downstairs and found some bloke dipping into a bowl of cornflakes in the morning. Bit odd, that. So mostly I’ll be suggesting we meet off the beaten track, not round here. You know.”

“Like Sarah.”

“Like Sarah. Right.”

Manette tried to read something in his voice, but she wasn’t able to. She wondered if she’d ever actually succeeded in reading his voice at all. It was odd to think of it, but did one ever really know one’s spouse? she wondered, and then she brought herself up short and moved away from the thought because what Freddie wasn’t and hadn’t been for quite a while was her spouse.

After a moment of silence broken by the sound of ducks honking from the air above them, Freddie said, “Where’d this come from, anyway?” in reference to the tent. “It’s new, isn’t it?”

She told him about her plans for the tent: camping with Tim, walking the fells, ending up on Scout’s Scar. She ended with, “Let’s put it this way: He didn’t enthuse when I suggested it.”

“Poor kid,” was Freddie’s response. “What a life he’s been having, eh?”

That was putting it featherlike, she thought. What in God’s name was going to happen to Tim? To Gracie? To their world? She knew that if the situation in her life were different, she and Freddie would take them. She’d have made the suggestion and Freddie would have said of course, without a second thought. But she could hardly ask that of Freddie now and even if she could, she could hardly bring the children into a home where they might stumble into a strange woman walking the hallway at night in search of the loo because even if Freddie said he wouldn’t be bringing Sarah or Holly or whomever else home for a trial run, there was always a chance that in the heat of the moment, he’d forget that promise. She couldn’t risk it.

Out on the pond, the two resident swans came into view. Majestic and tranquil, they seemed to move without effort. Manette watched them and next to her she felt Freddie doing the same. He finally spoke again, and his tone was thoughtful.

“Manette, I’ve begun dealing with Ian’s accounting programme.”

“I did notice,” she said.

“Yes. Well. I’ve found something there. Several things, actually, and I’m not sure what to make of them. To be frank, I’m not sure whether they’re important at all, but they need sorting out.”

“What kind of things?”

Freddie moved to face her. He looked hesitant. She said his name and he went on with, “Did you know your father financed everything having to do with Arnside House?”

“He bought it as a wedding gift for Nicholas and Alatea.”

“Yes, of course. But he’s also paid for the entire renovation. And it’s been expensive. Extremely expensive, as these things generally are, I suppose. Have you any idea why he’s done that?”

She shook her head. “Is it important? Dad has gobs of money.”

“True enough. But I can’t imagine Ian didn’t try to talk him out of tossing so much Nick’s way without some sort of scheme for repayment, even if the repayment was to take a century and be made without interest. And it wouldn’t have been like Ian not to have documented something like that. There’s also the not-so-small matter of Nick’s past. Handing so much money over to an addict…?”

“I doubt Dad handed him the money, Freddie. More likely he just paid the bills. And he’s a former addict, not a current addict.”

“Nick himself wouldn’t say former. That’s why he takes such care about going to his meetings. But Ian wouldn’t have known that and he wouldn’t have thought former. Not with Nick’s history.”

“I suppose. But still… Nicholas stands to inherit something from Dad. Perhaps their arrangement was for him to enjoy his inheritance now, for Dad to see him enjoying it.”

Freddie didn’t look at all convinced. “D’you know he’s also been paying Mignon an allowance for years?”

“What else is he supposed to do? She’s had him by the short hairs ever since she fell at Launchy Gill. Honestly, you’d think Dad pushed her. He probably should have done.”

“The monthly payments have increased recently.”

“Cost of living?”

“What sort of cost of living does she have? And they’ve increased a lot. They’ve doubled. And there’s no way Ian would have approved of that. He had to have protested. He had to have argued not to do it at all.”

Manette considered this. She knew Freddie was right. But there were matters concerning Mignon that he’d never understood. She said, “She’s had that surgery, though. It wouldn’t have been on the NHS. Someone would have had to pay and who else besides Dad?”

“Those payments would have been made to the surgeon, wouldn’t they? These weren’t.”

“Perhaps they were made to Mignon so that she could pay the surgeon herself.”

“Then why keep making them? Why keep paying her?”

Manette shook her head. The truth was: She didn’t know.

She was silent. So was Freddie. Then he sighed and she knew something more was coming. She asked what it was. He took a slow breath.

“Whatever happened to Vivienne Tully?” he said.

She looked at him but he wasn’t looking back. He was instead focused on those two swans on the pond. She said, “I’ve absolutely no idea? Why?”

“Because for the last eight years, regular payments have gone to her as well.”

“Whatever for?”

“I haven’t a clue. But your father’s actually been bleeding money, Manette. And as far as I can tell, Ian was the only one who knew.”

CHALK FARM TO MARYLEBONE LONDON

Barbara Havers was indulging in a snack when Angelina Upman and her daughter knocked on her door. The snack was a blueberry Pop-Tart with a side helping of cottage cheese — one needed to address at least three food groups with every meal, and this seemed to wander in the general direction of more than one food group as far as she was concerned — and Barbara crammed the rest of the pastry into her mouth before she answered the door. She could hear Hadiyyah’s excited voice outside, and it was better to look virtuous with cottage cheese rather than despicable with a Pop-Tart, she reckoned.

She was also smoking. Hadiyyah took note of this. One look past Barbara and she was tapping her foot at the sight of the fag smouldering in an ashtray on the table. She shook her head but said nothing. She looked up at her mother, the virtuous nonsmoker, as if to say, You see what I’m dealing with here?

Angelina said, “We’re messengers bearing both good news and bad news. May we come in, Barbara?”

God no, Barbara thought. She’d so far managed to keep Angelina out of her hovel and she’d intended to keep things that way. She’d not made the day bed, she’d not done the washing up, and she had five pairs of knickers drying on a line that she’d jerry-rigged over her kitchen sink. But really, how could she step outside into the November cold to see why Angelina and her daughter had appeared on her doorstep instead of doing what Angelina herself would have done, which was open the door wide, offer coffee and tea, and be gracious to the unexpected caller?

So she stepped back and said, “Caught me just about to begin the housework,” such a blatant lie that she nearly choked on it.

Hadiyyah looked doubtful but Angelina didn’t know Barbara well enough to realise that, for her, housework was akin to pulling out one’s eyelashes a single lash at a time.

Barbara said, “Coffee? Tea? I c’n wash a couple of the mugs,” of which there were ten in the sink, along with various other bits of crockery and a pile of cutlery.

