For the Sake of Elena

“It sounded like a bit of Victoriana, but as Sheehan put it, in this environment we ought to be concentrating on archaic with a capital

A. And his conjecture has a nice feel to it, sir.” She used a pencil to tap out each point against her knee. “Sheehan suggested that Elena had something going with a senior member of the college. She came up pregnant. She wanted marriage. He wanted his career. He knew he’d be ruined for advancement if the word got out that he’d made a student pregnant. And she threatened to let the word out, thinking that would bend him to her will. But it didn’t go as she planned. He killed her instead.”

“You’re still hanging on to Lennart Thorsson, then.”

“It fits, Inspector. And that address on Seymour Street that she’d written on her calendar? I checked it out.”

“And?”

“A health clinic. According to the staff doctor who was only too happy to ‘help the police with their enquiries,’ Elena was there on Wednesday afternoon for a pregnancy test. And we know Thorsson went to see her Thursday night. He was done for, Inspector. But it was worse than that.”

“Why?”

“The birth control pills in her room. The date on them was last February, but they hadn’t been taken. Sir, I think Elena was trying to get herself pregnant.” Havers took a sip of tea. “Your basic entrapment.”

Lynley frowned at the report, removed his spectacles, and polished them on the tail of Havers’ scarf. “I don’t see how that follows. She merely might have stopped taking them because there was no reason to do so-no man in her life. When one came along, she was unprepared.”

“Rubbish,” Havers said. “Most women know in advance if they’re going to sleep with a man. They generally know the moment they meet him.”

“But they don’t know, do they, if they’re going to be raped.”

“All right. Given. But you’ve got to see Thorsson’s in line for that as well.”

“Certainly. But he’s not alone, Havers. And perhaps not even at the head of the queue.”

A sharp double knock sounded on the door. When Lynley called out in acknowledgement, the St. Stephen’s day porter popped his head inside the room.

“Message,” he said, holding out a folded slip of paper. “Thought it best to bring it over.”

“Thank you.” Lynley got to his feet.

The porter curled back his arm. “Not for you, Inspector,” he said. “It’s for the sergeant.”

Havers took it from him with a nod of thanks. The porter withdrew. Lynley watched his sergeant read. Her face fell. She crumpled the paper, crossing back to the desk.

He said easily, “I think we’ve done all we can for today, Havers.” He took out his watch. “It’s after…Good Lord, look at the time. It’s after half past three already. Perhaps you ought to think about-”

She dropped her head. He watched her fumble with her shoulder bag. He didn’t have the heart to continue the pretence. They weren’t bankers, after all. They didn’t work businessmen’s hours.

“It’s not working,” she said. She fl ung the bit of paper into the rubbish basket. “I wish someone would tell me why the hell nothing ever seems to work out.”

“Go home,” he said. “See to her. I’ll handle things here.”

“There’s too much for you to do. It’s not fair.”

“It may not be fair. But it’s also an order. Go home, Barbara. You can be there by fi ve. Come back in the morning.”

“I’ll check out Thorsson fi rst.”

“There’s no need for that. He’s not going anywhere.”

“I’ll check him out anyway.” She took up her shoulder bag and picked her coat off the floor. When she turned to him, he saw that her nose and cheeks had become quite red.

He said, “Barbara, the right thing is sometimes the most obvious thing. You know that, don’t you?”

“That’s the hell of it,” she replied.

“My husband isn’t home, Inspector. He and Glyn have gone to make the funeral arrangements.”

“I think you can give me the information I need.”

Justine Weaver looked beyond him to the drive where the fading afternoon light was winking along the right wing of his car. Brows drawn together, she appeared to be trying to decide what to do about him. She crossed her arms and pressed her fingers into the sleeves of her gabardine blazer. It might have been a gesture to keep herself warm, save for the fact that she didn’t move away from the door to get out of the wind.

“I don’t see how. I’ve told you everything I know about Sunday night and Monday morning.”

“But not, I dare say, everything you know about Elena.”

Her eyes moved off the car to him. Hers, he saw, were morning glory blue, and their colour needed no heightening through an appropriate choice of clothes. Although her presence at home at this hour suggested that she hadn’t gone to work that day, she was dressed with nearly as much formality as she had been on the previous night, in a taupe blazer, a blouse buttoned to the throat and printed with the soft impression of small leaves, and slim wool trousers. She’d swept her long hair off her face with a single comb.

She said, “I think you ought to speak with Anthony, Inspector.”

Lynley smiled. “Indeed.”

In the street, the double tin ringing of a bicycle bell was met by the answering honk of a horn. Closer by, three hawfinches swept in an arc from the roof to the ground, their distinctive call-tzik-like a repetitive, single-word conversation. They hopped on the drive and pecked at the gravel and, as one unit, shot into the air again. Justine followed their flight to a cypress on the edge of the lawn. Then she said:

“Come in,” and stepped back from the door.

She took his overcoat from him, smoothed it round the newel post at the bottom of the stairs, and led him into the sitting room where they had met on the previous night. Unlike the previous night, however, she made no offer of refreshment. Instead, she went to the glass tea table along the wall and made a small adjustment to its arrangement of silk tulips. That done, she turned to face him, hands clasped loosely in front of her. In that setting, dressed and posed as she was, she looked like a mannequin. Lynley wondered what it took to fracture her control.

He said, “When did Elena arrive in Cambridge for Michaelmas term this year?”

“The term began the first week of October.”

“I’m aware of that. I was wondering if she came here in advance, perhaps to stay with you and her father. It would take a few days to settle into the college, I should think. Her father would want to help her.”

Her right hand slowly climbed her left arm, stopping just above the elbow where her thumbnail dug in and began to trace a circular pattern. “She must have arrived sometime towards the middle of September because we had a gathering for some of the history faculty on the thirteenth and she was here for the party. I remember that. Shall I check the calendar? Do you need the exact date when she came to us?”

“She stayed here with you and your husband when she first came to town?”

“As much as Elena could be said to stay anywhere. She was on the go, in and out most of the time. She liked to be active.”

“All night?”

Her hand climbed to her shoulder, then rested beneath the collar of her blouse like a cradle for her neck. “That’s a curious question. What is it you’re asking?”

“Elena was eight weeks pregnant when she died.”

A quick tremor passed across her face, like a frisson that was emotional rather than physical. Before he could assess it, she had dropped her eyes. Her hand, however, remained at her throat.

“You knew,” Lynley said.

She looked up. “No. But I’m not surprised.”

“Because of someone she was seeing? Someone you knew about?”

Her gaze went from him to the sitting room doorway as if she expected to see Elena’s lover standing there.

“Mrs. Weaver,” Lynley said, “right now we’re looking directly at a possible motive for your stepdaughter’s murder. If you know something, I’d appreciate your telling me about it.”

“This should come from Anthony, not from me.”