For the Sake of Elena

“Why, I-” Mrs. Gustafson clutched at the front of her dress, approximately in the location of her heart. “After all I’ve done.”

“That’s right,” Barbara said.

Now, she stirred restlessly on the back step, feeling the cold seeping through her trousers, trying to force from her mind the image of her mother as flaccid as a rag doll in that chair, reduced to inertia. Barbara had bathed her, feeling struck to sadness at the sight and the feeling of her withered flesh. She led her to bed, tucked in the covers, and turned out the light. Through it all, her mother did not say a word. She was like the living dead.

Sometimes the right thing to do is also the most obvious thing to do, Lynley had said. There was truth in that. She had known from the first what had to be done, what was right, what was best, what would serve her mother. It was in the fear of being judged as a callous and indifferent child-by what she knew was largely a callous and indifferent world-that Barbara had floundered, waiting for direction, instruction, or permission that wasn’t going to come. The decision rested with her, as it always had. What she hadn’t realised was that judgement rested with her as well.

She pushed herself off the step and went into the kitchen. The smell of mouldy cheese was in the air. There were dishes to be washed and a floor to be scrubbed and a dozen distractions to allow her to avoid the inevitable for at least another hour. But she’d been avoiding it since her father’s death in March. She couldn’t do so forever. She went to the phone.

Odd to think that she’d memorised the number. She must have known from the fi rst that she’d be using it again.

The phone rang four times on the other end. A pleasant voice said, “Mrs. Flo here. Hawthorn Lodge.”

Barbara spoke on a sigh. “This is Barbara Havers. I wonder if you remember meeting my mother Monday night?”

24

Lynley and Havers arrived at St. Stephen’s College at half past eleven. They’d spent the early part of the morning assembling their reports, meeting with Superintendent Sheehan, and discussing what sort of charges might be filed against Anthony Weaver. Lynley knew that his hope for attempted murder was a futile one at best. Weaver was, after all, the originally injured party when one considered the case from a purely legal standpoint. No matter what intimacies, oaths, and lovers’ betrayals had led up to the killing of Elena Weaver, no real crime had been committed in the eyes of the law until Sarah Gordon had taken the girl’s life.

Driven by his grief, the defence would argue. Weaver himself-who would wisely not stand in his own defence and thus run the risk of cross-examination-would emerge as loving father, devoted husband, brilliant scholar, Cambridge man. If the truth about his affair with Sarah Gordon managed to work its way into the courtroom, how easily it could be dismissed as a sensitive, artistic man’s giving way to a lethal temptation in a moment of weakness or during a time of marital estrangement. How easily he could be depicted as having done his best-done everything in his power, in fact-to put the affair behind him and get on with his life once he became aware of the extent to which he was hurting his faithful and long-suffering wife.

But she could not forget, the defence would argue. She was obsessed with the need to avenge herself for his rejection of her. So she killed his daughter. She stalked her as she and her stepmother ran in the morning, she noted the clothes which her stepmother wore, she created the means to have the girl run alone, she lay in wait, she beat in her face, and she killed her. Having done so, she went to Dr. Weaver’s college rooms by night and left him a message that revealed her culpability. Faced with that, what was he to do? What would any man-driven to despair by the sight of his child’s corpse-do?

Thus, the focus would subtly turn from Anthony Weaver to the crime that had been committed against him. And what jury would ever be able to consider the crime Weaver had committed against Sarah Gordon in the fi rst place? It was only a painting, after all. How could they hope to understand that while Weaver struck out at a piece of canvas, he carved cleanly through a unique human soul?

…when one stops believing that the act itself is superior to anyone’s analysis or rejection of it, then one becomes immobilised. That’s what happened to me.

But how could a jury hope to understand that if its members had never felt the call to create. Far easier to limn her a woman scorned than to try to understand the extent of her loss.

Sarah Gordon taught bloody instructions, the defence would argue, and they came back in full measure to plague her.

There was truth in this. Lynley thought of his final sight of the woman-so late into the night that milk delivery was already rumbling in the streets-five hours after they had wheeled her out of the operating theatre. She was in a room outside of which a uniformed constable sat as a guard, a ludicrous formality required to guarantee that the offi cial prisoner-the killer of record-not try to escape. She seemed such a small fi gure in the bed that the form of her barely disturbed the covers. She lay heavily bandaged and heavily sedated, her lips blue-edged and her skin bruised snow. Still alive, still breathing, and still unaware of the additional loss she would have to face.

We managed to save the arm, the surgeon told him, but I can’t say she’ll ever be able to use it again.

Lynley had stood by the bed, looked down on Sarah Gordon, and thought about the alternative merits of seeking justice and obtaining revenge. In our society the law calls out for justice, he thought, but the individual still craves revenge. Yet to allow a man or woman to pursue a course of retaliation is to invite further violence as a result. For outside a courtroom, there is no real way to balance the scales when an injury has been done to an innocent party. And any attempt to do so only promises grief, additional injury, and further regret.

There is no eye for an eye, he thought. As individuals, we cannot design the means of another’s retribution.

But now he wondered about that facile philosophy-so appropriate to a hospital room at dawn-as he and Sergeant Havers left the Bentley on Garret Hostel Lane and walked back towards the college to clear his belongings from the small room in Ivy Court. Directly in front of St. Stephen’s Church, a hearse was parked. Lined up before it and behind it were more than a dozen other cars.

“Did she say anything to you?” Havers asked. “Anything at all?”

“‘She thought it was her dog. Elena loved animals.’”

“That’s it?”

“Yes.”

“No regrets? No remorse?”

“No,” Lynley said. “I can’t say she acted as if she felt either.”

“But what did she think, sir? That if she killed Elena Weaver, she’d be able to paint again? That murder would somehow free up her creativity?”

“I think she believed that if she made Weaver suffer as she was suffering, she’d be able to go on with her life somehow.”

“Not very rational, if you ask me.”

“No, Sergeant. But human relationships aren’t rational in the least.”

They skirted the graveyard. Havers squinted up at the church’s Norman tower. Its slate roof was only a few shades lighter than the sombre colour of the late morning sky. It was a suitable day for the dead.

“You were right about her from the very start,” Havers said. “Nice policework, Lynley.”

“No need for compliments. You were right as well.”

“Right? How’s that?”

“She reminded me of Helen from the moment I saw her.”

It was only a few minutes’ work to gather his belongings and see to his suitcase. Havers stood by the window, looking down on Ivy Court while he emptied cupboards and packed up shaving gear. She seemed more at peace with herself than she had been in months. She wore with a fair degree of comfort the relief that comes from effecting a closure.

He said casually as he threw a final pair of socks into his case, “Did you take your mother to Greenford?”

“Yes. This morning.”