“No. No. We can’t stay,” Angelina said hastily. “But I did want to tell you about Dusty.”

Who the hell …? Barbara wondered, till she remembered that this was the name of the hairstylist in Knightsbridge who was destined to alter her appearance forevermore. “Oh, yeah,” she said. She went to the table and hastily crushed out her fag.

“I’ve got you an appointment with him,” Angelina said, “but it’s not for a month, I’m afraid. He’s booked. Well, he’s always booked. That’s the nature of success for a hairstylist. Everyone wants in to see him yesterday.”

“Hair crises, yeah,” Barbara said sagely, as if she knew something about this topic. “Damn. Too bad.”

“Too bad?” Hadiyyah echoed. “But, Barbara, you must see him. He’s the best. He’ll do such a lovely job.”

“Oh, I’ve got that point on a slice of toast, kiddo,” Barbara agreed. “But I’ve told my guv that I’m off work getting my hair seen to, and I can’t be off work for a month and I can’t show up without my hair seen to. So…” And to Angelina, “Know anyone else?” because she herself certainly did not.

Angelina looked thoughtful. One perfectly manicured hand went to her cheek and she tapped upon it. She said, “You know, I think something could be managed, Barbara. It wouldn’t be Dusty but it would be the same salon. He’s got hangers-on there, stylists in training… Perhaps one of them? If I can get you in and if I went with you, I’m sure Dusty could have a wander across the salon to inspect what the stylist is doing. Would that work?”

Considering she’d spent the last ten years hacking her hair off in the shower, anything moderately more professional would be just fine. Still, Barbara thought it wise to sound somewhat uneasy about this prospect. She said, “Hmm …I don’t know… What d’you think? I mean, this is important because my guv… She takes this stuff seriously.”

“I expect it would be fine,” Angelina said. “The salon’s top-notch. They’re not going to have just anyone in training. Shall I…?”

“Oh yes, Barbara,” Hadiyyah said. “Do say yes. P’rhaps we can all go to tea afterwards. We can dress up and wear hats and carry nice handbags and — ”

“I don’t think anyone wears hats to tea any longer,” Angelina cut in. Clearly, Barbara thought, she’d read the expression of horror that had flitted across Barbara’s face. She said, “What do you say, Barbara?”

Barbara really had no choice in the matter since she was going to have to turn up at the Met with a hairstyle and unless someone with some training did it, she was going to have to do it herself, which was unthinkable at this point. She said, “Sounds good,” and Angelina asked if she could use the phone. She’d make the call right from Barbara’s, she said. That way they wouldn’t need to engage in more backing and forthing in the matter.

Hadiyyah bounced over to where the phone was, behind the telly on a dusty shelf, and Barbara noted then that the little girl’s own hair was not done in plaits as it usually was. Instead, it hung down her back in a well-brushed wavy mass, and it was neatly fastened with an ornate hair slide.

As Angelina was making her call to the salon, Barbara complimented Hadiyyah on her own locks. Hadiyyah beamed, as Barbara had reckoned she would. Mummy had done it, she said. Dad had only ever been able to manage plaits but this was how she’d worn it always before Mummy’s trip to Canada.

Barbara wondered if Hadiyyah had been wearing her hair like this ever since Angelina’s return, which had occurred four months earlier. God, if that was the case, what did it say about her, that she’d only noticed it just now? Barbara avoided the answer to that question, since she knew it was going to tell her that for that last four months she’d had her attention focused on Angelina herself and, worse, on Angelina and Taymullah Azhar.

“Excellent, excellent,” Angelina was saying into the phone. “We shall be there. And you’re certain Cedric — ”

Cedric? Barbara thought.

“ — will do a good job?… Wonderful… Yes, thank you. We’ll see you then.” Then to Barbara once she’d rung off, “We’re set for three this afternoon. Dusty’ll come over and give his input as well. Just remember to ignore his appalling attitude and don’t take it personally. And afterwards, we’ll take up Hadiyyah’s idea of tea. We’ll take a cab and do things properly at the Dorchester. My treat, by the way.”

“Tea at the Dorchester?” Hadiyyah cried. She clasped her hands to her chest. “Oh, yes, yes, yes. Do say yes, Barbara.”

Barbara wanted to go to tea at the Dorchester as much as she wanted to give birth to octuplets. But Hadiyyah was looking so hopeful and, after all, Angelina had been very helpful. What else could she do?

“Tea at the Dorchester it is,” she said, although she wondered what in God’s name she was going to wear and how in God’s name she’d survive the experience.

Once those plans were set in stone, Barbara bade her friends farewell, made herself relatively decent in appearance, and took herself over to Portland Place and Twins, Bernard Fairclough’s club. She reckoned that chances were good Lord Fairclough parked himself at the club when he was in London. If that was the case, it was likely that someone who worked there would have beans to spill about the bloke if there were any beans involved.

Barbara had never been into a private club, so she wasn’t sure what to expect. She was reckoning on cigar smoke and blokes walking around in Persian slippers and the sound of billiard balls clicking sonorously somewhere. She figured there would be leather wingback chairs drawn up to a fireplace and dog-eared copies of Punch lying about.

What she didn’t expect was the ancient woman who answered the door when she rang the bell. The woman looked like someone who’d worked there since the club’s inception. Her face wasn’t lined; it was creviced. Her skin was tissue and her eyes were cloudy. And it seemed she’d forgotten to put in her teeth. Or she didn’t have any and didn’t want false ones. A possible way to diet, Barbara noted.

She might have been two thousand years old, but she was shrewd. She took one look at Barbara — head to toe — and seemed deeply unimpressed. She said, “No admittance to non-members without the company of a member, dear,” in the voice of a woman fifty years younger. Indeed so disconcerting was it to hear her speak that Barbara had to prevent herself from looking round for a lurking ventriloquist.

Barbara said, “I was hoping to apply,” to get her foot in the door. Over the woman’s shoulder she could catch a glimpse of panelled walls and paintings, but that was it.

“This is a gentleman’s club,” she was then informed. “Women are admitted only in the company of a gentleman member, I’m afraid. Dining room only, dear. And to use the facilities, of course.”

Well, that wasn’t going to get her anywhere, Barbara reckoned, so she nodded and said, “There’s another matter, then,” and fished out her Scotland Yard identification. “Afraid I have a few questions about one of your members, if I could come inside.”

“You said you were interested in membership,” the old lady pointed out. “Which is it, really? Membership or questions?”

“Both, more or less. But looks like membership isn’t going to happen, so I’ll settle for questions. I’d prefer not to ask them on the doorstep, though.” She took a step forward.

This usually worked, but it didn’t work now. The old lady held her position. She said, “Questions about what?”

“I’ll need to ask them of whoever’s in charge,” Barbara said. “If you’ll just track him down…? I’ll wait in the lobby. Or wherever you put the cops when they come calling.”

“No one’s in charge. There’s a board and it’s made up of members and if you wish to speak to one of them, you’ll have to return on their meeting day next month.”

“Sorry. That can’t happen,” Barbara told her. “It’s a matter of a police investigation.”

“And this is a matter of club rules,” the lady said. “Shall I phone the club’s solicitor and have him come round? Because, my dear, that’s the only way you’re getting in this door, aside from running straight through me.”

Damn, Barbara thought. The woman gave new definition to tough old bird.

Barbara said, “Look, I’m going to be straight with you. I have serious questions to ask about one of your members and this could be a matter of murder.”

“I see.” The woman considered this, her head cocked to one side. Her hair was thick and completely white. Barbara reckoned she was wearing a wig. One didn’t get this old with all the follicles still churning. “Well, my dear,” the woman said, “when could be a matter becomes is a matter, we’ll have something to discuss. Until then, we don’t.”

That said, she stepped back and closed the door. Barbara was left on the step, realising she’d lost the battle because she’d used a bloody conditional verb.

She swore and fished a packet of Players out of her bag. She lit up and considered her next move. There had to be someone else who worked in this place, someone with information to impart: a chef, a cook, a waiter, a cleaner. Surely, the old bag didn’t run the place on her own.

She descended the steps and looked back at the building. It was perfectly shut up and forbidding, a fortress for its members’ secrets.

She glanced around. Perhaps, she thought, there was another way. A shop with a curious shop assistant inside, gaping out of the window at the well-heeled as they arrived and entered the club? A florist who made regular deliveries through the front door? A tobacconist selling members snuff or cigars? But there seemed to be nothing at all aside from a taxi rank on Portland Place, not far from BBC Broadcasting House.

She decided a taxi rank was possible. Drivers of cabs probably had their favourite routes and their favourite ranks. They’d know where the pickings were best and they’d haunt that area. If that was the case, it stood to reason that a cab driver could as easily cart a member of Twins somewhere as he could cart someone ducking out of the BBC.

She walked over to have a chat. The first three drivers in the line got her nowhere. The fourth was her lucky charm. The driver sounded like an extra from EastEnders. Barbara reckoned he spent his Sundays shouting “Pound a bowl” in the vicinity of the Brick Lane market.

He knew Lord Fairclough. He knew “most them toffs,” he said. He liked to chat to them cos it rankled ’em, it did, and he liked to see how long it’d take ’em to tell ’im to plug his mug. Fairclough was always ready for a chat, when he was alone. When someone was wif him, things was diff’rent.

The someone was with him piqued Barbara’s interest. Anyone special with him? she asked.

Oh, aye, the cab driver told her. Al’as the same bird, it was.

His wife? Barbara asked.

The cab driver guffawed.

Remember where you took him and the bird, then? she asked.

The driver smirked. He tapped his head, the repository of all knowledge including the Knowledge. He said that course he remembered cos it was al’as the same place. And, he added with a wink, the bird was a young’n.

Better and better, Barbara thought. Bernard Fairclough and a young woman always going by taxi to the same place after meeting at his club. She asked the driver if he could take her to that place now.

He glanced at the rank of taxis ahead of him and she knew what that meant. He couldn’t move off with a passenger until it was his turn or there would be hell to pay. She said she’d wait till he was at the head of the line but could he take her to the exact place and show her where Fairclough and his companion went? She showed her ID. Police business, she told him.

He said, “You got the fare?” and when she nodded, “Climb in then, darlin’. I’m your man.”

MILNTHORPE TO LAKE WINDERMERE CUMBRIA

“Don’t you see what all of this means, Simon?”

Whenever Deborah said that to him, St. James knew to take care in their conversation. She intended to attach something to the conclusion of her remarks, and in this situation what she intended to attach could put her into a dangerous position. So he said, “I don’t, actually, my love. What I see is that while you were talking to her, Alatea Fairclough became upset for reasons that aren’t completely clear, but those reasons don’t seem to have anything to do with Ian Cresswell’s death. The best course is for you to return the call from her husband and tell him something’s come up and you’ve got to go back to London.”

“Without seeing what he wants?” Deborah’s tone was incredulous and her expression suspicious. In the way of most husbands and wives, Deborah would know his weak spots. She would also know his weakest spot was Deborah herself. “Why on earth should I do that?”

“You yourself said she knows you’re not who you said you were. You can’t think she hasn’t told Nicholas that. If he rang you and said he’d like a word — which he did, yes? — he’s going to want that word to be about the state his wife was in when you left her.”

“That’s what you would want to talk about. He might want to talk to me about a dozen things. And I’m not going to know what they are unless I ring him back and agree to see him.”

They were standing in the car park of the Crow and Eagle, next to his hire car, and he was due to meet Lynley at Ireleth Hall. He wasn’t at this point late, but if the conversation went on much longer he was going to be. Deborah had followed him down from their room because although he’d considered their conversation finished, she had not. She was dressed to go out and this was not a good sign. She hadn’t brought her shoulder bag or camera, however, so this counted in his favour.

Deborah had given him chapter and verse on her encounter with Alatea Fairclough, and as far as he was concerned Deborah’s cover was blown, and it was time for her to back away from the situation. Deborah’s point was that the Argentine woman’s reaction had been so extreme that she had to be hiding something. Her additional point was that if Alatea was indeed hiding something, chances were very good that her husband didn’t know what it was. So the only way she was going to discover what was truly going on was to speak with the man.

St. James had pointed out that, according to Lynley, a reporter from The Source had been nosing round the area as well, so that — in combination with a photographer who wasn’t who she’d said she was — certainly would be enough to unnerve Alatea Fairclough. What did Deborah think she was hiding, anyway, a Nazi in her past? She was, after all, from Argentina.

Fiddlesticks, Deborah said.

Fiddlesticks? St. James thought. What sort of word was fiddlesticks in this century and what did fiddlesticks have to do with anything? He was wise enough not to say that, however. Instead, he waited for more, and true to form his wife didn’t disappoint him.

Deborah said, “I think all of this has to do with the magazine, Simon. Alatea was perfectly fine — well, a little nervous, but otherwise fine — until I brought up Conception. I was attempting to get a little closer to her, I told her just a bit about our difficulties with pregnancy, and that was it. She went a bit wild and — ”

“We’ve been over this, Deborah,” he said patiently. “You can see where it leads, can’t you? Her husband arrives home, she tells him you aren’t who you say you are, he rings you and wants to have a chat, and that chat is going to tell you that the cover you’re using to slip into his life — ”

“I told her I was a freelance photographer. I told her what that means. I told her I was hired by Query Productions, which is a start-up company with no films made yet. I thought of that in the heat of the moment, by the way, because her next step is going to be to learn there is no start-up company called Query Productions at all, and you and I know it. I can handle meeting with Nicholas if I was able to handle that.”

“You’re in a very bad position,” he concluded with his hand on the door handle of the car. “You need to leave this alone.” He didn’t say he forbade her doing more. He didn’t say he wished her to do no more. Their years of marriage had taught him that in that way lay madness, so he tried to ease her in the general direction of this conclusion. At the end of the day, it was losing her that terrified him, but he couldn’t say that since her next move would be to say that he wasn’t going to lose her, which would lead to his next move, which would be about Helen’s death and the crater in Tommy’s life that Helen’s death had caused. And he didn’t want to go anywhere near Helen’s death. It was too raw a place for him ever to speak of, and he knew very well that it always would be.

She said, “I can take care of myself. What’s he going to do? Push me from a cliff? Knock me on the head? Something’s going on with Alatea and I’m inches from knowing what it is. If it’s something big and if Ian Cresswell found out about it… Don’t you see?”

The trouble was that he did see, only too well. But he couldn’t say that because it would lead only to a conclusion that he didn’t want to reach, so what he did say was, “I shouldn’t be long. We’ll talk more when I return, all right?”

Her face wore That Look. God in heaven, she was stubborn. But she stepped away from the car and returned to the inn. Things were not close to being settled, though. He wished he’d thought to pinch her car keys.

There was nothing for it but to set out for Ireleth Hall. The arrangements were in place. Valerie Fairclough would be in the tower folly keeping her daughter occupied and away from the windows. Lynley and Lord Fairclough would be waiting for his arrival with whatever lights they’d been able to come up with to illuminate the interior of the boathouse.

St. James made good time and found Ireleth Hall with no difficulty. The gates stood open, and he coursed along the drive. Deer grazed placidly in the distance, occasionally lifting heads as if to evaluate their environment. And this was stunning, a park defined by magnificent oaks, planes, beeches, and copses of birch trees rising above expanses of rolling lawn.

Lynley came out of the house as St. James pulled up. Bernard Fairclough accompanied him, and Lynley made the introductions. Fairclough pointed the way to the boathouse. He said they’d managed to rig up some lights by using the current from an exterior bulb. They had torches as well, just in case. They also were carrying a pile of towels.

The way led through shrubbery and poplars, making a quick descent to Lake Windermere. The lake was placid, and the surroundings were soundless except for the birds and the distant noise of a motor somewhere on the water. The boathouse was a squat stone affair, with a roofline that dipped nearly to the ground. Its single door stood open, and St. James took note of the fact that it had no lock on it. Lynley would have seen this as well, and he would have already drawn the conclusion about what the lack of a lock meant.

Inside, St. James saw that a stone dock ran round three sides of the building. Several caged electrician’s lights had been set up to illuminate the area of the dock where Ian Cresswell had taken his fall, and a long flex from these lights was looped over one of the building’s rafters, running from there to the exterior. The lights cast long shadows everywhere save on the immediate area of the stones in question, so Lynley and Fairclough switched on their torches to do something to mitigate the gloomy spots.

St. James saw that there was a workbench at one side, most likely the spot where fish were cleaned, if the heavy smell of them was any indication. Cleaning fish meant implements to do so, so that would have to be looked into, he reckoned. The boathouse also accommodated four craft: the scull belonging to Ian Cresswell, a rowingboat, a motorboat, and a canoe. The rowingboat was Valerie Fairclough’s, he was told. The canoe and motorboat were used by everyone in the family, but not on a regular basis.

St. James stepped carefully onto the area from which the stones had been dislodged. He asked for a torch.

He could see how easily a skull could be fractured if someone had fallen here. The stones were roughly hewn in the manner of those used in so many structures in Cumbria. They were slate, with the odd piece of granite thrown in. They’d been mortared into place, as any other kind of positioning would have been foolhardy. But the mortar was worn and in some spots crumbly. It would have been no difficult matter for the stones to have been loosened from it. But such loosening could have come with age as well as with intent: Generations of people stepping from boats onto the dock would have over time caused the stones to become dangerous just as well as someone deliberately dislodging them.

He moved along the mortar, looking for marks to indicate a tool had been wedged into it to serve as a lever. He found, however, that the mortar was in such bad condition that it was going to be hard to say if this or that area of crumbling was the result of anything other than age. A shiny spot would have indicated someone had used a tool to mess about with the mortar, but there didn’t seem to be one.

He finally stood, having inched his way along the entire area of missing stones. Fairclough said, “What do you think?”

“It looks like nothing.”

“You’re certain?” Fairclough looked relieved.

“There’s no sign of anything. We could bring in some more powerful lights, as well as some higher magnification. But I can see why it was deemed an accident. So far, at least.”

Fairclough glanced at Lynley. “‘So far’?” he said.

Lynley said, “No marks on the mortar don’t indicate there are no marks on the stones that are missing.” And with a wry look at his friend, “I was hoping to avoid this, you know.”

St. James smiled. “I reckoned as much. I find there are distinct benefits to being moderately disabled. This happens to be one of them.”

Lynley handed his torch over and began stripping off his clothes. He got down to his underwear, grimaced, and slid into the water. He said, “Christ,” when the frigid water rose to his waist. He added, “At least it’s not deep.”

“Not that it’s going to matter,” St. James said. “Don’t avoid the best part, Tommy. It should be easy enough. There’ll be no algae on them.”

“I know,” he groused.

Lynley went under. It was simple, as St. James had said it would be. The dislodged stones hadn’t been in the water long enough to bear algae, so Lynley was able to find them quickly and heave them to the surface. He didn’t get out of the water, however. Instead he said to Fairclough, “There’s something else. Can you swing some light this way?” and he went under again.

As Fairclough swung the torchlight in his direction, St. James had a look at the stones. He was concluding that they were fine since there was no shine of strike marks against them when Lynley surfaced another time. He was holding something that he slapped against the dock. He lifted himself from the water, shivering, and grabbed the towels.

St. James looked to see what he’d brought to the surface. Fairclough, still above them on the dock, said, “What’ve you found?”

It was a filleting knife, St. James saw, the sort of knife used when one is cleaning fish. It had a thin blade some ten inches long. Most notable of all, its state clearly indicated it had not been in the water long.

MILNTHORPE CUMBRIA

Deborah had no idea what on earth Simon thought was going to happen to her if she rang Nicholas Fairclough back. She’d perfectly weathered the confrontation with his wife; she was determined to do the same with Nicholas.

When she returned his phone call, he asked to meet her. He began by saying that he wondered if there was anything else she needed from him. He said he understood that filmmakers liked to include all sorts of footage to run during voice-overs, and there was plenty of scope for that, so he wondered if he could take her to Barrow-in-Furness to show her some of the areas where blokes lived rough. This might be important in the overall picture of things.

Deborah agreed. It was yet another chance to delve, and Tommy had wanted her to delve. Where should they meet? Deborah asked Nicholas.

He’d fetch her from her lodgings, he said.

She saw no danger in this. She had her mobile to rely upon, after all, and both Simon and Tommy were a mere phone call away. So she left her husband a note, along with the number of Nicholas’s mobile, and she went on her way.

Nicholas rumbled up in an old Hillman some twenty minutes later. Deborah was waiting for him in front of the hotel, and when he suggested that they have a coffee before setting off for Barrow-in-Furness, she didn’t demur.

Coffee was easy enough to come by, considering Milnthorpe was a market town with a good-sized square just off the main road. A church comprised part of this square, rising above the town on a modest slope of land, but two of the other three sides comprised restaurants and shops. Next to Milnthorpe Chippy — apparent purveyor of all things deep-fried — there was a small cafe. Nicholas led her to this, but not before calling out, “Niamh? Niamh?” in the direction of a woman who was just coming out of a Chinese takeaway three doors down from the chippy.

She turned. She was, Deborah saw, petite and slender. She was also formidably well put together, especially considering the time of day, which did not suggest stilettos and cocktail wear although that was what she had on. Her dress was short, showing well-shaped legs. It was also cut in a way to flatter breasts that were full, perky, and — it had to be said — patently artificial. Directly behind her was a man in the apron of an employee of the Chinese takeaway. There was apparently some relationship between them, Deborah saw, for Niamh turned to him and spoke while he offered her a long look that was clearly besotted.

Nicholas said, “Excuse me for a moment?” to Deborah and went over to the woman. She didn’t look pleased to see him. Her expression was stony. She said something to the man with her, who looked from her to Nicholas and decamped into the takeaway.

Nicholas began to speak. Niamh listened. Deborah sidled closer to catch something of their conversation, which wasn’t easy as it was market day in the square, so in addition to the vehicle noise from the main road through Milnthorpe, she had to contend with housewives chattily shopping for fruit and veg as well as individuals stocking up on everything from batteries to socks.

“…none of your concern,” Niamh was saying. “And it’s certainly none of Manette’s business.”

“Understood.” Nicholas sounded perfectly affable. “But as they’re part of our family, Niamh, you can understand her concern. And mine as well.”

“Part of your family?” Niamh repeated. “Oh, that’s a very good laugh. They’re your family now but what were they when he walked out and the rest of you let it happen? Were they your family then when he destroyed ours?”

Nicholas looked nonplussed. He glanced round as if searching not only for listeners but also for words. “I’m not sure what any of us could have done about what happened.”

“Oh, aren’t you? Well, let me help you out. Your bloody father could have put a bloody end to his bloody job unless he saw reason, and that’s just for a start. Your bloody father could have said, ‘You do this, and I’m finished with you,’ and the lot of you could have done the same. But you didn’t do that, did you, because Ian had you all under control — ”

“That’s not actually how things were,” Nicholas cut in.

“ — and not a single one of you was ever willing to stand up to him. No one was.”

“Look, I don’t want to argue about that. We see things differently, that’s all. I just want to say that Tim’s in a bad state — ”

“Do you think I don’t know that? I, who had to find him a school where he could feel that the other pupils weren’t pointing him out as the bloke whose father had been taking it up the chute from some Arab on the sly? I goddamn know he’s in a bad state, and I’m doing what I intend to do about it. So you and your whole miserable family need to get out of our lives. You were happy enough to do that while Ian was living, weren’t you?”

She stormed in the direction of a line of cars parked on the north side of the square. Nicholas took a moment, head down and obviously pondering, before he came back in Deborah’s direction.

He said, “Sorry. Family matter.”

“Ah,” she replied. “She’s a relative, then?”

“My cousin’s wife. He drowned recently. She’s having trouble… well, coping with the loss. And there’re children involved.”

“I’m sorry. Should we…?” She gestured towards the cafe to which they’d been headed, saying, “Would another time be better for you?”

“Oh no,” he said. “I want to talk to you anyway. The bit about Barrow? To tell you the truth, it was something of an excuse to see you.”

Deborah knew he certainly wasn’t referring to a desire to be with her in order to experience her charms, so she prepared herself mentally for what was to come. Since he’d rung her and requested a meeting, she’d first assumed Alatea hadn’t told him the truth about their encounter. That, perhaps, had not been the case.

She said, “Of course,” and followed him to the cafe. She ordered coffee and a toasted tea cake and attempted to seem completely at ease.

He didn’t bring up Alatea until they’d been served. Then what he said was, “I don’t know how to put this, exactly, so I’ll have to say it directly. You need to stay away from my wife if this documentary thing is going to work out. The filmmakers will have to know that as well.”

Deborah did her best to look startled: an innocent woman completely unprepared for this turn of events. She said, “Your wife?” and then, with an attempt at dawning recognition and regret, “I upset her yesterday, and she told you about it, didn’t she? I was rather hoping she wouldn’t, frankly. I’m so terribly sorry, Mr. Fairclough. It was unintentional on my part. Rather emotionally clumsy, to be frank. It was the magazine that did it, wasn’t it?”

To her surprise, he said rather sharply, “What magazine?”

Odd reaction, she thought. “Conception,” she said. What she wanted to add was, Is there another magazine I should be looking into? but of course she did not. She thought feverishly back to the other periodicals that had been on the table along with Conception. She couldn’t remember what they were, so interested had she been in that single one.

He said, “Oh. That. Conception. No, no. That’s not… Never mind.”

Which she could hardly do. She opted for a direct approach and said, “Mr. Fairclough, is something wrong? Is there something you’d like to tell me? Something you’d like to ask me? Is there some kind of reassurance I can give you…?”

He fingered the handle of his coffee cup. He sighed and said, “There are things Alatea doesn’t want to talk about, and her past is one of them. I know you’re not here to delve into her background or anything but that’s what she’s afraid of: that you might start delving.”

“I see,” Deborah said. “Well, this isn’t an investigative documentary, other than as it relates to the pele project. Certain issues about you yourself might come up… Are you certain she’s not just worried about how the film might affect you? Your reputation? Your standing in the community?”

He laughed self-derisively. “I did enough damage to myself when I was using. No film could damage me further. No, it’s to do with what Alatea did to get by before she and I met. It’s stupid, frankly, for her to be so upset about it. It’s nothing. I mean, it’s not like she made porn films or something.”

Deborah nodded gravely. She kept her face sympathetic but said nothing. Surely, she thought, he was on the verge… the cusp… the cliff’s edge… Just the tiniest nudge might push him over.

She finally said thoughtfully, “You two met in Utah, didn’t you? I went to college for a while in America. In Santa Barbara. Do you know the town? It’s expensive there and I… Well, funds were low and there are always easy ways to make money…” She let him fill in the blanks for himself, with whatever his imagination might provide. The truth was she’d done nothing but go to photography school, but there was no way on earth he would know that.

He pursed his lips, perhaps considering an admission of some sort. He took a sip of coffee, set his cup back down, and said, “Well, it’s underwear, actually.”

“Underwear?”

“Alatea was an underwear model. She did catalogue pictures. Advertisements in magazines as well.”

Deborah smiled. “And that’s what she doesn’t want me to know? That’s hardly disgraceful, Mr. Fairclough. And let’s be honest. She has the body for it. She’s attractive as well. One can easily see — ”

“Naughty underwear,” he said. He let that sit there for a moment so that Deborah could, perhaps, absorb the information and its implications. “Catalogues for certain types of people, you understand. Adverts in certain types of magazines. It wasn’t… they weren’t… I mean, the underwear wasn’t exactly high-class stuff. She’s dead embarrassed about it all now and she’s worried that someone will uncover this about her and humiliate her in some way.”

“I see. Well, you can reassure her on that score. I’m not interested in her underwear past.” She glanced out of the window of the cafe, which looked onto the market square. It was busy out there, and a queue had formed at a takeaway food stall operating from a dark green caravan with Sue’s Hot Food Bar scrolled in white across the front of it. People sat at a few picnic tables in front of the caravan, tucking into whatever the eponymous owner was shoveling, steaming, onto paper plates.

Deborah said, “I did think it was that magazine — Conception — but I suppose that’s more to do with me than with her. I shouldn’t have brought the subject up. Do let her know I apologise.”

“It wasn’t that,” Nicholas said. “She wants to get pregnant, certainly, but truth is I want it more than she does just now and that’s making her touchy. But the real problem is this damn modeling part of her life and those pictures, which she keeps expecting to pop up in some tabloid.”

As he made these final remarks, his gaze — like Deborah’s — went out-of-doors. But instead of the same casual glance Deborah had given the food stall and its accompanying picnic tables, his fixed on something and his expression altered. His pleasant face hardened. He said, “Excuse me for a moment,” and before Deborah could reply, he strode outside.

There he walked up to one of the individuals enjoying a Sue’s Hot Food Bar meal. It was a man, who ducked his head as Nicholas approached, in an obvious effort to go unnoticed. This didn’t work, and when Nicholas clutched the man’s shoulder, he rose.

He was enormous, Deborah saw. He looked nearly seven feet tall. Rising quickly as he did, he knocked his cap against the furled umbrella in the centre of the table, and the cap dislodged, revealing fiery red hair.

She reached into her bag as the man stepped away from the table and listened to whatever Nicholas was saying, which appeared to be as hot as the food the man was eating. The man shrugged. Further words were exchanged.

Deborah took out her camera and began to photograph the man and his encounter with Nicholas Fairclough.

KENSINGTON LONDON

Barbara Havers considered herself one lucky bird when the cab drove only from Portland Place to Rutland Gate, south of Hyde Park. It just as easily could have been Wapping or regions beyond and while she knew Lynley would have been good for the cab fare ultimately, she’d not brought sufficient funds to cover a lengthy journey and she doubted the driver would have been willing to take a quarter of an hour’s snog in exchange for the ride. She hadn’t thought of this when she hopped blithely into the vehicle, but she breathed a sigh of relief when the bloke headed west instead of east and finally turned left a short distance beyond the brick expanse of Hyde Park Barracks.

He pointed out the building in question, an imposing white structure with a panel of doorbells indicating that it was a conversion. Barbara got out, paid for the ride, and considered her options as the cab rumbled away. But not before the driver told Barbara with a wink that this was where the couple debarked, they always went inside the place together, and both of them had keys since one or the other of them would do the unlocking when they reached the door.

Conversions meant flats, Barbara knew, which in turn meant occupants, which in turn meant winkling out the identity of the occupant in question. She fished for a cigarette and paced while she smoked it. The nicotine, she reckoned, would sharpen her wits. The sharpening didn’t take long.

She went to the door and saw the line of bells. Flats were marked but there were no names, as was typical in London. There was, however, one bell marked Porter, and this turned out to be a piece of good luck. Not every residential building in London had a porter. It upped the value of the flats within but it also cost the residents a bundle.

A disembodied voice asked her business. She said she’d come to make an enquiry about one of the flats that she’d learned would soon be coming on the market and could she possibly speak to him about the building?

The porter didn’t embrace this idea with wild enthusiasm, but he did decide to cooperate. He buzzed her in and told her to come along the corridor to the back, where she’d find his office.

It was perfectly quiet inside, aside from the well-muted sound of traffic on Kensington Road, just beyond Rutland Gate. She passed along a marble floor, treading silently on a faded Turkey carpet. The doors to two ground-floor flats faced each other here, and a table upon which sat cubbies for the day’s post was positioned beneath a heavy gilt mirror. She gave a quick glance to the cubbies, but like the bells outside next to the door, they offered flat numbers only and not names.

Just beyond the stairway and a lift, she found a door marked Porter. The porter in question opened it to her knock. He looked like a pensioner and he wore a uniform too tight in the collar and too loose in the stomach. He gave Barbara the once-over and his expression said that if she was intending to make a purchase of a flat in the building, she had better prepare herself for an accepting-offers-beginning-at situation that was going to knock her out of her high-top trainers.

He said, “Don’t know about any flat on offer, do I,” without any introduction.

She said, “This is a bit of a preemptive strike, if you know what I mean. C’n I…?” She indicated his office and smiled pleasantly. “I’ll just take a minute of your time,” she added.

He stepped back and tilted his head towards a desk situated in a corner of the room. He had a nice little setup here, Barbara thought, with part of the place made into a snug sitting room complete with television currently tuned in to an ancient film in which Sandra Dee and Troy Donahue were locked in a timeless, adolescent, agonizing embrace as music swelled with a familiar theme. She thought for a moment before she came up with the title. A Summer Place, that was it. All about young, tormented love. Nothing quite like it, she thought. Shoot me first.

The porter saw the direction of her gaze and, perhaps determining his choice of film was some sort of revelation about him, went to the television and hastily switched it off. That done, he moved to his desk and sat behind it. This left Barbara standing, but that apparently was his intention.

Barbara expressed what she felt was a suitable amount of gratitude for the porter’s willingness to talk to her. She asked some questions about the building, the sorts of queries she expected a potential buyer might have before plunking down hard-earned cash on a piece of outrageously priced Kensington property. Age, condition, problems with heating and plumbing and ventilation, difficulties encountered with other residents, presence of undesirables, the neighbourhood, noise, pubs, restaurants, markets, corner shops, and on and on. When she’d run the gamut of everything she could possibly think of — jotting his answers in her small spiral notebook — she said, laying out her bait and hoping he’d go for it, “Brilliant. Can’t thank you enough. Most of this matches up with what Bernard told me about the place.”

He bit. “Bernard? That your estate agent? ’Cause like I said, I don’t know of a place that’s going up for sale.”

“No, no. Bernard Fairclough. He told me an associate of his lives here and she apparently told him about a flat. I can’t remember her name…”

“Oh. That’d be Vivienne Tully, that would,” he said. “Don’t think it’s her place going up for sale, though. Situation’s too convenient for that.”

“Oh, right,” Barbara said. “It’s not Vivienne’s. I thought it might be and got a bit excited about the possibility but Bernie” — she especially liked the touch of Bernie — “said she’s quite established here.”

“That’d be the case,” he said. “Nice woman, as well. Remembers me at Christmas, she does, which is more than I can say for some of ’em.” He shot a look at the television, then, and cleared his throat. Barbara saw that on a squat table next to a reclining chair, a plate of beans on toast was waiting. Doubtless, he wanted to get back to that as well as back to Sandra, Troy, and more of their passionate, forbidden love. Well, she couldn’t exactly blame him. Passionate and forbidden love made life more interesting, didn’t it?

LAKE WINDERMERE CUMBRIA

Lynley was having a preprandial sherry with Valerie and Bernard Fairclough when Mignon showed up. They were in what Valerie had referred to as the small drawing room, where a fire was doing a fine job of cutting the chill. None of them heard Mignon enter the house — the front door being some distance from the room in which they sat — so she was able to make something of a surprise entrance.

The door swung open and she shoved her zimmer frame in ahead of her. It had begun to rain again, quite heavily, and she’d come from the folly without raingear. This omission — which Lynley reckoned had to be deliberate — had caused her to become wet enough to provoke a reaction from both of her parents. Her hair was flattened, her Alice-in-Wonderland hairband dripped water onto her forehead and into her eyes, and her shoes and clothing were soaked. It was not a far enough walk from the folly to the main house to have become so wet. Lynley concluded that she’d stood for a while in the downpour for the drama a thorough soaking might provide. Seeing her, her mother jumped to her feet and Lynley — who couldn’t have stopped himself if he’d tried — politely rose to his.

“Mignon!” Valerie cried. “Why’ve you come from the folly without an umbrella?”

Mignon said, “I can hardly hold an umbrella while using this, can I?” in reference to the zimmer.

“A mac and a hat might have solved that problem,” her father said guilelessly. Notably, he hadn’t risen and his expression indicated he was fully aware of her ploy.

“I forgot it,” Mignon said.

Valerie said, “Here. Sit by the fire, darling. I’ll fetch some towels for your hair.”

“Don’t bother,” Mignon said. “I’ll be walking back in a moment. You’re dining soon, aren’t you? As I had no invitation to join you this evening, I don’t want to take up too much of your time.”

“You don’t need an invitation,” Valerie said. “You’re always welcome. But since you’ve preferred… because of…” Clearly, she didn’t want to say more in front of Lynley.

Just as clearly, Mignon did. She said, “I’ve had a gastric band, Thomas. Big as an ox, I was. You wouldn’t believe how big. Destroyed my knees heaving my fat round the planet for a good twenty years, so they’ll be replaced next. The knees, I mean. Then I’ll be as good as new and some bloke’ll come along and take me off my parents’ hands. Or so they hope.”

She made her way across the room and lowered herself into the chair her mother had vacated. She said to her father, “I could do with a sherry myself,” and to Lynley, “I thought at first that’s why you’d come. Stupid of me, I know, but you’ve got to consider who my father is. Always has a scheme, my dad. I knew you were part of one as soon as I saw you. I just misjudged what the scheme actually was, thinking you’d come to have a look at me, if you know what I mean.”

“Mignon, really,” her mother said.

“I think I’ll take those towels after all.” Mignon seemed to like the idea of ordering Valerie about. She looked quite gratified when her mother went off to do her bidding. Her father in the meantime hadn’t moved, so she said to him, “That sherry, Dad?”

Bernard, Lynley thought, looked like a man who was about to say something he’d regret. In any other circumstances, Lynley would have waited to see what that something was, but his natural inclination towards civility got the better of him. He set his own glass of sherry on the table next to his chair. He said, “Let me,” and Bernard cut him off with, “I’ll get it, Tommy.”

“Make it a big one,” Mignon told her father. “I’ve just had a successful romantic interlude with Mr. Seychelles and while normally one has a fag for afters, I’d prefer to get sloshed.”

Fairclough observed his daughter. His expression was so obviously one of distaste that Mignon chuckled.

“Have I offended you?” she asked. “So sorry.”

Her father poured sherry into a tumbler, a great deal of sherry. That, Lynley thought, was certainly going to do the job if the woman tossed it back. He had a feeling she fully intended to do so.

Fairclough was handing the drink over to his daughter when Valerie returned, towels in hand. She went to Mignon and set about drying her hair, gently. Lynley expected Mignon to show a burst of irritation and to brush the ministration aside. She didn’t. Instead, she allowed her hair to be seen to, along with her neck and her face.

She said, “Mother never comes for a friendly visit. Did you know that, Thomas? What I mean is that she brings me food — rather like giving alms to the poor like the lady of the manor she is — but just to drop in for a chat? That hasn’t happened in years. So when it did occur today, I was all amazement. What can the old dear want, I thought.”

Valerie dropped her hands and the towel from her daughter’s hair. She looked at her husband. He said nothing. They both seemed to gird themselves for some kind of onslaught, and Lynley found himself wondering how on earth they’d got themselves into this sort of position with their own daughter.

Mignon took a healthy gulp of her sherry. She held the glass with both hands, like a priest with a chalice. “Mother and I have nothing to talk about, you see. She has no interest in hearing about my life, and believe me, I have no interest in hers. This rather limits one’s conversation. After the weather, what’s there to talk about? I mean, aside from her dreary topiary garden and her even drearier children’s playground or whatever it is.”

Her father finally said, “Mignon, are you joining us for dinner or have you another purpose for your call?”

“Do not,” Mignon said, “back me into a corner. You do not want that.”

“Darling,” her mother began.

“Please. If there’s a darling in the family, we both know I’m not it.”

“That’s not true.”

“God.” Mignon rolled her eyes at Lynley. “It’s been Nicholas, Nicholas since the day he was born, Thomas. A son at last and all the attendant hallelujahs. But that’s not what I’ve come here about. I want to talk about that pathetic little cripple.”

For a moment, Lynley had no idea whom she actually meant. He was, of course, acutely aware that St. James was disabled since he himself had been the cause of the accident that had injured him. But to apply either pathetic or little to the man he’d known since their school days was so inapposite a description that for a moment he thought Mignon was speaking of someone else entirely. She disabused him of that notion when she went on.

“Mother didn’t last as long as she was evidently supposed to last in my company. Once she left, I wondered why she’d come at all, and it wasn’t difficult to suss that out. There you all were, Dad, coming up from the boathouse. You, Thomas here, and the cripple. And Thomas looked like he’d had a wetting if the towels and his hair were anything to go by. But not the cripple. He was quite dry. As you were, Dad.” Another hefty gulp of sherry followed before she continued. “Now the towels suggest our Thomas went down to the boathouse prepared. He didn’t just slip and fall into the water and since his clothes weren’t wet, I think we’ve got corroboration for that assumption. Which means he went into the water intentionally. This not being the season for taking a dip in the lake, he had to have had another reason. I’m thinking that reason has to do with Ian. How am I doing?”

Lynley felt Fairclough glance his way. Valerie looked nervously from her daughter to her husband. Lynley said nothing. It was, he reckoned, up to Fairclough to confirm or deny what was going on. As far as he was concerned, being open with his reasons for his visit to Ireleth Hall was wiser than attempting to maintain a pretence for his presence.

Fairclough, however, said nothing to his daughter. She took this for assent, it seemed. She said, “So that means you believe Ian’s death was no accident, Dad. At least that’s what I reckoned when I saw the three of you coming up from the lake. A few seconds on the Net was actually all it took to learn who our visitor here really is, by the way. Had you wanted to keep the information from me, you needed to come up with a pseudonym.”

“No one was keeping anything from you, Mignon,” her father informed her. “Tommy’s here at my invitation. The fact that he’s also a policeman has no bearing — ”

“A detective,” Mignon corrected. “A Scotland Yard detective, Dad, and I assume you know that. And since he’s here at your invitation and he’s prowling round the boathouse in the company of whoever that other bloke was, I think I can connect the dots well enough.” She turned in her chair so that her focus was on Lynley and not her father. Her mother had stepped away from her, towels in her hands. Mignon said to Lynley, “So you’re conducting a little investigation on the sly. Engineered by…? Well, it can’t be Dad, can it?”

“Mignon,” her father said.

She went on. “Because that suggests that Dad himself is innocent, which, frankly, isn’t very likely.”

“Mignon!” Valerie cried. “That’s a terrible thing to say.”

“Do you think so? But Dad’s got a reason for offing our Ian. Haven’t you, Dad?”

Fairclough made no reply to his daughter. His look at Mignon betrayed nothing. Either he was used to this sort of conversation with her or he knew she would go no further with what she was claiming. A tense moment passed as they all waited for more. Outside, a gust of wind sent something against the windows of the small drawing room. Valerie was the one to flinch.

Mignon said, “But then, so do I. Isn’t that correct, Dad?” She leaned back in her chair, enjoying herself. Looking at her father, she nonetheless directed her next words to Lynley. “Dad doesn’t know that I know Ian wanted to cut me off, Thomas. He was always pouring over the books, our Ian, looking for ways to save Dad money. Well, I’m certainly one of them. There’s the folly itself, which cost a bundle to build, and then there’s its maintenance, as well as my own. And as you no doubt used your detective skills to suss out when you paid your call upon me, I do like to spend a bit of money here and there. Considering the piles Dad’s made for the firm over the years, what I need isn’t a lot, of course. But to Ian it was far more than I deserved. To his credit, Dad never agreed with him. But we both know — Dad and I — that there was always a chance that he’d change his mind and go along with Ian’s suggestion to throw me out on my ear. Isn’t that correct?”

Fairclough’s face was stony. Her mother’s face was watchful. This offered more information than either of them might have given Lynley otherwise.

“Valerie,” Bernard finally said, his gaze on his daughter, “I think it’s time for dinner, don’t you? Mignon will be leaving presently.”

Mignon smiled. She gulped down the rest of her sherry. She said pointedly, “I believe I’ll need some help to get back to the folly, Dad.”

“I expect you’ll do fine on your own,” he replied.